Ep. 6: How to Resist Discrimination with Raed Jarrar

Students at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government have started Resistance School, a curriculum for activists about how to build practical skills for fighting against the Trump agenda and building progressive power. Resistance School is free for any activist or group, and their first session had more than 6,000 groups participate. We spoke about how the Resistance School came about and how to use Resistance School to create community around activism.

We're seventy-something days into the Trump administration, and activist burnout is starting to set in. I spoke with Jill Raney of Practice Makes Progress about preventing burnout and taking care of ourselves, as well as how to build long term activists communities to confront white supremacy, the patriarchy, and Trump.

Lifting up our wins is one of the most important things we can do as activists. Donald Trump and Paul Ryan failed miserable on Obamacare repeal, so here is a preview of episode 9 guest Jill Raney and I talking about health care.

Nick Schwellenbach is the Director of Investigations at the Project on Government Oversight, a DC-based investigative watchdog organization. Nick spoke with the podcast about the roll watchdog groups play in providing information about government fraud, waste, and corruption and how activists can use these resources to make their work more impactful. We also spoke about the important role activists play in making the work watchdog groups do possible.

Terence Hannum is a visual artist, musician, novelist, and arts educator based in Baltimore, Maryland. Terence is best known for his work with the avant-metal band Locrian, but his latest release, from his project Axebreaker, is a power electronic assault on the Trump administration.

Raed Jarrar is an Iraqi-American activist and serves as the Government relations manager for the American Friends Service Committee. Trained as an architect, Raed was displaced during the 2003 American-led Iraq war and rose to prominance as his experience was documented on the blog Where is Raed? A subject matter expert in US relations with the Arab world, Raed has testified before congress many times and often appears as a guest on US and international news outlets.

Ivonne Wallace Fuentes founded an Indivisible group in Roanoke, Virginia, and she and thousands of activist across the country have become empowered using the Indivisible Guide. We spoke about how she got involved after the election of Donald Trump and how she's using this great toolkit to resist Trump.

Carmen Rios is a feminist and queer rights activist and is a badass fighter of the patriarchy. We talked about the importance of Feminism in the face of Trumpism and how young feminists who grew up in the Obama years are putting the lessons they learned into the resistance.

We spoke with Emmelia Talarico about how we can put marginalized voices up front in our activism. Emmelia is an organizer with DisruptJ20 and other organizations in the Maryland and DC area. Emmelia started her organizing as a workplace advocate and quickly moved up to being a labor organizer for Change to Win, organizing federally contracted fast food worker to go on strike for $15 and a union. She is currently the field organizer for Global Trade Watch, winning on campaigns such as the Stop The TPP fight.

Linsay Deming helped organize the What A Joke! comedy festival to raise money for the ACLU. She spoke with us about how she's bringing resisting the Trump administration from her community of comics and other funny people.