Ep 85 Community Organizer Angela Lang

“Our freedoms are tied together”: Angela Lang, Executive Director of Black Leaders Organizing for Community (BLOC), on why helping a community’s most marginalized citizens creates better outcomes for all, BLOC’s pandemic pivot, and Backstreet Boys. Alright?

The post Ep 85 Community Organizer Angela Lang appeared first on Midlife Mixtape .

“Our freedoms are tied together”: Angela Lang, Executive Director of Black Leaders Organizing for Community (BLOC), on why helping a community’s most marginalized citizens creates better outcomes for all, BLOC’s pandemic pivot, and Backstreet Boys. Alright?

Learn more and support Black Leaders Organizing for Community at BlocByBloc.org

Other grassroots regional organizations focusing on GOTV and helping underserved communities thrive:

Advance Carolina – a Black-led organization in North Carolina with a mission to build political and economic power in Black communities and institutions around the state. In 2020, Advance Carolina is working to protect and promote safe voting for African-American and progressive voters.
Detroit Action – Detroit Action is the primary community-driven organization canvassing in Metro Detroit. In 2020, their goal is to have 365,000 voter contact attempts, 60,000 voter contacts, and register 4,000 new voters. They organize in some of the most dangerous and economically depressed neighborhoods in America.
LUCHA (Living United for Change in Arizona) – LUCHA focuses on grassroots campaigns, leadership development, advocacy and civic engagement particularly in communities of color. In 2020 LUCHA’s goal is to work in 8 state legislative districts, registering 30,000 new voters and knocking on 400,000 unique doors in Pinal, Maricopa, and Coconino County.
One Pennsylvania – In 2018, One PA worked to pass one of the most far-reaching labor bills in the US. In 2019, One PA increased turnout in their wards by 6 points for the Alleghany county District Attorney race. In 2020, they will focus on 160,000 neglected voters in Philadelphia, Allegheny and Delaware Counties, with 4-6 interactions per voter. Their goal is to speak to over 200,000 voting age individuals in 2020 in Philadelphia alone.
Take Action Minnesota: In 2018, Take Action Minnesota ran a statewide narrative campaign #GreaterThanFear, which aimed to resist divisive racist politics – 8 of 10 of the candidates they supported were victorious. In 2020, their goal is to have 870,000 conversations to reach up to 235,000 votes, and electing 10-12 Democrats to the Minnesota State Senate.

Milwaukee’s own Sista Strings

Thanks as always to M. The Heir Apparent, who provides the music behind the podcast – check him out here! ***This is a rough transcription of Episode 85 of the Midlife Mixtape Podcast. It originally aired on October 27, 2020. Transcripts are created using a combination of speech recognition software and human transcribers, and there may be errors in this transcription, but we hope that it provides helpful insight into the conversation. If you have any questions or need clarification, please email [email protected] ***

Angela Lang 00:01

If we continue to think of the election as the first and only stop in civic engagement, I don’t think that we’re actually seeing our vote through.

0:09

Welcome to Midlife Mixtape, The Podcast.  I’m Nancy Davis Kho and we’re here to talk about the years between being hip and breaking one.

[THEME MUSIC – “Be Free” by M. The Heir Apparent]

Nancy Davis Kho 00:34

Hey, listeners, it’s Nancy here.  We’re in the homestretch of an extraordinarily important presidential election. So, I just want to take a moment to give a shout out to all of you who have gone above and beyond in this election cycle, to be not just a voter, but a volunteer.

I know that some of you listening may think, “What the heck? This is a show about midlife. It’s not about politics.” And I see that you might say that. I understand that. But I’m reminded of something that my friend, the great writer Janelle Hanchett, said to me once. She said, “I think it’s cute when people think silence isn’t also political.”

So, the fact is, I’ve got this platform, I’m hoping to use it for the good. And I just want to tell you that whether you wrote letters and postcards encouraging people to vote, whether you did phone banking, or text banking, maybe you just helped your kid register to vote for the first time, or you yourself got educated on ballot issues and candidates more deeply than before… I feel inspired by your commitment to sustaining democracy. And if you haven’t had a chance to do those things yet, we still have a week to go.  Check out www.TheLastWeekends.org for actions you can take to encourage voter turnout. It’s better than chewing your fingernails for the last 168 hours before November 3. And I promise not to be silent if you won’t.

MUSIC

Hey, everyone. I’m Nancy and I wanted to welcome you to a very special one-week-before-the-election episode of The Midlife Mixtape Podcast. Now I knew, planning for this week, that I wanted to talk to an inspiring guest who might give us an extra head of steam to make Election Day matter. And if it meant talking to someone who only has to scroll down, like, twice to get to her birth year in online forms, it was still going to be worth breaking the “midlife” part of “Midlife Mixtape” just this once. I don’t know about you, but I feel pretty worn out by the election hammering but after I talk to today’s guest, I was ready to get back into the ring.

My guest today is Angela Lang, Executive Director of Black Leaders Organizing for Communities (BLOC). Angela was born and raised in the heart of Milwaukee where she served as Political Director with For Our Future Wisconsin, where she worked to develop partnerships with local organizations and oversee the local grant process. In addition, she worked for the Service Employees International Union where she was an organizer and State Council Director, coordinating the political endorsement process and organizing Home Care and Nursing Home workers into the Fight For 15 campaign. Her journey in organizing hasn’t always been easy, as oftentimes she is the only woman, young person and person of color in the room expected to speak on behalf of all those communities. She constantly advocates for more seats at the table for those who have been shut out of the political process.

So, let’s step into the election booth with Angela.

Nancy Davis Kho

So, we are here today with Angela Lang, from BLOC, Black Leaders Organizing for Communities. And Angela, it’s such an honor to have you here today. I really appreciate you making the time.

Angela Lang 03:28

Yeah, thanks for having me!

Nancy 03:29

Well, this episode is going to be airing one week before the General Election. So, we’ve got a lot of important things to talk about. This is probably the only case in which I’m going to say my first question is slightly less important than the work you do. That first question is: what was your first concert and what were the circumstances?

Angela 03:46

Yeah, those that know me know that this is no surprise or any secret. But my first concert was the Backstreet Boys when I was ten. My mom got me tickets for my birthday. She gave me two tickets and she said, “you can take whoever you want.” But of course, I had to take her. And this was during the mid-90s, so it was right when they were first getting started.

And I was actually really excited last year – 20 years later, they came to town and so I took one of my best friends and we went to go see them now. That was my gift to myself for my 30th birthday last year. So yeah, I have a poster of them hanging in my office. It was the only thing I had when we moved into our office. It was the only piece of decor that I had, and people always ask about it. So, I never hide my love for the Backstreet Boys.

Nancy 04:37

That is awesome. Now I have to ask you, which Backstreet Boy was your guy?

Angela 04:41

Oh, hands down AJ. Even to this day. The only reason why I’m watching Dancing with the Stars right now… It’s my self-care. It is my one piece of guilty pleasure TV and it doesn’t hurt to have AJ to root for too.

Nancy 04:55

I think about Nick Carter and his center part hairstyle and I’m like, I actually thought that was cute at one point? What?

Angela 05:04

The 90s were a different time.

Nancy 05:08

Now I have to ask you: Comparing that first concert to the 20 years later, did they hold up? Were you disappointed? Or were you like, “my gosh, they were even better than I remembered!”

Angela 05:18

Oh, I lived out my childhood dreams. Like, they didn’t miss a beat. I was actually really impressed with how they were 20 years later; they hit every note. They were great. The choreography was great. Yeah, we were singing along, dancing the whole time. So yes, it was definitely living out my childhood dreams. And yeah, to my surprise, they look like they did 20 years ago.

Nancy 05:40

Good for them. Good for them. Alright, so one last music related question before we flip over to the real stuff. And that is… you are all about Milwaukee, you represent for Milwaukee. Is there a performer in Milwaukee we should know about, a singer or songwriter? Who do you think we should be checking out? I didn’t warn you about that question, I’m just springing that on you.

Angela 06:01

Yeah, there’s a group, there’s a string duo that I think is amazing. There are two black sisters. And they both play string instruments. I believe they both might be the cello. And they’re called Sista Strings. Okay let me actually check…

Nancy 06:20

Because I always put a video into the show notes. So, I will check out Sister Strings is that is the…

Angela 06:25

Sista Strings, yeah, they are great. I’ve heard them at some other events. They’re just very beautiful. And it’s always great to see, you know, black folks that are younger, and folks that look like you that are taking up space in the world of classical music, and how they’re putting their own spin on it, too. So yeah, they’re great and super, super talented.

Nancy 06:45

Alright, cool. Everybody check out Sista Strings, and I’ll put in a video so you can take a little taster plate of them when you listen to this episode.

So, as you heard, Angela is only 30 years old. And even with my very expansive definition of midlife – some people take issue with me sometimes, because I think it goes from 33 to 66. Because I can do math, and I don’t think we’re all going to live to 100. But that’s a story for another time.

Her work is so important, and this general election is so important that I wanted to devote this episode to motivating you guys to not just vote but to get out and help your community be heard too. And I can’t think of a better way to do that then by talking about this grassroots organization that is mobilizing voters in Milwaukee.

So Angela, I’m just gonna have you start off by talking about BLOC, Black Leaders Organizing for Communities, why you decided to start it up, and what work does it do in your community?

Angela 07:34

Yeah, so in a lot of ways, BLOC was founded as a response to the 2016 election. On one hand, the outcome…I think a lot of folks were surprised from the outcome.

But on the other hand, we were also really, really offended by the fact that people were blaming us for the outcome. Everyone always wanted to talk about how black voter turnout was down. But turnout was down all across the state, turnout was down all across the country, and in different places in different parts. But people really only wanted to singlehandedly focus on us, which was very frustrating to a lot of us knowing that we are some of the most disenfranchised and least engaged communities, but yet we were somehow to blame for the outcome of the election.

So, a bunch of us got in a room. And you know, we started to really brainstorm and strategize and figure out, you know, what are the lessons learned from 2016? How do we build something that is bold, and is rooted in our blackness and very able to be authentic and genuine and relate to folks? You know, how can we do this on a year-round basis, and we wanted to make sure that we weren’t waiting for a candidate or an elected official or party to engage us. We were going to do this work ourselves on a year-round basis, we were going to hire folks from the community, train our folks around the civic engagement process, how to even be involved politically, how the process even works, and who are these different actors and players in our political system? And then how do we make a change in it? We wanted to make sure that we were reclaiming that power. And we’re doing some of the things that I think was lacking, quite frankly, in 2016.

Nancy 09:10

The driving question for your group is “What does it look like for Milwaukee’s Black community to thrive?” Right? That’s the underlying question. What does that look like in practice? What are the things that you guys are able to do to help the black community thrive in your city?

Angela 09:27

Yeah, you know, I always like the question of asking folks that “thrive” question because it affords our community an opportunity to think about what thriving is and I think that’s not something we get a chance to do on a regular basis.

So, when we ask that question, we’ve heard everything from speed bumps and potholes, to healthcare and criminal justice and education. We’ve heard it all and on the one hand, you know, it’s an entryway to be able to figure out what are these bigger issues that we should be advocating for. We heard it all…it begins small. We now have a black agenda that we created almost a year ago now, where we got folks from the community together, we talked about 10 different issue areas, everything from education, to health care, to transportation and democracy and justice. And we had conversations about each of those issue areas. What do we want? What do you want to see? What do we want to see improved? What do we need to get rid of, what’s just not working in the system? And we brainstormed everything that we wanted to see around things like education and transportation.

And our political director Rick turned it into a draft. And then we came back a couple weeks later and ratified it together as a group. And so now that it’s on paper, how does this feel? And we use that now as our guiding light and how we do our work. And it was in direct collaboration with carrying the answers to that “thrive” question over the years, and then over a series of people’s conventions as well last year.

Nancy 10:53

Do you use that as a basis for engaging with elected officials, in terms of creating a roadmap forward?

Angela 10:59

Yes, absolutely. It is now also a part of our endorsement process. We want to make sure that people are agreeing to our values and our policy proposals that have been crafted by the community. So, we have folks review it, we have them check off all of the issue areas that they agree on those things. So, we’re able to use that to see where these elected officials are at. If they don’t agree with this particular policy, why? What are your plans? What’s your alternative?

And it’s also a way to guide some of the conversations as well, this is how we’re able to directly take what we’re hearing from the community and put it into practice. And letting elected officials know, hey, these are the things that folks are talking about in the community. And here are some policies that we would like to work with you on. So, we use that in a lot of spaces. It was designed specially to work with candidates and elected officials. But we’ve also heard that there’s other groups that use it as well, to strengthen their own work in the areas that they’re working into.

Nancy 11:59

Like educators? Or what kind of other kinds of groups are using it?

Angela 12:03

Yeah, Planned Parenthood specifically said told us that they will reference it very often as well and cite it as a resource.

Nancy 12:11

Amazing.

So, I want to give a little background about how I first heard about BLOC, because it’ll lead up to my next question. I’ve got to give a little background first, but we’ll get there. So in past election cycles, I’m always giving, you know, $20 to this candidate, $15 to this candidate, and I was always having these like impulsive, “oh my god, that person needs help, I’m going to give them a little bit of money”.  And it felt very scattershot. And that by the end of the 2016 election cycle, I was a husk of myself, because I was so disappointed with the outcome.

And I was determined in 2018, but even more so this year, because of the stakes, I thought, “I’ve got to get strategic about what I’m supporting and who I’m supporting”. And I came across this organization called www.FlipTheVote.Org  that was doing analysis back in February, March, April to figure out how do we really, you know, turn the ship? How do we really have an impact on the outcome of the general election? How do we make sure that our elected officials reflect the will of the majority of the people?

And what they were saying back in March and April is it’s not individual candidates. It’s supporting grassroots Black-led or minority-lead Get Out the Vote efforts, and these on the ground organizations, and so they suggested very strongly you make an investment now, in April, in these organizations. BLOC is one, there’s others in other parts of the country. And that’s where you put your election investment for the year.

So, I did one of those things where like, I wrote a number that made my head sweat, I was like, Oh, my God, I can’t believe I’m doing this. Although, if I add up what I’ve donated elsewhere over the years, it’s probably about the same. And I was able to distribute it through organizations like yours, including yours, to do this work, to do exactly what you’re talking about. And this leads up to my question: why are grassroots organizations, so effective, impactful in ensuring that the results of the elections reflect the needs of the wishes of the people who live there rather than the corporations and the super PACs that are just pouring money into the races?

Angela 14:16

Yeah, that’s a really good question. And I think the simple answer is that we’re still going to be here, long after an election,  long after parties pack up and go home, and long after a candidates win or lose. You know, we’re still here, our issues still matter.

And it’s important for us to continue to engage people and to talk to people. I think there’s a lot of times that people think that the election is the end game, but really, it’s just the beginning. And if we continue to think of election as the first and only stop in  civic engagement, I don’t think that we’re actually seeing our vote through, if we are voting because we want to make a change or we want to make our voices heard. We can’t just expect people to know how to govern and govern on our agenda. They need for us to tell them that on a regular basis.

And so by doing that, you know, we get a chance to continue to organize, we get a chance to build deeper relationships, and get to the heart of people and their issues and why they care about these things. And, you know, there’s not a lot of organizations on the ground that are constantly having that level of investment in level of engagement.

And I would argue, it’s also smarter from  a business standpoint. If people really want a good return on investment, and they’re really focused on elections, then we need to be funding organizations like BLOC and others on a year-round basis, because we’re able to build that trust. And so when the elections come around again, they’re more likely to trust us versus a candidate that’s packed up and now is only engaging their community again, you know, two or four years later when they’re  seeking reelection. Money goes a lot further, because we’re able to continue to engage people.

And if we’re able to continue and remain engaged with folks, then it makes every election cycle a little bit easier, because we’re building this culture and this habit of being civically engaged. So hopefully, turnout theoretically can go up every year, because we’re constantly building those relationships. So, we’re not always having to persuade people about voting, it’s sort of become second nature to them, because they’ve been doing it all year.

Nancy 16:16

And it’s also about investing in the local community and in employment in the city. And you know, that’s really important too.

People were talking about Beto O’Rourke, and the fact that he lost in 2018, and how disappointing that was. Well, he was running against somebody who had a 52% approval rate. And what happened when he was running is that he turned out tons and tons of youth voters who had not been registered before. And guess what, they’re coming out again. So, it’s this idea of building over time, and recognizing that you’re there for the long haul, you know, this engagement, this kind of grassroots organization does exactly this. It creates engaged voters; it creates people who understand that democracy is not a given and done and requires work.

So, I wanted to ask you: in 2020, have you had any COVID challenges, Angela? Of course you have! How are you dealing with that? Particularly because the community has been disproportionately negatively impacted by COVID. How are you having to handle that this year?

Angela 17:20

Yeah, so 2020 has been the challenging the most challenging year of my professional career.

Nancy 17:28

You can say it, I have an “E” on this, I have an explicit rating. It’s been a shit show.

Angela 17:34

I know, I usually mention dumpster fire, you know,

Nancy 17:39

It’s a regional variation!

Angela 17:41

Yeah, something along those lines! Yeah, it’s been a challenge, especially when you’re known for your really aggressive ground game in the field. We had a really ambitious goal that we were excited to, to smash, not just meet, but smash, we were going to knock half a million doors. This year, we were really excited. Our ambassadors are most in their element when they’re able to have face to face conversations just genuinely connect with people. That’s what they’re good at.

And we, in about a 48-hour span, we moved from being out in the field to being completely virtual. We put our folks through about 30 hours of training. And we scaled up, we started the year with 33, ahead of the February election. And ahead of the April election, we knew we wanted 50 people. So, we added an extra 17 in the beginning of March. And by the time they were done with our 30 hours of training, we had to shut down and they didn’t even go on doors, but we kept them on and we all just adapted.

We now have 73 total ambassadors who are texting and phone banking. So, everyone is a pro at Zoom now and using some of these new tools. It was a little bit of an adjustment for us because we just hadn’t done things like virtual phone banks and texting. Like I said, it’s always been out in the field. So, it’s been a learning challenge for all of us.

But then all of the different ways that COVID is really impacting people’s lives, we’re also experiencing that. And so, you know, we’re having team members lose family members and loved ones, we’re having folks being impacted by the increase in domestic violence. We’re having folks having increased mental health challenges, and I myself have to be very intentional, be very mindful of my own mental health, and being protective of my own sustainability and boundaries.

So, all of us are dealing with those challenges in addition to the obvious health and economic challenges, but some of the things that get lost are, you know, mental health and domestic violence. And both of those things have impacted us intimately in some ways. So making sure that we’re able to be supportive of everyone, because when you have a group that big and when you’re hiring folks from your community, you also need to be prepared to support with some of the issues that come with that as well.

Nancy 19:54

And I know you guys are closed on Fridays for that reason, you’re trying to give people space to process and to go through I mean, just … a four day workweek sounds mighty humane at this point.

Angela 20:08

I mean, it’s doable, right? We try to lead by example that, you know, I never thought in a busy presidential year, especially the first year of me being in this role, I never thought I’d be doing four day workweeks. My imposter syndrome would never allow me to think that I can, you know, work twice as hard in a span of four days. But it’s actually been really helpful. And it allowed me to want to be better on my own time management, but it provided that space to reflect, to journal, to heal, to just take some time. And I think it’s not perfect, but it’s something. And honestly, I don’t know where I’d be if we weren’t more intentional with our mental health the way we are right now.

Nancy 20:44

Right. So, let’s talk about the impacts you’ve seen so far. What kind of results have you seen with the work you’ve been doing leading up to this election?

Angela 20:52

We’ve been texting and phone making for a while now. For a while after the April election, we were getting lots of questions about that election. For those that remember, I believe we were the first state to hold a pandemic election we were forced to vote in person. We usually have roughly 180 or so polling places in Milwaukee; we were down to five. And so, it was it was a mess. It was a tragic mess.

But people turned out. But at the same time, there were some people that couldn’t, because they couldn’t risk their health, or they requested an absentee ballot and it never came. So, we were answering a lot of those questions after the April election. We talked to so many people… there’s one older woman in particular, she was so upset that she didn’t get a chance to vote. But she basically was saying, come hell or high water, she’s voting in November, and how can she make sure that she is planning?

So, whatever happened in April doesn’t happen again in November… people are enthusiastic. They are making plans. I think people feel very, very strongly about this election, about this current administration’s leadership, or lack thereof. What’s really thrown people over is that we’re seeing in real time how the federal government is working or not working for people. I think there’s a lot of times that we don’t experience the federal government in the decisions in this way. A lot of times people can’t point to the federal government as being the reason why, you know, they’re having this issue or that issue.

But we’re seeing this play out in real time; people’s unemployment benefits are being cut off. They know that it’s Congress’s fault. If people are looking for an extra $1200, they know that Congress can’t reach another agreement. And so I think people are more connected to the federal government and how it’s playing out, whether it’s through COVID, or the response to these national uprisings and this racial reckoning that we’re in, people are seeing a response or lack thereof in real time. And I think that’s really motivating and a driving factor for making sure that people have a backup plan, and that they know how to make their voice heard come November 3.

Nancy

In a moment, we’ll talk more with Angela about BLOC’s priorities for the last week before the election. But first a message from today’s sponsor.

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And now back to my interview with Angela Lang of Black Leaders Organizing for Communities.

Nancy

So, what will your priorities be for the last week before the race? What are the ways that you’re looking for support? And I would also very much like to have you tell people where they can support BLOC in the last week before the election and beyond!

Angela 25:31

Yeah, absolutely. You know, our biggest focus is making sure that everybody has a plan to vote, they know exactly how to enact that plan. And hopefully, people have a backup plan. So, if people requested an absentee ballot, let’s make sure that you’re dropping them off at the various dropbox locations. And let’s make sure that you’re actually returning that ballot. So, doing some of that work, making sure that people know about the early voting sites in the early voting locations if people choose to vote early.

And also letting people know how to stay safe on election day as well doing some support, and supporting people that are standing in potential long lines, if there are any. We’re preparing for any voter intimidation at the polls as well. So we’re keeping an eye out for all of that, we’re slowly building and training our folks to be able to do some conflict de-escalation if need be, to be able to assist in case someone is turned away at the polls and trying to get them the right information so that they can register or they can cast a ballot that day.

So, we’ll be focused on all of those things, those plans are coming together. And obviously, you know, we have our candidate that we’re advocating for. So, we’re going to be advocating for our candidate as well. So, it’s a mixture of some of the nonpartisan Get Out The Vote, let’s make sure everybody has the logistics that they need, they have the right ID, because Wisconsin is a photo ID state. So, making sure that folks have a photo ID and they have the materials that they need to register. So, it’s going to be a mix in these final days.

Nancy 27:00

And if someone wants to support that work, what’s the best place for them to go to donate?

Angela 27:05

You can feel free to donate online on our website www.BLOCbyBLOC.org , there is a donate page. On our website, we have, as I mentioned, nonpartisan capabilities; that’s through our Education Fund. So that is registering people to vote, making sure people have exactly what they need, nothing partisan when it comes out of that fund. From our C (4) side, that’s where we do talk about candidates that we’re supporting, our endorsed candidates. And then we also recently opened a PAC. And that’s how we’re doing our work for the presidential election. So, people can feel free to donate to either of those. There’s a little breakdown of what all of those go to. And if there’s any other questions, people can send us an email through our website as well, if they want to get involved in other ways.

Nancy 27:50

Great. And I will leave a link to that in the show notes to make it easy for you guys to get over there and read more about BLOC’s work.

I have to ask you: Did you read Caste yet by Isabel Wilkerson? Not that you’re busy this fall or anything.

Angela 28:02

I have so many books that are on my nightstand, I keep buying them. And I was like, I’m just gonna read a chapter a night and I have not been able to read anything all year, unfortunately.

Nancy 28:11

I’m about to blow up Caste because I love this book so much. If you guys haven’t read Isabel Wilkerson’s first book for which she won the Pulitzer, The Warmth of Other Suns, all about the Great Migration. It’s a really important chapter of American history that she handles so beautifully. And this book, the new one Caste is just, it’s a really phenomenal work because first of all, she’s just a beautiful writer, she’s a super researcher. And what she’s done is just look at the question of Black history in America through a slightly different lens, she’s looking at it through a caste system.

So instead of talking about Black and White, she’s talking about subordinate caste and upper caste. And it’s just enough of a shift that it really pulls you backward and you hear what she’s saying anew and appreciate it in a different way.

And I was just thinking about BLOC and similar organizations and why they’re so important because of the work they do to center the needs of the Black community and I’m now I’m even gonna read you two paragraphs that I excerpted because I love this book so much…it’s the most dog eared book that I own.

So, Isabel Wilkerson has made the case that Republicans understand that their customers are white voters; whites have not gone in a majority for a Democratic presidential candidates in decades. What she says is that Democrats need to do a better job of focusing on their most reliable voting bloc and this is what she wrote:

“The foremost concerns of the Democrat’s most reliable voting bloc – affordable housing, clean water, police brutality, the racial wealth gap, and reparations for state-sanctioned discrimination (as has been accorded other groups discriminated against in the United States) – have remained on the back burner, or have even been considered radioactive issues for the party that the African Americans help to sustain.

For those who say that this would be impractical, it would be the duty of the party representing and dependent on the subordinate caste to open the eyes of their fellow Americans and make the case for a more egalitarian country.”

And that’s my book report on Caste by Isabel Wilkerson.

Angela 30:35

No, I think that’s great. That’s something that I’ve heard folks say, even breaking that down a little bit more, right? If the most vulnerable and the most marginalized among us are able to do well, then that means everyone is able to do well.

And, you know, I think specifically about the Black trans women that are being murdered through hate crimes, while simultaneously LGBTQ rights are being rolled back. And so even hearing about some of the folks that we don’t even talk about on a regular basis, I think all of that relates for those of us fighting for justice, and liberation, and equity. We really should be making sure that we’re centering the most marginalized because all of our freedoms are tied together. All of our liberations are tied together. And I can’t be free if Black trans women aren’t free.

Nancy 31:27

That’s right.

Normally this is the part where I talk to you about what it’s like being a midlife, but you don’t know yet. Don’t worry, it’s fine. Here’s my piece of advice to you: it’s fine. It’s going to be fine. Whatever it is, it works out. Come back and listen to all of my podcast episodes if you ever are feeling worried as you get older, because literally everybody says, “Don’t worry about it, it works out.” But I do have a last question for you, which is: what one piece of advice do you have for people younger than you, or do you wish you could go back and tell yourself?

Angela 31:55

I think what I would say is be bold and unapologetic.

I just saw a quote, I believe was from Eleanor Roosevelt, recently, and I hear this on occasion, almost like the Universe sends it to me when I need to hear it the most.

But it’s something along the lines of “do what you’re going to do and what you believe in your heart to be right, because you’re going to get criticized for it anyways. You might as well just do the right thing.” I’m butchering it, but it was that was the sentiment. And I think something that my mom told me when I was younger is that you can’t be afraid to do what’s right, and to say what needs to be said and to stand up for the truth. And sometimes that’s going to be lonely. And sometimes it’s going to be very isolating. But it’s important to do the right thing, even if it’s if it’s lonely, and it’s important to speak truth to the power and everything shall pass.

And that’s something I even have to remind myself about 2020, is that “this too shall pass”. And even if it feels very difficult, if it’s the right thing in your heart to do, you just got to do it.

Nancy 32:52

That’s great advice, regardless of our age.

And I would just implore all of you who are listening to check out BLOC’s work, you know, raise a glass of appreciation to Angela for the hard work that she and her organization are doing on behalf of all of us in the democracy in which we live.

And Angela, hang in there, keep it together for the next week. I hope you get some deep cleansing breaths and a little bit of sleep. And thank you again so much for the work you’re doing.

Angela 33:18

Thank you, I’ll try my hardest!

Nancy 33:25

Okay, so after I talked to Angela I went and checked out Sista Strings and oh my gosh, what talented musicians, what beautiful music! I usually cannot listen to music when I work, but this is actually music I could work by. Just lovely soundscapes and so talented. So, check out the video that I’m going to include in the show notes and look for them on your own, too – Sista Strings.

Alright guys, I’m sending you all a big socially distanced solidarity hug. Let’s go into this week with joy, not fear, with hope, not anger, and with that invaluable sense of midlife perspective that reminds us that everything will be okay in the end. And that we can each play a role in making that the case.

Let me know what you thought of this episode. You can email me at [email protected], or find me on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram @midlifemixtape. I’m going to try not to be on there doom scrolling for the next week. But if I see you guys send me a message, I will respond to that!

So, tune in next time for a timely conversation I had with an epidemiologist and public health expert about the state of play with COVID. And I’m going to be asking him the questions that you guys sent in, including a big one:  Can we safely celebrate a multi-generational Thanksgiving this year? That is the question.

Speaking of Thanksgiving, here’s my seasonal plug for my book, The Thank-You Project: Cultivating Happiness One Letter of Gratitude at a Time. It’s about a year I spent writing thank you letters to 50 people who had helped, shaped, or inspired me. And maybe, since Thanksgiving is going to be different this year, you could mark it by writing your gratitude letter. Maybe that can be part of your celebration. The book is a blueprint and motivation for readers to start their own Thank-You projects and it helps you figure out how to gain the perspective, calm, and resilience that comes from recognizing all the ways you’ve been helped by others in your life. It’s available in bookstores, online, and for audio listening. The Thank-You Project: Cultivating Happiness One Letter of Gratitude at a Time – check it out.

All right, you guys have a really great week. Hang in there.

[THEME MUSIC – “Be Free” by M. The Heir Apparent]

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

The post Ep 85 Community Organizer Angela Lang appeared first on Midlife Mixtape .