Untying Knots
21 episodes - English - Latest episode: 4 months ago - ★★★★★ - 5 ratingsUntying Knots, co-hosted by Nikhil Raghuveera and Erica Licht, explores how people and organizations are untying knots of systemic oppression and working towards a more equitable future. Each episode features special guests and a focus on thematic areas across society.
This podcast is published by the Institutional Antiracism and Accountability Project at Harvard Kennedy School’s Ash Center.
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Episodes
Building an Accountable and Effective Base of White Communities Working for Racial Justice
January 09, 2024 15:11 - 31 minutes - 28.9 MBWhite Americans are directly implicated in the perpetuation of structural racism, and also have much to gain in actively working to dismantle it. Untying Knots sat down with Erin Heaney, Executive Director of Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ), to discuss the core principles of SURJ’s organizing approach and to learn about how the national organization is working in predominantly white communities to advance racial and economic justice. Erin dives into key issue areas which serve as cataly...
Pulse Check on Antiracist Institutional Change in Healthcare
July 19, 2023 14:20 - 39 minutes - 36 MBCOVID-19 and the 2020 wave of racial justice demonstrations moved many healthcare organizations to enact antiracist change programs. Many of these commitments, however, lacked effective strategy and accountability. Untying Knots talks to IARA Research Fellow Ángel Rodriguez and Dr. Meenakshi Verma-Agrawal, Board Member of the Southern Jamaica Plain Health Center, about IARA’s one-year study of antiracist interventions in healthcare organizations. In our conversation we hear about what make...
Cultivating racially-just, data-driven organizations
May 23, 2023 12:00 - 43 minutes - 39.9 MB“Antiracism tells us relationship is always going to come before the methodology. In fact, it's required for it.” On this episode of Untying Knots Theo Miller and Erika Bernabi share the foundations of their organization, Equity and Results, and reflections from their related workshop at IARA’s 2022 Truth and Transformation convening. Equity and Results is grounded in the model of Antiracist Results-Based Accountability, coupled with the antiracist organizing principles of the People’s Inst...
Untying Knots: Crime and Justice - Charting a More Equitable Path
March 27, 2023 12:00 - 31 minutes - 28.4 MBDr. Khalil Gibran Muhammad and Dr. Bruce Western sat down with Untying Knots to discuss the pioneering new report “Reducing Racial Inequality in Crime and Justice.” The report, co-chaired by Muhammad and Western for the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine, tackles the historical roots and present-day realities of racial inequality throughout America’s courts, prisons, jails, and policies, and charts an equitable course forward for solving them. During the interview, we le...
Untying Knots: Beyond Land Acknowledgment - Accountable Action in Partnership with Native Nations
January 10, 2023 12:57 - 38 minutes - 35.2 MBLand Acknowledgements have become increasingly popular in many organizations and non-Indigenous communities over the last few years, but what is their actual impact? We sat down with Michaela Madrid and Jessica Gliden, Program Managers in Tribal Governance and Leadership Development at the Native Governance Center, to explore this question and their work with Tribal leaders and the 23 Native nations that share geography with Mni Sota Makoce, North Dakota, and South Dakota. They joined us for...
Untying Knots: Building Electoral Justice in the Pacific Northwest and Across the US
May 05, 2022 11:00 - 45 minutes - 41.2 MBOn this episode of Untying Knots, we explore the relationship between communities of color and political power by turning to a case study of electoral organizing in the US Pacific Northwest. George Cheung, Director of More Equitable Democracy (MED), joins us to discuss how the American winner-take-all electoral system is not only failing to generate real democratic governance but also creating disproportionate harm on communities of color. In response, MED is organizing Black, Indigenous and...
Truth and Transformation Spotlight - Preserving Seats at the Table: White-Dominated Boards
March 18, 2022 13:39 - 1 hour - 57.4 MBPreserving Seats at the Table: White-Dominated Boards In this special episode of Untying Knots, hosts Erica Licht and Nikhil Raghuveera share a discussion from the 2021 Truth and Transformation Conference, hosted by the Institutional Antiracism and Accountability Project on October 14-15th 2021. The conference brought together a range of scholars, organizers, students, and organizational leaders to address whether organizations have lived up to the statements, commitments, and promises they...
Truth and Transformation Spotlight - Equity Takes Time, Commitment, and Disruption
March 18, 2022 13:38 - 1 hour - 59.8 MBEquity Takes Time, Commitment, & Disruption In this special episode of Untying Knots, hosts Erica Licht and Nikhil Raghuveera share a discussion from the 2021 Truth and Transformation Conference, hosted by the Institutional Antiracism and Accountability Project on October 14-15th 2021. The conference brought together a range of scholars, organizers, students, and organizational leaders to address whether organizations have lived up to the statements, commitments, and promises they made to r...
Truth and Transformation Spotlight - Money Left on the Table: Unpacking the Economic Argument for Diversity
February 02, 2022 18:30 - 1 hour - 61.8 MBMoney Left on the Table: Unpacking The Economic Argument for Diversity In this special episode of Untying Knots, hosts Erica Licht and Nikhil Raghuveera share a discussion from the 2021 Truth and Transformation Conference, hosted by the Institutional Antiracism and Accountability Project on October 14-15th 2021. The conference brought together a range of scholars, organizers, students, and organizational leaders to address whether organizations have lived up to the statements, commitments, ...
Truth and Transformation Spotlight: Reckoning with the Past, Rebuilding the Future
December 16, 2021 18:53 - 59 minutes - 54.1 MBIn this special episode of Untying Knots, hosts Erica Licht and Nikhil Raghuveera share a discussion from the 2021 Truth and Transformation Conference, hosted by the Institutional Antiracism and Accountability Project on October 14-15th 2021. The conference brought together a range of scholars, organizers, students, and organizational leaders to address whether organizations have lived up to the statements, commitments, and promises they made to racial equity a year before. Heather McGhee, ...
Untying Knots: Episode 4 - Uprooting Digital Oppression
November 16, 2021 12:00 - 27 minutes - 25.2 MBTechnology companies today serve as gatekeepers to everyday life, overseeing and influencing everything from communication to payments, in addition to access to information. This outsized role among some of the largest firms in the world, however, poses an exacerbated threat to Black, Indigenous, and people of color already harmed by inequitable systems. The current landscape of racial equity efforts in Silicon Valley also showcases the limitations for marginalized people to access power and...
Untying Knots: Uprooting Digital Oppression
November 16, 2021 12:00 - 27 minutes - 25.2 MBTechnology companies today serve as gatekeepers to everyday life, overseeing and influencing everything from communication to payments, in addition to access to information. This outsized role among some of the largest firms in the world, however, poses an exacerbated threat to Black, Indigenous, and people of color already harmed by inequitable systems. The current landscape of racial equity efforts in Silicon Valley also showcases the limitations for marginalized people to access power and...
Untying Knots: Episode Four - Uprooting Digital Oppression
November 16, 2021 12:00 - 27 minutes - 25.2 MBTechnology companies today serve as gatekeepers to everyday life, overseeing and influencing everything from communication to payments, in addition to access to information. This outsized role among some of the largest firms in the world, however, poses an exacerbated threat to Black, Indigenous, and people of color already harmed by inequitable systems. The current landscape of racial equity efforts in Silicon Valley also showcases the limitations for marginalized people to access power and...
Untying Knots: Episode 3 - Native Land Rights and the Ongoing Fight for Justice
February 18, 2021 05:00 - 56 minutes - 51.7 MBIn 2020, during the height of COVID-19, the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe was at the US Supreme Court fighting not just to survive a pandemic, but to hold onto their tribal land rights. This case, in addition to the landmark ruling of Sharp v. Murphy in July 2020, emphasizes the ongoing fight of Tribal nations for claims to parts — not even all — of their original and granted land. Yet, US political oppression against Native people is baked into the foundations of the United States, including colo...
Untying Knots: Native Land Rights and the Ongoing Fight for Justice
February 18, 2021 05:00 - 56 minutes - 51.7 MBIn 2020, during the height of COVID-19, the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe was at the US Supreme Court fighting not just to survive a pandemic, but to hold onto their tribal land rights. This case, in addition to the landmark ruling of Sharp v. Murphy in July 2020, emphasizes the ongoing fight of Tribal nations for claims to parts — not even all — of their original and granted land. Yet, US political oppression against Native people is baked into the foundations of the United States, including colo...
Untying Knots: Voter Oppression and Suppression: A Living Case Study in Georgia
September 25, 2020 04:00 - 47 minutes - 43.2 MBFollowing the end of the Civil War, Southern states immediately sought to limit the freedoms of Black Americans through laws known as black codes, and to prevent exercise of their right to vote through felon disenfranchisement laws, poll taxes, and literacy tests. These same racist institutional barriers still exist today—some in exact name—and also suppress Indigenous and other People of Color voters. Community organizers and policy experts are on the frontlines engaging and supporting vote...
Untying Knots: Episode 2 - Voter Oppression and Suppression: A Living Case Study in Georgia
September 25, 2020 04:00 - 47 minutes - 43.2 MBFollowing the end of the Civil War, Southern states immediately sought to limit the freedoms of Black Americans through laws known as black codes, and to prevent exercise of their right to vote through felon disenfranchisement laws, poll taxes, and literacy tests. These same racist institutional barriers still exist today—some in exact name—and also suppress Indigenous and other People of Color voters. Community organizers and policy experts are on the frontlines engaging and supporting vote...
Untying Knots Podcast: Episode 1 - Transforming Wealth Inequity through Anti-Racist Funding
July 10, 2020 04:00 - 40 minutes - 37.1 MBHundreds of years of racist institutional policies have denied wealth to Black, Indigenous, and communities of color. In this current period of uprising, resistance, and crisis on racial injustice, organizational leaders are asking: what does it look like to make structural change for racial justice? Two organizations in Boston, the Haymarket People’s Fund and the Boston Ujima Project, provide a critical model for applying an anti-racist lens to operations, mission, ongoing learning, and acc...
Untying Knots: Transforming Wealth Inequity through Anti-Racist Funding
July 10, 2020 04:00 - 40 minutes - 37.1 MBHundreds of years of racist institutional policies have denied wealth to Black, Indigenous, and communities of color. In this current period of uprising, resistance, and crisis on racial injustice, organizational leaders are asking: what does it look like to make structural change for racial justice? Two organizations in Boston, the Haymarket People’s Fund and the Boston Ujima Project, provide a critical model for applying an anti-racist lens to operations, mission, ongoing learning, and acc...
Untying Knots: Episode 1 - Transforming Wealth Inequity through Anti-Racist Funding
July 10, 2020 04:00 - 40 minutes - 37.1 MBHundreds of years of racist institutional policies have denied wealth to Black, Indigenous, and communities of color. In this current period of uprising, resistance, and crisis on racial injustice, organizational leaders are asking: what does it look like to make structural change for racial justice? Two organizations in Boston, the Haymarket People’s Fund and the Boston Ujima Project, provide a critical model for applying an anti-racist lens to operations, mission, ongoing learning, and acc...
Truth and Transformation Spotlight: Justin Freitas and Addys Castillo from the People’s Institute
October 21, 2019 04:00 - 45 minutes - 41.7 MBFollowing the 2019 Truth and Transformation conference, the Institutional Antiracism and Accountability (IARA) Project's Erica Licht sat down with core trainers Addys Castillo and Justin Freitas from the People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond (PISAB) for a closer look at their work. The conversation includes an overview of their approach to antiracist change grounded in community organizing, as well as personal commitments to creating a shared analysis of structural and systemic racism i...