Nerd Farmer Podcast

The Census, redistricting, reapportionment, gerrymandering — it is all up to you.

This week’s guest is Managing Director at the Washington Census Alliance, Kamau Chege. We discussed the 2020 Census and why everyone who listens to this show should make sure that everyone they know fills it out.

Undercounts among marginalized communities lead to reduced federal funding and reduced representation at the federal, state, county, and municipal levels. When socially and economically marginalized populations decline to complete the Census, they gift political power to the people responsible for their marginalization.

You can’t have a democracy without representation, you can’t have representation without the census — that’s it.

That’s the show.

The Socials

Kamau on Twitter

Extra Credit 

Kamau profiled in the NYT

Complete the Census online

Redistricting and Reapportionment

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Fact, everyday black women in the US are simultaneously under assault from the forces of institutional racism and institutional sexism. 

They are the most educated demographic group: when measuring degrees earned, black women are the most educated demographic group in the US.

They are underpaid: black women in the US earn 61 cents on the dollar for the same job in comparison to men, with the gap not projected to close for literally 100 years. 

They are often taken for granted in the workplace: all over social media black women are reporting feeling burned-out or taken for granted in unhealthy workplaces. 

I recently came across a post on Medium by author, school counselor, and my friend, Christina McDade, on the tropes and narratives surrounding black women in our culture. The post begins “It’s 5 am, Wednesday morning, and I am exhausted.” Man, I want to use that to teach students about writing “a hook.”

Here’s a passage from the essay that really stuck with me:

It’s the narrative of the constant realization of the many roles that black women find themselves in, and the constant shifting that we have to do to simply be ourselves and who we are every single day. No black woman is immune to this struggle. For every Oprah and Michelle who can manage to be everyone’s best friend, you have the Gabrielle Union’s and Jenifer Lewis’ of the world who are a little too much and aggressive. Your star and proximity determine how varied the narrative majority spaces allow you to be.

Exhausting, right?

Obviously, I know what it’s like to deal with US racism. But I can’t imagine what it’s like to have to face sexism as well. It feels exhausting to even ponder and you can hear it in Christina’s interview. I hope you enjoy listening to her as much as I did.

 The Socials

Christina on Medium

@mscdmcdade – Twitter

The Wind Down

This is Love Podcast

Your College-Bound Kid

Bonus Listening

Burnout Hits Different When You’re Black — At the Intersection Podcast

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In late January, I happened to be in Shanghai at a Model UN Conference when the Corona Outbreak began in Wuhan Province. Since then I have been watching events unfold in China and elsewhere. Throughout the last two months, I’ve been struck by two things:

• The comprehensive nature of the response in China: tens of millions of people were literally cut off from the world — imposed social distancing, mass in home quarantine, large scale deployment of chemical disinfectants, etc.
• The immediate closure of schools in China and how teachers were continuing to meet the needs of their students.

I’ve tweeted a bit about the former and I took careful notes on the latter, knowing that sooner or later our time would (likely) come. On Thursday, March 4, while we were out of the country on spring break, we were notified that school would not reopen and would remain closed — for at least four weeks. Moreover, we were told that we’d commence teaching online the following Monday… WOOF. That was a three day turnaround and I was ten hours away over in Indonesia… WOOF x2.

In a matter of days, our school leadership spun up a schedule based on learnings from elsewhere and we dug into the work of teaching online. We are now in week two and I decided to sit down with a couple of colleagues and share our thoughts and learnings so far. This episode is about the whats and hows of our online teaching experiences. The IWL Podcast will have an episode about equity issues related to online teaching this Thursday.

Cast of Characters

Jordan Moog, US History and Global Studies, Lute

Michele Curley, French, tri-lingual Canadian: English, French, and Swahili (yeah, she’s that dude)

Going Further

I’ve been cataloguing my experience teaching online thus far in this thread

Socials

Jordan Moog – Twitter

Michele Curley – Twitter

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??? NEW Theme Music from Producer Doug ???

The Rundown

She describes herself as a “Dreamer, Blerd, Educator, Disruptor of Ridiculousness, STEM & Digital Access Advocate.” Rafranz is a former math teacher, former district director of professional and digital learning, and the author of “The Missing Voices in EdTech: Bringing Diversity Into EdTech.” She came on the pod to talk about the use of technology in today’s classrooms and all the ways teachers and school systems drop the ball when it comes to implementing educational technology in an effective and equitable manner.

The Wind Down

Rafranz is a BTS aficionado; she recommends you cop their latest album: Map of the Soul: 7

Going Further

Rafranz’s 2018 CUE Keyonte

The Socials

Rafranz on Medium

@RafranzDavis

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Two-time show guest Claudia Rowe is the author of Time Out, an e-book about Willard Jimerson. Jimerson was a young black man for South Seattle who was charged as an adult, convicted of murder, and sentenced to 23 years in prison in 1994 at the age of 13. 

The Rundown

5:00: What was life like for Jimerson at Maple Lane Juvenile Detention Center. What is it like for children in juvenile detention?

10:00: Adolescent brains aren’t fully formed yet, why do we prosecute them as adults? Who does this serve? How much time is “enough?” Is race a contributing factor in sentencing? (spoiler, yes)

16:00: Day to day life in lockup…

“We send more foster children to prison than to college.”

29:00: Seattle as the second most important character in Claudia’s book, how has it changed?

36:00: Real numbers about OUR children who are in the system.

40:00: Claudia’s current projects

The Wind Down

48:00 Who should we listen to?

Going Further

Time Out (Missing Collection) by Claudia Rowe

Life on the Outside: The Prison Odyssey of Elaine Bartlett by Jennifer Gonnerman 

The Socials

@RoweReport (Twitter)  

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Joy Turner is a podcaster, activist, US Army Veteran, and Louisiana native, who currently works in data for Seattle Public Schools, this interview, however, is in a personal capacity. We had her on the show to share her views about the upcoming 2020 election, reparations, and a pro-black agenda for US politics. 

The Rundown

9:00: What are your priorities for 2020?

17:00: Looking into the Wealth Gap and Black Home Ownership.

21:00: What do we do with a Plurality/Winner-Take-All 2 Party system?

30:00: The Mitch McConnell Question: How do we deal with a political climate in which a senate will never do what’s best for us?

40:00: Thoughts on Buttigieg’s Douglass Plan

45:00: What are the electoral consequences of what we’re talking about here? 

The Wind Down

49:00: Who should we listen to?

This is the image of ADOS co-founder Yvette Carnell, discussed in the Wind Down

Going Further

The Douglas Plan

House Bill 40, a Congressional study on reparations

Nate on Joy’s podcast, Speak Freely

The Socials

@joy_g_turner 

@Spk_Freely 

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Currently a journalist for Daily Kos, David is an American freelance journalist and blogger. He received the National Press Club Award for Distinguished Online Journalism in 2000 for a domestic terrorism series he produced for MSNBC.com. In a previous episode, we learned that Matt Shea, a veteran member of the Washington statehouse, reportedly participated in acts of Domestic Terrorism by engaging in and helping coordinate several standoffs between federal officials and members of far-right militia and patriot movements in the Northwest. This is the second installment of the Matt Shea interviews. If you haven’t listened to episode 84, we suggest you listen to that first.

The Rundown

5:00 De-wonking “Militia” and ‘Patriot Movement’ and what it means.

7:00 Why Matt Shea and his far-right ideology is so dangerous 

16:00 How have Matt Shea and folks like him infiltrated our government?

20:00 The Three Percenters

The Wind Down

35:00 Who should we be listening to?

The Socials

@DavidNeiwert 

Going Further

Episode 84: On Matt Shea with Melissa Santos 

Matt Shea Piece

The Informant Newsletter by Nick Martin  

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Melissa Santos is a writer for Crosscut on the State Government beat. She is a three-time guest of the pod and on December 19 she created national news with her reporting on the activities of Representative Matt Shea (R-Spokane Valley). Shea, a veteran member of the statehouse, reportedly participated in acts of Domestic Terrorism by engaging in and helping coordinate several standoffs between federal officials and members of far-right militia and patriot movements in the Northwest. 

Santos came back on the show to talk about her findings and to walk us through the details of the 108 page, near year-long investigation — which coincidentally was touched off by reporting from past show guest Jason Wilson in the Guardian.

This is a must-listen.

Related Readings

Jason Wilson in the Guardian on Shea’s leaked chats logs

Full text of the State Legislature’s investigation into Matt Shea

Santos’ December 19 article: WA Rep. Matt Shea engaged in ‘domestic terrorism,’ helped plan Malheur standoff, investigation finds

Bundyville Podcast: Season 2, The Politician

The Socials

@MelissaSantos1

@Crosscut 

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In December, we spoke to Seattle Times beat writer Jayda Evans, at the conclusion of her first season covering the team. She’s a long-time sports writer at the Times and new to the soccer beat. Her laugh is infectious and delightful.

We discussed her learning the soccer ropes, her Moment of the Year, Player of the Year, and Story of the Year. She also took a bathroom break during a monologue about her colleague Matt Calkins’ unfortunate opinion piece connecting Seattle Soccer fans to the attacks on “journalist” Andy Ngo. We won’t be linking to it because it’s slop, although we will link to this instead.

It was pointed out in the interview and worth pointing out here that this is an hour of two US born, black Gen Xers talking soccer together — we need more of that.

The Socials

Twitter @JaydaEvans

Going Further

Jayda at the Times

Soccer Study: A Series from Jayda

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Last Sunday we recorded the first-ever Nerd Farmer Live episode at the Swiss in downtown Tacoma–if you didn’t make it you missed out. In the conversation, we focused on the most important stories facing the city and the state in the coming year. A special shout out to all the Channel 253 Members that came through.

Cast of Characters:

• Will James, KNKX on homelessness in Tacoma
• Laurie Jinkins, Speaker of the House, on the 2020 State Legislative Session

Speaker Jinkins broke some news that evening, stating one of her first actions this session is going to be to address the situation over Rep. Matt Shea and his involvement with violent, far-right organizations. We’ll have more on that story in the coming year.

The Nerd Farmer Podcast is available on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, and Google Play and is brought to you by Alaska Airlines

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