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52: Shifting Mindsets: Entrepreneurial Education and the Battle Against White Supremacy w/ Kenrya Rankin
13 Plays6 years ago
In this episode, we discuss Start It Up: The Complete Teen Business Guide to Turning Your Passions into Pay and How We Fight White Supremacy with author Kenrya Rankin. A graduate of Howard University and New York University, Kenrya is an award winning author and speaker whose work has been featured in Fast Company, Ebony, and Glamour. She’s the editorial director for Colorlines. Further, she’s host of the new podcast,The Turn On (NSFW.)
I contacted Kenrya initially while researching entrepreneurship education books for an upcoming class project, and I was impressed by Start It Up and the message it sends. It’s not just a “business plan book” - it features students from all backgrounds starting business in their teenage years. It’s an easy read and perfect for one’s classroom. However, I was more excited when I learned Kenrya has an extensive repertoire of anti-racist advocacy works, and this connections between the two are fascinating. Listen in and enjoy!
RESOURCES
- Kenrya Rankin’s website
- Parent Teacher Home Visits
- How We Fight White Supremacy by Kenrya Rankin and Akiba Soloman
- Start It Up: The Complete Teen Business Guide to Turning Your Passions into Pay by Kenrya Rankin
FURTHER LISTENING
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Podcast Support
00:00:11
Speaker
Hello everyone and welcome to Season 3, Episode 10 of Things Fall Apart at the Human Restoration Project.
00:00:18
Speaker
My name is Chris and I'm a digital art media instructor in Springfield, Ohio.
00:00:22
Speaker
Before we get started, I want to give a brief shout out to three of our Patreon supporters who keep this show going.
00:00:28
Speaker
Michael Hyde, Mary Walls, and Jeremiah Henderson.
00:00:31
Speaker
Thank you for your support.
00:00:32
Speaker
If you'd like to learn more about the Human Restoration Project or would like to support us further, please visit us at humanrestorationproject.org and follow us on Twitter at HumeResPro.
Guest Introduction: Kenria Rankin
00:00:57
Speaker
Today, we're joined by Kenria Rankin.
00:01:00
Speaker
Kenria has an extensive CV.
00:01:02
Speaker
She is graduate of Howard University and New York University.
00:01:05
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She's an award-winning author, journalist, and speaker.
00:01:08
Speaker
She's the editorial director at Color Lines and has been published in Fast Company, Ebony, and Glamour.
00:01:14
Speaker
Her books include Start It Up, The Complete Teen Business Guide to Turning Your Passions into Pay, Bet on Black, African American Women Celebrate Fatherhood in the Age of Barack Obama,
00:01:24
Speaker
in her recently released How We Fight White Supremacy, A Field Guide to Black Resistance, which is co-authored with Akiba Solomon.
00:01:31
Speaker
I contacted Kenria after reading Start It Up when researching entrepreneurial books for an upcoming class project, and it's awesome that she can join us to speak on the current state of entrepreneurial education, as well as greater issues of the education system.
Writing 'Start It Up': Motivation and Themes
00:01:44
Speaker
So starting off, Kenria, could you talk a little bit about what brought you to write Start It Up?
00:01:48
Speaker
Well, the short answer is that somebody asked me to.
00:01:53
Speaker
So the long answer is that I came into this project in a bit of an unusual way.
00:02:00
Speaker
Typically in book publishing, you have an idea, you pitch it to a publisher, they buy your idea, and then you're under contract.
00:02:08
Speaker
But the way that this came about is that I was drafted into the writer's pool of an imprint called Zest Books, which is now housed under Lerner Books.
00:02:18
Speaker
And so they had a pool.
00:02:20
Speaker
And whenever the editors there had an idea of something that they felt like needed to be in their list, they would reach out to everyone in the pool and say, hey, we want to do a book on entrepreneurship.
00:02:31
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Send us your proposal.
00:02:33
Speaker
And then they would pick the proposal that they thought was most closely aligned with what they wanted to do.
00:02:38
Speaker
And at first I didn't really want to do it.
00:02:40
Speaker
I was kind of scared.
00:02:42
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I felt like, oh, what do I have to say about entrepreneurship?
00:02:46
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I didn't think of myself as an entrepreneur, which is crazy because I was literally building my freelance business at the time that that happened.
00:02:54
Speaker
But it kind of kept gnawing at me, like the way that, you know, when you have an idea for something creative, the way that it tends to do where it won't leave you alone.
00:03:03
Speaker
And I was sitting at the hair salon.
00:03:06
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I was like, okay, sure, fine, I'll do it.
00:03:08
Speaker
Like it just kept going through my head.
00:03:11
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And so I remember it was a Saturday and the proposal was due Monday.
00:03:15
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And I went home and started writing.
00:03:18
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Like it just kind of poured out.
00:03:20
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And by the end of that day, I had the bulk of the proposal.
00:03:23
Speaker
It was kind of crazy.
00:03:25
Speaker
And so I submitted it and they picked my book and that's where it came from.
00:03:31
Speaker
But ultimately, what really I think the reason that it was gnawing on me was because I wanted to do something that was different from what I'd seen.
00:03:39
Speaker
I didn't really want to just give folks the nuts and the bolts of creating a business, but I really wanted to get them started from the beginning about feeling not just an external need, which is what we're always taught, right?
00:03:50
Speaker
I was a business administration minor, right?
00:03:52
Speaker
We were taught that if you start something, it needs to be because somebody needs it.
00:03:56
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And that's true and great.
00:03:58
Speaker
But I also think it's important to fulfill an internal need.
00:04:01
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And that's why the subhead on the book is the Complete Team Business Guide to Turning Your Passions into Pay.
00:04:09
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I wanted to help everyone who read the book figure out what they're passionate about and connect that with the need that exists out in the world.
00:04:15
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And I also wanted to take the view of doing it not just to make money, but to use your business to do good, which is why there's a whole chapter that's about giving back in
Diverse Examples of Teenage Entrepreneurs
00:04:24
Speaker
the book.
00:04:24
Speaker
Yeah, and to kind of give even more detail, like in the book, it's really cool.
00:04:29
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The thing I appreciated the most, at least, was that there's all these different examples of teenage entrepreneurs.
00:04:35
Speaker
And it's not just people that made like a million dollars.
00:04:38
Speaker
It's just people that are doing small businesses and just doing things that they enjoy doing.
00:04:42
Speaker
Because a lot of times when you check these books out,
00:04:45
Speaker
It's like stories of Bill Gates or Steve Jobs or... Yeah, it's about, it's the gurus and the people who, you know, you can't necessarily see yourself in.
00:04:55
Speaker
And it was really important to me that when people pick the book up, that they would be able to see themselves somewhere in there and that it would inspire them to be able to try to do the same thing.
Teaching Entrepreneurship Skills: Passion First
00:05:05
Speaker
And do you think that's a skill that every student should be learning, that entrepreneurship is something that is homogenous across our whole culture?
00:05:13
Speaker
I mean, I do.
00:05:14
Speaker
I think that it can teach really important lessons.
00:05:17
Speaker
And, you know, I think that when you learn about entrepreneurship, my goal at least is that they can pick up three major things, right?
00:05:27
Speaker
So the first is that they are able to discover their passion.
00:05:30
Speaker
And I say passion for a reason, as opposed to saying purpose, which is what I think is often, you know, used in this area.
00:05:37
Speaker
And that's because I deeply believe
00:05:40
Speaker
But we have got to rethink this capitalist idea of connecting our self-worth with what we can produce.
00:05:46
Speaker
I am not put on this earth to write books.
00:05:48
Speaker
I enjoy it.
00:05:49
Speaker
I love it.
00:05:50
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I love the people I write them for.
00:05:51
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But that's not my ultimate purpose.
00:05:53
Speaker
And I don't think that that's what we should be teaching our kids.
00:05:57
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But I do think that we have to make money to survive.
00:06:00
Speaker
And so I want them to figure out how they can be autonomous while doing something that also that they enjoy.
00:06:07
Speaker
The second thing is that I want them to learn the skills that make a great entrepreneur and not just for the sake of being able to run a successful business, but because I think that those skills are super transferable.
00:06:20
Speaker
You can use them all over the place, whether it's, you know, at school or in your relationships.
00:06:26
Speaker
Learning things like creating a workable plan and seeing it through, managing your money, communicating well, treating people with respect, which you talk a lot about in the chapter on, you know, dealing with customers and asking for help.
00:06:41
Speaker
will take you really far.
00:06:43
Speaker
And then the third thing is that I want them to not only learn how to tap into the creativity, but I want them to hold on to this sense that I think we're all born with, but that a lot of times gets beaten out of us along the way, which is that you can do literally everything.
00:06:59
Speaker
My daughter is eight.
00:07:00
Speaker
And if you asked her today or yesterday or tomorrow,
00:07:05
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She's got about what she wants to be when she grows up.
00:07:07
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She has this long list and it's always changing, but there's like some things that are always on there.
00:07:12
Speaker
Like she wants to be a singer.
00:07:13
Speaker
She wants to be a top chef.
00:07:14
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She wants to be a YouTube star.
00:07:17
Speaker
a magician, a veterinarian, and an artist.
00:07:21
Speaker
Those things are pretty much mainstays on the list.
00:07:24
Speaker
But I've never told her that she couldn't do any of those things or all of those things.
00:07:29
Speaker
We actually have lots of conversations about how at different phases of your life, you can do different things and how you don't have to be locked into one career and,
00:07:38
Speaker
She, with all of those things, when she talks about them, they are from an entrepreneurial mindset.
00:07:43
Speaker
She's thinking about how she can do those things to make money on her own.
00:07:48
Speaker
And I guess it's because it's modeled.
00:07:50
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She's never seen me go to work.
00:07:51
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I always have worked from home since she's been alive.
00:07:55
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And I want other young entrepreneurs to be able to hold up that spirit of creativity and innovation, even if they don't know that word yet.
00:08:04
Speaker
Yeah.
00:08:05
Speaker
Yeah, and I mean you've already hinted at this, but could you elaborate a little bit more on – the counterpoint would be that a lot of times entrepreneurship education gets a bad rap in one regard because it is focused around making money.
00:08:21
Speaker
And a lot of times money can be a very corrupting force.
00:08:23
Speaker
Mm-hmm.
Critique of Traditional Entrepreneurship Education
00:08:24
Speaker
So, well, a lot of times, almost all the time.
00:08:29
Speaker
So what would you say to people that are looking at, you know, the book about teenage entrepreneurship and they're saying you're basically going to train kids to be Donald Trump.
00:08:40
Speaker
You're going to train them to be, you know, like a money seeking like sleazeball of sorts.
00:08:47
Speaker
I would say that they haven't actually read Start It Up, right?
00:08:50
Speaker
Because while I think that there are a lot of books that are super focused on the money aspect of it, it really is about connecting with your passion and about how you can use that to make the world better.
00:09:04
Speaker
Look, capitalism sucks.
00:09:06
Speaker
We all know that as we're living in it.
00:09:09
Speaker
But as I said earlier, we do have to, unfortunately, this is a system that we live in.
00:09:14
Speaker
We do not barter services and we do not live in a utopia where we get to use our talents to directly impact the folks who we live in close connection with.
00:09:25
Speaker
And so you do have to be able to make money.
00:09:27
Speaker
But my goal is not so much to teach kids how to make money as to connect with what it is that they love to do.
00:09:37
Speaker
I think that's perfect.
00:09:38
Speaker
I mean, that sells the book to me.
00:09:45
Speaker
I hope you're enjoying the podcast thus far.
00:09:47
Speaker
I sincerely appreciate you listening in.
00:09:49
Speaker
And if you enjoy the work, please head over to humanrestorationproject.org to find our free resources and wealth of writings.
00:09:56
Speaker
And then, if you think we should keep going, take a gander at our Patreon page,
00:10:01
Speaker
For a dollar a month, you'll receive a professional print-ready electronic magazine of our work every two months.
00:10:07
Speaker
But as always, all of that work is available free online.
00:10:10
Speaker
Kind of building into a grander scheme of questions.
00:10:14
Speaker
To be honest, before I read this book, I didn't know who you were.
00:10:18
Speaker
And then I Googled you and I was like, wow, this is not what I expected.
00:10:23
Speaker
Like your other work has absolutely really nothing to do with like teenage entrepreneurship.
00:10:29
Speaker
You know, you're an editor of Color Lines.
00:10:31
Speaker
You've co-written or collected together this book, How We Fight White Supremacy, as well as many other works that I'll put in the show notes.
00:10:40
Speaker
So I have to connect together the thoughts of your book with, I mean, the rest of your background and things that you've written about.
00:10:48
Speaker
And the question that I pose to you is surrounding the education market.
00:10:53
Speaker
Sadly, when I think of entrepreneurship education, to be frank, I think of a bunch of old white guys talking to people about, you know, exactly what we were just talking about.
00:11:05
Speaker
And talking down to them about it, too.
00:11:07
Speaker
Yeah.
00:11:07
Speaker
Those books tend to never get political.
00:11:10
Speaker
They never talk about anything that might prevent them from selling a book, quote unquote, as in, you know, they're scared that, you know, if they say anything that might be out of line, that might be a bad thing.
00:11:20
Speaker
What are your thoughts just in general about the current state of entrepreneurship, education, and maybe just the education market when it comes to like professional development?
00:11:31
Speaker
I mean, I think that at this point, any materials that claim to promote innovation but ignore the realities of how white supremacy, which is propped up by things like racism and sexism and homophobia and transphobia and ableism and classism, when they ignore those things, I think those books are ineffective at best and dangerous at their worst.
00:11:57
Speaker
You know, I wish I'd had a stronger lens when I wrote started up in 2010.
00:12:03
Speaker
But I do think, you know, one thing that I did do very intentionally was include primarily entrepreneurs of color who are from various socioeconomic backgrounds.
00:12:11
Speaker
It was important to me that there be a lot of different representation, as I was saying earlier.
00:12:16
Speaker
But I think, you know, and I can speak specifically to young people because that's the arena that I've worked in when it comes to this.
00:12:24
Speaker
I think very often we underestimate what they can process and what they can apply when it comes to topics that some adults label as difficult.
00:12:34
Speaker
If we're being honest, those are just topics that they don't really want to have an honorable, honorable, well, honorable too, but an honest, vulnerable conversation about because they don't want to be challenged and they don't want to have to examine how their privilege bolsters them and their work.
00:12:52
Speaker
And that's where those white men come in.
00:12:54
Speaker
But I think that we really need to have more than just the people who are at the top of the white supremacist hierarchy.
00:13:00
Speaker
And I'm talking wealthy, traditionally educated, white, straight, cisgender, Christian, able-bodied men out here doing the work of entrepreneurship
Implementing Anti-Bias Training in Schools
00:13:09
Speaker
education.
00:13:09
Speaker
Because at the point that you bring in folks who represent, you know, lots of different diverse backgrounds,
00:13:17
Speaker
that seeps in.
00:13:19
Speaker
Like, you know, you were saying you had to kind of like, what's the through line of my work?
00:13:23
Speaker
The through line is that I'm a black woman.
00:13:26
Speaker
And so that is my lens on everything that I do.
00:13:29
Speaker
And while my politics have definitely come through stronger, I mean, I wrote a book for God's sake called How We Fight White Supremacy.
00:13:39
Speaker
That lens is always there.
00:13:41
Speaker
And I think that that's why it's important that they are not the only ones who are doing this work.
00:13:46
Speaker
And speaking of how we fight white supremacy, something that you bring up multiple times is your work in schools as a parent and advocating for anti-bias training and bringing in that perspective.
00:14:00
Speaker
And full disclosure, I work in a fairly rural school.
00:14:04
Speaker
It's very difficult to bring up that conversation in that community.
00:14:09
Speaker
Yeah.
00:14:10
Speaker
And I hate to say that, but it's true.
00:14:13
Speaker
So did you run into any issues when you were trying to bring in anti-bias training as a parent?
00:14:19
Speaker
I'm expecting that's a yes.
00:14:22
Speaker
But then do you have any suggestions for someone who really wants that, but they're really just not sure of the route of doing that?
00:14:31
Speaker
Yeah.
00:14:32
Speaker
I mean, it's difficult because I don't think that there's one specific best course of action.
00:14:38
Speaker
I mean, I think that one of the most important things that you have to consider when you're organizing is where are you starting?
00:14:46
Speaker
So what are the local conditions?
00:14:48
Speaker
What's the, you know, the folks who want to do it, whether it be the entire administration or a couple of rogue teachers within the school?
00:14:56
Speaker
What's their true intention for doing this work?
00:14:59
Speaker
And who's in place and able to carry the burden?
00:15:03
Speaker
And what privilege are they willing to give up or use in order to support the folks within their system who don't have it?
00:15:11
Speaker
As you said, I have worked with educators.
00:15:15
Speaker
And what I have encountered in some places is that they say that they want to make their schools welcoming.
00:15:21
Speaker
And I'm doing air quotes, y'all, for folks of color, which doesn't really mean anything.
00:15:28
Speaker
But they thought that the one thing that they had to do was do like an anti-bias training and then that would be enough to move the needle.
00:15:36
Speaker
But they didn't really give any thought to the values that they wanted to establish and then live into.
00:15:42
Speaker
They didn't create any guidelines for policy or for implementing that policy.
00:15:47
Speaker
They didn't do any evaluation of how they're recruiting and also treating their employees of color.
00:15:53
Speaker
There was no real willingness to do any work beyond saying, hey, y'all are welcome.
00:16:00
Speaker
And so they weren't doing anything that really created an environment where children of color weren't forced to give up little pieces of themselves every day just to keep the peace.
Educators' Role in Addressing Inequities
00:16:08
Speaker
And, you know, that in my case resulted in me moving my child to another school because it was ultimately harmful for her.
00:16:17
Speaker
But that said, I think that many places and folks who want to do this kind of work within their schools, a good way to start is by investing resources and bringing in a third-party organization to come in within the environment where you work and thinking that you can do a massive overhaul of an inherently racist institution, which in a lot of ways we know that education is an institution that is
00:16:45
Speaker
deep in white supremacy and anti-blackness in the same way that, you know, politics are and entertainment is and all of these things.
00:16:53
Speaker
I think it's folly often to think that we can do it from inside, but bringing in a third party, which involves investing actual resources.
00:17:00
Speaker
But when some, you know, oftentimes when we have to put our money into something, that's when we begin to take it seriously.
00:17:06
Speaker
It's not just a couple of folks having a meeting one day and saying, okay, we want to make everyone feel welcomed here, which is what I have experienced.
00:17:14
Speaker
Yeah.
00:17:14
Speaker
Yeah.
00:17:15
Speaker
And I, I like the idea too, of local organization, as opposed to like waiting for like a nonprofit.
00:17:21
Speaker
In fact, one of your authors wrote about this in this book, her name is Bianca.
00:17:27
Speaker
Oh, yep.
00:17:28
Speaker
She's an artist.
00:17:30
Speaker
Yep.
00:17:30
Speaker
And I liked what she had to say surrounding this idea of local coalitions, as opposed to kind of donating to a nonprofit or waiting for the nonprofit to come in, because that's a really good point.
00:17:42
Speaker
I mean,
00:17:44
Speaker
If nonprofits were doing fantastic everywhere, we wouldn't – I mean, these problems are pervasive.
00:17:48
Speaker
I'm sure anyone listening to this would connect and relate.
00:17:52
Speaker
That's just the way things are.
00:17:54
Speaker
And it's going to rely on people kind of taking the reign and going rogue, use the terminology.
00:18:00
Speaker
But it's true in order to make that happen.
00:18:03
Speaker
Yeah.
00:18:04
Speaker
Speaking of local organization, something that we talk a lot about on this podcast is it's one thing to say like we can transform our classroom and be a more welcoming classroom and have an anti-bias education, et cetera, et cetera.
00:18:19
Speaker
And all those things are really good things.
00:18:21
Speaker
But there are underlying inequities in the United States, such as poverty, such as the community that one lives in, such as the money and how it's being distributed.
00:18:32
Speaker
Those have a huge place inside the classroom that makes it very difficult to teach.
00:18:36
Speaker
Do you think that there's a place for educators to enter that space of public policy?
00:18:42
Speaker
And do you have any suggestions for educators who maybe are hesitant to take that step into the political arena or to talk more openly about their beliefs on community activism?
00:18:54
Speaker
So I think there's room for educators in every space.
00:18:57
Speaker
We need y'all.
00:18:59
Speaker
One thing that I think is really important, and Ella Baker, she was a
00:19:03
Speaker
black woman organizer who helped fund found SNCC, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.
00:19:09
Speaker
And, you know, she always encouraged people to start fighting right where they are.
00:19:12
Speaker
And I think that's probably my best advice for folks.
00:19:15
Speaker
So, you know, to run with that idea of poverty, you know, I'm not an educator, but I do know that there are lots of times where that rears its head right inside our schools.
00:19:26
Speaker
Right.
00:19:27
Speaker
There are so many opportunities for us as for folks who are educators to start their fight right there.
00:19:32
Speaker
You know, more than 20 percent of our kids in the United States are living in poverty and another 20 percent are living in homes that are deemed low income.
00:19:40
Speaker
You know, what can you do about things like unpaid lunch debt in your district that aren't just that you paid one debt, but what can you do to organize writ large across your district?
00:19:52
Speaker
How can you close the achievement gap between the haves and the have-nots in your classroom?
00:19:56
Speaker
Do you have lesson plans that break down classism and food deserts and redlining?
00:20:02
Speaker
Do you keep snacks in an inconspicuous place for the kids who come to school who are too hungry to be able to concentrate?
00:20:09
Speaker
What programming can you implement that involves caregivers whose jobs are not flexible enough to let them be able to visit your classroom, but who want to be involved in the education of their kids?
00:20:20
Speaker
You know, I think that there's often no need to reinvent the wheel.
00:20:23
Speaker
You know, we're talking about local organizations, like what's happening in your community?
00:20:28
Speaker
What organizations can you join forces with to address poverty and the populations that you're already working with?
00:20:34
Speaker
You know, so jumping into the arena doesn't look like, doesn't have to look like becoming a lobbyist and, you know, come into D.C.
00:20:42
Speaker
where I live.
00:20:43
Speaker
Right.
00:20:43
Speaker
You can start right where you are.
00:20:46
Speaker
I sit on the board of this nonprofit.
00:20:49
Speaker
called parent-teacher home visits.
00:20:51
Speaker
And the whole thing is that we send educators into the homes of their students to meet with their guardians, right where they are, to form relationships that better address the needs of their kids.
00:21:03
Speaker
And it's been proven to improve academic performance across the board.
00:21:08
Speaker
I think that we're doing ourselves a disservice if we underestimate the impact of partnering with like-minded educators.
00:21:16
Speaker
Yeah.
00:21:17
Speaker
That non-profit sounds really cool, even though we were just talking about a completely counterintuitive point, but it does sound really interesting.
00:21:24
Speaker
I like that idea.
00:21:25
Speaker
Yeah, and it has local chapters.
00:21:26
Speaker
So, you know, perhaps that is how you, you know, someone could decide that they want to partner with parent-teacher home visits and bring that program into their district.
00:21:36
Speaker
And look, you've
00:21:38
Speaker
drawn on a pedagogy that is larger, but you're working with people who are right there where you are to work with your direct population to address the impacts of poverty on your students.
Hope and Inspiration in Fighting Inequality
00:21:51
Speaker
The hardest question, at least for me to think about, you know, I'm reading through this book and this conversation after maybe like the first two questions becomes rather bleak, to be honest.
00:22:00
Speaker
I mean, a lot of this discussion is like very, like it's not a happy discussion.
00:22:04
Speaker
And going on social media, there's always a new media craze surrounding something that's really sad going on in the United States.
00:22:11
Speaker
These things are hard to address.
00:22:13
Speaker
What hopes do you have surrounding – do you see things approving on the horizon?
00:22:18
Speaker
Do you feel like people are starting to organize more?
00:22:20
Speaker
Is there – what kind of keeps you going?
00:22:23
Speaker
So, I mean, this may be surprising, but I'm full of hope.
00:22:28
Speaker
You know, as you mentioned, my latest book is called How We Fight White Supremacy.
00:22:32
Speaker
And it chronicles the ways that Black people resist in the face of cultural, political, and economic systems that thrive on the subjugation of people who are not white.
00:22:42
Speaker
That's how we define white supremacy.
00:22:44
Speaker
And it came out in March.
00:22:47
Speaker
And in that, like, since then, I've been traveling, doing book talks and meet and greets and all that kind of stuff all over the country.
00:22:55
Speaker
And
00:22:58
Speaker
the moments that really stick with me or, you know, after we've done the reading and, you know, talked about the big themes and we're sitting at the table, my coauthor Akiba Solomon and I, and people come up to the table and they have their book and it's like dog-eared and they've, you know, marked all over it and got sticky notes.
00:23:21
Speaker
And they're like, you know, this book really helped me figure out what I'm supposed to do.
00:23:26
Speaker
It helped me figure out what my purpose is.
00:23:29
Speaker
I can't, so I'm a bit of a crybaby, but I can't tell you how many times that has made me cry as I'm hugging a virtual stranger, but who doesn't feel like a stranger anymore because they have read this book and felt a super duper connection with it.
00:23:43
Speaker
And one of the things that we wanted folks to feel or to do by the time that they finished the final chapter, which is about freedom dreaming,
00:23:55
Speaker
You know, this idea of stepping outside of the confines that we find ourselves in right now and imagining what we want our society, a just society to actually look like.
00:24:06
Speaker
Because I think that very often we get bogged down in the reaction, right?
00:24:12
Speaker
Like so much of what we're doing is a reaction to the latest crazy tweet or the, you know, unhinged and dangerous and violent policy.
00:24:24
Speaker
And when we get mired in that, it's hard for us to think about what we want this world to actually look like.
00:24:29
Speaker
And so that chapter asks people to just stop and close their eyes and envision what a society that does not have all of these things in it actually looks like so that we're not putting ourselves at risk of perpetuating it, right?
00:24:43
Speaker
And I just find so much joy and so much hope in the people who tell me that they figured out the way that
00:24:54
Speaker
They can join the millions of people who are, you know, collectively working to advance the fight against this system that really means to do us harm.
00:25:02
Speaker
That brings me joy and hope.
Conclusion and Call for Support
00:25:09
Speaker
Thank you again for listening to Things Fall Apart from the Human Restoration Project.
00:25:13
Speaker
I hope this conversation leaves you inspired and ready to push the progressive envelope of education.
00:25:18
Speaker
If you have time, I'd love for you to leave us a review on iTunes, social media, or anywhere that you see fit.
00:25:24
Speaker
I mention iTunes specifically because the more ratings we have there, the higher we rank on the education podcast list.
00:25:30
Speaker
And the more listeners we have, the better we're going to do.
00:25:33
Speaker
We can't do this without you, and I'm humbled by the opportunity to help broadcast this message to as many people as we possibly can.
00:25:39
Speaker
So let's push forward together and restore humanity.