Movement Memos

“It's all hands on deck for the forces of the prison industrial complex, the forces of capitalism … they are willing to use any and all tactics and tools available to them, whether that's literal murder, whether that's trying to deter the broader movement by slapping people with domestic terrorism charges. As environmental catastrophe is upon us, I think the forces of capital are organizing themse...

“We know that capitalism, which is already racial, gendered and violent, is not inevitable. And there's nothing natural about it,” says Robyn Maynard. In this episode, host Kelly Hayes talks with Rehearsals for Living authors Robyn Maynard and Leanne Betasamosake Simpson about about organizing and parenting amid catastrophe, and how organizers can build new worlds, even as the worlds we know colla...

“How do we practice deep and reciprocal relationships as resistance to our culture of transactionalism and extraction?” asks Tanuja Jagernauth. In this year-end episode of “Movement Memos,” Jagernauth and host Kelly Hayes discuss the cultivation of hope, how activists can practice reciprocal care, the importance of celebrating big and small victories, and how to process painful feelings without be...

“Liberatory Harm Reduction is concrete. It is a framework, but it is also a daily practice, and it is also a set of strategies. So what strategies do we need that prioritize self-determination and body autonomy right now? And how can we come up with whatever it is that we need collectively to get us through?” asks Shira Hassan, author of Saving Our Own Lives. In this episode, Shira talks with Kell...

“There's no doubt that we have to abolish the carceral state. And there's no doubt that policing and racial capitalism go hand in hand so that we can't be pursuing abolition in a capitalist context,” says author and organizer Andrea Ritchie. In this episode, Andrea and Kelly talk about why the Democrats will not save us, the relationship between abolition and the state, and why it’s so hard for mo...

"There's so much deference to police around everything to do with public safety. What they say is taken as gospel without question, without requiring proof of concept, without requiring any kind of accountability for when what they're saying actually doesn't line up with the facts or people's experiences," says author and organizer Andrea Ritchie. In this episode of Movement Memos, Andrea and Kell...

“Our mutual investment in one another’s survival is our greatest resource, and our greatest hope,” says Kelly Hayes. In this episode of “Movement Memos,” Hayes talks with anthropologist and survivalist instructor Chris Begley about the lessons of his book The Next Apocalypse: The Art and Science of Survival, and why many of us might be preparing for the wrong apocalypse. You can find a transcript...

“We have to be politically serious about how much agreement and how much alignment we're going to require in a world of a resurging far-right fascist movement across the globe,” says philosopher and author Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò. In this episode of Movement Memos, Táíwò and Kelly Hayes discuss the lessons of Táíwò’s book, Elite Capture: How the Powerful Took Over Identity Politics (And Everything Else)...

“I want you to fight, I want you to organize, I want you to talk to your neighbors, I want you to have a meeting, I want you to get a spreadsheet and just the same way that we can organize a barbecue, we can all figure out what it means to actually take control of some of these housing units,” says organizer Sterling Johnson. In this episode, host Kelly Hayes talks with Johnson and UC Townhome res...

“Forces that have been awakened are not ones that can be tucked away. And it will be a struggle, perhaps, for the rest of our lives,” says Tal Lavin, author of Culture Warlords: My Journey into the Dark Web of White Supremacy. In this episode, Lavin and host Kelly Hayes talk about how right-wingers get radicalized, liberal and left-wing complicity, and the avoidance of despair. You can find a tran...

“The stakes right now are really high when it comes to queer and trans life. I can say in terms of my own lifetime, I haven't felt like it has been this dangerous ever,” says journalist Melissa Gira Grant. In this episode, Kelly talks with Gira Grant about right-wing attacks on trans people, Republican school board takeovers, and how the right’s “groomer” discourse has expanded to include queer pe...

“Framing health as a personal responsibility doesn't work. And it's one of the greatest tricks that capitalism has ever pulled,” says author and podcaster Beatrice Adler-Bolton. In this episode, Adler-Bolton and host Kelly Hayes discuss the extractive nature of the U.S. health care system, the dominance of COVID nihilism, and why we cannot give up on universal health care. You can find a transcrip...

“It is about 5:30 in Alabama on the first morning of there being no legal abortion when our clinic should be open. And it's probably not an exaggeration to say that this is the point where I broke,” said Robin Marty, Director of Operations at the West Alabama Women’s Center. In this episode, Kelly talks with Marty, as well as Rafa Kidvai, the director the Repro Legal Defense Fund, and Ash Williams...

“Get with your people … and just take a second to appreciate yourself for the ways in which you are surviving a truly unprecedented time,” says organizer Tanuja Jagernauth. In this episode, Jagernauth and Kelly discuss the work of cultivating hope amid catastrophe and how activists can craft a vision for action. This episode is the second installment in a three-part conversation about the practice...

“We have to be thinking and dreaming and planning really expansively … because when Roe falls, band-aid solutions are not going to be enough,” says Meghan Daniel, a support coordinator with the Chicago Abortion Fund. In this episode of Movement Memos, Daniel and host Kelly Hayes talk about the end of Roe, abolishing police and prisons and how funding abortions builds power. You can find a transcri...

“Alabama was able to pass a felony ban on healthcare, essentially, potentially punishing doctors and parents with up to 10 years in prison for providing or supporting trans people in accessing medically necessary and life-saving medical treatment [and] it barely registered on any mainstream news.” In this episode, Kelly talks with activist and attorney Chase Strangio about worsening attacks on tra...

“The people who want to harm, subjugate and destroy us have not been deterred by warnings that their political vision is too radical, or even impossible. We cannot afford to restrict our own aspirations in the face of such enemies." In this episode, Kelly talks with author Shane Burley discuss the connection between attacks on abortion rights and the barrage of anti-trans laws that have passed in...

“It's time to get clarity and we can actively create that clarity. This is the time to find our alignment,” says activist Tanuja Jagernauth. In these challenging times, how are activists and organizers holding onto hope? In this episode, Kelly talks with organizer and healing justice practitioner Tanuja Jagernauth about the maintenance of hope as a discipline. If you need a transcript, you can fin...

“We are in truly dire straits right now. We are overwhelmed. We are overrun,” says Robin Marty, Communications Director for the West Alabama Women's Center and author of The New Handbook For a Post-Roe America. In this episode of Movement Memos, Robin and Kelly talk about how people can prepare, personally and politically, for the realities of a post-Roe world. If you need a transcript, you can fi...

“This strategy of making fetal protection more important than the lives and freedom of women and other pregnant people began with the prosecutions of Black women, who were pregnant and using drugs,” says Dorothy Roberts, author of Torn Apart and Killing The Black Body. In this episode Kelly and Dr. Roberts and host Kelly Hayes discuss the leaked draft SCOTUS opinion that would end Roe and how the...

“We want a world where people are supported, where our people are not made forcibly vulnerable to violence, and where interventions occur long before someone goes missing." In this episode of Movement Memos, Kelly talks with and Morning Star Gali talk about how Indigenous abolitionists are addressing the crisis of missing and murdered women, girls and two spirit people. If you need a transcript, y...

Our entrenched, public reactions and political rituals around mass shootings are growing shorter, as these nightmare scenarios become an almost normalized aspect of the U.S. landscape. In this episode, Kelly talks with author and educator Patrick Blanchfield about what isn’t working, why and what we need to do instead. If you need a transcript, you can find that on our website: bit.ly/movementmem...

“For anybody who is caught up in the systems that are shaped by extractive capitalism and organized violence, there is a cumulative and compounded effect on their persons and their lives,” says scholar and activist Ruth Wilson Gilmore. In this episode of “Movement Memos,” Gilmore talks with Kelly Hayes about prison abolition, the climate crisis, and what must be done. If you need a transcript, you...

“The Pentagon has a blanket exemption from all global climate agreements – in effect, a license to kill the natural world without consequence,” says Kelly Hayes. In this episode, Kelly and Kawenaʻulaokalā Kapahua discuss the U.S. military’s role in environmental devastation and explore lessons from the campaign to shut down the Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility on the island of O'ahu – and what...

“None of us know where this is going,” says author and activist Dean Spade. “It's not looking good, but what do I want to spend the rest of my life doing? Being fully alive, being with other people, being in it together, taking risks, being really, really caring, [and] learning to love people even if they annoy me.” In the spring of 2020, the U.S. saw an unprecedented wave of mutual aid projects i...