Redesign America with Mustafa Ali-Smith

This episode of Redesign America features a reading of an essay by Mustafa Ali-Smith, published on January 4, titled “The Price of Freedom: On Clemency Power and the Selective Nature of American Mercy.” Get full access to Redesign America at redesignamerica.substack.com/subscribe

I was sitting at home when my phone began to vibrate repeatedly, notifications stacking on top of one another from various news outlets. The repetition alone suggested something serious. My first thought was what foolishness has President Trump unleashed on the world now? Just days ago, he kidnapped a country’s president , Nicholas Maduro of Venezuela, boasting ‘f**k around and find out.’ By the t...

On this month’s episode of Redesign America, Mustafa Ali-Smith is joined by Taylor Bauldwin, who works at the intersection of food, tech, and the environment, to discuss environmental racism and injustice and its disproportionate impact on Black and brown communities. How did we get here? How have communities around the country been impacted by environmental racism and injustice? And what can we d...

On today’s relaunch episode, host Mustafa Ali-Smith is joined by Katy Otto, Director of Communications at Juvenile Law Center, to discuss how the idea of Redesign America came to be, its focus, and why the podcast is more critical and urgent now than ever. Get full access to Redesign America at redesignamerica.substack.com/subscribe

As more people are emerging into conversations of defunding, divesting, and dismantling from police departments and the institutions they represent, we need to understand how these conversations fit into the framework of abolition. On this episode, we are joined by Jeneisha Harris, organizer and activist, to discuss the history of policing, the differences between reform and abolition, and how abo...

The Black Lives Matter Movement is an important one, but we do ourselves an injustice by suppressing some of its voices. In this episode, we are joined by Stephon Bradberry (@stephon_jb), Founder of We, Too, are America (@w2aa_org), to talk about the importance of critically acknowledging and uplifting all Black lives, not just some. This conversation looks at how our history has left queer, trans...