The Round Table: A YVote Podcast

Our guest Cathy Buerger told us about the genesis of the twitter handle, “Yes, you’re racist”--a great example of counter speech. It was started by Logan Smith after searching for posts that started with “I’m not racist but” which, inevitably, WERE followed by something very racist. So he started retweeting such posts under the “Yes, you’re racist” handle. And the account now has 350K followers. S...

On this week’s podcast, we had the pleasure of being joined by Cathy Buerger of the Dangerous Speech Project (DSP.) The DSP studies the relationship between speech and intercommunity violence and, most importantly, different effective methods to respond to hateful speech to diminish harmful impacts. Cathy is an anthropologist by training, with a specialty in studying how communities come together...

At this week's Round Table, Divya, Isaiah, Olivia, and Madeline continued our series on creating healthy discourse online in conversation with Cathy Buerger , Director of Research at the Dangerous Speech Project at American University. Today, many fear that free speech can go too far and feel it should be regulated in some way--but who do we trust to make decisions about what we can say and not sa...

At this week's Round Table, Eliza, Inica, Isaiah, Madeline and Olivia spoke with Ben Gordon of CitizenLab , a digital democracy platform that facilitates communication and co-creation between cities and their communities. Residents can post, discuss, and upvote their own ideas or choose to vote, prioritize, and fund projects and programs that their city is considering. Over 200+ cities around the...

Madeline shared her recommendation that people take time to understand their emotions when heading into heated conversations--which can be really hard when you’re feeling a lot of things all at once! But if we make an effort to be aware of our feelings, we can make more of an effort to really listen to another person. She noted how right now, we can express our feelings in so many different ways i...

Isaiah noted that talking with people you don’t agree with is never easy but it IS important. A first step is recognizing that you’re speaking with someone who sees things differently than you and not attacking them or being belligerent. Isaiah underscored that hard conversations ARE necessary for growth. One can’t ONLY speak with people one sees eye to eye with and if you are, that’s limiting sin...

Madeline spoke reverently of the “personable charm” of local coverage. She talked about the comfort of seeing a face or hearing a voice and connecting it to another human being, which doesn’t happen in the same way through an article or social media. She noted that if we slowed things down and took more time to pay attention to other human beings, listen to the radio, watch the local news, it coul...

John talked about the shift in our nation’s politics, which he feels is actually rooted at the local level. Although people tend to talk about what’s happening in The Senate and Congress, it’s really at the grassroots where a lot of these tectonic changes are happening. Without a press to observe and report on political parties and individuals, it doesn’t take a lot to gain undue power. It creates...

John Davidow underscored the incredible responsibility public media has to get the story right AND to get it out to where people are. Social media helps amplify and extend radio’s ability to do that. He also noted that COVID is a quintessential local news story (as well as, of course, being a global news story.) People really cared what was going on and public radio leaned into being needed, doing...

John Davidow shared his assessment of the biggest questions facing digital public media today: “How well are we meeting the demands of the public? How do our newsrooms reflect the values of our increasingly diverse audience?” He noted that recent years have led to a moral and ethical reckoning for leaders in journalism to grapple with questions like, “are we meeting the needs of our audiences? Wha...

John Davidow talked about the pros and cons of digital media, noting that it’s very broad and affects people in different ways. There are a million ways to tap into an audience and a million ways for them to be engaged. In some ways, it’s very empowering since once can listen to it when and how you want. It can be a much more layered and deeper OR it can be a quick hit, Buzzfeed Top 5 ways to do w...

This week we were fortunate to interview John Davidow, who has spent his career in broadcast news, until recently running digital for WBUR public radio for the last dozen years. He shared with us that there’s a phrase in television, “it’s off to Venus”: you put it in the air and it dissolves into electrons. There’s no true historical record. John noted that news is a disposable commodity--people d...

At this week's Round Table, Divya, Inica, and Madeline spoke with John Davidow , who has spent his career in news, most recently running digital for WBUR public radio for a dozen years. John’s current focus is on how we can represent a broader multitude of views and voices inside and outside of the newsroom in order to generate better news. He is well aware that news can be disposable--quick hits...

It’s not always easy or straightforward to know how to quantify the success of a movement. Our podcast guest Hardy Merriman shared that there are two main ways scholars do so. One way is to look at was the direct goal set--for ex, did the policy get changed? Another way is to look atthe collateral effects of the movement--to recognize that the policy may not get changed right away BUT the stage wa...

At this week's Round Table, Divya, Eliza, Inica, Madeline, and Olivia spoke with Hardy Merriman , President and CEO of the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict .  At the Center, Hardy studies nonviolent movements that are fighting for freedom, justice, and independence all over the world, historically and currently. We talked about what sparks protests, why some movements succeed and o...

Our podcast guest, principal Dimitri Saliani, went to NYC public school himself, attending Brooklyn Tech during its most diverse period, and that diversity was a vital part of his high school experience. Unfortunately, Eleanor Roosevelt has become far less diverse over the years, which concerns Mr Saliani. As he noted, he didn’t become a school leader to educate the elite but rather to educate you...

Divya raised a question about how Mr Saliani handled a very ugly, very public racist incident at the school last year. Mr Saliani noted how “heinous and upsetting” the incident was, and how important it was to help the community heal. He shared how challenging it was to balance competing demands--for ex, demands for expulsion of the students involved vs taking a restorative approach to educate the...

We were fortunate to speak with an outstanding New York City High School principal for this week’s podcast to get a better understanding of what it’s like to lead a school in the time of COVID. Dimitri Saliani has been an educator for 24 years, helped found Eleanor Roosevelt High School as a high school teacher, and has been leading the school for a dozen years. Needless to say, this year has been...

At this week's Round Table, Divya, Eliza, Inica, Isaiah, and Madeline spoke with Dimitri Saliani, principal of Eleanor Roosevelt High School on the Upper East Side of New York City about the challenges of running a New York City public high school from one’s kitchen. Leading a school in the time of COVID is no joke, and it was eye-opening and humbling to learn more about all that goes on behind th...

At this week's Round Table, recorded on the evening of Wed, Jan 20,  Eliza, Inica, Isaiah, Madeline, and Olivia spoke with friend of the pod Nicholas Stefanidis, veteran teacher of Government and U.S. History and the PERFECT guest with whom to discuss the days historic inauguration.  Our podcasters were all in middle school during the last inauguration, making this inauguration all the m...

At this week's Round Table, Divya, Eliza, Inica, and Madeline spoke with Brianna Cea, Cofounder and CEO of Generation Vote , which is building a movement of young people to advance youth voting rights and transform the way young people engage in politics. In light of recent events, we wanted to discuss the history--and future--of civic unrest, protest and, most importantly, movement building and t...

At this week's Round Table, Eliza, Inica, Isaiah, Madeline, Olivia, and I spoke with Michelle Mason and Shanakay Salman from the Institute for Innovation in Prosecution (IIP) at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. We recorded this conversation on the evening of Jan 6, just hours after a mob incited by President Trump stormed the Capitol to disrupt Congress certifying the election--and Trump open...

Next to learning, being seen and known within a school community is paramount yet sadly, school can sometimes be a very anonymous place. As our guest Frank Stebbins noted, “just a simple hello in the hallway can go a long way.” In a school year dominated by virtual learning this is harder but the principle is still alive. Schools are places to interact with a broad range of people like and unlike...

Willingness to listen is so, so important. Our guest Frank Stebbins noted that one of the lines that tends to get emphasized in classrooms is creating safe space. While obviously that’s important, when we start discussing topics with students who may feel marginalized, or may feel their voice isn’t represented, they may be giving up some of that safety and they’re becoming brave. Engaging in conve...

Frank talked about how much his daughter’s pre-school experience informed HIS perspective and teaching as a high school teacher, underscoring Shortly thereafter, he participated in professional development with Facing History and he was hooked and started to incorporate exploration of identity in his classroom. His response from the juniors and seniors he taught was that they had never thought abo...