EPISODE RELEASE: "In defense of liberals"

A Walk Through Santa Cruz

The morning of our Martin Luther King, Jr. Day March here on the Central Coast of California, I made a decision. I had thought to wallow in my despair at the correspondence of two such different events: MLK Day and the inauguration of a man who was MLK’s antithesis.

Instead, I decide to grab my recorder and go to the march. This episode came out on the first day of February, the first day of Black History Month. The people featured largely live in Santa Cruz County, which perhaps typifies much of coastal California culture. I wanted to feature the thoughts and feelings of our local community, but I cam away with so much more. The episode started as a cry for community. It became a portrait of pride in a community, not just our local community, but a community of people aligned in their goal to improve humanity. A community of people who have been caricatured by right-wing media to the point that I don’t recognize them at all.

Meet my people: we’re liberals.

The March

I had a simple goal at the march: I pressed record and then talked to every woman willing to speak with me. They had feelings.

I'm feeling very deja vu-ish that we have been in this position, that we find ourselves in this position again, except this time, I think it's going to be a lot more severe, a lot more dire. I'm very concerned about the safety of our community and friends and families who are immigrants.

-Anita Aguirre, CEO, Santa Cruz Community Health Centers

I asked them to answer the same, simple question: “How are you feeling?” Their answers described feelings, but as I listened to the recording later, I realized they were saying something even more profound: they were defining who we are.

I woke up and I felt pretty tumultuous. There was a sadness because of the place our country is in. Right now, with the current administration that’s being inaugurated this morning, I was feeling good that I could come here and march for Martin Luther King Day and be with the kind of community that honors justice and equality and a better life for everybody. We need to empower ourselves, more than ever, to come together and change the face of what certain people want to try to do.

-Lani Faulkner, founder of Equity Transit

Liberals are not just the caricature that you see on mainstream media. We are not just mealy-mouthed politicians. In fact, most of us are not politicians. We are your healthcare workers, we take care of your children, we entertain you, we care for the vulnerable in your community. More than anything, we are people who believe that we can help each other, and that helping each other is what it’s all about.

Do something altruistic in your community. I love volunteering. When I talk to younger people like myself, they say, I don’t have time for that, and I say, that’s BS. You have two hours a week, three hours a week that you can go pack food at Second Harvest. Or you can hand out gift cards to people on the street and down on Pacific. Or you can walk dogs at the local animal shelter. Go out and do the work.

-Grace Stetson, journalist

So this is an unusual episode, and it’s local, but it’s also universal. How do we resist people who try to promote humanity’s worst inclinations—our greed, our fear, our distrust? We get out there and do the work.

From my community to yours, a love letter to the liberal spirit. Listen here.

Listen to the episode.

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In case you missed it, last month’s episode:

In this episode, we explore through speech and music the world of avant garde composer Anne Hege’s work. We also explore the idea of music in our lives. As conductor of the Peninsula Women’s Chorus, Anne leads 60 women who produce sounds only with their bodies. In this time more than any other, the redemptive and grounding experience of making music is deeply important for our health and connections with others.

It's a deep commitment for me as an artist that I'm not making music where our bodies disappear, that disembodied perfect music. I want deeply grounded, bodied music where I feel the presence of this union of spirit, mind, and body.

Listening options:

• The full episode: “Bodies making music: composer Anne Hege”

• Suki’s reflections: “Singing as…”

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Syndication:

The Babblery’s short episode, “Minibabble: “The California girl I needed to be” will run on PRX Remix this month. It’s a shorter version of the wonderful full-length interview with retired CBS News Election Night producer Stephanie Jacobs, “This dysfunctional town square.”

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