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Collective Power Podcast

Arts & Culture Podcasts

Welcome to Collective Power: we are out to transform trauma system-wide by presenting a mirror of the system to itself. Each week, we focus on one system. Each show, we hear from a person who has an experience of one aspect of that system. On the last show each month, we bring folks back together to look at the big picture and what is possible for our city, our country and our world. From these conversations, repeated patterns at different levels across society: the key to societal transformation.

Welcome to Collective Power: we are out to transform trauma system-wide by presenting a mirror of the system to itself. Each week, we focus on one system. Each show, we hear from a person who has an experience of one aspect of that system. On the last show each month, we bring folks back together to look at the big picture and what is possible for our city, our country and our world. From these conversations, repeated patterns at different levels across society: the key to societal transformation.

Location:

United States

Description:

Welcome to Collective Power: we are out to transform trauma system-wide by presenting a mirror of the system to itself. Each week, we focus on one system. Each show, we hear from a person who has an experience of one aspect of that system. On the last show each month, we bring folks back together to look at the big picture and what is possible for our city, our country and our world. From these conversations, repeated patterns at different levels across society: the key to societal transformation.

Twitter:

@RitaSFierro

Language:

English

Contact:

2158930579

Episodes

DataGeek Series: The Juvenile (In)justice system: Are we punishing youth who are grieving? with Deven Wisner

1/23/2022
In this episode, we look at some data as relates the the juvenile (In)justice system and ways in which our systems perpetuate disproportional representation of youth of color and don't support what we know works. Our guest invites us to look at how our system is based on society having deprived youth of opportunities to grieve. Programs that provide space to grieve have been successful. Are we punishing youth who are just grieving? Our guest, Deven (he/him) is the Managing Partner of Viable...

Duration:00:50:08

Data Series: How does the use of data in Higher Education reinforce white supremacy? with Libby Smith

1/18/2022
In this episode, we discuss how higher education reinforces white supremacy by design. We highlight the data that exposes these contradictions. In particular, we talk about three ways higher education enforces white supremacy: 1) Quality of life for millennials will not higher than parents' generations; 2) There is a gap between white students and students of color and no meaningful attempts really close that gap; and 3) Data are often collected as a diversion. Our guest, Libby Smith...

Duration:01:03:10

It's All One System: Moving Beyond Shame with Jeanette Vega

2/26/2021
In this episode, we discuss how parents who have been targeted by the family policing system (child protective services) experience all the systems, together, allied to the detriment of their own families. By sharing her powerful-first hand experience, Jeannette Vega inspires a life beyond fear and shame, where the experiences of parents who had their children removed are honored and become the core to support system transformation. Our guest, Jeanette Vega is a proud mother of four boys...

Duration:00:38:20

It's all one System: Changing the Formula of our Purple Country

2/14/2021
In this episode, we use the mathematical definition of a "system" as a set of rules that preserve a certain result, to look at the ways that the System as a whole preserves itself. Our guest, Attorney Karla Cruel, walks us through her approach to re-write the constitution--laid out in a new article she co-wrote with Rita Fierro on Medium (link below). Rewriting the constitution is a strategy designed to bring out the purple majority and overcome the dialectic of blue against red that we've...

Duration:00:58:32

white Supremacy in the Body: Make Pearls, Not War with Lisa Jo Epstein, Bernadette Pleasant, and Roz Thomas

2/1/2021
In this episode we engage in conversations with three expert facilitators on their personal stories that led them to experience, understand, and value how white supremacy is stored in our bodies and how healing in community is an essential way for what's next. By healing together, we can shift from inherited fear through being witnessed and being curious. There are ways for us to come to the table together. There are ways for us to strengthen our relationships, re-embrace consistency, joy...

Duration:00:59:13

white Supremacy in the Body: Facing the Ring of Fire--Unlearning Racism with Bernadette Pleasant

1/27/2021
In this episode, through storytelling and reflection, we review the somatic experience that people of color have of how the System can unleash itself against them at any time. We highlight how bodies of people of color retain memories of traumatic events and how the retriggering is unlikely for white people to understand. We offer ways to weave the gap across different experiences and pave the way for unlearning racism, healing, and mutual understanding. Our guest, Bernadette is a fiery...

Duration:00:53:04

white Supremacy in the Body: Democracy is Freedom from Inner Tyranny with LisaJo Epstein

1/27/2021
In this episode we break down several aspects of internalized white supremacy: perfectionism, conflict as danger, defensiveness, not-good-enough story, and obsession with product over process and doing the right thing. We also highlight how the discomfort and dissonance between our perception of ourselves and the realties we are confronted with are key to healing internal white supremacy and freeing ourselves from the inner tyranny that keeps us separate and isolated. Healing the inner...

Duration:00:49:08

white Supremacy in the Body: Body Memory, Honesty, and Health with Roslyn Thomas

1/9/2021
In this show, we talk about how racism assaults the body and stores emotions and pains for decades. By walking through some key concepts of Resam Menakem's My Grandmother's Hands, we highlight some ways that meditation, dance, exercise, expressing clean pain, and releasing grief, can help release trauma from the body providing a way to lighten up, ground, and be more fully our true selves. Choosing clean pain daily, requires courage, and the awareness of choosing responsibility over...

Duration:00:59:44

Economic System: An Economy that Serves Humanity and the Earth with Wayne Armitstead, Matt Birkhold, David Caplan, Erick Murillo Ramos, Gagan Oberoi

12/17/2020
In this provocative episode, we move beyond the definitions of capitalism, socialism, and communism, through the assumptions of inequality as the backbone of our system, to a vision for a new economy. Our guests have knowledge of and insights from different corners of the economic world. Wayne Armitstead having authored Capitalism Perverted, as a prior stockbroker, sees a system that is too unstable to serve even the richer among us. Matt Birkhold has studied the history of capitalism and...

Duration:01:01:45

Economic System Basics: Economy is not Accounting with Gagandeep Oberoi

12/12/2020
In this episode, we review the basic concepts of the economic system that we mostly take for granted: money, economy, accounting, transactions, growth. Our Guest, Gagandeep Oberoi is a global citizen, currently living in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. who stands for ‘everyone winning’ with a possibility of love and happiness for all. Gagan believes that we are working from wrong assumptions about the economy, and those wrong assumptions are what disempower us most. Instead, Gagan has us note how...

Duration:00:59:52

Economic System: Bubbles Don't Have to Burst with Wayne Armitstead

12/8/2020
In this episode we review many of the mechanisms that keeps the economy stuck in bubble growths and bursts. From the uncovering the fake economic boost of right now, to the dark money in politics, and the elimination of the gold reserve, we walk from what has become morn in our current economic system and what we can actually shift for the world we want. Breaking up trusts, full employment, and increased regulation are some of the options offered by economist Heiman Minsky. Our guest, Wayne...

Duration:00:45:10

Economic System: Love, Racism, and the Economy with Matt Birkhold

12/2/2020
In this episode, an old colleague of mine and I meander on the importance of Love in overcoming the restraints of racism and the economy in the USA. We discuss how knowledge won't set us free, how healing is essential, and how we can build our economic power in the face of capitalism--a very knew system in the history of humanity, despite we think of it as rigid and unchangeable. Our guest, Matt Birkhold, takes seriously his and others' ability and responsibility to create and foster the...

Duration:00:47:32

Economic System: GDP Growth Is NOT Wealth with Erick Murillo Ramos

11/30/2020
In this episode, we look at international economic and some somecreen dynamics to inequality: the GDP, disparities, and fake choices. Our guest, Erick Ramos Murillo, is an economist and entrepreneur with wide experience serving as a strategist and consultant for a number of private companies, government and multinational organizations. Mr. Ramos was co-founder of PointSpectrum and CEO of RemesaTel Corporation, a company focused on solving end-user financial needs by developing proprietary...

Duration:00:53:28

Economic System: A Country is Not a Business with David Caplan

11/25/2020
In this episode, we explore some misperceptions of the economic system: trickle down economics, trade deficits, and managing countries like businesses. We also look at how our states are different and how the Federal and Commonwealth structures were established to maintain differences, too. Our guest, David A. Caplan, has been a sole practitioner since purchasing an accounting practice in 1992. His client base and services offered are diverse, encompassing everything from tax returns to...

Duration:00:50:16

Election Results: Systemic Bridge-Building is Next with Raphael Freeman

11/10/2020
This episode was recorded when the results of the election were clear, but not yet declared. We engage in a conversation beyond the angst of the results by discussion what the elections say about where our country is and what's next. What would it be like if we built systems that all across the country would connect people instead of separating us? Our Guest Raphael Freeman is a political scientist by training and the lenses of politics and political history shape his view of the world. He...

Duration:00:54:55

Sharing Visceral Fears of Extinction with Dove

11/3/2020
In this episode, we talk about breaking the silence by sharing our deepest fears and how transformative that can be for ourselves, but also breaking down barriers within our families and in our society establishing more authentic relationships. We also talk about the failures of the liberal/progressive movement to address the visceral fears of extinction of white men. Our guest, Dove, is my yoga teacher, a humanist, a dad, a gay man, and a humanist. Dove: humanistic Dove: dad Dove: born...

Duration:00:48:04

Juvenile Justice Systems: What Humanizing Looks Like with Michael O'Bryan and Sousan

9/28/2020
In this show we envision how our Juvenile (In)Justice system could be humanizing, instead of detrimental to youth and society. It's shifting a system from an approach that breaks youth's will by having them cave-in, give up, or get tough and instead align the system with what we know about youth, about learning, and about life. We have two guests: Sousan is the mom of youth in the Juvenile (In)Justice system and school counsellor, Michael is the Director of Youth Programs at the Village for...

Duration:00:54:07

Juvenile Justice System: Stop Incriminating Young People Like Adults with Joanna Visser and John Pace

8/11/2020
In this episode, we talk with two advocates for juveniles who have been working intensely to end youth sentenced to life without parole. They also support other youth to get out of the juvenile justice system, once and for all. John Pace is the Juvenile Life Without Parole (“JLWOP”) Reentry Coordinator with the Youth Sentencing & Reentry Project. In this role he coordinates efforts to garner the necessary resources to support former juvenile lifers returning home. As a former juvenile...

Duration:00:39:57

Juvenile Justice System: Restoring Robbed Childhood with Michael O'Bryan

8/8/2020
In this episode, we talk with a youth worker who provides sobering insights on the importance of caring for our youth and having compassion for the ones who go astray. Michael O’Bryan is an expert practitioner and budding researcher in the fields of community development, organizational culture, and human wellbeing. Mike has spent more than a decade working directly with resilient yet underserved populations —including veterans, adults in recovery, returning citizens, and families...

Duration:00:44:49

Juvenile Justice System: Data Don't Say what You Think with Adam Serlin

8/8/2020
In this episode, we discover the limitations of juvenile justice reform due to the data that is reported and the data that isn't. Our guest, is Adam Serlin who currently serves as a Stoneleigh Fellow with The Center for Government Excellence at Johns Hopkins University. In this role, he is helping Philadelphia’s juvenile justice stakeholders use data to drive more efficient, responsive, and cost-effective services for justice-involved youth. Prior to his fellowship, Adam spent twelve years...

Duration:00:44:07

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