Dame and Kiss have the honor and pleasure to talk with Stanley Howard, a survivor of torture at the hands of the Chicago Police Department and a brilliant force for justice in the struggles for both torture reparations and the abolition of the death penalty in IL. As a self-taught jailhouse lawyer Stanley created the Death Row 10, a group of torture survivors on death row who began the collective push for both their freedom and the end of state-sanctioned murder. Since getting out a little over a year ago, Stanley has been actively advocating for and supporting people on the inside through his work with the Uptown People's Law Center. Come learn from Stanley with us–this is a special one!
SHOW NOTES
Buy Stanley's book "Tortured by Blue" - https://www.semcoop.com/tortured-blue
Sign up for Hazel's Seeds - https://www.respairmedia.com/help-this-garden-grow
Follow AirGo - instagram.com/airgoradio
Find One Million Experiments on tour! - www.respairmedia.com/events
Bring us to your community by hitting us up - contact@respairmedia.com
CREDITS
Hosts & Exec. Producers - Damon Williams and Daniel Kisslinger
Associate Producer - Rocío Santos
Engagement Producer - Rivka Yeker
Digital Media Producer - Troi Valles
Ep 368 - W. Kamau Bell, Legendary Comedian and United Shades of America Host
The guys get to chop it up with legendary comedian, author, producer, and commentator W. Kamau Bell on this episode! A renowned standup and TV creator, Kamau has been guiding USians through the nuances, dark corners, and contradictions of our relationship with racial difference and power. For seven seasons, he was the host and executive producer of the five-time Emmy Award-winning CNN docuseries United Shades of America, and won a Peabody Award for his Showtime docuseries We Need To Talk About Cosby. He's back on the road doing standup across the country, including in Chicago on April 25 and 26, and he took some time to talk with the guys about the relationship between standup and regressive politics, how he found his voice on stage, and much more.
SHOW NOTES
Buy tickets to see Kamau at the Den Theatre in Chicago 4/25-4/26 - https://thedentheatre.com/performances/2025/4/25/w-kamau-bell-the-den-theatre-comedy-club
Follow him - https://www.instagram.com/wkamaubell
Sign up for Hazel's Seeds - https://www.respairmedia.com/help-this-garden-grow
Follow AirGo - instagram.com/airgoradio
Find One Million Experiments on tour! - www.respairmedia.com/events
Bring us to your community by hitting us up - contact@respairmedia.com
CREDITS
Hosts & Exec. Producers - Damon Williams and Daniel Kisslinger
Associate Producer - Rocío Santos
Engagement Producer - Rivka Yeker
Digital Media Producer - Troi Valles
Ep 367 - Maya Schenwar & Kim Wilson, Abolitionist Parents and Editors of We Grow the World Together
How do our models of care and freedom inform, contradict, or help us understand what it means to raise young people? How does the experience of caring for young people fundamentally shift what we mean by abolition? You might be thinking "damn, those are good-ass questions–hopefully someone has compiled a beautiful anthology of writers and organizers reflecting on this!" If so, Maya Schenwar and Kim Wilson have got you covered. Both longtime abolitionist organizers, media-makers, and writers, they are the co-editors of We Grow the World Together, a new anthology exploring the intersections between caregiving and abolition. Featuring essays from a squad of brilliance including Beth Richie, Ruth Wilson Gilmore, Dylan Rodriguez, Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, and many more, the book is available now from Haymarket Books. Maya and Kim join the show to talk about the project expanded their understanding of care, the ways nurturing should be at the center of our politic, and much more.
SHOW NOTES
Buy We Grow the World Together - https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/2446-we-grow-the-world-together
Listen to Beyond Prisons - https://www.beyond-prisons.com/
Check out Truthout - https://truthout.org/
Sign up for Hazel's Seeds - https://www.respairmedia.com/help-this-garden-grow
Follow AirGo - instagram.com/airgoradio
Find One Million Experiments on tour! - http://www.respairmedia.com/events
Bring us to your community by hitting us up - contact@respairmedia.com
CREDITS
Hosts & Exec. Producers - Damon Williams and Daniel Kisslinger
Associate Producer - Rocío Santos
Engagement Producer - Rivka Yeker
Digital Media Producer - Troi Valles
Ep 366 - Trina Reynolds-Tyler, Pulitzer-Winning Journalist Covering Missing Women & Police Misconduct
On this episode we popped over to the crib of AirGo fam Trina Reynolds-Tyler, who was last on the show back in 2019 (https://airgoradio.com/airgo/2019/4/25/episode-185-trina-reynolds-tyler). Over these past six years she has continued to be a vibrant, impactful force for justice and liberation in the city–from her work contributing the People's Grab'n'Go during the pandemic to her PULITZER PRIZE-WINNING project "Missing in Chicago," a seven-part investigative series from the Invisible Institute and City Bureau that reveals how Chicago police have routinely violated state law and police procedure, delaying and mishandling missing person cases. The report revealed a racial bias that disproportionately impacts Black women and girls, and how poor police data is making the problem harder to solve. Trina talks with Dame and Kiss about the project's unexpected teachings, what the recognition has made possible for her in her work, and what unanswered questions are driving her curiosity these days.
SHOW NOTES
Check out Missing in Chicago by Trina and Sarah Conway of City Bureau - https://chicagomissingpersons.com/
Peep Beneath the Surface, the overall data science project that investigates the intersections of gender-based violence and policing - https://www.btsurface.com/
Sign up for Hazel's Seeds - https://www.respairmedia.com/help-this-garden-grow
Follow AirGo - instagram.com/airgoradio
Find One Million Experiments on tour! - www.respairmedia.com/events
Bring us to your community by hitting us up - contact@respairmedia.com
CREDITS
Hosts & Exec. Producers - Damon Williams and Daniel Kisslinger
Associate Producer - Rocío Santos
Engagement Producer - Rivka Yeker
Digital Media Producer - Troi Valles
Ep 365 - Adom Getachew, Scholar of Decolonization and Worldmaking in 20th Century Africa
What happens when an international order comes to an end? What gets built in its shadow? This week's guest, Adom Getachew, digs deep with us into the attempts at worldmaking that were led by anticolonial leaders in the mid-20th century, who fought for different visions of liberation as they fought to dismantle Europe's colonial empires on the African continent and across the Caribbean. We break down what we can learn from these attempts at worldmaking, the range of different possibilities that were on the table, and how we might hold their determination to upend structural power in our work today from within the heart of 21st century empire.
SHOW NOTES
Buy Adom's book "Worldmaking After Empire: The Rise and Fall of Self-Determination" - https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691179155/worldmaking-after-empire
Check out "Project a Black Planet: The Art and Culture of Panafrica" at the Art Institute of Chicago until 3/30/25 - https://www.artic.edu/exhibitions/10157/project-a-black-planet-the-art-and-culture-of-panafrica
Sign up for Hazel's Seeds - https://www.respairmedia.com/help-this-garden-grow
Follow AirGo - instagram.com/airgoradio
Find One Million Experiments on tour! - www.respairmedia.com/events
Bring us to your community by hitting us up - contact@respairmedia.com
CREDITS
Hosts & Exec. Producers - Damon Williams and Daniel Kisslinger
Associate Producer - Rocío Santos
Engagement Producer - Rivka Yeker
Digital Media Producer - Troi Valles
Ep 364 - Fighting Through the Overwhelm with Asha Ransby-Sporn
AirGo is back, and we're kicking off our 2025 season by welcoming our pal Asha Ransby-Sporn back to the stu. Asha recently published an essay entitled "In the Face of Overwhelm," which serves as a sobering and pointed analysis of how we as a liberatory movement can make sense of and move through the inundation of structural dismantling and violence that the Trump/Musk conglomerate is reigning down on us everyday. We talk about what we can learn from our opposition, the value of studying those we disagree with, the complicated role of a movement home, and much more.
SHOW NOTES
Read the piece, copublished by In These Times and The Triibe - https://inthesetimes.com/article/billionaire-takeover-fight-overwhelm
Sign up for Hazel's Seeds, our new EJ listening club launching April 8, 2025! - https://www.respairmedia.com/help-this-garden-grow
Follow AirGo - instagram.com/airgoradio
Find One Million Experiments on tour! - www.respairmedia.com/events
Bring us to your community by hitting us up - contact@respairmedia.com
CREDITS
Hosts & Exec. Producers - Damon Williams and Daniel Kisslinger
Engagement Producer - Rivka Yeker
Digital Media Producer - Troi Valles
Associate Producer - Rocío Santos
Ep 363 - Divest From Despair: EOY Check-in with the Respair Crew
Dame and Kiss welcome some other members of the AirGo/Respair squad–Engagement Coordinator Rivka Yeker and Multimedia Producer Troi Valles–into the studio to close out 2025 together. The crew talks about where their work has taken them this year, a lil Luigi Mangione hot gossip, the ways we're each processing the Trumpian storm clouds to come, and much more.
SHOW NOTES
Follow AirGo - instagram.com/airgoradio
Find One Million Experiments on tour! - www.respairmedia.com/events
Bring us to your community by hitting us up - contact@respairmedia.com
CREDITS
Hosts & Exec. Producers - Damon Williams and Daniel Kisslinger
Associate Producer - Rocío Santos
Engagement Producer - Rivka Yeker
Digital Media Producer - Troi Valles
Ep 362 - Movement Journalism And The Fall Of Legacy Media, live @ Socialism Conference 2024
We're excited to bring you this convo from this year's Socialism Conference, held in September 2024 here in Chicago! The last few years of political turmoil have unearthed the longstanding lack of public trust in the news media. As journalists who work in, outside and against legacy media, we had the opportunity to be in convo with some brilliant peers about the long and deep legacy of movement journalism that expands transformative, abolitionist, and antiracist movement building through truthful reporting. The session was captained by friend of the pod Lewis Wallace, whose book The View from Somewhere is a must-read about how the myth of journalistic objectivity harms journalists and community. We also were in convo with Clarissa Brooks, who is Editor-in-Chief of The Forge; and Ryan Sorrell, Founder & Publisher of the Kansas City Defender. Get in tune!
SHOW NOTES
Learn about Lewis Raven Wallace - https://www.lewispants.com/about
Dig into The Forge - https://forgeorganizing.org/
Peep the KC Defender - https://kansascitydefender.com/
Follow AirGo - instagram.com/airgoradio
Find One Million Experiments on tour! - www.respairmedia.com/events
Bring us to your community by hitting us up - contact@respairmedia.com
CREDITS
Hosts & Exec. Producers - Damon Williams and Daniel Kisslinger
Associate Producer - Rocío Santos
Engagement Producer - Rivka Yeker
Digital Media Producer - Troi Valles
Ep 361 - Standing Rock from 2016 (Dig in the Crates)
This week we're digging in the AirGo crates and revisiting one of the most impactful moments in modern social movement history–the encampment at Standing Rock in 2016. Kiss and a cohort of other Chicago folks brought supplies from Freedom Square in November, and had the privilege to spend a few days there. Upon their return, Kiss sat down with Kristiana Colon, who had been with him on the trip, to talk about the experience. The episode also features selections from the podcast Voices of Standing Rock, reproduced with the creator's permission.
SHOW NOTES:
Listen to all of Voices of Standing Rock: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/voices-of-standing-rock/id1173368814
Get connected to Oceti Sakowin, a group that formed during the encampment and has led the fight for indigenous sovereignty and environmental justice: www.facebook.com/OcetiSakowinCamp
Ep 360 - Historian Of The Hundred Years' War On Palestine
On this episode, the guys turn to legendary historian Rashid Khalidi to help parse and understand how we got here–a moment fourteen months into the escalation of genocidal violence perpetrated on the people and land of Palestine. The author of many books, including most recently The Hundred Years' War On Palestine, Prof. Khalidi talks about how he moves between the mind and body while witnessing and fighting against the destruction of his people, what he's learned from those who have engaged with his work, and how we must understand this escalation in the context of colonial violence and anticolonial struggle.
SHOW NOTES
Read The Hundred Years' War On Palestine - https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781627798556/thehundredyearswaronpalestine
Follow AirGo - instagram.com/airgoradio
Find One Million Experiments on tour! - www.respairmedia.com/events
Bring us to your community by hitting us up - contact@respairmedia.com
CREDITS
Hosts & Exec. Producers - Damon Williams and Daniel Kisslinger
Associate Producer - Rocío Santos
Engagement Producer - Rivka Yeker
Digital Media Producer - Troi Valles
Ep 359 - Maurice Mitchell, Electoral Alternative & Director Of Working Families Party
In the fraught last week before the 2024 election, the guys search for some nuance with Maurice Mitchell, the National Director of the Working Families Party. A nationally-recognized social movement strategist, visionary leader in the Movement for Black Lives, and community organizer, Maurice breaks down the vision and approach of WFP’s strategy to electoral organizing and helps us parse the value and limitations of elections as a component of transformative change. We also learn that he is the cousin of the legendary MF DOOM–just a lil fun fact for y’all!
SHOW NOTES
Learn more about the WFP - https://workingfamilies.org/
Find your polling place in Chicago - https://chicagoelections.gov/voting/your-voter-information
Check out the Injustice Watch Judicial Guide - https://interactives.injusticewatch.org/judicial-election-guide/2024-general/en/
Follow AirGo - instagram.com/airgoradio
Find One Million Experiments on tour! - www.respairmedia.com/events
Bring us to your community by hitting us up - contact@respairmedia.com
CREDITS
Hosts & Exec. Producers - Damon Williams and Daniel Kisslinger
Associate Producer - Rocío Santos
Engagement Producer - Rivka Yeker
Digital Media Producer - Troi Valles
Ep 358 - Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò, Reparations Reconsiderer And Liberation Philosopher
The guys welcome Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò, a brilliant philosopher and movement thought leader, to the pod. Táíwò is the author of Reconsidering Reparations and Elite Capture, two staples of the emergent abolitionist canon that have helped shape emergent movement ideology over the last decade. He talks with Dame and Kiss about who we mean when we say "elite," how the debate around identity politics obscures the ways power is being consolidated against us, and how we all are constantly philosophizing in our work as changemakers and living, breathing humans.
SHOW NOTES
Get his books - http://www.olufemiotaiwo.com/
Follow AirGo - instagram.com/airgoradio
Find One Million Experiments on tour! - www.respairmedia.com/events
Bring us to your community by hitting us up - contact@respairmedia.com
CREDITS
Hosts & Exec. Producers - Damon Williams and Daniel Kisslinger
Associate Producer - Rocío Santos
Engagement Producer - Rivka Yeker
Digital Media Producer - Troi Valles
Ep 357 - Talking Chicago Housing And The Tenant Trap w/ Alejandra & Maya Of Injustice Watch
The guys talk with Maya Dukmasova and Alejandra Cancino from Injustice Watch about their new multipart investigation The Tenant Trap. The series, which is available now and linked below, found that tenants are regularly facing eviction and informal displacement at buildings with histories of serious safety violations, while the court system puts property rights above the rights of the people who live there. We talk with the dynamic investigative duo about their learnings, the two-tiered system of eviction and foreclosure court proceedings, and some pathways to address this chronic disposal and disregard of renters across Chicago.
SHOW NOTES
Dig into the Tenant Trap - https://www.injusticewatch.org/projects/tenant-trap/
Check out Injustice Watch's Judicial Election Guide - https://interactives.injusticewatch.org/judicial-election-guide/2024-general/en/
Follow AirGo - instagram.com/airgoradio
Find One Million Experiments on tour! - www.respairmedia.com/events
Bring us to your community by hitting us up - contact@respairmedia.com
CREDITS
Hosts & Exec. Producers - Damon Williams and Daniel Kisslinger
Associate Producer - Rocío Santos
Engagement Producer - Rivka Yeker
Digital Media Producer - Troi Valles
Ep 356 - Yohance Lacour, Award-Winning Podcast Host & Reflective Chicago Voice
The guys keep it within the medium, chopping it up with award-winning journalist and storyteller Yohance Lacour. Yohance is the host of You Didn’t See Nothin’, a Peabody and Pulitzer-winning podcast about a 1997 hate crime on the South Side of Chicago that introduced him to the world of investigative journalism, examining how its ripple effects have shaped Lacour’s own life over the past quarter-century. We talk about his relationship to the wonderful and challenging medium of audio, what he’s learned from bringing this project into the world, and a slew of Chicago gems that help us all see our city a little deeper.
SHOW NOTES
Subscribe to You Didn’t See Nothin’ - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/you-didnt-see-nothin/id1662015767
Follow Yohance and discover his leatherwork - https://www.instagram.com/yohancelacour/
Follow AirGo - instagram.com/airgoradio
Find One Million Experiments on tour! - www.respairmedia.com/events
Bring us to your community by hitting us up - contact@respairmedia.com
CREDITS
Hosts & Exec. Producers - Damon Williams and Daniel Kisslinger
Associate Producer - Rocío Santos
Engagement Producer - Rivka Yeker
Digital Media Producer - Troi Valles
Ep 355 - Lester Spence, Hustle-Knocker And Scholar Of Black Neoliberalism
The guys lock in with Prof. Lester Spence, whose decades of scholarship about Black politic-building, hip-hop, and the sociopolitical turn toward neoliberalism help all of us make sense of the contradictions our culture, political system, and economy pretend don't exist. He's the author of Stare In the Darkness: The Limits of Hip-hop and Black Politics (2011), and Knocking the Hustle: Against the Neoliberal Turn in Black Politics (2015). A longtime professor at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore, Lester breaks down how the turn toward neoliberalism affects all of us, the ways hip hop is still a battlefield for transformation of our culture, and much more.
SHOW NOTES
Get in tune with Lester - https://www.lesterspence.com/
Follow AirGo - instagram.com/airgoradio
Find One Million Experiments on tour! - www.respairmedia.com/events
Bring us to your community by hitting us up - contact@respairmedia.com
CREDITS
Hosts & Exec. Producers - Damon Williams and Daniel Kisslinger
Associate Producer - Rocío Santos
Engagement Producer - Rivka Yeker
Digital Media Producer - Troi Valles
Ep 354 - John Perkins, Economic Hitman And Forging Force For A Life Economy
On this episode, the guys welcome writer John Perkins. Best known for his politically and socially significant text Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, in which he describes playing a role in a process of economic colonization of Third World countries on behalf of what he portrays as a cabal of corporations, banks, and the United States government, John discusses how we can forge new systems of being and creating that prioritize long-term benefits for all life on the planet. He also breaks down the five questions that can help each of us as we figure out how to take action to transform our world.
SHOW NOTES
Get Confessions of an Economic Hitman - https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/726382/confessions-of-an-economic-hit-man-3rd-edition-by-john-perkins/
Follow AirGo - instagram.com/airgoradio
Find One Million Experiments on tour! - www.respairmedia.com/events
Bring us to your community by hitting us up - contact@respairmedia.com
CREDITS
Hosts & Exec. Producers - Damon Williams and Daniel Kisslinger
Associate Producer - Rocío Santos
Engagement Producer - Rivka Yeker
Digital Media Producer - Troi Valles
Ep 353 - Eric Williams, Silver Room Owner And Community Jewel
Sometimes a simple title doesn't even come close to encapsulating who someone is or why they are important to the fabric of our city. This episode's guest Eric Williams is definitely one of those people. He is the owner of The Silver Room, a Chicago institution and brand whose mission is to create a global community through art and culture, as well as the owner of delicious South Side restaurant Bronzeville Winery. He talks with the guys about creating the iconic Silver Room Block Party (one of the most remarkable cultural gatherings in Chicago history), his long path from sidewalk salesman to space-builder and curator, and the tenuous relationship between building for his people and participating in capitalism.
SHOW NOTES
Swing by the Silver Room - https://thesilverroom.com/pages/about-us
Feast at the Bronzeville Winery - https://www.bronzevillewinery.com/
Follow AirGo - instagram.com/airgoradio
Find One Million Experiments on tour! - www.respairmedia.com/events
Bring us to your community by hitting us up - contact@respairmedia.com
CREDITS
Hosts & Exec. Producers - Damon Williams and Daniel Kisslinger
Associate Producer - Rocío Santos
Engagement Producer - Rivka Yeker
Digital Media Producer - Troi Valles
Ep 352 - Rev. Tanya Lozano Washington, Holder Of Health For The Hood
This episode's guest is Rev. Tanya Lozano Washington, the co-founder of community health and care organization Healthy Hood Chicago. Tanya talks about how she came to understand the links between personal and communal health, the lineages she stewards as a member of one of Chicago's most impactful movement families, and the complicated relationships that generations of sacrifice to liberation create.
SHOW NOTES
Get in tune with Healthy Hood - https://www.healthyhoodchi.com/
Come to a Sunday Session - https://www.healthyhoodchi.com/sunday-sessionz
Follow AirGo - instagram.com/airgoradio
Find One Million Experiments on tour! - www.respairmedia.com/events
Bring us to your community by hitting us up - contact@respairmedia.com
CREDITS
Hosts & Exec. Producers - Damon Williams and Daniel Kisslinger
Associate Producer - Rocío Santos
Engagement Producer - Rivka Yeker
Digital Media Producer - Troi Valles
Ep 351 - Sheila Bedi, Lawyer For Liberation
As Chicago gears up for the 2024 Democratic National Convention, we get in tune with movement lawyer and professor Sheila Bedi, who breaks down some of the changes in CPD policy that Chicagoans engaging in direct action should know about. We also talk about the beautiful, challenging, and important ways Sheila has provided care and protection for both organizers facing state repression and the family members of those who have been murdered by the police. Plus, some laughs through it all!
SHOW NOTES
NLG HOTLINE for DNC protest legal support - (872) 465 4244
Thread of support materials from NLG - https://x.com/NLGChicago/status/1823723532783886702
Get in tune with Sheila -https://www.law.northwestern.edu/faculty/profiles/sheilabedi/
Follow AirGo - instagram.com/airgoradio
Find One Million Experiments on tour! - www.respairmedia.com/events
Bring us to your community by hitting us up - contact@respairmedia.com
CREDITS
Hosts & Exec. Producers - Damon Williams and Daniel Kisslinger
Associate Producer - Rocío Santos
Engagement Producer - Rivka Yeker
Digital Media Producer - Troi Valles
Ep 350 - State Senator Robert Peters, Champion of Transformative Incrementalism
In this episode of AirGo, we sit down with State Senator Robert Peters for a deep dive into the current political landscape and the transformative initiatives he's championing. Senator Peters explores how he contributed to the abolition of cash bond in IL, his commitment to getting tangible policy passed in contribution to movement, and the approach of transformative incrementalism that can make participating in legislative process fruitful and worthwhile for those fighting for liberation.
SHOW NOTES
Get in tune with Robert - https://www.instagram.com/robertjamespeters
Follow AirGo - instagram.com/airgoradio
Find One Million Experiments on tour! - www.respairmedia.com/events
Bring us to your community by hitting us up - contact@respairmedia.com
CREDITS
Hosts & Exec. Producers - Damon Williams and Daniel Kisslinger
Associate Producer - Rocío Santos
Engagement Producer - Rivka Yeker
Digital Media Producer - Troi Valles