Ep 374 - Rep. Delia Ramirez, People-Powered Congresswoman from Chicago's NW Side

What the hell is actually happening in Congress in the midst of authoritarian takeover? The guys are joined by Rep. Delia Ramirez, the congresswoman for Illinois' 3rd District, who shares what it looks and feels like to walk into the Capitol under this administration, the ways that the ramp-up of Trump's deportation infrastructure harms us all, and how the lessons from building grassroots power on the northwest side of Chicago have the potential to reshape our political reality.

SHOW NOTES
Connect with Rep. Ramirez's office - https://ramirez.house.gov/

Watch this episode on Youtube! - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MCluFRs1Zw

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 - Cin Pimentel
Engagement Producer - Rivka Yeker
Digital Media Producer - Troi Valles

Ep 373 - Antonio Gutierrez, Anti-Displacement Organizer Fighting Deportations, Returns

The guys are joined by Antonio Gutierrez, an anti-displacement community organizer and leader in the multi-decade struggle for undocumented rights and protections here in Chicago. They are a co-founder of Organized Communities Against Deportations (OCAD), the Albany Park Defense Network, La Guayabita Autonoma Community Garden and the Autonomous Tenants Union. Woven into this web of community work is a deep insistence on the right to remain present and unapologetic in the city they've called home for over 20 years. They talk about the nuts and bolts of anti-deportation work in the city, the emotional weight they are carrying, and how they are anticipating their personal world shifting in the face of future deportation.

SHOW NOTES
Support the work of OCAD - https://www.organizedcommunities.org/sponsor-a-case

Plug into Albany Park Defense Network - https://www.facebook.com/albanyparkdefense/

Organize with Autonomous Tenants Union - https://www.autonomoustenantsunion.org/

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
Editor - Cin Pimentel
Engagement Producer - Rivka Yeker
Digital Media Producer - Troi Valles

Ep 372 - Listening Party: "In Process" by Liberatory Rapper Damon A. Williams

From time to time, a Chicago artist drops a new project that the AirGo crew is vibing with–when that happens, we get them on the line for a special listening party episode! Using a few of the project's tracks as jumping off points for the conversation, we dive deep into process, creativity, and growth.

For this episode we get to celebrate the new project from our very own Damon A. Williams, who dropped his debut project In Process last fall. A long journey to create, the high-energy project explores the coexistence of joy and burden in a life of freedom making. Dame and Kiss are joined by guest cohost Jacoby Cochran, the host of wonderful podcast City Cast Chicago, who helps the guys listen with love to a handful of tracks from the project. Get in process with the crew!

SHOW NOTES
Stream In Process - https://symphony.to/damon-a-williams-1/in-process-album

Peep the video for Unrecognizable - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJXs37EwIFg

Follow Damon - https://www.instagram.com/damon_af/

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
Editor - Rocío Santos
Engagement Producer - Rivka Yeker
Digital Media Producer - Troi Valles

Ep 371 - Dixon Romeo, Housing Organizer Fighting to Keep Southside Communities Together, Returns

What do you do when you see something happening that you know to be wrong? When its something seemingly intractable and massive that will negatively impact you and your neighbors? If you're Dixon Romeo, you start organizing. Dixon is the Executive Director of Southside Together, a new organization building power by organizing Black, poor, and working-class community members in Woodlawn, South Shore, Greater Grand Crossing, Park Manor and all adjacent neighborhoods, to secure economic stability and advance human rights.

Dixon returns to AirGo to talk about how the new organization was birthed from two brilliant organizations merging together, give updates on some of their biggest fights, and break down the emergent campaign around the proposed "quantum campus" on the contaminated US Steel South Works site. A great way to learn about the city from the ground up!

SHOW NOTES
Plug in with Southside Together - https://www.southsidetogether.org/

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
Editor - Cin Pimentel
Engagement Producer - Rivka Yeker
Digital Media Producer - Troi Valles

Ep 370 - Alex Ding, Co-Director of National Anti-War Org Dissenters

On this episode the guys connect the global dots with Alex of Dissenters, a national organization of young people leading the fight to reclaim our resources from the war industry, reinvest in life-giving institutions, and repair collaborative relationships with the earth and people around the world. As co-director of the organization, Alex has helped guide chapters on campuses across the country as they respond to and fight against militarism, genocide, and colonialism. They join the show to talk about their pathway to the work, how the lens of opposing militarism is helpful in this moment of overwhelm, and the value of some quality sabbatical time as well.

SHOW NOTES
Learn about and join Dissenters - https://wearedissenters.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! - 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 369 - Stanley Howard, Chicago Police Torture Survivor Behind Abolition of IL's Death Penalty

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 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