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NOT ABOUT YOU

About the Show Not About You is a podcast about identity and social justice. The
premise of the show is that a white, straight, cis-gendered man connects with
folks with different lived experiences from his own about the ways parts of
their identities bump up against injustices. The conversations focus on race,
gender, religion, representation, protests, politics, relationships and more. My
hope is that this series leads to more conversation and interaction. I want
folks who are hesitant or new to standing in these struggles to feel more ready
to show up for change and ask questions of themselves. I want historically
excluded voices to have new ways to be amplified and supported. Some of the
questions we get into: What is a question or reaction you deal with a lot about
some part of your identity that you’re tired of responding to? What assumptions
do you experience folks making about you? What does joy or humor look like
inside your family or community? In what ways do you experience privilege? -Levi
Weinhagen
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Not About You
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Now displaying: Page 1
Enzi Tanner | Season 4 Episode 2 0
Dec 28, 2021

“I strongly believe that what is true for me doesn’t necessarily mean that the
opposite is false for another person.”

Enzi Tanner is a Community Safety Organizer at Jewish Community Action(JCA).
He's also a licensed social worker who has spent the past two decades focused on
police brutality & police violence. In this episode, Enzi talks about the ways
being a Black, trans, disabled, Jew impacts the way he thinks about public
safety & how he shows up in community. 

You can listen to Enzi's podcast, "Kuumba Hineni," here: LISTEN

You can donate to JCA here: GIVE MONEY!



 * Download this Episode

Naomi Ko | Season 4 Episode 1 0
Nov 17, 2021

“Why are you Korean-American and from Minnesota?”

Naomi Ko is a Filmmaker, Writer, Actor, Comedy Maker, a Sundance Fellow & Bush
Fellow. She is a co-founder of APIA MN Film Collective + Funny Asian Women
Kollective (FAWK). 

She gets on a Zoom call with Levi to talk about perceptions inside and outside
of Asian-American communities. They talk comedy, creativity, dating, H-Mart, and
being an asshole. 

Naomi would love it if you supported Red Canary Song



 * Download this Episode

Resmaa Menakem Reissue 0
Apr 18, 2019

Resmaa Menakem released a racialized trauma e-course in 2019 to work in concert
with 'My Grandmother's Hands.' This is a reissue of his appearance in 2018 with
a brief new opening about the e-course. 

“For 400 years you have not had to address this.” - Resmaa Menakem

Resmaa Menakem talks about his work and the goals of his book 'My Grandmother's
Hands,' including the healing needed around racialized trauma, the different
approaches needed for different bodies, and whose responsibility it is to engage
with the work of racial and social justice.


RESMAA MENAKEM MSW, LICSW, S.E.P. HAS APPEARED ON BOTH THE OPRAH WINFREY SHOW
AND DR. PHIL AS AN EXPERT ON CONFLICT AND VIOLENCE. HE HAS SERVED AS DIRECTOR OF
COUNSELING SERVICES FOR THE TUBMAN FAMILY ALLIANCE; AS BEHAVIORAL HEALTH
DIRECTOR FOR AFRICAN AMERICAN FAMILY SERVICES IN MINNEAPOLIS; AND AS A CULTURAL
SOMATICS CONSULTANT FOR THE MINNEAPOLIS POLICE DEPARTMENT. AS A COMMUNITY CARE
COUNSELOR, HE MANAGED THE WELLNESS AND COUNSELING SERVICES FOR CIVILIANS ON
FIFTY-THREE US MILITARY BASES IN AFGHANISTAN.


RESMAA CURRENTLY TEACHES WORKSHOPS ON CULTURAL SOMATICS FOR AUDIENCES OF AFRICAN
AMERICANS, EUROPEAN AMERICANS, AND POLICE OFFICERS. HE IS ALSO A THERAPIST IN
PRIVATE PRACTICE IN MINNEAPOLIS.


MY GRANDMOTHER'S HANDS


THE FIRST SELF-DISCOVERY BOOK TO EXAMINE WHITE BODY SUPREMACY IN AMERICA FROM
THE PERSPECTIVE OF TRAUMA AND BODY-CENTERED PSYCHOLOGY.

American Gods slave ship scene: https://vimeo.com/217950394

Professor Mahmoud El-Kati: http://www.mahmoudelkati.com/



 * Download this Episode

Keisha TK Dutes | Season 3 Episode 7 0
Dec 19, 2018

“When white people make roses, they’re just f***ing roses!”

On this episode, TK Dutes talks about code switching, producing radio, what it
means to be professional and the realities of living your dream.

Keisha TK Dutes is a graduate of CUNY Brooklyn College with a degree in
TV/Radio. Throughout her college career, she found her niche in college radio
stations and began honing her personality as an energetic, opinionated, funny
programmer and thorough interviewer.

Listen to TK's radio show 'TK in The AM' live on Mondays, Wednesday, and
Fridays: http://bondfireradio.com/tk-in-the-am

TK is the producer of Buzzfeed's 'Thirst Aid Kit'

You can hire TK as an event host, an interviewer, a moderator, an audio producer
and she even teaches audio production classes. Check out TastyKeish dot net for
details!

 



 * Download this Episode

Nancy Lyons | Season 3 Episode 6 0
Nov 20, 2018

“There’s a big difference between lived equality and legal equality.”

Nancy has been locally and nationally recognized for her role as owner and CEO
of Clockwork. She is co-author of “Interactive Project Management: Pixels,
People, and Process” (New Riders, 2012) and author of the upcoming book, “How to
Win at Business by Being Nice to Humans.”

She serves as the Chair Emeritus of the National Board of Directors of the
Family Equality Council, is on the Board of Trustees at Minnesota Public Radio,
is on the Open Twin Cities Advisory Board, is on the Amplified Voices Board, and
is a member of the advisory board for the innovative entrepreneurial conference,
Giant Steps. She is also a member of the Women’s Presidents Organization and was
the Emcee for the Women’s March MN in 2017.

https://www.nancylyons.com/



 * Download this Episode

Cat Polivoda | Season 3 Episode 5 0
Oct 10, 2018

“Health is not a moral imperative.”

On this episode, fat feminist Cat Polivoda delves into body positivity, fat
advocacy and what it takes to run her own business. She also talks about being a
joyous person and explains what happens when we conflate thinness with health. 

Cat Polivoda owns Cake Plus-Size Resale - a body positive, plus-size thrift shop
in Minneapolis, MN. Focused on fostering a shop space and local community
centered on radical self love and size-acceptance, she is dedicated to making
plus-size fashion more accessible and affordable. 

Cat also co-hosts Matter of Fat - a new podcast through KFAI Community Radio! In
this body positive podcast with Midwest sensibilities Cat & her co-host/producer
Saraya highlight voices from our community with a lens on body size, body
positivity, & fat liberation. You can listen here!



 * Download this Episode

Filiberto Nolasco Gomez | Season 3 Episode 4 0
Sep 5, 2018

“Just because it’s journalism doesn’t mean it has to be unattractive. It can
feel good, too.”

Filiberto Nolasco Gomez grew up in a working-class Mexican community in Eastern
Los Angeles. On this episode of the podcast, he talks about how much his name
means to him and how challenging it seems to be for folks to pronounce it
correctly. He also talks about citizenship, the real work of being a journalist,
what music means to him and how masculinity operates as a means of survival and
sometimes a barrier to connection. 

Filiberto is the editor of Workday Minnesota, a publication focused on telling
the real stories of Minnesota's working people.

He also writes and produces a podcast about music and culture called El
Hauteque.



 * Download this Episode

Not About You 3 minute sampler 0
May 21, 2018

This is a 3 minute sample with clips from a few episodes of Not About You. Check
it out, share it, and then subscribe and listen to all of the episodes!



 * Download this Episode

Resmaa Menakem | Not About You Season 3 : Episode 3 1
Apr 19, 2018

“For 400 years you have not had to address this.” - Resmaa Menakem

Resmaa Menakem talks about his work and the goals of his book 'My Grandmother's
Hands,' including the healing needed around racialized trauma, the different
approaches needed for different bodies, and whose responsibility it is to engage
with the work of racial and social justice.


RESMAA MENAKEM MSW, LICSW, S.E.P. HAS APPEARED ON BOTH THE OPRAH WINFREY SHOW
AND DR. PHIL AS AN EXPERT ON CONFLICT AND VIOLENCE. HE HAS SERVED AS DIRECTOR OF
COUNSELING SERVICES FOR THE TUBMAN FAMILY ALLIANCE; AS BEHAVIORAL HEALTH
DIRECTOR FOR AFRICAN AMERICAN FAMILY SERVICES IN MINNEAPOLIS; AND AS A CULTURAL
SOMATICS CONSULTANT FOR THE MINNEAPOLIS POLICE DEPARTMENT. AS A COMMUNITY CARE
COUNSELOR, HE MANAGED THE WELLNESS AND COUNSELING SERVICES FOR CIVILIANS ON
FIFTY-THREE US MILITARY BASES IN AFGHANISTAN.


RESMAA CURRENTLY TEACHES WORKSHOPS ON CULTURAL SOMATICS FOR AUDIENCES OF AFRICAN
AMERICANS, EUROPEAN AMERICANS, AND POLICE OFFICERS. HE IS ALSO A THERAPIST IN
PRIVATE PRACTICE IN MINNEAPOLIS.


MY GRANDMOTHER'S HANDS


THE FIRST SELF-DISCOVERY BOOK TO EXAMINE WHITE BODY SUPREMACY IN AMERICA FROM
THE PERSPECTIVE OF TRAUMA AND BODY-CENTERED PSYCHOLOGY.

American Gods slave ship scene: https://vimeo.com/217950394

Professor Mahmoud El-Kati: http://www.mahmoudelkati.com/



 * Download this Episode

Tricia Heuring | Not About You Season 3 : Episode 2 0
Mar 30, 2018

“My Thai-ness or sense of Thai identity is not up for anyone else to quantify
based on how white I seem.”

Tricia Heuring talks about being "racially ambiguous" and "automatically
American." She shares her culture shock from arriving in the US at 18 having
learned about her own American culture largely through television and American
cultural items she had access to growing up in Egypt, Thailand, and Saudi
Arabia. And Tricia shares how her lived experiences have given her a unique
perspective as a curator and community organizer. 

Tricia Heuring is a curator, arts organizer, and educator living in Minneapolis.
A mixed-race, multi-cultural American, she was born in Thailand and spent
formidable years in Hawaii, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt. While setting down roots in
the Twin Cities over the past 15 + years, she’s instigated various platforms for
cultural production and creative communities. Since finding her forte in visual
art, she has become an advocate for curatorial practices that re-frame the role
of the gatekeeper to instead, facilitate equity and inclusivity in the art
world.

She practices this philosophy at Public Functionary, a Northeast Minneapolis
based alternative art space she co-founded in 2012. Public Functionary has been
called “a fantastic gift to a great art city” by New York Magazine’s senior art
critic, Jerry Saltz and “a beacon of hope for the local indie art scene” by the
Star Tribune. Heuring holds a B.A from Macalester College and an M.A. from St.
Mary’s University of Minnesota. She currently teaches arts leaders as an adjunct
in the arts management graduate program at St. Mary’s. Heuring serves on board
of the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council and was recognized with a “40 under
40” award from the Twin Cities Business Journal.



 * Download this Episode

Ashley Fairbanks | Not About You Season 3 : Episode 1 0
Mar 12, 2018

This episode features Ashley Fairbanks talking about growing up poor, being
Anishinaabe and whether or not there’s a right way to be native. Ashley talks
about the relationship between art and activism and she shares where her
confidence comes from.

 

Ashley Fairbanks is an Anishinaabe artist, organizer, and digital strategist. As
an interdisciplinary designer, Ashley works with a cohort of artists that do
racial justice popular education and organizing, seeking ways to creatively
innovate social-change work. She's a founding member and artistic director of
the ROVE project, a united effort of Rhymesayers Entertainment, community
organizers, and artists utilizing hip hop to impact our electoral process. 

Twitter: @ziibiing

Facebook: facebook.com/ziibiing

Website: ziibiing.com



 * Download this Episode

Yom Kippur sermon by Carin Mrotz 2017 0
Oct 2, 2017

Carin Mrotz presented this Yom Kippur sermon in Minneapolis at the Shir Tikvah
Synagogue in 2017

The text as prepared for delivery:

In preparing, I asked my self: What do I want to say to you. What do I need you
to know, today, on Yom Kippur. And who am I to tell you? I think about that a
lot – who am I in relation to this congregation, this community. I’m the
director of an organization that serves this community, and also asks a lot of
you. And I’m a member of this congregation. It can be hard to hold some of these
those roles at the same time. I’m a board member, and sometimes when I usher at
Shabbat, I find myself only talking to people about JCA. Or while I’m sitting in
the library reading while my kids are in religious school. It can be hard to
know how to just BE in the congregation and not feel that I’m working. Sometimes
Jewish becomes such a thing that I do that I forget how it feels to just be. So
rather than fight all of that, I’m just going to step into it here, and be all
of those things here with you.

And I look out and see JCA members, board members, and staff. I see the doctor
who delivered my son, I look into the choir and see the nurse midwife who
delivered my daughter. And I see both of my children here, squirming their way
through the adult service just to hear mom speak. I see my husband, who isn’t
Jewish, who in making a family with me threw his lot in with mine and joined our
community wholeheartedly. I’m accountable to so many of you in this room. We’re
accountable to each other. That can feel like a tremendous responsibility, but
also, today, on our holiest day and one of not just atonement but forgiveness,
it feels like a blessing. And I’m going to talk to you about racial justice and
resistance, and our community’s flawed inheritance. But I’ll start with Cain and
Abel.

To recap, for those who don’t remember or who haven’t yet read, or who just like
a good story, Cain and Abel were the sons of Adam and Eve after they were cast
out of Eden. They had sisters, too, but they were obviously perfect and never
did anything wrong, since I can’t think of any other reason the text isn’t about
them.

Cain is the first birth in the Torah. The first person born to another person.
To people who were cursed. His brother Abel follows. They are given roles: Cain
tills the soil and Abel tends the flock. The soil Cain tills is, of course,
cursed. God cursed the soil before he was even born. When he and his brother
approach God with offerings, his is disappointing. Of course it is. Abel has the
fattest sheep and Cain has fruit grown from cursed soil. And God accepts Abel’s
offering and rebuffs Cain’s. God turns his back on Cain, and furious, Cain kills
his brother. The first man born in the Torah becomes the first murderer. He
makes his brother the first death.

I think it means something that the first man born to a person in the Torah
takes the first life. I think his humanity is important. In social justice work,
we draw heavily, or lean heavily on the concept of b’tselem elohim, the idea
that we’re all made in the image of God. We are all made equally from the divine
and are all uniquely valuable. It’s a powerful way to describe what connects us
as humans. We use it to build empathy – with victims of police violence, with
undocumented immigrants. It’s the way we put words to what we hope we all would
just feel – that everyone is valuable, not matter how they got here, no matter
what they do. It’s how we articulate what connects us to people we’ve never even
met, why we care what happens to them.

There’s nothing about being made in the image of God that means we’re perfect.
Cain is messy and flawed and his brother bears that burden and loses his life.
And they are both made in the image of God. There is so much responsibility in
being human and we’re going to hurt each other. We’re going to make mistakes
because we were designed to.

Cain meets Abel in a field, ready to argue, and he kills him. And God comes to
Cain and asks where Abel is. God knows what happened to Abel and doesn’t need to
ask. So why does God bother to ask? God wants Cain to tell the truth. Today is
Yom Kippur, a day to atone, to reflect, to tell the truth. I need to tell you
some truth, too. Like MJ sang last night, I didn’t come to fool you.

First. As a community, we’ve done a deep dive into our white privilege in the
name of working for racial justice. We’ve gone to trainings – I’ve conducted
them – we’ve read books like How Jews Became White Folks, and articles like last
year’s As Jews atone on Yom Kippur, we need to confront our White Privilege in
the Washington Post. Many of us want to understand who we are and where to stand
in the fight for racial equality in America, so we studied our path in becoming
white and sought to understand the privileges that were granted us.

We’ve haven’t been getting this right. That’s the first truth. I did a training
a few years ago with a friend and colleague, also Jewish. A black Jew. And I
will never forget this - she held up a copy of How Jews Became White Folks, and
said, “I could rub this book all over me and I will never become white.”

White Jews need to do the work we’ve been doing to understand how to be allies
in fighting white supremacy, but somewhere we mistook the racial identity and
privilege conveyed to some of us as individuals as an identifier for our whole
community. We’re a multiracial community. Some of us are white. But in
generalizing our community as white, we’ve cast ourselves as allies to people
who live outside it, and we fall short of supporting - and seeing – Jews of
color. Or Jews with origins in the Middle East or South America or Asia. Or Jews
whose family history is not one of immigration at all. We’ve simplified our
story, taken the Ashkenazi journey to whiteness and made it the story of
American Jews. We’ve marginalized members of our own community, made them
invisible. I’m sorry we’ve done that. We’re capable as a community of sitting
with deeper complexity; we have shortchanged ourselves.

Next truth. Even for white Jews, our whiteness does not protect us from
anti-Semitism. Our rates of home ownership and college graduation have not made
neo-Nazis okay with us. Our privilege is conditional, and if anything, our
whiteness makes it easier for anti-Semitism to be brushed aside as not actually
very threatening. Our president – sigh – tells the nation that some of those
neo-Nazis in Charlottesville were fine people. Can you believe that? A woman was
killed. But I’m not just talking about neo-Nazis, in the days following what
happened in Charlottesville, some of us felt the sting of having the
anti-Semitism erased from those rallies by our own friends. Men chanted “Jews
will not replace us,” and yet when our anti-racist partners demanded justice, in
some of those demands, we felt forgotten. We were forgotten.

Truth. It stung. It hurt. A Jewish friend, a longtime racial justice activist
told me it felt like a door had closed. She didn’t want to make a big deal out
of it because she didn’t want to prioritize her own fear when other communities
were experiencing much more urgent attacks, and from systems, from institutions.
But the truth is it hurt, some of us felt truly isolated.

Last fall, not long after the election, I was attacked by Nazis on Twitter. A
neighbor discovered a giant swastika painted on the garage of an abandoned home
in North Minneapolis, where I live. A friend of mine, a black organizer, and I
went together to clean it off. I went to Home Depot and bought paint remover and
we scrubbed together in the cold until it was as gone as it could be, and then
because we couldn’t believe that a few hours earlier, there had literally been a
giant swastika right there on a house on the Northside, we took pictures and
tweeted them.

Within a few days, racist and anti-Semitic trolls attacked. They said we’d
painted it ourselves for attention, or because leftists are intent on proving
hate exists. Look, black women and their Jewish girlfriends don’t have to work
hard to prove hate exists. So, exposed as a hoax and targeted for having
committed the crime of being black and Jewish and women and publicly fighting
white supremacy, we got hammered for days. I received pictures of myself
photoshopped into Holocaust memes. My face was zoomed in on and analyzed for my
Jewish features. My friend was merely the pet, I was her puppeteer. Some were
violent, some explicit. There was one guy who kept tweeting my picture and
comparing me to a young Howard Stern. Which is probably fair. But most were
threatening, and most focused on my identity as a Jew and hers as a black woman
and the fact that we had done this together. My friend told me she didn’t know
anti-Semitism existed anymore. She’d thought it was an artifact. Something
historical. “I thought you guys were normal white people,” she said. “Right?” I
answered. “We did, too.”

Cain doesn’t tell God the truth. God asks where is Abel and Cain answers,
famously, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” Why lie to someone who already knows the
truth? I try to put myself in Cain’s shoes and I think about how scary it is to
tell the truth when you’re all alone.

That’s the function of anti-Semitism – to isolate Jews, to position us as an
invisible buffer between the oppressed and oppressor. Conditionally safe. We get
privilege but never full acceptance. We are exalted as powerful by those who
wish to destroy us because it separates us from the people we think of as our
most likely allies in fighting them. If everyone believes that the rich white
Jews are funding the anti-racist resistance, white supremacists will blame us
while black activists will feel used, controlled, resentful. We end up alone,
vulnerable. A scapegoat.

I pause here, because the idea of our community being used as a scapegoat is
interesting to think about today. The traditional Yom Kippur text is from
Leviticus, the expulsion into the wilderness of the scapegoat—the “goat for
Azazel,” carrying upon him all the inequities of the Israelites. A literal
vessel to carry our sins away from us. Today, though, we’re reading Cain and
Abel, a story that does the opposite – pushes us to stand and face our flaws,
pushes us to ask ourselves questions we already know the answers to in order to
tell the truth. To really atone is to hold our flaws close, not send them away.
And if we’ve been made the vessel for others to cast off their sins, a
scapegoat, it’s not a role we have to accept.

God asked Cain what happened to Abel. God gave Cain a chance to tell the truth.
And he couldn’t. Or he just didn’t. And yes, he was alone, but remember, Cain
was alone because in his anger at having been handed cursed ground, and in his
pain at being rejected by God, he pushed his brother away. He turned inward and
destroyed the person that might have supported him. In his pain, he made himself
alone. And they were both made in the image of God, and Cain’s destiny was bound
together with Abel’s – after he killed Abel, God sent Cain to wander, separated
him from the land that was his birthright, never to return.

Here’s another truth, or maybe a question. When we’ve found ourselves alone, are
there times when it’s because we’ve isolated ourselves? When we have assumed
likely allyship based on a historical relationship that we haven’t kept up? When
have we been hurt that other communities have scheduled something a date that’s
significant to us without understanding why it might be significant to them?
When we have criticized tactics without understanding the demands? or
wordsmithed statements? or disavowed groups that we never had a relationship
with in the first place? When have we relied on an image of Heschel marching
with King because we didn’t have a more recent example of solidarity? We’ve been
relying on Heschel praying with his feet for more than 50 years. His feet are
exhausted.

Another truth: B’tselem elohim, the recognition of God in a stranger is not a
shortcut to actually knowing them. I can recognize your humanity and fight for
you, but we are stronger if we fight together, on equal terms, not because we
want to help each other but because our destinies are firmly entwined. We are
strongest in relationship. Those take time, and they’re messy. That’s by design
– remember, we’re messy on purpose. We need to stay in relationships when it’s
hard. When we feel invisible, when we accidentally make someone else invisible.

When we’ve found ourselves alone, when has that been an opportunity to make a
connection?

When I was being attacked by Twitter Nazis, I was scared for my safety. I use my
real name on the internet, I am a professional Jew in public, my address is
listed. I knew rationally that the anonymity and distance that enabled these
trolls to come after me online would also probably protect me from having to
encounter them physically in my world. But I was deeply shaken, my anxiety was
out of control, I was drained. And I got through it, because of my friends. They
took my phone away and blocked the trolls so I wouldn’t have to see all of the
tweets. They fed me meals. A dozen of my girlfriends in other states coordinated
a donation to JCA in honor of fighting Nazis. From all around, I felt held, and
supported.

We say that our inheritance as Jews is a broken world. Like Cain inherited
cursed soil, we received a world in need of repair. We entered it broken, like
Cain, but we can choose to care for it, to tend it. We can choose to bring each
other closer, not isolate ourselves.

I believe our other inheritance is resilience. Some people think resilience is
the ability to bounce back, but I like the way the American Psychological
Association defines it – as adaptation in the face of adversity, trauma,
tragedy, threats, or stress. I learned that not from a psychologist but from
Rabbi Deborah Waxman, the President of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College.
I had the privilege, in a dark moment, to receive some of her teaching on
resilience, and I wanted to share just a tiny bit with you.

Resilience is not coming back from something terrible, it’s adapting in the
current moment to terrible circumstances. I went to a training once, on how to
fight racism as people of faith, and the facilitator said, “We talk about safe
spaces, but my job is not to keep things from hurting you in this space, it’s to
help you be resilient enough to deal with painful things and keep doing the
work.” That’s what our community has always done. That’s our job right now – to
support each other through challenging times, knowing that sometimes we will be
messy. And we will work in relationship, because none of the paths through this
moment can be managed alone.

The last truth, another question. When we’ve thought ourselves alone, when have
we really not been? When have we been guided by our ancestors, our shared story
of survival. When have we looked around to find ourselves sitting in a full
congregation, in community, on our holiest day, together?



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Whiteness | Not About You special episode 20 0
Sep 26, 2017

This episode features three conversations about how white folks can engage with
themselves and the world in response to racism and anti-semitism. This is a
response to the events in Charlottesville on August 12, 2017, as well as so many
other things happening in the United States. These conversations were recorded
in September of 2017.

The guests featured on this episode are:

Emily Krumberger

Brendan Kelly

Laney McKee

This episode concludes with a performance of "How to explain white supremacy to
a white supremacist" by Guante. 



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Rebecca Kling | Not About You Season 2: Episode 9 0
Jun 15, 2017

“No one is obligated to be an educator about their identity.”

Artist Rebecca Kling talks about issues surrounding gender, bathroom use and
anti trans activism. She talks about being a transgender activist and educator.
Rebecca unpacks the idea of reciprocity and whether someone is or isn't
obligated to teach about their identity. She shares personal stories of
traveling as a performer and advocate and how that's influenced her
understanding of how progress is made. Rebecca also talks about ways to
understand trans issues and the many ways to be an ally.

Rebecca Kling is a Washington, D.C. based transgender artist and educator who
explores gender and identity through solo performance pieces and educational
workshops. Her multidisciplinary performances incorporate conversational
storytelling, personal narrative, humor, and more. Kling takes the position that
sharing accessible queer narrative with a wide audience is a form of activism,
and that understanding combats bigotry.



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Bharti Wahi | Not About You Season 2 : Episode 8 0
Jun 8, 2017

“It is difficult to dismantle a system that is invisible to you.”

Bharti Wahi talks about frequently dealing with the question, "what are you?"
and where that question comes from. She talks about growing up in rural
Minnesota with immigrant parents from Canada and Southeast Asia. Bharti talks
about systemic oppression and the challenges in the way of changing systems. She
talks about the myth that brown people don't live in the middle of the country
and about being angry but staying hopeful and focused. 

As the Executive Director of Children’s Defense Fund–Minnesota office Bharti
Wahi brings 20 years of professional experience as an advocate in the nonprofit
world and more than a decade of experience in education. Prior to joining
Children’s Defense Fund, Ms. Wahi spent three years with Greater Twin Cities
United Way where she oversaw several grant portfolios related to early childhood
education, two-generation interventions and literacy. Previously, she led the
Children and Family Program for the Minnesota Literacy Council for five years,
building the home visiting program and overseeing two early learning centers.

As an active community member Ms. Wahi serves on the Board of Directors of the
Hale-Field Schools Foundation and Women Organizing Women. In addition she sits
on the McKnight Foundation’s PreK-Third Grade Design Team and is currently
serving on the Minnesota Department of Education’s ESSA Accountability Advisory
Committee and the Department of Human Services Parent Aware Advisory Council.

Ms. Wahi holds a Bachelor of Arts from the Saint Catherine University and a
Master of Arts in public policy and nonprofit management from the University of
Chicago.

 



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Eric Pogi Sumangil | Not About You Season 2 : Episode 7 0
May 30, 2017

"People are trying to figure out how to categorize you and I think that's just a
human thing."

'Pogi' talks about being an actor of color and how that makes him wonder about
parts he does or doesn't get. He talks about people assume he speaks Spanish
because of how he looks even though he's a Filipino-American. He talks about
identifying outside of the typical "racial binary" and about being a part of a
family that has ongoing immigration into the US. 

Eric 'Pogi' Sumangil is a two-time recipient of the Playwrights' Center's Many
Voices Fellowship. His full-length plays include The Duties and Responsibilities
of Being a Sidekick and Kicking The Gong Around. His play, The Debutante's Ball,
was produced in 2015 by History Theatre in partnership with Mu Performing Arts. 

He is a proud member of Actor’s Equity Association, and a co-founder of The Unit
Collective, a collective of emerging playwrights of color. He is a recipient of
a 2002 Excellence in the Arts award from the Fil-Minnesotan Association, and
once got his name on a plaque for eating a 3-pound steak.



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PH Copeland | Not About You Season 2 : Episode 6 0
May 22, 2017

PH Copeland shares her experience as a Pan-African woman from North Minneapolis
building power through community organizing. She shares about the way larger
women are treated and talked to, the way people attempt to complement and
connect that can lead to unintended harm. And she talks about the large and
small ways people can dismantle oppressive systems.

 



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Jess Banks | Not About You Season 2 : Episode 5 0
May 14, 2017

"I have decided I don't care enough to be normal."

On this episode, Jess Banks talks about tracing her inability to ignore
injustice back to childhood and how that set her apart from her family. She
shares openly her struggles with chronic pain and what it's like to being a
parent with autism raising a child with autism. Jess also talks about why she
shows up to her activism work, what she gets from being a part of movements and
what it means to her to be a part of a community. 

Jess Banks is a wife, mom, professor, historian, gamer, crafter, activist,
autistic, UU. Jess is office manager at Atlas Games.



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Kareem Tabsch | Not About You Season 2 : Episode 4 0
May 2, 2017

“If it has to get aggressive in a way of defending myself or others, I’m
absolutely okay with that.”

Why does representation matter on film, in art and in life? Documentary
filmmaker, film programmer and arts advocate Kareem Tabsch answers this question
and so many others. Kareem talks about being a first generation American to
Lebanese and Latino parents, growing up in Miami and getting his first exposure
to film and movies via PBS.

Kareem Tabsch is the co-founder and co-director of Miami's largest art house
cinema, an Award winning documentary filmmaker and an Arts Advocate who strongly
believes in the power of the arts, particularly film, to enrich lives and
revitalize communities.

 



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Timothy Iverson | Not About You Season 2 : Episode 3 0
Apr 24, 2017

"I took the word 'cripple' and I've been swinging it around sort of like a bull
in a china shop."

Timothy Iverson talks about his early life with Cerebral Palsy that required
many surgeries and now means he walks with crutches. He talks about the process
of going to a special school and then being "mainstreamed" in a way that was
meant to be positive but didn't necessarily have positive results. He also talks
about the way people treat folks with physical disabilities, how he's come to
own hurtful labels and why his tenacity isn't a choice so much as a requirement.

Plus, Timmy talks about being a gay man and dealing with the idea that people
with physical disabilities don't have sex. He shares openly about the realities
of the similarities he sees in how gay people are treated and how people with
physical disabilities are treated. 

Timothy Iverson is an IT expert, a frequent participant in the Renaissance
Festival, a huge part of CONvergence, a graphic designer and a huge nerd. He's
also very funny. You can connect with Timmy on Twitter @iversonimage



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Taj Ruler | Not About You S2 : E2 0
Apr 15, 2017

“Often times an assumption of most people is that I am white.”

Taj Ruler talks about being bi-racial but mostly being perceived as white. She
talks about the differences between time in her mother's house where Sri Lankan
culture was prominent and in her father's house SpaghettiOs where more common
and explains the feeling of not quite fitting in either space. Taj talks about
her own, ongoing quest to understand her identity. And she explains the
challenges of being a person of color who doesn't fit into the black/white
dichotomy that often dominates conversations of race.

Taj Ruler is an actor, improviser, voice over artist, comedy writer and teacher
in the Twin Cities. She has performed at Pillsbury House Theatre, Mixed Blood
Theatre, The Playwrights’ Center, HUGE and the Brave New Workshop. Taj studied
improvisation at the Groundlings in Los Angeles and Second City in Chicago. 



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Carin Mrotz | Not About You Season 2 : Episode 1 0
Apr 7, 2017

“I think that spending time with only people exactly like you is sad and
boring.”

On this episode, Carin Mrotz talks about growing up with social justice through
the lens of teacher parents who engaged with the union. She talks about what
American’s think of when we think of the American Jewish community and how that
isn’t necessarily representative of the diversity of Jewish experiences and
voices. Can unpacks how whiteness hurts literally everyone, talks about the
relationship between Judaism and resistance, goes deep on Christian hegemony and
tries to explain why Anti-Semitism never goes away and how it’s used to separate
people.

Carin Mrotz is the Executive Director of Jewish Community Action. She has worked
on campaigns for immigrant and workers’ rights and played a central role in
organizing the Jewish community in support for marriage equality in Minnesota in
2012. Carin has worked as a trainer, curriculum designer, fundraiser, college
instructor and organizer. She’s one of co-hosts of the political podcast Wrong
About Everything. She grew up in South Florida but has lived in Minnesota for
the past two decades.

Find Carin on twitter @mrotzie

Check out the Wrong About Everything podcast

 

For further reading:

Toward the Next Jewish Rebellion by Yotam Marom – Read I it on Medium HERE

“A Brief History of Everything” by Ken Wilber 

“How Jews Became White Folks and What That Says About Race in America” by Karen
Brodkin



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NOT ABOUT YOU | Season 1 Trailer 0
Dec 29, 2016

Here are short clips from each of the 10 episodes that make up season one of Not
About You.

Subscribe on iTunes

Ep 1 - Jun-Li Wang

Ep 2 - Javier Morillo

Ep 3 - Kathy Mouacheupao

Ep 4 - Peggy Flanagan

Ep 5 - Noel Nix

Ep 6 - Heid Erdrich

Ep 7 - Hannah

Ep 8 - Regina Mustafa

Ep 9 - Alfonso Wenker

Ep 10 - Sarah White



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NOT ABOUT YOU | Episode 10 Sarah White 0
Dec 21, 2016

“This world is going to get dull without the creatives and communities of color
getting fed. And we can’t have to beg for it.”

Songwriter, photographer, mother and culture creator Sarah White talks about all
the ways the various aspects of her identity demand time and energy without
always giving back what she needs to survive. She deals with basic daily burdens
like folks trying to touch her just because and needing to get paid to do her
work without wanting to always ask. Work, life, balance and burden are all
present in this episode of the podcast.

Check out Sarah's photos at http://www.fotosforbarcelona.com/

Check out Sarah's music at http://www.sarahwhitemusic.com/

Check out the podcast Sarah makes with Tricia Heurin at
https://soundcloud.com/dontdie



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NOT ABOUT YOU | Episode 9 Alfonso Wenker 0
Dec 18, 2016

“When have I assumed shared experience, and when have I discovered shared
experience?”

On this episode, Alfonso Wenker talks about using his own practice to be able to
do the work of helping others and not making it about him. He explains the
minimization mindset, re-centering experiences to preserve comfort and how folks
can't get really clear about their own experiences.

Check out the Colorlines blog Alfonso suggests.

Here's where you can download the Reading List for White Folks

-

Alfonso Wenker is facilitator, trainer, and philanthropic strategist. He is a
total nerd about all things movement-building and philanthropy.

Alfonso fell in love with philanthropy as a nonprofit intern in 2006 and was
hired by a LGBT community foundation in 2007 while still in college. He has been
engaged in social change work since his early teens. His activism started in
doing church-based service work followed by high school and college-campus
organizing. Alfonso has a broad range of experience spanning
training/facilitation, fundraising, event planning and program development.

He is a queer Latino born and raised in St. Paul, Minnesota. Alfonso has
primarily worked with and for LGBT nonprofits in fundraising and grant-making.

-

The premise of this show is simple. I wanted to ask marginalized folks to tell a
white guy what question or questions they wish they never had to hear again.
They did just that and I had them answer those question, hopefully for the last
time.

Also, I've been a comedy writer and performer my entire adult life, so this show
is full of jokes.

I’ve set up a voicemail line, 612-361-9261, where you can share comments,
suggestions and personal stories of your own that may be used in future episodes
of the podcast. If you tell me which episode you’re responding to, that will
help me make follow up episodes with voicemail responses. Call 612-361-9261 with
your questions, comments or stories.

-Levi Weinhagen



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