The Exchanges

Q So much of what you have to do, Rashad, as a leader of such a massive organization that is addressing one of the most challenge, if not the most challenging series of, of issues in human history, um, is persuasion. What have you learned about the art of persuasion as somebody who is pursuing impact?

A Yeah, you know, that's such a great question. I think about persuasion a lot, particularly because I, I've come to realize after this last summer that racial, racial justice moved people to the streets, moved people to action. And so if you think about over the last 10 years, right, um, people saying black lives matter too, or it's racist to say that, um, to now it being, um, not that it's not controversial, but now it's, it's, it's, On streets. In front of capitals. It's raised up on signs. That is the power of persuasion. Persuasion is not just about some sort of messaging. It's about narrative, because narrative, once again, is about power. About the rules and norms of society. What is acceptable, and what is possible. And so, you know, we also think a lot about the stories we tell. Um, far too often we tell stories about inequality that Are unfortunate rather than stories that are unjust and really sort of illustrate the, um, injustices. Uh, stories that oftentimes, uh, start from a, a passive voice about the system instead of an active voice, and so what I mean by that is black people are less likely to get a loan from the bank is what we'll oftentimes hear instead of banks are less likely to give loans to black people, and that may seem like semantics. But what I'm really saying here is that when you say black people are less likely to get loans from the bank, people ask …

AI assessment note: “Persuasion is not just about some sort of messaging. It's about narrative”

Q including in activism, in what you do, because so much of it is about creative ways to create disruption. You've been an activist your whole life. You literally grew up in an activist home. Um, you got involved in political organizing in high school. Um, you even hosted a political talk show on your local Axis Station when you were younger. Um, why did you pursue a life of activism?

A You know, I pursued a life. Um, I pursued my purpose. I pursued fighting for the people I care about and fighting for myself, and that has led me into a world of activism, but I never really knew until I got much older that this could be sort of a, a job or a life. You know, as a young activist, people would say, um, particularly in the black community, that I should either run for office, and I've done everything I could To run from office, and um, or that I should be a minister, and those were some of the things that people would oftentimes say, and I feel like in both those cases, people were, I think, speaking to this idea of being of service, and I think that's what I continue to try to do.

AI assessment note: “I pursued fighting for the people I care about and fighting for myself”

Q important year. I think your email list alone has gone from like one and a half million people to almost seven million, maybe more by this point, which is just incredible. Um, how do you as, as a leader Because so many of the, of the people watching tonight are thinking about impact. How can I have an impact? How do you measure that for yourself and for the organization?

A Yeah, we think about it a couple of ways. First, we have this kind of central sort of premise to our work that I've really, um, tried to, um, include in, in all the things that we do, and it's not mistaking presence for power. Presence is visibility, awareness, retweets, shoutouts from the stage. Presence is not bad, but when we mistake presence for power, we sometimes think we've done things that we haven't actually done. We mistake a black president for thinking that we are post-racial. We may mistake a America's love for black celebrities and black culture for thinking that America loves black people as much as America loves black culture, and America can love, celebrate, and even monetize black culture and hate black people at the same time, and so that standard of not mistaking presence for power is really about recognizing that power is the ability to change the rules, and that is really where we start out in terms of impact, but across all of our campaign work, we really Create goals across the organization. Try to really work to hold folks accountable for what does it mean to actually contribute, and so we, we talk about things that are what we call pile-on victories, and those are just things that would have happened without us, all the way to things that couldn't have happened without us, and we try to be in that space of things that couldn't happen without us, or thi…

AI assessment note: “power is the ability to change the rules, and that is really where we start”

Q up, but actually there are these giant rivers that run deep under our oceans that determine currents and weather patterns that are fixed or, or semi-fixed, and, and we focus on these symptoms. I'm curious about this word progress because that's been part of our cultural narrative for, um, For, for, for decades, this idea that progress happens, it's real, it's achievable. What do you think about that word progress?

A I actually think progress is very tricky, right, as a word, because, um, the systems that we are fighting are durable and strong, and they were made to be durable and strong, and sometimes they will create space for, um, Us to have cosmetic victories that aren't actually progress, right? We can have, um, more black millionaires and billionaires, but we still have a widening wealth gap. And so it doesn't mean that we don't sort of recognize that progress. We have to sort of, um, uh, be inside of real conversations of hope, of, um, achievement. Um, and at the same time, Our progress oftentimes comes with backlash, right? It's not a mistake, right, that after the first black president was elected, that's when we saw that rise in those discriminatory voter ID laws. You can vote with your gun license, but not your student ID. Um, you now see basically, um, an attempt to strip, um, American citizens of their right to express their will for a better future through the vote. Um, we have to sort of both recognize progress, But steel ourselves to be able to defend that progress. And this goes back to this idea of infrastructure. Infrastructure gives us the ability to not just achieve big things, but to hold on to those big things, but also to then face down the forces that really stand in the way of change. And so to the extent that progress is so important, but, but the stories that can…

AI assessment note: “I actually think progress is very tricky, right, as a word, because”

Q Rashad, I can't help but think, as I listen to you, and, and I know your story, and all of the work you've done throughout your life, on behalf of LGBTQ issues, on behalf of racial justice, I'm blown away. I mean, where, where do you get your strength to do the work you do?

A It is absolutely emotionally exhausting. There are days where we get some of the most Troubling and, um, tragic outreaches from people and deep pain, and we may not have the resource to take it on, or we may not be the right organization, and so there are so many of these things that we can't take on, and so we constantly have to think about what are the moments that we can take that actually allow us to move towards systemic pivots, so that we can win, uh, um, change that can be sort of, uh, self-fulfilling over time and can lead to more change, But also, like, I'm in these stories. I'm in these stories as myself, My family's in these stories. My, um, I sometimes see my younger self in some of these stories, and you can't take yourself out of that, and you can't center yourself at the same time. I also know that I am doing this work on top of a legacy of people who were entrepreneurs. You know, there's kind of like this sort of two types of entrepreneurship that, I, I kind of see in the black community that entrepreneurship of trying to build something that, you know, adds a new service, adds a new resource. And then the thing for oppressed people, for black folks, for other folks that have been marginalized, is having to build something that already exists, but you've been excluded from. And having to build the, the black newspapers that, you know, Black people literally have…

AI assessment note: “I'm in these stories as myself... I am doing this work on top of a legacy”

Q is that There, there's no timeline. You know, I mean, there's no, well, in six months time, we're going to solve systemic racism. I mean, it is a potentially never ending struggle. And I wonder how you think about victory and, and victories. How do you, do you sort of step back and look at, let's say, a timeline that has no end, but still recognize certain things as victories?

A Um, absolutely. I mean, that's what you have to do. And along the way, you're trying to create a more human and less hostile world. And that's how we think about this work. We also recognize that people don't experience issues. We experience life, that the forces that hold us back are deeply interrelated. A racist criminal justice system requires a racist media culture to keep it alive, to create the demand for it, to, um, protect it, uh, Political inequality goes hand in hand with economic inequality. These things all operate together, and so that does get us back to sort of the, the thing I started with, which is power, right? And this idea that we're constantly trying to raise the floor on what's acceptable and push up the ceiling on what's possible, and when we do that, we create new space for new things to happen, um, but because we've maybe changed the narrative, or we changed the landscape, or we've changed what's possible, then more things can, can occur as a result.

AI assessment note: “we're constantly trying to raise the floor on what's acceptable and push up the ceiling”