Bourbon 'n BrownTown

EPISODE NOTE: Content warning for sounds of violence (gunshots); and spoiler alert for films mentioned below

GUEST

Alyx is currently a Deputy Campaign Director on Policing and Incarceration at the Action Center on Race and the Economy (ACRE), organizes with BYP100 Chicago, and is a co-founder and writer with LEFT OUT Magazine. Her writing and activism are centered around the momentum and challenges of building Black power and self-determination. Her work at ACRE currently focuses on the relationship between the finance industry and policing, racialized capitalism, and how they exacerbate oppressions.

OVERVIEW

GUEST

Alyx is currently a Deputy Campaign Director on Policing and Incarceration at the Action Center on Race and the Economy (or ACRE), organizes with BYP100 Chicago, and is a co-founder and writer with LEFT OUT Magazine. Her writing and activism are centered around the momentum and challenges of building Black power and self-determination. Her work at ACRE currently focuses on the relationship between the finance industry and policing, racialized capitalism, and how they exacerbate oppressions.

OVERVIEW

BrownTown spills the tea on surveillance capitalism and talks abolitionist tech with Alyxandra Goodwin, who is...

GUEST

Simone St. Pierre Nelson (all pronouns) is an 18-year-old writer and audio producer who is passionate about radio, education justice, and police and prison abolition. Simone produces and teaches with RadioActive Youth Media at KUOW Public Radio, hosts a podcast amplifying youth organizers for Student Voice, and was an intern and facilitator for the Seattle-based National Center for Restorative Justice. Simone lives with their family in Issaquah, Washington, and is headed to college in California in the fall. When Simone isn't teaching and making radio, you can find them playing dungeons and dragons or walking their...

THE COLLECTIVE FREEDOM PROJECT
The Collective Freedom Project (CFP) is a movement media and resource hub that tells the stories of the local and regional efforts where people — both U.S. citizens and non U.S. citizens — are coming together to fight unique campaigns against criminalization in their communities. From Chicago to California, Atlanta to Texas, activists, organizers, and communities are rising up to fight against criminalization and violence in varied yet connected forms.

SERIES OVERVIEW
In the first recording since the series, Caullen and David debrief on the series' conversations, producing the project behind-the-scenes, as w...

THE COLLECTIVE FREEDOM PROJECT
This episode is Part Four in the Collective Freedom Project four-part series with Bourbon 'n BrownTown. The Collective Freedom Project (CFP) is a movement media and resource hub that tells the stories of the local and regional efforts where people — both U.S. citizens and non U.S. citizens — are coming together to fight unique campaigns against criminalization in their communities. From Chicago to California, Atlanta to Texas, activists, organizers, and communities are rising up to fight against criminalization and violence in varied yet connected forms.

GUEST
Sandy (she/they) is crim...

THE COLLECTIVE FREEDOM PROJECT
This episode is Part Two in the Collective Freedom Project four-part series with Bourbon 'n BrownTown. The Collective Freedom Project (CFP) is a movement media and resource hub that tells the stories of the local and regional efforts where people — both U.S. citizens and non U.S. citizens — are coming together to fight unique campaigns against criminalization in their communities. From Chicago to California, Atlanta to Texas, activists, organizers, and communities are rising up to fight against criminalization and violence in varied yet connected forms.

GUESTS
Rebecca Sanchez is the daug...

THE COLLECTIVE FREEDOM PROJECT
This episode is Part Two in the Collective Freedom Project four-part series with Bourbon 'n BrownTown. The Collective Freedom Project (CFP) is a movement media and resource hub that tells the stories of the local and regional efforts where people — both U.S. citizens and non U.S. citizens — are coming together to fight unique campaigns against criminalization in their communities. From Chicago to California, Atlanta to Texas, activists, organizers, and communities are rising up to fight against criminalization and violence in varied yet connected forms.

GUEST
Denise Ruben is a lead...

THE COLLECTIVE FREEDOM PROJECT
This episode is Part One in the Collective Freedom Project four-part series with Bourbon 'n BrownTown. The Collective Freedom Project (CFP) is a movement media and resource hub that tells the stories of the local and regional efforts where people — both U.S. citizens and non U.S. citizens — are coming together to fight unique campaigns against criminalization in their communities. From Chicago to California, Atlanta to Texas, activists, organizers, and communities are rising up to fight against criminalization and violence in varied yet connected forms.

GUEST
Xanat Sobrevilla is a co-f...

THE COLLECTIVE FREEDOM PROJECT
The Collective Freedom Project (CFP) is a movement media and resource hub that tells the stories of the local and regional efforts where people — both U.S. citizens and non U.S. citizens — are coming together to fight unique campaigns against criminalization in their communities. From Chicago to California, Atlanta to Texas, activists, organizers, and communities are rising up to fight against criminalization and violence in varied yet connected forms.

SERIES OVERVIEW
Caullen and David of BrownTown and organizers across the U.S. discuss fighting for a world away from police and...

GUEST

Mateo Zapata is a South Side-raised creative of Colombian/Chilean descent working at the intersection of photojournalism, the arts, hip-hop and community advocacy.

OVERVIEW

BrownTown reflects on the turbulent events of March and April 2021 in Chicago within the context of the community-based media, truth in journalism, and participating in and documenting social movements with Mateo Zapata.

Documentation has always played a vital role in how history is perceived but with the advancement of technology, these positions, once only for a certain group of people, have broadened. With this so too...

GUEST

Mashaun Ali Hendricks is a Chicago born-and-raised Organizer, restorative justice practitioner, community architect, conceptual artist and owner of the restorative justice based street-wear brand & boutique TRAP House Chicago, which houses the Feed 79th initiative, peace circles, art installations, and much more.

OVERVIEW

BrownTown shares a virtual circle with Mashaun Ali Hendricks. Together, they listen, learn, share, and unpack restorative justice from its ancestral beginnings to its modern direct opposition the prison industrial complex and everything in between.

Restorative Justice (RJ) has gained in popularity over the decades. We know it...

GUEST

CA is the creator and host of a LATTO Thought — an immersive audio documentary series that dismantles post-racial myths about mixed race identities. By day, he is a digital storyteller at Northwestern University where he turns academic research into films, podcasts, and media elements integral to larger digital humanities projects. Outside of NU, he is a filmmaker, editor, and, more recently, audio documentarian focused on racial consciousness and social justice.

OVERVIEW

BrownTown listens, learns, and breaks down the myths and histories of racial identity with CA Davis, filmmaker, digital storyteller, and creator of...

GUEST

Bettina Johnson is a Chicago born and raised abolitionist organizer, Co-founder and current Steering Committee member of Liberation Library and on the Steering Committee for the AfroSocialists and Socialists of Color Caucus of the Chicago Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). She is also on the Steering Committee of Chicago DSA’s #DefundCPD Campaign, and Co-lead for the Training Committee of the Black Abolitionist Network-steered #DefundCPD Campaign

OVERVIEW

BrownTown invites Bettina Johnson to talk all things #DefundCPD campaign, nuances and strategies for abolitionist organizing, non-hierarchal structures, building responsive institutions, and training the newly po...

BrownTown reflects on advertising and internet-based media post-COVID lockdown, post-George Floyd uprisings, and post-2020 elections. Building on the first May 2019 installment, BrownTown updates their analysis on the ways in which corporate and independent media co-opt movements and historical events to help their bottom line, improve their public image, and sometimes challenge the status quo.

If advertising is the jester of capitalism and we're all forced to watch the show, then lets engage with a critical lens and build the tools to burn down the stage and create anew if it doesn't serve our material needs. Originally recorded F...

GUEST

Christina Wilborn is the Co-Founder and Co-Creator of Womxnvibe. Reminding womxn that it is OK to own their confidence in their sexual identity, and that taking up space is necessary to develop the stronghold in our individual powers. She is a hope dealer who encourages and empowers womxn to live in their authentic sexual identities through movement and affirming mediation. Other titles she currently wears are wife, mom of three, dancer, creator, spiritual thug, and entrepreneur.

OVERVIEW

BrownTown shares virtual space with Christina to discuss sex and body positivity. She opens up...

GUEST

Lizette Garza is the Program Manager at Crossroads Fund, a public foundation  that supports community organizations working on issues of racial, social and economic justice in the Chicago area. Lizette supports community-based grant making, and movement building programs like The Giving Project and Cultivate: A Women of Color Leadership program. Previously, Lizette has a background in youth development and music industry serving as a Program Specialist at After School Matters and Teaching Artist at ElevArte Community Studio. She is a longtime Pilsen-resident with a love for hip hop, yoga, and cooking. Outside of trust-based philanthropy, she i...

GUEST

Born and raised in Denver, Colorado, Genta Tamashiro is a creative devotee of the artistic community. He attended the specialized magnet school Denver School of the Arts for middle and high school, which gave him a solid foundation in musical performance and theory as well as an introduction into audio engineering. After spending some time at the University of Hawai’i at Manoa, Genta moved to Chicago to pursue a career in audio engineering where he received a Bachelor of Arts in Audio Design and Production from Columbia College in 2015. Through his freelance audio work, he ha...

GUEST
Timmy Châu is an organizer, lawyer, and facilitator based in Chicago. He’s a co-founder of Dissenters, a new youth-led anti-war organization and a Co-director of the Prison and Neighborhood Arts and Education project (PNAP), an inside/outside arts and organizing effort operating in and out of Stateville prison. Above all, he believes in fighting for a world without prisons and police.

OVERVIEW
Fitness Against Fascism alum Timmy Châu brings his knowledge and experience in movement and legal work to the conversation around using the law for liberatory means. Building upon the firs...

GUEST

Jasson Perez is a Senior Research Analyst at ACRE who studies the connections between police violence, mass incarceration, and economic injustice. Through his research, he works to create campaigns to end mass incarceration and police violence and demonstrate that the fight for democratic socialism must embrace the politics of decarceration and abolition. Previously, at the Cook Center on Social Equity, Jasson did research on the racial wealth gap created by housing discrimination against Black homebuyers. Before becoming a researcher Jasson was a lead organizer for SEIU Local 73 and BYP100. When Jasson isn’t selling his labor fo...

GUEST
Stephanie Skora is a Chicago-based unapologetic femme, a statistically middle-aged genderqueer trans woman, a lesbian reclamationist, and an anti-racist, anti-Zionist white Jew practicing her spiritual tradition through the Religious Anarchist Jewish practice. Born with some pretty bad paperwork errors, raised in a deeply conservative suburb of Chicago, Illinois, and brought up in a sheltering, faux-liberal, and Zionist family with an abusive parent, Stephanie had the making of an activist from an early age. Stephanie is a renowned educator, organizer, researcher, and non-profiteer whose work is recognized and sought after across the United States, and in the Midwest...

GUEST

Born and raised in Denver, Colorado, Genta is a creative devotee of the artistic community. He attended the specialized magnet school Denver School of the Arts for middle and high school, which gave him a solid foundation in musical performance and theory as well as an introduction into audio engineering. After spending some time at the University of Hawai’i at Manoa, Genta moved to Chicago to pursue a career in audio engineering where he received a Bachelor of Arts in Audio Design and Production from Columbia College in 2015. Through his freelance audio work, he has tr...

GUESTS
Grace Del Vecchio is a freelance reporter and undergrad student at DePaul University. When she first moved to Chicago from Philadelphia in 2018, she worked as an organizer for multiple Chicago grassroots and electoral campaigns before transitioning to journalism. While her work covers a wide range of topics, she focuses on social movements and highlights youth activism.

OVERVIEW

Following up from the first installment with Damon Williams and Daniel Kisslinger of AirGo, BrownTown listens, learns, and again converses about movement media, this time under the context of more traditional journalistic structures and academic institutions...

GUEST
Taylor Maness is a socialist organizer who has spent years building power with labor unions and community organizations. He spends his downtime suffering in cold Minnesota winters and studying mathematics, science fiction, and history.

OVERVIEW
BrownTown shares virtual space with friend of SoapBox and socialist organizer Taylor Maness as they dissect the origins of Labor Day and May Day, talk labor movement history and the fight for workers' rights, as well as the importance of class and racial solidarity in the fight against racial capitalism then and now.

BrownTown starts by reflecting...

GUEST
Morgan Malone is a public servant, expert in human-centered design and collective impact, and dedicated resident of the Southside of Chicago. Morgan has worked across the civic landscape in a variety of roles that have informed her holistic lens and approach to finding solutions and fixing systems.

Known for her aptitude in building and restructuring systems and initiatives, Morgan is an experienced civic leader, skilled strategist, and consistent figure in Chicago’s neighborhood and economic development sphere.

OVERVIEW

BrownTown talks with Morgan Malone, all-around civic leader, strategist, and dedicated resident of th...

GUESTS
Ashli Giles-Perkins is a 2020 graduate of Loyola University Chicago School of Law and an Organizing Member of the Chicago chapter of Black Youth Project 100. Ashli attended the University of New Haven, and is originally from Connecticut, where she got her organizing start. Ashli is a founding member of Bridgeport Generation Now, Connecticut Organized for Racial Equity (CT-CORE), and served as a Bernie delegate to the 2016 Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia. Ashli’s work centers on education equity, policy, and social justice. She has been a member of BYP100 since January 2019. She enjoys traveling, poetry, Jamaican food, trap mu...

GUESTS
Veronica Rodriguez (AKA "V" or "Vero") started organizing in high school at age 16, by founding a club called Student Voice Committee. In this club, students organized and pressured their administration, school culture and focused on creating a space for students to voice their concerns and make calls to action. Later, these skills and conversations carried over outside of school for them and they became actively involved in the fight for #NoCopAcademy, education & racial equity, anti-militarism, gentrification, abolition, and so much more. Fun fact: V is now banned from their high school because of the pressure and organizing...

GUEST
Ariel Atkins is a lead organizer of Black Lives Matter Chicago and was very active in the #NoCopAcademy campaign. She is also a hardcore anime and comic book nerd.

OVERVIEW

BrownTown finally tackles a much discussed topic on this podcast as well as in recent weeks, police abolition. Ariel begins by sharing how she came up in the movement and her transition from activist to organizer. BrownTown chimes in comparing the politicization process of the unpoliticized from the 2016 election to now (see Episode 11). All three share their thoughts and experiences since the global...

GUESTS
Abbie Brasch is a mental health advocate and soon-to-be clinical massage therapist who created the 365 day Mental Health Daily Journal.

Dakota Sillyman is a filmmaker and the creator of the mental health podcast, Cope.

OVERVIEW

BrownTown shares virtual space with Abbie Brasch and Dakota Sillyman, multi-talented friends of SoapBox and mental health advocates who create resources and media for learning and navigating mental health on all levels. Abbie discusses the impetus of her journal, how it helped her and is now helping others while Dakota discusses how Cope is positioned as...

GUEST
Tanvi Kapatral was born and raised in Chicago. She began organizing at 15, as a member of Chicago Desi Youth Rising. She is currently on a break from college and utilizing this gap year to get further involved in Chicago organizing, particularly on issues surrounding the oppression of minorities in India and the rise of Hindu Nationalism. She is a member of Dissenters, a national youth-led anti-war movement that is working to put pressure on college campuses and other institutions to divest from endless wars and reinvest in life and healing. Her other interests include classical South Asian...

This is the eighth Chicago Drill and Activism (AKA "Chi DNA") installment of Bourbon ’n BrownTown. Chi DNA is an ongoing documentary and multimedia project, which also features interviews, micro-documentaries, and editorial pieces on drill rap and the activist resurgence in Chicago.

GUEST
Tweak’G is a rapper and activist who has been on the front lines of the two successful grassroots campaigns in Chicago--#ByeAnita and #TraumaCenterNow at the U of Chicago. Born and raised in Chicago, Tweak spent 6-years in the military and now simultaneously traverses Chicago’s activist and underground rap scene as an una...

GUESTS
Fernanda Castellanos is a community organizer with Organized Communities Against Deportations (OCAD). She started organizing when her mom Genoveva got stopped by police and then transferred to ICE. Her passion is to work with the undocumented folks and communities of color to fight deportations and criminalization. She leads the Community Asambleas for OCAD.

Brandon Lee is leading communications with the 2020 Census team at the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (ICIRR). He’s a lifelong Uptown resident who previously worked with Asian Americans Advancing Justice Chicago. His first job out of college was doing co...

OVERVIEW

BrownTown finally dives head first into the 2020 Democratic Presidential Primary election season. With a 24/7 news cycle, social media frenzy, infighting within established parties, and liberatory movements and rhetoric being reflected in mainstream discourse, how do we makes sense of a flawed state process while fighting for a new world? Originally recorded March 2, 2020...the day before Super Tuesday.

The fellas discuss the current state of the presidential race with the (at the time) remaining candidates as well as the original historically large field. As Caullen and David get news of Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar...

GUEST
Maria Hadden is the Alderwoman of the 49th Ward of Chicago. Maria is one of the first Black Aldermen on the North Side of the city as well as the first openly gay women of color on Chicago's City Council. In addition to the Progressive Caucus, Ald. Hadden sits on the Chicago Aldermanic Black Caucus, the Women's Caucus, and the LGBT Caucus.

Previously, Maria was the Executive Director of Our City Our Voice, a nonprofit organization supporting civic engagement processes for transformative social justice. Maria is a founding board member of the Participatory Budgeting Project...

GUESTS
Courtney Phillips is the Co-founder of Gumbo Media and leader of GumboFit. She is a curator, project manager, and entrepreneur with a passion for social equity and empathy.

Matthew Manning is the Co-Founder of Gumbo Media. He is a storyteller, brand consultant, and social entrepreneur with a creative propensity and passion for inclusion and equity. He earned his BA in Art and Architectural History and his MA in Writing and Publishing from DePaul University. He is energized by collaboration with the world’s most audacious ideators, innovators, and entrepreneurs to tackle pressing global issues with cr...

GUEST
The founder of CONBODY, Coss Marte developed his bodyweight training style when he was incarcerated for four years at Rikers Island Jail on drug charges. Coss lost 70 pounds in 6 months and found his calling, ready for a new path. He founded CONBODY fitness studio in New York City, where he hires other formerly incarcerated folks who have turned their lives around through fitness. Listen to more of Coss’ story on aSweatLife’s podcast #WeGotGoals Episode 94! He has also been featured in The New York Times, Buzz Feed, Elle, Vice,The Startup podcast, and more. (Bio sources: aSweatLife and CONBODY...

GUEST

Born and raised in Denver, Colorado, Genta is a creative devotee of the artistic community. He attended the specialized magnet school Denver School of the Arts for middle and high school, which gave him a solid foundation in musical performance and theory as well as an introduction into audio engineering. After spending some time at the University of Hawai’i at Manoa, Genta moved to Chicago to pursue a career in audio engineering where he received a Bachelor of Arts in Audio Design and Production from Columbia College in 2015. Through his freelance audio work, he has tr...

GUEST
Rio Mutasim is a writer, filmmaker, musician and overall creative who was apart of the original Chi DNA academic project. Born and raised in Chicago, the 24-year-old creative is now working in his second studio album Butterfly Gemini.

OVERVIEW
How do we respond to, create, and consume music and other creative art forms? As consumers, we experience and feel only so much of the process and intention. As creators, we can only do so much to see our full vision come to life while battling obstacles of time, money, creative control, compromise in collaboration...

Thanksgiving is a colonized holiday based on genocide, white supremacy, and cultural domination in multiple forms. Still, with competing narratives and histories even in 2019, it’s the second biggest holiday in America and the start of the so-called “holiday season.” With that, BrownTown reflects on what they were taught in school, considers how they have celebrated in their own homes, and unpacks the holiday on a macro-level.

BrownTown starts by discussing Thanksgiving in conjunction with Columbus’ Day, now recognized by some states/institutions and (more importantly) many people as Indigenous Peoples’ Day. They quickly make the broader argument t...

GUEST
Sophie James is a Master of Arts candidate in the department of Sociology at the University of South Florida. In her academic research, she examines trends in human trafficking and critically analyzes how systems create and combat sexual exploitation, specifically the onus that is placed on survivors to navigate aid and resources. Her other research interests include gendered violence, immigration, human rights discourse, and critical race theory.

She is a research assistant on several evaluative projects based in south Florida that monitor how well commercially sexually exploited youth’s needs are met by anti-trafficking service pr...

OVERVIEW

Building on Ep. 12 - Self Love & Self Care, BrownTown takes a step back to discuss the importance of self love, self care, and self understanding. In the second installment, the fellas bring the scope more macro and examine what has become a self care phenomenon of philosophies, strategies, and even products and hashtags. David opens by reminding listeners of the loosely related episodes leading up to this and the overlap of SoapBox's recent event Fitness Against Fascism: Prison-industrial Complex and Health Communities, noting how mental and physical health, self care, trauma support, and the way they...