Raising Our [white woman] Hands + Jenna Arnold

Kelly: We’re going to let Jenna start us off.

Kelly: Would you mind telling us a little bit like tell us who you are, where you’re from and some key points of your journey thus far for people who might not know.

Jenna: Where to start? My name is Jennifer Arnold and I reside in New York City in Chelsea with my husband and my two children who are five and three. And then I was one of the organizers of the Women’s March in 2017. And while I was standing on stage in D.C. at the intersection of independence on 3rd and 3rd on January 21st, and I looked at it at a sea of women and in pink hats, I noticed qualitatively that it seemed like most of them were white. And I was having a hard time reconciling what I was seeing from stage with that 54 percent figure of white women who voted for Trump in 2016 and how that also was supposed to align with all of the wonderful white women who raised me. And so I was like, let’s go have conversations with white ladies. And I sort of was like a meerkat and I, like, picked my head up. I’m like, what organization and what book do I read? Where do I sign up or do I donate? I’m in. And it was crickets. Crickets. So here you have this extraordinary demographic so powerful in ways that are both good and bad. And nobody is spending time unpacking their psychology, whether it’s in the voting booth or how they show up civically or what their relationship is to subjects like class, gender, disability status, sexuality, race. So I was like I think there’s a book here. There’s so much here. We don’t know our history. You know, we talk about the founding of this country. Yes that was a couple hundred years ago. But, you know, there were indigenous here 13000 years earlier. We’re walking on land where people existed for fifteen thousand years before our Starbucks and HomeGoods showed up. So I wrote a book.

Aurora: Yes. You wrote quite the book. And you wrote a book to white women. And so talk to us about 2017 because I love that moment. You’re sitting on the stage looking across that sea of people. You engage in one on one conversations. You understand one of the key themes is performative performance, white women performance. And I hear the word apathy. How do we push, nudge, dismantle, make uncomfortable that apathy?

Jenna: When I first submitted the proposal for the book to publishers, the logline was “complacency is the cancer of humanity”. And it’s a disease that if we look at and if we focus on, it’s something that we could potentially start building chemo cocktails to address it. And, you know, there was a little bit of righteous indignation on my part when I looked out on the stage and I looked out at a sea of millions of people in D.C. because I was definitely like when all of you leading up to November 8th, 2016, like there is never enough doorknockers, there’s never enough of them. But I couldn’t sit in that position long because I don’t know did I do enough? Who’s in the Oval Office rarely has impact in my life, really has impacted my life. I have a line in the book where I call out this idea that even if you have a conservative person in office and even if Roe v. Wade gets overturned, most women middle class and above are pretty confident they could pull off an abortion for their daughter if they had to.

Aurora: Yep.

Jenna: Miles to Canada, you know, using frequent flier miles to Canada. Finding a doctor that you can hand a wad of cash to. So this idea of like, OK, well, it was always just like pro-choice as the issue. And most women were like, I would take care of that. I’d find a way to make that work for her and for us and our family and the whole thing. Complacency and apathy is the most extraordinary privilege, because if if you don’t have to pay attention, if you don’t have to be concerned about a speeding ticket or getting into school or healthcare, you know, you can sit in a place of complacency. And I think that’s very cancerous.

Kelly: I sat with Rev Angel in Kyoto, William, and she put it very clearly and I feel like we’re still here. Rev said I said a long time ago, time ago, around the time of John Punch in 1640 or whatever, America chose the balance sheet challenge over humanity. And I feel like we are still that is the two party system that we are now still choosing or choosing. I mean, it’s I mean, it seems very clear to me now. But until it was said to me, to me, I was like I was like, oh.

Jenna: Well, the balance sheet, I think is not actually the Holy Grail. I think the balance sheet determines who’s in power. And it’s the power that is prioritized in the country because our politicians, for argument’s sake, they don’t make a lot of money. Power is more important than money in this country because it feeds our egos in ways that a bank account wouldn’t, if you’re not listened to, if you’re not controlling human beings. Europeans that came over here in the early fourteen hundreds. Obviously, we all know the fourteen ninety five date, you know, the late fourteen hundreds all through the next couple of couple hundred years. We’re coming over here because they didn’t – the people who were coming over here didn’t have the power and control they wanted and their ego needed back and the European continent. Obviously there was like wealth exploration and did it that late. Yes there all those things, too. It’s not, it’s  not mutually exclusive. But I actually think people are still vying for the power over the finances. I think people would want Kim Kardashian’s Instagram following before they’d won her billions of dollars. And, you know, some people might be like, I don’t know, I think I want that billion dollars for that yacht in the Med. Like, yes, that’s me sometimes. But, like, I don’t I don’t know if I would say it’s a balance sheet. I think it’s the power. And you talked about the binary, Kelly. I’d love for you to think about how we’ve been using the terms good to define ourselves well intended to define ourselves, whether it is balance or power, and recognizing that, yes, it’s all of that. And so there is always this constant, like defining goodness and badness, which is the binary state that our country has lived in that. Because we have two political parties you’re either on the blue team or the red team and the winning team on the losing team. You’re a good person. You’re a bad person, you’re a Christian, you’re not. And so everything in our life, be it in the sports space, in the professional space, in the religious space, has you either being something or then you’re a hard not. And instead we’re all in the gray. I use the example of like I’m a really good mom when, like, everyone’s fed and the kitchen’s clean and we have 20 minutes before bedtime. I am not a good mom when we are late and the kids are cranky and I can’t find the favorite pajamas and the whole thing. Right. And so this idea of like being in a binary state is a very dangerous place. And my friend Simon Sinek, we’re just having a conversation. And we were talking about this sort of living in this grayness. And he said it’s gotten worse because his hypothesis is that it’s not only about whether or not you’re good or bad or on the winning team are on the losing team, but if you’re negotiating for something, be it a political something, a professional something house, that it’s not just about whether or not everyone got what they wanted out of the deal, but that you actually have to win. And the other person has to lose in a bad way. So it’s not it’s not even just being good and bad anymore. It’s about being good. And the other person suffering. Yes. It’s about being like, you know, in perfect shape, not just healthy. It’s about being a billionaire or having a million followers or a perfectly filtered feed or what concerns me that I see happening was methodically and intentionally structured in our history books. And, you know, we talked about what we did to the indigenous. This is these are national state standards that we talk about what we do to the indigenous in second grade, so we don’t really have to talk about it. We talk about what we did around enslavement and fourth grade, we don’t really have to talk about it. But this idea that we are now controlling so many narratives that our Instagram feeds are perfect, not just like, oh, look, I have a lovely life that brings me joy. No, no. It’s like here’s my perfectly filtered, perfectly staged brunch on Sunday with, like, the honey jar, slightly propped open with that wooden thing. And like, my perfectly frothy latte, like, no, stop, go, stop, stop with the extremeness of the performance. Like, it’s getting worse.

Aurora: Oh, my God. There’s so many places I want to go with what you just said, because I think this binary aspect of our thinking is it’s very white. It’s a very white supremacist characteristic. And I just continue to to think about even the construction of race and how and everything was – Blackness was created in opposition to whiteness. So whiteness was deemed the hierarchy. Right. So it goes back to one of the things that Kelly always talks about is this hierarchy higher of a value and hierarchy of power. And this ability for us to to live in the gray, to navigate within the gray. I think is really, really difficult for white people.

Jenna: Our narrative as a country had never shown that we’ve apologized. No, we’ve conceded that. We’ve said. I don’t know. That’s not how we’re raised. I mean, I see it in. I saw it in the early years of my marriage and how I debated. You see it when I’m in conversation with my relatives where like, everything has to be a debate and someone has to be right and someone has to be right on and someone had to be wrong. Wait Aurora why are you looking at Kelly like that?

Aurora: Because we literally just had this conversation. I’m like, why is there this constant need to do to debate? It’s literally debating to win.

Jenna: And that’s my point. Yeah. That it’s not just it’s not just being like, oh, I think better Medicare for all makes the most sense or I think. Or I think everyone should wear a mask. It’s not just about like whether or not people should wear a mass. It’s about like if you don’t wear a mask or if you wear a mask, you are completely being played by the government. And they are taking away your freedom. And next, it’s going to be your guns. And then it’s going to be – it’s like chill out. This isn’t about the extremes. Like, we are just pulling ourselves to extremes in ways that are so dangerous. What’s exciting is that people are like, you know what? Let’s actually have the conversation and the debate. Debate is can be healthy, but I like to invite us all in to be in conversation instead, and instead of calling out and being like Aurora, let me show you some statistics. I know about gender pay gap in that women making lots of money. Let me instead say, hey, have you seen enough women in your professional career? Hey, how have you helped women behind you? Hey, do you think you might have done some things wrong when you were in positions of power? And my hand is raised for that. I mean, I’ve led a number of teams and even this morning on my run, I’m like something I did five years ago. And like, I really did not do that. Well, I didn’t do that well. And just being in a place of concession and humility.

Kelly: Yeah. Yeah. When you’re talking about – I just wanna pull it back once and to when you were talking about the extreme performances. And I had this conversation with her husband the other day. And my question to you is, why don’t we see you? I don’t see it. I think my husband probably looks at Tom Brady or somebody that like he’s got it. He’s at the like – he’s at the pinnacle. And I’m looking at my husband and I’m like my husband – you are a handsome, handsome, white, tall, athletic, smart, cis gender, hetero, successful, able bodied -.

Aurora: Successful -.

Jenna: Successful, smart, loving person . What? Why don’t you see the power power that you have to help everybody that is not those things as the norm. It’s like, why don’t we see our power when we have always had it. Why are we always looking – to your point – to that extreme of like, well, I’m not a millionaire. And I think what your book calls to a lot is, is calling women into where who what our power is and where we’re at we’re just letting it just, oh because it’s not perfect or because it’s, it’s not. That is really just died of apathy comes out what. Just kind of focus on the flower arrangement flower arrangement.

Jenna: And listen, y’all like I’m not a full time radical activist. Right. Like you. No one can hurt anyone who’s listening to this. Can’t see this. But AURORA and Kelly, can I just move my shoulder? You see that pillow on my.

Aurora: Yes. Oh, yeah. It’s I saw it earlier. It perfectly chopped.

Jenna: Perfectly chopped. It’s perfectly fluffed. Yes. So, like, I’m not I’m not 100 percent walking this walk, but every time I chop that below, I’m like, I’m doing this because I like the way Pillow is tracking my son. I’m just not. And I’m torn. And I was taught that this is the way the pillows are supposed to look. And yes, I like it, but like, what if it was, you know, like just I’m being honest with myself. But, Kelly, to answer your question about your husband. Let me make something crystal clear to your white listeners. I talk a lot in the book about our front lines and standing on our front lines and finding the front lines which are in that room with you, right mindset. Pillow on the chair. One of our frontlines, and it’s going to be the hardest, most difficult frontline. Saying is, hey, it’s the second hardest, most difficult frontline that we’re going to have to stand on and we can not budge Is the relationship with our men in our lives.

Aurora: Can you say that again for the people in the back? Jenna, please say that again. White women listen to this. I literally called a group of my powerful white girlfriend while my white conference who all were connected to powerful white men probably in 2013. And I said, ladies, I’m done. I am done with walking into a conference room at 10am and having my teeth kicked in by your white husband, white and no longer holding just him accountable. But I’m holding you accountable, too, because there is something there is something happening in your home. There is something happening at the kitchen table he leaves before coming into the office. There is something happening in your bedroom that is supporting you, being condoning allowing a level of behavior, enabling a behavior that somehow becomes – he rubs up against in a not very positive way when he walks into that conference room with me or any other black or brown woman or man. And I’m no longer holding that on him. I’m holding it on you, holding it on you. Because, girl, say it again for the people, the back.

Jenna: So so here’s – I have lots of hypotheses around what’s wrong with men in our country today. It starts from, you know, I’ll go back. In fact, all it talk about going back. I will go back to Pope Nicholas. The fifth in 1492 wrote a papal bull, which is the same thing as an executive order that said it was an interpretation of his of clause in Deuteronomy that said, if you are a white Christian male, you are allowed to take and own anything, be it land or people. That is not already owned by white Christian men, therefore. And now this is John interpreting this. If you’re a white Christian male, you know what to do all the time.

Kelly: Jenna, I read that passage so many times. Don’t forget, for those people are subhuman. Subhuman because that’s what you write.

Jenna: Right. My word. Right. If any other non white, non Christian, non male is not of your level, you are some chosen. Species demagog obviously didn’t use the term demographic, but demographic. And so then what’s happened is that permission slip came across the Atlantic Ocean in the late 40s, hundreds. Blue wind in the sails of all the boats storing the middle passage that brought the enslaved to this country is also what gives people permission to wear the red hats. But it’s also what’s in our textbooks. Again, going back to the story, we are told about who we are in ourselves, which is the people who have created the country, were seven foot strapping white men who always knew what to do. They were always doing and making the right decision. And if we messed up a couple of times, we fixed it right. We signed the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863. Black people are free, right? 

So our men are of the belief, based on most of the men that we talk about an hour textbooks, that they are supposed to know how to do everything in a manly, strong way. They have to provide for their family. They have to be strapping. They have to get the girl. They have to leather that. And so when they don’t know when they’re insecure or because we don’t give them space to doubt themselves, we don’t give them the the gift of humility and insecurity, because that’s not the American narrative. And so they’ll come into a boardroom and they’ll take it out on whoever has a more junior title. They will take it out on their kids. They’ll take it out on their spouses. And if he is the breadwinner. That spouse is not really going to open her mouth and it makes so many women uncomfortable when I call that up. OK. When was the last time you talked to him about black trans rights when you were standing at your double vanity, brushing your teeth on Friday night? What was the last time you asked him what the maternity policy was, is in his employee handbook? You’re not you’re making excuses for him. And you know who else you’re making excuses for? That son of yours. Because you can be A.I. rape. And you can say, believe her. Until your son gets accused of doing something outside the bounds of consensual sex and then you tell me, do you Kavin all that? Do you start asking questions about how short her skirt is? That’s where the complacency and apathy live. That’s where that anybody about mind? And so when we go back to that sixty one person, number sixty 61 million person number who pulled the lever for Trump in November. It was all there was like a 100 million people who surrounded those people who are making excuses for them. Just like I did when I passed those two Trump signs on the way to my voting booth, when I was like, oh, those are. The two people who are voting for Trump in the whole Mundaring. There are a hundred million people in proximity to those 61 million people who didn’t raise their hand to have a courageous conversation.

Kelly: I remember, specific conversations kind of they weren’t conversations. It was people close to me that people close to me was like whispering these like like we didn’t know how they voted on it. And we all of a sudden got like a weird suspicion here. But we never really asked.

Jenna: This is the whole thing where the complacency and apathy comes in, Aurora. So I don’t think it’s in the voting booth. I think it’s in our life – that I it is my hypothesis. It is why I wrote this book. It is why am I’m putting myself into a dangerous spot in a dangerous position, in a dangerous conversation. You know, like people are like, how’s the book? Are you nervous? I’m like, I’m petrified. This is not a young adult romance novel that I hope, like, does well and maybe gets made into a movie. No, I’m taking the biggest ladle and plopping it in the biggest pot that’s been boiling for centuries. And I’m starting to turn in ways that are going to piss a lot of people off because, you know, who doesn’t want to get snapped up either by their wife before he walks into the board room and is rude to a rora. That man, you know, its system doesn’t want to be called into question our health care system or insurance companies, you know, who doesn’t want to be put under the spotlight? All of the infrastructure, all of the leaders who have been told they’re supposed to know the answers because in the back of their head, they’re all the time like I have no idea what I’m doing because none of us know what the hell we’re doing. And so when you do see somebody in need or when you are confronted with a problematic truth, it is in our nature comes from like white savior as an American savior ism, but because there’s also a value set of ours that like we try to help that when we see a problem, we then have to do something about it. And I don’t want to see a problem I don’t know what to do about. I see the caravans of people coming north. That’s not right on every level yet. I don’t know what to do about it. It’s not permission for me to not think and not watch. It’s permission for me to be a student of the experts on the subject, reallocate my resources, not just dollars, but voices, reposting stuff, you know, immediately after. George Floyd’s murder There is a lot of discussion around police reform. And one of my friends who is an activist on the frontline of that discussion has been for decades. She posted an eight point plan around what reform should look like in like two days later. I went to go repost it and I texted and I’m like, hey, I can’t find that post of yours that you posted on Monday. And it was Wednesday. And I wanted to repost. Answer it back. She goes, oh, the eight point plan. It actually wasn’t right. Point foreign point seven didn’t work the way that we thought it would. So I pulled it down and instead of being like, oh, well, we don’t have a solution. I was like, OK, I will watch until you have a new eight point twelve point or four point plan tomorrow or in six months from now. I’m not turning away. And the freedom to not exactly know even people who are on the frontlines of ending extreme poverty in the world have some really good theories. Some things are going to work, some things aren’t. But it’s not permission for us to just focus on our job manicures. And I love a fancy job manicure like anyone else. But it’s not permission for us to turn our backs and just start binge watching Netflix and pretend like this isn’t happening. That’s apathy. That’s complacency. That’s danger. And that is violence as far as I’m concerned.

Aurora: Hear. Hear. I want to connect a couple of dots because there’s a part of what you’re saying, Jena, that I contract to. And then there’s a part of it that I am struggling with because it feels like it’s a bit of a pass to white people. And and I’d love to just sort of get your help in making sure that I’m hearing the dots that you’re connecting, because there’s something interesting that you said that in our American nature is a foundational aspect of helping us. And there’s a there that is a big question from I get it. I get the story. I get the rugged American cowboy solver of all problems. And this notion to help. And I think we are on a global scale. We’ve we’ve we’ve taken a much pride in being that country that comes to the support savior ism of other other countries, etc., countries, etc., that I would agree with you that that help is connected to our humanity, that is underpinned by our emotional connection to ourselves. But I struggle as as a Black Latina woman in this America. I believe that white people, white people categorize and or place on hierarchy help. Because if we really were connected to the true nature of what this country was founded on, was founded on, we wouldn’t allow what’s happening on the border is happening to happen. We wouldn’t allow what’s happening in the academic institutions of our center cities to be happening. We wouldn’t allow what’s happening in Flint, Michigan, to be happening. We wouldn’t allow all the brown and black bodies that continuously get murdered and killed to happen. So so there is this disconnect for me and part of our heart. You know, to me, it’s that when I am part of the human community my fundamental responsibilities is to be of service, sir. It’s too it’s too. And I don’t see that see to DEP ness of wanting to help, wanting in this community and in our human community and white people. And as I do in other cultures and in other Brown and Black bodies. And so when you say that, I hear what you’re saying, but I don’t experience that experience.

Jenna: Right.

Aurora: And that is the part. You know, when I when Kelly and I talked and I would say, but it’s the humanity. It’s like I give. I you know, we have this conversation. You know, if there was a bullet to be taken by lining up white children and brown and black children, there is not a Brown or Black mama that wouldn’t jump in front of that harm to that white child. I do not believe I do. And have not witnessed that white women will consistently do the same for Brown and Black bodies that we see every single day in our interactions in our Newscycle. And to me, untel that happens, Intel, white women understand that, that from Brown and Black bodies, that is what black women were clear. When I say we are crystal clear why we’re doing this work. We are crystal clear why we’re helping, supporting, trying to get white women to be on this journey with us journey. When that day happens, that day happens so much I personally believe of what is ailing our planet, what is ailing our societies, what is ailing our people, our people will, we can to eradicate when we get to.

Kelly: We first have to own. We first have to first have to own it before we even jumping in front of the child. I used to say I feel like a child. I feel like a immature child in this conversation. And Aurora finally said, Kelly, I hate when I say that. Children are close to God. Children are forced to love you like robots you like. And I was like and I was like, holy shit. We are. Holy shit. I am a program robot. I feel like like an addict to a white supremacist delusion. And I have to be in rehab and I have to be at meetings every day, every day, because I can’t trust myself without trust myself, without deconstructing each thought. And he’s just shouting, not my intention and where I’m coming from.

Jenna: And I appreciate you challenging me on the concept of help. When I reference a knee jerk willingness to help, it tends to be an extreme post natural disaster post manmade disaster capacities. So America raised like ninety million dollars after the Haitian earthquake. For a country that has nine million residents. You know, post tsunami we raised like two hundred ninety million dollars in that first week. And so it’s that example, the dropping child that everybody pushes so much away. And when I talk about everyone, of course, there’s French examples, but most of humanity will try to save a drowning child. Right. And so that’s the kind of like knee jerk human it really boils down to, like have to protect the species from continuing to exist. It’s like a mammal thing. The help that we haven’t shown up with and help is just like a futile word. What I think my hypothesis. There isn’t the same level of, like, urgency that privileged communities bear witness to in ways that force them to help. That force them to intervene. Right. Like local news will talk about gun violence. But until we say y’all, your first grade classroom that got shot up is the same amount of children that die from gun violence in the Southside of Chicago every month. Until we start connecting those dots. I’m not sure how we reposition our willingness to get involved. And I think that’s the beauty of what’s happening now. And let’s be clear history has not arrived on this moment. Right now, I’m just hypothesizing this is the first draft of history. But with what I think I see is my uncle who voted for Donald Trump asking me what my thoughts are on reparations. What I think I see is people I know who are like, I’m not racist, suddenly being like, yo, I have racial biases. What I think I see happening is a system and we’ll just select policing that never in my lifetime. Did I think was going to come under the scrutiny that it has with people who did not even know there was an issue. Now, reposting eight point plans on social media, saying, hey, maybe we do need to pull police out of our public schools. What I do think I see happening is more people asking harder questions of themselves and each other. And because they’re posing the question, they’re going to get closer to the truth. And that truth is going to be a lot uglier than they ever thought it was. And because both our humanity and our Americanism requires that we step into being part of the solution, that the closer we come to the truth, the closer that they’re going, the closer they’re going to be to being part of that solution. So I think the help I was sick initially suggesting had to do with the urgent might be getting closer and closer to the urgency of what’s happening on our city streets, in our political system, in the heart of our Aurora. In that boardroom dealing with my husband, who kind of sorta hates himself because maybe you didn’t have sex with his wife for a year and or he can’t get it up and or his bank account doesn’t look the way that it does and or whatever it might be that are the need to urgently respond is going to get closer and closer and closer to all of the things we have to respond to.

Aurora: That was awesome. 

Kelly: You know, where we’re focusing this season on us communities and community. Because my idea of. Yes, can I tell you, I was like, you know, membership based on travel, updated, branded to to me. And Aurora’s version of community was heartfelt and do or die.

Aurora: And love and a whole hell of a lot of joy and celebration celebrate, you know, holding, holding pain and in pain, survival together.

Jenna: And Aurora, obviously you know this, but just to thread the needle. My relationship with Kelly is about my personal survival with myself. I have to bounce off her, her beautiful hair, her fit body, her country club, her da da da da da. My relationship with her is about me dealing with me and me not hating me.

Aurora: So, Jenna, that is so powerful, and can I tell you, I don’t know about my brown and black sisters that may be listening. I did not know that. I did not like I knew it at some level, but I never understood the depth ness of how your survival. And I’m pointing at Kelly and Gemma as white women as is so much more bounced off of your each other and the, dare I say quote, competitiveness among yourselves. This square footage of her closet verse mine. Kelly would say to me Aurora we’re not holding the door for each other and you’re – you think it’s. We’re not holding the door for you because we’re not holding the door right each other, I was like, oh my God. I was like, because it’s not the place from which I we tend to operate from.

Jenna: That’s why white that’s why white women did not vote for Hillary Clinton. Because she checked all the boxes that we weren’t able to pull off. And so she represents our failures. And I can’t lay in bed and live with myself when I see somebody else having done everything I was supposed to.

Aurora: We are literally coming from two different perspectives on this perspective.

Jenna: We exist in two different worlds. If another woman does better than me, I have failed. It is the binary. It’s that whole theory of there’s no way you can love someone else if you don’t love yourself. It’s why Baldwin – I gotta read this. He says: white people have quite enough to do in learning how to accept and love themselves and each other. And when they have achieved this, which will not be tomorrow and may never well be never the Negro problem will no longer exist, for it will no longer be needed.

Aurora: I grew up with a black father, a very, very wise, smart man, he’s smart. And the one thing he said to me repeatedly, repeatedly, repeatedly, and I never understood the profoundness of what he was telling me every day until I was probably in my 30s, was probably he would say to me, he would say to me, a baby love them even when they don’t know how to love themselves. I was like wow.And, you know, you’re on a quest. You’re on a quest to create greater introspection, greater introspection, love, accountability across white women across why you matter, tou are critical to the evolution of all of us. Of all of us. And you know, what’s what’s the opt in, Jenna, what’s the opt in? For our audience, for white women?

Jenna: The opt in is getting out of the way of yourself so you can show up for us. You’re not going to do this perfectly. There is not going to be perfect answers to most of the questions that you’re going to be asking yourself, that we need to be asking each other, that we need to be asking our systems.

Aurora: Absolutely. Miss Jenna, this has been an incredible time with you. Can we ask you what’s next for you? What are you doing next? What comes next?

Jenna: I am really interested in how this moment in time, both from a pandemic perspective, from a social justice perspective and equality ambition perspective, is going to reinvent or help us return to community. And I think that there is a moment to rebuild local communities in ways that we’re all desperate for. And so on, playing with some of the ideas around that, I will offer this statistic that there are 9000 public libraries in the United States for fourteen thousand towns. And I’m excited about. What all of that infrastructure could potentially do and mean when we’re forced, when we should be staying a little bit more local with each other over the next 12 months. Obviously, I have a very specific and concrete agenda for the presidential election in November. That’s how I can answer right now.

Aurora: Beautiful. 

Kelly: Jenna Arnold is amazing. I think I’m going to re-read Raising Our Hand…for the third time…

Aurora: Seriously! You know and one of the things that struck me in talking to Jenna was this whole notion of white people loving themselves….

Aurora: And thank you all for listening. We want to know the questions you’re asking and the conversation you’re having on your frontlines. Let us know. Find us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram @the opt in.

Kelly: Music for this episode is by Jordan McCree. And the Opt-In is produced by Rachel Ishikawa.

Kelly: See you next week.

Aurora: Bye.