KEXP Presents Mind Over Matters; Sustainability Segment: Sarah van Gelder

- Transcript
this is diane warner host on the sustainability segment of mind over matter isn't a e x the seattle ninety point three fm i mobile app and on the web add katie xv died or edgy my guess this morning as sarah van gelder cofounder and editor at large of the us magazine sarah writes and speaks internationally on environmental social and economic alternatives and on community based change their van gelder is here to tell us about her most recent book the revolution where you live stories from a twelve thousand mile journey to a new america published in twenty seventeen welcome sarah thanks so much for having me dan it's great to have you here what you have to begin by saying a few words about yes magazine sure where a quarterly magazine and website we're founded twenty years ago and the purpose of yeses to tell stories about how people are changing the world starting from their community and in all other ways let's move on to your book lead to your twelve thousand mile journey through america what was your purpose so after twenty years of editing yes magazine we had been looking at some of the big challenges of our time
things like climate change things like racism things like growing inequality and as much as we'd been writing about solutions all the time i still had the sense that you know what things are still getting worse are we looking in the right place for solutions so i decided to go on the road for myself to see what i could learn by going to communities that have been left out of some of the benefits of society especially people in the red states people in appalachia and on indian reservations and in the south and in the rust belt cities and i want to see what i can learn from them about where change might be coming from what were some of the specific questions you're hoping to answer as a result of the trade well around the time a question one of them was who is successful at stopping more fossil fuel from being extracted and transported and especially here in the pacific northwest has been a lot of controversy about exporting coal and oil and building new infrastructure takes more fossil fuel station so why rebuilding new fossil fuel infrastructure time when
the climate is in crisis so i was looking for people who are succeeding in stopping that from happening and in this region in particular in it several places i visited this groups of people led by native americans were having the most success there was one question a second one was about inequality because a certain community center so left behind what are they doing to build a new economy and the third was for racism because a lot of people i think had hoped that when president obama was elected that things would be better that we would somehow have gotten past are horrible legacy as a country of racism and obviously that didn't occur so what i was looking at was either communities have taken this on in a deep and profound and forthright way and really made a shift in the culture to move away from racism how did you decide which people and places to visit what were your criteria was looking for people and answers to those questions so some of the time they were places i'd been curious about for a long time that i just never
had a chance to go to for example appalachian i've had almost never been there i never been there to do any recording and other places there a place i had been to before and i just wanted to catch up and see what was happening or recently detroit michigan is one of them i go back periodically because it's such a creative upped welling happening in detroit i just always want to learn what's going on there now so it was a combination of people i knew and people i didn't know many of whom were referred to me by other people who got out my social media and said you know you know i checked this out this is really exciting we've done about this already but what hopeful steps did you observe being taken to address climate change well here in the pacific northwest there are people like the lummi tribe who have been standing up to in this case a big coal terminal that was proposed for north of bellingham and that got me wondering what where was all that cold and i come from that they would need an entirely new international coal terminal so i traced it back to southeast montana where there was a proposed brand new strip mine it would've been the largest
coal mine in the entire statement and so what they're at the action that might build truck camper and drove to southeast montana and talk to the northern cheyenne people who were opposing that brand new propose strip mine and also talk to the ranchers out there because it turns out they didn't want that mine either and they didn't want a brand new railroad spur that would have to be built to connect all that coal with this long narrow that would then end up in bellingham and then be exported to asia where literally hundreds of thousands of people are sickened by burning all that whole not that cold calling general so i went there and i happened to be able to time i visit for when the lummi tribe was arriving in southeast montana with a totem pole they were giving us a gift to the north and try and people so there's this wonderful solidarity among the coastal tribes the inman tribes and the ranchers that india and succeeded in stopping that coal mine from going through what are some other efforts to address racism you know it's interesting cause they happened in many different ways and many different parts of the country
one that i thought was especially interesting was ithaca new york because you know a lot of people assume that in the north that the promise of racism are not as profound and in small towns maybe not as profound and if it is a predominately white community but they also realized there are a number of people that can realize that they really had not come to terms with their own issues around race so i had a chance to interview a couple who do a theater project he's african american she's white and they do a theater project with a drawl stories from the community of things that have happened to people and in the right place that are tuned into them of course a fictionalized the butter tune into those particular stories so the play that i talk to them about in particular was one in which a young african american a middle schooler was walking through a neighborhood he missed his bus he was trying to walk to school walter white neighborhood and an elderly white woman called the police on him and he's just mystified why is it that in the twenty first century that just me being out on the street would be enough to provoke a police action
unfortunately nothing bad happened the police officer found out he was lost and took him to schools and there was no tragedy in this particular story but not that long ago somebody had had a gun pulled i'm an african american young person for being in the wrong place at the wrong time by an off duty police officer says clearly these are stories that are profoundly troubling and that communities all over the country need to deal with and so by putting it into the form of a theater production this town was able to have that conversation in a way that was deeply relevant to their particular circumstances i'm diane horn and my guest is sarah van gelder cofounder and editor at large of yes magazine and author of the book the revolution where you live stories from a twelve thousand mile journey to renew america and you return to the sustainability segment of mind over matters on the script howard k e x e ninety point three fm kind of a lamp and on the web at atx we know it either additional examples of addressing racism would like to share oh sure
all the plays one is in harrison bird virginia where the police department is starting to find ways of using restorative justice to deal with questions of crime rather than assuming that everything that happens out and be subject to the most punitive kinds of responses another was in greensboro north carolina which is where the original sittin happened at the lunch counter the woolworths lunch counter that provoked a big chunk of the civil rights movement around the sit ins just to desegregate restaurants and so forth and where there's a continuing effort in that community to have that can occur our station to say what do we need to do to come together and in this particular case the black community a number of leaders the bike me decide what they really need to do with stuff for your own foot cocked so they would have an ownership stake in their community and from that pieces of health and off power of being owners of this good cop he would be in a better position to navigate their community how effective have these efforts to an interview it's an
interesting question because i think a lot of us had hoped you know one big act like the election of a new president or like the right demonstration or the right leader making the right ringing speech would somehow solve things and it turns out that's not the way things happen they happen more incrementally they happen when people are involved themselves in these kind of conversations and where they see how they can make shapes in their own communities the change the way the institutions function and change the waiver awards are given are not given for certain kinds of activities increased brother's a big question raised by the new york times article about why studies of color were being stopped more often and then white people and that publicity and this follow up in terms of activism all of those things together bring about a shift along with the change in generations and the changing culture as people come to understand and appreciate each other about something you can say that any one thing kind of flips the
switch on something as profound as complex as racism but they're all part of the puzzle and they're all part of us making a commitment to take another step forward every single day to change things like that what was some of the inspiring efforts being made to confront poverty and build sustainable economies and it's a really tough one i visited some communities especially in the rust belt where poverty has been multi generational where their entire communities that have been left our people simply don't have jobs or there are no businesses to speak of much less jobs so those places are incredibly tough and i interviewed a doctor in cincinnati ohio dr carson who's a pediatric surgeon he had to tell a mother of a young child who'd been shot you know he had to tell me that she was not going to live and the only way he could be ok in himself was to also make a commitment that he was going to do everything he could to make sure he'd never have to tell another mother and her child had been killed so he's been one of the people in cincinnati has been busily working on a question of how do you create an
economy it's founded in the community have very different approach than trying to bring in a large corporation who might be willing to bring a bunch of jobs and you end up spending a ton of money per job to get them to do that but you don't know if next year or five years from now to get a pickup and go to someplace else that offers them even more money or even lower wages and working standards so this technique is about building jobs from the community up and they're doing this is it's not in a very interesting way involving the labor unions and a worker co ops and working with small business owners are saying why not when you're ready to retire why not sell your business two workers so they can own it and continue having jobs themselves and continue helping to allow the community to thrive in many cases their workers may be people who don't come from backgrounds where they would have had another opportunity own a business the unions are getting involved helping to provide skills and expertise and they're also teaming up with them undergone cooperated in spain which is one of the most successful cooperate is in the world with thousands of people on their payroll
so there were just some really new ideas for how do you have an economy that is profoundly rooted in the community and is democratic in the way its run and you have to speak about efforts in appalachia to develop a post coal economy yeah allison other really tough one because as we know that coal has been the foundation of that economy for so long you know there was a time when people get a lot more that was about self sufficiency growing a lot of their food and so forth but the coal economy sir took everything over and now is not only creating a new spike in black lung disease but also blowing the tops off mountains and filling the creeks in the rivers with debris that's a really tragic situation and yet a lot of people are convinced they have no other alternative so i spent a bunch of time with some of the young people in appalachia who have a very different idea of some of the people who are very cash the coal economy dagan say the only other alternative is to build prisons and kentucky has one of the highest
percentages of prisons anywhere in the united states so i spoke to some of the people who are opposing the building of yet another prison on a mountaintop that had been leveled as part of non top removal and they said you know if you took that same amount of subsidy because the federal government forces pouring millions of dollars into it with the same amount of subsidy and helped him out a dozen local businesses really get off the ground you could provide jobs that were from correctional officers being brought in from outside but for were local people your local young people who want to stay in their community and want to stay where they are and to be part of rebuilding appalachia so in a bare room very brave young people are working on things like bringing back the appalachian culture in getting people to enjoy their own music and go out in the evening and hear their own bands and go to the local restaurants and those things seem small but little by little they're trying to keep their money flowing into their own culture instead of instead of having it leak out of the district into hollywood and madison avenue having its stay local is a
really big part of that equation of rebuilding the economy one or some other efforts you observe to help reset us immigrants well actually one of my favorite examples of this immigrant helping themselves which is a couple of interest from el salvador and honduras respectively who wanted to have food that was like what they were used to in central american decided to start growing up so they started a little tiny farm but then they realized that no it was a lot of work with talent and just doing it on their own so they started inviting other people to be part of a farm cooperated so this is another part of kentucky just outside louisville kentucky and there are people of all races and ethnic backgrounds who are involved and i happened to be there in time for the harvest festival and there's so much joy that you were having such a lovely time they were working really hard a growing all good they were then harvesting and sharing among each other but then there is this sense of just joy that they were learning from each other they're experiencing
difficulties and that they had a sense of community and i just was struck by how different that was than just going to safeway or to operate since the buyer for good would you also comment on what you observed in the lab and regard to immigrants shared my view time i visited a center a multicultural center it's also run by a latina woman you're probably doing is basically providing services to people who are recent immigrants who are drawn by the jobs mainly in the taurus industry but you're probably doing is really helping it really understand each other better so they put on these marvelous occasions like to call one of them dancing with them all out stars so they take on a bunch of community leaders from all different backgrounds teach him how to dance and get them to go up on stage and says i make fools of themselves but everybody's having a good time laughing at themselves and they're building these bridges that wouldn't be built otherwise because otherwise people would sustain their separate worlds so they're bringing a kind of a joy and a kind of
a cross cultural excitement to a little town that could otherwise be you know sort of physically very beautiful courses right in the middle of all those national parks but culturally could be kind of drab and they really liked me about you i tend to go sustainability segment of mind over matters and k e x the seattle ninety point three of them by mobile app and on the web at atx the dad archie and i am one of my guest is sarah van gelder cofounder and editor at large of yes magazine and author of the book the revolution where you live stories from a twelve thousand mile journey to a new america in your book you referred to an emerging culture of connection to explain yeah sure i think one of the things that happened to our society and i think a lot about this now with the election donald trump i think we've gotten really isolated from each other and a lot of people don't feel like they're other people that they can rely on to help them out in times of need there's even studies that showed that the kind of isolation a lot of people experience is as toxic as smoking cigarettes or being obese it's
really bad for health and so one of the things i was looking for was one where people doing something about that and you know that story about the folks in moab or the people in kentucky who are reaching out to one another just noticing how a joyful they were a lot of people say that doing community organizing you're doing community worker working for the betterment of your society is just a dragon it's a drain but what i found was the opposite people were getting so much emotional nourishment from being connected to their community so that's one piece of it is just the emotional side another is though the connection to the natural world because you know so many of us are separated from having that direct interaction with the natural world and the environmental movement are environmentalism become something abstract that involves other people are polar bears or something but the natural world is something we are a part of every day we breathe the air we drink the water we eat food that came right out of the soil know the natural world is us and to the extent that we reconnect with that in a deeply visceral sense and
also in a spiritual sense i think we get into a much better relationship or we can take much better care of it what is something you've been alluding to death but based on your trip what did you see as the most powerful general strategies to build a sustainable future well i think we're in for a time of real difficulty with election donald trump i don't think is any way of getting around that question and so i've been thinking a lot about what do we do now and i happen to be at a standing rock win the election happened and i remember climbing out of an icy tent early in the morning hoping somebody was going to give the good news but fearing for the worst and i sat down right then and wrote a column about how important it is for us to re connect where we are and re connect especially with the people who are most vulnerable to think of this election has like a natural disaster and one of the first things you do when you know they're a lot of people at risk as you reach out to those people you say who's most vulnerable here is it
the mask is it people who are of islamic faith is that new immigrant communities is a women is the juice is are people are speaking up politically we don't really know who's gonna get targeted first we know that certainly donald trump has threatened all those people and his followers have in some cases followed his advice a been quite violent towards those groups of people so we know that those could all happened so we shouldn't wait to see who's going to be victimized first we should all get together and check in with each other and tell each other all have your back and when you have my back and once we get that sense of connection in our community and the tension over social media both socially as great for organizing and actually coming together face to face and reconnecting and we're the foundations for the kind of power we're going to need to keep our member of congress accountable to pass and not let them get swept up in the trump agenda and to get the things that we need done in our communities to get those things done in spite of
whatever trump might do so we can keep ourselves safe and we can find our power by that kind of rejection my community there's a revelation needed the where you live to be successful how important is the role of place they sort of i was one of the things that i was really taken by in the traveling i did was how much more power people have when they can stand on the moral authority of being from a place and when they connect to other people in their community who have a similar passion i think a lot of times if you're really powerless because we feel like oh it's me against whatever number hundreds of millions of people on the whole country or just me and as tiny group against all those people but when we start taking one bite at a time and say we can actually do something in our communities and we can support one another and that we can turn up with other communities one of the things i was so striking about standing rock and so powerful was it started off with one community the standing rock sioux tribe saying they were not going to allow the pipeline to go through but they put out a call and all sorts of other community showed
up first tribal communities and the non tribal police showed up and said ok we're going to stand with you as long as you're standing for this where with you and i think that model just teaches us an enormous amount about how much we can do when we stand up for our place and stand with one another would you say more about what the energy was like standing rock well it was a place where i think a lot of people were in awe of what they were doing what they were learning people were on the one hand ready to put their bodies on the line they were getting based on a regular basis many were getting arrested many were getting hit with rubber bullets and concussion grenades so on the one hand it was a very arduous kind of experience for a lot of people and on the other hand there is a sense of mutual support and even love and i was there one day when a young woman by the name of plywood june lad and forgiveness walk into this market to mandate which is adjacent to bismarck to the sheriff's department because she said you know we can't do this work in a good way for
carrying anger with us so the first thing we have to do is like oh that anger and the best way to do is to march of forgiveness for the police for the harm that they've caused as they did that and they not only talked about forgiveness they also prayed for the well being of the police in the well being of their families and the hope that their children would be happy and healthy in the hope that that children wouldn't have to drink polluted water just like they didn't want their children to have to drink clean water was very moving occasion and i think maybe even get through to some of the police i don't know based on your trip what are your thoughts on the state of us society at present well i think the isolation is a really important part of it the isolation and powerlessness and also the way in which that sense of disconnect from reality is allowing all the state news and all this conspiracy theories not that not that there are no conspiracies out there but i think people are getting a little unhinged from reality and one of the ways you get really scented and what's
real and be grounded what's real is you get away from the screen away from just hearing everything through media and go and see for yourself in your own community who's out there what are people saying what are they thinking and really listening to one another so i think getting away from that isolation it's going to be a really important part of how we can move forward you've alluded to this already but what effect do you see a trump presidency having on the place based work you've served on your truck i think it makes it more important than it ever has been i think there are new challenges will have now if obamacare goes away will suddenly have that many of our neighbors and it could be any of us who find ourselves without healthcare if trump it follows through on his promises to allow the environment to be you know because doing away with regulation which you should translate to do away with protections write so of all the protections that have kept our environment from becoming probably degraded of those are allowed to be set aside and all of our beautiful natural spaces are turned into places that can be drilled and where pipelines can run and coltrane's can you know
we will have some major major challenges on our hands and i still think we will be in a much better position to deal with whatever comes if we know our neighbors and we have that kind of vocal power base wherever we are where we know each other and we know how to stand up for ourselves what's the message you'd like to leave our listeners to get active the two neighbors don't be afraid in a time of fear i think it's easier to hunker down just withdrawn tried it but couldn't stay inside i think that as causes more fear so my messages to have a house and get to know other people find out what you have in common and find out what gives you energy which is you joy and do those things and keep that it until you create the kind of community that you want and the power from which you as part of this big grassroots movement can create the kind of world that we want to gather wood thanks so much for being here sarah thank you dan you're just listening to sarah van gelder cofounder and editor at large of yes magazine and author of the
book the revolution where you live stories from a twelve thousand mile journey through new america published in twenty seventeen by barrett color publishers to find out more you are invited to join sarah on monday january twenty third at seven pm at the elliott bay book company again that seven pm january twenty third ed elliott bay book company and also check on the web at revolution where you live dot org and yes magazine dot org sustainability segment interviews are available as podcasts along with dierks these music podcasts at acadia xt dido it cook on demand and then podcasting i'm diane warren thanks for listening and be sure to tune into the sustainability segment again next week and listener powered ninety point three of them by the lab and on k x p that oh archie
- Producing Organization
- KEXP
- Contributing Organization
- KEXP (Seattle, Washington)
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- cpb-aacip-286e5af95f3
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- Description
- Episode Description
- Guest Sarah van Gelder, Co-Founder and Editor at Large of YES! Magazine, speaks with Diane Horn about her book “The Revolution Where You Live: Stories from a 12,000-Mile Journey through a New America.”
- Broadcast Date
- 2017-01-23
- Asset type
- Episode
- Media type
- Sound
- Duration
- 00:26:11.343
- Credits
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Guest: van Gelder, Sarah
Host: Horn, Diane
Producing Organization: KEXP
- AAPB Contributor Holdings
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KEXP-FM
Identifier: cpb-aacip-035d7092d1e (Filename)
Format: Zip drive
Duration: 00:26:07
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- Citations
- Chicago: “KEXP Presents Mind Over Matters; Sustainability Segment: Sarah van Gelder,” 2017-01-23, KEXP, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC, accessed July 5, 2025, http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-286e5af95f3.
- MLA: “KEXP Presents Mind Over Matters; Sustainability Segment: Sarah van Gelder.” 2017-01-23. KEXP, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Web. July 5, 2025. <http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-286e5af95f3>.
- APA: KEXP Presents Mind Over Matters; Sustainability Segment: Sarah van Gelder. Boston, MA: KEXP, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Retrieved from http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-286e5af95f3