Commonwealth Club Of California Podcast

Dubbed the social justice manifesto, Until I Am Free, by author Keisha N. Blain, is a unique opportunity to hear about life from the perspective of a working, impoverished and disabled Black woman. Blain, an award-winning historian, details the life and accomplishments of Fannie Lou Hamer, a civil rights activist too often forgotten in the narrative of racial justice. Defying the layers of marginalization that threatened to hush her powerful words, Hamer is held by Blain in the same esteem as her contemporaries Rosa Parks and MLK. Through Blain, Hamer’s message is given new life in an age where the same issues remain pertinent. At INFORUM Blain will peel back the layers of Fannie Lou Hamer—layers that ostensibly would have taken power away from her but instead became the very source from which she drew it. This conversation will be moderated by Aimee Allison, founder and president of She the People. SPEAKERS Keisha N. Blain Ph.D., Historian; Associate Professor of History, University of Pittsburgh; President,

With dazzling illustrations, sumptuous recipes, and its own curated playlist, Bryant Terry’s sixth book, Black Food: Stories, Art, and Recipes from Across the African Diaspora, is a feast for the senses. Terry, a renowned vegan culinary innovator, returns to dive into the depth and breadth of Black foodways spanning nations and time. Black Food celebrates both the creations and creators, pairing heartwarming stories of generational traditions with the soul-filling foods at the center of them. From tropical Afro-Caribbean dishes like jerk chicken to beloved Nigerian jollof rice and further on to southern sweet potato pie, this book is an ode to the African diaspora’s influence on food and culture. At INFORUM, Bryant Terry will share the stories, people, places and ingredients that make Black food the diverse and divine cuisine it is today. SPEAKERS Bryant Terry Chef; Author, Black Food: Stories, Art, and Recipes from Across the African Diaspora Anjali Menon Vice President, IfOnly; Member, INFORUM Advisory Boar

As president of One Fair Wage and director of the Food Labor Research Center at UC Berkeley, Saru Jayaraman has fought for a reimagining of tipped industries. She argues that at just $2.13 an hour, what tipped-wage workers are paid is unlivable on its own and that, unsurprisingly, the people in these jobs are often society's most vulnerable: undocumented, BIPOC, and women workers who already make cents on the dollar of their white male counterparts. In place of the 30-year-old subminimum wage, Jayaraman has worked tirelessly to realize a fair living wage for these essential workers. In the wake of COVID-19, she says it is more obvious than ever that changes need to be made if we want to keep everyone’s head above water. Jayaraman’s message is unwavering—our drivers, delivery workers, servers and nail technicians deserve to have a livelihood. At INFORUM and alongside service industry experts Chef Dominique Crenn and Angela Glover Blackwell, Jayaraman will lay out what changes need to be made and how we can ach

Some might say that Nigel Poor and Earlonne Woods were destined to meet. Poor, a professor of photography at CSU Sacramento, was volunteering with the Prison University Project at San Quentin State Prison when she met Woods, who was serving a 31-year-to-life sentence. The two bonded over a love of storytelling and with no formal experience, began a podcast together where they showcase the realities of life in prison while detailing the path of their fateful friendship. Their upcoming book, This Is Ear Hustle, shares its name with their well-received podcast, which has gone on to become a finalist for the 2020 Pulitzer Prize and is in its seventh season. The book avoids the overtly political and instead delves into the richness of humanity found even behind the bars of the prison system. With candor, the authors showcase the unlikely inspiration found in stories of the incarcerated. At INFORUM Earlonne Woods—whose sentence was commuted in 2018—and Nigel Poor will take our stage in downtown San Francisco to hel

Many nations have a national poet, whose poetry helps carve out their own unique cultural niche in human civilization. Italy has enjoyed many literary geniuses for over two millennia, but still looks to one man the most: Dante. Like major poets in other cultures, Dante’s influence on the Italian language can hardly be overstated. The Divine Comedy was the first major work of literature to leave Latin behind in favor of Italian, and it remains the world standard of poetic excellence. Dante’s fertile imagination also inspired artists, writers and theologians, making him almost as influential about the afterlife as he is linguistically. Join Humanities West in person at The Commonwealth Club, or via livestream, to celebrate the 700th Anniversary of Dante’s death—which ironically occurred not that many months after he completed his speculations about post-death possibilities—with a two-hour, three-lecture Dante feast: • Timothy Hampton on "Dante After Dante: the Forms of Memory." Though there were many "in the

Join this important discussion to learn how the White House is forming critical partnerships across sectors to fight anti-Asian hate crimes, moving forward the administration's Build Back Better Agenda to rebuild the economy, and ensuring the advancement of the Asian American/Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander (AA and NHPI) communities. Attendees will have the opportunity to identify issues the AA/NHPI communities may want to prioritize and ask questions. Erika Moritsugu was appointed in April by President Biden to serve as deputy assistant to the president and AA/NHPI senior liaison. She engages with AA and NHPI communities and leaders on issues such as advancing safety, justice, inclusion, and opportunity through a whole-of-government approach to racial justice. She previously served in the Obama administration as assistant secretary for congressional and intergovernmental relations at the Department of Housing and Urban Development under Secretary Julián Castro and was the first-ever Senate deputy legislativ

Join us for a virtual conversation with Fritjof Capra to discuss the evolution of his thought. In the late 1950s Capra read the work of Werner Heisenberg, a founder of quantum mechanics, and quickly intuited connections between the discoveries of quantum physics and the traditions of Eastern philosophy. The result was his bestselling book, The Tao of Physics. His synthesis, which dispensed with the mechanistic worldview of Descartes and Newton in favor of a systemic, ecological one, has provided him with a different perspective on the life sciences, ecology and environmental policy. Six decades later, Fritjof Capra remains at the crossroads of physics, spirituality, environmentalism and systems theory. Organized thematically and chronologically, the essays in Patterns of Connection document his revolutionary and far-reaching intellectual journey. MLF ORGANIZER George Hammond NOTES MLF: Humanities SPEAKERS Fritjof Capra Author, Patterns of Connection In Conversation with George Hammond Author, Conversations Wi

Fully electrifying our homes, cars and industries could cut the amount of total energy we need by half, says Saul Griffith, an entrepreneur, inventor and author of Electrify: An Optimist’s Playbook for Our Clean Energy Future. This electric revolution would mean significantly scaling up our solar, wind and battery storage and reorienting the electric grid – but could also mean “thousands of dollars in savings in every household, every year.”  President Biden wants half the cars sold in the US to be electric by 2030. And automakers are increasingly putting money and marketing muscle behind EVs. When Ford announced its all-electric F-150, it sent a powerful jolt through the transportation industry. Pre-orders for the F-150 Lightning surpassed 100,000 within three days, signalling that EVs are no longer just for kale-eating coastal elites.  Note: Ford Motor Co. is among Climate One’s sponsors. This program was underwritten in part by ClimateWorks Foundation. For transcripts and other information, visit: https://

Our speakers, Rev. Norman Fong and Rev. James McCray, will discuss their direct hands-on experience in working to address the issue of equity and justice in community development, especially around building affordable housing, engaging community members for advocacy and support, and the broader issues of economic development connected to jobs and small business support. They will reflect on how these issue exist in San Francisco and in cities around the country. Join us for a timely discussion on equity and justice in the development of cities. About the Speakers Rev. Norman Fong has worked full-time in the nonprofit arena in San Francisco Chinatown for more than 3 decades. He has served as a pastor, the deputy director of programs at Chinatown Community Development Center, and now as executive director of Chinatown CDC. Besides being an ordained Presbyterian minister, Fong is the co-founder of the Jest Jammin Band, which has been playing classic soul/R&B/Motown music for 45 years. Dr. James McCray, Jr., is s

Brought to us by Fox News Chief Political Anchor Bret Baier, To Rescue the Republic is an epic history of Ulysses S. Grant—spanning from the battlefields of the Civil War to the violent turmoil of Reconstruction to the forgotten electoral crisis that nearly fractured a reunited nation. Desperate for bold leadership in the midst of the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln turned to Ulysses S. Grant, appointing him lieutenant general of the Union Army, precipitating their victory within a year. Four years later, as president of the United States, Grant rose to the challenge of Reconstruction by advancing its agenda and aggressively countering the Klu Klux Klan. When the contested presidential election of 1876 produced no clear victory, it was Grant who forged the painful compromise that saved the fragile nation, but tragically pushed the Civil Rights movement even further down the road. In this book, Baier dramatically reveals Grant’s palpable and essential influence on the United States as it suffered through

When a Silicon Valley entrepreneur developed a tax break intended as a way to incentivize the rich to invest in underserved communities, the idea was pushed into law with little scrutiny or fine-tuning and few safeguards against abuse. With an unbeatable pair of high-profile sponsors and deft political marketing, the Opportunity Zone became an unnoticed part of the 2017 Trump tax bill. In his new book Only the Rich Can Play: How Washington Works in the New Gilded Age, bestselling author David Wessel follows the money—starting from this Opportunity Zone initiative—to see who profited from the plan that was supposed to spur development of blighted areas and help people out of poverty. His findings? The Las Vegas Strip, the Portland (Oregon) Ritz-Carlton, and the Mall of America. In other words, lucrative areas where the wealthy can place their money profitably and avoid capital gains taxes. Wessel provides vivid portraits of the proselytizers, political influencers, consultants, real estate dealmakers and indiv

Mildred Harnack, born and raised in Milwaukee, was a Ph.D. candidate studying in Berlin in 1932 when the Nazis began their rise to power. Donner describes how her great-great-aunt Mildred began holding secret meetings in her apartment. Her small band of political activists grew into the largest underground resistance group in Berlin by 1940. Harnack recruited working-class Germans, helped Jews escape, plotted acts of sabotage, and collaborated on leaflets that denounced Adolf Hitler and called for revolution. At night her co-conspirators would slip those leaflets into mailboxes, public restrooms and phone booths. When World War II began, Harnack became a spy, providing top-secret intelligence to the Allies. On the eve of her planned escape to Sweden, she was arrested by the Gestapo. A Nazi military court sentenced her to six years at a prison camp, but Hitler personally overruled that sentence and ordered her execution. On February 16, 1943, Mildred Harnack, the only known American member of the German resist

Violence against Black people—both physical and psychological—has seemed only to increase in recent years, culminating in the historic pandemic and protests in the summer of 2020. “After centuries of waiting for white majorities to overturn white supremacy,” Charles Blow writes, “ it seems to me that it has fallen to Black people to do it themselves.” A New York Times op-ed columnist, Blow felt compelled to write a new story for Black Americans, one that involves a succinct, counterintuitive and impassioned correction to the myths that have for too long governed our thinking about race and geography in America. The Devil You Know is a grand exhortation to generations of a people, proposing nothing short of the most audacious power play by Black people in the history of this country. Join us as Charles Blow offers a road map to true and lasting freedom. SPEAKERS Charles Blow Op-Ed Columnist, The New York Times; Author, The Devil You Know: A Black Power Manifesto; Twitter @CharlesMBlow In Conversation with Meli

As the devastating effects and tragic loss of life from COVID-19 persist 18 months after the global pandemic began, the world is desperate to end this public health crisis. As businesses across industries are rolling out varying degrees of vaccine, testing, and masking mandates, President Biden announced the requirement for federal workers, medium and large employers, and health-care staff to be vaccinated. Working together and partnering with government and community leaders, the private sector plays a role in helping to close the vaccination gap in our workforce and communities. What can the business community do to stop this pandemic? What is the private sector’s role in helping keep our communities safe? How are organizations responding to local, state and federal mandates? What processes are working and not working? What will it take to return to a strong and stable economy? Join a panel of business leaders across industries discussing opportunities to address this public health crisis and how we can wor

Join us for a conversation with Joe Weisberg, who makes the case in his new book, Russia Upside Down, that America's foreign policy toward Russia is failing, and we'll never fix it unless we rethink our entire relationship. Weisberg came of age in America in the 1970s and '80s as a Cold Warrior. He studied Russian in Leningrad, and then joined the CIA—just in time to watch the Soviet Union collapse. Less than a decade later, though, a new Cold War broke out. Russia had changed in many of the ways that America hoped it might. It had become more capitalist, more religious, more open to Western ideas. But U.S. sanctions crippled Russia's economy, and Russia's internet-based retaliations have exacerbated our own political problems. Weisberg says the old paradigm—America, the free capitalist good guys, fighting Russia, the repressive communist bad guys—simply doesn't apply anymore. But we've continued to act as if it does. Weisberg asks hard questions about our foreign policy and attempts to understand what Russia

Today's speakers, who are human rights activists as well as being business-oriented, will discuss why Bitcoin matters, especially in the Middle East region. Alex Gladstein, vice president of strategy for the Oslo Freedom Forum, has connected many dissidents and civil society groups with business leaders, philanthropists, policymakers and artists, to promote free and open societies. He has shared his views at MIT, Stanford, BBC, the European Parliament, the U.S. State Department, and other venues. He is the singularity expert at Singularity University and advises Blockchain Capital. Fadi Elsalameen, who was born in Hebron, is a critic of Hamas and the Palestinian Authority and has received death threats for his pro-democracy and anti-corruption work. He is a graduate of Seeds of Peace, a successful businessperson, and has also shared his views at many leading institutions, including The Commonwealth Club of California. SPEAKERS Fadi Elsalameen M.S., International Relations and Economics; Adjunct Senior Fellow,

Celebrated writer Susan Orlean visits The Commonwealth Club for the first time to discuss her new book, On Animals, a collection from her lifetime of musings, mediations and in-depth profiles about animals. Orlean, a staff writer for The New Yorker, is fresh off her last best-selling book, The Library Book, about the Los Angeles Public Library, which won numerous awards. Her new collection focuses on a range of creatures—the household pets we dote on, the animals we raise to end up as meat on our plates, the creatures who could eat us for dinner, and the various tamed and untamed animals we share our planet with that are central to human life. Since the age of six, Orlean has been fascinated by stories about animals, and her new book brings forward a lifetime of writing about cross-species connections. How humans interact with animals has preoccupied philosophers, poets and naturalists for ages. Come hear one of America's most gifted writers discuss why she is so passionate and curious about the subject. SPEA

People around the world have been experiencing unprecedented extreme weather events – raging wildfires, killer heatwaves and catastrophic floods. In August, the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a new Assessment Report, which UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres called “code red for humanity,” adding that alarm bells are deafening and the evidence is irrefutable.  Against this backdrop, delegates from across the globe are set to convene for the international climate summit known as COP26, where they’re expected to hammer out commitments to reduce carbon emissions in hopes of avoiding the worst impacts of climate disruption. Six years on from the Paris agreement, is there finally enough urgency to turn ambition and promises into action?  For transcripts and other information, visit: https://www.climateone.org/watch-and-listen/podcasts  Guests: Kate Larsen, Director, International Energy & Climate, Rhodium Group Albert Cheung, Head of Global Analysis, Bloomberg NEF Mitzi Jonelle Tan, Climat

Is intentional misgendering a crime? Should it be? How does it affect the person who is the subject of the treatment? In July 2021, a California district court struck down a provision of the LGBTQ Long-term Care Facility Residents' Bill of Rights that banned nursing home staff from "willfully and repeatedly" misgendering or using the wrong name to refer to a resident when they've been clearly informed of the preferred name or pronoun. That provision, known as the "pronoun provision," was ruled to be an infringement on free speech, with one of the judges writing that "misgendering may be disrespectful, discourteous and insulting, and used in an inartful way to express an ideological disagreement with another person's expressed gender identity," but the First Amendment "does not protect only speech that inoffensively and artfully articulates a person's point of view." Advocates for LGBTQ seniors, and especially for transgender and gender nonconforming seniors, have called the decision alarming. Openhouse, a San

Dubbed the “most surprising” candidate, Andrew Yang made waves with a rousing 2020 presidential campaign. With his newfound platform, he advanced the prevalence of progressive concepts such as the Universal Basic Income (UBI), bringing them into mainstream discussion. A year later, Yang is more adamant than ever that the need for change is urgent and that we can rely on no one else other than ourselves to bring it to fruition. In his upcoming book Forward: Notes on the Future of Our Democracy, Yang emphasizes once more the cumulative and mounting pressures like job automation that already threaten what he argues is an antiquated system. He says that only daring measures can bring us back from the brink of becoming a failed democracy. At INFORUM, Andrew Yang will once more lay out his vision for an American future that is modern, sustainable and serves its constituents. Hoping to defy creeping stagnation, he extends a call to action to every American citizen. The message? "Now or never." Note: This program con