Arena Talks

In this episode, Arena’s co-founder and Managing Partner, Ravi Gupta gives his thoughts on recent events from around the country. He then interviews Stacey Shells, a long-time Arena community member and educator. Stacey shares her experiences facing down discrimination and her thoughts on where this protest movement should go.

Majora Carter is a visionary civic activist and entrepreneur from the South Bronx. She’s won recognition far and wide, including a MacArthur 'genius' Grant, a Peabody Award, and a Ted Talk with over 2.6 million views. In this episode, we talk about how to truly empower local communities to be self sufficient — and why the government and non-profits often get economic development wrong.

Yale Law School professor Daniel Markovits joins us to discuss The Meritocracy Trap, his book about an under-appreciated driver of inequality in this country -- and how the 1% includes more people than we commonly acknowledge.

In April, Arena hosted a conversation about how to campaign in the era of COVID-19. The conversation featured Hillary Clinton, Addisu Demissie (former campaign manager of Booker 2020 and Newsom for CA), and Swati Mylavarapu (Arena and Incite.org co-founder). We’ve shared the audio from this conversation.

In this podcast, we hear from two political leaders at the center of the fight against COVID-19 and who are both widely acknowledged to be two of the most likely successors to Bill de Blasio as Mayor. First up is Scott Stringer, who is NYC’s Comptroller -- which is an office that serves both as the chief financial officer of the city and the city’s chief auditor. We then hear from Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams, who gives us an on-the-ground account of how COVID-19 is impacting Brooklyn. Eric served for 22 years as a NYC Transit and NYPD officer, and offers his perspective on how we can best support first responders and other essential employees.

Ben Wikler, Chair of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, is one of the leading progressive voices in the country today. Fresh off an historic electoral victory (historic for the obstacles candidates and voters faced), he joins us to talk about what Wisconsin's election can teach us about what’s to come in November.

At our latest Arena Summit in September, Anand Giridharadas and Michael Tubbs joined us for a conversation about the ethics of philanthropy. Anand Giridharadas is a writer and author of a new book, “Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World.” In the book, Anand talks about some of the trappings of philanthropy, and how it might be a fig leaf that prevents us from solving deeper societal problems. Michael Tubbs is the Mayor of Stockton, CA, and he shares what he learned leading the rollout of universal basic income for part of his community. To learn more about his story, check out our previous episode with Mayor Tubbs.

Sarah Ullman is the co-founder of Vote Vote at a Time, a super PAC that created almost 200 videos about candidates for the 2018 midterm elections. Sarah and her team only work with progressive candidates who are strong on gun control. Sarah has done game-chasing work this election cycle, and was recently profiled in the New York Times. We had a great conversation with Sarah about what she learned during the latest election cycle, and her plans for the future.

Amber is the Founding Director of the Community Justice Reform Coalition, aka CJRC. She has spent the last 17 years working in progressive, grassroots advocacy and electoral campaigns. We talk about the state of gun violence in America, how we can address the problem holistically, and the structural barriers our society faces as a result of deep-seated white supremacy and toxic masculinity. We also talk about hope, and the inspiring work CJRC is doing to prevent gun violence and uplift criminal justice reform in communities of color.

Meg Ansara has had an incredible career in politics and social justice. She’s also the CEO of 270 Strategies. Most recently, she served as Hillary Clinton’s Battleground States Director. Meg talks about how serving as a forest firefighter taught her lessons about teamwork, how Paul Wellstone deepened her commitment to grassroots organizing, and what we should take away from 2016 as we look ahead to the midterms. She also shares her helpful perspective on management and leadership.