34: The Sound of Silence: Fascism, Nativism, and What's Happening Right Now in America

Picture a newsroom in Rome under dictator Benito Mussolini's fascist regime in the 1930s. A censor's red pencil moves down a page before it ever reaches a printing press.  Now picture a cell phone, right now, tonight: someone typing out a post, reading it back to themselves, and deleting it before they hit send.   Two moments, nearly a hundred years apart, but with the same instinct.  Silence isn't just what's left when words are cut, or people are quiet. It's something regimes - and sometimes just fear, or habit, or a culture - intentionally manufacture.  And that's why we think talking about silence is so important, especially given where we are currently in the United States.   Today we're tracing the history of silence across three pivotal moments: the silence embedded in the American nativist movement in the 1800s, the fascist engineering of silence in the 1900s, and how observers today argue silence is being imposed again, with some tips as to how we best fight back (hint: we question. A lot).   What to listen for: How a regime manufactures silence: (1) legal suppression; (2) fear and violence; (3) propaganda; (4) mythologized past; (5) erasing inconvenient history… and how we see each of these pieces in today's America. How early American nativists used silence in the mid-1800s - literally, with a party called the Know-Nothings - to quietly advance their agenda against European immigrants The early-1900s Americans who created laws to enforce silence (and fear) And how silence is being weaponized in America in 2026.  What can we each do? Speak up. Ask questions. Use your voice - and your voting voice. Be that friend who texts the group chat to make sure everybody's registered to vote and has a plan to get to the polling place.   

If you were with us back in our early days, you remember we did a whole episode on redlining: the history of it, the literal red lines drawn on maps in the 1930s to keep Black and immigrant families out of the mortgage market, and how that legacy still shapes segregation and the racial wealth gap today. We're including that full episode, edited slightly for context, in this conversation.   What we didn't fully appreciate back in 2019 is that the episode wasn't just a history lesson where we were looking back in time. Rather, it was actually the opening scene of this update you're getting today.   A lot happened immediately after we recorded that episode that set the stage for everything that is occurring right now, in this second Trump administration, that directly impacts something that we care a LOT about: community, neighborhoods, and who gets to belong.  So we thought we'd revisit redlining as a way to show just how the fight for community itself is shifting over time, and how we're all impacted by federal policy shifts designed to target those of us who are most vulnerable.  We hope you listen, share widely, and think about these issues as we head into a contentious midterm season.   What to listen for: What redlining was, historically, and how it continues to impact our neighborhoods today Predatory lending practices that harm all of us The problems with gentrification The fight over "disparate impact" (i.e., showing that discrimination exists is enough, and you don't need to prove intent to discriminate) and its impact on equality

Here's your chance to listen to a firsthand account of one of the most horrible parts of our recent human history, and how we stop it from happening again. This episode features a conversation with a psychologist whose life's work sits at the intersection of two of humanity's most extreme capacities: the capacity for cruelty, and the capacity for courage.  A survivor of the Holocaust in Hungary, hiding in Budapest as a six-year-old, he became a leading researcher on the psychology of genocide, group violence, and altruism - work that has shaped police training programs on "active bystandership," informed reconciliation efforts in Rwanda, and produced decades of research on what leads ordinary people to help others, even at personal risk. What to Listen for:  Small early experiences compound. How children are raised - with warmth, responsiveness, and consistent values - can shape whether they grow toward caring or toward hostility, on both an individual and societal level. Responsibility, not just empathy, drives action. Empathy alone doesn't reliably produce helping behavior - a felt sense of responsibility for someone else's welfare, paired with a belief that you can actually make a difference, is what moves people to act. Bystanders can be trained to become "active bystanders." This isn't just theory - it's the basis of real police and school training programs designed to help people intervene safely when they see harm happening. "Blind patriotism" vs. "constructive patriotism" is a useful lens for understanding how loyalty to a group, a leader, or a country can either enable harm or serve as a check against it. Violence - and caring - escalate gradually. Small unaddressed moments of hostility or dehumanization tend to compound over time, in families, institutions, and nations alike. Personal history and professional work aren't separate. The guest's own childhood experience of hiding from persecution, and the people who risked their lives to protect his family, directly shaped decades of research into what makes rescuers different from bystanders. About Ervin Staub Professor Emeritus of Psychology and founding director of the Psychology of Peace and Violence Program at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. A survivor of the Holocaust in Hungary as a young child, he has spent his career researching the roots of genocide, mass violence, and altruism — including fieldwork in Rwanda, expert witness work related to the Abu Ghraib trials, and the design of active-bystandership training programs now used by police departments across the country.

Do you know someone who's been incarcerated? Have you ever actually asked them their story, instead of judging them on that one fact? Because 95% of incarcerated people eventually leave prison and come home. They are our neighbors, our coworkers, our family members.  Here's why this is relevant to you today: This administration has made "tough on crime" the centerpiece of its second term - among other things, reviving the federal death penalty, pushing back against cashless bail reform, and pressuring prosecutors nationwide to seek harsher sentences (when, of course, it benefits them and/or the MAGA agenda). The message from Washington is loud and clear: punishment first, everything else second. But here's a question nobody in Washington seems to be asking: what happens after? How we treat people when they come home - whether we see them as people, or permanently as their worst mistake - says as much about us as any policy coming out of Washington. So today we're going straight to a conversation that is one of our favorites, with someone who's lived both sides of this story: Marcus Bullock, CEO of Flikshop, who was incarcerated as a teenager and built a company helping formerly incarcerated people stay connected to their families and rebuild their lives. This is a conversation about what "law and order" actually looks like on the ground and in people - not just in the abstract. What to listen for:  Marcus's origin story for Flikshop: how his mother's daily letters and photos during his eight-year sentence became the blueprint for a company that now keeps families connected to incarcerated loved ones The moment Marcus, at 15, stood before a judge and didn't grasp what "concurrent" and "consecutive" sentences meant; he just wanted to know if he'd be home for Christmas. Why Marcus resists the word "felon" (and "inmate" and "convict")  What it was like to go through adolescence and puberty inside an adult maximum-security prison, and the moment - a conversation with a friend serving 31 years - that broke him out of denial about his own situation The "class system" Marcus describes inside prison - from commissary money to medical care to solitary confinement - and how closely it mirrors inequities on the outside His reflection on perspective as "better than courage and hope," and how prison reframed what counted as hardship The emotional toll on his mother - isolation, cost, fear - as a reminder that incarceration ripples through entire families Applying to 41 jobs and getting rejected every time before the 42nd said yes - and what that reveals about resilience versus a broken system The real cost of the "have you been convicted of a felony?" checkbox - from job and housing applications to a story about being flagged by TSA at his own construction site How Flikshop Angels grew from a gesture by John Legend into a way for kids with incarcerated parents to send selfies to their moms and dads His challenge to listeners: change the dinner table conversation first - humanizing returning citizens starts there About Marcus: Marcus Bullock is an entrepreneur, justice reform advocate, and TED speaker. Following his 2004 release from prison, he launched a construction business that grew to employ other returning citizens. Bullock is the Founder and CEO of Flikshop, Inc., a software company that builds tools to help incarcerated people stay connected to their families and build community. He also founded the Flikshop School of Business, a program that teaches returning citizens life skills and entrepreneurship via computer coding and software development. Marcus is an inaugural cohort member of Techstars Anywhere 2018 and John Legend's Unlocked Futures business accelerators. He was selected as one of The Root's 2019 100 Most Influential African Americans in the U.S. He is also a member of the Justice Policy Institute's board of directors, Advisory Board member for Princeton University's Prison Teaching Initiative, and serves as an advisor to the Georgetown University McDonough School of Business and Aspen Institute's Opportunity Youth Incentive Fund. Married with two children, Marcus' story has received coverage from Forbes, CNN, Washington Post, Black Enterprise, and NPR.  Venture: Flikshop is the tech platform that allows family members to connect easily with their incarcerated loved ones. The Flikshop app is famously known as the Instagram for prisons, allowing users the ability to send personalized pictures and messages delivered as postcards to any person in any cell in the US. Website: http://ww.flikshop.com/  

On June 30th, 2026, the Supreme Court ruled that states can bar transgender girls and women from competing on girls' and women's teams. Six to three. It's now the law in over half the country.   And however you feel about that ruling, here's what we noticed in the days after it came down: almost none of the coverage actually talked to a transgender kid, or the parent raising one. It was all policy. All abstraction. It is a decision that, on paper, is about Title IX and biological sex and constitutional interpretation.   But underneath all that legal language is something much more personal: real kids, real families, real teams, and real decisions about who gets to belong. And let's not forget: argued by people who've never sat across from an eight-year-old who already knows she's going to be treated differently.   So we went back into our archive. A while back, we sat down with a remarkable mom, Jaime, raising a transgender daughter in Florida. And more recently, we talked with Schuyler - you might know him as Pink Manta Ray - a multiethnic Korean American trans educator, the first transgender Division 1 athlete on a men's team while at Harvard, and author of He, She, They:    How We Talk About Gender and Why It Matters.   We're combining pieces of both conversations into one episode, because we think you need both things right now: Jaime's story, to feel it - and Schuyler's clarity, to know what to actually say and not say when it comes up in your own life. These aren't talking points. These are ways to simply see the humanity in each other. Please listen, and share widely.   What to listen for:   Intersectionality, and Schuyler's own experience growing up biracial    The importance of exploring why you are who you are – for ALL of us – when it comes to gender   The quick takedown of the arguments from people working to push trans women out of women's sports  A bullet-pointed list of what NOT to say to transgender folks   How to remind yourself of joy and a sense of thriving in the world, when it gets rough  What Schuyler wants cisgender, heterosexual women to do differently, once you listen to the episode   About Schuyler:   Schuyler Bailar (he/him) is an educator, advocate, and bestselling author who made history as the first transgender athlete to compete in any sport on an NCAA Division 1 men's team. Originally recruited to swim for the Harvard women's team, Schuyler made the difficult choice to transition while potentially giving up the prospect of being a women's NCAA Champion. His story has appeared everywhere from 60 Minutes to The Washington Post and The Ellen Show. Schuyler's tireless advocacy has earned him numerous honors, including Forbes 30 Under 30  and the Out 100. In 2023, Schuyler's critically acclaimed nonfiction bestseller became the preeminent resource on trans inclusion: He/She/They: How We Talk About Gender and Why It Matters. Schuyler's works include his middle-grade novel Obie Is Man Enough, his online gender literacy training LaneChanger.com, and his hit podcast Dear Schuyler, including exclusive interviews with trans icons and allies like Lia Thomos, Dylan Mulvaney, Rafael de la Fuente, and many more.    Follow Schuyler on Instagram @pinkmantaray     About Jaime: Jaime Jara is a woman who wears many hats. A native New Yorker, she navigates daily life in Florida with her husband, 3 kids, and a plethora of furbabies.  She lends her voice and perspective as a parent of a transgender child to shed light on the challenges faced by the trans community. Jaime is an active member of the national LGBTQ organizations that aim to empower and support parents of LGBTQ children. After a long stint in corporate America, Jaime is putting her graduate degree to good use by starting her second career as an educator. She has been a guest speaker at schools, participated in panels and research studies, and appeared on television to advocate for transgender acceptance and inclusion. She has penned numerous essays about her journey with her trans child.  Jaime aspires to be signing copies of her bestselling novel one day, when she finally slows down enough to write it.    You can follow her journey with her family on Instagram@Jaidonna19.    Resources:     PFLAG National    Mama Dragons    National Queer and Trans Therapists of Color Network (NQTTCN)     Trans Lifeline - 1-877-565-8860    Human Rights Campaign    Stand With Trans    Black Trans Advocacy Coalition    Trevor Project Lifeline -  1-866-488-7386    GLAAD    "I can't even get my kids to eat vegetables, let alone change genders…" - Jaime Jara   

Crystal Echo Hawk's daughter gets asked if she still lives in a teepee. And Crystal's response isn't rage - it's something more unsettling.  She gets it.  Because 87% of American schools stop teaching about Native peoples after 1900, and 78% of Americans know very little about Native people. So that question, as painful as it is, makes a terrible kind of sense. The last data point most Americans have on Native people is somewhere around third grade. And then nothing. Crystal Echo Hawk is a citizen of the Pawnee Nation of Oklahoma, the former executive director of IllumiNative, a national, native-led, non-profit organization born out of the "Reclaiming Native Truth Project", a research project from 2016-2018, and was the largest public opinion research project ever conducted about native people. She is one of the most important voices in the country on what it actually means to be Native American in America today - not in a history book, not in a Halloween costume aisle, not doing the horrifying tomahawk chop in a stadium. This is a conversation you won't want to miss.  "There is no stupid question, as long as it's asked with respect." Crystal What to listen for:  Invisibility and erasure of the Native American culture creates bias and fuels racism. 27 states do not mention Native Americans in their curriculum. Representation in TV and film is between 0% and 0.04% of all representation. Within that sliver, the Native American is often shown in a stereotypical fashion. i.e., magical, mystical Indian, drunks, or savages. One study found that when you type the words "Native American" in a search engine, 95% of those images that come up are pre-1900, and are almost always men. YET, there are 573 independent, sovereign nations within this country. Each nation has its own language, its own customs and cultures, and systems of government and elected officials. "Native American", "American Indian", and "Native Peoples" are all terms that are preferred over the word "Indian". Yep, we discuss Christopher Columbus and Thanksgiving and Halloween and the offensive usage of stereotypes in sports, from the Native American perspective. Vote with your dollars: support Native American-owned businesses. There are more than 5 million Native Americans in the US. Take a moment to search and learn about who the traditional Native Peoples in your area were. Recommended Companion Podcast Halloween and Cultural Appropriation  About Crystal Echo Hawk Crystal is the founder and President of Indigenous House, powered by Honey Badger Partners. Crystal also founded IllumiNative in 2018 as an outgrowth of the Reclaiming Native Truth (RNT) project, the largest public opinion research and strategy-setting initiative ever conducted by and for Native peoples. Crystal designed and co-led the RNT project as CEO of Echo Hawk Consulting (EHC). Through EHC, Crystal served as a leader of tribal and philanthropic teams that raised and directed the reinvestment of $37 million in Native communities. Crystal previously served as the first Executive Director of the Notah Begay III Foundation and led program design and investment of $9.7 million in Native obesity/diabetes prevention and youth leadership.  

Imagine you're six years old. You look out past a barbed wire fence at a highway in the desert, and every single car that passes by is driven by someone white. The teachers who come to your school? White. The guards in the towers above you, also white. And you think to yourself: is this America? Or is America out there?  That child was John Tateishi. He was almost three years old when the U.S. government forced his entire family - along with 120,000 other Japanese Americans - from their homes and into concentration camps on American soil. His family ended up at Manzanar. And when the war ended, they were handed $25 and told to find their way home. What John did with that childhood - with that rage, that clarity, that love of country despite everything this country did to him - is an important story in American history, and honestly one that many adults may not have even learned in their history classes growing up.  He went on to lead the Japanese American redress campaign, helping secure a formal government apology and reparations. He's the author of Redress: The Inside Story of the Successful Campaign for Japanese American Reparations. He shares a lot about what that fight means today - for the Black reparations movement, for anti-Asian hate, and for the question that sits at the center of all of it: Who gets to be American?  As we move towards a celebration of America's birthday, that question sits front and center for many of us, as we're actively being told that we're not American. These stories show us not only how we reject that narrow view, but also how to fight for ourselves and one another while loving our communities, families, and country at the same time. What to listen for: John's personal experience as a young person incarcerated at Manzanar - and what it was like returning to society The makeup of Los Angeles in the post-war period - and how different communities banded together What John sees as the differences between the successful campaign he helped lead for Japanese American reparations and the hurdles facing Black Americans, starting with HR40. About John Tateishi: Incarcerated as a child in one of America's WWII concentration camps, John Tateishi carried that memory with him when he launched the Japanese American reparations campaign in 1978. He directed the public affairs and legislative strategies of the campaign until 1986, two years before the campaign ultimately culminated with the signing of the Civil Liberties Act.  Ten years later, he led the JACL's challenge against the Bush administration's policies that targeted Arab and Muslim communities and undermined the civil liberties of all Americans. He is the author of Redress: The Inside Story of the Successful Campaign for Japanese American Reparations (2020).  

Six people. That's all it took. Six young men sitting in a law office in Pulaski, Tennessee, in December of 1865 - just eight months after the Civil War ended - decided to start a secret club. One that, 150 years later, still impacts our country today.  To combat the recent erasure of history and ensure these stories remain not only alive but top of mind, this summer we are re-releasing some of our most important historical episodes from the last seven years.  We hope you listen, share, like, and all those things, but most importantly, learn from them, and translate that into action, even if it's just telling one other person about this.  Change doesn't have to be big.  But these episodes show us how we got to where we are currently - and now, it's time to do something about it. What to listen for:  Reflecting on what you'd do if you got together with six friends. What kind of club, movement, or difference would you choose to make?  The KKK's trajectory over generations, and how it's grown, contracted, and operated. And how understanding this history helps us better understand where we are as a country today. The one segment in all our 7 years of recording close to 300 episodes, when we simply could not pronounce a word and ended up cry-laughing so hard… we left it in for you to hear. Share this episode with someone you know today!  

What does it mean to be American? What does it mean to be Asian American — and why, in 2026, are so many of us still leading with worry? Today, in honor of AANHPI Heritage Month, we're diving into the TAAF STAATUS Index 2026 by unpacking some stats that are eye-opening, some that are infuriating, and some that are deeply familiar. We'll talk about how Asian Americans are seen - and how we see ourselves - from the food on our plates to the question of whether you even have to be born here to belong here. It's AANHPI Heritage Month, and we have some thoughts (unsurprising to all of our regular listeners, we're sure!). If this episode resonates with you, please share widely - and let us know what action step you decided to take after listening. What to listen for:  The latest data shows that Asian Americans in 2026 feel predominantly worried right now (compared to other groups who feel more "hopeful") - here's why we think that might be, and it may not be the why that's most common What does it mean to be American? Do you have to be born in the US? And why do so many folks of Asian descent feel you don't have to be born here to be American?  How Asian culture shows up in our homes.  Some ideas for what you can do this month: Watch an Asian film (made by Asians, featuring Asians), have some Asian food, research a significant moment in Asian American history, speak with your Asian friends to learn something new about their lives.  

What if the thing holding back justice isn't lack of will — it's lack of access?  Today's guest is doing something about that after coming up from a really rough time in high school, a near-fatal car crash, a parent who believed in him endlessly, and ending up not only at Stanford Law but also with one of the most powerful mentors in the field of law. For those of you who - like Sara - have liked to tease lawyers for being miserable people with secret languages, this episode brings the absolute best in the field to rehabilitate that image, infuse us with hope and humanity, and remind us that, even if we're not lawyers, there is a LOT we can each do to make the world a better place.   What to listen for: Transformation is rarely linear — and patience is the secret ingredient. And a message for parents of struggling teens: believe in them relentlessly, even when they make it hard, because knowing someone is in your corner can be the difference that keeps a young person from going over the edge. Mentorship is a two-way street. Luke describes his decades-long relationship with trailblazing attorney Harry Bremond, who shaped him both professionally and personally — but he's clear that great mentorship requires great mentees. Showing up, being reliable, and genuinely investing in the relationship is what transforms a professional connection into a lasting legacy. You don't have to be a lawyer to fight for justice in your community. There is so much we can each do in our communities to create tangible change, even volunteering for a few hours. And mentally? Luke says it's important to be good to yourself and allow yourself and others grace. Go on and find the joy in life while we're living it!   About our guest: Luke Liss is the Pro Bono Partner of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati. He manages the firm's global Community Impact program. Luke also actively leads multiple pro bono impact litigation and immigration teams.  Luke has also played a key leadership role in high-profile pro bono litigation, including a trial win on behalf of one of the largest classes of Medicare patients in history, a historic win on summary judgment against a former Colombian paramilitary war lord on behalf of family members of a murdered community activist, and the settlement of a civil rights lawsuit alleging constitutional violations in Louisiana. Luke remains active in the leadership of multiple ongoing impact litigation matters.