Finding the Silver Lining

By Monica Schrager

Thanks to everyone who has tuned in so far to hear our first three highfalutin podcast episodes on the themes of Reboot, It Is What It Is, and Silver Linings. Find all episodes here, or wherever you listen to your podcasts. 

This podcast was Matt’s brainchild and I (and I’m sure Ryan) are really excited he asked us to take part. It allows us three friends who met in college way back when the chance to catch up more frequently than we were before and to talk about what’s on our mind around a common theme, focused on news, arts, sports, and a poem. I’m thankful for the opportunity to focus on something somewhat creative in these crazy times, think about my point of views, and discuss with friends I trust and whose company I enjoy. 

We’re just getting started and learning as we go, so welcome constructive feedback on our Facebook page or website for each episode. 

There’s only so much time per episode and so I wanted to expand in this blog post on a few topics I mentioned.

A Moment for Women and People of Color

We talked about the Democratic National Convention and particularly that spectacular roll call (I’ll never think of Rhode Island again without conjuring up images of calamari), though I was excited to see in the New York times breakdown of convention speaking times “women amassed more air time than men” and “speakers of color collectively got about half of the speaking time.” I love seeing this and find it really promising, despite the continued uproad battle ahead to regain the Presidency, Senate, and House. You gotta have hope. 

I also realized I missed mention of a key point in the third wave of feminism when listing the four waves of feminism. The third wave in the 1990s does trace to the riot grrrl feminist punk subculture in Olympia, Washington as I mentioned, though also to Anita Hill’s televised testimony to an all male and all white Senate Judiciary Committee about Clarence Thomas’s sexual harassment of her as part of his Supreme Court confirmation hearing. That inspired the largest wave of Women entering Congress in 1992 as part of what became known as the “Year of the Women.”  

Some Great Organizations and Products

I mentioned My Block, My Hood, My City in the episode and how I’m going on a youth-led tour of the Englewood neighborhood of Chicago and bought one of their sweatshirts, in French, as shown below. They are doing a lot of great work like organizing senior wellness calls, small business cleanups after looting, and exposing youth inside these under-resourced communities  to what the world has to offer, as well as exposing those unfamiliar with these under-resourced communities to those communities.