A journey beyond politics.

Baratunde lays the spiritual foundation for the show. His first guest, Valarie Kaur, activist and author of See no Stranger, helps us go inward to ready our hearts and minds for How To Citizen. Welcome to the show!

Baratunde shares the four pillars of How To Citizen. Eric Liu, founder of Citizen University, schools us on power - what it is, who has it, and how the practice of citizenship is empty without this literacy.

Baratunde builds off the last episode of his previous podcast, We’re Having a Moment.

Baratunde learns about mutual aid and local, distributed approaches to feeding ourselves during this time of crisis.

Baratunde explores how, in the absence of national leadership, determined, newly-minted leaders are problem-solving and mobilizing people around them to protect and save lives during this pandemic.

Baratunde wonders what today’s labor movement looks like and how workers are responding to the unprecedented consolidation of corporate power across all industries from tech to agriculture to retail. He learns how our economy and our democracy are impacted by these extremes.

In this bonus episode, Baratunde follows up on an audience member’s question asked during the live taping of episode six, “Making Work Work for Everyone.”

Baratunde calls out the adults that say, “The kids will save us,” but then underestimate or don’t support kids’ efforts to participate.

Baratunde ignores the headlines about Chicago and heeds a listener’s advice to learn more about the southside from a local artist who is building bridges in her community and literally helping people find common ground.

Baratunde speaks with Maria Teresa Kumar, President of Voto Latino, about the power in numbers of Latinx voters and the work of relationship-building for this moment.

Baratunde speaks with Sherrilyn Ifill, the President and Director-Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund about the very long history of voter suppression, why it still exists (hint: white supremacy and racism), and the current tactics being deployed for the 2020 election.

Baratunde digs into the feeling of disconnect and neglect felt by the black community in Milwaukee during the 2016 election and learns from Angela Lang, Executive Director of Black Leaders Organizing Communities (BLOC MKE).

Baratunde learns to think about sacrifice and having skin in the game in terms of a ham, egg, and cheese sandwich analogy.

Baratunde wrestles with how to handle rising political violence in the U.S. by learning from a leading steward of strategic nonviolent action.

Baratunde reflects on Election Day and contemplates the record set this week for positive COVID cases recorded in a single day.

Baratunde ends Season One focused on the state of our relationships, a key pillar of how to citizen, and thus the health of our society after the most contentious election in modern history.

In Season One we asked ourselves, what does it mean “to citizen”? How do we show up and stand up for our community? Coming off the heels of January 6th, 2021, Baratunde starts Season Two by taking a step back with the question, “How can we citizen with so much division?”.

This week, author Heather McGhee breaks down the driving force of American economic exclusion via the swimming pool.

Everytable founder, Sam Polk, wants to change the way we do business by not only creating jobs, but going a step further to create wealth-building, ownership opportunities through a social franchise model.

Imagine land without landlords. With shared ownership and without racialized displacement. Sounds too good to be true.

Our extreme wealth inequality isn’t just caused by economic exclusion; we are also struggling with the concentration of corporate power.

In a future where we depend increasingly on Amazon, the fates of many small businesses hang in the balance. In this episode, Baratunde learns about a new model to help local small businesses compete with the online ease of ordering from Amazon.

In 2021 it’s non-negotiable: quality home internet is something we all need. Our entire economy, along with almost all other aspects of our lives, relies on access to the internet.

Racism, exclusion, and unchecked corporate growth have trapped an entire class of people in poverty, no matter how hard they work. We call them the “working poor.”

Workers have long been excluded from financial gains when businesses become profitable, and wages are no longer a way to create stability and build wealth. Cooperatives were created to combat this very problem.

This week, Baratunde digs into the world of Universal Basic Income and Guaranteed Income, in other words distributing money, much like we do when we subsidize farmers or oil companies, but instead to individual households.

“It’s hard to citizen when you can’t pay the bills.” This season’s theme has revealed economic causes of our deep division, and has opened our eyes to how our democracy and economic well-being are incredibly interconnected.