Airgo

The sports arena is a microscope into our culture, and Dave Zirin is peering through the glass with a thoughtful and searing eye. A longtime sportswriter and commentator, Dave is the sports editor for The Nation, a weekly progressive magazine dedicated to politics and culture. He joins AirGo on this episode to chat about the role of sports as both distraction and prism in a time of fascism, how militarism has coopted sports culture, and his relationship to the sports discourse mainstream.SHOW NOTESRead Dave's work at The Nation - https://www.thenation.com/authors/dave-zirin/Peep his site Edge of Sports - https://www.edgeofsports.com/Follow AirGo - instagram.com/airgoradioFind us live! - www.respairmedia.com/eventsBring us to your community by hitting us up - contact@respairmedia.com CREDITSHosts & Exec. Producers - Damon Williams and Daniel KisslingerAssociate Producer - Rocío SantosEngagement Producer - Rivka YekerDigital Media Producer - Troi Valles

The guys get back up with Olga Bautista, a longtime collaborator and  Environmental Justice leader whose work has reshaped the landscape of Chicago. The Co-Executive Director of the Southeast Environmental Task Force, Olga has been a leading force in the campaigns to defend the Southeast Side from environmental pollution, harmful development, and dangerous industry. She breaks down what EJ means in the era of Trump 2.0's attack on the movement, how its principles can serve as a guide as we fight for collective survival, and what's going on in her neck of the woods around the proposed "quantum campus" development on the old US Steel South Works site.SHOW NOTESSupport Southeast Environmental Task Force - https://www.instagram.com/se_taskforce/?hl=enFollow AirGo - instagram.com/airgoradioFind One Million Experiments on tour! - www.respairmedia.com/eventsBring us to your community by hitting us up - contact@respairmedia.com CREDITS Hosts & Exec. Producers - Damon Williams and Daniel KisslingerAssociate Produc

What the hell is actually happening in Congress in the midst of authoritarian takeover? The guys are joined by Rep. Delia Ramirez, the congresswoman for Illinois' 3rd District, who shares what it looks and feels like to walk into the Capitol under this administration, the ways that the ramp-up of Trump's deportation infrastructure harms us all, and how the lessons from building grassroots power on the northwest side of Chicago have the potential to reshape our political reality.SHOW NOTESConnect with Rep. Ramirez's office - https://ramirez.house.gov/Watch this episode on Youtube! - Follow AirGo - instagram.com/airgoradioFind One Million Experiments on tour! - www.respairmedia.com/eventsBring us to your community by hitting us up - contact@respairmedia.com CREDITSHosts & Exec. Producers - Damon Williams and Daniel KisslingerAssociate Producer - Cin Pimentel Engagement Producer - Rivka YekerDigital Media Producer - Troi Valles

The guys are joined by Antonio Gutierrez, an anti-displacement community organizer and leader in the multi-decade struggle for undocumented rights and protections here in Chicago. They are a co-founder of Organized Communities Against Deportations (OCAD), the Albany Park Defense Network, La Guayabita Autonoma Community Garden and the Autonomous Tenants Union. Woven into this web of community work is a deep insistence on the right to remain present and unapologetic in the city they've called home for over 20 years. They talk about the nuts and bolts of anti-deportation work in the city, the emotional weight they are carrying, and how they are anticipating their personal world shifting in the face of future deportation.SHOW NOTESSupport the work of OCAD - https://www.organizedcommunities.org/sponsor-a-casePlug into Albany Park Defense Network - https://www.facebook.com/albanyparkdefense/Organize with Autonomous Tenants Union - https://www.autonomoustenantsunion.org/Follow AirGo - instagram.com/airgoradioFind On

From time to time, a Chicago artist drops a new project that the AirGo crew is vibing with–when that happens, we get them on the line for a special listening party episode! Using a few of the project's tracks as jumping off points for the conversation, we dive deep into process, creativity, and growth.For this episode we get to celebrate the new project from our very own Damon A. Williams, who dropped his debut project In Process last fall. A long journey to create, the high-energy project explores the coexistence of joy and burden in a life of freedom making. Dame and Kiss are joined by guest cohost Jacoby Cochran, the host of wonderful podcast City Cast Chicago, who helps the guys listen with love to a handful of tracks from the project. Get in process with the crew!SHOW NOTESStream In Process - https://symphony.to/damon-a-williams-1/in-process-albumPeep the video for Unrecognizable - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJXs37EwIFgFollow Damon - https://www.instagram.com/damon_af/Follow AirGo - instagram.com/ai

What do you do when you see something happening that you know to be wrong? When its something seemingly intractable and massive that will negatively impact you and your neighbors? If you're Dixon Romeo, you start organizing. Dixon is the Executive Director of Southside Together, a new organization building power by organizing Black, poor, and working-class community members in Woodlawn, South Shore, Greater Grand Crossing, Park Manor and all adjacent neighborhoods, to secure economic stability and advance human rights.Dixon returns to AirGo to talk about how the new organization was birthed from two brilliant organizations merging together, give updates on some of their biggest fights, and break down the emergent campaign around the proposed "quantum campus" on the contaminated US Steel South Works site. A great way to learn about the city from the ground up!SHOW NOTESPlug in with Southside Together - https://www.southsidetogether.org/Follow AirGo - instagram.com/airgoradioFind One Million Experiments on tour

On this episode the guys connect the global dots with Alex of Dissenters, a national organization of young people leading the fight to reclaim our resources from the war industry, reinvest in life-giving institutions, and repair collaborative relationships with the earth and people around the world. As co-director of the organization, Alex has helped guide chapters on campuses across the country as they respond to and fight against militarism, genocide, and colonialism. They join the show to talk about their pathway to the work, how the lens of opposing militarism is helpful in this moment of overwhelm, and the value of some quality sabbatical time as well.SHOW NOTESLearn about and join Dissenters - https://wearedissenters.org/Sign up for Hazel's Seeds - https://www.respairmedia.com/help-this-garden-grow Follow AirGo - instagram.com/airgoradioFind One Million Experiments on tour! - www.respairmedia.com/eventsBring us to your community by hitting us up - contact@respairmedia.com CREDITSHosts & Exec. Produc

Dame and Kiss have the honor and pleasure to talk with Stanley Howard, a survivor of torture at the hands of the Chicago Police Department and a brilliant force for justice in the struggles for both torture reparations and the abolition of the death penalty in IL. As a self-taught jailhouse lawyer Stanley created the Death Row 10, a group of torture survivors on death row who began the collective push for both their freedom and the end of state-sanctioned murder. Since getting out a little over a year ago, Stanley has been actively advocating for and supporting people on the inside through his work with the Uptown People's Law Center. Come learn from Stanley with us–this is a special one!SHOW NOTESBuy Stanley's book "Tortured by Blue" - https://www.semcoop.com/tortured-blueSign up for Hazel's Seeds - https://www.respairmedia.com/help-this-garden-growFollow AirGo - instagram.com/airgoradioFind One Million Experiments on tour! - www.respairmedia.com/eventsBring us to your community by hitting us up - contact@re

The guys get to chop it up with legendary comedian, author, producer, and commentator W. Kamau Bell on this episode! A renowned standup and TV creator, Kamau has been guiding USians through the nuances, dark corners, and contradictions of our relationship with racial difference and power. For seven seasons, he was the host and executive producer of the five-time Emmy Award-winning CNN docuseries United Shades of America, and won a Peabody Award for his Showtime docuseries We Need To Talk About Cosby. He's back on the road doing standup across the country, including in Chicago on April 25 and 26, and he took some time to talk with the guys about the relationship between standup and regressive politics, how he found his voice on stage, and much more. SHOW NOTESBuy tickets to see Kamau at the Den Theatre in Chicago 4/25-4/26 - https://thedentheatre.com/performances/2025/4/25/w-kamau-bell-the-den-theatre-comedy-clubFollow him - https://www.instagram.com/wkamaubellSign up for Hazel's Seeds - https://www.respairmed

How do our models of care and freedom inform, contradict, or help us understand what it means to raise young people? How does the experience of caring for young people fundamentally shift what we mean by abolition? You might be thinking "damn, those are good-ass questions–hopefully someone has compiled a beautiful anthology of writers and organizers reflecting on this!" If so, Maya Schenwar and Kim Wilson have got you covered. Both longtime abolitionist organizers, media-makers, and writers, they are the co-editors of We Grow the World Together, a new anthology exploring the intersections between caregiving and abolition. Featuring essays from a squad of brilliance including Beth Richie, Ruth Wilson Gilmore, Dylan Rodriguez, Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, and many more, the book is available now from Haymarket Books. Maya and Kim join the show to talk about the project expanded their understanding of care, the ways nurturing should be at the center of our politic, and much more. SHOW NOTESBuy We Grow the Wo

On this episode we popped over to the crib of AirGo fam Trina Reynolds-Tyler, who was last on the show back in 2019 (https://airgoradio.com/airgo/2019/4/25/episode-185-trina-reynolds-tyler). Over these past six years she has continued to be a vibrant, impactful force for justice and liberation in the city–from her work contributing the People's Grab'n'Go during the pandemic to her PULITZER PRIZE-WINNING project "Missing in Chicago," a seven-part investigative series from the Invisible Institute and City Bureau that reveals how Chicago police have routinely violated state law and police procedure, delaying and mishandling missing person cases. The report revealed a racial bias that disproportionately impacts Black women and girls, and how poor police data is making the problem harder to solve. Trina talks with Dame and Kiss about the project's unexpected teachings, what the recognition has made possible for her in her work, and what unanswered questions are driving her curiosity these days.SHOW NOTESCheck out

What happens when an international order comes to an end? What gets built in its shadow? This week's guest, Adom Getachew, digs deep with us into the attempts at worldmaking that were led by anticolonial leaders in the mid-20th century, who fought for different visions of liberation as they fought to dismantle Europe's colonial empires on the African continent and across the Caribbean. We break down what we can learn from these attempts at worldmaking, the range of different possibilities that were on the table, and how we might hold their determination to upend structural power in our work today from within the heart of 21st century empire.SHOW NOTESBuy Adom's book "Worldmaking After Empire: The Rise and Fall of Self-Determination" - https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691179155/worldmaking-after-empireCheck out "Project a Black Planet: The Art and Culture of Panafrica" at the Art Institute of Chicago until 3/30/25 - https://www.artic.edu/exhibitions/10157/project-a-black-planet-the-art-and-cultu

AirGo is back, and we're kicking off our 2025 season by welcoming our pal Asha Ransby-Sporn back to the stu. Asha recently published an essay entitled "In the Face of Overwhelm," which serves as a sobering and pointed analysis of how we as a liberatory movement can make sense of and move through the inundation of structural dismantling and violence that the Trump/Musk conglomerate is reigning down on us everyday. We talk about what we can learn from our opposition, the value of studying those we disagree with, the complicated role of a movement home, and much more.SHOW NOTESRead the piece, copublished by In These Times and The Triibe - https://inthesetimes.com/article/billionaire-takeover-fight-overwhelmSign up for Hazel's Seeds, our new EJ listening club launching April 8, 2025! - https://www.respairmedia.com/help-this-garden-growFollow AirGo - instagram.com/airgoradioFind One Million Experiments on tour! - www.respairmedia.com/events Bring us to your community by hitting us up - contact@respairmedia.comCRED

Respair is kicking off the year by sharing a new project that we're proud to partner with and share with you! Welcome to Carceral Fictions & Abolitionist Realities, a series of narrative essays that reflect on emergent themes from conversations with Detroit-based organizers and futurists committed to abolition of police and prisons. This is Episode 1, entitled Alienation from Ourselves, Each Other, and Our Needs. Joined by a chorus of voices and visionaries, Detroit-based artist Lauren Williams invites us to consider roadmaps to futures we hope for, through a focus on the everyday & the contradictions of neoliberal philosophy. Should everything really be for sale, will the market protect the worthy? First, a foundation: How do our ways of working separate us from our power and possibility? What exactly is neoliberalism, how did it become the dominant social and economic logic of U.S. civil society? What does any of this have to do with abolition? To answer that last question first, it comes down

Respair is kicking off the year by sharing a new project that we're proud to partner with and share with you! Welcome to Carceral Fictions & Abolitionist Realities, a series of narrative essays that reflect on emergent themes from conversations with Detroit-based organizers and futurists committed to abolition of police and prisons. Interweaving research with brief dispatches from speculative abolitionist futures, each episode draws together the voices of people working toward food justice, water access, educational equity, restorative justice, and Black liberation to connect thematic currents surrounding the abolition of police and prisons. In each episode, we look closely at the kinds of fictions that shape our current attachments to policing, prisons, and punishment to examine where they come from and how they affect us. At the same time, you’ll hear us explore abolitionist realities that counter these fictions and open up other ways of being. The series is presented in partnership with Making Room f

We get topical with our last episode of the year. Dame and Kiss welcome a couple other members of the Respair squad. The crew talks about a lil’ Luigi Mangione gossip, the inspiring abolitionist projects we’ve seen on the road this year, how Trump’s election win has impacted us all, and much much more. SHOW NOTES Follow AirGo - instagram.com/airgoradio Find One Million Experiments on tour! - www.respairmedia.com/events Bring us to your community by hitting us up - contact@respairmedia.com CREDITS Hosts & Exec. Producers - Damon Williams and Daniel Kisslinger Associate Producer - Rocío Santos Engagement Producer - Rivka Yeker Digital Media Producer - Troi Valles

We're excited to bring you this convo from this year's Socialism Conference, held in September 2024 here in Chicago! The last few years of political turmoil have unearthed the longstanding lack of public trust in the news media. As journalists who work in, outside and against legacy media, we had the opportunity to be in convo with some brilliant peers about the long and deep legacy of movement journalism that expands transformative, abolitionist, and antiracist movement building through truthful reporting. The session was captained by friend of the pod Lewis Wallace, whose book The View from Somewhere is a must-read about how the myth of journalistic objectivity harms journalists and community. We also were in convo with Clarissa Brooks, who is Editor-in-Chief of The Forge; and Ryan Sorrell, Founder & Publisher of the Kansas City Defender. Get in tune! SHOW NOTES Learn about Lewis Raven Wallace - https://www.lewispants.com/about Dig into The Forge - https://forgeorganizing.org/ Peep the KC Defender -

This week we're digging in the AirGo crates and revisiting one of the most impactful moments in modern social movement history–the encampment at Standing Rock in 2016. Kiss and a cohort of other Chicago folks brought supplies from Freedom Square in November, and had the privilege to spend a few days there. Upon their return, Kiss sat down with Kristiana Colon, who had been with him on the trip, to talk about the experience. The episode also features selections from the podcast Voices of Standing Rock, reproduced with the creator's permission. SHOW NOTES: Listen to all of Voices of Standing Rock: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/voices-of-standing-rock/id1173368814 Get connected to Oceti Sakowin, a group that formed during the encampment and has led the fight for indigenous sovereignty and environmental justice: www.facebook.com/OcetiSakowinCamp

On this episode, the guys turn to legendary historian Rashid Khalidi to help parse and understand how we got here–a moment fourteen months into the escalation of genocidal violence perpetrated on the people and land of Palestine. The author of many books, including most recently The Hundred Years' War On Palestine, Prof. Khalidi talks about how he moves between the mind and body while witnessing and fighting against the destruction of his people, what he's learned from those who have engaged with his work, and how we must understand this escalation in the context of colonial violence and anticolonial struggle. SHOW NOTES Read The Hundred Years' War On Palestine - https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781627798556/thehundredyearswaronpalestine Follow AirGo - instagram.com/airgoradio Find One Million Experiments on tour! - www.respairmedia.com/events Bring us to your community by hitting us up - contact@respairmedia.com CREDITS Hosts & Exec. Producers - Damon Williams and Daniel Kisslinger Associate Producer

In the fraught last week before the 2024 election, the guys search for some nuance with Maurice Mitchell, the National Director of the Working Families Party. A nationally-recognized social movement strategist, visionary leader in the Movement for Black Lives, and community organizer, Maurice breaks down the vision and approach of WFP’s strategy to electoral organizing and helps us parse the value and limitations of elections as a component of transformative change. We also learn that he is the cousin of the legendary MF DOOM–just a lil fun fact for y’all! SHOW NOTES Learn more about the WFP - https://workingfamilies.org/ Find your polling place in Chicago - https://chicagoelections.gov/voting/your-voter-information Check out the Injustice Watch Judicial Guide - https://interactives.injusticewatch.org/judicial-election-guide/2024-general/en/ Follow AirGo - instagram.com/airgoradio Find One Million Experiments on tour! - www.respairmedia.com/events Bring us to your community by hitting us up - contact@re