Blind Plea - Listen Now: When We Win

Episode Date: March 5, 2024

Today, we are dropping in your feed to introduce you to When We Win, a new podcast from Lemonada Media that asks, is the impossible possible? What will it take to create a truly engaged democracy that represents all of us? Each week, Maya Rupert talks to some of the most incredible women of color in office today who ran against insurmountable odds and won, from the all-women city council in St. Paul, Minnesota, to the youngest Black woman to serve in Congress. So stop asking yourself if we can win, and start imagining what we’ll do when we win.   You’re about to hear a clip from episode one of the podcast. After you listen, head to https://lemonada.lnk.to/whenwewin to hear the rest of the episode. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hi, I'm Maya Rupert. As an experienced campaign manager in races from New York City Mayor to U.S. President, I know firsthand the power of representation and leadership. Join me on When We Win, a new podcast from Luminata Media as I hear stories of the transformation that women of color are bringing to the political world. In each episode, I discuss the people and current races that are pushing the boundaries and reshaping our political system so that it can better support women of colors' sustained political leadership. Because when these women win, we all win. When we win with Maya Rupert, out now, wherever you get your podcasts.

Hi, I'm Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and guess what? I've got a podcast. It's called Wiser Than Me, and each week I get schooled on life by women who are older and yes, wiser than me. Older women are this country's biggest untapped natural resource and I want to hear from them. I want to know what they've learned by living 70 or 80 or 85 years. Jane Fonda, Darlene Love, Isabella Aende and many more. Subscribe and get wise.

Wiser than me. Listen wherever you get your podcasts. Lemonade. Hi, listeners. We're dropping in your feed right now to share a preview of When We Win, a new series from Lemonade Media. Maya Rupert is an experienced campaign manager and races from New York City mayor to US president, and she knows firsthand the power of

representation in leadership. Join her on When We Win, a new podcast from Lemonada Media, as she hears stories of the transformation that women of color are bringing to the political world. In each episode, she discusses the people and current races that are pushing the boundaries and reshaping our political system so it can better support women of color's sustained political leadership. After you listen to this clip, search for When We Win with Maya Rupert in your podcast app to hear the rest of the episode. You can also find a link in the show notes that will take you right there. Enjoy. The future is female. Let black women lead. Latinas fight, Latinas win. Elect women. Over the last several election cycles, we have seen more and more calls for greater representation in our political leadership. Women, especially women of color, have been called on to run for office by voters who

said they were ready for change and ready to vote for them. But the outcome of those races tell a different story. Despite more women of color running in each election cycle, we remain woefully underrepresented in elected office. And the same women candidates that voters beg to run are often still losing those races. And it's no wonder our political system, the way we run campaigns, judge campaigns, and talk about their ability to succeed, wasn't designed with women of color in mind.

The world in which candidates run for office has transformed so much in recent years. That means we need to change the way we run, to elect new types of candidates in a new political world. It's time for a new campaign playbook. That's why I'm talking to some of the most exciting women of color in office today. I'm Maya Rupert. Welcome to When We Win. I'm Maya Rupert. Welcome to When We Win. In each episode, we'll focus on women of color who have won. We'll explore the conventional wisdoms of typical campaigning that they challenged, how that worked for them, and what we can learn from how they won. Authenticity is one of those things that somehow seems to mean everything and nothing in politics, and this is especially true for women of color.

When we run, our authenticity is demanded, but it's also placed under a microscope. We're told that we must win the voters in our own community, but that we must also appeal to white voters in order to be taken but that we must also appeal to white voters in order to be taken seriously and make everyone feel like we're being unapologetically ourselves the entire time. And if holding all of this at the same time gets too heavy for a candidate,

we question her authenticity and deem her unelectable. This same double bind doesn't exist for white male candidates, largely because we have so many narratives that they can authentically embody. White men can be the plain-spoken truth teller, the erudite wordsmith, the tough and principled war hero. When it comes to women of color, we have fewer examples. So these candidates are unceremoniously shoved into the few narrow models that we've seen before. And failure to fit within those visions means voters are less likely to find their narratives resonant. Being exactly who you are is a privilege that's only ever afforded to those who have never

had to answer the question, who do you think you are? So the yardstick for authenticity has white men as its true zero. But new candidates are ready to change all of that. I do solemnly swear to support the constitutions of the United States of America and of the state of Minnesota and that I would discharge faithfully the duties devolving upon me as a city council member.

Congratulations! On January 9th, 2024, the first all-women city council in St. Paul, Minnesota officially took office. And six out of the seven members are women of color. For the first time in U.S. history, a majority American city of our size has elected a council, a city council of all women and a super majority of women of color. This is a big deal for Saint Paul. As recently as 2017, there wasn't a single woman of color on the council. Let's just say, a whole lot of people who were comfortable with majority male, majority white institutions

for nearly 170 years of city history are suddenly sharply concerned about representation. My thoughts and prayers are with them in this challenging time. It's an incredible story. In order to help me tell it today, I'm joined by Mitra Jalali, the Council President, and Shamique Wajahnsen, a recently elected Council member. Mitra is the trailblazer of the Council. When the Korean-Iranian organizer

won a special election in 2018, she became the second woman of color, the first Asian woman, and the first openly queer person to serve on the council. She was the youngest member of that council, the only renter, and almost certainly the furthest to the left politically. In the five years since,

she's become a political powerhouse in St. Paul and helped mentor the next generation of women of color in elected office. Shaniqua Johnson is one of the members of that next generation. A black woman, she was born and raised in Worthington, Minnesota, a small rural town near Minnesota's borders with Iowa and South Dakota. She made history in 2018 when she became the first woman of color ever to run for state representative in that area. She lost that race, but continued to be very involved in politics,

moving to the city to work for a who's who of Minnesota politicians. That experience paid off with her election to the St. Paul City Council. Mitra, Sheniqua, welcome to When We Win. Thank you so much for having us. I am just incredibly excited to be having this conversation with you, and I want to start off and really just kind of talk a little bit about how you all got elected. You both ran for office for the first time in 2018. You know, Mitra, you were running for city council, Sheniqua You both ran for office for the first time in 2018. You know, Mitra,

you were running for city council, Shaniqua, you ran for state rep, but you were running from very different sort of areas. And I want to talk a little bit just about what was it like being women of color running for office from urban and rural communities? How did that play out for you too? I just would love to hear you both speak to those experiences. It feels like a different lifetime to think about that. I'm Mitra Jalali. This is a really fun podcast experience for me already. I love this. In 2018, I think about where we were in society, right? And you know, Donald Trump had been elected president We felt like we were still in the throes of that. I was working in a congressional office I was helping constituents with like immigration casework, which was brutal. There were

terrible things happening to our constituents under the Trump administration and there was just this like deep national anger and like sense of injustice and fear. And a special election opened up in the city that I live in and love, St. Paul. And I got just a whole bunch of text messages all at once like, you should think about running for the seat. I think you should run for the seat. I think you should run for the seat. And I just had this sense of just calling and desire to do something in the local conversation in a time where it

felt like everything in our national realm was very broken. And so that ended up being a year where a lot of women of color kind of like came into the collective political consciousness at once. Like in the national scene, that is the year that our now congresswoman Ilhan Omar, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, I think congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, congresswoman Anna Presley, like all of those women of color got elected on the national level and it was a big deal. And then locally, myself, Irene Fernando and Angela Conley were like three women of color that ran to that point. We just hadn't really seen that many women of color candidates.

We certainly like, you know, Ilhan was our state rep and things like that. But it was that genesis feels clear to me as I look back on it. So that first election for me felt like I was just stepping out as Mitra to define myself in terms of what our St. Paul community cared about. And also just really wanting to be myself, just wanting to not hide who I am in terms of my personality and what I care about and what I'm into, but to really be very focused on what I care about and what I'm into, but to really be very focused on, St. Paul voters need housing stability.

They need a community safety system. They need community-centered economic development. They need a sustainable resilient city as we look at climate change. So all of that was what propelled me into public service and what was really wild, and this will probably pivot to Shaniqua in a nice way, is when I went through, like I ran again in 2019, I ran again in 2023 just last year, so I have

run for this job three times in five years. Sidebar feels very like worked three times as hard for half as much time in the same job type of thing, but like that's my story. And when a bunch of women of color in the next major cycle also all started running for office and they were sharing in the group chat like comments, they were getting reactions, they were getting pushback backlash, things like that. I felt strangely validated like five years after going through it almost entirely by myself because I was like, Oh, so this is just what people are like. This is just what they're doing to us. You're either too qualified or not qualified enough.

You either look like you were smiling and that's inappropriate or you weren't smiling and that was inappropriate. Just all of it, all of it. And so I got a second unexpected wave of empowerment, being so in this very closely with the wave of candidates that Shaniqua was a part of, and all that feels very connected and meaningful and personal to me. So that's some of what it was like. Thank you. And I would love to delve more into some of that text chain and to hear a little bit about the experiences. But Shaniqua, I think that does actually bring us

really nicely then to you to talk a little bit about your experience in 2018. I think, you know, just kind of carrying on with what Council President Jolotti had mentioned. You know, one of the things I think is super important about my journey too is that it has just been a little bit of all around the state of Minnesota as far as just like kind of finding, you know, for me a lot of times it's just finding my political voice. As somebody who was born and raised in rural Minnesota, I often did not talk about politics, not at the dinner table, like our family voted, you know,

but it was kind of like, there was an election coming up, but there wasn't really much emphasis, especially on just like running for office. My mom often asks me like, what made you get into politics and why are you doing this work? I think I got into politics really because I genuinely was very baffled

by how many people would be like, hey, Shaniqua, where are you from? And I would say, I'm from Worthington, Minnesota. And they would say, where is that? And I'm like, it's Shaniqua, where are you from? And I would say, I'm from Worthington, Minnesota. And they would say, where is that? And I'm like, it's a small town, you know, just South of Mankato. And then they would be like, there are black people there. Wow.

And you're just like, okay. And then you go, oh, I'm from the, you know, I actually represent the East side. Oh, where on the East side? And word seven, oh, okay, where is that? And they're like, oh, the East side. Wow. And I was like, listen, I'm going to need you to care about our communities because we have work to be

done. I'm going to need the while to stop. You should not be surprised when you come in contact with like one black person from one community or one area. And then I would recognize though, in the same breath, right, we just had that conversation the next minute, you'd be making a decision that quite literally easily could harm that same black person you just had contact with, but you don't feel the need to contact me then. You don't feel the need to invite me then to make a decision with you or to have a conversation with you

about the impact it's gonna have on my family or the impact it's gonna have on my household. And it felt very stark, like the invitation to political spaces to have on my family or on the impact it's going to have on my household. And it felt very stark, like the invitation to political spaces or maybe the lack thereof for people like me with my experience, with my background, my story. But it's like, you know, a lot of this work in politics for me has been about not just like what it feels like in the moment, but the long-term game and knowing that a lot of policies that are made that impact families like mine

were often done without people like us that were at the table. And so that for me has been like a huge part of the journey of the spaces. Like even the campaigns that I work on, the elected officials I've come to know and grow to really appreciate. But for sure, when it came down to running

on the east side of St. Paul, you find the full circle of just like, wow, I've had these conversations with neighbors in Worthington, just like I've had these conversations with neighbors in Battle Creek and St. Paul, and some of the same concerns that were issued to them, like overall, with access to knowing what a local government person does. You know, like a lot of the questions people are like, you must have had some really hard questions. And I'm like, a lot of times it was like, well, can you tell me what a city council member does? Because I've never met my council member.

When I was in rural Minnesota, it was like, can you tell me a little bit more about what a state representative does? Because I've also never met my state representative. You know, I think for me, it was transitioning from understanding state government and federal government to understanding that I wanted to advocate and join the fight here in St. Paul around things that were as simple as pot holes, pot holes, snow removal, the most loud spoken issues

here when we're thinking about just everyday activities in Minnesota. You have to get through, you know, our city still has to function sometimes with several feet of snow. How we get to and from work is really important to the average person. And as a city council member, every decision that I make in that regard impacts the day-to-day lives of people that we currently experience. And you know, both Mitra and I go right back home to our wards every night. And so we also feel the impacts of what we do. And for me, that's really motivating when it comes to just thinking about what the future looks like and what it hasn't looked like in the past. Absolutely. And I think you both sort of touched on something, you know, that it's about everyday people. So everyone should feel welcome in our political system, but we know that that is not always true. And I think, M Mitra, you sort of indicated that you felt,

in some ways, kind of alone in some of the stuff that you were facing. And it was, you know, knowing other people felt some of those same barriers. Obviously, it's not good, but it's sort of like there's sort of almost solidarity in that understanding that that's just some of what it means to be a woman of color doing some of this work. I wonder if you all have examples of some of the things that you, either you heard yourself or you, someone else came to you with, just examples of the kinds of things that people would say to you or ask of you that you feel like were specifically being posed to you because of your identities and how that impacted your willingness to keep going with it. impacted your willingness to keep going with it?

Yeah, like the one I remember the most in 2018 was she's not like really from here. And I was like, okay, so are we gonna like have a conversation about like perpetual foreigner syndrome and like how people treat Asian Americans? Like, is that what we're doing in 2018? And like I was born and raised in Minnesota. I like have this Twin Cities family story and Frankly Greater Minnesota family story. I mean my parents are from Korea and Iran

They like individually found their way to Greater Minnesota And then they found each other and then they relocated to the Twin Cities And then I was raised all over Minneapolis and St. Paul and the suburbs, and then back in Minneapolis and back in St. Paul. And it's like, I felt a stark contrast between having like so much connection to this place, but because of how I look being questioned. And then my opponent and her supporters who were like really pushing this narrative at the time,

she was an older white woman. She lived in like a much wealthier part of the ward. She moved here from like Iowa, and she was doing the like, you know, I've been a homeowner here for 20 years. And it was just like such a palpable contrast. And my whole thing was, we're not like doing that anymore in our city.

If you live here, you have a stake in whether it works well or not. Yes. You should run on your vision and values and what you're willing to do as a council member. Not like, I've lived here for 20 years and therefore I get to like have more clout and say. It doesn't mean we shouldn't listen to residents

with a very long view of our city, but it certainly means is that we shouldn't exclude people who haven't lived here as long because of their perspective and we also should not perpetuate like racism in like our criticisms of candidates. So like that's just a 2018 example I can think of, but it's just like, I'm in this place in my career right now where like I feel almost aggressively bored with all that.

And I'm just like, anyway, like it's 2023, we're here to do a job. These systems aren't working. Minnesota is a place where the failure of our systems exploded outward in the most painful way on an international stage in 2020. And we sent a trifecta to the legislature to get what needs to be done done. And now our city councils look the way they look just coming off this cycle.

So I'm saying this to say it used to really pull at me more. And now I'm like, this is just a pebble in my shoe. Like sometimes a person will say something and it just like stings. But then I'm like, I just flick it off. It doesn't mean those thousand paper cuts aren't there. But I have had to just forge ahead because like we just don't have time for that anymore. And if you stop and address every single thing,

like you would never get anything done. So it's always this tension between, no, I am gonna like call out how this isn't right for our culture and we deserve better. But also there's times where like derailing the work from that is not the right movie there. It's always that balance that I feel like I've had to forge. So yeah, and I found it really interesting to see just how people have Or they assume based off of what they were doing at my age that somehow that means that I'm doing the same thing You know, I'm I'm 28 years old and the amount of times that I hear people at the door be like, you know

When I was 28, I wasn't doing x y and z and I'm like years old and the amount of times that I hear people at the door be like, you know, when I was 28, I wasn't doing X, Y, and Z. And I'm like, you know, that's you. Right? It's not me. Yes. You're in the space where you're talking to people at times. Like, it just feels like they assume based off of your age that somehow you are less qualified than the person who's twice your age. And it's such an interesting example of hypocrisy when you're not understanding that a lot of the

young people that are in our current political system are often the people running campaigns, they are often the people getting hired to write the legislation, advocate for the bills at every level of government, they are the people on Capitol Hill and I know that because you know I am that person, I am that person who's been able to do that work. And you find that sometimes people may assume your lived experience for you. And I feel like that is, everything that's happened, that Mitra gave in that example in 2018,

100% happened to me on the camping trail in 2023. My predecessor was, we did the math three times my age. And just thinking about the changing of what that looks like and the transition of leadership between it. And then in addition to that, I'm also like the youngest council member that was elected in Ward 7 by like 20 years plus, including the people who came before her. So when you just think about like how the faces are changing, it's important to also understand that Ward 7 had

almost a third of the population under the age of 35. So when we think about representation and just people that you know that piece is often used I think against people, I started to see things like in campaign ads that for my opponents that were like she's the mature choice. What does that mean? It's so subtle. I love the subtlety. Yes. Wow. So, you know, somehow you're just like, how? Absolutely.

So I wanted to hear some of those stories specifically, and I appreciate both of you for sharing them, because it's incredibly generous, but also, Mietro, to the point you were making, I completely agree this is the kind of stuff that we have to say, you know, it's not worth it to address every single incident, but I do think it's so important for people

who are hearing the story about this historic, all-woman city council right now, to know that it didn't happen without some of those things. It happened in spite of those things, right? So I appreciate these stories because I think they say a lot about the resilience of when we're successful, this kind of stuff still happens, but people are resilient enough to move past it.

So I really do appreciate those stories. We're gonna take a quick break, but we'll be right back with more on when we win. In 1985 in Texas, three teenagers were brutally murdered. There were multiple suspects, but the police narrowed in on one man, Ronald Tramboli. If there was enough evidence to show Ronald Tramboli committed these murders, why did it take three trials to convict him? was being tried for murder of three teenagers and he didn't do it. For it to be Tramboli, that makes zero suits.

If Ronald Tramboli did commit the murders, why would Ronald voluntarily request to undergo a brand new test? A test his attorney said could conclusively establish your guilt and be very devastating to you. A DNA test. Find some of this really hot. We think, oh, this is the answer to all of our dreams right at the prosecutors. This makes it real easy. All we've got to do is run a DNA test.

And that's one thing I've never understood, that if there's evidence out there, why jurors are not privy to all the evidence. I mean, obviously, Ronald Tremboli committed this brutal crime. What if I told you Ronald's DNA test was a match, but he could still be innocent? How could that be possible? Find out. From Voyage Media, producers of the True Crime Hit Podcast borderline comes a new True Crime story that shares all the information the jury never received and asks for the listener's

verdict. In the Blood, hosted by Ben McKenzie, available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and anywhere you listen to podcasts. X-Mio is a comedian, writer, producer, and when it comes to confidently managing her finances, she's a beginner. Join her on The Doe, Lemon Auto Media's new 10-episode podcast series

as she dives into better understanding the financial trapdoors that any of us could fall into. If you've ever stayed in a bad relationship to avoid moving out costs, or found yourself swimming in debt, you're not alone. Each week she'll be exploring all types of financial flops and money myths that stand in the way of our financial freedom. On this show, Cash is Queen. We hardly know her, but we're determined to be her friend. You can listen to The Doe on Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts.