Fight COVID With Everyone And Everything You Know (with Danielle Allen and Dr. Amy Aminlari)

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keep it things up. We would be remiss if we didn't ask you to rate and review this show wherever you're listening to it. I suggest five stars, but that's up to you. Citizen. A quick word on how we make this show. We do most of them live in zoom with a visible cameras on chat room, fired up audience, which could include you. You have a chance to ask our guest questions and literally help make the show. You can sign up for these invites by going to how

to citizen dot com and joining my email list. And yes, I love the live audience experience. But you're special because you're right here. So don't worry. I'm gonna be back check in with you, certainly at the end of the show, where I give you particular ways that you can citizen. Now allow me to pass the mic to myself as I set up this episode. We're still living with COVID and we're not living great with it in the United States.

But I've said this for a while that what we have lacked in national leadership, we have an abundance on the ground in local and regional cooperation. It's not always those with the most resources getting the job done, it's those willing to work hard, use their networks, and step up. In this episode, we're going to meet two of these individuals, people who left their comfort zones, tapped into their contact list and leverage everything and everyone they know to fight

this disease. So that no one has left unprotected. Our guest Danielle Allen said it best in her Washington Post OpEd where she wrote, quote, there was only one real silver bullet. It's called grit. This is a can do country, and our determination to beat the disease is our ultimate weapon. We'll get to Danielle later, but first I need to introduce you to dr Amy. Amen, Larry, I actually know dr Amy personally because of New York City back in March.

Elizabeth and I have returned from our last trip to that city this year, it seems, and when we departed, it was a very different city than when we had landed, and we knew we were in for a ride, but our friends in New York were in for a much worse one, and within a month that city got crushed by COVID nineteen. One of our friends in Brooklyn, Tricia Wong, stood up to help and she formed this network of volunteers to get personal protective equipment PPE directly into the

hands of frontline health workers. Early in the process of setting that up, knowing that this disease was going to come for l A and other cities. Later, Tricia reached out to Elizabeth the same Elizabeth, who was an executive producer on this show full Disclosure, to help start an l A version of the network. They would call this effort Last Mile PPE. Now it's simply known as Last Mile And you know, I saw our house transformed into

a PPE coordination hub. There were zoom calls and what SAPs and inspections and vetting of shipping manifest It was wild. And in the process of running the l A chapter, Elizabeth met Dr Amy i'm in Lari, a San Diego doctor who had joined the l A effort but would eventually create her own in San Diego to meet the needs of her community. Here's my conversation with Amy m M. I'm Amy, I'm and Luri. I am an emergency physician and I'm also a medical director and part owner of

Coastal Family Urgent Care here in Carl's Bad. I am the founder and lead of Last Mile San Diego. So I want to start back in the beginning of this whole COVID nineteen coronavirus pandemic mess, because you're an emergency medicine doctor and I'd love your take as someone who's

been on the front lines of this battle. What take me back in time and tell me what that was like for you in the beginning as a doctor and just as Amy, well, you know, back in March, it was very difficult working in the front lines because myself and my colleagues felt a lot of stress and anxiety with obviously this pandemic coming out that nobody really knew much about, and conflicting data, and to make things worse, we felt kind of unprotected because we felt like these

masks which we used to use daily and toss out after one, use not think about it. All of a sudden, we're not readily available and we're really scarce, and it was difficult to be able to even get one oftentimes. So that was the beginning of what started my thinking about how to address this problem that I saw affecting my peers, affecting colleagues and other hospitals across San Diego. And it was very real and I could, you know,

I experienced it firsthand. So what ended up happening was I said, well, what is the most scarce ppe that we need, and that was masks, and they still are scarce. I just want to cut in here real quick to say Amy is an e er doctor and yet took on more work because she experienced the problem firsthand affecting her and her peers. She knew there was a lack of awareness about PPE shortages. So she gets involved and

she starts by simply reaching out to a friend. So myself and my friend Grace, my good friend Grace, who also has a lot of family members who are in emergency medicine frontline providers, She and I decided to undertake vetting or sourcing. Vetting is like it like the improper term, but sourcing and trying to find legitimate and nine ourselves. We decided to just try to take it into our hands, try to get ninety fives and try to get it to people that needed them. So that search, what did

that look like? That was crazy? So she has two kids, I have three, and you know, we have families. So we would every night after they were all to bed and everything was done in the house, we would we would just sit together. They're on the phone and on the computer and just search and search until like two or three am every night, looking for you know, legitimate suppliers, looking for sources, and then really we just got into the minutia of what is a real and ninety five

and what is a fake one? And we came up with a protocol on how we would determine this um and in the end, honestly, what happened was we came to dead ends because most of the nine out there were counterfeit, and we decided to kind of think outside of the box and we thought, well, what and nine would be legitimate? And we thought, well, why are there counterfeit and ninety five now to begin with, it's because

of the pandemic. So we reached We're thinking, let's try to reach the ninety five that were pre pandemic because there was no motivation to make them counterfeit at that time. So this was like the seed for a last Mile San Diego. We started reaching out to the community. We reached out to surfboard shapers, construction workers, families who had earthquake kits and emergency kits that they happened to have a bunch of the nine in their garage and didn't

even realize it. So we really kind of did this large scale community based mission to gather and nine that the community had to donate to us. So if you've got counterfeit and there's no proof that they can filter the stars Kobe to virus, and there's no proof that they're actually protecting anyone. So we wanted verified and legitimate masks, and obviously it's not helping anyone to distribute something that's not going to protect us against the virus. Did you

set up a phone tree? Did you put up an ad on Facebook? Like? What did that outreach look like? And who else was involved? So, honestly, it was a lot of just interpersonal connections. We reached out because Grace's family is very involved in surfing and the surf community, so she reached out to surfboard shapers that were like prominent in our community. Um, I actually had a banner

in my backyard because my backyard faces the trail. So we got this huge banner made asking for help, and people would walk by on the trail and myself or my husband and would stop by and talk to them because they would ask me what is this about? And so we kind of spread things word of mouth through the community and people that were walking by, and they actually showed a lot of interest. They would post on the next door app, they would post on their social media.

We posted on our personal social media because at that time we hadn't organized our last mile social media, so that's really how it began. Very grassroots, very community oriented, and just from that, we went from twenty masks two hundreds of masks that were like dropped at my doorstep at all times of the day. And it was very inspiring to see and like very touching to see that people really care, even if it was five masks, they

would come and just bring whatever they had. People in Orange County who saw my Facebook post, you know, offer their masks and that was really you know, that was pretty amazing. Did you did you feel a bit like a drug dealer accepting these packages dropped off at all

hours at your ho It was weird. There would be like random people parked in front of my house, and yeah, it was very It was kind of a little weird because he's un any five that's like they were so precious and they are so How has this effort evolved from strangers dropping off unmarked packages in your front yard to something even more today? What does it look like now?

We realized that we needed to, you know, expand our efforts, so we started reaching out each of us to our friends and family and contacts, and eventually one connection after another, I ended up getting linked to Last Mile at which I'm so grateful for, and linked to Elizabeth Stewart, prior lead of Last Mile l A, and that was a

very pivotal connection. She took us under her wing and was already connected to Last Mile National, Last Mile New York, New York City, and we became a part of her group just because of just by talking to friends and being interconnected. So with Last Mile l A, Elizabeth showed us what they were doing. We were involved in their WhatsApp group and zoom meetings, and from there Grace and I decided that San Diego needed to have a similar chapter.

Their philosophy was to deliver PPE directly into the hands of providers, because what I was seeing at the hospital was that hospital administration, for whatever reason, wasn't giving us PP and even if they were donated, we don't know what the reasoning us, but we didn't receive them. So we felt the best way to help was to deliver directly into the hands of people that needed them. So

we donated to thirteen hospitals and clinics in Tijuana. We've been doing that for a few months because they have so little resources and so little PPE, and you know, we wanted to reach out and help them and we were able to do that, and we're continuing to do that. Every week we have batches of donations going to them UM and we're also focusing on areas near the border. Recently, I was excited we have open connections to Barrio Logan. What's Mario Logan. Barrio Logan is the southern portion of

San Diego. It's part of the Promise Zone. I think there are twenty two Promised Zones in the US which are identified by the government as the most impoverished in communities under most arrests, and this area is the most highly afflicted with co OVID. This area includes parts of Chula Vista National City and so we have currently been able to tap into that region and we just actually hosted and helped to host a drive by donation drive

for the community members. He's of the children. They're homeless, people are living in their cars, they don't have PPE when they're going to work. The particular organization we're collaborating with is called the Good Neighbor Project and it's headed by John Alvarado, who was born and raised and it's like he was. I was there last weekend at the

drive and he's like the mayor of Brio Logan. He was walking around, he knew everybody's name, and you know, so we're working with him because he's part of the community. And um he's opening doors to let us try to help, including Santa Cedro Health Clinic, which is right at the border and they are a super hot slot with I think they that area has the highest number of COVID deaths.

The show was about the power that we have as citizens to help shape our communities, to help each other out, to put the benefit of the mini ahead of the few. And so what you just articulated feels very much aligned with the mission of this show. How do you think in light of your answer about your power as a citizen. Honestly, it's been an amazing journey, just like for myself as a person, but also in the way that I see

the community and people in general. Um. I had never thought I would be a leader in this capacity and be able to do what we've done. I think that people underestimate the power they have as individuals. You know, I came into this, Oh I didn't mention I don't think I mentioned that I had COVID. No, that little, that small detail, you did not say that earlier. Way to bury the lead. Dr Amy, its servous. That's all right,

you're you're relaxed. Now, let these dramatic facts fly. So also, I was I was sick with COVID after being in the e er, and I was sick for two months, to the point that my pul socks, like you know, my oxygen level was in the eighties. When I would walk on the flight of stairs, I thought I had to go to hospital and be admitted. And this went on for two months, and I was really worried. And so that was the time when Grace and I started our journey and started sourcing and ninety five. But yeah,

that was a huge impetus. Was like I was a patient and a provider, and I I saw both sides of it, and you know, I didn't want anyone else to be at risk for that. That was a huge thing. I missed that. So you were starting to say that you think we underestimate the power that we have. Yes, absolutely, I have no background in being a leader or a nonprofit organization or anything similar to what I'm doing now,

not even close. And I think that if you believe in something and you just take the steps to communicate with people and make connections in relationship ups, I think that's one of the most important things, saying positive, believing that you can make a difference and take a whatever role you want to take it, whether it's leadership or contributions. I think that everybody can do a lot more than

they realize as a citizen. This is exactly what we did, and we just found ways that were uncharted and we were able to do a lot in our time. I mean, we're just for numbers sake, We've delivered four thousand, seven sev PPE to nineteen hospitals and two seventeen providers in

San Diego. For someone listening to this who is motivated by your story and connects with it um and wants to help their community through this pandemic that some of us feel somewhat abandoned by, whether it's a hospital administrator or a layer of our government. But once it happ into that power they have. What advice would you offer them?

What would you ask them to do to help their communities? Honestly, I would tell them to look into local groups and local organizations, close to them, and it depends on their level of how involved they would want to be, whether it's financial donations, volunteer work with their expertise or strengths, or if they want to take a leadership role and

form their own group. I think at any level, if they reach out and take some kind of action and communication, and I think that that's really key, and I think that they will find that they have a lot more power to affect change than they realized, because that's my experience.

I did not realize that we could do so much at the outset of this journey, like just one connection leads to another connection, which leads to important collaborations and the power to take action on those relationships and what they have to offer. So I would have us people to not overlook discussion, joining local groups, reaching out to them, and not feel that just because you are one individual in the community that you can't make some kind of difference.

And on top of that, just even more simply as a citizen, even being a responsible citizen in this time, taking the proper precautions, you know, adhering to public health guidelines and just being a responsible person for yourself impacts a ton of people. You know, masking, etcetera distancing, So even just that makes a big difference. So that's what I would say. Well, you have definitely inspired me, Amy, um and I already knew a bit of your story, but I learned a lot more just now. Thank you

for sharing your time, Thanks for sharing your story. Really appreciate absolutely. I think that everybody can make a contribution, and I definitely believe this from what I've experienced. Yeah, alright, so I'm back. It's just me and you for a second. If there is anyone who could have called it a day in the middle of a pandemic, I think it's an emergency medicine doctor. I think they've got enough to be like, I'm gonna take a nap now, I'm on the front lines, and Dr Amy, I'm in Laurie did

not do that. She kept going, she kept giving, she kept learning, and pushed herself well out of her comfort zone, all while she had the rown up. Did you hear how she almost forgot to tell me that she had COVID herself. I didn't know that going into that interview. Amy's not alone. There are so many others out there who are tapping into their networks valuing the collective over themselves as individuals. And another such person as Danielle Allen,

an ethicist, a professional ethicist. Now what us doesn't ethicist have to do with the pandemic? Keep listening and let's find out. Danielle Allen is the James Bryant Connent University Professor at Harvard University. I know it sounds fancy, It's fancy. She's also the director of Harvard's Edmund J. Saffer Center for Ethics, where she now spearheads their COVID nineteen response initiative.

Her team published the Roadmap to Pandemic Resilience. It was the nation's first comprehensive operational roadmap from mobilizing and reopening the U S economy in the midst of the COVID nineteen crisis. If you saw my Instagram videos on when can we go out? And how we reopened? They were

powered by this work. As if her expertise on the Rhona response weren't enough, Danielle served as the co chair of the Bipartisan Commission on the Practice of Democratic Citizenship and co authored its report titled Our Common Purpose, Reinventing American Democracy for the twenty one century. She co shared that along with our episode one guest Eric Luke, to take a listen. Danielle is an expert on injustice, citizenship, and democracy. She's authored several books on all those topics.

She's a contributing columnist to The Washington Post. Basically, her life's work has made her perfect for how to citizen and for how to approach this moment, this pandemic moment from the lens of people Power. Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, Danielle, Thank you very today. It is great to be here. I am so glad to talk with you. I love the title of your new podcast. Thank you, thank you, and it's good to see you again. Um, thank you

for saying yes. And I want to jump right into it because your work sent on justice, democracy, and equality, and none of those is the word epidemiology. So what do justice, democracy and equality have to do with the pandemic. Well, the pandemic, I think, right from the get go, showed us that there were these incredibly horrible ruptures or social contract. We've known that in some ways for a long time, but I think it just really put it right in

our face. So for me, in the very very beginning, I was shocked by how quickly some people moved to saying, well, you know, maybe if older people get it worse, maybe it's just spare time. Well you know people are incarcerated, Well, you know they get the punishment. There's just this really rapid move to abandon parts of our society to this really terrible disease. And that was very, very shocking to me.

And so as somebody who is the head of an ethics center, I reached out immediately to people that I knew who are working on kondemic response to ask a question, have an ethics center help, because I think we need to pursue answers that start from the proposition that we don't abandon anybody. What does it mean when a society, when a government starts to say that this loss is acceptable, starts to abandon entire sUAS of society. What does that

do to the legitimacy of the project? From my point of view, that just it means it's not legitimate, you know, right at that point. In other words, you know, this is where I am at some level of deep traditionalist.

I go back to the words of the Declaration of Independence, and in that text it articulates the theory of revolution, the right of revolution, but that the right of revolution is grounded on the idea that human beings build governments in order to secure the safety and happiness of the people. That's the language of the decoration, the safety and happiness of the whole people. And it's not about an individual happiness.

There is that individual moment too, that's not the pres it to happiness, but it's connected to the idea that we secure people institutions to secure our safety and happiness. So when the government's not doing that, when it is self consciously not pursuing the safety and happiness of the whole people, it's by definition violated the sort of terms

of its original employment. It's the people, from my point of view, at that point, need to reorganize, the need to redesign, rebuild, so that they have institutions that are actually pursuing and delivering safety and happiness for all. You use this phrase, you see that I asked myself how can I help? And then my exposure and experience to you, like literally a friend sent me a white paper via text message, which lets you know a little something about

who my friends are big nerds, geek Central. Here we go and so for clarification and disclosure to the listener. I read this paper, I was moved, and I reached out, and someone there reached out and I got roped in to part of your efforts, Danielle, And if you were going to fess up to that, I am going I will confess my my sins of citizenship and civic mindedness. And and I jumped on video calls with you and your team and saw drafts of things, and what impressed

me was this coalition that you had assembled. I think when I heard that someone from an ethics department at Harvard University had something to say about pandemics, I'm like, great more Ivory Tower, thinking, how's that going to help

on the ground. But then I looked at the participants and you had technologists, and you had biologists and public health officials, you had lawyers, you had economists conservative and liberal, and so talk to me about the relationships that you leaned into, forged or built on to be helpful and what you wanted that form of help to look like. Well, thank you for sharing all that, and I'm glad that

you did pass up to your own participation. Baritone Day was critical in the effort of a big network of people to figure out not just you know, what's the right answer to the pandemic, but also how do we communicate broadly to a public and get people on board for a shared purpose of responding in ways that are about the safety and well being of everybody. So we needed Bear Tunity's voice there to help us think through that project of communication and telling a story about all

of us together. So very today, you were fundamental to our work. I hope you know that. Thank you for saying that. I'm going to make that the headline of this episode. We're done here. Thank you so much. Our guest today was Danielle Allen. I saved America by very exactly. But please continue with the part that I'm really interested in,

which is not about me. I love the question, and I think I canna start from at the end rather than the beginning, because we did build a huge network of incredibly varied people, from epidemologists and public health folks and doctors and clinicians to mayors to county public health officials, to visual artists to YouTube stars you who have Cervilion subscribers to their YouTube channel, the whole gamut technologists, and what I learned from the experience of doing this was

to have great faith, honestly, and all of us, you know, the people in Americans from all over the place, who all kind of ran to a fire and said, here are the specific skills I can bring to bear, how can I help um? So that was the sort of what everybody was doing. Why did we start building a big network? It was in the beginning a very simple reason. It was just because we heard our elected officials giving

us false choices. They were presenting a situation where it was, you know, people kept saying over wherever we had a pick between protecting lives and protecting livelihoods, health or the economy, that was a false choice. From a very very beginning, that was a false choice. And in order to be able to prove that it was a false choice, that is actually possible to align the objectives of protecting life, protecting langlagoods, and protecting liberties, we needed people who were

experts across all of those different dimensions. So it wasn't enough just to have a health conversation or does have an economists conversation. We needed every kind of piece of expertise that was being touched by the pandemic, and when you sort of started to tally up all the different kinds of expertise that were relevant, it was basically everything. So we were looking for people who were really smart

and really creative. Um, but we're just across the board in areas of expertise and so and the messaging and communication mattered a lot, because at the end of the day, I think what our fundamental belief came down to was that the quality of our response would depend on how strong a sense of mutual commitment we could inspire among

Americans to one another. And at the end of the day, the people who do build that foundation of mutual commitment amongst us are our artists, are communicators, are storytellers, um. So that work is just so important. Mutual commitment is a great phrase. And it leads to my follow up, which has to do with what you're seeing that maybe many of us are not. As I look at the home pages of major news outlets and listen to the various feeds, I see a failure and I hear a

negative message. But I'm hoping you have seen this mutuality you just described, this social contract at work in some region in some way. Is there good news to share. On that front, there is good news. I can't say it's everywhere. I have to agree with you that at the end of the day, we have to fit um that as a country we failed. I mean I had

done se many thousand people are dead. This was unnecessary and preventable, and I do think that the failure UM falls on the charge accounts of our elected officials, of leaders of variety of different organizations. And I do actually think that the country deserves something like this. The nine eleven Commission UM, that's got a lot of time figure out what happened, what went wrong that we failed as badly as we did, So do you think that's important?

At the same time that's true, what are the glimmers of hope UM? I mean, we have seen communities come together in remarkable ways, and we have seen mayors who have called out volunteer organizations and figured out how to deliver food UM and housing options for people who need to deal with quarantine and isolation. Can I ask you to name names? This is the opposite of shame, Like I'm eager to hear who's doing it right? What can you share with well? I want to call out mayor

Ceve Benjamin from Columbia, South Carolina. And I mean what I call out somebody that doesn't necessarily mean that the case incidents is low in their community, because sometimes they're struggling against a larger system where they're not getting support. So Mayor Ceve Benjamin and Columbia, South Carolina has worked

incredibly hard to keep his community safe. He has brought knowledge for community, he has activated resources, volunteer services, even though he had a governor who was saying, we're not shutting down, uh, you know, we're not doing masking, etcetera. So he was putting out the masking messages all kinds of things, even though his governor wasn't. M Mayre Cabalden

in West Sacramento, California has been extraordinary. He's somebody who has a deep understanding of HIV AIDS and how that devastated communities and how contact tracing in that context to turn the tide and the fact that it required ownership by local communities um in order to turn the tide on the disease, So the people affected by the disease needed to own the process of contact tracing, for example.

And so he really drove a big project of education and dissemination around what contact tracing is UM for the U S Conference of Mayors, And I think you really transformed the conversation um within his community of municipal leaders on that point. So those are just two people to start, and yet I could go on, and I think I've seen mayors do rem hornkiable things over the course of this pandemic. There had been calls by you and others for a while for regional response, you know, in the

absence of an organized federal government response. I even joked that maybe states could get together and form their own more perfect union, a sort of federalized system of service delivery. Is that something you're seeing happen above the level of mayor, but below the level of say a White House, Pennsylvania Avenue. It is happening. Um, It's absolutely happening. Um. You know,

states have without capacity. I mean, I'm very fortunate to live in Massachusetts, which is built up a pretty robust infrastructure of testing and contact tracing and supported isolation and actually has COVID under reasonable control at the moment um. We did also manage to achieve bipartisan legislation introduced in both the Senate and the House, and to deliver testing

funds to states and funds to support contact tracing. A compromise amount that I'm a PATS that passed seventy dollars for this work in May, and then the Senate Republicans passed sixteen billion in the form of the Heels actually the Heroes Act and the Heel Is Acting. This bipartisan legislation introduced in early August is a fifty billion dollar package, so compromise package, and it rewards regional collaborations, so it's

also incentivizing the sort of further formation obasional collaborations. Um. And this package has been held up because of negotiations in Congress and because of the bitterness of our polarization. In all honesty, so the Democrats, as you know, are fighting to protect voting and to protect elections. There's also a fight around employment insurance and so forth, and the bitterness of that fight and those issues is literally blocking

investment in our public health response. For me, this is where I have to really just want to sort of shake our entire country and say like, look, you know we have that our polaristication gets so bad and it's like literally killing us and so then there's a long debate we have and who's responsible that. I understand that, but we start to recognize the magnitude of the problem. We have a definition of citizenship at this show, which is to to see it as a verb, and there's

kind of four components as we've emerged into it. One is two citizens to show up right. It's to participate in the process and not just totally outsourced things. Two citizens to relate to other people and see our interconnectedness as an essential part of who we are. Two citizen is to understand power in the different ways that we can use it and wield it in the society. And two citizen is to put the benefit of the many

above the interest of just oneself or the few. So I'm curious, given your work, given your perspective, and given your years of study, what is your definition of a citizen or to citizens? But yours is beautiful and it captures a lot of what I've focused on. So my definition of the citizen is to contribute to shaping the decisions of one's community. So to be a co creator.

I like the vocabulary of w ebd Boys who talked about being a co creator in the kingdom of culture, and I do think that to be a citizens to be a co creator in the kingdom of culture, in our society of law, in our society of social norms and expectations. So that's for me, the core and the eddy of co creation. Yeah, what is your day to day like with all this work? I mean, you have a couple of jobs, you write these Washington Post columns, you huddle with mayors apparently, Like, how is your day

shifted throughout this crisis? What does it look like now? Um? Well, the biggest change is that until about a week ago, I had a daily meeting nine pm every day for the first three months of the crisis, eighty five am every day for the second half with core members of my broad response network. So that was a different thing for me. So every day was kind of organized by what we're trying to move forward. And so our life in my network has been in I think it's sort

of the alphabet soup of our country's connective tissue. And

what do I mean by that? So we all know we have a federal government, we've gout the states, we've got cities, and many of us know we have the National Governors Association n g A. But did you know we also have the National Association of State Procurement Officers and the National Association of City ac County Health Officials, and the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials and the Natural Association of County Officials, and it just goes

on and on. This is the alphabet soup of professional associations that connect elected leaders and appointed officials at all levels. And it turns out that that world is a beautiful place because the people in those associations they love this country, they love their fellow Americans, and they have all been working. There are hearts out to do the right thing and

to deliver an effective code with response. And so that's you know, my day has been living in that alphabet suit, and it has shown me where power is that people often have not recognized. You know, you don't think about the National Association of State Procurement Officers as your first stop when you're trying to citizen, as Baritone Day says, but it's actually really great place to citizen. In fact, yeah,

I appreciate this shout out to procurement officers. It has never been a headline I have seen celebrated in any publication I've ever read. So thank you for recognizing that semi secret power that we have, this concept of co creating a kingdom of culture that you cite two boys for, what does the co creation of our culture look like in this moment? So I think for me, one of the most important things there is the concept of power sharing.

Martin's are king in Um. One of his essays said, at a certain point, you know, everybody thinks that civil rights about laws changing laws. Actually what we really have to do is pursue organizational transformation across all the organizations in our country. And I do think that's true. And so when I think about what it means to be a co creator in the kingdom of culture, it's about art and language and the way in art and language we share power and learn the vocabulary of power sharing.

And then it's about how we take that vocabulary and ethical commitment to power sharing into every organization that we're part of. Power sharing. Yeah, it sounds really great for those who haven't had it historically and really threatening to

those who have all too often. But that's the thing is that it needn't be, because there is this incredible beauty that comes from bringing people together across incredible diversity and empowering them to work together because you get more, like human entity gets more from that collaboration across lines of diversity. And for me, this is sort of how

human potential is realized to its fullest. So it's true, I know that when people aren't used to power sharing or where they're where they're used to work in kind of more homogeneous context, it can be scary, but that's where for me, and so we're trying to figure out how to open up people to anticipate the beauty and the power of the result is critical. Yeah, well, you know it is a big project and I got some

thoughts on it. This show was one of those thoughts stretched out over multiple episodes with many talented people trying to make it happen. And I think it's about writing a news story of ourselves that expands the opportunity and doesn't see that expansion as a threat but as like

more riches for us, all everybody rich. Now. As I said in one of my talks a while back, we try to keep a promise on this show to give people action that they can take two be a contributor, to be a citizen, in the big sense, not the legal status sense, but the active sense, and in your words,

I guess to co create this new story. So, given the context of why you're here, giving your expertise, in your deep knowledge of democracy, justice, and now pandemics, what would you give someone listening to this to do to help out with this response to the pandemic specifically or more broadly, with creating a healthier democracy to live in. Well, I think I would give people two jobs. If that's okay, it's plenty. You could give seven, you know, two is

a good number. One of my jobs is thirty one parts, okay, but one job is just what I'm doing. Inventory in your mind of the organizations that you're a part of, that you're already a member of, whether that's a church or a workplace, or a community organization or an arts society, theater group, and ask yourself, can you see room for improvement with regard to how people share power in that context and space, and take that conversation forward with the

people around you. Um, that would be job number one and job number two. Can this is my thirty one part job is? I would love it if you visited the website our Common Purpose at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and think it's just actually our common

purpose that you google that it should show up. And we have made thirty one recommendations for institutional reforms, for investment in society, it's capacity to support bridging relationships across lines of difference, and for transformations to our political a civic culture. And they're particularly votes on telling a new story of ourselves, telling a rich story, a complete story,

and accurate story, clear eyed story of ourselves. And look at those and figure out there's a list of thirty one recommendations, which is the one that speaks most to you. And you'll find on the website as well champions organizations that are working on that particular reform. Reach out to them, sign up. Maybe they need a volunteer, maybe they could use a donation, maybe they just need you to spread the word. There's all kinds of jobs to do, so

think of that website as a job shopping list. Find the right one for you, and then work on power sharing in your own organizations. I love it. It's like a small d democratic task rabbit. Uh what it is? We are going to transition into questions that have been coming from our live studio audience. This question is from Chosina Reeves in Brooklyn. A CBS poll recently revealed that fifty seven percent of Republicans believe the pandemic has been

handled in an acceptable way. Only ten percent of Democrats do. How do we co create our culture when we are so far part on something as fundamental as a pandemic. I do like to observe when we hear those kinds of statistics that the Republican Party has been shrinking so well, it's true that pented Republicans have that view, or maybe I presume it's true. It is a smaller group of people than it was a few years ago. It's important

to keep that in mind. And at this point, more Americans are not affiliated by a party than are in a party. And so I do think if we focus on all those folks who are not affiliated with the party, UM, I think we find that there's a lot of deeper base for connection with one another than it looks. When we really focus on the parties and how the parties are expressing themselves and interacting with each other. NED will go to you. You can ask your own question in

your own voice. So when there's so much selfishness from people who are are resisting things like wearing masks or or pushing things to you know, get back to school. I don't want to be inconvenience, so I don't want to be bothered. And if some people die, some people die. If part of our task is telling that new story, how do we do that without just yelling at people, because it's so infuriating to just put into that kind

of self internest. That is a great question. And I have a friend who is lives in South Carolina and she's been sending me sort of email snippets for the last few miles of conversations that she's tried to have where she's tried to convince people to take the pandemic seriously. This is where I use the language of social contract. And I'm not saying that this is what it works.

One is trying to have this conversation, But for me, it's useful to remind myself what I'm trying to do, which is to say, I have to recognize that we've reached a place in the country where at a deep level, we're not committed to each other um and that is exhibited in any number of ways, and it's also exhibited in our kind of idea logical polarization. And so I tried to make myself my own kind of test case.

UM so that I try to like literally just feel commitment, which sounds kind of bizarre, but that I say what I'm feeling infuriated, I try to register that and ask myself, well, what would commitment feel like? And if this were a person in my family and I was infuriated about them for something else, how would I work through that theory in order to still try to do the right thing by them in terms of if I need to bring them along or whatever else it is I need to do.

So I literally do just try to tap into my own emotional being to find reserves of fellow feeling that can be hard to tap into, and try to like think through those feelings to figure out what the right response would be. See, you answered a question I for kind of didn't realize I had, or maybe forgot I had, which is, look, Daniel, my image of you was as this person who's been trying to save the country, just

the country's unwillingness to be saved. Right, you'd be dropping these papers, You're all these conference calls, you're rolling with procurement officers and mayors, You've got plans and maps, and I know you didn't do all this yourself. I'm not trying to give you credit for everything, but you're associated with so much labor on behalf of the many, and

I'm like, how does she keep going? Because I'm seeing elected officials and budget you know, deciding people saying this doesn't matter, it's not real, it's a hoax, and yet you keep going. So can you offer a little bit more about what keeps you encouraged because you're even more

exposed to the frustration from my perspective than most of us. Well, I mean, you know, I think it's pretty basic, which is I think that right now, and then you kind of encounter something where, yeah, I think the only possible attitude toward it is failure is not an option. So you know, it's like, I can't go one way, I'll go around the failure is not an option. Not much fine, So you know, the road is long, longer than I

ever imagined or hoped for. But I just, um, from the bottom of my heart believe failure is not an option. So you know what I don't know is how long it will take us till we get to the right place. But I know there's a right place for us to get to. Thank you, Danielle Alan from the Edmund J. Safford Center at Harvard. From the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, from the Washington Post. From the Society of State Procurement Officers secret semisecret Zoom Meetings. Thank you for

sharing your way of citizening with us. We look forward to doing more and looking forward to see what else you do with us. It's really been a pleasure and honor to have you here. Likewise, it's been really terrific. Thank you very day. Hey you, it's me again, and it's just us again. Amy and Danielle are clearly fighting COVID with everyone and every thing they know, pushing beyond their comfort zones, digging into their rolodexes, their networks to

help us all. And I want to tell you we share these stories now because we're trying to put on some kind of citizen Olympics where only metal winners get to show up. It's actually the opposite. We can all citizen as long as we remember the four elements of how to citizen that we laid out at the beginning of this series four parts. Show up and participate, invest in relationships, recognizing our interconnection to others. Understand power and use it, and use that power for the benefit of

the many and not just the few. That's it. That's the formula. Now it's your turn. In every episode we share things you can do to strengthen your citizen practice, and you can find the complete guide to what I'm about to say at how to citizen dot com. So here are some things you can do. On the internal front. We've got two things. First, make a list of all the ways you've helped others during this pandemic since March. Write it down. I don't want you overlooking what you

think of as the small or the easy things. It doesn't matter. Take a look at that list and be proud of your citizenship. Number two, reflect on how else you can use who and what you know to make a difference during the pandemic. What kind of knowledge or people do you have or no that could uniquely benefit your unique community. And Then, outside of yourself and this reflective exercise, we've got three things lined up. First, support

the aimys in your community. There is somebody around you right now who is practicing how to citizen in a really deep way. Who's organized something. If it's not, you find out who it is and figure out how to support them. Number two a little more work here. Start a civic sir cool. This could be a happy hour group. This could be a bridge club. This is people you know and love, but set an intention of gathering with them on a weekly or every other week basis to

talk about what you're up to. Make it cool. Make it a part of your check ins about how you are getting involved during this crisis. If you do it on Sundays, it can substitute for church or brunch. Trust me, I miss brunch. Last, check out the report that Danielle Allen co authored Our Common Purpose. Look at those thirty one recommendations and commit to helping implement just one of them in your local community. Again. Visit how to citizen dot com for links and a bigger explanation of all

of these actions and when you do them. Share them with the world posted to the social media's hashtag how to citizen, or you can just tell us. Email us at action at how to citizen dot com. Help us out by putting COVID in the subject line, we're collecting all this cool stuff you're doing. By the way, it's beautiful. If you like this show, please share it, rate and review it, and sign up for my newsletter at barrattune day dot com, where I announced upcoming live tapings and

a lot more. How to Citizen with barratune Day is a production of I Heart Radio. Podcast executive produced by Miles Gray, Nick Stump, Elizabeth Stewart and barrattune Day Thurston. Produced by Joel Smith, edited by Justin Smith. Powered by you