Good morning, peeps, and welcome to WOKF Daily with Meet your Girl Danielle Moody recording from the Home Bunker. Folks, I am very excited to kick off. You can't ban queer Joy on WOKAF as you know, if you've been listening to the show for a few years now, that we do our best to bring you some of the most important voices, conversations issues that are affecting the LGBTQ
plus community during the month of Pride. We take Pride very seriously on WOKF and we're working in collaboration with our friends at GLAD in order to bring you some of the best guests and really dig into the issues
as well as the joy. Folks. You know, it is a really hard balance that we are walking these days with trying to remain hopeful and joyful and stand in faith about our ability to continue to march forward with progress given everything that is being thrown at our democracy, at our ability to persevere when there are unrelenting forces that want nothing to do then erase us, oppress us,
and drown us out with hate. And so you know, in these conversations, I think that it's really important for us to look at what solutions look like, which is why I'm really excited to bring you this conversation today with Lauren Bear, who is the executive director of Arena, an organization that we've brought to you before on WOKF whose work is to convene, train, and support the next generation of candidates and campaign staff. And what does that
look like right in this climate? Lauren and I talk about the ways in which the challenges I guess, and the ways in which the campaign staff and just folks in general who want to get involved in politics are having to weigh their personal safety, the safety of their family, versus their commitment to public service and wanting to do good.
And what does that look like? What does it look like to train people in this climate When we've had conversations on WOOKF about democratic offices being shot at or staff being beat up, all of which we have covered, there is a heightened sense of fear and anxiety and arise in political violence, and so all of that right is to deter good people from wanting to get involved in their communities and for us to all feel like
we are helpless. But you know the purpose of Arena is really to give people the support, the network, and the skill set to be able to not only run, but to be able to win. And for those people who are interested in what it means to run a campaign, what it means to be a campaign staffer, Arena is a one stop shop for all of that information as well.
And in my conversation today with Lauren, you know, she also comes to it from a queer lens, as a queer woman who is married with two children, and will share with us the fears that she has for her own children and why this work that she is doing is so incredibly important and personal, how the politics have become personal for her now that she is a mother and a wife, And what does it mean right at a time when you can't really look at your children
and think you know your future is going to be bright? And so what is the work that each and every single one of us are doing to ensure that the next generation is better off than the last generation? And right now that's not how it looks, folks, not by a long shot, and not by the statistics. So I really hope that you enjoy this conversation that I get into with Lauren Bear from Arena, and that if you are interested in connecting with them. We will put that
in the show notes as well. Coming up next my conversation with Lauren bear Folks. I am very excited to welcome back to WOKF Daily Lauren Behar, who is the managing partner of Arena, a progressive organization that trains and supports diverse democratic campaign operatives and helps provide a critical staff for competitive races up and down the ballot across
the country. Lauren, let's jump right in first. You know, every election, whether it is state, local, or national, what we are seeing outside of the US Senate, of course, is a progressive slate of candidates. Is also candidates that
actually look like the areas that they are serving. We're seeing people, women, people of color, queer people, those that live at the intersections of multiple identities enter into politics because they actually want to make a difference and they want they want to stop waiting for other people to
save them. I want to open, you know, with the first question with regard to what are you hearing and seeing with regard to what is motivating people, whether it is to run for elected office or the trainings that you do for operatives, to say, you know, what all is not lost, and I want to go all in well.
First of all, Danielle, thank you so much for having me back. Love to be here on looke Af, And I think you're right. We are seeing more and more diverse individuals running for office and more and more diverse
people working on campaigns. And in the first instance, I think part of why we're seeing that is because we realize as progressives and as a party that when we run people for office and when we build campaign teams that look like the communities they're going to represent, they're more effective, they win more often because people want to see themselves reflected in their leaders. And there is so
much that is bringing people into the arena today. You just need to look around the country from the federal level down to the state level, and this really awful space of negative and harmful legislation that's coming from Republicans, coming from the GOP, and whether it's limiting the rights of the LGBTQ community and particularly trans people, or whether it's limiting women's reproductive freedom or standing by idly in the face of gun violence, people are pretty frustrated with
what a grim and bleak future that kind of governing presents for America. But while they're frustrated, they haven't given up hope. There isn't a lack of optimism. And you know, one of the most interesting and hopeful things for me is how all of these terrible things that are happening are actually driving people in particularly new voices, to enter the political arena to say that we can do better.
In fact, we must do better if we want to fulfill the kind of broad promises on which our country was found in this notion truly of having liberty, justice, equality for all people.
I feel like you have so many different kinds of buckets of people, but there are some that when they are faced with a considerable amount of obstacles, that they look for the opportunities in them that they say, you know what, maybe as things are falling apart, right, that there is an opportunity to grow something better because there are always going to be those people that we need to hold on to that authentic, real, raw hopefulness and faith. Right.
You know, I'm not a religious person, but I am a person that does believe that you have to have some type of faith and hopefulness or to enter into the arena of politics, particularly now, like there just has to be something that is greater than yourself that is driving you, because there are so many other things excuse me,
that are working against you. And so when we see, on one hand, you have a political party that is hell bent on a rasure, that is hell bent on white grievance, that is hell bent on coddling white anxiety, and that at the other side of that is to make sure that you are punishing as many people that you believe is causing the harm. So there is a significant push and pull that is happening right now. It's
not the same as it was before. I'm assuming, but you tell me in how you were training operatives to deal with how to manage campaigns. Because I don't know about you, Lauren, but I keep seeing stories about attacks that are happening, whether it be physical attacks, shootings that are occurring at political offices, but there is heightened political violence.
And so how do you train in a way that is different now than it was, say seven eight, you know, pre Trump time, when our politics hadn't been hijacked by you know, domestic terrorists.
Yeah, human you raise so many good points there, Danielle. And first of all, you're right, I think individuals are being confronted with this choice right now. Do I stand idly by where at a time when I am being attacked, when my community is being attacked, when there is this active effort at erasure, or do I raise my hand and say, very much so, I am, I'm here, I am present. I want to be counted and I want
to make change in my community. And we're seeing so many people do that, but it is very much an act of bravery to do so. You know, at Arena, we give individuals the hard skills that they need to run campaigns, to be organizers, but we're also very clear eyed about what the risks are in this day and age to be involved in politics, and we train individuals how to protect themselves online and offline, how to protect
the communities that they are working in. It's a sad fact that this is a feature of politics these days, and it's a feature by design, right. The Republican motivation and here is to attempt to govern by fear and to make the other side, to make progressives feel so concerned for their physical and mental well being that they
stay at home. And what we're trying to do is teach individuals that despite these these very real and heavy burdens that we bury carry when we enter the political arena, that there are ways to do the work to keep
yourself safe and to better your community. Uh, at the same time that you're proving that these Republican tactics are ultimately ineffective at creating uh, this kind of bleak, dark picture of America that that they want to So it does involve new tactics, new new curriculum, but at the same time, it's very much a motivator for people who want want to see something different.
Right now, what are some of the biggest concerns that that you are hearing that come up in your trainings or in conversations, and particularly what are what are the areas in which you do train. I want people to be reminded of the areas that you do train, because campaigns are a behemoth onto themselves, right, and so for people to really understand the different apparatus that we're talking about here.
Yeah, So, first of all, I guess, stepping back a minute, you know, arena exists to really expand and diversify who can enter politics. You know, again, we feel that our democracy is more effective when it's more reflective and we bring folks in. You don't have to have any campaign experience to do one of our trainings, and we train folks along all of the different disciplines you might find
work on in a campaign. So whether you want to be a campaign manager, or work on fundraising, or do communications or data or digital work, or be out in the field knocking doors as an organizing director, we have a training for you because we really want to bring the whole breadth of people who are interested in entering politics to the work. And what's been really interesting to me over the past couple of weeks whenever anyone applies to one of our training and if you're interested, I
would say, we have an application open right now. You can visit Arena dot run and apply. People have to talk about what's motivating them to get involved in campaign work, you know, upload a brief video, write a short essay. And what's been amazing to me over the past year and change is how personal those statements of involvement have been individuals who never saw a place for themselves and
put politics before. But maybe someone is trans and they live in a state where an anti trans bill has passed, or maybe it's it's a young woman and they're concerned about their ability to have access to an abortion, or someone who's lived in the suburbs and always felt safe and all of a sudden has been directly confronted by
the scourge of gun violence. These are the stories that people are bringing to us, And what we're doing is providing really a soft landing place and an entry point into politics that they can take that motivation and then translated into action. And you know, even better than that. We don't just train folks, We then go and help them find their first job in politics. So it's not just getting the skills, it's actually giving you an open door to doing the work.
You know. I it's it's really interesting because when I entered into politics what feels like one hundred years ago, it was really out of a desire to want to be a part of the vision that would perfect this union. It was really about wanting to be in public service. And I there, you know, and again I'm not saying that all politicians come in to make things better, Clearly they do not, and some come in purely as a grift.
How does ARENA go about? You know, one, you are a place where people can come who are already interested. But what do you say to those people that are kind of skirting around the edges right? Like again, you know, folks that listen to wok F I think are very politically engaged, very politically active, but they're always looking for opportunities to help because they recognize the crisis right that our democracy is in, that the country is in in
so many different ways. And so for those people that are kind of sitting on the edges, that are are not quite ready to make the dive, what are some of the things that you would offer and say to them about, you know, fence sitting and deciding to actually enter into the arena.
Well, I mean, the first thing I'll say is that there's a place for you. I think some of what has kept people so afraid of entering the arena is the extent to which politics has been an old boys club for so long. It's been a place for straight, cisgendered white men where you had to know someone to know someone to feel like you could could get a job and make meaningful change. And so, you know, we're
cracking that nut open. At the same time, we're building a community of like minded people who rely on one another as they do work. So you know, it might be scary to take that first step. And if you attend a training, it doesn't mean you necessarily need to
change your whole career at once. We have tons of wonderful people who come and train with us and then use that to become super volunteers in the next election cycle or in all of the political battles that frankly, we're fighting three hundred and sixty five days a year here in our country because democracy is really on the line. But you know, if someone's on the fence, what I think about is, you know, this is not a time
historically to sit on the sidelines. If you look at the American experiment, and it really is an experiment with democracy, it's anomalous in the context of world history. Democracies don't normally last this long. They are fragile, they break, and once they break, and once they backslide, they're hard to get back. And I rarely, rarely talk to an individual who has chosen to get engaged who regrets having made that choice. Yes, change is difficult, Yes it's hard. Sometimes
it's incremental. But if we really are going to build that more perfect union, that you just reference it's going to require all of us rolling up our sleeves, getting in doing the work together. And so you know what I would say is is brush aside fear for the moment and jump in and try to make that change because it's a time when our country really needs all of us.
You know, you said that so eloquently, And I think honestly that we have been lulled and I've said this many times on this show. We've been loved into a place of complacency around what it means to hold a democracy. The assumption has always been, for the last two hundred plus years that this is the way it has been.
We learn about empires falling, but we've actually never outside of discussing it from a fifty thousand foot view, we've actually never looked at the human toll of what happens when these empires actually fall, what it does look like to experience the crumbling in real time. And I say to people like I believe that our democracy, as imperfect
as it is, is worth fighting for. I believe that, as imperfect as it is, that more people are conscious to the fact that this isn't something like your heartbeat that just kind of continues like your breath, that you don't really need to think about right Like it is something that requires a heightened level of consciousness, vigilance, and then action in order for it to continue. So all of the things that you said with regard to that
are truth. Now is not the time to be self protective in a way of let me watch from the sidelines.
I want to shift gears for with a couple of minutes that we have left to talk specifically around the lgbt Q community, to talk about the policies and the attacks that we have seen against elected officials who are out, whether they are trans, whether they are lesbian, gay, or bisexual, the attacks that we've seen in the weaponization of policy, and particularly speaking to the queer community about their political engagement.
You know, what message do you send in that way and about how you know how quality is not something that is just given once and then it blossoms and it just continues. So just wanted to give you an opportunity to kind of speak to that aspect of where we are.
I think what you said is so true there, Danielle, And as a member of the queer community and as a queer woman who's married and has two young daughters.
I think about this a lot. My first daughter was born two weeks before Donald Trump was elected president, and I remember at that time my wife and I thought our daughter was being born into this beautiful moment in human history where she would know the first female president, and where we would be at this time, where her rights asn't an individual and our rights as a family
would be expanding. And instead, much to my surprise and many in the country's surprise, instead it has been six and a half tumultuous years with quite a bit of contraction. And now I look at her and her younger sister.
I have two daughters now, and I'm confronted with the stark reality that they actually have fewer rights than I did in some ways as a woman born in nineteen eighty certainly when it comes to their reproductive freedom, and that when it comes to their ability to fully blossom and express themselves whoever they may turn out to be in our country right now, that's very much contingent upon
what state they happen to live in. We are seeing unprecedented attacks on the LGBTQ community, particularly the trans community, and precisely because they are the most vulnerable among us. So you know, this should be a wake up for all of us who consider ourselves part of the community queer unity and anyone who is an ally that this is not time to sit idle LEVI. This is a time to stand up, to be counted and to fight.
And by the way, it's also a time to recognize that in some ways, this attack on the LGBTQ community is the canary in the coal mine. We have seen historically that it is often queer communities who are attacked and scapegoaded first before that kind of evil and hatred and discrimination is extended to others. And so you know, if you're sitting here listening to this and you think, well, that's happening to them, but it's not happening to me,
the response that I have is your next. And so it's really time for all of us to have this heightened awareness and do something about it. Because I just haven't given up hope on the idea that ultimately the world can be better for my daughters, but I know I've got to put a lot into it to make that happen.
Lauren, what does pride mean to you now? Right? Like what it is? And I ask you that because I think that you know, my understanding of pride has really evolved over time, and I feel like it has changed depending on if the community that we're a part of is at a place of pure celebration like it was in twenty fifteen when when marriage equality became the law of the land, or it's in a place of mourning right, which is happening in patchwork across the country right now. Right.
I had a conversation with, you know, with with folks from from an LGBTQ organization in Florida, and I got off of that interview and I was in tears, Like I literally I had to wrap it up so that I could get off the phone, could get off of the interview before I burst into tears with what they are going through. So I'm just curious as to how you understand pride now and how it is, how it might have shifted.
So I start understanding pride from a personal perspective, which is to say, pride is about living authentically and unafraid as who you are, presenting your full self to the world, and not only living with that authenticity, but fighting every
day to secure your own rights and freedoms. But then pride also has to go beyond the cells, and I think, particularly as members of the LGBTQ community, we need to look at all of the letters in that wonderful alphabet and recognize that some among us are feeling disproportionate harms at this time. And so pride is about showing allyship.
It's about making sure that if I'm a lesbian, I'm out there protesting for my trans brothers and sisters because they're feeling the brunt of what is happening in our country right now. And then to take an even bigger step beyond that, it's about recognizing allyeship with the other
movements for rights and freedoms in our country. It's about recognizing that the fight for LGBTQ equality is inextricably linked to the flight for equality for black people and people of color and religious minorities, and that while we feel the experiences of hate and the impacts of it differently, because we all are differently situated, there is a fundamental thread that ties what we are experiencing together, and that if we're going to preserve all of our rights and
freedoms and perfect our democracy and make a better future for all of us. You know, we have got to be linking arms instead of raising our hands, and so that that is pride to me. It's authenticity and action in a nutshell.
I love it so much, Lauren, Thank you so much for making the time to join us on well k app. Please remind people how they can find Arena and how they can get involved.
Thank you so much for having me, Danielle. You can find Arena on all of the social media platforms at Arena Summit and you can find us online at Arena dot Run. Please join us for one of our many trainings this year because you have a spot in the Arena and where they're to help you claim it.
Appreciate you. That is it for me today. Dear friends, on Woke a f as always Power to the people and to all the people. Power, get woke and stay woke as fuck.