Episode 4

Systems Change
Right Now

On today’s episode, we confront the urgent need for systems change within philanthropy.

Our guests go beyond the surface-level fixes and aim to uproot the systems that perpetuate oppression, ensuring that historically marginalized communities have control over their land, resources, and futures.

featuring

  • Nuance Research, Strategy, & Consulting, LLC 
    Founder & Principal 

    The Democracy Collaborative
    Community Wealth Building Fellow

    Nairuti Shastry (she/her) is a movement builder, engaged scholar, and facilitator-strategist working toward racial and economic justice that transcends organizational, cultural, and political borders. Founder and principal of Nuance Research, Strategy, & Consulting, LLC, Nairuti supports teams, organizations, and communities to both hospice the old and birth the new in pursuit of more just economic futures. 

    Before coming on board as a Community Wealth Building fellow with The Democracy Collaborative, Nairuti worked alongside prominent leaders and organizers in the new economy movement---including the New Economy Coalition, LIFT Economy, and more---to advance regenerative finance infrastructure projects to better resource the transition to a more democratic economy. Previously, Nairuti also served as the Director of Research for Beloved Economies, a storytelling and action initiative demonstrating the power of work to affect economic change. 

  • New Economy Coalition
    Resource Mobilization Director

    Massachusetts Solidarity Economy Network
    Steering Committee Member

    Zac is an organizer and researcher based in western Massachusetts. They are the Resource Mobilization Director at the New Economy Coalition, a steering committee member of Massachusetts Solidarity Economy Network, and board member of LittleSis.

  • Funders for Justice
    Executive Director 

    Lorraine (she/her) is a queer Chicana who has worked for the last twenty years in social justice philanthropy in the areas of queer and trans liberation, racial justice, immigrant rights, gender justice, criminalization and state violence, and housing and the foreclosure crisis. She serves as the executive director of Funders for Justice, organizing philanthropy to mobilize resources to BIPOC organizing to end criminalization. Lorraine has served on the board of several local and national non-profit organizations, and trains non-profits in the fundamentals of fundraising.

  • Boston Ujima Project
    Director of Communications, Culture & Enfranchisement

    Cierra Michele Peters is the Director of Communications, Culture & Enfranchisement at the Boston Ujima Project. She.is an artist and organizer whose practice includes video, installation, writing, and experimental publishing. She is currently an MFA candidate at Yale School of Art, Graphic Design.

  • Boston Ujima Project
    Editorial Manager 

    Alula Hunsen is a writer and editor working with the Boston Ujima Project on publishing toward liberatory urban futures. His specific intrigues lie in Black cultural production, participatory narrative modes, and alternative economies that support self-determination.

  • Mauna Kea Education and Awareness
    Mauna Kea Protector

    Hale Haumea Collective
    Founder

    Hāwane Rios is a Mauna Kea Protector and award winning singer/songwriter from Puʻukapu, Waimea on the Island of Hawaiʻi. She was raised from an early age in the traditional art forms of chant and dance of her people which created a strong foundation for her passion of music and songwriting. Rios believes that music is a powerful catalyst for change and is moved to write and sing songs with a healing and unifying message that she hopes will carry on to the generations to come.

    Being of Kanaka Maoli (Native Hawaiian), Chamorro, Taino, Portuguese, and English decent, she knows her lineages, cultural traditions, music, advocacy work, and commitment to aloha ʻāina (love for the land), connects her to the world and to the collective responsibility we have to care for and protect Mother Earth. Rios has stood on the frontlines of the Protect Mauna Kea Movement and alongside her family as a petitioner in the court system in resistance to the proposed Thirty Meter Telescope for the past 14 years. Her outreach work has taken her to many places and has connected her to many different justice movements rooted in standing up and speaking up for the rights of the land and water. She continues to support the efforts of the movement through her educational outreach work with the non-profit organization, Mauna Kea Education and Awareness and through her artistry as a musician, dancer, and chanter.

    She is the founder of Hale Haumea, a women led collective of cultural and language bearers reclaiming ancestral ways of healing through the traditional oratory art form of chant.  Her purpose and intention is to revitalize the traditional Hale o Papa (House of Women) and rites of passage ceremonies for young women and queer people so that their foundation can be grounded in the ways of their people and so that they will be strongly affirmed in who they are.

Listen & Scroll

Read along and check out resources as you listen.

segment 1: actively dismantle the system
narrated by Tom Tamayo Young

segment 2: will the revolution be funded?
with guests Nairuti Shastry & Zac Chapman

segment 3: divest from the carceral system
with guest Lorraine Ramirez

segment 4: investing to build power and wealth
with guests Cierra Peters & Alula Hunsen

segment 5: together we rise
with guest Hāwane Rios

segment 6: wrap
narrated by Tom Tamayo Young

segment 1

actively dismantle the system

narrated by your host,
Tom Tamayo Young

feat. the song
“Together We Rise”
by Hāwane Rios

  • [ quiet music playing ]

    Hāwane 

    [ singing ] And weʻll keep singing
    Hoʻokahi ka umauma (We are united standing together)
    Hoʻokahi puʻuwai (With one heart)
    Together we rise.

    [ overlapping with host ] Together we rise.
    E ala ē (Arise)
    E ala hoʻi (Arise) 

    [ music fades out ] 

  • Host

    [ overlapping with music ] For the Love of Radical Giving, you are tuning into a GIA Reader miniseries that deconstructs traditional philanthropy and celebrates the joy and power of giving out of love. I'm your host, Tom Tamayo Young. I'm a proud co-founder of Vital Little Plans and Artist Giving Circle and Flannel & Blade, a queer-owned communication shop for good. Take my hand as we jog through some incredible interviews with radical visionaries who are actively working on reshaping this philanthropic landscape towards a more just and equitable future for all.

    [ theme music playing ]

    The state of the world in 2024 is the result of centuries of colonization, imperialism, and exploitative systems of oppression all driven by the relentless pursuit of power and profit. These systems have created vast global inequities, entrenched in hoarding of resources by a wealthy elite, while the majority of people, particularly those in historically marginalized communities, struggle with the consequences from environmental devastation and climate change to housing crises, food insecurity and human trafficking. The root causes of these crises are deeply interwoven into the fabric of capitalism and colonialism.

    At the heart of these problems lies the concentration of wealth and power in the hands of a few, a system designed to extract labor, resources, land, and data from vulnerable populations. The exploitation of natural resources in the global south, the criminalization and over-policing of Black communities, and the ongoing displacement of Indigenous people are interconnected systems of this extractive, commodifying and racially oppressive system. Police violence as an extension of state control enforces the racialized criminalization of marginalized groups while gentrification and land extraction further strip Black and Indigenous communities of their rights to self-determination and cultural survival. These aren't isolated issues. They are the backbone of a larger system of oppression.

    Philanthropy as an industry has historically been complicit in perpetuating these imbalances. The sector often serves as a stopgap, offering temporary or insufficient solutions to crises while ignoring or avoiding the root causes that create those crises in the first place. In fact, much of philanthropy's wealth comes from the same extractive industries that have contributed to the very problems that they now claim to address. The responsibility of philanthropy therefore is not only to redistribute resources, but to actively dismantle the systems that have allowed such vast inequities to persist. 

    In today's episode, we confront the urgent need for systems change within philanthropy. Our guests go way beyond the surface-level fixes and aim to uproot the systems that perpetuate oppression, ensuring that historically marginalized communities have control over their land resources and futures. Let's get started, shall we?

    [ music transition ]

segment 2

will the revolution be funded?

with guests
Nairuti Shastry
The Democracy Collaborative

Zac Chapman
New Economy Coalition

begins at 3:30

  • Nairuti

    It's kind of ironic if you think about everyone in this capitalist ecosystem is always like, "Diversify your portfolio." And I'm here to tell you, diversify your organizing strategies, because that's what we need right now.

    Host

    This is Nairuti Shastry, founder and principle of Nuance Research Strategy and Consulting and community wealth building fellow for the Democracy Collaborative.

  • Zac

    The power of participatory grant-making, the power of giving circles, the power of having movement-anchored funder organizing institutions, and the power of specifically having community-governed non-extractive loan funds as well.

    Host

    This is Zac Chapman, resource mobilization director for the New Economy Coalition, a steering committee member for the Massachusetts Solidarity Economy Network and board member of Little Sis. Zac and Nairuti co-authored "Will the Revolution be Funded?" A powerful article that unpacks how to build movement power within, without, and against philanthropy.

    Zac

    On a structural level, we are seeing more and more wealth being sequestered and we're also co-emergent with the rise of this intensified billionaire capitalist class. We're also seeing new technologies for hoarding that wealth.

    Host

    Expanding on Ruth Wilson Gilmore's notion of twice-stolen wealth, tell us about this concept of thrice-stolen wealth that philanthropic institutions continued to hoard.

    Zac

    First, those wages are stolen from laborers. Then they're warehoused outside of the realm of taxation, but they're not just warehoused. Those dollars are actively invested into ensuring that the same extractive cycle continues over again the next day.

    Nairuti

    Philanthropy as a sector, the way that it exists and operates in its current form is really just a way to keep the wealthy wealthy. And it reifies wealth inequality in ways that I think many of us are not really aware of from a day-to-day perspective.

    Host

    You, along with many other experts, assert that we're living through a new gilded age. Have you seen any indicators of this within the philanthropic sector?

    Zac

    The past decade in particular, we see a massive expansion of wealth being sequestered by the one percents. And what we're also seeing though in the philanthropic landscape is the rise of mega-giving, gifts that are just dropping out of thin air to the tune of tens or sometimes even hundreds of millions of dollars. So we're seeing this simultaneous process by which wealth is being extracted and hoarded at a rate never before seen.

    Host

    But isn't investing hundreds of millions of dollars into social change a good thing? Shouldn't we meet larger-scale problems with large-scale resources for change?

    Nairuti

    95% of philanthropic endowments are being invested in the same extractive systems that the focus areas of a philanthropic organization are supposedly intending to support. So think about philanthropies that are supporting climate infrastructure. You can do 5% of your grant-making to support that, but if the rest of your portfolio is investing in Exxon and BP, we've got a problem.

    Host

    $100 billion may seem like a lot, but at scales of billion and trillion dollar industries, even a mega-gift looks like a band-aid.

    Nairuti

    The very first thing we need to do is dethrone philanthropy and make it very clear that there is a whole other world of capital and financing opportunities, many of which have not yet been invented, that we actually need to invest time, research, energy into building out. We need to broaden those horizons, broaden that universe of opportunity.

    Host

    In your article, you describe ways to organize within, without, and against philanthropy. Can you break down each of these approaches to dethroning it?

    Zac

    So the work of organizing within philanthropy goes far beyond just the concept of moving the money. It's really seeing not all funders, but some funders as a base that can and should be mobilized and organized and brought into live campaigns.

    Host

    And what's organizing without philanthropy all about?

    Nairuti

    How do we leverage capital from communities, small dollar amounts, but lots of community engagement in order to support and finance projects outside of the bounds of traditional philanthropy? Being able to engage in these other forms of financing, again, doesn't just raise you the money in values aligned ways, but it also builds community and then drives local ownership in the process.

    Host

    So like mutual aid, giving circles, the kind of organizing we heard about from Sara, Jenice, Wit, and Z & M from episode two. So what about organizing against philanthropy?

    Zac

    We have seen so, so little actual work trying to organize against philanthropy as a permissible concept in the first place, right? There's still the Overton window on mainstream stage is that philanthropy overarchingly is this good, noble, and deeply American colonial endeavor.

    Host

    A moment of shared literacy here, the Overton window is a model for understanding how ideas in society change over time and influence politics. The frame that is set around what is normal, acceptable, good, and therefore bad or taboo in dominant culture. So why don't you think that folks are organizing more against these mainstream perceptions of philanthropy?

    Zac

    We're talking about the blatant fact that on a structural level, despite all of these different efforts, no matter how many insurgent program officers you throw into the Ford Foundation or other organizations, we're not going to convince the owning class to work against their own class interests. It's just the reality. And so this is where we need to have structural changes that dramatically overhaul the power that philanthropy yields in the work of devising the society in which we live.

    Host

    How can those of us who've chosen this career path participate in these methods of movement building to make the change we hope to see in our communities?

    Nairuti

    There is an ecosystem of people who are really married to the philanthropic sector existing in perpetuity, and if we say that our overarching vision is that there is no longer philanthropic capture of our movements, and the way we're going to do that is based on your positionality, whether you're a lawyer, whether you're a wealth management advisor, a deaf advisor, if you're working at a PSO, you need to be working at these three tiers in a variety of different ways and strategies.

    Host

    This brings me back to our first conversation with Michele Kumi Baer and her question about the desire to exist in perpetuity.

    Michele Kumi Baer

    What lives at the root of a desire to exist forever? What is that about? Why is it there? Who and how is that being perpetuated? There's just a lot of questions to dig into around why permanence seems to be a really deep desire within philanthropy, full stop.

    Host

    Nothing in nature grows and lives forever, and yet that deep desire indeed remains a strong influence on our field. So how do we use these strategies to unpack the desire for permanence making way for a strong and sustainable liberatory movement?

    Zac

    The reason why we need to be interweaving all of these different strategies, whether it be dues-based labor organizing, mutual aid activity, funder organizing, et cetera, is that we know from looking at the historical record that when we have cross-coalitional social movements that are able to set aside differences with a common goal, then we are able to adequately build power and make change happen.

    Host

    This is important. This work is all about building power and learning how to utilize it together towards a liberatory ecosystem of our future.

    Nairuti

    Are philanthropic organizations existing to serve in perpetuity? Or do they have this kind of goal and overarching vision of broad-scale economic transformation? And I think there is an opportunity for us to be able to leverage that, quote-unquote, "sector" to be able to do those other things, but only if we're looking to that full ecosystem of folks who are again operating within this infrastructure, but actually could be doing something totally different.

    [ music transition ]

Resources

segment 3

divest from the carceral system

with guest
Lorraine Ramirez
Funders for Justice

begins at 12:20

  • Lorraine

    I have been clear since the beginning that this is the way I wanted to do my work. And then as a queer Chicana, all the folks around me, my community are often also highly policed, right? As are their families, just like my family is.

    Host

    This is Lorraine Ramirez, a 20-year advocate within social justice philanthropy and the executive director of Funders for Justice.

  • Lorraine

    My dad was in and out of prison when I was young, and that system might have temporarily intervened on moments of harm, but it did not build safety for my family, certainly did not build wellness for my father, and therefore did not build wellness and safety for my family. And I know that there's a couple million people just like my dad in the US.

    Host

    It's a bit overwhelming to think of all the sneaky and horrible ways in which this complicated system can cause harm.

    Lorraine

    The prison industrial complex is much bigger than prisons and jails and cops. It's much bigger than border patrol. It's much bigger than law enforcement, but it is in fact the industrial complex.

    Host

    So where does your work fit into all this?

    Lorraine

    At the time of the Ferguson uprisings, when Funders for Justice began, it was just came out that a lot of groups just didn't ever talk to their funders about marching in the street against police violence, because that was something funders didn't want to hear about.

    Host

    And what else do you advocate for?

    Lorraine

    The other part and what Funders for Justice also often talks about is which projects are funders funding, are funders willing and hopefully very excited to fund community organizing that's geared towards building community solutions for safety, community approaches to safety, to repairing harm, to preventing harm, or those community solutions that are separate from and divested from police.

    Host

    This brings us back to Nairuti and Zac's point about where that 95% is being invested. Remember, we're always considering the full life cycle of a gift, folks, including how it's stored. And so what are some ways in which the arts funding sector has been inadvertently causing harm?

    Lorraine

    As arts funders and community development funders, we're thinking about things like creative place-making. Ultimately, gentrification came from those things. When I'm talking about gentrification is a part about Black and brown folks who are living there getting pushed out, priced out, bought out.

    Host

    Totally. We've seen gentrification absolutely devastate neighborhoods, but what does this have to do with the cops?

    Lorraine

    So when we say pushed out, and I mean by who? So there's priced out, but also who enforces that? The police. This is in fact where the police respond quickly perhaps and deciding who belongs there and who doesn't.

    Host

    Not to mention who foots their bill.

    Lorraine

    So very often police take up 40, 50% or more of a city's budget. So when you think about tax revenues, fines and fees, when you think about where your tax dollars are going, that means that the Black and brown folks who have lived there, who worked there are literally paying to get harassed and pushed out and beat up and killed.

    Host

    That is a horrible system to be trapped within. Do you think this connection is clear to arts and community development funders? Do you think that they're willing to step up and address these serious issues that we're witnessing way too frequently all around us?

    Lorraine

    Oftentimes grant-making boards of large, especially large foundations, are inclined to step away from what they consider risk. But actually their grantees are much more at risk. So for example, places that have up signs that say, "Black Lives Matter," police would refuse to answer 911 calls. And so if that's the case, abolition is the only answer.

    Host

    Let's say I'm just looking to fund small arts programs. What can I do that would influence the actions of the police?

    Lorraine

    The amount of money that goes into the prison industrial complex is so much larger than a grant that you make. How much do you have, does a funder have in their endowment? In what financing company and where is that going, right? What is the investment portfolio? And so in fact, one of their grantees could be in a campaign against someone that the finance side of their portfolio is financing.

    Host

    I'm noticing Vu’s existential threat creeping in again…

    Lorraine

    If foundations aren't concerned with, one, perpetuity, and two, being so huge, what else might be possible? Because your investment in perpetuity, although you are actually investing in the ongoing harm that you're seeking to address with your grants, and it's so complicated, but it's so necessary that we look at this and move with intention.

    Host

    Even though most people working in philanthropy don't actively work towards policing people, we must be more conscious of where our gifts are stored and how they are given.

    Lorraine

    And I am clear that no funder, no arts funder, no community development funder, this is never their intention. So that's a given. In fact, I think this is the opposite of what they're hoping for. And so my challenge to funders is, are you asking about this when you're talking to developers, when you're part of public-private partnership developments, right? Are you challenging the city to not add a whole nother section of the police force just for that housing development? And are these grants going to the deeply underfunded community projects that actually, if well-resourced, could be very much part of the community revitalization?

    Host

    The big systems change starts with changing your own minds, folks. The prison industrial complex has been ingrained in our country's culture since its inception, but that's not a reason to allow it to harm Black and brown bodies and communities.

    Lorraine

    We all got brought up, myself included, being taught that 911 and the cops on the other side are the solution to the danger. It takes work to get that out of our own systems, and it's going to take work to get that out of the systems of our coworkers and colleagues, and so I think just beginning and doing that without shame.

    [ music transition ]

Resources

segment 4

investing to build power and wealth

with guests
Cierra Peters &
Alula Hunsen
Boston Ujima Project

begins at 18:40

  • Alula

    I think it's ensuring that people are able to carry their power forward and are able to exert agency and will on the cities that they live in.

    Host

    This is Alula Hunsen, researcher, essayist, and editorial manager with the Boston Ujima Project.

    Cierra

    I like to describe Ujima as just as much of an ontological project as it is an urban planning project.

  • Host

    This is Cierra Peters, artist, organizer, and director of communications, culture, and enfranchisement for Ujima.

    Cierra

    Boston Ujima Project is a cooperative business arts and investment ecosystem built by and for Boston's working class communities of color. We are deeply interested in facing systemic challenges like inequality and poverty and thinking about the interlocking systems of tools and strategies that we need to transform the ways that we live, work, shop, invest.

    Host

    And who makes up the decision-making body of this organization?

    Alula

    So we have around 900 members so far that are all working class BIPOC residents of the City of Boston, and they drive most of the actions that we take and lead a lot of the work that we do. They're at the forefront of our decision-making processes for investment, even for programming.

    Host

    Much of the work you do is around building power for and with community members who've been ignored, divested from, or actively targeted by those who control capital. What does that actually look like in practice?

    Cierra

    There's power building through and intentional deliberate assertion of power like our voting mechanisms. There's also understanding your own power, negotiating power, reclaiming power, and understanding, for me at least, the difference between power and domination.

    Alula

    Shifting decision-making power so that it is not like us. It is not a foundation. It is not a high-dollar donor that is determining what development looks like in Roxbury and Dorchester and Mattapan and JP, shifting that power so that it is community members who live in Roxbury, who live in Dorchester, who live in Mattapan, who work in these neighborhoods, shifting the power to them.

    Host

    What does self-determination look like for a small business that you might invest in?

    Cierra

    So that doesn't mean that if another COVID happens, Ujima is going to be knocking on your door, beating your door down in the same way that a bank would, right? That's not going to happen. Our investments are very relational, and so we are actively working with our business owners all the time to make sure that how the deal is structured is as good for them as it is for us.

    Host

    What are some ways you've seen these relational investments pay off?

    Alula

    So it's showing up at an Ujima cafe and being in and amongst 25, 30 Ujima members who are all just out at Madhouse Cafe or New Bean Market or Dorchester Food Co-op and seeing something happen that's a step above investment or a step above financial investment at least, starting to see personal, emotional, cultural investment in the small business ecosystem and an ecosystem at large.

    Host

    And what are some ways the financial investments pay off in a way that aligns with your commitment to yourselves?

    Cierra

    The return that you will see if you invest less than $10,000 is actually greater than the return that someone who is investing $100,000 will see. And the reason for flipping the capital stack is because if you're a working class person or let's say even just a middle class person and you're investing your hard-earned dollars into the Ujima fund, your risk is a lot greater than a philanthropic organization or independently wealthy person. $10 to me is not the same as $10,000 to someone else who is independently wealthy.

    Host

    This kind of approach to investments is both radical and rare. Where do you draw inspiration for the work that you do?

    Alula

    There are feminist cooperatives and banks that existed in the greater Boston area in the '70s and '80s. The Panthers' economic and social self-determination work carries forward in what we do now, and we do care about building on and extending a legacy of Black self-determination and community of color self-determination in the City of Boston.

    Host

    You're tapping into a local legacy that runs deep through the history of your home. Are there other similar organizations that have emerged elsewhere?

    Cierra

    We actually started trans-local membership program to be in deeper relationship and community with other organizations to build solidarity and power throughout the United States. Because as we can see, as evidenced by the current state of our political environment, we need to build power across our networks right now.

    Host

    Beyond your networking, educational, and grant-making work that you provide for fellow artists and community members, how does Ujima embrace arts and culture in its work?

    Cierra

    Ujima is proposing a different economic system. Shifting folks', worldview is not easy. We have deeply held beliefs about our economies, who we are, our identities that are shaped by our lived experiences, but also by the world around us. And so I like to think of arts and culture organizing as one way to do the world building work that might invite people to think differently about who we are and how we can be and to practice that out loud.

    Host

    Whoa, this is a beautiful invitation to look at art and culture as more than just objects or events to be had, but rather processes that can change our perspective of what our shared world could look like. How else does culture show up in your work?

    Alula

    I really enjoy the investment and development work, but at times it can feel dry. We also don't always have an investment up for vote. In the meantime, in the in-between time, we learn together, we dance together, a fun way to stay engaged and continue building with one another.

    Host

    You all are deliberately walking the walk, making actualized change through a process that honors the realities of your community and home.

    Cierra

    Ujima is what our economy would look like if it was run by us and we gave ourselves permission. When I think about Ujima and how I felt when I was first coming to Ujima, I was constantly asking for permission. And I think Ujima is really about giving yourself permission to ask for the world that you want to see. It's not about waiting.

    [ music transition ]

Resources

segment 5

together we rise

with guest
Hāwane Rios
Mauna Kea Education and Awareness

begins at 25:10

feat. the song
“Together We Rise”
by Hāwane Rios

  • Hāwane 

    [ singing ] And weʻll keep singing
    Hoʻokahi ka umauma (We are united standing together)
    Hoʻokahi puʻuwai (With one heart)
    Together we rise.

    [ spoken, in Hawaiian ] Aloha, 'o Hāwane Rios ko'u inoa. 'O Mauna Kea ko'u mauna, 'o Kohakohau ko'u wai, 'o Pu'ukapu Waimea ko'u 'aina ho'ohanau, 'o Hawai'i ko'u mokupuni.

    Aloha. My name is Hāwane Rios. My mountain is Mauna Kea. My river is Kohakohau. The land that raised me is Pu'ukapu Waimea on the island of Hawai'i.

  • Host

    This is Hāwane Rios, artist, activist, healer, and founder of the Hale Haumea Collective. She works to spread education and awareness for Mauna Kea.

    Hāwane

    I was raised in ceremony, raised in prayer, and I come from a people where our language was literally made illegal and also weaponizing our aloha, our willingness to share.

    Host

    We heard about Land Back from Nick Tilsen in episode one, but could you tell us what the movement means to you?

    Hāwane

    Land Back for me is rooted in this interconnected relationship that we have to ʻāina that comes from knowing that we are direct descendants in direct relationship with the land that we come from.

    Host

    This movement represents so much more than simply returning the land to Indigenous people. There's so much harm reduction that needs to be done in parallel.

    Hāwane

    And really, it's about consent, our no being enough, our yes being respected. And so it comes down to the fundamental respect for humanity, fundamental respect for land, all things that have been stripped from every single Indigenous community.

    Host

    Can you explain what Mauna Kea is and why you're fighting to preserve these sacred lands?

    Hāwane

    Yeah. I always have to go back to our genealogy. And so we have Sky Father who is Wākea and Earth mother who is Papa, and she has many different body forms. Wākea and Papahānaumoku come together and have Mauna Kea. So when I'm talking about how our genealogies connect us directly to our land, I can say as a Kanaka 'Oiwi, I'm a living descendant of Mauna Kea. And so Mauna Kea is my living relative.

    Host

    Whoa, that is powerful. I think we heard something similar from Nick in episode one.

    Nick Tilsen

    In every Indigenous language in the world, there's a phrase or a saying that says that we are all related, all systems, all people, all living things.

    Host

    And this phrasing is an understanding of a world view for decision-making. What you're saying, Hāwane, is so powerful. Knowing that this land is your living ancestor makes the stakes so much more dire and the fight much more clear.

    Hāwane

    And so for the past 14 years, my family and I, we've been standing for the protection of Mauna Kea alongside our community from this proposed project for the purpose of building a 30-meter telescope, the northern plateau of our sacred summit. And this is where I'm talking about consent. Our no has not been enough and we have been asked to compromise over and over again. And so right now we have 13 telescopes up on our summit and more than 22 structures, and they've all been built under deep resistance from our people.

    Host

    So how does your work as an artist and healer help protect Mauna Kea?

    Hāwane

    Ceremonial practice and ritual practice is a part of remembering and reclaiming sovereignty for myself and for my land. And I see that in the way that ceremonial practice keeps our relationship with everything that gives us life strong and to the earth and rooted.

    Host

    Can you explain a bit about how this form of chant or Oli works as a healing practice?

    Hāwane

    A lot of the time we look at Oli and Hula. They go together. It is a call and a response. It is a chant and in a dance. I wanted to focus on Oli first, the foundation, our protocols and our rituals that come from prayer, pule and the activation of our own voice and our own resonance within our own bodies, because Oli is a medicine. Our voice is our first medicine.

    Host

    And so how did you come about this important work?

    Hāwane

    So for my Ohana, for my family, I'm the first person in 200 years to complete a rites of passage ceremony into womanhood. And so my work right now is around giving that ceremony and providing that space to women of my generation and this generation to come.

    Host

    You've sown this incredible passion and knowledge of ancient medicine into the very foundation of Hale Haumea, which is a woman-led collective of culture bearers reclaiming sovereignty through ceremony and chant. How did it all begin?

    Hāwane

    I was asked to teach some protocols to women that were on the 2019 front lines to protect Mauna Kea and were struggling through isolation and just through the PTSD of being on the front line for so long, and then we went straight into a pandemic.

    Host

    This important work was recognized by the NDN Collective in 2022 by the Radical Imagination Fellowship to continue building the future we need to see in the world.

    Hāwane

    I wouldn't have been able to carry out our first rites of passage that we did with 10 women without this. And all of these 10 women were kia'i and are kia'i aloha 'āina protectors of Mauna Kea. And so I see this as a direct extension of our work to protect land and our work for Land Back. We can't do it without ceremony and we can't do it without each other.

    Host

    You're literally connecting with the land through ancient practice and equipping modern leaders with the tools that they need to fight for it.

    Hāwane

    It's a space that encourages women to free up their voice after being oppressed, after being suppressed, and while continuing to live under oppression, continuing to live as minorities in our own home. No one can take away our mana. It's our power, our mauli ola the seat of our soul.

    Host

    How do you connect your work to the greater movements for collective liberation, especially as we hear the horrible echoes of colonization around the world right now?

    Hāwane

    In 2015, Palestine was standing with Mauna Kea. In 2019, they brought their flag to our movement and they brought keffiyeh as gifts for our kūpuna (honored elders). It was never a question for me to speak and to use my voice and to shed my tears and scream into the wind. And so a part of this call is a call for ceasefire and a call for demilitarization of the entire world.

    Host

    At times like this, with calls to actions so huge, it's easy to become hopeless and exhausted by the world.

    Hāwane

    It feels daunting and almost impossible right now as we're watching multiple genocides unfold in 4K on our phones, as we watch land being horrifically stolen and decimated with our taxpayers dollars. And so it starts there for us as wahine, as mothers embodying this and living this is how we shift. And even if it might seem small, it affects everything. Our micro decisions that we make affect the macro, and I really do believe that.

    Host

    Is that why you continue to do this difficult necessary work?

    Hāwane

    Who would we be if we didn't do that for our young ones and for their children and their children? And so I hope that they're still singing and that they're still telling these stories of what we all did together to do right by them and right by this planet and right by all living things. And I say ‘A mama, ua noa, I put my prayers on that with these sacred words. A mama, ua noa’ means that all of these taboos have been freed and that the prayer has been set.

    [ music transition ]

    Hāwane & Chorus

    E ala hoʻi (Arise)


    And weʻll keep chanting

    Kū kiaʻi (Standup protectors)

    Kū kiaʻi mauna (Stand like a mountain)

    Kū kiaʻi

    Kū kiaʻi mauna 

Resources

segment 6

wrap

with your host
Tom Tamayo Young

begins at 33:35

  • Host

    We got through a lot today, folks. How's everybody feeling? We heard from Nairuti and Zac about thrice-stolen wealth and how we can mobilize movements with, without, and against philanthropy. We heard from Lorraine who unpacked the prison industrial complex, calling for divestment from the carceral system and abolition for all. We heard from Cierra and Alula who showed us how Boston residents are building both wealth and power through local investment. And finally, we heard from Hāwane about the power of ancient practice in the movement to reclaim and rematriate stolen and exploited land.

  • Importantly, each of our guests spoke about building, leveraging, and claiming power for liberatory futures. They invite us to join in the joyful and deterministic organizing that's already happening. I hope you take their gifts with you today. 

    You are not alone in your radical pursuits. And I hope you find community at GIA or in other spaces to support you in making necessary changes to your actions within philanthropy. Check out the GIA Reader website for resources and more information about this episode's guests. 

    I want to take a moment to thank all of our guests for their contributions, to GIA, for hosting and producing this miniseries, to Flannel & Blade for your ongoing support, and to Nadia Elokdah for your friendship, guidance, wisdom, and wealth of knowledge. And thank you for listening. 

    This has been For the Love of Radical Giving. 

    Give often. Give lovingly. Give radically.

    [ music transition ]

    Hāwane & Chorus

    Kū kiaʻi mauna
    Hoʻokahi ka umauma
    Hoʻokahi puʻuwai

    Together we rise.

    [ music fades ]

Next Episode…

EP05
Appalachian Futurism
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