[00:00:00] Emily Race-Newmark: Welcome to This is How We Care, a podcast where we look at what it means to embody care, not as an individual practice, but a collective one, and to see what kind of world emerges from this place. Thank you for being here. I am your host, Emily Race.

[00:00:15] Emily Race-Newmark: Today we are joined by Nia K. Evans, Cierra Peters, and Ray Fielder from the Boston Ujima Project.

[00:00:22] Nia Evans: When we think of economy again, we're thinking of economies and it's expansive and at the root of economies is care. Care is at the root, not profit. 

[00:00:32] Emily Race-Newmark: The Ujima Project is focused on organizing greater Boston area neighbors, workers, business owners, and investors to create a community- controlled economy. 

[00:00:42] Cierra Peters: My name is Cierra Peters. I am the Director of Communications, Culture, and Franchisement at the Boston Ujima Project. I use she/they pronouns.

[00:00:51] Cierra Peters: I came to Ujima actually just as a community member who was brimming with ideas because I was very young. I was in my early 20s. I was so heady and weird. I was blessed to have a group of friends who were also very heady and weird and interested in doing things differently, interested in thinking about the creative economy.

[00:01:13] We had this idea that was one part alternative art school, was another part thinking about the creative economy and how we allow people to build their practices without needing to play a very particular game with grants and residencies and all the normal things that you do when you're an artist. 

[00:01:30] Cierra Peters: We were like, "What if we just created an alternative network that allowed artists, particularly artists of color living in Boston, to share secrets, to grow their practice, to strengthen their own muscles." 

[00:01:43] Cierra Peters: Now when I look back a lot of what we were doing or thinking about was trying to reorganize philanthropy.

[00:01:48] Cierra Peters: To think about the people that they don't normally see. People who are making rap mixtapes and want to do murals. Me and Sarah had a project, we were so cheesy, y'all, it was called Art for Art's Sake and we wanted to take over the MBTA buses and do art on the buses. 

[00:02:04] Cierra Peters: Anyways, this is one of the ideas that came out of that.

[00:02:06] Cierra Peters: Nia and Aaron, as very intelligent, astute, important people saw fit to sit with us at the 808 Art Gallery in Boston University. We're sitting in the middle of this table, activating the art installation while talking about art, which is actually cool when you think about it.

[00:02:22] Cierra Peters: That's how I came to Ujima. And the idea that we had of rethinking philanthropy for artists of color in Boston ended up being the Arts and Culture Organizing Team, which has taken on a whole new life. It's completely different from what we were starting, but I think that's so amazing. 

[00:02:36] Emily Race-Newmark: Amazing. I really see it coming alive and I'm excited to keep weaving other connecting points. Who would like to go next? Rei? 

[00:02:41] Rei Fielder: Sure. I had been doing organizing work in Detroit in some national organizing for many years, since I was 15 years old. A long ago... I had decided to go to graduate school. And when I graduated, I felt myself being burnt out with organizing work, but just feeling like I needed a refresh. I typed in Google, "black organizations doing radical work" or something like that.

[00:03:08] Rei Fielder: A bunch of different organizations popped up and I find Ujima and there's this Vimeo video that talks about the ecosystem. That's what did it for me. How Ujima was talking about engaging community, talking about democratic governance, the different structures that they had built to make sure that the folks living in a place at the margins of the margins were the decision makers.

[00:03:37] Rei Fielder: it just sparked my little heart up.

[00:03:39] Rei Fielder: I said, " Hey, I am looking for new work. I am inspired by the work that you all do in thinking about and dreaming about new worlds, but not just staying in that thinking and dreaming phase, but really building out structures to make these new worlds come to life and, you got anything for me?" [Laughter] And I ended up here in Boston at the beginning of this year. 

[00:04:02] Emily Race-Newmark: Mm. Beautiful. Oh my gosh. I share the fanning experience. When I saw that YouTube video, I was like, "Oh my gosh, I need to get you all on the podcast." So that's awesome. All right. And Nia, to close this out, what is a story that you could share of how you are here today? 

[00:04:15] Nia Evans: Thank you. 

[00:04:16] Nia Evans: I was the executive director of the local branch of the Boston NAACP prior to Ujima.

[00:04:24] Nia Evans: I was a chair of the branches economic development committee. At the beginning of that year in January, there was a blurb in The Globe that Boston was going to make a bid to be a candidate for the 2024 Olympics. That's a very big deal. And I think the following year was going to be the Olympics in Rio. 

[00:04:46] Nia Evans: There's one side of the Olympics, of course, I think a bunch of us enjoy the performance, the sports, rooting for teams. And then there's the other side, which is what's happening behind the scenes, which is not great in a lot of, places. 

[00:05:01] Nia Evans: So, gentrification was happening rapidly in Rio because of the communities being cleared out to make room for tourists. All sorts of stuff. So it big in that sense, in terms of maybe this phenomenal event that many of us enjoy every four years is going to be in Boston, but then also for us behind the scenes, what does this actually mean for our communities?

[00:05:24] Nia Evans: We at the NAACP reached out to Urban League, we reached out to Lawyers for Civil Rights, and we asked, "Did you know anything about this?" these are Black led, Brown led orgs, and the response was, "No." 

[00:05:36] Nia Evans: And the people who were making this announcement were five white guys who were really happy about this.

[00:05:42] Nia Evans: Pretty immediately, this became a conversation about how a big decision was made about our communities and none of us knew about it. We learned about it by reading a blurb in the paper. 

[00:05:55] Nia Evans: We made the decision that we weren't going to take a position. We weren't going to say we're pro, we weren't going to say we're con, because we said the problem is the fact that we learned about this in the paper. The problem is the fact that we weren't a part of this conversation from the very beginning. 

[00:06:11] Nia Evans: We said we want to actually create a new template for how planning and development happens in the city of Boston with regards to communities of color.

[00:06:20] Nia Evans: At the same time, we were still participating in the more traditional way, going to the community meetings, going to the city council hearings.

[00:06:29] Nia Evans: And we had our members saying, "Why are we doing this? Why are we in rooms and we're now looking at these five white guys on the stage? Why are we offering testimony, speaking, airing our concerns, etc. Seeing stone faces, maybe some smirks and knowing they're going to tolerate this. They're going to leave the room. They're going to go wherever they go, and they're going to do whatever they want to do and make the decisions that they wanted to make anyways."

[00:07:01] Nia Evans: Our response was, "Yeah, you're right. We should not be encouraging our members or other community members to participate in instances that actually just work to disempower us and create frustration, and in certain instances, depending on the conversation, can just actually just be enraging. That's not healthy for us as individuals and for us as community members.

[00:07:25] Nia Evans: So we said, "We're moratorium on community meetings. We're not going to encourage people to show up to listen to people who aren't going to listen to them. We're not doing that anymore." 

[00:07:34] Nia Evans: We were hearing, "These processes are frustrating." And then we were also hearing, "I know what I want to do. I know what I would like to see happen with a piece of property that's abandoned across the street from me. The issue is I, myself, individually, I don't have the resources to pull it off. Maybe in some instances, I don't have whatever kind of power is necessary in that instance where we're thinking about bureaucracy and stuff like that to make something happen." 

[00:08:00] Nia Evans: So for me, I was interested in, what are the mechanisms that allow us to have direct say? That allow us to be able to say, "I'd like to see something happen here." And then it happens.

[00:08:12] Nia Evans: As opposed to, "I'd like to see something happen here, and then let me try to find the five white guys who are the ones who have the power to make it happen. And let me appeal to them, and let me hope they're benevolent enough to agree with me and then maybe this thing can happen." 

[00:08:28] Nia Evans: So at the time, I learned about participatory budgeting and was thinking that might be the mechanism.

[00:08:33] Nia Evans: The other thing I was doing was looking around seeing who was doing what.

[00:08:36] Nia Evans: So I appreciate, I think I didn't hear this part of the story before, right? Rei's told me how they've come to Ujima, but I don't think I remember Rei saying they Googled " black radical organizations" [Laughter]. 

[00:08:48] Nia Evans: I'll say, I did the footwork equivalent of that. The parameters were what allowed people to actually concretely do something. What gave people direct say in power. 

[00:08:57] Nia Evans: So I was running around Boston asking people what was going on, talking about community led development, community led planning, participatory budgeting, etc. and quite a few people were saying it sounds like you want to talk with Aaron Tanaka, who's a co founder of Ujima. 

[00:09:15] Nia Evans: We had a chance to link up in 2015, and I was immediately sold. What I appreciated was, the fact that we vote on what we invest in, so there was that direct say that I thought was lacking in other traditional processes.

[00:09:32] Nia Evans: And then with the opportunity to invest in the fund, there I saw the opportunity for us to pull resources, which again, our members were saying, "I want to be able to do that. I can't do it on my own, but I would love to actually be able to get together with family, friends, etc. pull together our resources to carry out ideas that we already have."

[00:09:53] Nia Evans: It isn't a lack of ideas or agenda. It's the means and certain types of power to carry it out. Rei talked about not just dreaming, but being it into being, Ujima was a vehicle that allowed people to do what they said they wanted to do. 

[00:10:09] Nia Evans: I was sold immediately and I ran back to NAACP and I said, "We, wanting to get in on the ground floor here, what you said you wanted to do yesterday you can actually do today. It's not wishful thinking, it's not some far long off dream, you can actually do it right now and not only that, you can shape how that work looks because we're here from the very beginning." 

[00:10:32] Nia Evans: I made it the NAACP's chief economic development initiative in 2015. And then in 2017, I threw my hat in the ring to become the director. I said, "I think I just want to do Ujima full time." 

[00:10:44] why i'm interviewing them

[00:10:45] Emily Race-Newmark: One of my, one of my biggest questions for quite some time has been around alternative, ALT has been around alternative economic models, given that so many of our current challenges seem to be rooted in our relationship with capitalism today, transparently, transparently, well can be to be transparent, well transparently, well, I.

[00:11:12] Emily Race-Newmark: Transparently, while it can be easy to pinpoint capitalism as a problem, I try to challenge myself not to just sit there, to hold the nuance that perhaps there are some things about this model that can work, so, or that it's not so black and white, rather than making capitalism an enemy.

[00:11:31] Emily Race-Newmark: Transparently, rather than making, rather than making capitalism the enemy, I'm interested in focusing on alternative solutions. And this can be easier said than done. At the same time, I have to acknowledge the ways that I'm complicit in the system, the ways that I benefit and have benefited within the system, even when it doesn't fully align with my values or my beliefs on what is important for the world.

[00:11:55] Emily Race-Newmark: In searching for alternative economies, I went down this rabbit hole, I went down this rabbit hole, and it led me first to the Center for Economic Democracy, and then from there to Ujima Project in Boston. When I came across Ujima, I felt this resounding sense of curiosity and alignment, and was thrilled when Sierra got back to me about joining, about having them join as a podcast.

[00:12:19] Emily Race-Newmark: When I, I was thrilled when Ciara got back to me. When I, what I loved even more was her response that they would prefer to do this interview as a small panel since they don't like sole authorship. Since Ujima doesn't like sole authorship. Since Ujima doesn't like sole authorship. Which led to this interview that you're now listening to with Nia, Ciara, and Ray.

[00:12:41] Emily Race-Newmark: What you'll keep hearing in this conversation, and what you'll see in all of Ujima's messaging, is that they're really about being the change that they wish to see, not just talking about it, which is so inspiring, so refreshing, and what I personally want to see more of and be a part of myself. I wasn't sure what level of awareness folks would have entering this conversation, so I started by asking the group to define a couple of the core terms around how Ujima works.

[00:13:08] Emily Race-Newmark: And the models that they take into account and into practice. So have a listen. This conversation was originally recorded in July of 2023.

[00:13:20] Cierra Peters: The easiest way to think about solidarity economy is that it's just another socioeconomic model except, unlike other models, it's centering care and equity, and all the good yummy stuff that we wish that we had in our everyday lives. I think that's the most simple, maybe, that I can make it.

[00:13:37] Cierra Peters: And so solidarity economy encompasses a lot of different activities and actions, like at Ujima, we have a time bank, which essentially is the idea that you're doing favors for one another instead of exchanging money. Instead of a regular bank where you're putting money in and you're taking money out, you're actually putting your hours and your time and your effort in for someone else, and then someone else will put their hours and their time and their effort into you.

[00:13:59] Cierra Peters: We call it the Cousins Ujima Time Bank. I just like to think of it as favors. Like, how can we just do favors for people? Your cousin does favors for you. You can always call your good cousin in a time of need. So that's why we decided to call it that. 

[00:14:13] Cierra Peters: Some of the other activities that you might find within the solidarity economy is thinking about working cooperatives. Gifts, fair trade, thinking about how you purchase, can you collectively purchase? A CSA is an excellent approach to cooperativism and to solidarity. Because you're getting good groceries, you're purchasing local. I think some of those activities might be a way to think about solidarity economy.

[00:14:35] Emily Race-Newmark: Amazing. And just to clarify, it sounds like it's related to but perhaps slightly different from participatory budgeting? You mentioned that a couple of times and I just want to underline.

[00:14:43] Rei Fielder: Potentially, participatory budgeting could be a fixture in solidarity economy, but one doesn't inform the other necessarily. 

[00:14:52] Rei Fielder: Participatory budgeting is when there is a budget item or a set amount of money that is used for the people of a particular community to decide where the investments from that particular fund will go.

[00:15:08] Rei Fielder: What will happen with that money. They decide the issues that are most important. And they also decide where and how much the money will go to these particular issues. When I think about how Ujima is made up and how decisions are made, it kind of is a big participatory budgeting project.

[00:15:27] Emily Race-Newmark: Yeah. 

[00:15:28] Rei Fielder: Hopefully that answers your question. 

[00:15:30] Emily Race-Newmark: It does and sets me up for my next question. Thanks for that. So I wanted to just break down how you organize yourselves, how you make decisions, all of those pieces of the relationship. So I'm sure there's many nuances, but what would be the 300 foot view of how that all operates and works? 

[00:15:45] Rei Fielder: So our governing body, simply put, is our members. All of the decisions that are made are through our members. 

[00:15:53] Rei Fielder: In order to be a voting member to make those hard and fast decisions, you have to live in Boston. Who is most directly impacted by these things. 

[00:16:02] Rei Fielder: We have a majority BIPOC membership base. Our members come from a wide range of socio economic backgrounds, which are reflective of the spaces and places we want to be centering our work with Ujima. 

[00:16:20] Rei Fielder: Everything that we do is collaborative. So there are our members, but there are other institutions that we work alongside. Arts and cultural institutions, universities, all of these big institutions that really impact how the people in Boston live or what they experience, are somehow or another a part of our ecosystem. 

[00:16:45] Rei Fielder: I think that is helpful for us because we understand that the world we live in now is the world we live in now.

[00:16:51] Rei Fielder: And so sometimes to make very material changes, that means working alongside other institutions, engaging politically, sometimes, and we don't move at the speed of election cycles, but I think we do pay attention to legislative shifts and things that impact our folks.

[00:17:09] Emily Race-Newmark: Could you give a little more shape and color to what the Good Business Alliance looks like? And what some of those North Star values are for y'all.

[00:17:15] Cierra Peters: Of course. Thank you, Rei, for adding shape to the membership body question.

[00:17:19] Cierra Peters: To put it simply, the Good Business Alliance is a group of businesses that are interested in advancing the social values that we have as a community on a business level. 

[00:17:30] Cierra Peters: We have an investment fund. The investment fund can only invest when people are in the Good Business Alliance. In order to enter the Good Business Alliance, you have to be holding in your heart as an intention, these 36 standards.

[00:17:44] Cierra Peters: Our standards were developed by our Community Standards Committee, which is another group of members, so these are people that used to work in restaurants, that used to run businesses, folks that have been in Boston forever and can tell you about all the things that have happened in their lifetimes and what they've seen as the result of having bad businesses in our community. 

[00:18:01] Cierra Peters: The standards, cut across eight categories. They think about you know how we live together, how we eat together, how we work together. 

[00:18:08] Cierra Peters: Some of them are like, "Do people of color work there? Do women work there? Do trans people and queer people work there? Are you treating them well? Do people get their schedules two weeks in advance? Are your workers able to come to you with a grievance? Are they able to collectivize? Will you stop them from collectivizing and from having a union? Are you thinking about the environment? Do you have a plan for zero waste or green energy? Are you thinking about the health and safety of your workers?" you know? 

[00:18:35] Cierra Peters: Things that we all want, but it's about the actualizing of them. I think that that's where it gets tricky for a lot of small businesses and even some corporate ones. Because it costs more money to transition to a green energy plan. 

[00:18:46] Cierra Peters: But we know that in order to be in right relationship with the land and our future, for our children and our children's children, we need to start doing some of these things.

[00:18:55] Nia Evans: I just wanted to just really emphasize that point just in terms of the type of partnership that we enact. It's not a punitive process, even though we're talking about standards and criteria. 

[00:19:08] Nia Evans:  It's really important that our businesses understand we're traveling the journey together. We want them to succeed because we think that their success, a certain type of success, is better and healthier for our communities. A different type of success is not. The success that's based on exploitation and shortcuts, et cetera, we don't want to support that. But what's based on really seeing to the health and wellbeing of our communities, we want to support that.

[00:19:35] Emily Race-Newmark: When you said it's not a punitive process, you just verbalize exactly what I was hearing underneath everything, which is we're moving away from that model of, "You got to figure this out on your own and if you don't, you're out." It's like, "Let's collaborate on the solutions because acknowledging that the broader context that we're a part of the broader water that we're swimming in is not necessarily setting up for our success in this area."

[00:19:53] Emily Race-Newmark: So I love it. And hopefully it will over time. 

[00:19:56] Emily Race-Newmark: If we were to look at Ujima as an experiment, something that you all are trying and maybe doesn't look perfectly all the time, but we can all learn from what you are doing, so what are some of the challenges, if any, and how are you working through those and learning? 

[00:20:07] Rei Fielder: I always talk about this as a challenge because it is a very real challenge because in this country we don't actually live in a democracy like it says it is, but in practice it isn't.

[00:20:20] Rei Fielder: I think people need practice on how to engage in a democracy. 

[00:20:27] Rei Fielder: Sometimes our members are like, "I don't know." There's this inclination for them to be like, "I don't know, Ujima staff, you make a decision." or they will vote one way or another because they think that maybe Ujima staff individually support a particular thing. 

[00:20:47] Rei Fielder: It's not ridiculous because it is just the world we live in, but it's kind of ridiculous because they literally bring these businesses to our attention.

[00:20:55] Rei Fielder: They bring everything to our attention. So it is not us like sitting in a laboratory like, "I think we should put this next investment vote out." I think one of the challenges is getting people comfortable with having power. That is, one of the biggest challenges because I think once they know that, then the way that they leverage it, the way that they wield that power is with much more finesse, with much more conviction. Then it's like, "Is it okay if I say no on this investment vote?" It absolutely is. And so we spend a lot of time encouraging people to lean into their power. 

[00:21:31] Emily Race-Newmark: Yeah. Can we just pause there? Because there's something I'm hearing, I want to see if y'all agree. One is, there's like a trust factor and then also the power dynamic that we are used to seeing or accustomed to seeing. 

[00:21:40] Rei Fielder: Absolutely. I would say that's the trust factor and a power dynamic factor and also this idea of envisioning new worlds and leaning into that. "Yes, can I trust that my voice counts? But can I trust that this will actually work? Are we just spinning our wheels here." 

[00:21:59] Emily Race-Newmark: yeah, thank you. Nia or Cierra, do you want to add any challenges, any color to that?

[00:22:04] Cierra Peters: That's the biggest one. 

[00:22:06] Nia Evans: Definitely Rei hit the big one I think we would all agree. 

[00:22:09] Nia Evans: I feel like we're seeing growth in that area, which I appreciate. 

[00:22:12] Nia Evans: One of the things we like to see, and this won't happen all the time, but we like to see those no votes. 

[00:22:19] Nia Evans: We did have a vote, for example, which right now has a record for no votes.

[00:22:24] Nia Evans: It's six no votes out of hundreds. That was good to see. 

[00:22:28] Nia Evans: So I don't want to say the company's name because it's a good company, don't necessarily want to put it in a particular context, but what I will say is, it's in a offering in terms of kind of product or services that's still controversial, so cannabis. 

[00:22:43] Nia Evans: And we cannot directly invest in cannabis. We don't. So definitely want to make sure I say that, but it's a cannabis adjacent company. 

[00:22:51] Nia Evans: What was interesting here was it was an opportunity for us to see, at least in terms of how our membership is currently comprised, what the differing values are, because it could be easy to pull from dominate conversations, what people think. 

[00:23:07] Nia Evans: I definitely was surprised. If you would ask me, "Would your members be wild about something cannabis adjacent?" I would probably say, "Sure." Because in terms of the conversation, we've been talking about, when I say "we" kind of broadly, unjust incarceration, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, it's legalized in certain places now, and including Massachusetts. 

[00:23:29] Nia Evans: We actually have quite a few community members who said, "I don't actually know how I feel about cannabis when I think about negative social impact or when I think about possibly negative health." 

[00:23:39] Nia Evans: Some people said, "Yeah, quite honestly, I don't know which way to go on this, but I don't want to vote no. I don't want to deny support to this business." And our response was like Rei said, " vote your values."

[00:23:51] Nia Evans: It's not about us. If you want to vote no, vote no. We also have two different ways for people to abstain, which I really appreciate. And also two different ways for people to say yes. 

[00:24:03] Nia Evans:  It wasn't a lot, it was six no's, so that investment was ultimately approved.

[00:24:06] Nia Evans: We made it. On the trust thing, there is a lot of trust in Ujima, but that's double-edged. On one side, it allows us a lot of grace to try things out, to make mistakes and not fear failure. But then on the other side, there could be this kind of blindly going along with what we like to do.

[00:24:26] Nia Evans: And that's that kind of double edge. So it's good to see that as we do each vote, and Rei talked about practice as people get more and more practice, there's still that trust, there's still that grace, and people are feeling more and more comfortable asserting their values and asserting their power and understanding it's not a collision for us. 

[00:24:43] Nia Evans: We had another vote where nobody said no. And for me, that was not a indication of blind trust. This is how much this community loves this business, actually. That vote closed out in record time. Everybody said yes. And those were back-to-back votes.

[00:24:58] Nia Evans: So also just seeing people participating differently in different votes. 

[00:25:01] Nia Evans: So definitely it's a challenge. Cause people got to get more and more practice. And I think I can say, we're seeing people actually growing in that challenge. 

[00:25:10] Emily Race-Newmark: As I do with all podcast guests, I asked this group to share their take on the problem of our time and I wanted to highlight Nia's answer in particular.

[00:25:20] Emily Race-Newmark: She had answered third, so she acknowledged that she was building off of what Cierra and Rei said, which you can go listen to their responses over at the Patreon. 

[00:25:29] Emily Race-Newmark: Let's turn it over to Nia. 

[00:25:31] Nia Evans: It's such a problem that it is up for debate whether or not people can access necessities to live. I think that that is a problem of our time that that is a debate.

[00:25:43] Nia Evans: It'd be one thing if the debate was "how", but the debate is "if" in the first place, and that we have fellow human beings who are okay with people who cannot access stable housing, stable food, safety, both physical and emotional safety. That's huge. 

[00:26:03] Nia Evans: This makes me just think of information, and of how we understand our world, and particularly in the U. S. how it is possible to be really insular and separated and self centered, and really only know and seek to understand what you want to know and seek to understand and that's it.

[00:26:27] Nia Evans: We have a situation in which half of this country subscribes to a conspiracy theory that 10 years ago probably all would've been laughing at. And people are earnest in this subscription. It isn't really anything to laugh at. People are earnest and they found their ways there through a bunch of different ways. Two of the ways that I think about are loneliness and alienation.

[00:26:51] Nia Evans: And so how do we access how we understand our reality? Those channels have been corrupted in a bunch of different ways. And then, how are we driven by loneliness and by alienation to create some wacky worldviews and then it seeps into our core values that has us really just not caring for each other and believing that that's sound and okay.

[00:27:13] Emily Race-Newmark: Thank you so much for listening. If you like what you're hearing so far, there's more great content from Ujima Project over at our Patreon. Every contribution, no matter the size, is a massive help to fund the production of this podcast. As a thank you, you'll receive extra bonus content such as: 

Why Ujima was the name that was chosen, hearing from Rei and Cierra on their take of the biggest challenge of our time, and more on how Ujima supports businesses as part of their Good Business Alliance.

Thank you again for being a part of this community, for sharing and supporting conversations like this one. Now let's get back to Nia, Rei, and Cierra as they each speak to their vision for the world. 

[00:27:50] Emily Race-Newmark: Let's have each of you respond to this from a different perspective. 

[00:27:53] Emily Race-Newmark: One, broadly, that could look like anything. One, from what could the vision for economies be? And thirdly, what's the vision for community? 

[00:28:00] Rei Fielder: My vision for community is really around one that we don't live in a world that promotes distrust with our neighbors. That we don't live in a world that promotes competition with our neighbors, and that we can all live together and thrive together and love on each other.

[00:28:22] Rei Fielder: That feeds really deeply into our economy and our government and what structures there to support people living and thriving and being able to be there for one another. 

[00:28:34] Rei Fielder: So there's this kind of saying is that, we have all of the answers within us. And that is absolutely true. I think that's what Ujima stands on. But once again, going to this idea of practice. In the rest of the world, we always have to be fighting for scraps, fighting to maybe not even getting our basic needs met, and always the debate, like Nia said, around who gets what and when. 

[00:28:59] Rei Fielder: If that is like the rest of our world, this idea around community support, real love for one another, it's always going to seem abstract. People are always going to be just a little suspicious. 

[00:29:12] Rei Fielder: My vision is that people are born into a space where they know that their community is going to be there to support them.

[00:29:22] Rei Fielder: That they don't have to worry about that if they need to borrow the lawnmower from two doors down, then they can and that it's open. This doesn't mean peace and harmony and there won't be conflict. I'm not trying to be foo foo about it. What it does mean though is that people get out of this individualistic grind mindset, and that they know that there is always supports and support systems to help them achieve the life that they see for themselves.

[00:29:52] Cierra Peters: God, this is such a deep question. So if I can broadly think about what my vision for the world is, there is no hierarchy of humans. No one is rated or graded any better or worse than anyone else because of what they have or don't have, because of what they look like, because of their gender or their gender expression. That everyone truly can be on equal footing. 

[00:30:17] Cierra Peters: And just underneath that, because I'm going to be a Neo right now, I think my vision for the world is a small revolution. And going back to what Rei said, it's a space where there exists loving kindness. Where we can truly love across difference.

[00:30:30] Emily Race-Newmark: Thank you so much. Thank you. Ugh, I feel it. All right. And Nia, how about you? 

[00:30:34] Nia Evans: My vision is embracing all of the different ways of being when we think about economies.

[00:30:40] Nia Evans: We say this about Ujima, that economy is plural. We embrace economies. 

[00:30:47] Nia Evans: There's a diagram or framework, iceberg economies, the tip is what we understand is dominant economy. That's above the water. But then below is all the things that we've talked about today and then some: solidarity economy, mutual aid, time banking, care, kindness, collectivism, cooperativism, being able to depend on each other.

[00:31:08] Nia Evans: We do all of that already and we have done it. These ways of being have not up, up until this point, because I think , we're doing it more and more been uplifted and been amplified, and they've not been placed alongside what we understand as dominant economy.

[00:31:24] Nia Evans: Economy, and this is borrowed from Movement Generation, just to give proper attribution, but economy actually means care of home. And so then the other vision is, economy is not reduced to profit and it's not reduced to money. But when we think of economy again, we're thinking of economies and it's expansive and that at the root of economies is care. Care is at the root not profit.

[00:31:48] Rei Fielder: One of the actions that people can take is to think about how to be in collective, community, how to create democratic governance, even with in your household. Call somebody and be like, "Hey, sometimes I just had to get my transmission fixed and that was $5,000 and I didn't have it right away." Maybe we're starting this little pot with just my homies, get in contact with some ones who you trust and love and just do one thing. So maybe it's the collective pot, right?

[00:32:21] Rei Fielder: The thing that all of us are saying is that we got to practice it. We got to practice it. And do some readings or take in some content around democratic governance, around solidarity economy, and see how that lands for you. See if that feels a little more freeing than the world that we currently live in.

[00:32:43] Emily Race-Newmark: Yes. Cause we need to make up for lost time in terms of our education around this stuff. Amazing. Thank you all so much. Rei, Nia, Cierra, it was such a pleasure to be in conversation and get a glimpse into the work and the ways of being that you are all leading. Thank you so much.

[00:32:58] Rei Fielder: Thank you. 

[00:32:58] Nia Evans: Thank you.

[00:33:00] Emily Race-Newmark: Thank you again for listening to this episode. For links to stay in touch with Ujima Project, through their newsletter, social media, website, and blog, head over to the show notes at our website, where we'll also have a link for you to donate to Ujima if that speaks to you. 

Local Boston residents can come and join as a member, or attend a hybrid or in-person event. And don't forget, there's more great content from this interview over at patreon.com/thisishowwecare.

Thank you again for all the ways that you support this podcast, whether it's through Patreon contributions, listening and leaving reviews, sharing episodes with the people in your life, or subscribing to our newsletter and Instagram to be a part of the conversation. 

his episode was produced by me, Emily Race, co produced by Kimberly Anne, with audio by Andrew Salamone and music by Eric Weisberg.