Upstream - Abolition with Niki Franco (aka Venus Roots)

Episode Date: May 25, 2021

In this conversation, we spoke with Niki Franco, AKA, Venus Roots. Niki is a Caribbean abolitionist community organizer, multidisciplinary cultural worker, writer, podcaster, and facilitator of spaces for collective study. Currently based in Miami, Niki serves as the political education director for (F)empower MIA and civic engagement organizer for Power U Center for Social Change. We spoke with them about abolition, the phenomenon of Black capitalism, the insidious nature of neoliberal feminism, capitalism’s tendency towards co-opting its own opposition, disaster capitalism amidst COVID, why Instagram is probably bad for us, and much more. Upstream theme music is composed by Robert Raymond Intermission music is "Cut From the Cloth" by The Evens  This episode of Upstream was made possible with support from listeners like you. Upstream is a labor of love — we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation at www.upstreampodcast.org/support If your organization wants to sponsor one of our upcoming documentaries, we have a number of sponsorship packages available. Find out more at upstreampodcast.org/sponsorship For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Bluesky. You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.

Upstream is a labor of love. We couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Please consider chipping in a one-time reoccurring donation at upstreampodcast.org forward slash support. Thank you. For me, something that is also concerning is how contradictory it is to sort of imagine that capitalism is a system given its history, you know, given its rationale for the transatlantic slave trade, given its rationale for, you know, treating our ancestors like property and all the horrific things that I talked to that. Yeah, it makes no sense for us to want to align ourselves with that system and believe that somehow because there are small pockets and

few individuals having major, major massive gains that that somehow equates to community transformation that somehow equates to black folks being liberated. You are listening to Upstream. Upstream. Upstream. Upstream.

An interview and documentary series that invites you to unlearn everything you thought you knew about economics. I'm Dela Duncan. And I'm Robert Raymond. In this conversation, we spoke with Nikki Franco, a.k.a Venus Roots. Nikki is a Caribbean abolitionist, community organizer, multidisciplinary cultural worker, writer, podcaster, and facilitator of spaces for collective study. Currently based in Miami, Nikki serves as the political education director for FEM

Power MIA and civic engagement organizer for Power U Center for Social Change. We spoke with her about abolition, the phenomenon of black capitalism, the insidious nature of neoliberal feminism, capitalism's tendency towards co-opting its own opposition, disaster capitalism amidst COVID, why Instagram is probably bad for us, and much more. Welcome, Nikki, to Upstream. And yeah, I'm wondering if just to start, you could sort of introduce yourself to our listeners and maybe talk a little bit about how you came to do the work that you're doing. Yeah, hi Robbie. Thanks so much for having me.

So yeah, Mickey, I am a community organizer, I'm also a cultural worker and have been up to, you know, kind of the work of thinking through abolition, alternatives, and kind of how we begin to slowly dismantle like the tentacles of the beast, be it through education, the arts, and just campaigns, all the things of that nature, based out of Miami, Mekosuki and Seminole land, which I think, you know, there's a really particular political terrain here.

It's sort of like this hub before, I would say, like, very elite interests, you know, real estate development. It's also kind of the anchor finance for the Caribbean and Latin America. And it's been sort of a safe haven for folks that have benefited from capital systems time and time again. The fact that it's a tax haven like Florida, or the fact that Miami has also been a place where folks escape the revolutionary and philosophy come to sort of keep their money and wealth. So a very particular case, and it's also extremely economically and equal,

although it's a place where it's predominantly people of color, predominantly immigrants, it's still sort of seeped in anti-blackness and really rigid, hierarchical sort of social lines. And saying all of that to say that it's a very unique place to be an abolitionist, an anti-capitalist, a socialist, all of the things that come with that. And all the same, I think it is really exciting to sort of like, it's like imagination muscle and also our organizing muscle of like what we can do and the sort of belly of the teeth. And yeah, just, you know, someone whose family

has been deeply impacted by imperialism, white supremacy and all of the things that come out of that in very real lived ways. So yeah, just feel very deeply committed in my body, in my heart, to at least attempt to even temporarily experience what alternative may be as we fight for the long term. Well, yeah, so yeah, thanks so much for that.

And so I noticed on your website, venusroots.com, and you're about section, you say that you're an abolitionist, and that's one of the first sort of characteristics of yourself that you put in your bio. And I'm wondering, I know it's a huge question, but yeah, just to you, what does that mean? What does being an abolitionist, what does abolition mean to you? Yeah, I love that question. I also really appreciate the question

because we're kind of like approaching the one year anniversary of the uprising in this country in response to the police state violence and the carceral state and the police state, where it kind of it almost seems like one year ago, or almost a year ago, it was the first time so many people around this country were here in the term abolition.

But I think to answer your question, for me as a political worker, one of the hardest things is coming face to face and becoming very acutely aware of all the harm that we endure under these systems, the ways in which it shows up in our families, family dynamics, in our relationships, in our communities, in our needs, or the way that we feel about ourselves and one another. And it shows you how disconnected you are from the land. It shows you how suspicious you are, everybody around you. So, yeah, I think not just like the intellectual political framework, which is very important as to what Appolition offers us, and I'll get into that as well, but I think just like

very spiritually and emotionally, psychologically and successfully, all of these systems have really stripped us away from our humanity and really fractured our humanity. And I think what's so exciting about abolition as a framework is that it's reckoning with fundamental questions of what does a society that is essentially just built on genocide and colonialism and imperialism and systems of extraction

and systems of the humanization and systems of locking children up in cages, locking people up in cages for lifetimes and not doing anything to address the harms that happen in our, in our society, which are very real, and not doing anything to address to sort of support and care that folks need to just live full lives. To think what's most exciting about evolution and what it means to me is that it presents this sort of macro view, because abolition forces you to contend with everything. It's not just about

jails, it's not just about police or police brutality or whether police are to militarize and we left. It's asking us like why is it that we live in a political economy that prioritizes profit over human development. It's asking us to contend with why all that we have, all of these jails and all these punitive systems and the surveillance, that it actually doesn't counteract the horrible things that happen in our community. And it's also asking us to dig deeper as to why these types of harms happen in the first place, right, be it sexual violence, be it physical violence, whether it be even more egregious things, I guess, when you can say, right?

Like there's a whole spectrum of harm that happens. And I think what's exciting about abolition is that it's telling us, what's reminding us that it doesn't have to be this way, right? For me, I'm someone that's constantly committed to defeating pessimism, which can be really difficult. And abolition is like, for me, such an anchoring force

in all of this, in the work that I do in the organizing and the conversations I have, especially because I also work with young people who at 15 or 14 are sort of seen so much collapse in front of their eyes. And they're also the direct victims of the society that doesn't value care. It does not value support, but does not value human life really, especially coming out of this pandemic. So for me, abolition has helped me sort of orient myself around what are all the systems that we are impacted by, right? What needs to transform in the educational system?

What needs to transform in the workplace? What needs to transform in terms of how we relate to the land or how we treat environment, nature, what we allow, what we believe is, you know, a non-negotiable. So yeah, I think it could be a very long conversation on just abolition, but I think the short end of it is that for me, it sort of offers me an entirely new compass from which to operate from both in terms of the sober reality

of what are our conditions as well as thinking of, okay, what would be possible if we actually have resources, what would be possible if we can heal, what would be possible if we dare to live an alternative model? Yeah, I really love that framing of it. And I think yeah, one of the things that really sort of excites me about this idea of abolition is that it sort of brings together what under neoliberalism where a lot of sort of disparate scene as disparate struggles, it brings them together, and it's sort of so unifying, and it's so refreshing to understand that all of these different struggles are tied to each other, like it really centers solidarity as well.

And just, yeah, this idea of reform, we're starting to understand that reform is not working, right? It hasn't been working. And we need to really start talking about dismantling systems and institutions like entire structures. I wanted to ask you next. So you recently interviewed Francisco Perez as a Solidarity Economy Activist and Educator with a PhD in Economics. And I actually met Francisco a couple of times through some connections that we had with the new Economy Coalition, which upstream is a member of. It's a really awesome network of great organizations sort of representing the solidarity economy. And yeah, I really, really enjoyed your conversation

with Francisco. I had so many moments where I had to just sort of pause the podcast and just take a sec. And by the way, yeah, your podcast, getting at the root of things. Yeah, getting so root of things. Really great what it's called? Yeah, getting conservative in the next years. Really great podcast and I encourage everybody to check it out. Yeah, and so this interview that you did entitled Unpacking Black Capitalism. And it's part of this interesting important shift I think right now in the larger public

imagination around how capitalism is fundamentally incompatible with liberation in all forms of liberation, really. And yeah, I'm wondering if you can unpack this idea that a black capitalism that you were talking about with Francisco and maybe how we were seeing it play out. What's wild about it is that this episode, I want to say we had a conversation maybe around June July last year, right? I mean, I definitely encourage folks to tune in because there's so many aspects of it that are very prophetic in a way. And really, I mean, Marxists, frameworks are very dialectical, right? So it's

like we're looking at patterns at the ways in which, you know, be sort of trigger events, kind of what are the typical responses of capitalism in the market. So, you know, you don't have to be a fortune teller to sort of predict that in the midst of an uprising, while there's like compounding crises, right? Like there is a backdrop of the pandemic, millions, millions of people unemployed, the like glass of American exceptionalism was sort of being shattered every day, and there's millions of people out in the street. So I think saying that to say, like of course, of course capitalism, I don't want to just say capitalism is a abstract thing, right? Like I mean the neoliberal elites of this country, abstract thing, really. I mean, the neoliberal elites of this country, politicians, corporations, brands, all of these people

with huge, huge, powerful interests, were going to have to come up with a strategy to respond to that. And although that conversation's happening very early on, where my sort of impetus into coming into this conversation with Francisco, just for context, was, you know, this idea that because our people have been deprived of representation for so long, it is very tempting to feel satisfied at just representation, especially representation at the level of massive major transnational corporate

platforms, right? Like the at Nike, the at any corporation, right? And I think what really I was most interested in is trying to provide the historical context of why not only is it problematic, but like how counterintuitive it is for us to be saying one thing and then aligning ourselves with people that are actually not actually aligned with our liberation to you earlier. So that was sort of the impetus in that conversation. I think now what we've seen in the past eight months or so is sort of every corporation and every brand, being a sort of race to the top, to have some level of alignment with someone who's young,

black, and who has some level of trust in their pro claims radical politics. And I think I'll be very transparent even just putting myself in there. Like, I've never received so many just like corporate offers in my life. Right? That's not really, has not really been my background. And yeah, it's a very particular and very bizarre, sort of almost like very dystopian matrix like reality that the terminologies of abolition of anti-capitalism, of radical liberation, of black radical futures, and all these things, is now sort of becoming campaigns for every major corporation. I think the problem, I mean,

there's so many problems, right? I think one level is what it does through the imagination collectively, right? I think in so many conversations with folks, a lot of us are becoming, it kind of becomes a new ceiling, right? Like, well, that's the goal, right? To get a campaign of insert whatever radical phrase to be co-signed by X-Brown. And I think it really, really is, it's really damaging and shrinking and truncating our collective imagination of what is the best version of our dreams and the messages and the stories that we want to communicate. So I think that's one aspect of it that's very worrisome. I also think, yeah, I think in terms of this idea of black capitalism and what it really means, I mean,

historically and many writers have spoken about this over hundreds of years, but historically, the system will always create a small, like, visual class of black folks, or perhaps, you know, whoever is the oppressed group in that context. But this isn't anything new, and it's not just unique to the US, right? Statistical and some level of allegiance by creating these like very small pockets of visual groups within oppressed identity. For me, something that is also concerning

is how contradictory it is to sort of imagine that capitalism is a system given its history, you know, given its rationale for the transatlantic slave trade, given its rationale for, you know, treating our ancestors like property and all the horrific things that are tied to that. Yeah, it makes no sense for us to want to align ourselves with that system and believe that somehow because there are small pockets and few individuals having major, major massive games, that that somehow equates to community transformation, that that somehow equates to Black folks being liberated. Because also I think if we analyze it, it's not true, right?

I mean, we have more Black CEOs now than ever in history, and that does not translate as per the facts, or black households into this country to be as supported as can be. And that's very much so intentional. So yeah, I mean, I think there's a lot of contradictions for sure. I'm worried about what it's doing to our imagination, about what we believe would deserve. I'm worried about how it reinforces ideas of cultural, and in the individualism that people, you know, I think we're like, you know, as everyone's chasing the bag and I think sometimes it's like, okay, yeah, I mean, we've got to eat, but that doesn't mean aspiring, being a millionaire, billionaire, etc., or exploiting other people in the process.

So yeah, it's been, you know, since that conversation that you referenced, it's been kind of a wild journey to see every single corporation that has all types of problematic investments, problematic, algorithmic implications, affiliations with like policing units, and the state somehow kind of be able to up their social capital because they have some sort of ambassador, brand ambassador, or a campaign that someone who's deemed those progressive or radical, and in the person of color. Yeah, no, thanks so much for that. And I'm really glad you brought up the likeistic aspect of it, because I just feel like neoliberalism has done such a good job over the last 40, 50 years of really training us to think in such individual terms. And like, yeah, of course, we should all be supporting

black owned businesses. And of course, we should be, I don't know, recycling. But those aren't going to really create any kind of systemic change. And I think that I'm really grateful that we're seeing so much more focus on collective action and focus on how I was saying earlier again, really looking at how we need to actually transform

entire systems and not just act as individuals. And sort of on a similar note, Dela and I have been exploring this idea of sort of liberal or neoliberal traditional feminism versus what we like to talk about as feminism for the 99%, which is sort of an approach to feminism that really emphasizes a class and race component and puts those front and center. And yeah, so it's kind of this idea that like, yes, we definitely need more women in positions of power in all sorts of positions of power.

Like representation is absolutely essential. And at the same time, it's not a strategy to changing the world for women, for the better. And yeah, so I'm wondering, yeah, if you have any thoughts on that, and maybe if you can also talk a little bit about femme power Miami. Yeah, definitely. I mean, yeah, I think that's exactly right. Recently, a lot of us have seen this sort of the new CIA recruitment video, who sort of features this Latina mom. And she has all the rhetoric of anti-patriarchy

and how powerful she is and all of these things, and somehow connects it back to why she's so proud to be a CIA officer, right? Which for me felt like really, truly just a scene straight out of a dystopic novel. I was like, wow, okay, we're here. When I was 17, I quoted Zora Neal Hurstens how it feels to be colored me

in my college application essay. The line that spoke to me stated simply, I am not tragically colored. There is no sorrow, damned up in my soul, nor lurking behind my eyes. I do not mind at all. At 17, I had no idea what life would bring, but Sora's sentiment articulated so beautifully how I felt as a daughter of immigrants then and now.

Nothing about me was or is tragic. I am perfectly made. I can wax eloquent on complex legal issues in English, while also belting guayagil de mi samotis in Spanish. I can change a diaper with one hand and console a crying toddler with the other. I am a woman of color, I am a mom, I am a cis-gender millennial who's been diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder. I am intersectional, but my existence is not a box. Checking exercise. You know, this CIA is like one of the most murderous,

if not the most murderous agency in the globe, particularly towards block of brown people. Yeah, I think this is another example of like, there's so many branches of neoliberal feminism where there's a carceral feminism as well that's complicated in the way where because women, femmes are typically on the receiving end of the violence, we've sort of been trained to think that the only response to this or the only appropriate response, of course,

it's like a carceral response, right? Like, lock people up without having any analysis again, as to like, why do these things happen? What instead of like locking people up, are there alternatives or actually, is there ways in which we can address these things that they don't happen in the first place? But yeah, to your point, I mean, yeah,

there's so many feminism that are just so all over the place. And again, are like very capitalists and the girl boss narrative where you just gotta, yeah, like that is empowerment, right? To exploit others and like, these super ultra-rich and visible. I mean, we didn't see people like Ivanka Trump, right, like we call the feminist. So it is a very real phenomenon, this sort of thing you're referencing to. And with FEM power, which is an artist, collective, cultural workers, you know, and we're based here in Miami,

we've really been sort of emphasizing and turning our studies and our communications and our work to really learn from our comrades and sisters, particularly in the global South, right? Who really understand this idea of like popular feminism, feminism of popular, right? Or or you know, as you reference like feminism for the 99 percent. Like what is actually the demand that we have to put forth that would actually benefit the most amount of people. And yeah, it is, it's really tricky, right, because

I think we are inundated with so much media that has gotten really good at sort of co-opting our language, right? Language of liberation and empowerment and freedom and all these things, but then package it and sell the sort of gateway there in such a insidious way, right? Like I made the reference of the CIA video and this sort of corporations. I mean, you know, I believe it was last year, there was like a meme going around where there was like this famous or not famous, but there was like this seemingly attractive young Latina ice officer who was like popping off on Twitter and it's just like things like that where, you know, people can sort of say that they're feminists just because they

have seats of power. Without questioning, what are the interests of that power entity in the first place, right? Yeah, or positive, but we have to question if we think it's empowering to have people of color, women, famed, queer folks, trans folks, in just seats of exploitation of others. And I think that's going to be something we're going to see more and more of, right? Like, we're seeing how identity politics are being weaponized left and right, especially even with Kamal Harris being the vice president, how her sort of trajectory as a prosecutor, which I also am realizing, I don't think folks have the total understanding

of what a prosecutor does, and what of sort of commitment they have to the carceral state. And the fact that she was the top cop in California that has the largest jail system in the world. And she was a very punitive prosecutor. I mean, not that there's such things as a progressive prosecutor, but she was very clear in sort of her commitment. And then because of the identities that she holds,

she is sort of being praised. And even also, our community is also part of that. That she is this progressive emblem of change and what empowerment can look like for our folks. So I think it's a pattern where definitely just gonna continue to see more and more and more of. So I think with some power, I think most of just my work, like we need to get sharper around interrogating

like the limits of representation, the limits of identity politics, how ideology is very important as well, right? Like not all skin-focus-kin-fold for a reason. Yeah, it is a very bizarre manifestation of capitalism right now. You're listening to an upstream conversation with Nikki Franco. We'll be right back. And cut quite a feeling Is this my world? I no longer recognize I'm hearing common words, common expression But nothing is coming in my eyes

The fan is coming in my eyes How do people sleep up into slaughter? And why would they vote if they were up? They're on to feed But get out to the well and shake the water, water, water, results were in come. Cut from the Cloth by the Evens. Now back to our conversation with Nikki Franco. You recently led a teaching on Earth Day titled Disaster Capitalism, the Business of Disaster. So I actually co-produced another podcast called The Response

in which we really look at how communities respond to crises and disasters. And it was really inspired by Naomi Klein, I believe, coined the term disaster capitalism. And then we're sort of looking at the flip side in that podcast of disaster collectivism and sort of mutual aid and how communities come together to take care of each other's looking at the flip side in that podcast of disaster collectivism and sort of mutual aid and how communities come together to take care of each other's needs when there's huge gaps during

crises from the state. But yeah, I'm wondering if you could just maybe explore some of these ideas around disaster capitalism and explain sort of to you what disaster capital is. How do we see it playing out, particularly during COVID, but also just maybe in general? Yeah, I mean, wow, we are in it. We're in it. And I guess how I'll begin to offer some perspective on that is you think what's really valuable about disaster capitalism,

like that particularity of it and being in the business of disaster? I think it yet again unravels like another point of view of seeing like the nature of capitalism, right? Because again, it's like there is no morality to capitalism. So we should not be surprised that

there's so many people, so many corporations, and so much incentive to be in the business of disaster. So again, I think it could be helpful for folks that are still sort of on the fence around like, hmm, I don't know if this capitalism thing really is as horrible as we're making it out to be. And I think when folks are in full crisis and collapse, via the natural disaster or sort of manufactured crisis, it has an ability to sort of bring everything to surface, right? If we've learned anything this past year, we've all kind of realized some of this has chosen to forget,

but we've all sort of realized how the state will quite literally let people die by masses instead of actually having a robust response, be it of healthcare, be it of freezing rent, access to food, access to funds, blocking evictions, making sure that people are actually able to stay safe. Again, it's very expected, but we've seen that this state has no interest in doing that. I think people need to question why in the worst year so many of our lives, where half a million people died in this country. Those are families, those are real people. Where when that's the reality, we have the ultra-rich, clocking riches that they've never seen before.

And again, this is disaster capitalism. When we have the state protecting and sort of curtailing the interests of the Jeff Bezos, the Elon Musk's country, while millions and millions and millions of people are in desperate suffering. So of course, I mean, the disaster capitalism, sort of like 101. And I'm really excited to also know and hear that y'all are interrogating the other side, right? Because similarly, we do see the other side all the time. There's always resistance to these collapse moments.

We've seen kind of an uptick of mutual aid and organizing in a way that we've really not seen in a long time. But I think to your point of like, what exactly is the disaster capitalism? What does this really mean? I think COVID for sure demonstrated so much of it, right? I do a lot of work within education

and public schools, specifically kind of like the fight to protect public schools and actually, yeah, save them from the attack of privateization, neoliberalism, especially in a place like Florida. And again, it's like, I would say and ask that those disaster catatism is the fact that the state is able to sort of beef up the policing in schools and ensure that there is more police than ever, even in a year where most students weren't even in physical classroom.

So even if you believe in this narrative of policing, waiting safety, it's like, well, children are not even in school. It's actually more just like the interest of the police serve. But yeah, they've made sure that the police have raises and that they're fully hired and fully protected and have pulled from such key departments that actually help young people sort of move through their, you know, formative years, a little bit more of a sense of humanity. The mental health, the extracurricular programming, the emotional learning programming. So yeah, for me it's like it shows up everywhere once you're paying attention a little bit kind of the contradiction of what the state is willing to do, who it's willing to protect, who it chooses to bail out, who it chooses to fund, and who gets a suffer in the face of all of that.

And for me, I think why I really, really, really care about continuing to try to popularize this idea of disaster capitalism and the networks I'm'm part of is because you know I live in a place like Miami where by many accounts were sort of called the most you know the worst city in terms of climate crisis right and like what's sort of the impending doom for us here and how there has been no response whatsoever from the government of state and the elite here, right? They're just essentially moving business as usual and any response that they have is essentially to ensure real estate developers that this is still a good investment, right, even if it's temporary.

So obviously, what's going to impact how I feel about things like disaster capitalism and my family is Puerto Rican and you know, Hurricane Maria wasn't just a devastating hurricane that killed thousands of our people, but it was also sort of, it was a spotlight to all of the things that were undergariting the political climate, at least in Puerto Rico, right? For the world's oldest colony, we're colony in the US, we have no financial autonomy. We were in midst of the worst debt island had ever experienced. Obama had just sort of put together the fiscal board where, you know, none of the Puerto Rican interests are even represented or accounted for, you know, also known as la junta.

And because of all of this, there's a full attack on social services, on schools, of course. And there's already like behind the scenes, there's the negotiations of essentially just handing the island off to people who either might want to start like the cryptocurrency havens there, or just all their corporate dreams, and the tech colonialism and all the things in between. So yeah, I think of course living in Miami, but also being Puerto Rican, it's really brought this idea of disaster capitalism

to the forefront around how serious it is. And to be in my family's homes and sort of here, firsthand stories of what it was like, to be about 11 months without power as they privatized the grid, as a governor of the set's a private type of electrical grid on the island, it definitely really, really impacts how I'm orienting myself towards my work.

But I think to your point, it also has been incredibly affirming and humbling to learn more about all the ways in which people are building those alternatives in the face of ruin. I think that's what's really moving, right? When people are waiting hours in line just to get a bag of ice, when they have no communication with their loved ones, they're unsure who's okay and who's not. They don't know when they're going to be able to get a bottle of water or a meal and that still despite that, they're taking the time to dream and imagine, you know, okay, we don't

want this to just be a playground for the rich and the one percent. So what is it that we want and what do we need to build that? So yeah, being on the island specifically and of course, this is not just having a Puerto Rico, this is happening all over, but just to make it specific. Yeah, seeing all the ways in which people have built neutral aid networks, who are rethinking power, who are rethinking housing, who are re thinking, just collective existence really has been really moving right? I feel completely thinking every aspect and this makes me, it connects it back to like

abolition when we were talking about earlier, where you essentially negate the sort of crumbs of the status quo in the state and actually completely reinvisioned the whole thing. Yeah, thanks so much for sharing that. Puerto Rico is such a telling example of just a lot of the things that we've been talking about. And yeah, I think the book, Naomi Klein's book, The Battle for Paradise, Puerto Rico takes on the disaster capitalists

as like a really, really good introduction to that for folks who want to like get a little bit more information on how disaster capitalism has been playing out in lots of like extremely nefarious and also just weird ways like you mentioned like the tech the tech stuff and then yes so we also did an episode that the response podcast that I mentioned earlier specifically on Puerto Rico and sort of the flip side, like looking at this network of mutual aid centers that stretches pretty much across the entire country. They've just been doing a lot of cool things after Maria, like health fairs, community kitchens, and also like it's all underpinned with this sort of like intent to radicalize folks who may not necessarily be thinking along those lines and yeah there is a lot of really

cool stuff happening in you know the face of all the horrible things that are going on there but yeah again thanks for sharing that your experience and yeah I guess shifting directions again so you you wrote a piece titled, Commodifying Our Lives for the Gram. And I love that title. It reminded me of parts of Jenny O'Dell's book. And I know that you interviewed her as well for your podcast, her book How to Do Nothing. And yeah, particularly what she calls like the attention economy. And I had a chance to interview her as well.

And one of the things that I was really thinking about is sort of like, does something actually happen if you don't document it on social media? Does it count? That's just something that's been going on for me lately as I'm glued to my phone oftentimes, particularly I run the upstream Instagram account, and I post like 10 memes a day,

and it's just kind of like, but I kind of want to unpack the idea more so of like commodification of the self through social media. And yeah, if you can maybe talk about that a little bit and yeah, sort of what sort of implications arise from it. Yeah, totally. I mean, I feel like that piece feels like a million years ago now and for me at that

moment it was really very much so just observing like this starting trend again to our earlier point of corporations wanting to sort of like align themselves with radical rhetoric without much backing, much commitment, or really any real redistribution, any of this stuff. Thinking that moment, I'm talking, I know I referenced team vote a lot and how much their sales had gone up as they sort of totally pivot their editorial coverage to sort of bring on even leftist writers.

And again, I was questioning like, why would they want to do that? And of course, I mean, what I'm suggesting is that it's just profitable. But yeah, there's so much right? I think then reading, then coming across this idea of the attention economy through Jenny was just totally like,

transformed my understanding of social media. I'm someone that was like pretty online and online in the sense of Instagram specifically. And I think what's interesting about that platform is that it's very much so like image-based and it's almost, you know, it's really where like the personal brand unfolds. So for me, I felt really like, I remember reading that book.

I was like into somebody and I was like, whoa. Yeah, definitely like seeing parts of myself reflected in this and how I sort of move to Instagram specifically. And I think one of the most dangerous things, I mean, there's so many, but I think and connected to our earlier plan about sort of black capitalism and what it does for imagination. It's like if we are all just trying to be personal brands or core-on-quote businesses or core-on-quote entrepreneurs, and Jenny talks about this in the book, like sort of how we will sort of bend and fold ourselves to try to move through that.

And I think to be more specific is like, if you are like, I wanna have a personal brand, and I know that that means there's certain things I don't wanna talk about, because I see that it doesn't respond as well on the platform, where there's certain ways in which I want to depict myself, I need to think of different ways to monetize this, what are the ways in which I'm creating content, etc, etc, etc, and this pattern. It's a whole-ass job, number one. It's very problematic for

ourselves to think of ourselves as products that are up for commodification and profit extraction in a marketplace because it's really with Instagram is, social marketplace. So I think it's very damaging psychologically. I mean, I think anybody with a platform, anyone who's like been in this crossroads has affirmed that. I can definitely feel that. I'm like, whoa, there's something particularly alienating shows has affirmed that. I can definitely feel that. I'm like, whoa, there's something particularly alienating

about wanting to be a personal brand. I mean, it sounds wild. Like we're not brands, we're not products. But somehow, because I think people have seen, there really is a lot of very real ways in which you can sort of monetize that reality and, you know, get brands and partnerships and sponsorships and, you know, have a whole platform that's profitable for yourself as well.

But I think people are very enticed to sort of experiment on what's possible. So I think that's the very real impact, like what it does to our body, their souls, to just want to become products, and how we have to sort of mince ourselves to do that. And I think something that Jenny of the offers, which is really, really, really important, especially right now, we're seeing such an overload of information and infographics and snippets of videos and interviews of just all the political crises happening around the world, right? This week, we've been really looking at Colombia and Palestine and all of the violence up, people who are struggling and resisting their facing by the state. And there's such an overload of information,

but at the same time, social media wasn't created to really be this like educational platform, although it in some ways it may be that, but it wasn't created for that. And I think it really shows in the way that people know you have to like make the infographic, you have to make it really short. And this thing Jenny talks about, it's a context collapse, which I do think is very dangerous.

And then I think it makes it very easy for corporate elites who who opted even more easily. So, and in my opinion, just, you know, when very horrific things are happening in the world or in our country, and the way in which the narrative is sort of contained within whatever's happening on social media. But people by masses aren't necessarily actually understanding or maybe making connections as to like, what are the systems of holding this, right? Like I would maybe suggest that even after the uprising and everything that happened last summer, that's still the majority of people don't quite understand abolition and why so many of us are saying it's the only viable option forward, because I don't think you're going to get all of that from an Instagram post or a graphic or a little snippet. So I think there's that, and I mean for me,, I just, I really just have to connect it back to like

the spiritual and emotional impact of this trajectory, this to us. I mean, I've experienced it personally. So I think, yeah, I mean, I don't know, at a gut level, this question really just mostly makes me think of the emotional and psychological impacts of what commodification of self-mean. psychological impacts of what commodification of self-mean and think to an earlier point, it also sort of makes you more susceptible to sort of falling into the traps of the things like black capitalism or accepting offers that are very tempting because it's all part of the game, my magic part of the hustle, and it's kind of like the whole point of having a personal brand like to get the attention for the corporations in a way. So yeah, it's very contradictory. And also I just think of how many hours we spend on that platform that is just, you know,

extracting our data, selling it without really totally our consent, what it means, long term, the sort of surveillance that is prevailing in that platform. If there's so many very concerning questions about how much we share and how much time we spend on these platforms, that I think we all need to reconsider. What is the purpose of that platform of these platforms, or for media, I can probably talk you most of the Instagram in this case. But, and what are the alternatives we need?

I actually am about to probably tomorrow drop an episode with a good comment of mine, Enica, Rosa, and they do a lot of this work around like, algorithmic justice and attention economy and offer a lot of questions that we should all consider as we, yeah, consider to just spend hours on them on there. But yeah, lots of implications and I don't have all the answers, I think I'm trying to figure out on a day by day basis and pay more attention to like my somatic experience even like, okay, my body feels really tight starting to hear an internal dialogue of like comparison or I've noticed I've gotten a lot of ads for certain things that I have no interest in and

now are in my mind, etc. Yeah, just really trying to protect myself in those hot forms and ask them your questions. Yeah, thanks so much for sharing that perspective. And all that being said, I love your Instagram page. But yeah, so I didn't have any more specific questions for you aside from just wondering if you had any like final thoughts or anything you wanted to add that I didn't really get to in any of my questions. I mean, I really appreciate all these conversations so much. I am a Gemini and I feel like it's important to see that because, yeah, we really thrive off like the bouncing conversations all over. So it was really just fun to be all over and think of all these different, I think that we're in our conversations with that.

But yeah, I mean, I think something that's on my mind, a lot of these days, especially as like we're sort of re-entering what I'm quote, back into society, whatever that may mean knowing that that's mostly true of just the US. I'm really just curious and not so almost cautious, like curious and cautious around how do we not forget all of the lessons that we're harvesting from experiencing a year and some of full disaster capitalism? How do we sort of go back not just to business as usual and kind of like dissociating ourselves

from the realities, but I'm really, I'm really longing for folks to kind of like re-enter and have curiosities and excitement around potentially joining organizations or collectives or networks in their neighborhoods. Might be aligned with their politics or might be asking the same questions that they may be asking, you know, be it education, policing, climate, housing justice, labor justice, all of the things, but there's so much work to be done and anything. I really just want to encourage everyone, either listening or everyone that I'm also in community with to, yeah, deepen the commitment because, yeah, the urgency is continuing to just be be activated, even if we're quote unquote returning to normal. You've been listening to an upstream conversation with Nikki Franco, aka Venus Roots.

Upstream Thee Music is by Robert Raymond. Thank you to the events for the intermission music. Upstream is a labor of love. We couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Please consider chipping in a one-time reoccurring donation at UpstreamPodcast.org forward slash support. Thank you. For more from Upstream, visit UpstreamPodcast.org and follow us on Facebook,s, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcast love on. I'm ... ... Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, you