This is Busted Pencils, fully-ledded education talk. Here are your hosts, Dr. Tim
Slecker and Dr. Johnny Lupinacci, educated educators talking education.
Yes it is, it's Busted Pencils fully-ledded education talk, educated
educators talking education. Wednesday classes in session, Johnny Lupinacci. How
you doing, my buddy? Doing well, Tim. Doing well. Lots of great conversations going
on. Excited for today. Classes in session for sure. You know, maybe a little bit
of de-schooling or unschooling here, but great guests today and I'm excited to
pick up where we left off and that conversation Tim with, you know, naming the
moment. It's paying attention to the things happening all around us and figuring
out how we, you know, unify and build solidarity around this moment because
boy, democracy, it's not some trouble and you know what? That means we get
together and we like the good fights. So we got a great guest today Tim, let's
jump into it. Yeah, let's jump in. He is the distinguished professor of
education, lifelong activist, author of groundbreaking works like teaching
toward freedom and to teach the journey of a teacher. His ideas of
challenge, conventional wisdom and inspired generations of educators to think
critically, act boldly and never settle for the status quo. Buckle up listeners,
welcome to Busted Pencils. Bill Ayers, Bill, what's happening in our friend? It's
great to see you again. Been a long time. It's been a while. We said it's, you
know, I think the last time was right before COVID, we were at our mutual friend
and colleague, Dr. Kevin Kumashiro's conference in Hawaii. So it is great to have
you back. Bill, jumping right into it, though, we had Kevin on in fact a couple
weeks ago, helping us name this moment. Very particular, just in case anybody
needs a reminder, this moment is President elect Trump. In fact, you know, too,
if you have your own ideas about how to name this moment, we'd love to hear
from you, 608 557 8577. That's the Busted Pencils mailbag 608 557 8577. But yeah,
our guest Bill Ayers, Bill, the moment here, President elect Trump is now almost,
you know, we're like in that realm of 30 some days before he is officially
going to be President Trump. Us in public education and advocates, what are we
supposed to do, Bill? Well, what are we supposed to do? There's so much to do.
The one thing we're not supposed to do is surrender back up or sit down and be quiet.
One of the things that all the noise, all the chaos, all the excitement, all the
appointments, all the gasping and clutching of pearls does is confuse us. And it's
all part of a strategy. So I think we have to remind ourselves that the fight
continues that it's not a new, it's not a completely new day. And if I'm naming
the political moment, I name it a moment of, as a moment of contradiction. That is,
in many ways it feels, and this is what you're alluding to, it feels like the worst of times.
What could be worse? You know, an, an avowed fascist in the White House,
white supremacists on the rise and, and feeling overconfident, way too happy, racialized,
militarized police forces, continuing their violence unchecked, women's bodily integrity under
sustained attack, a genocide of war in Gaza, fully funded and supported by U.S. taxpayers,
and so on. So it feels like the worst of times. But on another level and another way of looking
at it, these times are not the worst of times. We have incredible resistance to the war, for
example, in Gaza, to war in general. We have the Black Lives Matter movement. We have
the greatest outpouring against racial violence in history in 2002. We have women refusing to
return to the Middle Ages or a medieval definition of their rights. And I think all of these things
make me think that we have a lot of possibilities, a lot of things we can do and we must do.
And so while it seems like sometimes the worst of times, other times it feels like
pretty good times. So I think Charles Dickens would understand our predicament perfectly.
It's the winter of despair and the summer of hope. And I think that we have to see it that way
because one thing that is, as I said in the beginning, is not an alternative, is to sit down,
shut up and kind of lick our wounds and, and deal with our grief individually. We can't do that.
So what should we do? We should study more. We should get into groups. We should
organize study groups and action groups. We should think hard about more vulnerable people
than ourselves and what we intend to do in support. What we intend to do in solidarity,
if people are moved on in a massive way. I think these are the things we need to do. We must do
what it can do. Johnny Lupinacci jumping there. Well, so much Bill offers right there and I'm
in, I'm still, you know, writing it down and I'm, and I'm inspired by that statement, the winter
of despair and the summer of hope, you know, reminding us too that we are having this conversation
amidst the largest social uprising of all of our lifetimes. And we've been around for a minute
here. We've seen some social uprising. So understanding the energy and the support coming from
primarily also youths and activists around this country and around the world, you know, to be
better citizens, to be better stewards of the planet. And that in mass, we care deeply about social
justice and environmental sustainability. So I love that statement. I'm going to say it again.
It's, you know, naming this moment as a moment of contradiction. Bill heirs with us today saying
it's the winter of despair and the summer of hope, you know, and so Bill, can you expand on that
a little bit for our listeners? Because I'm inspired. Well, I'll tell you, I think that, that, you know,
I'm often accused of being an optimist, which is an unfair criticism. I am not an optimist.
My mother was an optimist. Karl Marx was an optimist. I actually don't know what's coming. And
because I don't know, I choose the politics of hope. I've been accused of being a romantic, an
idealist and a utopian. And I remember a dinner we had a couple of decades ago with the great
Uruguayan revolutionary and Eduardo Galeano. And we were talking about people calling us romantic
and idealists and utopians. And he made the funniest statement. He said, you know, it's true.
Somebody said to me, what good is utopia? And yes, I walk two steps towards utopia. Utopia walks
two steps away. I take ten steps towards utopia. Utopia takes ten steps away. So what good is
utopia? And his answer, it's good for walking. And that's how that's very important to me is that
I am a hopeful person precisely because the day before Rosa Parks sat in on that bus, no commentator
or talking head thought that the modern civil rights movement was right around the corner.
The day after everybody said it was inevitable. So I choose to say because I don't know,
I'm willing to try to mobilize, organize, agitate and move in the direction of my dreams
because there's no other place to go. I refuse to cave in in despair or
weakness to a rising fascist reality. There's one other thing I would say, Johnny, and that is that
it should, if you say, if you're completely surprised by the Trump election or completely
surprised by Trump one, then you don't know what country we live in because this is a country
that is deeply, deeply inflected with genocide, with white supremacy. In fact, I wrote this,
I just wrote this book called, When Freedom is the Question, Abolition is the Answer.
And one of the, one of the people keep asking me to define freedom. And I don't want to define it
because I think it's a layered, complex dynamic term that gets defined in action. But I will say this,
that freedom for the conqueror is always murder and mayhem for the conquered. And that's the
fundamental American contradiction. On the one hand, we aspire to freedom. On the other hand,
freedom for the colonists was also the freedom to own human beings, the freedom to support the
Atlantic slave trade, the freedom to expand westward and destroy entire peoples. So that's the freedom
we do not want to embrace. We want to come to a different understanding. And within that American
contradiction, we want to see freedom as an aspiration for all human beings to a more just, a more
joyful, a more peaceful, and a more balanced world. That's what I'm working for.
Thank you, Bill Aresman. We love having you on busted pencils. The idea truly naming this
a moment of contradiction. But the politics of hope, you made me think, Bill, and I just
get kind of put my little geek hat on here. Well, this sounds to me like you call it Utopia,
but I'm a Star Trek guy. I'm a Trekkie. And I think of Gene Roddenberry and kind of that vision
there. And it sounds similar in that, you know, that our vision shifts away from acquisition
and conquer to the lifting of all life, life, truly creation. And so here we are in this moment.
And I think about this too. And it always puzzles me the attack on diversity, equity, and inclusion.
And trying to help people understand, it's like, what is it about? Is it the diversity?
Is it the equity? Because maybe we start with inclusion. What is it about being included
that makes you fearful? Because to me, inclusion is hopeful. This idea, is it partially,
potentially, are, when I say are the left progressive, wherever you want to define,
our vision of inclusion, we haven't been very good of helping people understand that it is
an invitation to everybody and that our definition of inclusion, some people are feeling
exclusionary in that sense. I'm just wondering if part of our problem is that our,
we're not great at communicating what we mean by inclusion, diversity, and equity.
Well, I appreciate your pointing to the fact that maybe it's our fault or the fault of those
who support that kind of effort. Because I think we have to be more self-critical. It's easy
to be critical of the, you know, right wing Republican caucus, the freedom caucus,
in the Congress, much harder to be self-aware and critical of your own shortcoming. So,
I appreciate that. I think we have to be clear that when we don't win certain arguments,
shame on us, we should go back to the drawing boards and get smarter and get sharper and mobilize
more people. I think that, I think that on the, you know, this people find this ridiculous. But
from, to me, on the 15 most important issues to me, I'm in the majority in this country. I'm not
some marginal minority that has to kind of, you know, hide my head or, or get into my bunker
or feel defensive. The problem is we're not always good at communicating, we're not always good at
arguing. However, having said that, I think DEI suffers from a couple of problems. One is that
when it becomes institutionalized as DEI, that is when it gets reversed from, that is reduced from
diversity, equity, inclusion, to a slogan, DEI. And it gets endorsed by the National Football
League. And everyone has a DEI officer. I become suspicious because it's deeper than that.
What we want, what we want to argue for is something that I agree with you that majorities of people
should embrace, can embrace, will embrace. If we are clear about it, if we can bring it operationally
into the world in a way that makes sense. And so to me, I want to argue, again and again,
that institution is in a free society, even a society that has mere aspirations toward freedom.
The path is distinct. And it values specifically, you know, these are values for specifically
free people. Initiative encourage should be applauded. Imagination and creativity should be
nourished, non-conformity and non-compliance respected, ingenuity and enterprise nurtured,
dissent and disagreement encouraged, and diversity and dissimilarity celebrated. These are hallmarks
of the free people. So to the extent that this has been made into some kind of a boogie man
by the fear mongers and the people who are frightened about the future. And I understand that.
I think we live in a wobbly, complicated, crisis-driven society. And people are fearful.
Our job, it seems to me, the job of educators, of organizers, of progressive people, is of free
thinkers is to become very clear that the world we have in mind is not one that will lock people out,
but is one or lock people out, but is a society that will embrace us all and allow for more freedom,
more peace, more joy, more justice. See, now, and that's it. That's what I remember, Bill.
I don't know if you're all the way back. Our first introduction actually was when I was with the
Penn State System back in think 2009, you came to speak on our campus. And, you know, people
are like, wait, Bill, there's this coming to what in the world? Are you crazy? And in fact, Bill,
you did a masterful lesson with, again, people who came to that talk to argue with you.
I remember this. There was three guys in the back all dressed out in camouflage, you know,
hunters from the woods of Pennsylvania. And there you are at the end of the talk,
having a conversation with them. And them saying, boy, this Bill Ayers guy, I mean, we agree with
the things that you're saying. And I think it's because of just the way you just said that,
Bill, is that it's not exclusionary. I do believe in freedom the way you guys, you duck hunters
believe in freedom. And in fact, you're a part of the conversation that I'm asking and inviting
you into. And I think maybe that is this, this moment is also for us to redefine and reimagine
how we re-enter this conversation now in this moment because I think what we offer in our vision
of diversity, equity and inclusion is empowering, is exciting, is innovative. And as you point out,
a majority of people want to take part in this celebration. And here we have this moment now to
go, you know what? Okay, let's take this time now instead of digging our heels potentially
in is going, how do we then come forward in this moment to invite those people that feel excluded?
How do we help them understand that this is a message of hope and that they're also included?
I had a little ramble there. Sorry, but Bill, I had to remember. I was just thinking of that
conversation when you were at Penn State with me. No, it was great. And I, this has happened to me
many times, speaking of Georgia State, a group showed up with the American Patriot posters on
their Hells Angels jackets. And I ended up having a really good conversation with them. And among
the things we agreed on is that they liked it that they had a highway that they could ride their
motorcycles on. And I called it a socialist road. But I think it's what you're saying that's
really important is that, you know, I think, I think Trumpism offers more than an outlet for
economic frustration. It's an emotional narrative. And it addresses the existential fears that
people have that we're living in a dying empire on a dying planet. And that narrative is
muddled ever changing. You know, it's got scapegoats, conspiracies, madness built into it. And now
even Elon Musk is in it. You know, it's kind of, it's kind of, there's endless jokes. But it
recognizes the dark horizon that we're rapidly approaching. And the Democrats primary responses
to say, look, let's talk about that later. For now, we should hold back the Trump tide. Not good
enough. We have to do better than that. We have to say no. We have also a vision. And it's a vision
of people living in harmony with one another, with nature, with the planet. And people living without
the economic anxiety that's driving us all crazy. So here we are spending billions on war and
militarization of the police. And here we are without health care with that, with millions of
people unhoused. That's an atrocity. And people feel the fear. They feel the anxiety. We need to
address that in a real way. Not in some kind of slick, you know, we can be just like the Republicans
way. And I think that Democrats have dropped the ball again and again. And when they do drop the
ball, instead of doing a deep, deep inward look, they tend to say, well, it's the fault of black men
or the fault of Arab voters or the fault of young people not turning out. It's not anybody's fault
except the political class themselves for kind of not putting forward a vision that speaks both
emotionally and practically to the real needs people have for meaning, for sensibility, for safety,
and for purpose in life. Johnny Lupinati so much, right? Oh, yeah, I love it. I love it. And Bill,
you know, it's in harmony and it resonates with some things I learned from my teacher,
one of my teachers, Grace Lee Boggs, Rest in Power. I know Bill would come to Detroit and have
conversations with Grace and lots of teachings with Detroit summer and Alan media conference and
Detroit being a little bit of a canary in the coal mine for activists for this moment and
inspiring us to be creative and to, you know, and act the politics of direct action and creatively
with hope and joy to really make change. So Bill, as, you know, you're, you're sparking that,
that fire for me again, you know, it's always right there burning as a Detroiter. But I'm excited
as an educator bill to be in conversations you today and ask you to, like, where are you getting
some of that hope, joy and creative resistance from, you know, like, what kind of music or what kind
of stuff you have to share or things that, you know, are inspiring you to keep walking. Like,
how you said that and that conversation you had with Goliano, right? It's a good, good way to keep
walking. So how do, what are some of the things that are pushing you and inspiring you to keep
walking, Bell? Well, there's so many people in Chicago who are my, um, who are my chosen family.
I mean, my, my biological family is, is a joy to me. My kids, my, my daughters-in-law, my grandchildren.
But my chosen family includes some young activists who are not giving up, who are pointing
the way. I'm so glad you invoked our friend, uh, Grace Lee Boggs and Jimmy Boggs. Uh, they were
always an inspiration. And one of the things about Detroit, Grace had two slogans that drove people
crazy near the end. One was Detroit is all of us. And that's true, you know, the idea that somehow
you can live in some gated community in Detroit as somebody else's problem. Detroit is all of us.
And she also said Detroit is the future. And what she meant by that is we can find a way, uh, to
evolve, to, um, organize, to create a revolution in values in order to have a revolution in fact.
And Grace always pointed in that direction. For me, I get a lot of strength from the million
experiments that I see going on all over the country. I don't see one great organization or one great
movement that that is defining everything. But if you look closely, Detroit's a great example,
Chicago's a great example. We have, we have projects and possibilities in every corner of Chicago.
And the young activist driving those projects, give me enormous hope. The other thing that gives me
hope, Johnny, I look historically, point you to two things. Let's imagine the four of us are having
this conversation in 1845. And we're abolitionists. And we recognize that we're a tiny minority.
We stand as abolitionists against the Constitution, the founders, the law, our parents,
the Bible, our preacher, our neighbors, holy cow. And yet we're abolitionists. And we also recognize
this slavery is embedded in the entire country. The whole economy flows from slavery. So it's not
just the south. It's every bank. It's every shipping company. It's everything depends on slavery.
But dammit, we're against it and we're going to organize. And so we organize and we knock doors and
we put out leaflets and newspapers of propaganda. We support those who are the working, the African
workers who are escaping from slavery. We support them physically, emotionally. And we try to get
certain people elected. But it's 1845. It doesn't seem possible. We're a teeny tiny minority.
And in 15 years, it will be done, holy cow. Who could have thought that? And yet, they didn't give
up and they didn't bury their heads. They kept pushing toward a world that could be, but was not
yet. I look at the abolition of the death penalty in Illinois. 20 years ago this month, we abolished
the death penalty. How did we do it? Well, the guys themselves, the people on death row began a
study group that led to the death row 10, which led to the mothers of the death row 10, which led
to a social movement. And we never backed up. But if you had told me 30 years ago that Illinois
would lead the nation in abolishing slavery, I would have said, you're nuts. But because it happened,
I know other things can happen. I think we can abolish in Illinois death by incarceration,
which we do still have. We don't have death by execution, but death by incarcerated. I think we
can move toward a vision of a world in balance in which the capitalist climate collapse, which is
upon us, can be stopped. And it can be stopped because it's within our power and our hands to stop
it. But we have to unite arm in arm, heart to heart to the barricades, and we have to be smart
about it. So I'm encouraging people right at this moment, get in small groups, study groups,
action groups, find the people you trust politically, be in conversation, and then reach out to a
neighbor, talk to strangers. That's the essence of being a teacher. That's the essence of being
an organizer for democracy. And that's what we do. All the time on Busted Pencils Bill,
thanks for bringing us back to that. Our neighbors reaching out to our neighbors. Man,
that reminds me. Now, for our moment of sin.
History can untie our minds, our bodies, our disposition to move to engage life rather than
contemplating it as an outsider. It can do this by widening our view to include the silent voices
of the past so that we look behind the silence of the present.
Big thanks to our guest, Bill Ares. Love having him on classes in session. Make sure you're around
Friday. Yeah, we've got that drop. And then Saturday, one hour drop, three o'clock across all
the civic media connections. And man, everybody, keep blasting pencils.