Notes on Culture, Equity, and a Shared Commitment to Liberation with the Hosts of AirGo
by Tara Ebrahimi
Damon and Daniel always begin their podcast with a simple, yet complex question: “In this time, how is the world treating you and how are you treating the world?” And this sets the thoughtful yet playful tone for the interviews that follow on AirGo--which “showcases the folks reshaping the culture of our city and world for the more equitable and creative.” Who exactly are those folks? Just your Angela Davis’s, your adrienne marie browns, your Nate Marshalls, your Eve Ewings. The conversations snake their way from the nonprofit industrial complex to your choice of animal walk-up noise to #DefundCPD, with some off-the-wall sound effects sprinkled in for levity. AirGo has been on air for 6 years now, with Damon Williams and Daniel Kisslinger chronicling, documenting, and capturing the cultural, creative, and movement work happening across Chicago.
With Damon and Daniel sitting on the other side of interviewer/interviewee relationship, we discussed the intersection of culture and equity in Chicago; their dual roles as both archivists and actors; how they use creativity, art, and culture as a means for change; and some of the powerful, transformative players and groups on the ground.
How Culture and Racial Equity Intersect in Chicago
Damon: Usually the folks who see creativity and imagination as a part of their official practice are the ones who can see the possibilities, see the world differently. Cultural work does not exist solely for the aesthetic, or exist in a vacuum. It’s not just an extracurricular activity, but a way to place yourself in the world and a means to change our current circumstances and realities. All of our institutional realities are part of some movement, everything we take for granted came from a movement that had a cultural practice and creation. You’re either participating in your own movement or somebody else’s.
Daniel: Because of the divestment of public education in Chicago, there’s no space for young people to create and experiment. In an ideal world, students would have access to that space in their schools, but because that has been stripped away, people from across the City have had to come together to create and find that space.
Damon: This was a hypothesis of ours when we started AirGo--this idea that there was a counter education happening in these cultural spaces, maybe after school or on weekends or in the summer. It goes beyond the tradition of the American curriculum, and instead people are learning about themselves and the world and the relationship between the two.
A Tale of Two Voices
Damon: We see documentation and media much more in the role of archivist and subscribe to this notion of dialogue as its own form of literacy that has deeply political and power shaping implications. We’re committed to centering subjective voice and deconstructing this fallacy of the “objective storyteller. Within that framework, we aren’t the center of the story, but we are characters in it who have perspective and legacy.
Daniel: There’s a dichotomy here: the movement work and the documentation of it. It became clear after some time doing the podcast that documentation can and is part of movement work, and we’ve taken that responsibility very seriously. We understand the utility of the show, especially during the pandemic. It’s interesting because objectivity is a fundamental aspect of journalism, and all of the structures that are supposed to enable people to tell their stories operate on this faulty premise of objectivity. Take Ida B. Wells, no one would call her objective in her reporting.
Damon: That false objectivity is a central part of what we document. It’s part of oppression and established power structures that say “this is the neutral voice and these are the facts and this is the one and only reality.” For example, the “objective” voice printed the cover up of the Laquan McDonald shooting. If it wasn’t for counter journalism, that would have gone unchallenged. There are institutional violences happening every day and we see it as part of our work to uncover and push back against them.
Some of the Folks and Spaces at the Forefront of This Work
Kumba Lynx - an urban arts youth development organization, providing performances & productions, film screenings, art making workshops & residencies, youth artist apprenticeships, community cultural events, and praxi sharing, all rooted in an indigenous culture of urban artistry and activism.
IMAN - The Inner-City Muslim Action Network (IMAN), a community organization that fosters health, wellness and healing in the inner-city by organizing for social change, cultivating the arts, and operating a holistic health center.
Yollocalli Arts Reach - an open community center with studio spaces, a computer lab, radio production studio, a large art library, and more, aiming to strengthen students’ creative and cultural capital by engaging them with their own cultural discourses through art making.
GoodKidsMadCity-Englewood - develops young leaders to advocate for resources that will allow them to create sustainable, livable community conditions as well as provide tools to address both mental and physical trauma.
#LetUsBreath Collective - an alliance of artists and activists organizing through a creative lens to imagine a world without prisons and police. The Collective operates the Breathing Room space, a Black-led liberation headquarters for arts, organizing, and healing on Chicago's South Side. [side note: Damon is a founder, and the organization started in response to the Ferguson uprisings.]
And So…
There was a lot more we covered, but--and let’s get meta here for a second--can a documentarian of the documentarians do it full justice? Ergo, be sure to check out AirGo (I’m deeply sorry, I couldn’t resist).
To learn more, visit airgoradio.com.
