Teach the Babies w/ Dr. David J. Johns

ICYMI!Andrea Foggy-Paxton brings a unique perspective to leading change across sectors, drawing from leadership roles in start-up organizations, established organizations, and philanthropic organizations supporting systems transformation. This episode answers the questions: What is civics, and why should it be taught to all students? Andrea shares lessons from her experience as an industry titan and appointed school board member. She also talks about philanthropy and corporations' responsibility for ensuring educational equity.edloc.org@afoggypaxtonBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/teach-the-babies-w-dr-david-j-johns--6173854/support.

I'm from Los Angeles. So when I picked up Dr. Terrell Winder's Shameless: The Making of Black Gay Identities in LA, it read like a love letter to a home I'm watching change—and a map of how young Black gay men build family, selfhood, and joy inside all that change anyway.This week, Dr. Winder—sociologist and urban ethnographer at UC Santa Barbara—pulls up to the classroom to teach us unspoiling: his framework for refusing shame and rejecting the burden of stigma outright, no matter what it costs. We get into the affirming spaces that keep our babies alive and why they're under attack right now; why intersectionality can't keep being told to wait its turn; and what Noah's Arc's first-ever Emmy nomination means in a season when Black and Black gay stories are being pulled off shelves.Because when you take these spaces away, Dr. Winder is clear about what we lose: lives.Go get the book, sit with it, and then go build a room where somebody can put their burden down.About the guestDr. Terrell J. A. Winder is Associate Professor of Sociology at UC Santa Barbara. A Baltimore native, he earned his B.A. in Comparative Ethnic Studies from Columbia and his Ph.D. in Sociology from UCLA (2017). His research spans race and ethnicity, sexuality and sexual health, qualitative methods, and education.Key ideas & theoryUnspoiling — Dr. Winder's framework: a stigma response that centers the stigmatized person rather than the comfort of the stigmatizer; refusing shame instead of managing it.Spoiled identity / stigma — Erving Goffman's foundational concept, and the classic responses of passing and covering that Dr. Winder argues break down for people carrying more than one stigma at once.Intersectional stigma & "intersectional recovery" — holding race, sexuality, and gender together rather than deferring one for later; recovering the full selves of figures history flattened."Visibility is survival" — his argument that ethnography documents threatened histories and everyday Black LGBTQ life.People mentionedErving Goffman — sociologist, Stigma and the "spoiled identity."Dr. Marcus Anthony Hunter — sociologist and chair of African American Studies at UCLA; credited with first posting the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter (August 2012); the BLM movement/network was later co-founded by Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi. Co-author with Dr. Winder of "Space, Place, and Urban Future."Bayard Rustin — Black gay civil rights strategist, chief organizer of the 1963 March on Washington.George Washington Carver — scientist cited as an example of a flattened, partially-told legacy.Patrik-Ian Polk — creator of Noah's Arc.Organizations & spacesBetter Brothers Los Angeles / The Truth Awards. Native Son.Hilltop Coffee + Kitchen (Issa Rae's LA spot) and Bricks & Scones (Larchmont). Media & cultureNoah's ARC — Patrik-Ian Polk's groundbreaking series, the first scripted show centering Black gay men; Noah's ARC: The Movie (the 20th-anniversary reunion) earned a 2026 Emmy nomination for Outstanding Choreography, the franchise's first-ever Television Academy recognition.Pose, Insecure — referenced in conversation and This or That.My Best Friend Rodney — Rodney Chester's interview podcast.Anita Baker & Luther Vandross — the This or That showdown.Further reading — Dr. Winder's scholarshipShameless: The Making of Black Gay Identities in LA (NYU Press, 2026)."Unspoiling Identity: An Intersectional Expansion of Stigma Response Strategies" (Sociology of Race and Ethnicity, 2023)."Visibility Is Survival: The Chocolate Maps of Black Gay Life in Urban Ethnography."Marcus Anthony Hunter & Terrell J. A. Winder, "Space, Place, and Urban Future," in Research Handbook on Intersectionality (ed. Mary Romero, Edward Elgar, 2023)."The Discursive Work of 'Bottom-Shaming'" — 2024 SSSP Outstanding Article co-winner.Connect with Dr. WinderSocial: @BmoreTerrell · Web: terrellwinder.comBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/teach-the-babies-w-dr-david-j-johns--6173854/support.

In this Rewind episode, listen as Dr. David J. Johns discusses voting and our rights under attack.The Voting Rights Act of 1965 is gone. Not weakened. Not under threat. Gone. The legal architecture that turned 7% Black voter registration in Mississippi into 60%—dismantled, decision by decision, by a Supreme Court that was never neutral and was never on our side.But that's not even the whole story. Because while the courts were killing the VRA, the Justice Department was being turned into a weapon. FBI agents raided a Black state senator's office mid-day—Fox News already on the scene—while allies under federal investigation had their evidence destroyed. Ballots from Fulton County are in federal custody. Arizona. Michigan. They are building the architecture of election interference before the midterms. In public. And most people don't even know it's happening.This episode is about all of it. The Proud Boys as a militia. The Roberts Court as an antidemocratic enforcement mechanism. The Southern Strategy, sixty years old and running on steroids. And the organizing tradition—Ella Baker, Bayard Rustin, Hungary's opposition movement—that proves rigged maps can be beaten and stolen futures can be reclaimed.This is the class I didn't want to have to teach. But you need it. Pull up.SHOW NOTESThe death of the Voting Rights Act—Shelby County v. Holder (2013), Brnovich v. DNC (2021), and the April 29, 2026 ruling in Louisiana v. Callais, which Justice Elena Kagan called "all but a dead letter."The pardon of 1,500+ January 6th participants and the DOJ's move to vacate the seditious conspiracy convictions of Proud Boys and Oath Keepers leaders.The FBI raid on Fulton County's election center, the subpoenas targeting Arizona and Michigan 2024 ballots, and what it means for the midterms.The mid-day FBI raid on Virginia State Senator Louise Lucas's office, with Fox News cameras already rolling—and not one charge filed.The two-tier justice system in plain sight: evidence destroyed for allies, prosecutions launched against opponents.Elie Mystal's proposal to add 20 justices to structurally change the Supreme Court's incentive for extremism.How Hungary's opposition built 208 local chapters and 50,000 poll watchers—and won a supermajority against a gerrymandered map.The Afrofuturist tradition of Ella Baker and Bayard Rustin as the organizing inheritance we carry forward.Black Power War Room — blackpowerwarroom.com National Black Justice Coalition — nbjc.org NBJC Equity Week — nbjc.orgBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/teach-the-babies-w-dr-david-j-johns--6173854/support.