Episode 109: “From Cultural Presence to Cultural Power” with Rashad Robinson

Racial justice leader Rashad Robinson, Bridgit, and Tracy explore dig into entertainment industry’s power structures, name the industry rules we need to break, and wrap up the season discuss the potential for pop culture in making the vision for racial justice a reality. "

Guest: Rashad Robinson, Executive Director of Color of Change

Racial justice leader Rashad Robinson wraps up the season with hosts Bridgit Antoinette Evans and Tracy Van Slyke, exploring the question first asked by Alyssa Rosenberg, can the entertainment industry change? Together, they unpack the power structures that shape entertainment, identify the industry rules we need to break, and connect the dots between the LGBT marriage equality culture change strategy of the last decade to the racial justice culture change movements of now and tomorrow.

Evans and Van Slyke wrap up the first season, highlighting the insights gathered from each episode in the crafting of culture change, and hint at what’s next for WONDERLAND.

RASHAD ROBINSON
Rashad Robinson is the Executive Director of Color Of Change, the nation’s largest online racial justice organization. As a force driven by over one million members, Color Of Change moves decision makers in corporations and government to create a more human and less hostile world for Black people and all people.

Under Rashad’s leadership, Color Of Change has developed winning strategies to change the written and unwritten rules of many fields affecting Black people’s lives: forcing over 100 corporations to stop funding the secretive, right-wing policy shop ALEC; framing net neutrality as a major civil rights issue to win a free and open Internet; ending the network fun of shows inaccurately portraying and dehumanizing Black people, such as COPS and the Glenn Beck show; eliminating voter intimidation tactics from the right-wing playbook; and holding local authorities accountable for their abuses by winning justice for Black people hurt or killed by anti-Black violence. Rashad is committed to advancing the power, freedom and well being of Black workers, students, families, farmers, immigrants and others, wherever their freedom is limited or threatened.

He has appeared in hundreds of news stories, interviews, political discussions, and as an op-end author in media outlets including ABC, CNN, MSNBC, BET, NPR, The Root, The New York Times, the LA Times and The Huffington Post. He was selected as one of EBONY Magazine’s Power 100 honorees, and for the past six years The Root has named Rashad to “The Root 100” list of influential African Americans under 45. In 2015, Fast Company named Color Of Change the 6th Most Innovative Company in the world, and in 2016, the Stanford Social Innovation Review profiled Color Of Change’s strategies for “pursuing the fight for racial justice at Internet speed” in both online and offline venues.

Prior to his work at Color Of Change, Rashad served as Senior Director of Media Programs at GLAAD and worked on racial justice and voting rights at the Right to Vote Campaign and FairVote.

Rashad is the proud recipient of awards from several organizations, including ADCOLOR and Center for Community Change, and serves on the boards of Demos and the Hazen Foundation. He is adjunct faculty at the Center for Public and Nonprofit Leadership at Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy. He lives in New York City. @rashadrobinson ‏@ColorOfChange