And by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. Thank you. Please welcome Sara Van Gelder to this program. She is cofounder and the former editor of yes magazine which is celebrating its 20th birthday this year. More recently scleeted the peoples hub and gathered stories during a 12,000mile journey across the u. S. For her text, the revolution where you live. Thanks for your work, and good to have you on this program. Im so honored to be here. Ive been a fan for years. Thank you very much. Thank you, thank you. Honored to have you here. The timing of your presence couldnt be more propitious given what just happened in texas the other day. I think i want to start there. If ever there were a moment or is a moment where we feel utterly helpless, its when someone walks into a house of worship and kills 25plus people. Were talking about the revolution where you live. Do you have to say about how we navigate ourselves through these another one of these moments . You know, its a really tough one. Yeah. This is a time when people come together where they live, they come together for support. They love on each other. And thats the only way we can get through these kind of personal tragedies. Yeah. The other thing is, theres all this talk about how we cant get good gun control legislation because our countrys too divided. The truth is on some really important matters, were actually not that far apart. For example, 86 of americans believe we should have a prohibition on purchasing guns if youve been convicted of a violent crime. This individual had been convicted of domestic abuse. And actually so many of these mass killers, turns out that they have been part of really horrific domesticlevel violence before they go out and do mss killings. Why is it even on, to your point, things we agree on, we cant get traction . I think people benefit from keeping us divided. I think the nra raises lots of mon, and certain candidates maybe on both sides of the oil spill spectrum. The political spectrum. Certainly on the republican side, raise money with fear mongering. Theyre telling people somebodys going to come after your guns and youre not going to like it. You know, the truth is that theres a lot of common sense in the middle. Its not that that Many Americans want nobody to have a gun. Very few people would say that. Not so many people that say we should have any arms in the world, that we should have you know, missiles to take down airplanes, i dont think anybody would argue we should have that. Someplace in the middle teres common ground. You dont make so much in Campaign Contributions if youre yeah. Im not naive about this, tis think part of what troubles me every time we have this conversation after another rrific shooting is the point youve made that the numbers are abundantly clear. That the overwhelming number of americans want to see something done about guns in america. Uhhuh. And jet because of gerrymandering, because of the nra, because of safe seats, the list goes on and on and on, it seems to me that even in a democracy where the will of the people are supposed to be the final say, on this issue of guns, the numbers are clear, but the will of the people gets thwarted every time. A lot of issues. A recent study showed that we, the people, have little influence on whats nationally. The people who the have the influence, the people with the money, the big corporations that represent them. At the local level, its different. Thats one of the reasons ive been focusing on local for so long. Tell me what you sensed about the discontent of the American People as you took this 12,000mile journey. This was 2015, before the election was really ramping up. I just i just went through one state after another especially in the midwest and the rust belt, appalachia, the south, one place after another where i just felt like people were feeling really left out. There was way more poverty than i expected. I certainly expected to see some, and i appreciate the tour, the poverty tour that you went on and reported on. I certainly expected to see some of that. But i just didnt know how deep and how wide it was and how deeply discouraged so mny people were. You were sensing and feeling the discontent. Did you have any idea that it would play out the way that it did just a year or so senator. You know, i or so later . You know, i didnt. I kept looking at the opinion polls. Opinion polls kept showing things were going to go the her way. On the other hand i could see people werent going to go along with the status quo, too. Right. I think a lot of people would have gone along with bernie sanders. He was also an outsider candidate. I think he was he was inspiring people to say i can make some real change. I think on other hand, donald trump was saying, im going to make real change. Maybe that was more like throwing a bomb in the middle of our country. People were desperate enough to say, okay, i want to see where things land. What if the discontent that you saw, what does it say about the kind of leaders we need in a moment like this . We need visionary leaders who will bring us together instead of divide us. And especially people who will take on the economy in a meaningfulay because theres just too many people hurting too. Many people who have debt through no fault of their own, just because they decided to go to college or had a medical emergency. Theres too many people who cant get a good job that will pay a family wage. School teachers who moonlight as taxi drivers to make ends meet. Too many people hurting. Even people who have a job, theyre so close to insecurity. All it takes is one layoff. That level of security in it takes one person to get a job in a factory and support a family and their kids could go to college. If they got a construction job in the summer, you could go to college and graduate without any debt. That doesnt exist anymore. Weve got to start addressing that fundamental question in our question. Yeah. You think revolution is still possible at the local level . I only think its not only possible, i think its inevitable. I think people are not going to keep putting up with this. Things are changing. You know the economy simply isnt working for too many people. An think the other thing thats changing that we dont talk about as much is the climate. Yeah. People can see the beginnings of it, certainly places like houston and puerto rico, things have already changed in a b way. Theyre not going back to what they were before. Yeah. I think were going to be seeing more of that, too. What is it about the local level that makes it so makes the terrain so fertile for change . Well, i think for one thing, its a place we actually have power. We can still get together, we can still show up at our city council or at our member of Congress Office or state legislature and have an impact. Thats one thing. I think another thing is that we have so many divides in our country and so much of that is because of what were seeing on television or what were seeing in social media. When we actually sit across from each other face to face and see that these other people who we dont know well are interesting, complex people, theyre not these characthat tours that we see caricatures that we see in the media, it makes it haer for other people to treat them as less than. I think were kind of brought into a struggle to figure out how do we work together, how do we get along together, because were going to have to be together. Were going to be neighbors for the long term. I wonder whether or not people actually believe that they have the agency, that they have the power that we suggest or purport that we have. I think some people believe, and some people dont. I think if you spend a lot of time alone, theres an academic george gerbner, who writes about the meanworld syndrome. The longer time you spend watching scary shows on television, the more you believ the world is a hostile and dangerous place. And its not smart to go out and engage. I think a lot of people who watch too many of those kind of programs really do tend to withdraw. Once people come out and they just spend a little bit of time with other people in their community, they have this experience. That was one of the things that was striking on my roadtrip. People would have this experience of joy. You know, just pleasure in being in each others company. Even if theyre doing something as simple as having a big potluck to celebrate local food. Just just something as simple as that. Just it brings out all the joy and pleasure and sense of, oh, maybe we can do something here. Maybe we can make a difference. I think i hear that a celebrate that. Yet, im thinking of all those places across the country where there are people who are too afraid to leave their homes, too afraid to venture out into the neighborhood because of violence, because of, you know, be it police brutality, whatever the case may be. There are so many pockets in this country where people are afraid to meet in the public square, as it were. Thats right. I went to a place in detroit where a couple who has an empty lot right next to their house place where a lot of people were sticking to themselves because they were scared, they planted a garden there. And they started growing vegetables. They started inviting neighbors to come in and grow vegetables with them. Pretty soon people were coming out and getting to know each other. When i was there, there was a person across the street who was about to lose her home because her mother had passed away, and she wasnt able to work the finances. They were organizing a whole neighborhood to try to prevent that evision from happening. Eviction from happening. Those little things. One thing takes you take one step, and you bring people together. You get to know each other face to face. Some of the fear dissipates. And then you do the next thing. Yeah. Im curious as to whether or not you think that the political apparatus that we have in place is equipped to deal with the fear and the frustration that people feel on the ground level. I raise that because we have a system where there are two major parties that cant seem to get along, they cant seem to get anything done. Theres no mpromise. Theyre at each others throat. And yet, that is the system in that that were stuck with for the moment at least. And that is the system in which if something is going to be done, itust be done. I wonder whether or not the system is equipped as structured currently to deal with the fear and frustration and the angst tt everyday they feel. Thats a good question. To some degree, the Political Parties are actually provoking that fear because thats when people write the big checks. Thats when theyre willing to consider policies that may not be so advisable in terms of things like building up the war machine, building up the policing. I would say theres an tunism evoking that an at tunism evoking that. Where i come from in seattle, weve got a 15 minimum wage. People said it couldnt done. Started off with a smaller place, seatac, where the airport is. Its harder to outsource jobs if youre at the airport. Up 15 minimum wage there. Then they did in seattle. Now its a National Call all over the place. Whats your sense of how that referred to the fight for 15, whats your sense of how thats going to catch you . You raised earlier the notion of income inequality. I would add to that economic immobility, poverty certainly. Whats your sense ofhow that fight can be or will be sustained in the coming years, the fight for 15 . I think it depends again, i think starting locally is important. I dont think we can get it done in this atmosphere nationally. It starts in different communities around the country that have a political case. In some cases it may be a strong union movement. In other ps, it may be a thriving economy that is hard for the companies to pick up and leave. Theres different ways you start working on it. And then it can spread from there. It becomes almost inevitable. Yeah. It seems to me not the only one that sees this, that unions are in trouble. Theyve certainly been weakened over the years. Nosurprise there. Did you get to talk to Union Members on your trip . Yeah. The one place i spent time with Union Members was in cincinnati, ohio. And its interest iing there because like parts of the rust belt, theyre fighting losinging battles. Theyre trying to fight in the workplace, and people get laid off, and they move somewhere else. The union there, theyre interested in worker cooptive cooperative. Wire sayi theyre saying were tired of that battle. Why dont workers own their own jobs. I talked to them in chicago. The factory workers used to have highpaid executives running things. Now they say, you know, we figured out how to do that. We actually are saving a lot of money by do that ourselves. We saw things that were improved on the shop floor, they werent interested in our ideas. If it makes sense, we just do it. Theyre able to actually be more competitive because they dont have to pay high ceo salaries and dont pay money to wall street because they own it themselves. Yeah. What did you hear from seniors as you traveled across the country . I think in some way seniors so far have been insulated from some of the worst of the economy because they had the old Pension System that sustains them and because Social Security is still intact. I think theres people who are concerned about theirildren and grandchildren and the future theyll be looking for. Yeah. Did you get a chance to talk to or address any of these issues that we that seem so intractable like homelessness, for example . I ddnt talk directly with folks about homelessness. The three things i was really looking at, one was income inequality. Right. And how do we reinvent the economy so peop have an ownership stake in the economy. The second was the climate crisis. The third was racism. Those were the three things that i was looking at because i think all three are sort of existential issues for our country. Sure. Theyre kind of make or break. I was curious since we were stuck on the National Level if in each of the cases if i could find Good Solutions locally. In each case, i was encouraged by what i found. Yeah. Ill come to racism in a second. I raise the issue of homelessness because it seems one of the things that we dont recognize that poverty and income inequality have so many tentacles that offshoot it. And we tend to talk about it in a vacuum, there are layers and textures to what that looks like. I wonder sometimes whether or not most americans have a real sense of what poverty actually looks like in 2017. Yeah. Good question. In seattle where i live, theres this blooming economy. And huge numbers of people on the street. You cant walk through downtown without running into tent campments and people under bridges. The price of housing is coming out as people compete for homes. The best solution ive seen to that is land trust. Take some of the housing out of the speculative market. Make it a nonprofit. The land trust in burlington, vermont, people who live there, were the folks who didnt lose their homes during the housing crisis. Thats one of the solutions thats promising. And another, the state of utah saying to homeless people, were not going to wait until you get sober were just going to find you a home. Then if youre interested in working to deal with some of these underlying issues or the ptsd from being in violent wartime situations, if youre ready, well work with you on that. Meantime, you need a roof over your head. That makes so much sense to me. Speaking of intractable issues, racism. I dont want to color the question too much, but tell me how you dug into that. As i was in differerent communities, it was what have you figured out to do . Whats your answer . And those vary tremendously by communities. In new york, Small College town, prminantly white with an africanamerican population. The Theater Ensemble takes stories from community, difficult, challenging stories about race. They do Theatrical Productions about them. And then they open a conversation. They think were liberal, but heres a kid that the police were called on for no apparent reason except that he was in a white neighborhood and africanamerican. They bring those conversations in the theater. In greensboro, north carolina, famous for the 1960s, the sitins. Sure. And maybe not so famous, but more immediately for a lot of people, a shooting in 1979. A bunch of klan members and nazis shot on a protest, workers rights protest, killed five people. It was one of those issues where nobody was convicted. Allwhite juries acquitted everybody. It sat there festering until local activists said we need to have a commission. City council said, no, they didnt want anything to do with it, didnt want it to happen. Will local community did anyway the local community did anyway. They brought in local people, local leaders. Brought people in to tesfy, who were willing to testify. They didnt have any subpoena power. They wrote a report and said, this is what really happened. This was not a shootout. One side came armed, the other side didnt. The police had an informant, they knew it would happen, they close to hang back. They put it all out there. When i was there, it was a we can that reporthappened, but it didnt make any difference. Some people were still puzzling about that. Just last august, the Greensboro City Council apologized officially to the victims and their families and cited that truth and Reconciliation Commission report to say we see what happened here, and were sorry. Im glad you said that. Ive often wondered whether we could benefit as a society, certainly local communities benefit more from engaging that trc model. Everybody knows how well it worked in south rica. Here you have all these years of apartheid, and rather than go on a witch hunt to find every criminal who misbehavednd had maimed or tortured or killed during apartheid, they set up a trc, truth and Reconciliation Commission. And it worked wonders the democracy, in the establishment of democracy in south africa. Your example now in greensboro, how well it worked. We talk a lot about civilian review boards when Police Misbehave ross the country. I wonder whether or not you think that that trc model might be more effective in communities like they tried in greensboro. I think so. I dont think its a panacea. It doesnt take care of things by itself. So many of the things i saw were incremental steps. Right. At first its hard to go see, you know, how much difference did it hard to say, you know, how much difference did it all make. You can see the difference when people can no longer make stuff up. You cant create the equivalency for one thing. You create the foundation for the apology. You cate that sense of, okay, we see that something wrong happened, now what . Wheres the apology, wheres the restituti restitution, how do we make it right now . If you take them one step at a time, i think its important. Yeah. Your magazine yes, celebrating the 20th anniversary. The book is the revolution where you live. It seems to me that what you are in search of are things that wo put another way, good news. You and i know from our training that news by definition is an aberration. Maybe good news these days is the aberra. As a journalist, i wonders how you process going in search of this news and whether or not its really news or, god forbid the term alternative news. How do you process the news that youre in search of . The way i think of it is theres a lot things in our society that are fundamentally broken. I believe that people are interested in creating something different. Right. And dr. Roy talked about how theres another world possible on. A quiet day, you can hear her breathing. Thats sort of my north star is what is that other world thats trying to emerge . We cant sit around in our offices, magazine or anywhere else or make that up to be. We can report on what people are choosing to do. How are they voting with their hands, feet, and dollars to create a different kind of world . How are they coming together and doing Something Else thats not racist, thats not perpetuating inequality, thats not destroying our planet . People care deeply about those things, and it affects peoples lives directly. When people care deeply about something thats affected them and their family, what are they doing to create something what have you discovered is the response when people get exposed to the other story . That alternative story . If you watch the news every night, the network news, certainly the local news i dont even watch local news because its so depressing. What have you learned, what have you gathered about how people respond when they hear a different kind of news . Of course they feel more hopeful. If all they hear is bad news, they start believing. People must be pretty awful, degenerate. Right. Theres that. And people have told us a number of times is they say now i realize im not crazy. Im not the only one who cares. Im not the only one whos ready to step up and make a difference. Im not the only one who feels theres something fundamentally wrong with the direction things are going in. When they fl theyre not the only one, it makes it a lot easier to engage because they feel like theyre not going to be the laughingstock, theyre not going to be out by themselves. Theres other people who care about what they care about. Finally, when you get exposed to this fightback in the research you do, you get exposed and see the fightback, you see people trying to hold their own. How does that help you sustain your hope about our society . Well, after a year ago when the Election Results came in, i was just terribly worried and upset for our country. And particularly thinking about the most Vulnerable People because it was so clear from the campaign that certain people were going to be picked on first. And so i actually wrote a column saying, you know, the first thing we need to do where we live is reach out to one another and just say, you know, ive got your back if youve got my back. Ive got your back. Were going to be there for each other. After that, seeing the womens march. It was encouraging. Over four Million People all over the country, alaska, and in los angeles, washington, d. C. , people coming out. They also say i realize i cant outsource my optimism. I actually have to be involved. There isnt anybody in washington, d. C. , whos goi to do it for me. Ill have to do it where i live. Thats inspired us to do this, to help people, to support people making that change where they are and help them do really well. The magazine is called yes, now celebrating 20 years. The new text is called the revolution where you live stories from a 12,000mile journey through a new america, by Sara Van Gelder. Sara, good to have you on the program. Thank you very much. My pleasure. Thats our show for tonight. Thanks for watchg. And as always, keep the faith. For more information on todays show, visit tavis smiley at pbs. Org. Hi, im tavis smiley. Join me next time for conversations with actors Andrew Garfield and Jennifer Jason leigh. Thats next time. Well see you then. And by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. Thank you. Thank you. Be more, pbs. Today on americas test kitchen, becky cooks eggs piperade, dan makes Chocolate Hazelnut spread, jack challenges chris to a tasting of maple syrup, and julia uncovers the secrets to 100 whole wheat pancakes, right here on americas test kitchen. Americas test kitchen is brought to you by dcs. Dcs manufacturers of professionally styled indoor and outdoor kitchen equipment