Dr. Melissa Harris-Perry: I'm Melissa Harris-Perry, and this is The Takeaway. Thanks for being with us. We're continuing our Producer Appreciation Weeks as we head toward our final episode this Friday, and today is a conversation with our Digital Producer, Zachary Bynum.

Now, Zach is part of what I like to think of as the Dirty South contingent of The Takeaway. Me, I'm down here in North Carolina, and Zach is based in Atlanta.

Hey there, Zach B.

Zachary Bynum: Hello to you and the entire Takeaway universe, Melissa.

Dr. Melissa Harris-Perry: I'm not sure that we're a whole universe, but let's do it. Now, Zach, we're going to get to some of your on-air production in just a moment, but can you start by letting folks know about the digital side of your role?

Zachary Bynum: Yes, of course, Melissa. Every weekday, I send out our daily rundown to all of our partner stations across the country, publish our web and podcasts, and make some lovely social media content based off of you and our incredible team's work, which has given us so many opportunities to keep the conversation going online.

Dr. Melissa Harris-Perry: While you were doing all that work, you always had your eye on stories for broadcast, especially those that were centered in Atlanta.

Zachary Bynum: Absolutely, and I'm really proud of the work we have done this year to amplify the ongoing story of community resistance to Cop City. Let's take a listen.

Dr. Melissa Harris-Perry: The proposed site for Cop City is in unincorporated DeKalb County, located in a lower-income, predominantly Black area, and not represented on Atlanta's City Council. A local firm conducted a survey of residents near the proposed site and found 98% opposed the project. Activists have not been content to simply send an email or call a public comment line. Resistance to Cop City has been organized and enduring, and part of that resistance is focused on the land itself.

News Anchor: Developing now, fighting back: a battle over unused land is causing a rift between Atlanta Police and activists and neither side seems to be backing down at least anytime soon.

Resident 1: We're coming to document what's happening in this public park. This public park is still accessible to the public. [crosstalk] The police have warned us what they would do [crosstalk]--

Officer 1: Back off. [crosstalk] Ma'am, you're not going to [crosstalk] [unintelligible 00:02:17], ma'am.

Sean: My name is Sean, and I am a participant in the movement to Defend the Atlanta Forest. The risks are necessary because we want to have a future that we can live in. The ends justify themselves, really. I personally have a child on the way. I want them to see this forest that is a part of our neighborhood and where some of the best days of my life have been.

Zachary Bynum: Just a day after we first aired that segment, Cop City grabbed more national headlines when Manuel Terán aka Tortuguita was shot and killed by police during a raid on the South River Forest.

Belkis Terán: My child, Manuel Esteban Paez Terán, was killed here in Atlanta on the 18th of January 2023.

Dr. Melissa Harris-Perry: You're listening here to Belkis Terán, the mother of Manuel Esteban Paez Terán, a young, Indigenous, Venezuelan activist who was known by friends and fellow activists as Tortuguita. In January, they were killed by police during a law enforcement raid of the peaceful encampment of Forest Defenders.

Belkis Terán: Manuel loved the forest, gave them peace. They meditate there. The forest connect them with God.

Zachary Bynum: Melissa, let me put this in context. This is the first documented state killing of an environmental activist in the US, and today the movement to Stop Cop City continues.

Dr. Melissa Harris-Perry: Because you live there in Atlanta, you were really able to be on the ground for us to bring us this story.

Zachary Bynum: That's right, Melissa. In March, I reported on the Week of Action against Cop City, and I got the chance to talk to many members of the communities who were there.

Okay, so what brings you all out here today?

Resident 2: Really, number one, I want to oppose Cop City without risking my life, so I thought that this would be a good way to do so. I just don't believe in the current policing system that we have. I think there's no saving it because the institution in and of itself, no matter how much training we give the people, if we don't change the actual institution and what it was built upon, it will never be fixed. I also don't believe in deforestation, especially for something as frivolous as this.

Dr. Melissa Harris-Perry: The festival was a symbolic reclamation of this land for a peaceful public purpose meant to be a stark contrast to the proposed Cop City. Here's what two residents of Atlanta told The Takeaway.

Resident 3: To be clear, there's plenty of additions to people still living and still on these lands, but that's what it's founded on, in slavery. There's just no way around it. When we talk about land, race, and power, this is a continuation of all of that, of that dark history and legacy of slavery, of Southern colonialism.

Resident 4: I'm 27. I'm from Marietta, Georgia. I'm an artist. We feel like that's a form of slavery. They overuse their power and that's what's going on.

Zachary Bynum: Now, what that concertgoer said there echoes a number of concerns we've explored here on the show, Melissa. The site where Cop City is planned to be built is on stolen Muskogee land, the site of the former Key Plantation, and it's at the Old Atlanta Prison Farm whose conditions were described as brutal and slave-like and has for years been the site of a police training center.

Resident 5: I live in a neighborhood that was cut out of the forest, and I have been aware of the police shooting range for many years that currently exists in the forest and was really disturbed by it. Especially under COVID lockdown, I began to realize that the police were practicing at their range at all hours and that the kids in my neighborhood who were home from school, the schools were closed, were being constantly exposed to those gunshots.

In my neighborhood, I can smell the waste treatment plant that's been polluting into Intrenchment Creek for many, many years. I knew about that. I didn't realize the detrimental harm that was having on the creek and on the South River and on the forest, and that it was posing health risks for me and my neighbors because the river has really high levels of E. coli. People have this living memory in the neighborhoods of the violence of that facility and are constantly exposed to ongoing environmental pollution, whether that's police violence pollution, or from the waste treatment plant, or the lead runoff.

Zachary Bynum: Melissa, 42 people associated with protest organizing have been charged with domestic terrorism. The precise nature of the charges varies a lot across these folks, and some people do seem to have been involved with damaging property as part of their protest actions. Now to be clear, domestic terrorism is a very serious charge that can carry either a life sentence or death. That's why so many civil rights and free speech organizations have publicly condemned these charges as a massive overreach on the part of the state of Georgia.

We really wanted to understand the implications of these charges, so I reached out to Lauren Regan, Executive Director of the Civil Liberties Defense Center, about it. She represents some of the protestors charged with domestic terrorism.

Lauren Regan: Back in 2019, the Georgia legislature passed this domestic terrorism law in the form that we are looking at today. The legislators at that time basically said that the reason that they needed to add this law to their arsenal of criminal statutes was because of acts like the Boston Marathon Bombing, and the Charleston Massacre of nine Black AME Church members, and the Orlando nightclub shooting. By looking at those events, those were massive human casualties and overwhelmingly, they were racist and homophobic motivated crimes.

Fast forward to about two months ago now, there were a group of Forest Defenders in Atlanta, and this conglomeration of state and local law enforcement agencies raided the forest and arrested these land defenders, some of whom were literally laying in hammocks asleep when this raid occurred. The other thing that really struck me when we became involved in these cases is this was a Republican law proposal that has not been used-- This will be the first time that this statute is being used to prosecute people in the state of Georgia. It is not prosecuting racists or homophobic people who are killing human beings, but instead is prosecuting Left-leaning activists who are defending public land from what is basically a corporate takeover.

Dr. Melissa Harris-Perry: Now, Zach, the Stop Cop City movement, it's also deeply concerned about the environmental justice implications of this development, isn't it?

Zachary Bynum: That's right. The South River Forest is one of the largest urban forests in the country and its tree canopy is a major buffer to the effects of climate change, like the urban heat island effect and severe flooding. I also talked to Mariah Parker, a former state elected official and current organizer for Raise Up the South. Here's what she told me, Melissa.

Mariah Parker: That is really what brings me here, seeing Cop City is such a critical juncture for the movement for criminal justice reform, prison and police abolition, and just investing in true safety in our community. It all starts and stops for the state of Georgia, for Athens, for Atlanta, and for the broader South here with the destruction of this forest.

Dr. Melissa Harris-Perry: Mariah Parker describes this movement as a critical juncture for criminal justice reform, police and prison abolition, and truly investing in safe communities. What do you think is the takeaway from all of that?

Zachary Bynum: Well, Melissa, last year you introduced us to the idea of becoming students of abolition. I want to come back to the same question you asked Matt, a member of the Atlanta Community Press Collective.

Dr. Melissa Harris-Perry: I'm wondering what the message out of the continuing resistance to Cop City and then the pushback against that by city officials and by policing; what are the messages to students of abolition to the contemporary struggles against these kinds of developments and investments in policing, what are people supposedly learning from this moment?

Matt Scott: Yes, so this, I would say, is a perfect example of an unstoppable force meeting an immovable object. Every time that the state pushes back, protesters come out harder. The focus really for the last month and a half has been these so-called peaceful protests. Of course, they have always been disrupted or broken up by police, as we've seen with the student protests that are happening at college campuses in the occupations at Emory and Georgia Tech. While they say they want peaceful protests, what they really want is for their power not to be challenged.

Dr. Melissa Harris-Perry: We're listening back to some of the segments Zach helped produce while here on the show. For this one, he headed out to Cali.

Zachary Bynum: Yes, your boy hopped on that commercial jet in coach class and spent seven hours with my knees and my nose all to find out what had gone down with young voters in the 2022 midterm elections by attending the fifth annual Teen Vogue Summit. We were doing it for the culture, y'all.

Hey, you all. I'm here out at West Hollywood at Goya Studios at the Teen Vogue Summit. I just walked up, I was greeted by Alison, this wonderful Condé Nast staffer who's helping me get through the day. To my right here, there's some giant white ropes that you can walk through to the front booth where they'll ticket you. Then on the other side, there's the huge iconic Teen Vogue sign. Oh my God, y'all. I need to get a picture.

Versha Sharma: A lot of mainstream media, your regular cable news pundits, seem surprised by the results. We were not surprised at Teen Vogue.

Dr. Melissa Harris-Perry: This is Versha Sharma, Editor-in-Chief at Teen Vogue.

Versha Sharma: We're done and we're tired of the old narratives that young people don't vote, and young people don't care about the issues. It's untrue. Abortion, been a huge issue motivating young people and women, especially, to the polls. Climate change legislation, student debt relief. All of these issues that the Biden administration actually took action on in the last six months worked out for them.

Dr. Melissa Harris-Perry: It's something Teen Vogue's editor-in-chief noted, even as she excitedly announced her own pregnancy.

Versha Sharma: I am pregnant myself. What is most important to me about that message is making sure that people understand that this is my choice and that this is a choice that I believe everybody deserves. I think the fact that in all five states that had abortion access on the ballot, all five states' voters voted to protect access and not restrict rights. There was a clean sweep. It speaks very highly to how much people value access and choice.

Dr. Melissa Harris-Perry: The theme of reproductive justice was echoed by Alok Vaid-Menon, nonbinary writer and performing artist. Zach caught up with Alok during the summit.

Alok Vaid-Menon: I've been thinking about this in light of the recent midterm elections where a lot of people are saying that abortion being on the ballot box made voters mobilize and show up. I think another piece of it that's often missing is I think it's also LGBTQ rights being on the chopping block, that people are slowly starting to wake up to realize that bodily autonomy is under attack.

A popular refrain that we've seen in the reproductive justice movement is the idea that cis men shouldn't be legislating on experiences that are not their own, and especially the experiences of women. We have to do that due diligence and also reckon with the fact that these are not trans legislatures, trans politicians that are passing these legislations regulating trans bodies and lives. We have to do the due diligence to actually be like cis people also can determine the self-expression and the ways in which trans people own our own bodies.

I think another commonality is that we recognize that what people do with their own body, the decisions that they make around their own health is up to them, and that morality can't be the parameters, the criteria that we use to juristic how people relate to their own bodies. Right now, we see, both when it comes to criminalizing abortion and criminalizing trans healthcare, discourses of morality that translate into legislation and that should not be a space that we allow in this country.

I do believe that young people are really fed up with the manufacturing of false issues, like trans participation in sports, instead of addressing the real issues, like climate apocalypse, housing evictions, economic inequality and instability, college tuition. I think young people are jaded and disillusioned by a political system that continues to allocate billions, if not trillions, of dollars to perpetual war and militarism rather than actually investing in mental health infrastructure and housing infrastructure and building a more environmentally conscious and sustainable world. I think that that's reflected not just in voting patterns, but in culture.

I think this is where it's also important as an artist to say, we can take the vibe check, we can take the pulse of a country from an election, but that only captures part of it. Actually, look at the art that's being produced by a generation.

Zachary Bynum: Melissa, while I was there, I also got to interview model, actress, and founder of Gurls Talk, Adwoa Aboah. She spoke with me about her career, her mental health journey, and how you can catch her this summer on Netflix's final season of Top Boy.

Adwoa Aboah: Hi, my name's Adwoa Aboah. I am the Founder of Gurls Talk. Model-- I should probably start saying actor, but [chuckles] I'm not there yet but trying to be an actor. Yes, but most importantly, the founder of Gurls Talk. I just finished the last season of Top Boy, which was like, oh my God, talk of life full circles there. I'm obsessed with full circles at the moment.

When we finished, when we wrapped Top Boy, I was talking to one of the producers. I think he'd been doing it for so long and it's an end of a chapter for him. I was just like, "Let me just spill my guts to this man. I'm sure he just wants to go home, it's the end of the day, but let me just tell him what this all means to me." It's like, when Top Boy first came out, I was living at home, just gotten out of treatment, trying to get my life back together, navigating sobriety and watching this TV show, this Black British TV show, and just enamored by the sheer talent and beauty and the representation.

Seeing how much the industry has changed and being a part of that change, it feels like a win every day when I flip through the pages and I see a girl that looks like myself, or I see someone who isn't the most stereotypical model or the most stereotypical idea of beauty. It all feels like a great move in the right direction. It's very sad. There's been a few articles, recent, about how it feels like we're going backwards in many ways, I think, in terms of inclusivity. That feels quite terrifying.

Dr. Melissa Harris-Perry: So fun listening back to that West Coast journey. Now, Zach, take us out of here.

Zachary Bynum: You got it. Don't go anywhere, y'all. We'll be back with more on The Takeaway right after the break.

Dr. Melissa Harry-Perry: Welcome back. I'm Melissa Harris-Perry, and you're listening to The Takeaway. We're continuing our Producer Appreciation Weeks, and today we're with our digital producer, Zachary Bynum. We're revisiting some of the work he's produced here on The Takeaway.

Now, Zach, this story is centered not far from where I live in North Carolina.

Zachary Bynum: That's right. Back on December 3rd, someone carried out a shooting attack against two power substations in Moore County, North Carolina. As a result, residents were without power for nearly five days. This all happened about three weeks after a gunman entered Club Q in Colorado Springs. He killed five people and injured more than 20 others. It came during a time of protest against drag shows happening across the country and a slate of state legislative efforts to ban drag shows.

Lewis Raven Wallace: There have been over 120 attacks on drag events in 2022 alone in the United States. North Carolina and Texas have been top areas that have been targeted. There's currently an unsolved string of attacks on the power grid in the Pacific Northwest. At least two of those attacks bear similarities to what happened in North Carolina on Saturday.

Dr. Melissa Harris-Perry: That's Lewis Raven Wallace, an independent journalist based in North Carolina, speaking at the Moore County Call to Action National Press Conference last Thursday. The drag show's headliner, Naomi Dix, also spoke at the same press conference. She had ended her set early that night out of concern for everyone's safety. She joins me now. Naomi Dix is a drag artist in Durham, North Carolina.

Naomi, welcome to the show.

Naomi Dix: Thank you for having me.

Dr. Melissa Harris-Perry: Naomi, tell me about what you were experiencing in the run-up to the performance.

Naomi Dix: About three weeks prior to the performances when the marketing and promotion went out for the show itself, my face was front and center for the event and as a result, we had a lot of pushback from local community within Moore County, specifically Right-wing conservatives, who found that it was inappropriate that myself and my cast and also Sunrise Theater, which was the venue that the event was being held in, were coming to the area to entertain the community.

Shortly after that promotion, a lot of threats, specifically towards myself and Sunrise Theater, started through social media, through DMs, specifically through people who follow Emily Grace Rainey, death threats came in, sexual attacks through DMs came in towards me. There was a lot of pushback towards Sunrise Theater to ultimately cancel the event, but mainly their first tactic was to have the event change its age restriction from being an all-ages show and family-oriented show to being 18-plus. Once that was successfully done, it then turned into them trying to get the show canceled altogether.

Dr. Melissa Harris-Perry: Zach, it's been like six months since that incident. Have there been any arrests?

Zachary Bynum: No, Melissa. As of early May, there have not been any arrests despite a reward offered by the FBI, but there are ongoing investigations, and North Carolina lawmakers introduced a bill creating harsher penalties for anyone found guilty of damaging a power station. I think for me, the most pressing, lingering questions are about how this attack might be connected to rising drag phobia. That's what your conversation with drag performer Naomi Dix and GLAAD CEO, Sarah Kate Ellis, was all about.

Sarah Kate Ellis: If you think about this, drag shows have been in existence since Shakespearean time. Drag shows represent not only fun and happiness and excitement, but they are political too because they are-- It is when we take gender and turn it on its head. I think that that is very frightening to folks in these extremist groups and these white supremacists. They've really focused in on drag events, and these drag events also have always been a place to gather family, friends.

I think that now they're coming and they're using all of these grotesque terms of groomer and saying that we're threatening children. Meanwhile, they're showing up with these machine guns, literally, and firebombing these events. I think that it's been a political tactic that has been working for them in terms of galvanizing their small minority. This is a minority of people, but they're organized and they're deadly. Just in Florida, when Governor DeSantis was pushing forward his Don't Say LGBTQ bill, we saw a 406% jump online with slurs like groomer being used. They're really trying to paint us into a corner of being terrible people, and they're using drag events as very visible moments to do that.

Naomi Dix: My job as a drag artist, as I always have said and will continuously keep saying, is to facilitate and create safe spaces. It does not matter the color of your skin, your age, your background, your political views. As I always tell people all the time, you take your children to Disney World, you take them to Universal Studio, you have people walking around in costumes, you have people walking in wigs and makeup, you have your children take photos with these people, you have your children take photos with people who are completely unrecognizable in costuming. However, you are terrified or scared or creating a narrative that you don't want your children to go to a drag event.

We're doing the same exact thing that you would see a character at Disney World or at Universal do. The only difference is that versus thousands upon millions of people at a Universal Studio lot or at Disney World, you might have upwards of 300 people or less at a drag event. We are here to not groom your children, but we are here to educate your children and to offer your children or just youth a space to be able to artistically find themselves, or a space for them to see representation or to see that there is a community out there. To deprive the youth of local or just community art in general makes no sense.

Me as a drag artist, I like to call us drag artists and not just drag queens or kings but artists because that is what we are, again, we are providing and facilitating a space for anyone of any age to be able to see that representation and feel safe.

Dr. Melissa Harris-Perry: Now, Zach, tell us what we're going to hear next.

Zachary Bynum: Okay, so this is a story about grocery stores, which impacts us all, but it's also about food justice, labor organizing, and the power people have when they work together. Since November, federal lawmakers have been considering whether to allow a proposed $24.6 billion merger between the supermarket giants Kroger and Albertsons. It's a move that could have big effects on many smaller communities, and we really wanted to understand how real people could be affected by this merger.

We talked with Carol McMillian, who is a grocery worker at King Soopers Kroger. Carol is also a member of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union 7. We also talked to Dan Waldvogle, Director of Rocky Mountain Farmers Union.

Dan Waldvogle: When you look at where we're at in the value chain, there's a lot of different points to access the market when it comes to farms, ranches. For some folks, they're selling more directly to these grocers, think fresh fruits and veggies. For other people, they might be selling more in the commodity markets, like the wheat farmer or the rancher. Regardless where that happens, a lot of times these businesses really don't have much control over the price that they get, especially when they're only selling to maybe one or two buyers.

As time goes on, we see less and less of the food dollar. Currently, farmers and ranchers only receive about 14.3 cents of the food dollar and that continues to decrease. The other challenge is farmers, ranchers, Ag workers, they all shop at these grocery stores too, so as the price for consumers goes up, a lot of these folks are really getting hit on both sides.

Dr. Melissa Harris-Perry: Right, earning less and paying more for an item like food, which after all we all have to have. Carol, maybe you could also help make this concrete for us because I understand that you experienced the 2015 Albertsons' acquisition of Safeway. Can you tell us a little bit about your experience?

Carol McMillian: Yes, I was a grocery worker there. They had people come in; they were like temporary store managers, we called them Terminators. What these people did was they came in to determine what stores would open and what stores would stay open and which stores would close. It was quite a traumatic experience for the workers, I have to tell you. A lot of people were terminated for nonsense reasons. It was just a really horrendous experience.

That merger between Albertsons and Safeway closed a lot of stores, so I just feel like this merger would create a lot of food deserts in communities that really need stores that are accessible. This merger, I think it's overreaching because the stores and the communities-- I mean, I live in Aurora, Colorado. I live a few blocks from the store that I work at. It's a very accessible, convenient location for me. I also shop there. I'm a consumer as well. Kroger CEO promises store closures won't happen, but the necessity for two stores across the street from each other, it's going to be outdated. This is going to affect the communities. It's going to affect the workers. It's going to affect the small businesses surrounding those stores. A lot of those stores are anchors.

Dr. Melissa Harris-Perry: It's so interesting that language you used, Carol, of the Terminators. Not that there was a sense of folks were coming in to really help you to manage and create and serve the community, but rather simply to eliminate, right? Dan, talk to me about why farmers are connected to grocery workers in this context. What is this constellation of groups that are organized against this merger?

Dan Waldvogle: It really brings together a lot of folks. There's a saying, maybe it's a number of strange bedfellows, but I think as long as we can all share the sheets and work together to fight this, there's a lot that we can accomplish. So far there's been a number of Ag groups, farmworker groups, these labor unions as well as some of the other watchdog groups that really fight for more competitive markets coming together on this. There's also been a great number of states' attorneys general looking into this as well just because it's a big concern. In Colorado, not even counting Albertsons, Kroger is the third-largest employer. In many of our communities, they may control 70% or maybe even up to 100% of the grocery market, so the changes that might come forward could be very, very dramatic in a lot of ways.

I know for Rocky Mountain Farmers Union as well; we were founded more than a century ago so family farmers could work together cooperatively to build a fair market. Even back then, one of our major priorities was price parity; the idea that a farmer should be able to cover the cost of production and earn a modest income. I think that we've learned a lot, especially through the pandemic when you're thinking of essential workers. I think the idea that if we can increase more income back to the farmgate and then through worker-driven social responsibility models, really work to ensure that all stakeholders within those Ag businesses are being compensated fairly, we have the opportunity to really build that solidarity and really create some important changes across the value chain.

Dr. Melissa Harris-Perry: Zach, I am so excited for this part of the show because we're about to highlight such an important contribution that you made for us back when you pitched our ongoing series, Black.Queer.Rising. Tell us about it.

Zachary Bynum: What can I say, Melissa. I love this project series. I may be biased, obviously, but it is, hands down, one of my favorites. We've interviewed some incredible people and as a Black queer person, it was incredible to hear some of our stories told and centered on public radio. It was a chance to bring you the stories of Black LGBTQ+ folks who are pushing boundaries and blazing trails. I wanted to go back to a conversation from last spring with Moore Kismet, who is a nonbinary DJ changing the sound of EDM. At the age of 16, they became one of the youngest artists to ever play at Lollapalooza and Electric Daisy Carnival Fest.

Moore was featured in Billboard's 21 under 21, Melissa, and side note, our profile [unintelligible 00:35:40] was quoted in a 2022 Billboard Magazine piece. Shabooya.

Dr. Melissa Harris-Perry: Moore, this conversation that we're having is part of our ongoing series, Black.Queer.Rising. When I say to you, "Black. Queer. Rising," what does it mean to you?

Moore Kismet: It means that our stories and our experiences are finally reaching the forefront of attention to the point where if people think we're annoying, people think we're annoying and that's their prerogative. Our stories have been embedded, embedded into the foundations of music since the dawn of time. We've made that known plenty of times, but no one wants to believe us. Nobody wants to hear, nobody wants to listen, nobody wants to fully understand why we create the things we create, why we share the things we share in our music and in our art. It's because of the fact that this is us. If you could come from your own experiences and tie that in, why can't we?

Zachary Bynum: We've had such great voices as part of this series. Another conversation I loved was with you and George M. Johnson, author of All Boys Aren't Blue. They are one of Time Magazine's 2022 Most Influential People.

Dr. Melissa Harris-Perry: When I say to you, "Black. Queer. Rising," what does it mean to you?

George M. Johnson: I think about just the rise in visibility, the rise in representation, the rise in the acknowledgement of our existence, and then I think of the boiling water boiling over. I think there is a rise in our rage and a rise in our anger, and I think we've had enough. When I think about Black, Queer, Rising, I think it is that rage against a society that has tried to suppress us for so long and we have decided to not just simmer anymore. I think we are boiling over and knocking over the lids and doing it in a very bold and unapologetic way.

Dr. Melissa Harris-Perry: All right, folks, that's it for today's show. Before we go, I have to take a moment with Zach because Zach, son, you and I have history. We first met when you were just 18 years old, and you were a first-year student at Wake Forest University. Go Deacs. It was 2016 and you were part of that initial cohort of the Wake the Vote program, which meant that along with two-dozen other students, we were on the road together for a whole year. Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, DC, Cleveland, Philly. For me that meant really getting a chance to know you because I was able to see you in so many settings beyond the classroom.

I'll never forget the summers you were a servant leader for the Anna Julia Cooper Freedom School, and the way you motivated those young people and how so many of them saw themselves in you. When you came to work for The Takeaway as a digital producer, I was thrilled, but I'll also admit, Zach, I kind of figured I already knew your strengths and your skills, but I got to say I was wrong. It's actually been a pleasure to be surprised by you. You've brought a lot of passion and dedication to this work, and you have consistently urged us, cajoled us, sometimes even demanded that we recognize the life-altering urgency of the stories that you want us to tell.

Now, I know that you've been more than a little frustrated about trying to drag my Generation X self, kicking and screaming, into some level of digital relevance, but, Zach, I also know that when we have tussled about amplification, it's always because you believe that the work of public radio should be relevant and available for new generations of listeners, and I got mad love and respect for that.

So, Zach, I am going to-- I can't even really say how much I'm going to miss working with you on a daily basis, but I will say when it comes to you, because I was once your teacher, I've always been prepared to say goodbye. I've always known there was going to [tremulous]-- I've always known some day you were going to graduate because, Zach, you are Black, Queer, Rising, so keep rising.

Zachary Bynum: I have no words, man. [tremulous] Okay, wow, wow. Melissa, I'm actually trying really hard to come with a clear, concise response besides, I love you, I respect you, I am constantly pushed to new boundaries and new levels of excellence under your guys. For me, I feel like it's just-- Not going off on a tangent, but you're one of the only political scientists who's alive today whose book I've actually read. For me, it's like that means some [crosstalk]--

Dr. Melissa Harris-Perry: [laughs] You were a political science major, Zach.

Zachary Bynum: Just for people who might be listening who don't know, one of the big focuses of maybe the second chapter of Sister Citizen is talking about the politics of recognition and how much that is central to our fight as people who have identities that live on the margins or people who are fighting for people on the margins. We understand that a lot of this is a battle for recognition and a battle for equal representation in our society. I think what I've seen you do as a leader, as a media professional, as a biting and critical academic, you are the person who has set the way for people like me.

I want you to know that I'm walking in the way that you have built so many of us younger journalists/politico/media professionals/academics who are really trying to use this work to make the world a better place. We have so much to thank you for and we have so, so much to carry on because the legacy that you've built is one that is durable.

Dr. Melissa Harris-Perry: Listen, y'all, there's a lot of love on Team Takeaway. We've still got the rest of the week, so be sure to get back here and hear more of our producer appreciation. I'm Melissa Harris-Perry, and this is The Takeaway.

 

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