Nonprofits are faced with more challenges to accomplish their missions and the growing pressure to do more, raise more and be more for the causes that improve our world.
We're here to learn with you from some of the best in the industry, bringing the most innovative ideas, inspirational stories, all to create an impact uprising.
So welcome to the good community, we're nonprofit professionals, philanthropists, world changers and rabid fans who are striving to bring a little more goodness into the world.
So let's get started. Hey, Becky!
Pinch me, oh my gosh, okay, do gooders, I'm going to do something a little different in the intro here, because as we're recording this episode, it's a really heavy week in America. And I just have to say that, I think it's been a heavy week, for many, many weeks. And I want you to do something, I want you to pat yourself on the back for being here and leaning into this conversation. And that if you want to do one good favor for the world today, I want you to share this episode and what's about to come out of it with someone because we need a ripple to the conversations that we're going to have about how to eradicate hate. And it is our profound honor today to have Jonathan Greenblatt, the CEO of the Anti-Defamation League on the podcast today. I think I found out about ADL, when I was a teenager, and I just gravitated to the words of hope, to the words of harmony, to the way that they hit hate right between the eyes. And we have built a kindness community here in We Are For Good. And it is a massively growing community. I thank each of you for coming in at your space. But we have got the shepherd of kindness and equality here. And I've got to just introduce you to this amazing human that we have on today. We were introduced to Jonathan by just an incredible justice advocate and human being Elizabeth Abel, who's with CCS. And she is an avid and rabid fan of ADL. And she said, you got to meet Jonathan, he is one of the greatest human beings and he is going to knock your socks off. But ADL is the world's leading anti-hate organization with a distinguished record of fighting anti-semitism, and advocating for just unfair treatment for all I think that's something we can all get on board with. And he joined ADL in 2015, after serving casual in the White House as a special assistant to President Obama as the Director of the Office of Social Innovation and Civic Participation. And he's here to talk about this book and hold on to your butts, because this book could revolutionize everything about the way that we interact. And the way we equalize here. It's called It Could Happen Here: Why America Is Tipping from Hate to the Unthinkable―And How We Can Stop It. This is really embracing primer on how we as individuals and organizations and as a society can strike back against anti-semitism and hate. So our core value first core value of this company is the simple, everyone matters. And if you believe in that, and you pour into that, you're going to love this book. But this book is about how Jonathan has made it his personal mission to demonstrate how anti-semitism, racism and other insidious forms of intolerance can destroy a society taking root as quiet prejudice but mutating over time into these horrific acts of brutality. We saw one this week, it feels like we are seeing them almost every week. So I feel the urgency that this book is about hope. And this community is about hope. So we are just so honored Jonathan Greenblatt get into our house and awaken and inspire our hearts. We're so glad you're here.
The pleasures really all mine. It's so nice that we have friends in common like Elizabeth, who's really just an inspired person. I'm happy to be here today and to share a little bit about the book and ADL and life more generally.
Well, we never go straight into these conversations, because we think it's so important to get to know you as a human being. And we want to know about little Jonathan growing up like, take us back. Tell us about your childhood and what informed sort of this winding journey to get you through the White House to the head of the ADL and what you're fighting for today.
Well, so I'm was born in New Haven, Connecticut and raised in Trumbull, which is a little town between New Haven and Bridgeport. You know, I was the first in my family to graduate from college. I grew up in a pretty blue collar environment. My dad's a salesman, a mom was a secretary. You know, my grandfather was a Holocaust survivor from Germany. You know who came who basically He lost pretty much everything and came here with no money, no language, no family, but was able to carve out a kind of a middle class existence in Bridgeport, Connecticut. And, you know, I would say despite having seen like the worst of humanity, he believed in the best of it, and never lost his sense to use a word that you did before of hope. And so I think in many ways, his ability to, to, to endure, and to rise above that was always in inspiration for me. And when I was graduating from college, I went to Tufts University in Boston, right outside Boston, I wanted to change the world. Like literally, I think, in part inspired by him, you know, when I was a young person, some of your listeners may remember, in the 60s, and in the 70s. And in the early 80s, in the Soviet Union, when it was a thing was extremely, sort of anti-semitic, anti Jewish, and they pioneered a lot of awful kind of propaganda, blaming Jews for everything. And you know, Russia had a history before the Soviet Union of slaughtering its Jews. So it wasn't exactly new. But Jews were not able to practice their religion working with questions or leave the country, they refuse to let Jews emigrate. And so there was a movement in the 70s and 80s, to free Soviet Jews to let them emigrate. That's it, just left them leave. And I remember my grandfather bringing me to like marches when I must have been seven or eight, in Bridgeport, Connecticut. And then something happened a few years later, in the mid 80s. To make a long story short, it worked. The Jews were able to leave, things changed in the Soviet Union because of extraordinary outside pressure. And the idea they were holding these people hostage, which they were not allowing them to leave, which they wouldn't. And then the protest movements and other politics, global, geopolitical events, happened and boom, they were able to leave. So for me that left a lasting impression that I could be a part of something to change the world. So when I was graduating from college at Tufts, I was my parents, again, were not political whatsoever, they were focused on, you know, earning a living. I wanted to change the world. And there was this guy in 1992, running for president named Bill Clinton. Now you may like him or not like him, doesn't really matter. But I was a work study student. And one of his big ideas was kids could work after they graduated in their communities. And he held up these new organizations. One was this new startup nonprofit called Teach for America. And another one was this was this new startup these guys with red jackets called City Year. And the idea was he wanted to create a program which he called AmeriCorps for young people to work in their communities after college to help pay their loans. And for me, I was working 20-25 hours a week, maybe more like mopping floors and bussing tables. I worked on campus, I worked off campus, I thought that's a much better way to pay my tuition than what I'm doing. And then the other idea Bill Clinton had at the time was universal health care. Again, my dad being a salesman, we never had health insurance. He didn't work for a big company. So this was always a problem in our family. So health insurance, you know, national service, I was really struck by that. So I ended up moving to Arkansas right after I graduated, and working for Bill Clinton. And to be really honest, guys, I didn't think he was going to win. I think he was gonna get the, I didn't know how to get the nomination. But I wanted to fight the good fight. I wanted to change the world. So I moved to Little Rock. And then he got the nomination. He named Al Gore, his would be vice president. He won the election. And so for me, I was 21. And it's cemented in my brain from the Soviet Jews movement to this I could change the world. And that has literally been my North Star throughout my career from going to work at the White House as a young person and doing like applied microeconomics. I did international economic policy, to going out to be part of the Internet revolution, starting Ethos Water with my roommate from business school, to running GOOD Magazine, incubating Adventure at Google out of that, that grew to going to work in the west wing as a better formed adult to now doing this job at ADL trying to change the world has literally been my North Star and I think it's, you know, it's been a it's it's not been a linear path. I would say, Ted it's turns I went from government to business back to government now nonprofit, but I felt really blessed. to have had this journey and it's just been a privilege every step of the way,
What a gift that that has been your journey, because I just see you collecting these experiences and the lived experiences, and honestly like escaping through such a narrow path to these remarkable experiences that were hopeful when the underdog won, and a little guy won. And now you are at the forefront of that. And I get your emails and I feel like you are on the forefront of fighting for the little guy every single day, in your position with ADL.
I'm certainly trying. And this is a fight. I mean, I think, you know, like you said, Becky, to start us off. I mean, this has been a heavy week. It's been a heavy few weeks. You know, it's been a heavy year. I mean, the year started with the anniversary of January 6, and then we have the hostage crisis slash calamity and Colleyville. It's been a heavy several years, this kind of a through line from Charlottesville to Buffalo. But the real villain is 10 years ago, Sandy Hook to Uvalde, Texas two days ago. I mean, these are not easy times we're living in.
But I have to say, I'm gonna pin something at the top of this conversation that I think will be the North Star for me of this conversation is I just, I think about your grandfather. And I think about enduring something like what he endured, and to come out of that and still believe in the greater good. That is why I want people to channel what is your grandfather's name, can we, I want to name him.
Bernard Greenblatt. Bernie Greenblatt.
Bernie Greenblatt, I want you to do gooders. I want you to channel your inner Bernie Greenblatt today. And I want you to take that fire, because it is no longer a childlike aspiration to say, I want to change the world because we have 10s of 1000s of people pouring into this saying, that is actually what I want to do. Take that, listen here, figure out what to do. So thank you for that incredible intro.
I mean, walk us through this chapter that you're in right now, the ADL, we all know of the ADL, we all see the work that you're doing, but kind of talk to us about what you see as your mission today. What's the work happening on the forefront that maybe we don't all realize, to just kind of give context for this book and everything to follow?
Well, I mean, so the ADL is the oldest anti hate organization in America was founded in 1913. You know, around the time that this Jewish man was lynched. It's a very famous story, Leo Frank, he was falsely accused of a crime, wrongly convicted, and literally torn from his jail cell and hung from a tree by a mob and the mob that lynched this man, while his body was still hanging from the rope, they all gathered underneath. And the town held a picnic to commemorate his killing. And they took pictures. And they turn those photographs into postcards. And they gave them out of souvenirs to commemorate the killing. So in that moment, you know, the ADL was formed. And the people behind the organization, they wrote a charter that I think John, we would call like a manifesto in our current sort of vernacular. And they wrote it the purpose this organization would be to, quote, stop the defamation of the Jewish people, and secure justice and fair treatment to all. So they wrote those words, those very words haven't changed in almost 110 years. But what's so interesting is, you know, again, 110 years ago, the Jews in this country are very vulnerable, and they were weak, and they didn't have social standing or meaningful economic resources or any political influence. So it made sense that they would say we need to come together and defend ourselves. At a time when Jews couldn't work many professions couldn't buy homes in many places. My great grandfather in Germany, arguably lived with more security, and more social standing, you know, than Jews in America at that time.
Wow.
So in this moment, it made sense that they came together to defend themselves and to seek, you know, belonging and prosperity. But they also said, We will fight for ourselves, we will also fight for others, right, justice and fair treatment to all, not for the Jewish community, but to everyone. It's a very intersectional idea to use the term, we can't be free unless everyone is free. Their struggle is our struggle. We are all in this together. And I think sometimes we almost take for granted that kind of language, that language of service, that language of universalism, but it's encoded into the sort of organizational DNA of ADL. So in the 10s, and the 20s and the 30s and the 40s, ADL broke open those quotas, change those laws, went after the discriminatory practice and exposed it. ADL made America a, a safer place for Jewish community. But then after the Second World War, ADL started advocating for equality for African Americans. And when ADL filed an amicus brief at the Supreme Court in 1953, in Brown versus Board of Education, to fight for desegregating schools, like today, we sort of I think, liberal minded people small l just take that for granted. Like, of course, they're supposed to be desegregated. But that was by that was certainly not conventional wisdom in the early 1950s. But ADL still took the risk. We stepped out in front and said, We will fight for this just for everyone to all and later that same decade, when ADL stood up against Joe McCarthy, and the end the scapegoating that he brought to the political conversation, ADL reached out to a young politician, a young senator, at the time when if you remember the Soviets invaded Hungary, there was a bunch of immigrants wanted to come in, they couldn't get in. ADL said, you know, as Jews weren't allowed to come in this country before and after World War Two, we need to fight this now. And so they engage this young politician to write a book that talks about the fact that we're a country of refugees than a nation of immigrants with this, would you write that book for us? He said, I'll write it. He wrote that book for the ADL in 1957. And it was only the second book that John Kennedy ever wrote in his lifetime. He wrote Profiles in Courage. And then the ADL commissioned A Nation of Immigrants, which I was proud to issue a 60th anniversary edition, just a few years ago in 2017. And, you know, I have on the wall of my office. I mean, basically he writes in 57, he ends up making immigration reform a cornerstone of his 1960 campaign. He is assassinated November 1963. LBJ says, I am going to make immigration reform one of my commitments as part of President Kennedy's legacy. And I have on the wall of my office here in New York, a telegram sent on October 1, 1965, from Lawrence O'Brien, Special Assistant to LBJ to Ben Epstein, who had my job inviting him to a signing ceremony on Liberty Island, like below the Statue of Liberty, where LBJ signed that immigration act of 1965 into law, I have that telegram on my wall, along with one of the pens that LBJ literally handed to Ben Epstein right there on the spot, because ADL is one of the organizations that made this happen. So like when I have stood up against the Muslim ban, when I've gone to the border and argued for undocumented children, when I have argued as vehemently as I can, for America to be more accepting of refugees from Afghanistan, or from the Ukraine, you know, literally I sat in the Roosevelt Room at the White House on Tuesday, with African American leaders and those from other communities make the case for a White House Summit on hate crimes. And when I have walked, you know, arm in arm with my Asian American and Pacific Islander colleagues to help get TAAF off the ground. It's because this is what ADL does. This is who we are. We need America to be that more perfect union for all of its people. And so that's our aspiration. That's our ambition. That is our vision here at ADL.
Well, as a third generation descendant of an Italian immigrant, I want to thank you for the absolute inclusivity of this work. And I will tell you, you had a primer for this conversation because we dropped an episode with Prisca Bae with TAFF, you mentioned The Asian American Foundation. And she talked about how your passion, how your drive for this equality and equity goes so far beyond the Jewish community to equalize every marginalized community that is looking for people who will simply grab their hand and give them that hope and that chance of living. And I'm not even talking about a wealthy life, but a healthy and a vibrant life in a free state. And I just want to say to anybody listening, and I know that I'm deeply emotional, and I will not make it through this episode without crying a couple times, because the big just because the week is so heavy, thank you for bringing it back to the story of this lynching in Atlanta. That is a deeply painful story. But we constantly say we have to sit in the pain of these moments for a minute, and let them come in and then we need to push it out into how we're going to do good, and how we're going to ensure that that never happens again in our communities. And so I got to pivot a little bit to this book because I'm so geeked out about it, and I I want you to talk about this title, because I don't know that I've had a title hit me in the face as quickly as this one does. And I want to read it again to for everyone. It Could Happen Here: Why America is Tipping From Hate to the Unthinkable―And How We Can Stop It. I want you to talk about where this title came from, and where the idea of this I would call this also a manifesto came out of you.
Well, I think there it's, so a few thoughts. So number one, I mean, again, I think this has been a heavy week, and I am someone who believes in American exceptionalism. But let's be honest, we have a heavy history. And so you talk about your lineage, it is my recollection, that the largest lynching in American history didn't happen to Jews, or blacks, but to Italians to Italian immigrants in New Orleans in 1891, who were lynched locals and immigrants together for the suppose that they're supposed role in the killing of like a local police chief, which, of course, was wrong. But there's at a time when, you know, Italians were considered in the weird, dynamic social construct that is race, Italian Americans were considered inferior, not and if you've read Wilkerson's book Caste, it is so powerful. And she talks about how there is a caste system in this country, if you will, an ad hoc or de facto one, and African Americans are at the bottom of that caste. But on top of that, it's true that the kind of social order changes over time. And in this moment, you know, Italian Americans are privileged in a way that people of color, quote unquote, people of color and not, but it's a fluid thing, but that the history of enslavement upon which this country was founded, and talking today, which I know this podcast will hopefully live for a long time. But we are hold on 731 day since the murder of George Floyd. So this issue of systemic racism against Black Americans is a profound and persistent and pervasive challenge we've got to confront. But to put that aside for a moment, I this book, It Could Happen Here. I wrote this book because I was thinking to get back to we started this conversation about my grandfather. And you know, my grandfather, he never talked about the Holocaust, he did not want to talk about it, it was much too painful. But once for school project, like I think it might have been sophomore or junior in high school, I interviewed him. It was interview a family member, I interviewed him, I still have the like, cassette tape for those your listeners remember what that artifact is? Right? You can put it next to your phonograph. So I taped him. And I asked him about what life was like when he was a young person. And he basically said, in Germany, look, it was a great country. It's a great country. And it was the only country he ever knew my great grandfather, his dad, fought in the First World War for Germany. I mean, the idea that one day, the only country he ever knew, would turn on him, regard him as an enemy of the state, destroy everything that he ever loved, slaughter, almost his entire family and network of friends, forced him to come as a refugee was inconceivable. And he was a young person. Frankly, he never would have guessed that one day, his grandchildren, me and my brother and my cousins would be born in America, never. And then it happened. And my wife is a political refugee from Iran. She came to this country in 88. I think 1888 89 Iran is the only country she and her sister and their parents, and as far back as they know, is the only country they ever knew, they're Jews from Iran. And they never would have, she never would have guessed. Never. When she was a young person that one day, the only country she ever knew, would turn on them, after the Islamic Revolution, after the rise of like the kind of death cult of Khomeinism, that one day regard them as enemies of the state, destroy everything they ever loved, and forced them to flee to this country. As refugees, and again, she came after living through the war and the revolution, you know, after being forced to wear a hijab and all of that, you know, the Sharia law. And, you know, my father in law who's still with us, thank God never would have guessed that one day, his grandchildren would be born in America, he thought Iran like where else would they be born? So Becky and John, I mean, I think flash forward to today. If I think back to what I've seen in this job, from Charlottesville to Pittsburgh, to El Paso to Atlanta. Now to Buffalo, I don't take for granted that my grand and I would tell you guys the same. Don't just assume that your grandchildren will be born here in America, unless we fight for what we have. Democracy is not some spectator sport. You can watch you know from the cheap seats and just assume it's going to work out you know, I'm watching the The NBA Playoffs right now and you got the Celtics and The Heat and you got the Dubs and the Mavs. And you know, it looks like you know, the Mavs are gonna lose, they're gonna come back next season. Like, that's how it works. But there is no next season for democracy. Like, it just is not some, you know, preordained outcome, there is no natural law, which says, this will endure forever, unless we fight for this union. And I don't mean, go stand at a school board meeting and scream about, like COVID precautions. And I don't mean, you know, ban books that make you uncomfortable. And I don't mean, you know, cancel people whose ideas with whom you disagree, what I mean is, within our constitutional guidelines, engaging in and living up to the obligations like our founding fathers bequeathed to us, like they did not intend for a country that would have AR fifteens everywhere. That's not what the Second Amendment was about. And they didn't intend the freedom of speech would be the freedom to slander people, or that the freedom of assembly would be the freedom to assemble and exact violence on minorities. So I think, our Constitution and the Bill of Rights and these building blocks of our democracy, we need to understand they will not stand the test of time unless we invest, and innovate and enable them to do so. And so I worry a great deal, which is why I wrote the book, because it could happen here. Civil War could happen here. The institutionalized marginalization of a people, not by default, like what Wilkerson writes about, but with intent could happen here. The willful denial of a people's civil rights, I think we're already seeing some of this unfold. So could it happen here? What's the it? The it is right here, right now, here is, here is this space that we share together. And so we have got to roll up our sleeves like never before, if we want to hold on to this gift, that is, again, this this republic.
You know, regardless of what your personal life experiences listening, I mean, nobody could argue the last couple of years, everything that you thought was normal, everything you thought was protected, is different, like it's changed has been impacted. And so, it's so believable, you know, to any of us, even our kids, you know, they don't even know what normal is on so many levels. So I think the way that you break this down in the book, you go into the pyramid of hate, I'd love for you to walk us through that, because we talk about the power of words. I mean, obviously, we believe that we poured into a medium that's about conversations, but what words can elevate into the worst act of violence, you know, that we can imagine? Can you talk about that and how that informs and how we can lean in and understand that?
Yeah, so the book, you know, to answer your question, Jon, look, I wrote this book, in many ways, because I am worried about where we are. And I do feel like it feels like our country. You know, our institutions have withstood so much tumult in recent years. And even the most impregnable fortress, even the most seaworthy ship, even the most tested vehicle, when it endures exogenous pressure, meteorological pressure, you know, human forces, whatever you need to like repair, you need to ensure that that ship remains sea worthy, that that aircraft remains capable, right, that that, that that truck, that you replace the shocks, and you revisit, you know, you rotate the tires and whatnot. And I think we need to do this with our democracy. And so the first half of the book, again, sharing what I have seen, and, and and trying to recount what I call in the book, this American desert, what it could look like if things unraveled, but the second half of the book, to your point, Jon, is all about the tips and the tricks, the strategies that ADL has developed over, not just decades over generations, to interrupt intolerance, right, to confront and push back on prejudice to fight hate. And one of our core models for doing that is something called the pyramid of hate. And it's, it's a sort of sociological construct, which allows us to kind of, not just dismantle, you know, dismantle bias and bigotry, but to understand it through a framework and so this framework, think of it like a pyramid. So at the base of the pyramid, you know, you have biased attitudes, which is about the kind of maybe indiscriminate or unintentional, you know, ideas about intolerance or prejudice that can take hold amongst people, right biased attitudes. And so that can show up as stereotyping or fear of differences, or, you know, just misinformed beliefs. It's bias attitudes. And then bias attitudes can build up into actual acts of bias, which look like what you would imagine. But this is about at the individual level, I should say about, about not including someone, it could be about stereotyping a person it could, or accurately scapegoating a group of people, which can then build up into systemic discrimination, the ideas and form acts, which kind of harden into practices and policies, you can see that across the spectrum, you know, of activity we have in our own country, and in many societies that's not unique to America at all. But it could be around policing, or on education or on housing, or unemployment, which then can move up into actual acts of violence. And I'm defining that a bit broadly, that could be like verbal harassment, it could be vandalism, it could be assault, which can then go up to the top into what I'll call, you know, genocide. And genocide is not, I mean, this is a very strong term, it's the act of deliberately and systematically annihilating group of people. But before that, these acts of violence, which can be I mean, right now we see you know, in Uvalde, Texas, you know, I mean, I'm going to try not to break down, but we see, you know, second graders and third graders murdered in the classroom, where they learn that's an act of such inhumanity that it's difficult to describe. But I look at what's happening in the Ukraine were years years of Putin, dehumanizing Ukrainians, delegitimizing the country, and enforcing a culture, a culture of, of, I dare say evil. In the Russian Armed Forces lead to scenes have mass graves and women and children with their hands tied behind their backs shot in the head. Again, it starts at the base of that pyramid and you interrupt you interrupt the biased attitudes before it mutates into acts of bias, before it further metastasizes into systemic discrimination, before it leaps into real world violence, before it actually culminates in genocide. And so we use this model to try to teach and you can look at Ukraine or you can look at The Shoah–the Holocaust. Or you can look at what happened in Rwanda, or you can look at what happened in Bosnia. And I use Bosnia in the book, because after years, you know, of discrimination and, and scapegoating Muslims in Bosnia, why is anyone's or in the former Yugoslavia? Why is anyone surprised that they were then herded into camps, and murdered carte blanche. And the idea that we would tolerate this kind of butchery is is an it's almost this unspeakable butchery. Just a few decades after the Holocaust, unimaginable. And yet now we see it happening again, to the Ukraine, under the guise of a national conflict, there was no conflict, there was no conflict. But it was Putin's attempt to erase any Ukrainian identity and recapture some sense of empire. So I wrote the book, to share our strategies to offer the insights that we've learned in my hope that we can stop it happening here. And you know, like to build upon your whole gestalt with the We Are For Good podcast, we need a revolution in kindness, we need an epidemic of empathy. We need, we need a movement, we need more than ever a movement, which brings people together around goodness, because there is just so much evil. And you know, it's king who said, I'm going to, I'm going to totally screw up the quote, but it's about, you know, it's not so much of the fears, you know, what his enemies will do, but the silence of his friends, and we need to remember this core, this core intention, that doing good is is something that happens by default. We need to apply ourselves to that task. We need to engage ourselves in that, in that obligation, that moral obligation to do unto others. It's the most basic lesson of the Jewish, of the Christian, of the Muslim books of Scripture. Do unto others. Love thy neighbor. I think we need that now more than ever.
Jonathan Greenblatt, I want to nominate you to lead the kindness revolution that is building and when I think about systems of power, and I think of innocence, the only way to fight back, friends, is to step up boldly, courageously and stepping out of comfort to say, No, I will not have this endured in my lifetime, whether this affects me or my neighbor, I will not allow it. And I also want to thank you for this very, very difficult and heartwired work, because the amount of trauma that I think that you must have to endure every day by listening, and hearing, and simply caring so deeply, is a gift to all of us who are getting motivated to joining you. And so I had to pivot this conversation to what I'm going to call the Bernie Greenblatt moment, we've got to go to hope we got to go to action. And so I want you to talk about how can we, every human being listening here, individuals, organization, society, how can we strike back against hate, walk us through ADL's formula for dismantling that hate and kind of talk us through what you've mentioned in your book as, as a needing of a whole of society approach? What does that look like for us?
Well, I'm glad you asked about that, Becky, because I think one of the things, first of all, you're being way too kind in terms of me. I mean, I think, look, I may have this particular job, I may be in this particular role. But there are 340 some odd million of us who need to be part of this struggle. And as you were kind of, sort of alluding to earlier, there's 7 billion of us who got to be part of this. Now, let's take it, let's not let's acknowledge that we all hit the lottery. By being born, where we were, when we were to whom we did, I mean, there are 4 billion people on the planet who live on less than $4 a day. So they might not have the luxury of picking out some of these bigger issues, which I think we should acknowledge that and let that sit with us. But that being says, we want to create a more fair, unjust world, I think all of us have a role to play which gets to the whole of, and I think all of us live with this. I mean, again, the horror of Texas, we all have to live with this paint. And I mean, know, clearly none more so than the families in Uvalde, you know, in a concentric circle out beyond them, either families from Newtown, or Las Vegas, or Buffalo, or Charleston, or Oak Creek, or El Paso, or Aurora, you know, are so many of the cities that have dealt with these issues have met these mass casualty incidents, right. And I know for them, there's all the PTSD that must come up, right, because we still haven't solved this stuff. But I will say that all of us, I think, feel burdened by this moment and wonder what we do. So the only way we will solve this epidemic of extremism, the only way we will be able to, to effectively, I think turn back the tide on this on this, this rising wave of hate is with a whole of society strategy. What I mean by that is Joe Biden said, you know, he ran for president because he saw what President Trump, how he responded, or if you will, didn't respond to Charlottesville, when they were chanting Jews will not replace us when they were protesting against, you know, removing Confederate statues, right when they murdered Heather Heyer, in broad daylight, they ran her down, a white supremacist. So that's why I'm running. But reality is fighting hate creating a culture of kindness. It is not the job of just the president, although he's got a crucial role to play, are our elected representatives. And they better step up. Like yes, I wouldn't even need courage from them, like 90% of Americans want background checks. There's a question of courage. That's a question of arithmetic. I think that we also need electeds, and policymakers also at the state and local level. We also need businesses to assert their role. We also need members of the clergy and houses of worship. We also need universities and educational institutions and the leaders who run them. We also need nonprofits and actors and civil society like if you will ADL, and there are many, many others. We also need, again, ordinary citizens. I mean, I think we need a broad based movement that draws in all of the different entities that take it together constitute our society. So whole of society strategy, but you know, look, it does require leadership. So it does require someone like a President Biden, it does require somebody like that the Speaker of the House and Minority Leader of the the house or the their counterparts in the Senate, it does require a set of governors blue and red Republicans and Democrats to come together and say, You know what, we need to take this together because what I will say is that extremism, I think it was Barry Goldwater he ran for, ran for president in 1964. He said, extremism in the pursuit of Liberty is no vice, I think something like that, actually, you know, one, extremism is dangerous. Extremism is a landmine that will explode, regardless of who steps on it. It doesn't discriminate based on your party or your politics. In the end, it destroys everyone. Right Wing extremism, left wing radicalism, again, religious fundamentalism, okay. Extremism, but that doesn't mean that doesn't. I'm not suggesting we don't have to shake things up. We need to disrupt we shouldn't over index on civility in a moment when we need a kind of energy. But extremism, dehumanizing, delegitimizing denying the rights of our fellow Americans or any other people is, I think, a fundamentally flawed way of not just viewing the world, but of living together as human beings. So we need a whole of society strategy that brings everyone together, we need a revolution, a radical revolution that doesn't elevate extremism, but that invests people in common goals around which we can come together, that will require compromise that will require, you know, putting aside some of those areas where we just don't agree, but we have so much more in common than the things that keep us apart.
I mean, thank you for leading us to this point. I think whoever's listening today, this is activation, we're talking to each one of us to find our place in this to find our voice in this. So thanks for leading us there, Jonathan. We're pained to ask this. But I wonder if you could distill your wisdom your mantra into a one good thing we ask all of our guests to leave the conversation, it could be a mantra, it could be a life hack.
Well, I guess I would say, fight hate, but also find hope. We need to recognize that in order to resist like this kind of sirens call of extremism and this rising tide of intolerance, which we need to do, we also need to find ways to come together as communities. So I think even as we push back on hate, which we must do, we've got to pull together and find hope. That is the only way we come through this.
I've got to just thread this as we close out, I gotta add one good thing here. Go diversify your experiences. I am a Christian. And I want to give an experience, I want to give an example for this. My most favorite donor that I've ever had, is a man named Dr. Paul Silverstein. He was a Jewish burn surgeon here in Oklahoma City. And he invited me to Chaba, I went to a challah breadmaking ceremony. And when I sat with the Jewish community and felt so much love, I just thought this is an experience that we all need to have. Sit with a Muslim friend, go to synagogue, find someone who has a different lived experience than you. Live in the humanity and open your eyes to the warmth of the people and the peace. Because that changes your viewpoint. It opens your heart. I have to dedicate this this episode to Dr. Silverstein who did that for me. And I want you to take the Dr. Silversteins, the Bernie Greenblatts wherever you are. And I want you to channel that diversity of thought, of lived experience, embrace it into your heart people, because that is how true change starts to act and then bring in your children or a next generation and normalize. This is the way because that is how systems of change can happen.
Well, I've got to tell you something. I mean, I didn't realize Becky that you're in Oklahoma City. I mean, mean Oklahoma City is an example of what happens when you don't challenge extremism, right. Oklahoma City, literally, is exhibit A, for how things can literally blow up, how things can fall apart. Now, that being said, it's also a city that demonstrates how we can come together. I mean, I know how diverse that community is, indigenous people, Black people, brown people, white people, Christians and Jews and Muslims, and immigrants and native born. It's a remarkable place. That's part of I think Timothy McVeigh targeted it. And yet, I think it's part of why it was it demonstrates how we can we can reach we can dig deep and reach higher, and we've got to and we must, so I am grateful, so grateful that you've given me the opportunity to share with you today. I think this is just the start. I really do. But there's so much I mean as hard as things are, you know, they say it's darkest before the dawn. Look the the next generation is so much more open minded, you know, the resilience, our democracy. It has endured global conflicts. It has endured, you know, domestic Civil War. It has endured economic calamity, it has endured drought like in Oklahoma and in the breadbasket the 1920s. I mean, and yet America has always come through. So I have absolute optimism that we can do this. If we choose to do this. I hope we make the right choice. Amen.
Amen. Yeah. What a beautiful way to round this out. So let's connect people with ADL and you as we close this out? What's the best way for people to get connected with you and your team?
I think, just go to our website adl.org You can find us on Facebook or Twitter, or any of the major social platforms. but adl.org has all the info. Lots of good stuff. And yeah, I hope people check it out. Thank you guys, very, very much. Really, this is fun.
We appreciate you. Thank you.
Hey, friends. Thanks so much for being here. Did you know we create a landing page for each podcast episode with helpful links, freebies and even shareable graphics? Be sure to check it out at the link in this episode's description. You probably hear it in our voices, but we love connecting you with the most innovative people to help you achieve more for your mission than ever before. We'd love for you to join our good community. It's free. And you can think of it as the after party to each podcast episode. You can sign up today at weareforgood.com/Hello. One more thing If you loved what you heard today, would you mind leaving us a podcast rating and review? It means the world to us and your support helps more people find our community. Thanks friends. I'm our producer Julie Confer and our theme song is Sunray by Remy Borsboom.
