Under the Tree Podcast

Each of us—and every human being—should expect and demand decent standards of action concerning freedom and justice from all institutions, including schools, and from all earthly powers. It’s our duty to testify against, to disrupt, to undermine, and, when possible, to overthrow cruel systems in the interest of creating something better. We’re joined by Jay […]

The Haitian Revolution (1791-1804)— the largest slave revolt since Spartacus’ unsuccessful insurrection against the Romans in 72 BC—was one of the greatest revolutions in world history, and the only successful slave uprising leading to the establishment of a free state governed by non-whites and formerly captive workers. Led by Toussaint Louverture, formerly enslaved himself, the […]

Teachers live each day stretched in tension and suspended in contention: being and becoming, here and elsewhere; one foot planted firmly in the mud and muck of the world as it is, the other foot striding toward a world that could be or should be, but is not yet. Students arrive with questions: Who am […]

None of us wants to be labeled as one-dimensional and shunted off to a musty museum to be put on a shelf, and so we resist curation. On the other hand, we are each the collector of our own memories, our own struggles, our own lives, our own rebellions and resistances—we can and should curate […]

We’re excited to be joined in conversation with Ash-Lee Woodard-Henderson, an activist and organizer, extraordinarily innovative educator, an intensely forward thinker and a powerful doer, and for several years now, co-executive director of the Highlander Research and Education Center, one of the most storied social justice and activist centers in the country. The pedagogy employed […]

The Indian novelist Arundhati Roy says, “The trouble is that once you see it, you can’t un-see it. And once you’ve seen it, keeping quiet, saying nothing becomes as political an act as speaking out. Either way, you’re accountable.” And implicated. Our guest today is Roxanne Dunbar Ortiz, author of the classic An Indigenous People’s […]

The predatory heart of capitalism is the rage to accumulate, to expand, and to overrun all boundaries. Racial capitalism demands growth— unleashed and unchecked—but the Earth objects. Violence and aggression are the inevitable accomplices of predation, and when the casualties of cataclysmic capitalist climate collapse resist—as they inevitably will—they are labeled “illegal aliens,” “lawbreakers,” “terrorists,” […]

There’s a vast delusional gulf between the world as it is, and the world as each one of us thinks it is. I’m not being negative or accusatory, but simply stating the obvious: here we go, mistaking our self-constructed little world for the whole wide world. If you believe emphatically enough that the world of […]

The capacity to see the world as if it could be otherwise unleashes yearning and liberates desire—we are freed (or condemned) to run riot. Our lively imaginations can be rowdy, and can tend toward disruption and subversion—opening up alternatives always calls the status quo into question. Suddenly the taken-for-granted becomes a choice and not an […]