Introduction by Claudia Peña, Co-Director of the Center for Justice at UCLA, Executive Director, For Freedoms

We are facing so many crises—climatological, technological, “democratilogical”—that even the use of the word “crisis” has reached crisis levels. While there are of course policies and investments and direct actions we need to fervently work on in response, we also need to pay attention to the story, because what we tell ourselves about ourselves shapes how we show up in these times. Baratunde Thurston, host and Executive Producer of the PBS TV series America Outdoors, creator of the How To Citizen and Life with Machines podcasts, and author of the comedic memoir How to Be Black, will share those stories he has been unearthing about our relationships with the natural world, our fellow humans, and even with machines, that provide strong hints of where we need to go and how to get there.