 When things like this happen in the world, when you see the murder of innocent Black lives and you want to take part, if you don't understand anything about civics, it can feel like a very overwhelming thing. So we're having a baby together and as a result, we've been having a lot of conversations about our beliefs because as Jared said, these convos have been pretty eye so we decided to film them and share them. Welcome to Values, an unfiltered dialogue series that we want you to be a part of because if you see the world in a different way than us that could benefit this community and our child, we want to learn. It's a series of no-cap convos about things like loyalty, finances, sexuality, discipline, and goal-setting. It's the good, the bad, and the work in progress of what we know now with an intention to know and do better in the future. What does the word civics mean to you or civic responsibility? I never really thought about it. I think I've only heard the word civic or civics in school so it makes me think of a class. I think it's a civics class so I don't I don't like hold the word dearly at all. I like kind of been like I think I'm interested in that but as I got older especially in the climate which we're in right now it's a very important word. What does it mean to you? Yeah I think it just means math same as what you just said. Yeah so if you say math to me I'm like who else is around? Who is there an adult in the vicinity who can take care of the next part of this conversation? Yeah and so civics feels the exact same way like yeah I don't know how to go is it lunchtime it just like when's the bell gonna ring and that is truly unfortunate so I'm doing a course right now that's called social psychology. Yes and I read a specific there's a chapter in general just about how much we need each other and need to feel like we can trust each other. Yeah and there was a specific part in this that really made me feel super guilty and I'm gonna read it. Social interest is the kind of empathetic bonding people feel for each other and the responsible actions and attitudes they take toward one another a sense of belonging and participating with others for the common good. Social interest requires that we have enough contact with the present to make a move toward a meaningful future and that we develop our capacity for contributing to the welfare of others and strive for the betterment of humanity. So what made you feel weird? I don't connect with any of that. Really? I don't here's the thing I think the work that I do naturally has a social responsibility. That's what I was about to say I was just about to be like your entire stance from what you feel about sex and how you want to educate people and get it to be normal is a part of you contributing to the community is a part of you looking at it and being like I think in the future we should be normalized in this area um so I think that unknowingly you are. I think I know that but that's where the puck really stops so I will just be super honest right now I despise talking to neighbors I she does I'm not I despise small talk in the outside world I'm not involved in my community at all I'm very embarrassed to say that you are though what do we do in the community you educate no that's the global community that is I have a passion for sex love and relationships and I have a community of people who have a passion or community of people who I can share that passion with what I'm talking about is civic responsibility yeah director so in specificity especially with the Black Lives Matter movement that's happening right now and understanding that the best way that you can be an ally or you can participate or be a worthy member of the community is to stand up for the rights of the community yes and it starts at home and it starts at home and then it goes further into legislation and it goes further into awareness building yeah but that's home though like that's the thing is so I looked it up last night because I'm like we're not involved in the community at all we're not involved in politics at all who's the councilman for this area I have no idea who's the mayor of LA uh grisetti good for you do you know who the governor is uh uh uh uh I know his name this is what we're talking about yeah we don't know too much about it yeah and as a result of that you don't know how to impact change and so when things like this happen in the world when you see the murder of innocent black lives and you want to take part if you don't understand anything about civics it can feel like a very overwhelming thing yeah because what is it that you can particularly individually do what is your social responsibility to impact change and so when I think about our kid I want them to feel like they can impact the world around them yes I want them to feel like if they think something is wrong or they see an issue in the system that they know the chain of events to make a difference for themselves and for the betterment of their community yeah I cannot apply that sentence to myself okay just a sidebar here um I actually looked up how to make change in the community and it's actually kind of difficult to find so if you're anything like me and you're not into politics but you have an idea that is going to make your community a better place uh I'm going to show you a simplified way on how to make that happen now it's not simple I will link a video that goes way more in depth than I am about to go into um that was really helpful for me because it explained a lot of things that I had no idea about and loosely this is how Brianna's law was actually implemented so without further ado here's the step by step process first you're gonna gather data reports anything that is going to support your cause anything that is going to explain why this issue needs to be handled and if you do handle this issue it's going to make the community a better place for everybody and then you're going to have to get petitions now these petitions are going to let the council know that you're not alone in this issue and that you have your the support of the entire community then you're going to have to kind of learn the language so you need to know the city charter and the city codes now this is the language they use in these council meetings um I advise finding somebody who knows the language very well who probably works in the building because they're going to be able to help you explain your issues to the council so that they can understand it then you're going to want to make your target as specific as possible so for example in Minneapolis they wanted to add bike paths into their city now the first street they attacked was the busiest street because they knew if they got that first win it was going to be a snowball effect from there then you're going to want to understand the comprehensive plan now the comprehensive plan is basically the public's way of letting the city know what they want to see in the next 10 years and the city actually uses this as a guideline while they're making building improvements on the city so if you can get your cause added into one of the tiers of the comprehensive plan then you have a better way of influencing them to make your issue an important issue also you're going to want to go to city council meetings now not all of them are public but the ones that you can get into you should go to because what it's going to do is you're going to first you're going to be able to put a face to all the board members also you're going to be able to see who's the leader in the room and you're going to be able to see what matters to them so once you figure out what matters to them brainstorm on how if they help your issue it is actually going to help their issue so the sites that have been helpful for me I found empowerla.com which is embarrassingly simple yeah it literally shows you the different steps of government it tells you how you can start getting involved it shows you the process of working your way up should you want to get more involved in your civic duty so that I was like sometimes when things are so easy you want it to be hard so you're like oh this is why I didn't do it yeah because it's so difficult yeah and you're like it's a website have you ever been to a council meeting or like any type of like community meeting this is a thing growing up Jared I don't want to you know pass the blame but we're never involved in our community growing up yeah I don't even I didn't come from a church background either yeah so other than my family I don't have any community involvement I had community involvement based on my interests yeah so extracurricular the time was track and field and then now as an adult my interests which is intimacy so I have community based on what I like but do I have community that is based on the social interests of others yeah no and growing up did I have that no yeah I've grown up I was like heavily involved in the church so like there was a lot of activism in the sense of like lower needs people um so we used to go to like lower income areas provide meals we would like that but that wasn't me organizing it it would be the church organizing it and I would show up and be a facilitator so um that still means something yeah you still have a connection but to say but but to further it is more or less to be like you know if it was up to me I didn't like go down to the homeless shelters and like help out just because you know I would do it because I had a base of community that made it easy for me to show up um so I do wish and I do want to start building that into my character now well I think it's a mix of both like when I think about what I would like for our kid it is to feel a civic responsibility it is to feel the joy because again like I don't I know what it's like through the community here but I don't necessarily know what it's like to feel a connection with the people I live around or to walk out what does that do I mean I think it you it makes you feel like a connected member of the community if things happen you're aware of it if there's dangers if there are things that you want to change like even something simple like you are on a street we have a street and people speed through our street we put speed bumps you want to put speed bumps on that street or something happened to somebody in the community and you want to advocate for that person there is an outcry of homelessness in the community whatever it is in general even if it is like growing out a garden to donate to somewhere else and so I think there's a multitude of things that that would give to you and also give back to community in return but I also want them to feel like oh I'm not just living here yeah I have a choice and in this uh in this country yes I'm able to band together and make change when I want to things are not just happening to me I actually love following Amber for that reason Amber's closet shout out to you yeah she's amazing she's been killing it she's really shining right now during this time because she'll just put out specific things hey sign this petition if you want to see less funding go towards the police and more funding go towards social change programs that actually make a better impact and keep the community safe yeah sign this petition if you want to see this um council person who has pardoned so many police officers who have murdered people and you want to see them taken out of office yeah so it's just like a click and I'm like I can do something more of the story is Shannon and I are not experts in this area um but we want to become experts so that we can pass down the knowledge to our unborn child and um it has now become very important especially with the time on how we need to be able to understand how to get into office how to uh impact change on a government level rather than just an emotional level um so yeah if you guys know of a place and a place that you guys go to where you get your knowledge and your education we would love to hear from that um right now I've been really diving into obama.org um but I feel like that's a safe way uh and I feel like it's one of those ways that's like of course obama knows what to do i'm just gonna go follow what he doing um I love brittany pacnit cunning him yeah but she's also affiliated with obama yeah but um that is the no hate eight that's being pushed right now yeah and so they're really about like here's the clear cut next step and that's what I need right now I need to be spoon fat what she actually meant to say was campaign zero's eight can't wait reform if you don't know what they are go check them out at eight can't wait dot org so the reason why I like obama dot org is because they have a tab where it is called meet anguish with action and the first thing they do on this page is they educate you so they have all these studies they have articles and they have a lot of you know causes and organizations that have been fighting these causes that we're actually experiencing on a global level right now and they put it on one concise area so that you can physically read and see all the things that are going on and then right under that they have to take action tab and that is basically where you can sign petitions get involved um and how to really implement change in this world that we live in but I really want to be able to say ho harley you know I know what to do here's where you can go and help here's who to vote for these are the reasons why I'm voting for this person I feel like we kind of wait for a leader to be like vote for this person and then we go oh yeah let's vote for that person and I don't really want to operate that way anymore I think that's how you get taken advantage of I think that's how you um you vote for things that you may not know and understand and you get into a position where you're like wait I actually didn't vote for that that's not what I thought I was voting for um so I just don't want to even I don't even want to cross that path so I need to do the work why I think it's so important it's not just for the vegetable reason of this right I think like the the nutrition the nutritious value in civics is apparent it's built into it the nutritious value in math is apparent it's built into it but it's also a twinkie it also can bring you so much joy it also it can be really fun again it can make it more joyful for you to get into conversations with your neighbors because now it's not just fluff talk you actually have substantive information that both of you actually care about benefit from and the joy you get from giving back the joy you get from feeling a part of something when you see change happen that you know you had a small hand in like that because at the end of the day we're trying to raise a full child and a child who is better than we are and we were but the same time I'm trying to raise a happy kid yeah and it's like um you know there's something empowering about uh seeing something you don't like and then saying I want to make a change and then seeing that change happen um I feel like a lot of times in at least my youth full life when I felt a lot of anguish is because I didn't feel like I had power or control in the world I feel like you know it was just all happening to me um and to know that that's not true and to know that you have power to change things I think it's very um it's it takes a lot of the anxiety away so at the small root of it all at least it would do is give you at least a base understanding that you can change anything that you want to change so that's it that's a good ending I'm not gonna talk I'm not gonna try to get the last word okay I technically just did but it's over it's over