 Hello everyone. My name is Liz Diebold. I'm really delighted to be here with a wonderful group of humans who are doing some really incredible work at the intersection of what I refer to as civic and economic democracy. I don't want to be in the way of hearing all of the gold of the work that they're doing, so I'm just going to tee up a couple basic definitions because I'm not sure that everyone would naturally put democracy and economic justice together in the same conversation, but I think we've got folks here who would tell you that you cannot actually separate the two. So starting with just to put into our heads, into our backdrops a definition, very simple, definition of democracy, and yes, there are PhDs written about this. I'm not getting into any of that. I'm going to say it's a system of government that depends on the will of the people. That means it's a practice. It's an ongoing engagement and a practice between those who are serving and those who are being served. It includes laws, regulations, policies, and voting and ongoing civic engagement. For economic justice, again, I'm going to massively over-simplify, but I would suggest that if we think about economic justice as the rectification of the fact that talent is equally distributed, but opportunity is not, then we've got a good foundation for a great conversation. I hate introducing people because I think that people should tell their own stories, so I'm going to ask you each to do so in turn, starting with you, Solana. And while you do so as part of your introduction in two minutes or less, could you also answer the question in your view, why are the concepts of economic justice and the future of democracy inseparable? Ready, set, go. Yep. Hi, I'm Solana Rice, some co-founder and co-executive director of liberation in a generation. I am a midwesterner and growing up, I always asked my dad, why are things just not fair? Life seems really unfair. And he said, yeah, it's never going to be fair. Life is just unfair. And I just would not take that as an OK answer. I am an only child. I am determined. I am my mother's daughter. I am going to figure this out. It wasn't until recently that I read a quote by Toni Morrison, where she says, racism will end when it stops being profitable and it no longer serves a psychological use. And for me, that narrowed in on exactly what we need to do. We need to acknowledge the fact that racism is profitable. And if we don't have systems to rectify the fact that racism is profitable, if we don't have ways to hold our governments accountable, to hold our state, our federal or local governments accountable for distributing the resources of our talents, of our capital, then we can't ever expect racism to not be profitable. We have to have systems of governance. And I would say that democracy goes even beyond our voting, obviously, that is about how we distribute the resources of this nation. And so liberation in a generation is on a path to work with organizers of color, black, brown, indigenous folks and building the power that we need and building the governance. We had a really great conversation on our pod called racism. It's profitable about co-governance, about what is it that we need to be doing in this moment? And so I'm proud to say that I think my dad now understands what I'm doing. I think he also thinks I have he still thinks I'm a little crazy, but I am proud to say that I have a reason to say that we can and must achieve economic liberation in order to have a real democracy in order to finish the project that is democracy. Love it. And everyone to have a goal to get their parents to understand what they do in their work. So congratulations on that. Michael, please. Good afternoon, Michael McAfee, president and CEO of PolicyLink. PolicyLink is a research and action organization that works to advance racial and economic equity. And the two constructs of economic justice and our democracy are inextricably bound for the reasons that Solana mentioned. Our nation was actually founded with a hierarchy of human value. It was founded on stolen land, slave labor and genocide. And while we've moved somewhat away from that, our institutions weren't designed for a thriving multiracial democracy. And so you can't decouple those two systems of oppression. The unfinished work for our generation is to create a democracy and an economy that works for everyone. And I'll ask you to hold one number that makes it come into full relief. Nearly 100 million people are economically insecure in this country, the wealthiest country in the world. How can that be that one in three people are economically insecure? Nearly 40 million of them are white. That's a design challenge. That is not a charity challenge. And we've never stopped it, asked ourselves, what is the logical conclusion? What is the end course of a nation founded on the hierarchy of human value that we have here? A nation that is founded on slave labor, stolen land and genocide that has never really fully been stood an account for that. I invite you to consider that that 100 million is a reflection of our unfinished business. It is the ultimate return on investment. It is the ultimate return on investment. So that's why you can't decouple them. Because 100 million people need us to design a just and fair nation in which everyone can participate, prosper and reach their full potential. CJ, you can't see all of you. Can you guys just cheer so we can hear how many of you there are? Oh, that's so good. All right, now I feel like I can do this. I just want to say, wow, that's a really huge screen. OK, thank you. I feel arrived. Hi, I'm CJ Grimes. I'm the CEO of WorkMoney. WorkMoney is like we are a big nonprofit, nonpartisan organization, 3.7 million people coast to coast all the states. We're like the AARP for people of all ages to help folks navigate their financial lives, but we don't send you an envelope when you turn 50 that makes you feel old. Now that I am closer to 50 than I am to 40, that is not a funny joke. So I think I love what you said about democracy. I love democracy to me is the will of the people enacted through government. We use elections and representative government, got it. The economy to me is a set of decisions made by people that we elect and folks that they appoint and business leaders. And we measure how it's doing by how we're doing, or at least we should. And I think that knowing that there are and I love the hundred million number. So this is not a contradictory number. This is a complementary number. There are 145 million people who cannot afford a thousand dollar emergency. One hundred and sixty million people voted in the 2020 election. I feel like I could just like stop there, kind of makes the point. But I'll take it a step further and just say that, you know, when democracy is supposed to do something, it isn't like a religion that we just participate in because it exists. It's supposed to create an America where people can live better lives, where people can afford to live better lives, where people think I can do better and so my kids can do better. And that's not what's happening for an awful lot of folks. And so when people don't feel like the system that they participate in gives them the chance to do better, bad things happen. I think we all can see some of those bad things that have been happening. And that's kind of what work money works on. Check. Thank you. Welcome, everybody. My name is Derek Teebles. I am the director of policy and advocacy for inclusive economy with the American Sustainable Business Network, our acronym is ASBN. And we are an advocacy organization, we're membership oriented and we support over 250,000 small businesses in this country. And out of those 250,000, we support about 60,000 of those businesses that are locally owned, independent, which means that they're not owned by chain or franchise. And so to kind of answer this question about economic justice and democracy, it's a story that I could share really brief. I'm the youngest of eight kids and I grew up kind of bougie because my seven older siblings always let me know that Derek, you haven't been through shit. And I remember asking my dad one time, it was like, dad, why did we move out of the West End of Louisville, Kentucky to the East End of Louisville, Kentucky? And he was because Derek, I was chasing the American dream. When I started making more money, I wanted to move you all out of the neighborhood because it was the 80s and the crack epidemic had hit black communities. And he was like, I wanted to take you all to the other side of the town for better schools, yada, yada, yada. And I remember I was 10 years old when I asked him that. And we had a conversation several years ago before the pandemic. And he was like, Derek, I wish I would have never moved you all out of the West End because when I moved, my dollars left our community. And I moved to the other side of town where I was chasing a dream that was not designed for me. And that's that's what really made me think. It's it's kind of like when we talk about economic justice and we talk about democracy, we live in a society where our Constitution was built and created to protect wealthy landowners. And when you include the politics that we've endured over time, the politics tells us that no matter what we have, it's not enough. And our politics today tell us that the powers to be are up here in their ivory towers fighting and well, they're not fighting. They actually own everything. And the politics are designed for all of us at the bottom to be fighting amongst each other. And so we work with BAPOC communities. And one of the things that we've been trying to do is really change the conversation and change the community narrative around what a democracy looks like that is thriving, that works for everyone. Because we've all that this we're in a design right now to where we're pitted against each other. The half knots are fighting amongst each other for the scraps that trickled down from the top. I could go on, but I'll stop there because I only had two minutes. Well, it's interesting because I think we could spend all day unpacking exactly this by design feature of our democracy and economic inequality. I think it is very fair to say as a summary that economic inequality is a political design that was politically created. And if that is true, then we can redesign. It can be undone. We can create something that is more just. And so that's what you all are doing with your work and your colleagues and your partners around the country. And so CJ, I wanted to start with you to unpack a little bit more about what work money does because you're really part of the work that you're doing is clarifying which economic choices, which government policies are benefiting, working in middle class Americans and which are not. You're doing this through direct communication with your three plus million members around the country. And so in that direct interaction with all of those folks, what are you hearing from them about economic injustice and how that plays into their experience with democracy? Okay, I may have known this question was coming. So I may have brought with me some actual messages from our members. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to say some context. I'm going to tell you what some of our members actually said. It's going to get, and I'm going to say some more context. It's going to get a little dark. You're going to hang with me. And then I'm going to bring it up at the end. Is that, are we all, is this good? Do I have consent to continue? Okay, thank you. So context, we have 3.7 million members, which means we have 3.7 million people that we text and call and email every week a lot, many times. So millions and millions of messages go out and millions of messages come back in in the course of a year. So we spend a lot of time giving our members the information that they need to make their own connections between democracy and civic engagement and the economy and their individual daily lives, as well as their ability to have agency as part of the collective around those things. So that means we ask things like the question, I'm going to read you some responses to. We asked our members in the last week or so, what do they think their elected leaders should be talking about and prioritizing? Or the people who are running for office, regardless of party, this is a nonpartisan question, like what do you think people should be talking about? What should their priorities be? What would be best for you and your family? So I'm going to read you some responses. Spoiler alert, it's not a lot of joy. First response, oh, so my name is CJ, my name is Carrie Joy. That's who communicates with our members, is Carrie Joy. That's, I write a lot of our messaging. Okay, Carrie Joy, you know where it's going. The rich get richer, the poor get poorer. That's who runs this world and they want to get richer. Well, I'm old and what can we really do? These companies and politicians, they do what they want and we have to live with it or die. Man, I'm just tired of working so hard just to pay my bills. This one reminds me of when I was younger. I can't afford my bills again this month. I have a daily anxiety as a single parent about how I can avoid becoming homeless in a city where I have no family and nowhere else to stay. No help in childcare, daily chores, no time to access health and mental health care if I had health and mental health care. Rising prices should be number one on everyone's list. Bring down the prices of everything because everything is just getting too much. I just got to keep praying. Last one, man, I can't even get ahead. We try, but are you kidding me? Our landlord just raised our rent $45 more this month. That's crazy. How can he just do that? And so I'm just going to ask a question. I know you guys all know the answer, but how do you think these folks feel about participating in local town hall meetings or elections or any of the ways you participate in democracy to have a thriving democracy? If people don't feel like that is going to have any impact on those problems, why would they want to participate? Like what the heck is democracy for? I'm not swearing. I'm trying hard not to swear. I'm a big swearer in my world. So like if an F-bomb drops, just kind of roll with it, but I'm trying my best. And I think, you know, this is this is not a unique experience. These are not all poor people who are sending these messages, right? One hundred and forty five million Americans can't afford a thousand dollar emergency. You heard me say that that doesn't mean they're all poor. It means they're all financially precarious. And when that many people are that precarious and there's one hundred and sixty million people who cast ballots in the 2020 election. And again, we've got the midterms coming up. I mean, you can imagine people are really struggling. And they're the relationship between their experiences in democracy is kind of beginning to fray. I have a good news. So I'm going to give you some good news. It's going to get a little dark again, but then I'll end on actual good news. Is that cool? OK, good news. In the pandemic, people saw the government and business leaders make a whole set of different decisions, stimulus checks, child tax checks, the ITC expansion, PPP loans for businesses of all sizes and shapes. There were a bunch of different programs, hazard pay for folks who were going to work, essential workers, et cetera, et cetera. Unemployment benefits extended or expanded. That was great news. And what it did is it was this moment where a lot of people were like, wait a minute, you mean we can do this a little differently? This is not about whether you like those policies or not. We can have a discussion about that over beer or bourbon or whatever. Some of them are great. Some of them were eh. But on the whole people, it was an opportunity for folks to see like, oh, it's not just like the weather, how this stuff happens. We can make different choices and that is an opportunity. That is a good opportunity. It's a really good opportunity for those of us who are working with regular folks to help people understand what their options are about their personal finances, also their collective power and how they can influence that kind of policy because people are really open right now. The idea that something can be different, that's great. It is also an opportunity for bad guys. Think about the choices people often face, especially in elections, which is not democracy, but they're obviously related. Something that looks and feels and sounds like how it's been for a long time, which I will not remind you, I will remind you. I'm going to tell you I'm not, but I'm actually reminding you that it's not working for a lot of folks that well, or somebody who sounds different. There's an opportunity happening right now for people who are, you know, authoritarians, who are really trying to grab power for themselves, but do it on the back of what sounds like populism. And I think that the jump ball that is kind of what's happening right now in democracy and politics, good news is the game is really winnable because most folks, they just want it to be a little bit better. They just want to know that they can do a little bit better, that their kids are going to be able to do significantly better. And that is actually possible. There is enough. There's enough. And there's more than enough. And we do still have the levers that we need to direct policy. And I just suddenly was like, am I shouting? Because I get really excited. And then I think I start talking really loud. So I'm going to bring it down because we're about to close on this moment of hope and I'm just going to simmer it down and then bring it back up. Like I think it's very doable. And regular folks, everyday folks, they still have hope. We're still in this open window of having seen people make different decisions about policy and folks who are really open to that. It's just our job, our job, really we've chosen this job, but all of our jobs to help create the conditions that allow folks to, you know, legislate and pass better policies. And I think we're all working on that. And the last thing I'll say is there's just no way through the hard work it takes to do that. There's no fancy commercial or message or new brand or campaign. That is just an ad campaign. You got to actually, we have to get into communities and give people access to the date of the information. And frankly, the moments where policies are decided. And I think that's what I know work when he's doing. And I bet you a lot of our brothers and sisters and siblings on the stage are working on, too. Thank you, C.D. So apparently my hair cannot be controlled. And so I'm switching to this. I apologize for any interference that caused. I do just want to, as a practitioner in philanthropy, I want to like put a pin in what you just wrapped up that it can't be done in a quick way. There are no silver bullets. Annual impact reports are wonderful. And we can't expect to move mountains year over year. And so we've got to be in it for the long haul. Michael, speaking of the long haul, you've been at this for 20 years. PolicyLink has been at this for 20 years and really focusing in on economic equity for that 100 million population that you talked about. That's a big enough job. You have also recently added a goal around democracy, and namely a flourishing multiracial democracy. Did you not have enough to do? Like, why did you add this? What do you hope to get out of that work? Well, the first thing is I don't think organizations deserve to exist simply because they have good brand or they've been able to do good work in the past. I think they deserve to exist because they're willing to do the work that the moment requires. So as we went through our own leadership or transition from myself to from Angela Glover Blackwell to myself, we asked the fundamental question, did PolicyLink deserve to exist still? We weren't trying to be provocative to ask that question. We were really, I was really searching for, do I want to steward this organization into the future? I didn't want to steward an organization that was going to draft off of Angela's reputation. I didn't want to steward an organization that was going to draft off of putting equity on the map. I felt like there was more work to do. And that's why we actually centered that 100 million plus population that is our population that we work on. But as we have done place-based work through the years, what we recognize, and this is the brutal truth, when you ask yourself, do you deserve to exist? It creates phenomenal stress and it's good stress. The phenomenal stress that it created was that, you know, we had to make a decision, were we going to simply be doing a great job managing grant deliverables, or were we really going to change the world? Sometimes those things are to get the same, sometimes they're not. And the reality is while we were doing good work in place on the best days, it was mostly charity work. And there's nothing wrong with charity. Let's stop conflating charity with the liberatory acts that are necessary. We use the right language and then have the wrong practice too often. And so what we begin to recognize is, you know, yeah, we had designed Promise Neighborhoods for President Obama and we helped it to become a permanently authorized program. It's putting billions of dollars into poor neighborhoods and it even got an increase in appropriation in the Trump years. But it's not the liberatory work. And so that meant that we had to grow up. We had to raise our gaze from just being busy in the work to be so bold to accept what is our birthright. Our birthright is to be founders of this nation. Our birthright is to continue to step into that invitation to perfect this democracy and to own that we actually can't get the results that we want if we do not change the nature and the logic of our governing institutions. That's just the reality and the equity movement had never really tried to play at that level. That's why we chose to do this work. It's also important because as we've learned, demography is not destiny. Just because this nation becomes a nation of color does not mean it will be better. Look at what happens going on in LA right now, right? This nation only gets better if we have a new ideological consciousness that we all embody. And so you say what is the work for policy link right now? It is to govern for the all, the all that is in our founding documents, the all that is in the equity definition. I have to be willing to see the humanity of everyone and work hard for them. And that's easy to do because I don't bear the cross of exclusions. That's not mine to bear. So my job is to partner with others to usher in a democracy that works for everyone. So practically what does that mean quickly? It means that first we need a new legal and regulatory framework. The power of white supremacy is that it is so exotically elegant that we can't even target resources to folks without our legal challenge. Think about that. Our most similar, our landmark legislative laws stuck in 1965. We need landmark equity legislation. So we're working to create the fact-based to begin that journey of creating an extension of the 1965 Civil Rights Act. Think about it. 1965 being dismantled right in front of us and we don't have another act to follow. That's the first thing. But we also don't have tools for democratic governance in a multiracial democracy. We cannot continue to use the terms poor people, low-income people, and people of color. Use that language and then design programs that miss the mark. And then like, oops, PPP, miss the mark, oops, Opportunity Zones, miss the mark. We've been missing the mark with trillions of dollars year over year. So we're working with the Urban Institute to design new scoring methodologies that would rival the CBO score. We want to replace it. We want to replace it with a score that is accountable for delivering results for everyone. That's our work. But in addition to that, we need a new standard for governing, a standard for governing in a thriving multiracial democracy. When have we stopped to say to ourselves, what does our citizenry need to embody to participate in associational life, which is fundamental for a democracy? We've not stopped and asked ourselves, what's been that new standard? What do our institutions have to be for that new standard? Hell, what is the new standard? That's the work that we're creating right now. That becomes the ideological underpinning that I'm talking about. So for us, what we have recognized is the dream of a just and fair society cannot be realized if we play small. We cannot just clean up the shit that is dumped on poor communities around this country. We've got to own the design of the nation. We are its founders. And so that's why we're taking on that work. I can be on the phone with this guy and want to applaud after he said something. You're not just talking about big picture ideas in theory. You compliment it all with like, and this is specifically what we're doing, a new score to rival the CBO. So thank you for balancing the big picture as well as the concrete opportunities here. Derek, you all at ASBN work with communities all around the country to advocate, to coordinate and advocate for public policy change for a more equitable economy. Given that you've got such a broad, a broad purview, what are the main sort of obstacles that you all are facing? And what are the key levers that you're finding like the shining lights that you see that can help overcome those obstacles? Sure. Well, first, you know, we not only organize businesses and we not only educate policymakers, but we also organize investors as well. And when you think about just kind of a lot of what's been said already, it's about relationship. When you think about, we talk about, you know, BAPOC entrepreneurs and marginalized entrepreneurs, they need access to capital, access to capital. And we know that to be true, but they also need access to relationships. And when we talk about just kind of our economy and a lot of what I've heard on the panel, it brings me back to when I was working at the Urban League and I used to do a lot of social work. Imagine someone who is born into poverty and they're on the welfare system and they come and sit across somebody like me who has a clipboard who is asking this person questions only to figure out what's wrong with them. So I could try to figure out how to help them. And the one thing that our economy needs right now is we need an economics of compassion. And this economics of compassion is really a reimagining of what our economy could look like if we treated people, everyone that we meet as a person with gifts and assets instead of beating someone and trying to figure out what's wrong with them. And so when a young person is sitting across from me trying to get welfare, this is back in my social work days, I did a little thing where I just switched around the questions that I was asking. Instead of telling me three things that you don't like about your community, try telling me three things that you do like about your community. You begin to have a different conversation and you begin to find out about that young person's aspirations. Give us a matter of pulling the resources around that individual. And this happened in my career where this was an artist, a young artist that was writing graffiti on the walls of downtown Cincinnati. And we basically got him and his friends off the streets and we told them that we would give you all the canvases that you want. We will give you all the spray paint that you want. We'll invite a bunch of doctors and people that are C-suite level folks and we'll invite them to an art show and we'll allow you all to meet them. We had three kids sell $150,000 worth of art in an art show like that. And you can only imagine what that does to the mindset of that individual who has never seen anyone in their family or in their group of friends who's run a business or anything like that because they grew up in generational poverty. And so that is what I mean and that is an example of an economics of compassion is finding out the assets and the gifts and the aspirations that people want in their life and giving them the tools and resources to be able to act that out. And we have the tools and resources to be able to allow an entrepreneur to carve out a life based on their own imagination with the right access to capital and the right access to relationships. Then we begin to have what we call an economics of compassion. There are so many businesses in communities that are community-based that contribute to the community and economic development. But if you're in a community where there's 5,000 families making an average annual income of $20,000 a year what is the narrative of that community? The narrative is that that community is poor, that there's not enough money in this community to invest in. And that's often the narrative that we paint on these communities. But really if you switch that narrative, take 5,000 families making an average annual income of $20,000 a year that's $100 million a year annually in spending power. Now let's ask ourselves how much of that $100 million is recirculating in that community? If you look at a black community today, the flow of the dollar leaves that community in 15 minutes compared to white and Jewish communities where the flow of the dollar circulates for about 20 to 30 days. And when you think about that extraction, it makes sense why years later we're still talking about traditional ways of alleviating poverty. We're all here today because we care. But when we begin to have different conversations that are based on the assets that are already inherent in a community and those are the relationships that these people have, think about when I go to see Bob Barber every 10 days or so, the policy in Cincinnati is that barber shops can't be open on Sunday. Well, I had to fly to SoCAP Monday morning, so I needed a haircut Sunday. I could call Bob Barber and he's going to be like, well, just come over to my house. So let's just think about when we talk about marginalized entrepreneurs and BIPOC entrepreneurs, how many of those entrepreneurs are operating in the informal economy? How can we bring entrepreneurs out of the informal economy into the formal economy? And then how can we increase local multiplier effects in communities? How can we help businesses hire local? How can we help them source locally? How can we keep some of that $100 million flowing in the community? And if we're able to start there, then we're able to uplift communities and allow them to do for themselves. And this is kind of like a conservative narrative, but it's really true. If people are given the right access, they could actually do for themselves. They don't want to be on welfare. They just want the access, the tools and the relationships to be able to carve out a life based on their own imagination. And if we contribute to that and if we help those folks, they will contribute to the community and the economic development in our cities and in our communities, and then all of us have benefited economically. There's a lot to unpack there, and I would like to do it, and I'm sure everyone else would like to do it, and we've got six minutes. So, Solana, coming to the work of liberation and ageneration, you all really make a very clear connection between economic justice and democracy through, for example, your work on corporate concentration and anti-monopoly. So I wonder if you could just unpack a little bit about what are we up against in that regard and what are the opportunities to help overcome it? Yeah, thanks. I want to start with our worldview, which is about and what we're trying to accomplish, which is bringing in a liberation economy where everyone has our basic needs met. All black, brown folks have safety and security, where we're compensated and valued for our contributions to our communities, whether that be through care or all the undervalued ways that we contribute to our communities, and essentially where we all belong. I think we all know that feeling when you walk into a party and you're like, hey, that's what I want to feel every time I walk into work, every time I have any sort of transaction in the economy. Could you imagine that? Like, I can't quite imagine it, but every day I'm working towards it. What we realized, though, is having this narrative of like, we're imagining where everybody belongs and everybody has our basic needs met isn't where we're at today. But there are a lot of things we have to dismantle. There are a lot of institutions that we have to dismantle. There are a lot of cycles of oppression that we need to dismantle. And one of those key pieces is corporate power. Now, we have to undo our dual financial system where wealthy people are just getting wealthier and poor folks are just getting poorer, right? We have to undo the disenfranchisement of so many millions of people. And the way that we approach it is to make sure that we're working with people that are building power in their communities every day. You started with, and I think somebody mentioned, that democracy is a practice. And if we don't have the organizations that are in communities every day, practicing democracy every day, then we're losing. It'd be like if we were farmers and we just wanted to harvest every November and we're like, where are all the squashes? And we didn't actually till the soil. We didn't actually water anything. We just expected to magically arrive. And so I think we felt it incumbent upon us, even though the organizations that we work with, day in and day out, are not necessarily focused on corporate power. They're not, that's not on their radar. But we knew that if we didn't have it in our platform, we'd be doing those communities a huge disservice. Because everything that they are fighting for has a corporate rival. Every single thing. So we think about amendment four that passed in Florida. We had, in Florida, folks worked day in and day out to make sure that formerly incarcerated people had the right to vote. What happened the next day? DeSantis was governor. He decided, folks have to pay to vote. If that is not a clear connection between economic justice and democracy, that we have to fight on both rails at all times, I don't know what is. We have a system of oppression, and that's just in our legal justice system, where racism is profitable. $182 billion industry. Private prisons and our corporate, and our carceral system is $182 billion system. So when folks get out of that system, they face huge unemployment rates. They face huge housing insecurity. Amongst many other things that keeps them out of the economy. That economic disenfranchisement then turns into political disenfranchisement. You said it yourself, right? Folks aren't like, let me go to the town hall now. They're like, how am I putting food on the table? And that's just a brown voting, let alone feeling like they have a sense of governance, that they have a sense that they actually have control over the resources that are in this nation, over the huge, huge, huge resources in our nation. Corporations are at the nexus. They are really our rivals in so many ways, unfortunately. They don't have to be. But we think about economic security. We think about the fact that unions and worker power is absolutely necessary to really achieving racial economic justice. Study after study has shown that union participation makes a difference between how much you earn and how much I earn in a corporate environment. So we have union busting across the nation. We have right to work states, mostly in the south, right? And so that's economic justice. And corporate influence has way too much influence in how much we can pay ourselves, right? $15 minimum wage? Why don't we have a $15 minimum wage? I'm just going to say corporations, especially the coalitions of corporations, aren't too fancy on a $15 minimum wage. Well, we think about practicing democracy in small ways, small D-ways, participatory budgeting. Folks go to their town halls. They say, what's on the table? What can we really talk about? What can we deliberate about? Well, we are dependent on tax revenue and guess what? We can't run those corporations out of town. Yeah, they're not paying you a lot, but they really have a hold on our entire budget. That's disheartening. That's disheartening. So when we talk about democracy, I think we also have to be finding sites of small D-democracy where people can really be practicing. And those are with our community organizations that are building power day in and day out, and they are fighting against huge, huge influence in corporations, corporate lobbies, corporate coalitions, and monopolies. And that's why we felt like we could not leave that off the table. All right, I'm seeing 30 seconds on a clock. We have no time for questions. This is really a bummer. But this will not summarize all of the wonderful stuff that we've just heard in the past 40 minutes. Well enough. But if it's by design, it can be redesigned. I feel like that can't be said enough. These are the folks who are doing that hard work. There's lots of others out there as well. If we need to redesign it, it takes time. And guess what? It takes money. So anybody who has the ability to write a check and is interested in supporting this work, I will be the person pitching. Talk to them. I'll be in the elevator too. And point you in their directions. I have all of these folks' emails. But no, I mean, it's the hard work. It's the long work. And it will take all of us. But again, if it is by design, it can be redesigned. I fully believe that. And I thank you all for the work that you're doing. Thank you. Thank you.