Episode 29 - Ants Among Elephants: An Untouchable Family and the Making of Modern India

Episode 29 - Ants Among Elephants: An Untouchable Family and the Making of Modern India

Author: CUNY SLU April 9, 2022 Duration: 25:35
In this episode, we turn to India’s two-millennia-old caste system that has often been compared to our own structures of racial oppression. A recent book, Ants Among Elephants: An Untouchable Family and the Making of Modern India, provides a sort of memoir of caste viewed through the experiences author Sujatha Gidla’s Dalit family. Speaking with New Labor Forum Editor-at-Large Kafui Attoh, Gidla says she drew motivation and courage to write this personal account by witnessing individual and collective acts of resistance of African Americans. A resident of the U.S. since age 26, Gidla completed the writing of the book while working as a New York City train conductor and member of Local 100 of the Transit Workers Union.

What does it mean to stand together in a world that often feels fragmented? Reinventing Solidarity, from CUNY SLU, digs into that question without easy answers. This isn't a lecture series, but a collection of grounded conversations exploring how connection and mutual support are being reimagined right now. You'll hear from organizers, artists, scholars, and community members who are actively building bridges across differences, examining both the triumphs and the stumbling blocks in contemporary collective action. Each episode focuses on real-world examples, from workplace organizing and neighborhood initiatives to cultural projects that challenge old narratives. The discussions are nuanced, avoiding simple slogans in favor of honest talk about the hard work of building lasting bonds in our communities and institutions. Tune in for a thoughtful exploration of the practical and philosophical sides of coming together. This podcast offers a necessary space to consider how solidarity isn't just a historical concept, but a living, evolving practice we all have a stake in shaping.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 67

Reinventing Solidarity
Podcast Episodes
Episode 26 - NYC Labor And The New Mayor [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 57:26
Less than a month into the new mayoralty in the City of New York, we assembled a panel of leading journalists to delineate Eric Adams’s vision for the city, especially as it pertains to working people. Only the second bl…
Episode 25 - "Winter After The Strike" [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 37:15
The poetry of our guest, Gregory Pardlo, is some of the finest, engaged work written in the U.S. today. He brings us the striking air traffic controller, permanently replaced, selling off everything but his house, his yo…
Episode 24 - Porn Work: Sex, Labor, and Late Capitalism [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 47:51
This episode draws on New Labor Forum’s cutting-edge Books and the Arts section edited by Samir Sonti. Here, the book in question is PORN WORK: Sex, Labor, and Late Capitalism, by Heather Berg. Reviewer Whitney Strub dis…
Episode 21 - What Are Unions Fighting for at COP26? [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 48:49
This episode airs as COP26, the 2021 U.N. Climate Change Conference, gets underway in Glasgow, Scotland. Our guest, Roz Foyer, General Secretary of the Scottish Trades Union Congress, notes that this year’s Conference ta…
Episode 20 - Labor In The Age Of Finance [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 34:29
Samir Sonti interviews Sandy Jacoby, author of Labor in the Age of Finance: Pensions, Politics, and Corporations from Deindustrialization to Dodd-Frank. Jacoby’s book and this conversation offer insights into some of the…
Episode 19 - Occupy Wall Street: Ten Years Later [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 24:53
On September 17th, 2011, approximately a thousand people massed in lower Manhattan at the towering edifices of the “Vatican of capitalism.” This movement, known as Occupy Wall Street, called attention to the obscene ineq…
Episode 18 - State of the Unions [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 26:15
In the first episode of the 2021-22 season, Paula Finn holds a conversation with Ruth Milkman and Stephanie Luce assessing the U.S. labor movement’s current strength as relates to union density, or the percentage of work…