Omkari & Kat Calvin Interview Each Other Transcript
Omkari Williams 0:20
Hello and welcome to Stepping Into Truth, the podcast where we have conversations on social justice and how we all get free. I'm your host Omkari Williams, and I'm very pleased that you're here with me today. Before I introduce today's guest, I want to mention that my book Micro Activism: How You Can Make a Difference in the World (Without a Bullhorn) is available now from your favorite bookseller. I hope you'll grab a copy for yourself and grab a couple extra, they're a great holiday gift. This book is my guiding hand to all those who are looking to find their sustainable way to being a change maker in this world. Okay, enough for the self promotion. Today is a special day on Stepping Into Truth. I have a repeat guest, Kat Calvin, the founder and executive director of Spread the Vote and Project ID, and the co founder and CEO of the Project ID Action Fund. Kat is a lawyer, activist and social entrepreneur, she has built a national organization that helps Americans obtain the IDs they need for jobs, housing, life, and in some states, the voting booth. Kat and her work have been featured in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, as well as on NPR, PBS, BET, and many other outlets. She's been a guest commentator on MSNBC, CNN, Headline News and more. And she is the author of the brand new book, American Identity in Crisis: Notes From an Accidental Activist. And it is my great pleasure to welcome Kat back to the podcast. How are you?
Kat Calvin 2:02
I'm so excited, I've been waiting to do this podcast, I just love you. I love talking to you. So I'm thrilled to be here.
Omkari Williams 2:07
Thank you so much, same back at you. So you are really kind of still in the middle of your book tour. Because yours is set up so that you actually get to go home and sleep in your own bed from time to time, which sounds really lovely to me. Let's just start with what has been your experience of being on the road, talking to people about your book, and the impetus behind your book. I'm gonna back up, start with just a teeny little bit about what project ID is. And then let's talk about the tour.
Kat Calvin 2:39
Absolutely. So Project ID is, and what I do for a living is, we help people get ID. 26 million American adults don't have photo ID. They're tough to get they're expensive, etc. So what my organization does, on our nonprofit C3 side is we work in 21 states, helping people get all the documents that they need. Helping them get IDs, paying for things, helping with transportation, etc. Basically doing whatever it takes to help folks get IDs in hand. And we either do that ourselves on the ground or through partners who we train and things like that. And then we have our C4 arm, Project ID Action Fund. And what we're doing there is trying to change policy so that we can eliminate this problem altogether. So that's the work. And then that's what the book, American Identity in Crisis is all about. Is what the ID crisis is, how we got to 26 million people without IDs, what our work is, you know what it actually looks like and means not to have an ID and then how we can solve the problem.
Omkari Williams 2:39
I love that you are essentially with your C4 arm trying to put yourself out of business, right?
Kat Calvin 2:57
That's exactly it.
Omkari Williams 3:36
And it makes me think, I was listening to the Rachel Maddow Show this week. And she opened with this really lovely segment about Jimmy Carter and how back in 2015, someone asked him basically what his goal for the rest of his life was. And he said his goal was to outlive the last guinea worm, because guinea worm disease is this terrible scourge. And she was saying how there are now only six recorded cases of guinea worm in the world. So he might actually accomplish this. So I feel like this is going to be Kat she's going to outlive the person with no ID. And that just makes me so excited.
Kat Calvin 4:28
It's so my goal. Also we do not spend enough time appreciating that Jimmy Carter is the greatest ex president who ever lived. He just oh my god, I love that man so much. My goal is and we've got a bill in Congress that would eliminate this problem. And my goal really is that, you know, one day 20 years from now, if we tell people you know, there was a time in America where there were some people who didn't have IDs and people just laugh. I think a lot about Ralph Nader and how it seems so impossible now to think that there was a time when cars didn't have seatbelts and airbags.
Omkari Williams 5:02
Yes.
Kat Calvin 5:03
But the only reason that that is is because of him. And I have spent a lot of my life trying to, you know, emulate Ralph Nader and like, that's what I want is to be able to look back and be like, well, we solved that problem. What's next? You know.
Omkari Williams 5:15
Exactly. I love it. And it would be incredibly impactful for so many people. And not only the people you directly helped, but the knock on effect of that is huge. Because if someone in a family doesn't have an ID, they can't get a job. So that impacts the whole family. It's not just that one person. And I think sometimes we don't really pay enough attention to the knock on effects and how that also impacts the rest of society.
Kat Calvin 5:46
Yep, yep.
Omkari Williams 5:47
We're trying to support these people, or we should be, and we are spending money that we wouldn't need to be spending in that area, if we only made it possible for people to get this as sort of a matter of course. So I just feel like this is so fundamental and so important and should not be so hard. And I actually would really love for you to talk a little bit about how there really is no path out of poverty in this country without ID.
Kat Calvin 6:17
You need it for everything right. If you want a job, if you want housing, most food banks require ID for food, a lot of shelters require ID for beds, if you want WIC or SNAP or Medicaid or MEDI-Cal, or Medicare. If you want section 8 housing, you can get a section 8 voucher, but you can't actually move into the housing without an ID. Veterans can't get their veterans benefits without IDs, right? You can't get social security insurance, anything that we have set up for people to be able to pull themselves out of poverty, out of homelessness, you cannot do without an ID. And yet, the government doesn't actually provide that ID. And so you can't cash a check. The number of people we had after COVID who had stimulus checks that they couldn't cash. Who have social security checks that they can't cash, because you need an ID to cash a check. So we have people who have money in their pockets that could get them indoors, and they cannot access that money.
Kat Calvin
And so that is the key to everything. And that's why we work with partners, really of all stripes, mayor's offices and housing authorities and homeless authorities and public schools. You can't take the SAT without an ID, you can't go to school with that ID. I was taking classes at LA City College, which is this absolutely incredible community college system. It's a full system, it's the best funded one in the country, it's so well funded that I actually had to tell them, please stop emailing me about scholarships, I just want to pay like it's fine. Because they have so much money that you can really go to LA City College for free. And then they have all of these transfers to four year university, like it's a really incredible opportunity for people. And I was taking classes that I was halfway through this semester, had already taken exams and all these things. And I got a call saying, hey, we need you to send us a picture of your ID.
Omkari Williams 8:10
Oh.
Kat Calvin 8:11
And I said, Well, what, what would happen if I didn't have ID? And I, of course, I always ask this question because it's my job. And the person was like, I don't know, you wouldn't be able to take classes, right? If I was someone who was taking these classes to change my life, and it was actually free. And the books were free, like it is something anyone can do. And I started it and then they said oh, well, you need an ID. There's that opportunity. Every single thing that you need to do in order to pull yourself up, you need an ID for. It's the key. But there is no national mechanism. And we are the only national organization that actually makes that happen.
Omkari Williams 8:48
You know, it's so interesting because I grew up in Manhattan, which means I didn't get a driver's license till I was 30 and moved to Los Angeles. If I needed to go somewhere, I took the subway or I hailed a cab it was no biggie. I had a passport because I had traveled, otherwise I would not have had photo ID but then you didn't really need it the same way.
Kat Calvin 9:13
Yeah.
Omkari Williams 9:13
September 11 changed everything.
Kat Calvin 9:16
Yeah.
Omkari Williams 9:17
But that was so below the radar. I didn't realize how much that it changed things because I had it by that point. I had everything I needed. Could you talk about what that switch that sort of flipped in Congress after that, and how that's made it much harder for you and your team to do what you do.
Kat Calvin 9:36
Yeah, and you know, it wasn't just Congress. It was everywhere. So you and I being somewhat senior, we remember that it was a lot easier when we were getting our first driver's licenses at first. I was 16 because I did not grow up in New York. So I got a drivers license the second I could and most of us don't remember it being this hard. And that's because it wasn't. But what happened, a few things happened after 9/11. So the terrorists had something like 36 state IDs, that they had gotten like functionally, legally. Technically, you're not supposed to have that many, but they'd been able to go in and get these IDs. And then they used those IDs, of course, for renting cars and for all sorts of the things that they needed to have to perpetrate the attack. And so a few things came out of that. The 9/11 Commission created real ID. Which, as we have seen, 23 years later, it's still not actually been implemented, and may never be,.Most of us in the ID world are like, this is never gonna happen. But that was their reaction is like, we've got to make these things more secure, we've got to make them a little harder to get. But what people don't know is that every single state and the District, they all made it much more difficult to get IDs overnight. Because in most states, the documents that are required to get an ID it's not a statutory thing, it's not something that has to be voted on. There's just a person who decides, whether it's the head of the Department of Transportation, or it's literally just Muriel Bowser in DC, right? Like, it's just usually a person or a committee or something. And so overnight, they all changed.
Kat Calvin 10:58
And so a few things happen, you used to be able, if you had a valid state ID, you know, from Arizona, and then you moved to California, you could just take in that ID and they give you another ID. No more. Now the first time you get an ID you have to have your birth certificate, your social security card in most states, right? Like all of these original documents. They increased the number of documents you needed to have, but decreased the types that were allowed, like all of these different things. And so that is where we see this huge split happen, where suddenly there are tens of millions of people in this country who can't get an ID. Because it's so much more difficult. They also put so many different security mechanisms into our IDs that people do not realize they're in there. The other thing, then that happened as well is this whole country started getting more secure.
Omkari Williams 11:45
Yeah.
Kat Calvin 11:45
I was laughing as I was watching a Tik Tok and Gen Z. And it makes sense that they don't know this because they were either very young or went alive yet. They didn't realize that TSA didn't exist before 9/11. And I was like, Oh, you sweet babes, you don't remember when the whole family used to be able to go to the gate and hang out until your flight was ready.
Omkari Williams 11:52
Exactly, you had company, you could have a meal.
Kat Calvin 12:07
And you used to be able to keep your shoes on. Precheck what's precheck? Everybody just walked through. And it was fine. Until that one time it wasn't. Well, I mean, planes were constantly getting hijacked in the 70s. People who weren't traveling then, do not understand the military state that we live in now compared to pre 9/11. Right. And so many things now require ID that didn't require it. I mean, it used to be much easier to go into federal buildings. But one of the things we see, you know, you need ID to go into a federal building, but they put offices to apply for unemployment, or government services in federal buildings. So you can't even walk in the building to apply without an ID.
Omkari Williams 12:28
That sounds a little problematic.
Kat Calvin 12:35
Yeah, exactly, exactly. But it doesn't matter cuz you can't get it without an ID anyway, so they're just cutting you off at the door, don't even waste your time. And so we now we have this situation now where it's much more difficult to get an ID, but we live in a much more militarized state where you need an ID for so many more things than you ever did before. And all of these people are cut out that either had an ID because they could get one without this sort of burdensome requirements, or didn't have an ID but you didn't really notice, like you said that much that you didn't need it. Because you know, you weren't having to take your passport around everywhere.
Omkari Williams 13:28
Nope.
Kat Calvin 13:29
Just for certain things, you know, like, yeah, you need to bid for a job or whatever. And so 9/11 is really where all of this started to happen.
Omkari Williams 13:36
You know, it's so interesting, because when I think about the kind of documentation that you need, I love that you need to have your social security card, which you are not allowed to laminate.
Kat Calvin 13:49
Right. You get one when you are born. And then good luck keeping that little paper card the rest of your life.
Omkari Williams 13:57
Your natural life. It's insane. This little flimsy piece of paper, but you cannot laminate it. So God forbid your wallet gets wet.
Kat Calvin 14:07
Right.
Omkari Williams 14:08
If you have it in your wallet. Though, you're not supposed to carry it around with you either. So then, you're supposed to remember where you put that thing.
Kat Calvin 14:16
I have no, I just realized I have no idea where mine is.
Omkari Williams 14:18
Mm hmm. Oh, you know, and your birth certificate,
Kat Calvin 14:22
You get these two pieces of paper.
Omkari Williams 14:24
Only you don't get your birth certificate, your parents get your birth certificate. So then there's another layer if your parents are not organized, then that can be gone.
Kat Calvin 14:38
Or if anything happens, you know, you get flooded. You know, I was just talking to an attorney who is working with victims of the fires in Maui. And you know, they barely got out of their houses with their lives. They lost everything else right. But do you know you know what you need in order to get FEMA support?
Omkari Williams 14:57
An ID.
Kat Calvin 14:58
Yep.
Omkari Williams 14:59
So unless You were one of those prescient people who opened a safe deposit box in a bank that wasn't on Maui, and had a nice secure vault, you have nothing, you're starting from scratch.
Kat Calvin 15:16
Yep. And when you go to vital records to get your birth certificate, they're going to ask for your ID. And when you go to the Social Security Administration, which good luck, to get your social security card, they're going to ask for your ID. But when you go to get your ID, they're going to ask for those things. And so you just get the runaround and the runaround, and the runaround. And you know, this is something that happens, or could happen to any one of us, right.
Omkari Williams 15:35
Any one of us. And I think that that's a really important thing to remember is that this is not about people being irresponsible. This is not about people being careless. This is just life, you know, you can have a flood, the pictures from Brooklyn last week with water halfway up cars means that all of those lovely little garden apartments in Brooklyn were flooded.
Kat Calvin 16:00
Because they were all on TikTok, Gen Z showing all of everything flooded. You had three feet of water in their apartments. And of course, the first thing I thought of was, well, if you had your birth certificate in there, it's gone now. And New York is the hardest place to get an ID or birth certificate. So yeah, they're really in trouble. Good luck.
Omkari Williams 16:17
And it's going to be a massive nightmare of logistics for them to replace all of the stuff that was lost in one flood in one day. Really, it impacted mostly Brooklyn in that way. But that's a lot of people.
Kat Calvin 16:34
It's a lot of people. And these are people, right? They have jobs, they're paying enormous amounts of rent, they are all the people who we tend to think of as safe. Yeah, but it's a constant reminder, we're not.The Paradise fires happened here in LA. And those were people with lovely houses, but their houses burned down. Once again, they barely got out with just their lives, we have the same problem here. And so people think, you know, half the country now lives in a hurricane area. Right? We had a tornado in LA. And so people think that they're safe. And one of the things that you learn when you do this kind of work, or when you work with the unhoused is that we're all just one disaster, or a few missed paychecks away from being unhoused ourselves.
Omkari Williams 17:18
Yes, exactly.
Kat Calvin 17:20
I actually was just reading this horrifying study that poverty has like almost doubled in America over the last few years, like we are just, we're overwhelmed. And it's affecting all of us. And if you lose that ID, good luck ever getting back on your feet.
Omkari Williams 17:37
I think I know the study you're referring to. And part of it is definitely the pandemic bailed a lot of people out as hard as it was, there was financial support. And so it lifted a lot of people out of poverty. But now that support is gone. And so they're not only backward, they were, they're actually worse, because we tend to adapt to our circumstances. So people elevated their circumstance of living. And now that's been yanked out from under them. And so they're actually worse off than they were before.
Kat Calvin 18:07
And things are more expensive, groceries are so much more expensive than pre COVID. Right? Rent is more expensive, gas is more expensive. So they're having that support yanked out and going into a world that costs much more than they had before.
Omkari Williams 18:21
Exactly. And so it's just amplifying the problem. And I think that we underestimate the psychological weight of these kinds of things. I mean, it feels like, Okay, you just go and get your ID. But actually, it can be a process that doesn't take a matter of an hour or two, it can take months, depending on the circumstance. That's daunting. That's just daunting. And I want to give a shout out to your volunteers who are so amazing and just stick with your clients and say, Okay, so last thing I do, I am getting this person an ID, and I'm just going to do it, whatever it takes. I'd love for you to talk about how returning citizens, so formerly incarcerated people, are impacted by this because we live in a society that tells us that we are all about second chances and all of that. (laughter)
Kat Calvin 19:25
Surely nobody believes that. (more laughter)
Omkari Williams 19:29
You're not supposed to make me laugh so hard that I can't get the question out. Thank you so much. (still laughing)
Kat Calvin 19:34
Don't ask ridiculous questions I won't laugh.. (yep, still laughing)
Omkari Williams 19:39
Well, okay, let me put it this way. They say that we are a society of second chances. However, your experience in dealing with returning citizens is somewhat different in terms of second chances. Would you speak about that?
Kat Calvin 19:59
Excellent recovery
Omkari Williams 20:00
Thank you.
Kat Calvin 20:02
So we incarcerate shocking numbers of people. And when you go in, all of your belongings are taken away, including your ID, of course. And then when folks are released, they're told, get a job, get housing, don't associate with all of those people who got you in trouble before, which is often yo friends, family community. And we don't give people except for a couple of states are changing Virginia, Vermont, like their couple states are changing. We don't give incarcerated citizens IDs when they get out. Either the ID that we took, and sometimes often, we've had folks who like they've just been arrested for sleeping on the streets, cops have thrown away all their things. They're let out the next day, and they have lost their ID. But if you've been incarcerated for a long time, your IDs expired, and we don't help people get a new one. And so then you can't get a job. And you can't get housing and the homeless to prison, it's not even a pipeline. It's a cycle, right? It goes back and forth. People are unhoused, we just had a study come out in California that showed that 67% of people incarcerated in this state were unhoused when they were arrested.
Omkari Williams 21:12
Oh!
Kat Calvin 21:12
Yeah, 67%. It absolutely floored me. But then I was like, Well, I guess I'm not surprised because I work with these folks, and I know, unhoused, and then you get arrested for maybe for trying to steal food right or something or maybe just for sleeping in the wrong place or whatever. And then you're incarcerated, and then you're let out, but you can't get a job and you can't get housing and nobody will hire you anyways. And so then you end up back on the street. And it goes back and forth. We have so many incarcerated citizens to come with us. And in some states, you know, like in Michigan, we work with the state so that they actually take mobile DMVs into jails to get IDs for folks who are about to be released and then bill us, hilariously, because the state won't pay for it. Which drives me up a wall, this happens in many states. But you know, our goal is to help folks get IDs as close to release date as possible, so that they then are able to reenter, because theoretically, although not functionally, once you serve your time, and you have paid your debt, you're supposed to be able to reenter into society. But we do everything we can to make sure that they can't do that, starting with not making sure that they have an ID. New York has IDNYC which is a municipal ID. And there is an effort now by Shahana Hanif who is this wonderful council woman we endorsed on our C4 side. And who actually did my first book event with me and was wonderful, she's trying to make a change. Because one of the things we noticed years ago when we were trying to work with folks in New York is that you can't use a state prison ID as a proof of identity to get your municipal ID, even though it's a government ID.
Omkari Williams 22:57
So it's good enough for them to use to incarcerate you but not good enough for you to use to get a standard ID.
Kat Calvin 23:07
Even if it's a government ID and not even a DMV ID, just the municipal ID. And so Shahana is working on changing that. Because when you get out if you could at least get your Muni ID, which is supposed to be the ID that is easier to get that more people who, you know, if you're undocumented, if you are unhoused, whatever, able to get, but they specifically said, Well, this type of government ID isn't allowed. And we see that all over when we try to get birth certificates for folks. And we say, hey, they don't have a DMV ID, but they have a prison ID can we use that? No. And it's a government ID. And so we cut them out of the system. And we basically, we work very hard to make it impossible for folks to successfully reenter society, unless they come from some amount of money, right? Because a lot of they have families, but their families can't help because obviously, socioeconomic status and incarceration rates are incredibly closely linked. And so we create the circumstances that force recidivism.
Omkari Williams 24:07
Okay, that just, yeah, that makes me so angry, just so very angry. Okay, I'm gonna move on to something that doesn't make me quite so cranky. So one of the things that I most appreciated about your book is that you really do take us into the intersection of the personal and the political. And that's why you started the sea for arm of project ID, where the policy and personal lives overlap because policy makes all the difference. So if they change the policy, for instance, about the muni IDs that would make a huge difference in the personal lives of these returning citizens. Would you talk a little bit more outside of that circumstance of people who have been incarcerated about why it's so important that we not ignore the policy in service of helping individuals, as we move forward in this, this mission to have everyone have an ID?
Kat Calvin 25:10
I sat down one day and made a spreadsheet to figure out how I could get every single person in this country who needs an IDan ID. And then I was like, Oh, this is gonna cost all the money in the world. And then I just ordered a pizza and cried. I, just like I can't, I can't do this one on one, right? Like, we need to do the work one on one right now, because there are people just everyday who just need ideas to live. But it's just not possible for one little organization or a lot of organizations to get every single person in ID, that is a thing that has to be done by policy, right. And it is a thing that in the time that it takes me to get one person and ID Newsom could sign a bill, we have a bill actually on his desk right now, that would make driver's licenses, which costs $41, they went up $10 this year in California, free for folks who are unhoused. IDs are already free for unhoused folks, though, it's a complicated process to get them. But if you could go through all the steps and they're free, but driver's licenses aren't. And so the bill that just passed the legislature and is on Newsom's desk would make driver's licenses free. Crucially, it would also make birth certificates free for low income Californians. Which is huge.
Omkari Williams 26:21
Yeah.
Kat Calvin 26:21
Because they cost $30 each. And that is, not only is that a big expense just for one person if you're low income. But you know, I have a lot of these single mothers who come in who have multiple kids, and she needs a birth certificate for herself and all of her kids because you need them for school, you need them for your section eight housing, all sorts of things. And then you're looking at, you know, maybe $100, maybe $150, to get everybody a birth certificate, and it's too much. And so this would make it free for low income folks. And so the second that Newsom signs that and you know, it gets implemented, and blah, blah, blah, all of a sudden, that is millions of people in California, who can get a free driver's license and a free birth certificate, which is going to allow them to get jobs, which is going to allow them to get housing, which is going to get them off of the streets, which is going to increase the tax base in the state, right? Like all of the things allow them to get health care, and to stop impacting generations, right when I'm taking a mother of five to get her birth certificate and birth certificates for all her kids and an ID, because they're living in a building that has no water and electricity, which is a thing that happened recently. Then, once she gets that, if she can get into housing, not only are we changing her life, but we're changing her children's lives, and they are changing their children's children's lives, why they're able to go to school and eat regularly and sleep and do all the things they need to live a better life. And it impacts all of us.
Kat Calvin 27:45
And so that is a thing through policy, right? If we get our bill through Congress, then you know look, it is way harder to get a bill passed in Congress than Schoolhouse Rock would have led you to believe. But through all of the things, the President signs it, and then you know, and then there's a committee, blah, blah, blah, I mean, literally overnight, 26 million people and really more, because it would be an ID for folks who are 14 and up. So it'd be well over 30 million people suddenly, would be able to have an ID, right? It changes everything. And that is a thing that you can do through policy that you just can't do individually. Right. And so it is for us, once we got to a point where the C3 side was operating really well, we knew exactly what we were doing. We were very good at getting IDs. We said, Alright, this is great. And we've helped you over 11,000 people now, which is awesome. But they're 26 million. And we have to look at policy in order to be able to do that, to successfully achieve this for everybody.
Omkari Williams 28:43
Yeah, I really love that. I love the intersection of dealing with the individuals but also dealing with the larger systemic issue to, hopefully, make this your equivalent of Jimmy Carter's getting rid of guinea worm. So, yes, thank you, I'm gonna end this phase of our conversation by asking you, is there anything I didn't ask you that you really want to say to the people who are listening?
Kat Calvin 29:12
What I'll say is when you are passing someone who is unhoused on the street, when you are seeing a news story about someone who is incarcerated, or a foster child, or whatever, think about the fact from now on that you're probably looking at someone who doesn't have an ID. And doesn't have even the first thing that they need in order to be able to get themselves out of that situation,.And that it is not due to their own laziness or their unwillingness or because this weird fallacy that people want to be unhoused, right. That it is because we have created a system that has made it impossible for them to have the thing that they need that the rest of us take for granted that will change their lives.
Omkari Williams 29:59
Thank you so much for that. So we're gonna take a little tiny break, Kat and I, because then we're going to come back and Kat is actually going to interview me. And now I'm going to hand it over to Kat, which feels really weird, because I'm used to being in charge of this whole show.
Kat Calvin 30:22
Finally, my master plan. I'm in charge now.
Omkari Williams 30:27
And this is how it's gonna go. I see this already. Okay, I surrender.
Kat Calvin 30:32
Right, I am the host of this podcast. Hello, everybody. I'm so excited. So, I actually got your book, maybe like a week ago. And I've been holding it in, because I really, I knew we're gonna have this conversation. I was like, I want our first conversation about this book to be on the podcast, I'm not going to text her. I'm not going to post on Instagram. I am obsessed with this book for a million reasons. But first of all, I'm so jealous because this is it's gorgeous. Like the frickin design. Can I tell you, I have been sending pictures to people and be like, look at them. Because it's so new. I don't even like the detail and the design are gorgeous. And that's before you even get to the message. It's so beautiful. So first of all, congratulations. We're so excited that your book is coming out.
Omkari Williams 31:15
Thank you.
Kat Calvin 31:16
But before we’re talking about the book and what it's about, etc, can you please talk to me about how you came up with how you were designing this book, how it happened, because it is you guys it's a beautiful, beautiful book, this is a book you want to show people it stands out, at like their parts that just like yell at you. I'm obsessed with how beautiful it is to talk to me about the design of this book.
Omkari Williams 31:38
That is such a great thing that you asked me because I had absolutely nothing to do with the design of this book. So I can happily talk about that and not feel like I'm tooting my own horn. My publisher's Storey Publishing, we're responsible for the design and I love it too. I mean, I just it's the kind of thing where every time I look at it, I think you're so pretty, you're so pretty. But also the illustrator, Octavia and Octavia is Octavia at pretty in ink press on Instagram. She did the most incredible illustrations for this book, she basically crawled inside of my head, and pulled out what I would have created if I had the talent to create that, which I do not. But she did an unbelievable job. So I felt like I hit the jackpot with these two things. Because it really feels to me like the design and the visuals of the books support the message of the book.
Kat Calvin 32:45
Oh 100%.
Omkari Williams 32:45
And that's well, what you want. Right, you want that congruency. And so I'm completely thrilled, completely thrilled with it.
Kat Calvin 32:45
It's absolutely stunning. So, in talking about the book and what it's about, I actually think the quote that you chose for the beginning of the book, which first of all Tolstoy love in my life, is the perfect example of what this book is about. And also the thing that I think we both sort of preach about to people all the time, which is the other thing I love about this book, well, there's a list of 200 things but I'm always talking to people about how to be micro activist. And this is like, I'm just gonna start throwing this at people's heads just be like, just read this, I'm not even to talk to you, but the quote, "add your light to the sum of light". It's perfect. So can you talk about what this book is about? And why you wrote it?
Omkari Williams 33:32
Yeah. So the quote, just, I think that we live in a world that is so much about being the star and being the headliner on the stage and go big or go home. That's not reality for most of us. Most of us don't even want that. That is most people's idea of hell. Most people do not want to be in the spotlight. Most people want to make a difference. They want to make a positive difference in the world. And I really wrote this book, originally, I wrote it with the intention of aiming it very specifically at people who identify as introvert and highly sensitive. But then I realized that even people who don't identify as those things, even people who identify as extrovert, don't necessarily want to be centerstage either. It's just, they want to make a difference. They want to leave a mark that is a positive mark. And they have families and they have jobs and they have pets and they have lives. And this isn't their whole life. But I wanted to give them a way of making it part of their life. In my head when I was writing this book, I kept thinking, what you want people to do at the end is think of activism the way they think about brushing your teeth. They do it every day. It's not a question. It's just you do it every day. And the only way for that to happen is if it's tiny. If it's a tiny thing You can do it every day, you brush your teeth every day, twice a day, some of us three times a day. We should also floss every day. But you know, okay, I'm not your dentist. So…
Kat Calvin 35:10
You guys floss every day. Really, people can tell when you don’t. I'm an obsessive flosser.
Omkari Williams 35:15
Your dentist can certainly tell when you don't. So that was really it. It's like, how can I make this idea of making a difference, really accessible. And to make it really accessible, you had to make it really small and small matters. You know, it's in the context of your work. There's 26 million people who need IDs, but each individual person for whom you get an ID, that is life changing. So yeah, it's tiny. But it's also huge. And it's the same where if you feed one person, you're not solving the problem of world hunger. But you fed one person, and it certainly matters to them. That you haven't fixed world hunger, they're not sitting there going, well, she fed me but she didn't fix world hunger. Right? Nobody's doing that. And so I think we need to scale our expectations to human scale. And that was why I wrote this book. I wanted it to be human scale.
Kat Calvin 36:20
I think that's perfect. It's one of the things too, and you talk about this a little bit in the book, people when they think of activism, and I love the section where you're like, you know, what do you think was an activist and you're like, he didn't say you right? But it's because we think of, you know, Martin Luther King Gloria, right, like huge names, because they're the faces of movements. And we don't realize like the 1thousands and thousands of people who worked with them. And so I have people all the time, who say, Well, I want to do something, but I don't know what. Because there's so many issues, there's so many things, I can't start a nonprofit, and people really freak themselves out. And it's like, yeah, everything is broken. And I always say like, everything is broken. So rather than letting that make you frozen, because you can't help everything, choose one thing, choose saving the sea turtles, right? Because you can't fix everything. But luckily, everything needs to be fixed, except our national parks, which are perfect. And so I think the way you've broken this down, is exactly the best way to help people even get started choose one thing and one small way to help that one thing. And you know what, some people from there might eventually start their own big nonprofit and movement. But most people are just going to help move things along incrementally. And if we all did that, if every single person did that, then everything would change.
Omkari Williams 37:38
I mean, they're 8 billion people on the planet. If 8 billion people did one tiny, good action every single day, we'd be living in Utopia. I mean, it would be a totally different world. And all of the really weird, obscure problems that you've never even thought about, those would be solved too because somebody cares about those. And it doesn't have to be you.
Kat Calvin 38:03
And it's never going to be you know, I run an organization. Sure we've helped. We've helped over 11,000 people get IDs, I have done a few hundred of those, right? All of the people who are engaged with the organization, who you don't know, are the ones who have gotten the other 10 and a half thousand. People want to start nonprofits. I'm always like, don't. It is a true nightmare. You're running a business, you're dealing with financial stuff, your life is fundraising, you're dealing with legal things in HR, it's not as glamorous as people think.
Omkari Williams 38:34
It's actually, I don't think it's glamorous at all.
Kat Calvin 38:37
It's a true nightmare in every possible way. And your health will fail. You will be stressed all the time. And you will have heart palpitations, right. Like it's horrible. And some of us, I just happen to be good at running businesses. And I just chose to run a business that does a good thing. It's fine. For me, there's nothing I love more than spreadsheets. But the people really doing the work on the ground are not the people who are running the organization and our volunteers. We have volunteers who've been with us for all like seven, eight years, how long we've been around, and they have helped so many people on the ground and built those relationships and have these great stories and etc. I've mentioned some of them in my book, and you have I love your the meet a micro activist section in yours. There are so many people who are actually doing real work. It doesn't have to be like when you run an organization, you're all consuming, like it's all you do. You can do it once a month and change a life once a month. Right?
Omkari Williams 39:28
That would be amazing.
Kat Calvin 39:30
There's so many things that my mom used to when we were kids, she was art docent, and you know, like once a month would come in and would like just teach us about a famous artist or whatever. And that was, that's a huge thing to teach a kid but she didn't have to become an art teacher or start a nonprofit to do that. She just came to school once a month and taught us about art. That's the kind of thing that you can do that allows you to incorporate this into your lives with our being freaked out that it takes over and I love that I also love so oh hold on. going to one of the many tabs because I've tabbed this so much,
Omkari Williams 40:04
Spreadsheets and tabs, folks, spreadsheets and tabs.
Kat Calvin 40:09
Look without tabs and a highlighter. Are you even living? What are you doing?
Omkari Williams 40:13
We're not going to have that conversation.
Kat Calvin 40:18
Can you talk a little bit about the four activist archetypes and sort of where that came from and why you included that?
Omkari Williams 40:24
Sure. So the four archetypes are the headliner, the producer, the organizer, and the indispensable and it actually kind of came out of my acting background, because I thought about them in the same way you would think about on film, what are the different roles for people on a film. Because the film is really a microcosm of life. Anyone who's spent time on a film set knows it's just basically life being videotaped. And so the headliner is your star, it's the person who's in front of the camera, and all pretty and looking lovely all the time. The producer is the person who sees the whole big picture of the project. And the producer loves spreadsheets. The producer has everything broken down.
Kat Calvin 41:15
Movie magic, my favorite thing.
Omkari Williams 41:17
The organizer is the person the producer will say, Okay, you are in charge of the craft services, which on a set craft services is food. So you will notice I go straight to the most important thing, which is food. So the Organizer might be tasked with making sure that there is food, which means coffee and breakfast in the morning and coffee all day and more coffee, and then lunch and more coffee and snacks, and then dinner, et cetera. Because if you're not feeding people, you will never have a film. And then you have the Indispensables, and the indispensables are sort of I thought of them as the background actors on a film. Because unless you're looking at a film like My Dinner With Andre, which had two characters, there are always background actors in a film. Otherwise, it looks weird. I mean, it. You can't even imagine LA or New York without people walking down the street. You need those people in the film. They're fulfilling a really important role, but you don't know their names, you're never gonna know their names. So those were sort of my ideas.
Omkari Williams 42:26
Because when you're talking about activism, those are the people there's the headliners. The person who fronts the movement, they are the Dr. King or the Malala Yousafzai, or the Greta Thunberg, they are that face, and then the producer is behind them. And can sometimes even step into that big role, if necessary. Think of someone who pinch hits for the headline or if they're sick. But basically what they're doing is keeping the whole machine running. The organizer's taking on whatever the various tasks are. And then the indispensables, they are the people who make sure that there is coffee for the coffee machines, that there is toilet paper in the bathrooms, that people know how to get to the march location, that there is water for everybody. They are doing the things without which all of this falls apart. So each archetype fulfills an absolutely crucial role. And without all four of them, you've got nothing. I mean, Greta Thunberg has a movement because there are millions and millions of people behind her. Otherwise, she would have been a kid sitting by herself outside of Swedish parliament on Fridays in the cold. Yeah, we would never have heard of her. It was that she was able to mobilize these people in support of something they also care about. It wasn't about Greta Thunberg, it was about the cause. And the best leaders bring people in because it's about the cause. And they allow people to contribute in the way that they can and express themselves in the way that they can in support of that cause. So those are the archetypes and I wanted people to be able to see themselves and understand that. Yeah, there's a role for me here. And it doesn't have to look like something that is way out of my comfort zone. There's a role for me in this work, whatever work you choose, that is totally in your comfort zone that you can nail and I wanted people to start looking at it from the perspective of, let me find my place in this, rather than try and shove myself into a box that doesn't really fit me.
Kat Calvin 44:38
Yeah, I love that. And I think that, again, so much about this book is helping people who want to help and don't know how to figure it out and beyond. You know, we talk about the subject matter, but I even never actually think about talking about Well, let's think about how you can help what is your skill, those archetypes I thought I just would really help people be able to see themselves in an activism space in some way and be like, oh, yeah, you know what, I am a great project manager, right? And I always tell people, I guess I sort of do in skills, but I don't break it down as well as you do. But like, what are you good at? If you're great at art, there's a way for you to be involved with art, right? If you're a great at organizing, if you're great at creating chaos, actually movements kind of neat. That's right, like, whatever it is that you're good at. And I love that you just broke it down in a way that would help people identify themselves. Thanks. So I love that even though you're talking about micro activism, you have this whole section on deep work. Because I think that it's very easy to feel like this micro activism thing is very superficial, or even just small. And the fact that you actually break that down is great. So can you talk a little bit about deep work, what it is, what it means and why you included it?
Omkari Williams 45:52
Yeah, the reason I talk about write about deep work is because I do think that people hear small and think that that means shallow. And those two things are sometimes the same, but not necessarily. So I'm going to use actually Project ID as an example of deep work. So you assign a volunteer a person to help get an ID. And as I said, sometimes that's a process of a few hours. But sometimes it's a process of a few months. And that's deep work. That's going and getting to the person and understanding their circumstance and understanding how you can help them and then figuring out how to overcome the obstacles that are presented to you. And just not being willing to take the first No, and let it stop you. And I think that that is something that's really important, because there are a lot of nos in life. When I was an actor, we actually had this game we used to play about who to get to the first 100 nos the fastest. Because at least it means you're doing something, you're putting yourself out there, right?
Kat Calvin 47:07
Yeah.
Omkari Williams 47:07
And so when I talk about deep work, I'm talking about looking at what you're doing, both in the immediate sense, but in also the larger context of where it fits in the world, where it fits into your personal world, and making sense of how you can engage in this work in a way that is truly nurturing not just for yourself, but for the people you're engaged with. And how you can do it and make it a part of your life, how you can do it in the context of legacy in the context of what is the legacy I want to be leaving in the world? What is the goal I have for my life. And no one's goal is, well, you know, I want to be the person that nobody ever remembers, because they didn't do anything. Even if you're really shy and retiring, you may have a goal of I want to be the person that people in my organization knew they could depend on, to make sure that there were always supplies in the copy room so that no one was ever delayed in getting their projects out because there weren't supplies. So deep work can look like just that commitment to doing something with excellence and consistency and attention and love. Really, I think deep work is really about love at its core.
Kat Calvin 48:34
I love that. Oh my god, everyone has to buy this book. It's amazing. Talk about your book tour. You're going on one, it's gonna be exciting.
Omkari Williams 48:42
I am, I am going to be going to, let me do this in order because it's the only way I can keep it in my brain. Boston and then New York, Atlanta, Brunswick, Georgia, Savannah, Georgia, then going to Louisville, Kentucky, Chicago, and Portland, Oregon. And all of this is on my website so people can look there for it under upcoming events. But I'm super excited because I get to actually meet humans who I've engaged with over the years, and also people I've never met before. And honest to god, I've barely gone anywhere since COVID. So the idea of actually seeing humans in the flesh is super exciting to me right now. Oh, humans! Other people, how wonderful, because it's been a long three and a half years of mostly zoom for me. So this is going to be really, really great. Not necessarily looking forward to the air travel because everyone's like, oh no air travel's bad.
Kat Calvin 49:48
It's, it's gotten weird. Yeah. Yeah,
Omkari Williams 49:52
Well, there's a price to be paid for everything. But I'm going to be doing some events at some really great places, I get to speak to some educators in Savannah. And I'm really looking forward to that.
Kat Calvin 50:04
Yay.
Omkari Williams 50:05
I know. And I'm doing an event with a little tiny HBCU in Louisville, Kentucky, Simmons College.
Kat Calvin 50:12
Oh, Simmons. Simmons is great!
Omkari Williams 50:15
I'm so excited about that. Yeah, so it's really going to be fun. And then you know, the traditional at bookstores and so on. And that's wonderful as well. But I just feel like, this is an opportunity for me to spread the gospel of micro activism. And I am going to be out there preaching about this as hard as I can, because it's not that I believe it works. I know it works. I've seen it work. And I've seen what a difference it makes in people's lives, when they can commit to doing things that are manageable for them. And then they do it. And the success that they feel from fulfilling their internal commitment, keeps them going and expands it. And I just really believe if we all did a little something, we'd live in a really different world.
Kat Calvin 51:06
Yeah. Omkari, I am so proud of you. I'm so thrilled about this book, I'm so thrilled that we get to be book buddies. And I just really, really hope that everyone reached this, they should buy our book as a double pack. They go together, well, what's your just like, it's just it's so beautiful. And it's so simply put together. And I think that it's exactly what we need, particularly in a country where everything really is broken. And it feels so overwhelming to so many people. I think that this is a book that can help people understand how they can start small. So I'm so thrilled you wrote it.
Omkari Williams 51:44
Thank you so much. And I mean, back at you, I loved your book, besides the fact that it's hot pink, which is one of my favorite colors, and also coordinates really nicely with my book.
Kat Calvin 51:56
It does, they even match, you can put them together next to each other on the bookshelf.
Omkari Williams 52:00
It's a really, really lovely holiday gift. So just saying. But it's true, though, what you're saying Kat, American Identity in Crisis and Micro Activism are basically just aspects of the same thing. We are trying to show people the need for things and how they can make a difference in the world, and just engage our humanity. Because it's, I think, you know, it's been a long haul. People are really tired. And something that often suffers in that circumstance is it's easy to lose our humanity and our connection to one another. And I think it's incredibly important that we reestablish those strong bonds right now. And I know that that was part of the mission of my book. And I believe it to be part of the mission of your book as well. So I'm going to just say to everybody listening, these are both books that are accessible, and very manageable. So grab your copies and spread them around.
Kat Calvin 53:02
Amazing. Well, this has been fun. I will release the captainship back to you. You could have your podcast back. Thank you. So I don't promise that I won't try to take over again. Some other time.
Omkari Williams 53:16
I think that would be fine, actually, because I had quite a good time doing this. So thank you so much for playing with me.
Kat Calvin 53:22
Of course. Thank you, Omkari. And thanks, everyone, for listening.
Omkari Williams 53:25
Thank you all. That was fun. I have to say people, I really enjoyed this conversation today. And it was actually really fun being interviewed by Kat so I hope that you all go out and buy both our books. They really are worth your time and I think you'll find them incredibly inspiring. I hope to see some of you on the road. I'm super excited. And I will be back with another episode of Stepping Into Truth very soon. And until then, remember that change starts with story. So keep sharing yours.