2020 was a record-setting year for voting. As Politico noted, the United States saw the largest raw turnout ever, with 81 million voters backing Biden over Trump, whose 74 million votes are the second-most in U.S. history.

But as many news sources noted recently, states nationwide are about to make it harder to vote.

Acting partly in response to widespread false allegations of fraud in the 2020 presidential election (aka the Big Lie, namely that Trump won the election and there’s widespread voter fraud), state legislatures have introduced about 250 bills this year that would limit access to voting.

We should all be concerned about this. Here’s why.

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We are two Asian American women sitting here, shaken, devastated, and ANGRY about the senseless loss of life in Atlanta. Yet at the same time that we heard that eight people, including six Asian women, had been murdered in their place of business by a sole white male shooter - we were waiting for the excuses. For the lone shooter story. And for the lack of white accountability. And we weren’t disappointed.

Regardless of the shooter’s story, to Asians, this is a hate crime. The problem is that we have a long history in the United States of not being able to call hate crimes what they are - and to not see hate, especially when it’s directed against the model minority.

Ultimately, we need to unify against White supremacy, and call a spade a spade - we must hold people accountable when they commit acts of White supremacy.

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It’s time we talk about the power that women have - and to be clear, we mean anybody who identifies as a woman. We need to talk about the state of womanhood today, the power we don’t even realize we have, and the division and self-hate we need to step away from so we can embrace our whole selves and each other. Why? Because we can MAKE CHANGE TOGETHER.

Let’s lean into intersectionality, look for ways to support each other through our communities, and reflect internally on how we show up for all women. We’re the majority. Let’s act like it.

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Learning about the Black Panther Party and its grassroots community programs informs not only our understanding of history, but how the modern day Black Lives Matter movement has been treated. The Black Panther Party put many of its community programs in place in a remarkably short time, which also caused the FBI to sit up and take notice. But the key point we keep coming back to is that these programs worked, and more importantly, they were so crucial for the communities that they served.

It leads us to ask: wouldn’t we ALL be better off with those social safety nets, especially for those who most need them to survive?

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If you ask many current activists fighting anti-Black racism and inequity today, they’ll tell you that the influence of the Black Panthers is immeasurable.

But as TIME magazine pointed out in February of 2021, for the past half-century, depictions of the Black Panther Party in mainstream media have largely glossed over their ideas or their community activism. “They’ve been reduced to leather peacoats and shotguns,” Shaka King, the director of the new Black Panther-focused film Judas and the Black Messiah says. “They’ve been called terrorists, fringe separatists, “wild beasts” and “the civil rights movement’s evil twin.””

So here is what you need to know about the Black Panther Party - the peacoats and shotguns part, about their policing of the police. We’ll talk about their powerful work supporting communities next week.

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We finally made it to the inauguration of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. This day is about a break with Trumpism, a break from the direction that our country has steadily been heading for the past nearly five years, and the fact that the majority (it’s a small one, but still a majority) of our country rejected that ideal in November. What this day is NOT though, is the end of Trumpism. It is not the end of hard work. Breathe it in. But then - don’t look away.

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We’re finally done with 2020… but if 2020 taught us anything, it’s that this period of time we are living through will be examined in the history books. Our grandkids will be asking us what life was like during the global pandemic, how strict our lockdowns were, and what we did to stand up against the racial and social injustices that were made so painfully clear during 2020.

So, as you’re thinking about New Year’s resolutions, which, if you’re anything like us, may include more workout time, less drinking, and more green juices, we’ve got the most important question for you: What side of history do you want to be able to say you were on this year?

We are devoting our first theme of the New Year to answering this question, focusing on why (and how) people should care about others. In doing our research around this topic - and talking to some amazingly smart thought leaders in the process - we’ve come up with some central themes that resonated with us.

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We’ve been waiting to record this episode . . . basically the whole year, or at least since early March. It’s our annual wrap-up episode, except that just like everything else in 2020, it’s not like how it was last year. Let’s let this year go in style - prepare to reflect, laugh, and cheer the New Year along with us.

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We recently read a great piece on Medium called “Finally an Answer to Why So Many People Voted For Trump” -- which is a question we’ve been asking ourselves, too.

The author notes: “Trump is definitely not virtuous - but he doesn’t pretend to be. He never claims to be morally superior to other people; he’s shameless in all of his flaws, and it gives comfort to people in a world that’s constantly telling them they’re not good enough.” That stands in contrast to the anti-Trumpers who say you’re either with us or against us - that if you aren’t with us, you must be racist or homophobic or bigoted or sexist.

Basically, each side is driving the other side crazy. What we need to do instead is TO LISTEN.

With that in mind, we bring you a repeat of last year’s episode on having these sorts of confrontational, difficult conversations with your family - only this time, it’s not an option. We’ve seen the pain, the horror, the murder, the mistreatment of so many people during 2020, and now we have to speak up. And before then, we must listen to the human beings we sit across from - whether it’s over a real table or through a virtual screen.

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When’s the last time you had a Toni Morrison book read to you? Like, by Margaret Atwood, Tayari Jones (An American Marriage), Brit Bennett (The Vanishing Half), and more?

We are beyond thrilled to highlight a fantastic event put on by Literacy Partners - a Thanksgiving weekend reading of Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon, which is just as relevant now as it was back in 1977.

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