The Scoop with Tanya Flanagan

Unknown Speaker 0:00
This is a Kun V studios original program. The content of this program does not reflect the views or opinions of 91.5 jazz and more the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, or the Board of Regents of the Nevada System of Higher Education.

Unknown Speaker 0:19
Good morning, and thank you for joining me for the scoop with Tanya Flanagan, I'm so happy you decided to wake up and start your day with me here on the scoop, where we talk about life, joy, funny moments, trending topics and so much more. We promise to keep you in the know and find out what you know. So let's get started.

Unknown Speaker 0:42
You Good morning Las Vegas, and welcome to another episode of the scoop here on 91.5k U N, V Public Radio, I am very delighted as always, and thankful that you are awake to join me on another Sunday morning for a wonderful what I hope you will also think is a wonderful conversation. I was sitting around thinking this week about what I wanted to talk about, and as we were coming out of the DNC, I couldn't think of just this time in our history, we've had two political conventions go on, and just the energy and the excitement that's in the air and the relevance and the attention that's being paid to the space that our country is in at this time. And I thought, as a woman looking at female leaders in our community, I wanted to just have a really intimate conversation about how this has shaped what it means and how it feels. And I thought who would be a great person to join me, and I couldn't think of anyone other than my dear friend who I respect so greatly for the work she does in our community to impact women's lives and to help them on their journeys of self discovery, myself included, in the space of the call to activism and advocacy, where elected leadership and leadership in general is concerned. So I am delighted to welcome to the show. Danna Lavelle of eMERGE, Nevada, good morning.

Unknown Speaker 2:10
Good morning. Thank you for having me.

Unknown Speaker 2:13
Thank you for getting up. And you know, having this conversation with me, and hope you have a draw, a cup of coffee or a cup of tea. It's also crazy to believe that we are in what we'll consider not quite the last weekend of summer, but we're one week out from Labor Day weekend, and so we are headed to the end, although Temperature wise, we won't feel it here in the desert, but we are headed toward what we consider the end of summer,

Unknown Speaker 2:41
yes. And so hot and a long summer, so looking forward to some cooler weather,

Unknown Speaker 2:48
this is true. We have had a pretty good weekend this weekend with the 90s, so I jumped around with someone. And so it's crazy when you look at high of 98 and you feel like, oh, that means we can go outside for the entire day. We can just having this conversation with someone, and they were laughing, and they said they had gotten up yesterday morning and got outside to sit, and he said he told his wife, I think I might need a sweater this morning. And I was like, yeah, that's funny. But very Las Vegas, very Las Vegas, but thank you for spending some time. It's a historic time. Dana, we have a really is, I mean, it's been an amazing show. You know, the conventions are power packed, and recently we watched that. We were able to watch the DNC. If anybody you know, for those who tuned in, a lot of people are huge fans. Some people are not huge fans. I like Michelle Obama. I thought she was amazing. And just

Unknown Speaker 3:51
definitely, yeah, you

Unknown Speaker 3:53
know. And from the amazement of the point of a woman being the nominee to run for President of the United States, to come to a point where, you know, we've seen the movie come out on Shirley Chisholm this year, you have a woman on the ballot for consideration of President of the United States. You have women running down the ballot in these different races and spaces from a time when they weren't there, and you are the executive director for emerge, and emerge helps to to build women to enter into these spaces with confidence and with Understanding impactfully, for the intention of change. How does, how do you feel as you kind of see your current work and passion manifesting itself on such a grand scale?

Unknown Speaker 4:53
Yeah, it's a great question, and it it's such an exciting time, but at the same time. Time. I think those of us that have been working on it know that we've put in the effort over time, and it didn't just happen. It isn't just a singular moment. It's a movement, and it has been a movement for a while, and in Nevada, we've always had strong women who have taken leadership roles. So here, we're very used to it, and it isn't just in recent history that we've had women leading in our political structures. However, these last few, I would have to say, close to a decade, we've really put in the work to make a difference, and women have stepped up. Haven't shied away from it, learned to be the very best they can be in the space and bring their A game every single time, and we've seen them win time and time again and take leadership roles and really move our state forward and make a difference in everyday people's lives with the policies that they're enacting. And so I think what Kamala said last night, when she said, we have to ask ourselves why they don't trust women. We need to ask why? Because women are showing up and showing out every single day for their communities.

Unknown Speaker 6:11
This is true, and Kamala, every time she speaks, is giving us so much to think about. And I think as we watched in the nights of the DNC, so much to think about from everyone who came onto that stage, everyone who had a presence. And just across the board, as we see different conversations happening in different rooms with different segments of people, I want to make sure people fully understand what you do in the space of emerge. I know I've alluded to preparing people to take leadership roles, but share a little bit more on how emerge came to be, what emerge does, who emerge is for, and how emerge works? Yes,

Unknown Speaker 6:59
definitely. You know, it's interesting that the current presidential nominee for the Democrats was the impetus for emerge. And so when Kamala Harris was working to become the District Attorney in San Francisco, a group of women got together and tried to help her get elected. And then they were eventually successful, but they found it difficult to get resources, to get funding, to even understand what it would take to do that. And the reason that we want more women taking those types of roles is because they also come with a purse string, and they come with policy ability to change the way that the money is spent. And so they realized that there had been a barrier to women taking those positions, and they put together a curriculum and started actually identifying women who should rent for office and who should be in those positions. Well, that caught like wild fair, that was in 2002 and within four years, there were four other states that had curriculum put together under the umbrella of emerge in each state. And now there's 27 affiliates across the nation, some that have been running for the past 20 years, recruiting, identifying and training women to run for office and not just run but win, being able to raise the money that it takes to do it and to run a campaign to be proud of and that can be upheld, you know, within their communities. So it's been a journey. It's been but 20 years is really not a long time in our history, and it's just changed the face of politics. Most recently, we have added in our goals for 2035 to to uplift and focus on identifying and training the new American Majority, meaning Black, Brown and indigenous women, LGBTQ plus women, young and unmarried women, those who normally do not have a voice, but who, but where the policies are very their lives are dependent on policies that will help them not just survive, but thrive. And so we work in the communities we show up there with them, and we let them introduce us to their leaders and those that are already doing the work, and then we bring them into our organization, train them to run for office, and have them put forth their policies that are going to make differences in their communities. We found it to be very successful. It's very authentic. We allow the women to explore what really matters to them, what brought them to the place where they are when they're ready to run, and we use those stories to connect with the people who are going to vote for them and help them win. So it's been exciting and fun. And very a lot of work, but I think that we can see that it's coming to fruition at this point.

Unknown Speaker 10:07
Well, wow. First, I want to congratulate you on being a part of that vision as emerge moves forward and plans out the next 10 years, 10 and a half years, in terms of the impact it wants to have and to the point of the inclusion of black, brown, indigenous people and LGBTQ ai plus, I've had, you know, the pleasure in recent months of getting to know a young lady who ran for a seat here, Michelle Montgomery, and she also serves on the board of eMERGE, and Michonne is part of the LGBTQ ai plus community. And developing this friendship having a true and I've had, you know, friends, but this is a we grab lunch, we check on one another, we talk on the phone, we chop it up, we pass ideas back and forth, and she is this amazing breath of fresh air and perspective. And I love it. And it's not, it's not an LGBTQ ai plus perspective. It's just a perspective, some from someone in that space. And so what she brings to the conversation is just, here's my walk of life, here's my journey. She's, you know, she's a veteran, and she brings and she's a dei expert, and her diversity, equity, inclusion skill set, her the arsenal of information that she brings to a conversation just we may very well see the same issue. I see issue the same, but the lens through which we view it, and the perspectives and the layers of the onion as you peel them back to get to a final place that is in agreement, or at least complimenting, it is such a invigorating and exciting conversation and journey to take with her mind, adding to the conversation, you know what I mean, like and so and so, having different people, I think that you know, that is what this country is about. We're about our differences being the sum total of the whole to make us who we are, and to continue to build upon and make things better, but having perspectives like hers become a part of the conversation and add to the legislation creates. It creates that fairness. It creates the balance, and it says it's the collective view that says, I see you and I respect you, I appreciate you, and I'm thankful for what you bring, and even me as a as a black woman, because we talked about black, brown, indigenous people coming to the table to have a conversation. My journey is different from the person next to me, but my journey is different even from the black person sitting next to me, because I have lived in a certain part of the country, or maybe my family dynamic and structure was different, maybe my religious maybe my education, my challenges, and I think all of those things make such a difference when we're having conversations And talking about policy and legislation and programs and outreach? Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 13:25
we're finding too that you know what you're describing really is the result of our curriculum and our training program. So yes, there's many places that you can find information to run for office. You can take online courses. There's other orange that do it, but the result for us is the network. It's because we spend six months together exploring all the things it takes to run for office. But in the meantime, we realize life happens. People have stories. We realize what their backgrounds are like and what it took to do it. So when our candidates come out and face the world, they have a much deeper understanding of the different communities and people and backgrounds and education and financial abilities or non and they just have a bigger perspective on pretty much life in general, and that network just allows them to give so much more back to our state and our and their communities.

Unknown Speaker 14:28
You are absolutely right about that. I am emerge alumni, class of 2019, which, of course, anybody who goes to emerge, of course, always says My class is the best class, because my class, you know, rocked, and we were just amazing. And so we always say this is sense of pride and ownership. But the things that you go through and the things we study when we're in emerge over this six month period. For anyone who's thinking about, even if you are not thinking about running for an office, you are maybe thinking about you. Serving a board or working with a nonprofit, and it helps you to develop your ideas around policy, something that you might be working with a nonprofit on, but you realize after going through a course like eMERGE or going through emerge, hey, we maybe could develop some policy that would make this more effective. And so you learn many different ways to work within your community, to have effective outreach. And so that is part of what makes emerge so great. And I know for me, from my experience, it was not my first exposure, but it was a different type of immersion and deep dive into looking at different groups and understanding different terms. Because when you're on the outside looking in, and let's just be honest, if you're if you're having an LGBTQ ai plus conversation, it's just like a person talking to me about being black. You may or may not ask me something that you feel is a very personal space in my African American history in America, but it keeps you from learning what you feel that you have a void and a deficit on but now you're in a course where this is the conversation unapologetically But respectfully, and it allows you to have the exposure to the very subject matter that if you were just out somewhere, might seem like A disrespectful question to ask someone. You can ask that class, because eMERGE is creating this safe space to learn. I remember many years ago, I think it was President Clinton had a conversation, and he mentioned the need to have race relation conversations. Honest race relation conversations. I would go forward to say, let's have honest cultural conversations, where you learn and you have these conversations about the differences in the cultures of the backgrounds that we come from and we represent, and then you don't have to tie it up with the taboo word of race and racism, but cultural and cultural differences, because It's our cultures that make us unique and strong, and we bring that to the table to put it together and marry it with someone else's culture. And that's how we find this balance, and we also find our similarities,

Unknown Speaker 17:16
yeah, 100% as well as when you're in conversations with those that are less, maybe knowledgeable on the subject, you have something to give them to think about that isn't intimidating to them, but it allows them to come into the tent and start to learn more as well, because you know how to talk about it, and you understand that there are differences, even though the person you may be speaking to doesn't doesn't really identify that You can help them. So it is kind of, you know, each one, take one and teach the next person, and it gives them, it gives those that are learning along with us, the ability to train others to in their world, you know, in their circles and families, right?

Unknown Speaker 17:55
Because Absolutely, with that safe space, you get to be your true, authentic self unapologetically. And you get to take away the apprehension that someone else might have and learning about it, and because they are speaking their truth, you get a firsthand account of what this what this lifestyle is like, or what this challenge is like, or what it was like during this era. And you you get to grow. They grow and I mean, I think all of it has brought us to where we are. I mean, we're talking about women in spaces of leadership. We're talking about this historic time where we have a woman. It's not, you know, obviously it's not the first time we've had a woman on the ballot, but to have one get to this nominee space and to and not the first time for that either, but the first time a black woman has been in this space, a multiracial woman has been in this space,

Unknown Speaker 19:00
talking, And when I hear you. Yeah, go ahead. No, go ahead. I was just going to say. What came to my mind, too is, I think, for those that haven't really been in working in this space or understanding the differences, but they know from the outside looking in, there's a lot of there's a lot of just words and different concepts that they don't have any idea of. And sometimes that can be intimidating, even especially watching the fact that there is a multicultural woman running for office that can scare them just by the fact they don't know what it means for them. And I think having these conversations, this is what we're urging people to do now, is, this is, this is something, you know, help people feel comfortable with the idea. Because mostly, if you don't know, you're just not going to do or you're not going to participate, or you're not you know, you're going to say no to it. It's true. We're asking them to, you know, take time to explain and show and invite to things where those that are not. Is involved, can find out more about it and feel more comfortable with

Unknown Speaker 20:04
it. Absolutely, I 100% agree with you on all of that, and I think that how that was the thought I was having, which, as you were saying that, and it floated, and it'll come back, but I 100% it's not your fault, it's my fault. But I wanted to percent agree with you. Oh, I know it was. There was a Twitter feed, and there was a woman who, because the Kamala, is also a member of a sorority that I'm a member of Alpha Kappa, Alpha Sorority and and over the summer, you would watch this coverage of all of these different conferences, and to that point, new things come up in this type of space that have never come up before, right? Yes, they come they've never come up before. You've never said me, not that the Presidents weren't presidential nominees weren't going but the media never thought it was a stop that they needed to report on, right? You know, yes, you know, yep, you know, Barack Obama came to the National Association of Black Journalists convention when he was running it was a whole thing. And if I wanted to be there, because I was at that conference that he came to, had to get out the bed at the crackdown so I could get through security to go hear him speak. And you decide, you know, right, rice came, what was the what was Rice's first name? Susan Rice came to one as well. So we've had these people come from the White House to these conferences for years, because they are significant spaces to be in with rooms filled with journalists who are going back to their respective communities and bringing information with a different perspective to readers everywhere. But as a whole, mainstream media has never thought we should cover that. They're at these spaces, right? So not only both, both of them came to these different types of rooms this summer. You know, Donald was at NABJ, and Kamala was at sigma, Gamma Rho, and she stopped by Alpha Kappa Alpha, and I think she went inside Delta Sigma Theta. And so her being a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha, you you like, well, what? Well, I know what a sorority is, but what really is that, and why is this so visible still in African American communities, and I found even

Unknown Speaker 22:30
the responses for like the divine nine and things some of the men that were being interviewed in the audience of the DNC, we're talking about the divine nine. I How delightful, right, right? And that's another donning of information for people, right?

Unknown Speaker 22:44
Because you don't even realize, I think, the things that they do, like, for example, the Kings, the king monument that's standing in Washington, DC. King was a member of Alpha Phi, Alpha fraternity Incorporated, and that fraternity collectively raised $4 million or more toward this monument project. People don't really know what they do, because you've never had a reason to really shine a spotlight or pay attention to what it is that they do. But this Twitter feed was from a white woman who explained the sorority life and said, This is okay, so she's a member of this group, but this is hers. And if you see them dancing, or if you see them hug, or if you see them put up the pinky, or if you see them do any of these things that belongs to her, it belongs to them. Respect it, embrace it, understand it. But it's not and so it's you're taking the time to learn something totally new that allows you to learn even more about who someone is, who people are, and why and what they doing and how what they're doing is really impacting communities. How Alpha Kappa, Alpha has a mammography screening van that it travels around the country to help women in underserved communities get breast cancer screenings that they need and may not otherwise have access to. And you're like, I didn't know they did that yes, or their pillars, or zeta, phi, beta helps women who helps children with, you know, maternal health and low birth weight and child and mortality, and just it's these different major programs that help people all across the country all the time, that never before were we paying attention to this,

Unknown Speaker 24:26
right? Well, they have never been lifted. They've never been eliminated. I feel so excited and happy that this, you know, that these will be now, things that people can find out more about and hopefully support,

Unknown Speaker 24:39
yeah. And so I think that is what is so I've said to someone, it could not be a more relevant time to be a woman in politics, in this country, in this space, as we see what's coming online and what's happening and we don't whatever the outcome is in. Member the time that we're in, and I think the total transformation that it will have on our country as a whole and the people is just, it's it's so significant. It will be so unforgettable. And I hope, long term, amazing, and we're able to sustain some of the momentum, no matter what that the momentum is sustained in different ways.

Unknown Speaker 25:23
Well, that's, I find that to be an extremely important point, because we've said all along that this is not a moment, it's a movement, and a movement needs to continue. And so when people, you know, like, like, the work doesn't end, just because we now have a woman in the White House. There's always going to be new positions, open things, places that people, that women need to be, that they haven't, or that a woman is, and we need to fill it with a woman. And so the movement needs to continue, and we need to continue helping identify and develop leaders that are ready to run when it's time.

Unknown Speaker 26:01
And I love that. And what's something you said earlier about emerge expanding the net to include single women and all these different types people from all these different types of backgrounds. It's a different conversation, because we used to talk about the work life balance conversation was huge, I think, a decade or two ago, but this is a whole new twist on what that population brings, the value it brings. I mean, you've seen organizations even evolving over the years, from seeking out membership that was married to going, No, we need to include single women in this equation, young single women, because of the energy that they have and the freedoms that they have and the perspectives that they have, the impact they have on economy, or how they're affected by economy. I mean, Dana, we're cruising into our last couple of minutes. We'll continue our conversation, but I want to make sure people know how to learn more about emerge contact, make contact. And I know emerge does a lot of things too, to advance what's going on during these election cycles. And so if anyone wants to volunteer, you present that type of information as well to get more involved. So how do people get more on eMERGE get connected, get engaged with you?

Unknown Speaker 27:29
Yes, our main focus is our alumni that are running and so on our website, which is emergen v.org, E M, E, R, G, E, N, z.org, there is a tab that talks that you can go to our candidates, and each of them that are highlighted with their websites that give more information about their particular races. So it's also a good place to research the candidates that are on the ballot. So we normally do whatever it takes to support them to for that. There are also a lot of a lot of events that are going on based around the holidays that are coming up. So we'll definitely be, you know, at the Pride Parade. When that happens, we will have Labor Day. We'll be out Labor Day, doing a weekend of service with all of our candidates. And so that's really, basically what we do, is we do the support right now, and we will be recruiting and identifying the next class, which will start in 2025 and on that same website, you can go to our training tab, which we'll talk more about what it takes to become a candidate in one of our classes.

Unknown Speaker 28:46
Well, Dana, I am so grateful to have you. We are checking out and thank you for sharing all of the information with folks who might want to get more engaged. Our clock is winding down. Our Time is winding down as always. Thank you for spending some time with me here on the scoop on 91.5k U, m v public radio to our listening audience, thank you for tuning in this morning. I hope you have gotten something from this conversation and just also go back and have some continued conversations in your respective communities about being engaged until next week. Be safe, stay hydrated, and we'll talk to you soon. I

Unknown Speaker 29:31
want to thank you for tuning in to the scoop with me. Tonya Flanagan and I want to invite you to get social with me. I'm on Facebook and Twitter. My name is my handle, T, a n, y, A F, l, a n, a G, A N. You can also find me on Instagram at Tanya almond eyes Flanagan, and if you have a thought, an opinion or a suggestion, don't hesitate to shoot me an email to tanya.flanagan@unlv.edu Thanks again for joining in. Stay safe and have a great week. You.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai