Grab a warm drink and cozy up under your favorite blanket, listeners! In Talk Policy To Me’s final episode of 2019, we got all five hosts in one room to talk about... talking policy during the holidays. Join our hosts Reem, Khalid, Colleen, Spencer, and Sarah as they explore how policy gets personal during the holidays when we gather with family and friends, reckon with hometown and childhood memories, and look toward the future as a new year approaches.

How does public policy get all wrapped up in your holiday festivities?

Looking for better ways to talk policy all season long?

• TPTM Challenge! Talk about policies, not personalities: ask everyone at your holiday dinner table to share one public policy they are grateful for.
• Perfect your productive, political persuasion with NYT’s Angry Uncle Bot for when talk of impeachment (inevitably) comes up.
• Need a moment to step away from all the political chatter? Check out Harvard Med’s strategies for self-care this holiday season.

Happy Holidays from all of us here at Talk Policy to Me. Catch you in 2020!

Sarah Edwards: It's getting to be that time of year again. The weather is really gloomy, but the conversations are colorful. The mashed potatoes are pretty bland. The election takes are definitely spicy. The kids have questions and adults have some strong opinions. That's right. It's the holiday season, where talking policy really takes on a whole new life. So this week on the podcast, we're getting all five of our hosts together in one room to talk about how the places we come from, the people in our lives, and the things that we're grateful for are all tied to public policy. I'm Sarah Edwards and this is Talk Policy To Me. This week on the podcast, we're talking policy and the holidays. All right, so we are here to talk about the conversations that we'll be talking about with the people that we spend the holidays with, whether that's your family or friends or chosen family. So in the context of kind of everyone's holiday tables, maybe having some differing opinions, how can we practice having good and productive conversations around important policy issues, particularly in the context that there might be people or children watching and learning from the conversations around them? 

Colleen Pulawski: One of my first thoughts is that we're in this interesting time in politics right now where there are a lot of children in the political limelight. So I'm thinking like Greta Thunberg and all of the kids in the Parkland movement. And so I think that's maybe a really interesting way in to talk about how kids can start thinking about where their place is and seeing themselves reflected in this process and and bringing that in as we talk about it sometimes amongst adults so that it's not just this space for adults to go talk about at the adults table and the kids to go eat their macaroni and cheese at the kids table. So that's one thing I think about, just that, I think there are a lot of kids' faces in policy today. And how can we talk more about that as adults more explicitly? 

Sarah: And I think even on the flipside of that, like I think we as the younger people also have the opportunity to like model, to model good behavior for like our peers and our elders. I always think about like my partner's family has a strong no politics at the dinner table role, which in a lot of ways is like let's everyone get along and like focus on more positive things. But also then I think makes it that talking about policy because it's inherently connected to politics becomes something that is uncomfortable and not accessible and sort of how do we break that down? 

Reem Rayef: I wanted to kind of double tap with what Colleen said. I think bringing in the maybe a way of talking to particularly older folks about progressive policy is instead of dismissing their views as kind of old fashioned, maybe talking about the ways in which the world, not the world has changed, but like the demography of the United States has changed, like the policies that work for the population that they were thinking about in the past is not it's not like the demographic makeup of the United States today. And like, here's the trajectory that we're moving down. And so you can't try to apply the policies that applied to those that first kind of boomer generation to to this kind of new generation and future generations that haven't even been born yet. So kind of thinking about a way to say, like you're trying to put a what does that square peg round hole? 

Sarah: And I think also recognizing the amount of progressive change that has happened in some of these older people's generations and kind of to be able to apply that to like you had progressive change, that doesn't mean it's done. Right, like I have been working on this episode around school integration and was visiting my parents and was talking about I realized my mom was one of the earlier classes to go to an integrated school. Right, because she was born in 1955, like that just is the timing of it. And you realize like all of these things that we really take for granted was change that they experienced. And to kind of keep pushing them to be like there is still a lot more change to be done. 

Reem: And in those times, that change might have been uncomfortable to their parents. 

Khalid Kaldi: On the flip side of this question, how, Colleen, you mentioned like talking to younger folks and I, to me, it's somewhat less of a challenge to talk to teenagers about policy and politics. But when you get in that like 8, 9, 10 year old range, they can understand, like they see Donald Trump on TV and they, you can have full on conversations with them, but what, how do you explain things in a way that is, you know, on their level? And maybe none of us have the answer to this because none of us have children, but when what age is too young to have these conversations, if any, at all? And like, how do you start to explain? 

Reem: I have an answer to this question, because I have a brother who is 10 years old, maybe eleven. I can't remember. But I think that young kids have a really strong sense of what is just and what is unjust. And so framing maybe complicated policy issues in that way is really, I think, surprisingly clear for them. If you can say like, is it fair that people who don't have very much money should pay as much taxes as somebody who has a lot of money? Probably not. Someone who has a lot of money should pay much more. And like framing things in terms of fairness is so, so easy for them because it's I think primarily what they're thinking about it in the classroom or in kind of their friend groups. I think they're thinking about what's fair all the time, particularly when it's unfair to them. 

Colleen: My mom when I was in elementary school gave me a really great illustration of affirmative action that I think really tapped into this idea that kids know what is fair. And so we stood in our living room and she was like, OK, we're gonna have a race. And we stood right next to each other. And then she said, hold on. And she stepped five feet in front of me. And she said, OK, go. And we ran across the living room. And I was like, that's not fair. And she's like, exactly. 

Sarah: So I feel like there are ways to tap in to, I mean, I don't think there are any exact answers, but trying to crystallize maybe what's at the essence of some of these policies in terms that kids can understand of like right and wrong, fair and unfair can be a good way to start. 

Spencer Bowen: Sarah, can I ask you a question and correct me if I'm wrong, but like, I feel like where you grew up in California, you might have had a wide distribution of political views on some issues like like in school. Is that right or wrong? 

Sarah: I would almost say it was less of a wide distribution in that most people were super conservative. I think I've talked about this on the podcast before, but I am from the part of California that is attempting to be the state of Jefferson. So super conservative, very, very white. Not particularly high income, yeah. Like it was pretty much my close friends and I were the only like liberal people at our high school. 

Spencer: Do you think that informs how you have conversations now with folks who you might not see eye to eye with, like you think growing up with that sort of like, you know, students around you, parents of acquaintances and stuff? Do you think that like that does the light come on when you're having conversations now with someone you don't see eye to eye with? 

Sarah: I think I'm a lot better at having a conversation without getting upset. I spent a lot of like my high school years being frustrated that people were just so close minded, which maybe was a little close minded of me. But yeah, I think finding that nuance to find the common humanity. And I think sometimes that is my frustration with the other side, like when people seem to not be able to find that common humanity of we don't agree, but like I can still respect you and figuring out where there's a line to be like, you know, I just can't respect that opinion because that's disrespecting other people. 

Reem: This is a conversation that I often have with my parents. They also live in a pretty conservative part of New Jersey, super, super suburban. And up until recently, really mostly white. And I was having a conversation with them about our neighbors who are fine and generally polite, but not always the most welcoming. We definitely don't feel a kind of like a part of our community in the neighborhood that we've lived in for the past like more than 10 years. And I was reflecting on last year when Trump announced the Muslim ban and the next day, our next door neighbor put up a Trump sign on his front yard. And I was like, that's funny. That's very weird. Why would he do that? He knows his neighbors are Muslim. Why would he respond that way? And maybe it was just a coincidence. He's always been a Trump supporter and his sign just came in the mail. But I found that to be awfully odd. And I talked to my parents about it. Obviously, like we should go steal it in the night, like kind of plotting with my brothers about pulling some high jinks. And they were like, well, no, you know, Joe has always been really respectful to us and so friendly. And sometimes he'll pick up your youngest brother from the bus stop, and that's fine. But to put up a Trump sign the day after Trump has announced a Muslim ban, when you live next door to people who are Muslim makes me feel unsafe and makes me feel sad for you guys that you are living next to somebody who has kind of denied your humanity and your right to live here. And so that's kind of something that we continue to to discuss is how do you kind of how do we engage with people who are polite and perfectly fine and haven't harmed you in any kind of physical or immediate way, but have kind of indicated their lack of respect for your humanity and personhood? I think that they have a very different approach than I do. And I'm sure that the right one is probably somewhere in the middle.

Sarah: I think that actually also brings us to kind of the last point we wanted to touch on was sort of thinking about either a local politic story or just an issue from your hometown and kind of what is our responsibility to the places that we come from, particularly when we have the option to leave.

Spencer: I chose to remain registered in my hometown of Davis because I think like that's what I give back is putting a vote in. And my dad works has worked for the city for over 40 years. So like I feel somewhat informed about issues and stuff and like that, that's fun for me to participate in that way. But just one thing that comes to mind is various public entities' responsibility, too, like house people. And this comes up in Davis with the university like UC Davis is just part of the DNA of Davis, it is one of the bigger employers, it's why many people live there like it is, it is just kind of the heart. And Davis, as we all know, universities are struggling with like how do we house a growing population of students here? UC Davis is undergrad at least just as big as Berkeley. It's a huge UC campus and they have a, you might say, luxury over us in Berkeley. Like like Davis has space to put stuff. So on a certain hand, it's easier. But like UC Davis on their own property, like there's huge fields at UC Davis that are like intramural fields. And about two years ago, they proposed taking like a third of those fields, slicing it off and building some dorms and like mixed use apartments and stuff. And people in Davis just like lost their minds, which I found surprising for a lot of reasons. One, it was not a rezoning or a change of a neighborhood. This was university land already that the university wanted to do something slightly different with. Two I think it speaks to both like the heartwarming side and the kind of distasteful side of like feeling ownership over a school. Like, it's really cool that people in Davis are proud of UC Davis and it's like a top 10 public school now. And that wasn't always the case. I like that. I do not like it when, this is just my opinion, I do not like it when people in neighborhoods claim ownership over a university such that they think they think that their voice to deny the university trying to build housing for students is as valuable as the university saying we need to house students just because they don't like the aesthetics or something or the feel of something. I find that really distasteful because I think you need to get back to the brass tacks of like why the university is valuable in the first place. And it's because places like UC Davis with its giant engine of socio economic mobility in our country, and part of that is for many people living close by and attending classes. So that's one way in which I try to stay involved in Davis, the kind of like general realm of, you know, this is a statewide issue, which we've talked back on this podcast before. But just like really specifically, I think it is this interesting question we kind of have about what universities responsibility is to house people and keep them close to their studies and their work? And then for me, the dovetailing question of who owns these decisions. You know, it, can the university say, hey, we need to house people or do communities have a voice? And in my mind, just like the very simple equation of we need people to live here to go to school and better themselves and better their community should win out. When it's like re repurposing some land the university already has, I realize that's a long answer. But this gets me really fired up and we'll certainly come up because guess who's house is a block away from said location? My grandma. So who is paying a third of the property tax of my parents on three times the square footage? But that's maybe a separate policy conversation for a Prop 13 pod. End of rant. 

Colleen: I just want to maybe give a shout out to those of us who, for whatever reason, do not have a hometown like myself. Yeah, I think there's a lot of hometown nostalgia around the holidays. And in thinking about that in policy terms like, what responsibility do you have from the place that you're from? If you don't have a place that you're from, then to whom or to where are you responsible? Or also on the flipside, like who or where is responsible for you? I don't have great answers to that its something I think about a lot. I think it's an interesting experience to bounce around from place to place and change where you're responsible for all the time and have many communities and new communities and to stay involved in what's happening in a community that you used to be responsible for, but maybe you no longer are. So it's just a different a different experience and I think speaks to our ever increasingly connected world. 

Spencer: Colleen, can I ask a follow up question? 

Colleen: Sure. 

Spencer: Is there like a through line or passionate issue as you've moved place to place that you see coming up over and over that really gets you going? 

Khalid: And also, where have you lived? 

Colleen: I've lived in New York and I've lived in New Jersey and California and Texas and Georgia and Florida and Ohio. I've lived in the suburbs. I've lived in the city as an adult. I've lived in New York, I've lived in Los Angeles. I now live in Berkeley. I don't know if there's a through line because I've lived in such a variety of places. A lot of my childhood was spent in the suburbs like adjacent to military communities, and a lot of my adulthood has been spent in urban areas. And so actually, I would say the highlight is not the similarities, but the differences in how people reckon with policy. I actually think my experience in living in more dense urban areas like New York and L.A., I've seen I think people just bump up against policy more in those places. And so I think people are just more aware on a daily basis of how policies are influencing their everyday life. And maybe this is like super cliche, but I do I do think I've at least experienced a little bit more of a complacency in the more suburban areas that I grew up in.

Khalid: Like Colleen, I kind of have a slightly different take on this question as somebody who's moved around a lot. But I do feel as though I have some sense of allegiance to a place. And that place is Palestine, because both of my parents are from there and I often ask myself like, what is my role as an American with Palestinian roots in the question of Palestine? And what is my responsibility? And I think about this a lot during tax season, too, because when I'm paying taxes, those tax dollars are going to fund the Palestinian occupation or the Israeli occupation of Palestine. And it's also a part of that exploration that I'm having here at policy school and trying to figure out like what channels and what possibilities there are for activism in the United States and foreign policy reform in the United States to improve the situation over there. 

Spencer: Do you have one, Sarah? 

Sarah: I don't, kind of my initial reaction to this is like I don't I don't feel a connection to my hometown like I did, I grew up in a singular place. Essentially, I shared a hometown with Spencer for, I think, three years of our overlapping lives before we knew each other. So I was born in Davis and my family moved to where they are now when I was pretty young and. It was somewhere I was very eager to leave. And so I think for me, it's it's been building the adoptive hometown roots. I didn't intend to live in Oakland as long as I did. But I've been there for four years now. And I think finding the ways to invest in community there and continue to understand this very complex history of a really complicated place. But at the same time, like seeing the connections that we have to places just based on the people that we know there. So for me, I think that's both where I'm from as well as like where I was a Peace Corps volunteer, you know, continuing to be connected to what's happening there. I think it's like that multiple layers of what we invest our time and effort into for sure. 

Reem: I'm kind of struggling to answer this question because I'm, similarly to Sarah, I don't feel responsibility or tenderness towards my hometown. And when I'm home, I'm just constantly lobbying for my parents to leave because I don't see it as a place that will improve, particularly for the benefit of my youngest brother, who I mentioned, who is 10 years old. And I just think that he should grow up somewhere different. But at the same time, I had an amazing public education there and generally happy childhood with friends who I am still in touch with. And so it's hard for me to balance kind of the incredible gratefulness and and privilege that I experienced growing up there and to now be like, I would really like to leave. And I don't think that more people should go there because I don't think it's a very good place to grow up that doesn't expose you to different types of people and different ways of living. 

Sarah: In theme with being grateful around the holidays, whatever holidays you do or don't celebrate, what's a policy that you're grateful for and how would you frame that in a conversation that you might have with people that aren't as deeply steeped in the policy world as we are? 

Khalid: I feel really grateful for all the policies that give life to the democratic aspects in our society because I had the experience of living in a really undemocratic place and growing up there. And when you kind of live and witness that alternative and then you're exposed to democratic practices like how can you not fall in love with it, you know? And so I'm not only thinking of like the processes and the procedures that like make election season possible, but also the freedom of speech, freedom of the press, like the right to assembly and protest, because there's so much here to feel outraged about. And the fact that there are channels through which we can articulate our beef makes me feel really grateful. 

Colleen: I'm really grateful for policies that pay for things that make social life really rich. Policies that fund arts programming and policies that fund community centers. It's so awesome that we are able to have these things and it just makes life and community and socializing so much more rich and exciting. 

Spencer: Just to piggyback on, Colleen. I grew up in Davis, California, a town that's really decided to publicly provide bike lanes pretty much everywhere. And you move somewhere else and you just realize how fortunate you are to be able to safely get around as like an eight year old by yourself on your bike. And, you know, we've got a lot of other things we can do better, but it's pretty cool and sustainable and like healthy. And I think it falls into this world of things we've decided to provide publicly and invest in that kind of lift all boats. So I'm very grateful for that. 

Sarah: I think something that's really hit home for me and for my family is, so my dad's in his 70s and it's like dealing with some pretty major health things and just having the conversation with my family of like, are you gonna be okay? Is this covered? And it's like all treatment is completely covered because he has Medicare, and just realizing, like what that means and how that policy is like turned very personal in a way that I think we can have conversations about why we need healthcare for all. But like seeing it and seeing the way that my parents are, like everyone should have this, you know, just unquestionably. I think it's been really significant. 

Khalid: Yeah, I mean, I would add also public libraries, free books, lift all boats, all minds. I love it. And I'm so grateful for them. 

Reem: What have you checked out from a public library recently? 

Khalid: I recently got Winners Take All By Anand Giridharadas. And yeah, it's it's it's amazing. 

Colleen: It's so excellent. I really also pitch that book.

Spencer: Can I be extra corny? I'm grateful for the University of California concept and system because together I believe someone could check me on this, but like I think our library system, among all the campuses, is second biggest in the country, behind the Library of Congress and we can check out all those books and like they don't get here overnight, they might come from Santa Barbara or something, but that's really cool. And like, there are a lot of problems with our like trajectory on investment in the UC system, but that it is kind of this like example still to the world of like how to do public education, I think is really cool. And specifically with a library like I, you can find every book you want to. And I think here on campus, we have 25 or 26 libraries. Which is remarkable and we're really lucky. 

Sarah: Here at talk policy to me, we're grateful for a lot of things. We're grateful for the policies that improve our lives, for the policies that have shaped who we are and what we believe and we're grateful for the opportunities to make policy better and to build a future we can all thrive in. And we're grateful to you, our listeners, for joining us and spreading some policy cheer this holiday season and for joining us to think about how policy is personal. Happy holidays from Talk Policy To Me. 

Talk Policy To Me is a production of UC Berkeley's Goldman School of Public Policy and the Berkeley Institute for Young Americans. For show notes, visit us at talkpolicytome.org. Music heard on today's episode is by Pat Mesiti-Miller and Blue Dot Sessions. Talk Policy To Me's executive producers are Bora Lee Reed and Sarah Swanbeck. Michael Quiroz is our audio engineer. I'm Sarah Edwards. Catch you next time. Stay tuned for new episodes coming in February 2020.