Tell it Proud
by Christina Blacken
Our brains are wired to focus on what is wrong, but this means we often miss the wisdom right in front of us about what is working, good, and new to find real solutions to our problems. This podcast features stories of courage too good to erase or ignore that will inspire you, including personal development tips, interviews of unconventional leaders, live stories from Change My Mind, a live storytelling experience where people share true stories of courage live on stage. Hosted and produced by Christina Blacken, founder of The New Quo Foundation, a non-profit building a nationwide movement countering polarization and isolation through free, community-led storytelling events where people unite through their true stories of courage.
Episodes
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Could you Be My Neighbor?
This episode is a replay of a live performance from Change My Mind: a live storytelling experience in NYC. This story is about my beliefs about neighbors changing over my life, from growing up as an outsider in Utah to surviving a building fire because of neighbors in NYC. This story highlights…
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The Heart of a Woman
This episode highlights The Heart of a Woman which is an autobiographical and courageous act of self-trust as a memoir of Maya Angelou's life from 1957 to 1962. She writes about the turns and lessons of her dynamic life during a dangerous and divided time in the U.S, and it's filled with famous...
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Grief Means We Loved Deeply
This episode is a replay of a live performance from Change My Mind: a live storytelling experience in NYC from Hope Alcocer, who is a two-time author, speaker, certified mental health coach, and award-winning marketing strategist with 15 years of experience helping Fortune 500s, startups, and...
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The Stories the Change Democracy
We ingest thousands of messages every single day, from 30 second social media hot takes and news headlines, to billboards and printed advertisements we may glance at while hustling about our neighborhoods, to our favorite TV shows and movies we cozy up to on the couch in the evenings. All of…
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Black Indians & the Art of Freedom in New Orleans
The Black Masking Indian Tradition during Mardi Gras in New Orleans, developed through early encounters between the region's Indigenous and Black communities. This tradition has continued within the Black communities of New Orleans, with many participants being mixed race descendants of Black and...
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Why Every Word You Write Matters
The Message is an incredibly timely and powerful book by Ta-Nehisi Coates that highlights the moral depth of what it means to be a writer, and what responsibilities we have when we put ideas into the world we hope others adopt and understand. As someone passionate about how much storytelling…
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To Be Loved is to Be Known
You can be in a room full of people, and feel lonely as hell. One reason for this is a lack of attunement. Attunement is how we connect deeply with another person and allow them to 'feel felt.' It's genuine curiosity about someone else's dreams, ideas, desires, feelings, goals, and wants. Many...
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True belonging doesn't require conformity
Belonging is a fundamental need, often found in dense community ties and emotionally close relationships. Yet many of these same spaces we hope to find belonging from, often demand conformity and betraying our own needs and values, for full acceptance. In this episode I share a bit about how true...
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embracing trust and vulnerability in a world of uncertainty
What is trust? The simplest definition I drummed up after noodling, researching, and mind hashing this eons old question, is something or someone safely fulfilling its responsibilities and commitments with consistency, honesty, and integrity. We are constantly tasked with extending trust because…
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We need to rebrand racism
Today's episode is an essay I wrote titled "we need to rebrand racism" because we have plenty of racism but supposedly no racists. The term racist was coined in 1935 and I've come up with three new terms we should use: shadow shame, melanin averse, pigment piqued, to beat racists at their own...
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the practice of ubuntu for bridging divides
Today's episode is an essay I wrote titled the practice of ubuntu for bridging divides. Originating in the Bantu and Xhosa people of Southern Africa and popularized by Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela, it's a philosophical concept and set of practices about interconnectedness of human existence…
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The importance of chosen family
This episode is a replay of a live performance from Change My Mind: a live storytelling experience in NYC. This story covers my own journey of moving across country on a 3 day train from from NJ back to my hometown in Utah with my mother and siblings, how intergenerational trauma lives in our…
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what we don't know about fire
Catastrophic weather events are an increasing norm due to climate change, sped up by the destructive consumption and production practices within businesses and societal norms. In times of grieving and loss, it's understandable to feel overwhelmed and a growing hopelessness about what can be done,...
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How a School Trained 100k People to Become Activists
Today's episode is about You Got to Move, an underknown and incredible documentary following the transformation of six ordinary people into activists through their attendance at Highlander Folk School, an activist training ground that was founded in the 1930s, trained 100K everyday people, and...
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Democracy doesn't work without DEI
Trust is the foundation of healthy relationships and a functioning society. Without trust, we cannot function or meet our basic needs. When we have high levels of trust in our relationships we work together better, and feel a deeper sense of wellbeing and safety. While pundits and politicians on...
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What social justice can learn from sports
Today's episode is an essay I wrote about what social justice can learn from sports. I'm highly critical of corporate sports. The industry is rife with misogyny, racism, and classism, encoding values into millions of viewers that keep them dissociated and passive, particularly for…
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why imperfection is your greatest strength
Welcome to Tell it Proud, stories of courage too good to erase or ignore. I'm your host Christina Blacken. I'm a public speaker, performer, writer, and founder of The New Quo which helps every day people practice authentic leadership through daily acts of courage that improves trust and wellbeing...
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This Here Flesh
Today's episode is an essay I wrote for The New Quo Learning Community of a review of an incredible book by Cole Arthur Riley called This Here Fles. It's a poetic masterpiece of personal storytelling focused on discovering and practicing the wisdom and lessons within our familial stories,...
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Courage to go against the justice system
This episode of Tell it Proud is an instagram live interview of TaShun Bowden-Lewis, who made a historic first in her career as the first Black Chief Public Defender for the state of Connecticut. We discuss her earliest memory of courage as an "only" growing up in an all white school, her lessons...
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How fear affects our relationships
Welcome to Tell it Proud, stories of courage too good to erase or ignore. I'm your host Christina Blacken. I'm a public speaker, performer, writer, and founder of The New Quo which helps every day people practice authentic leadership through daily acts of courage that improves trust and wellbeing...
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See No Stranger
Welcome to Tell it Proud, stories of courage too good to erase or ignore. I'm your host Christina Blacken. I'm a public speaker, performer, writer, and founder of The New Quo which helps every day people practice authentic leadership through daily acts of courage that improves trust and wellbeing...
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the underground railroad went to mexico
The Underground Railroad was a secret network of routes, safe houses, and abolitionists who helped enslaved people escape from slavery to freedom in the northern states, Canada, and Mexico from approximately the late 18th century until the Civil War, with one of its most famous stewards being...
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a life of hope under extreme circumstances
Welcome to Tell it Proud, stories of courage too good to erase or ignore. I'm your host Christina Blacken. I'm a public speaker, performer, writer, and founder of The New Quo which helps every day people practice authentic leadership through daily acts of courage that improves trust and wellbeing...
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You don't have to be Beyonce to be Creative
Welcome to Tell it Proud, stories of courage too good to erase or ignore. I'm your host Christina Blacken. I'm a public speaker, performer, writer, and founder of The New Quo which helps every day people practice authentic leadership through daily acts of courage that improves trust and wellbeing...
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Being Liberal is Not an Oppression Pass
Today's episode is a throwback to one of my favorite episodes I produced on a previous podcast of mine called Sway Them in Color. In this solo episode, I unpack the concept of what I call an oppression pass, which is the belief that because you are liberal, marginalized yourself, like black...
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the authoritarian personality and building a new world
Today's episode is an essay I wrote for The New Quo Learning Community about a concept called mean world syndrome which was first coined in the 1970s by Dr George Gerbner, who discovered a cognitive bias where, over time, we start to see the world as more dangerous than it actually is due to...
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The hidden truth about neurodivergence
Today's episode is an essay I wrote for The New Quo Learning Community about neurodivergence which describes people whose brains develop or function in ways that differ from what is considered "typical" or "neurotypical" This essay covers fascinating history of how in pre-colonial Africa,...
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my neighbor called the police on me for singing
Welcome to Tell it Proud, stories of courage too good to erase or ignore. I'm your host Christina Blacken. I'm a public speaker, performer, writer, and founder of The New Quo which helps every day people practice authentic leadership through daily acts of courage that improves trust and wellbeing...
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1 in 5 Teens are dating AI & other thoughts on loneliness
Today's podcast episode is a reading from an essay I originally wrote for The New Quo Learning Community where stories and practices of daily courage that create trust and wellbeing in how we live and work together are curated for members. In this episode, I discuss research that 1 in 5 teens…
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a Japanese value that transforms relationships
Welcome to Tell it Proud, stories of courage too good to erase or ignore. I'm your host Christina Blacken. I'm a public speaker, performer, writer, and founder of The New Quo which helps every day people practice authentic leadership through daily acts of courage that improves trust and wellbeing...
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Pleasure activism is a way of doing good
Today's episode is a reading from an essay I originally wrote for The New Quo Learning Community where stories and practices of courage are curated for members who challenge conformity by choosing courage in their daily lives. This essay is titled Pleasure Activism which is a review of an...
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whose story is told matters
Today's Tell it Proud podcast episode is focused on the ethical principles of resilience, and is a reading from an essay I originally wrote for The New Quo Learning Community where I curate overlooked ethical and cultural wisdom straight to the inboxes of members who are passionate about finding...
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Why shared music transforms us
Today's podcast episode is focused on the ethical principles of community, and is a reading from an essay I originally wrote for The New Quo Learning Community where I curate overlooked ethical and cultural wisdom straight to the inboxes of members who are passionate about finding new insight and...
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what I love about being Black
Welcome to Tell it Proud, stories of ethical and cultural wisdom too good to erase or ignore. This episode is a special compilation of friends, family, and homies sharing personal wisdom and ethical and cultural insights about what they love about being Black. During a time of increasing racial...
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what the Harlem Renaissance teaches us about power
Today's Tell it Proud podcast episode is focused on the ethical principles of influence, and is a reading from an essay I originally wrote for The New Quo Learning Community where I curate overlooked ethical and cultural wisdom straight to the inboxes of members who are passionate about finding…
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we are living in someone else's imagination
Today's Tell it Proud podcast episode is focused on the ethical principles of cultural intelligence, and is a reading from an essay I originally wrote for The New Quo Learning Community where I curate overlooked ethical and cultural wisdom straight to the inboxes of members who are passionate…
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hoarding versus sharing power
Today's episode is a little different from our norm. A few months ago I asked individuals to submit personal stories of ethical and cultural wisdom on the topic of power, and today's podcast is highlighting the story of building Sudha Nandagopal who built Seattle's Equity & Environment Initiative...
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Refusing Erasure
Today's episode is a little different from our norm. A few months ago I asked individuals to submit personal stories of ethical and cultural wisdom on the topic of power, and today's podcast is highlighting the story of Daisy Onubogu who at 17, became the first Black woman to lead Europe's oldest...
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I Asked AI If Inequality Was Good, Here's What It Told Me
Today's Tell it Proud podcast episode is focused on the ethical principles of power, and is a reading from an essay I originally wrote for The New Quo Learning Community where I curate overlooked ethical and cultural wisdom straight to the inboxes of members who are passionate about finding new...
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You're More Powerful Than You Think
Today's Tell it Proud podcast episode is focused on the ethical principles of power, and is a reading from an essay I originally wrote for The New Quo Learning Community where I curate overlooked ethical and cultural wisdom straight to the inboxes of members who are passionate about finding new...
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the power of being time travelers
Today's Tell it Proud podcast episode is focused on the cultural principles of power, and is a reading from an essay I originally wrote for The New Quo Learning Community where I curate overlooked ethical and cultural wisdom straight to the inboxes of members who are passionate about finding new...
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The Beautiful and Hard Grief of Endings
Today's episode is focused on the cultural principle of adaptability, and is a reading from an essay I originally wrote for The New Quo Learning Community where I curate overlooked ethical and cultural wisdom straight to the inboxes of members who are passionate about finding new insight and...
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Why You Shouldn't Ignore Your Intuition
Today's episode is focused on the cultural principle of influence, and is a reading from an essay I originally wrote for The New Quo Learning Community where I curate overlooked ethical and cultural wisdom straight to the inboxes of members who are passionate about finding new insight and...
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How I Thrived When Everything Collapsed
Today's episode is focused on the cultural principle of adaptability, and is a reading from an essay I originally wrote for The New Quo Learning Community where I curate overlooked ethical and cultural wisdom straight to the inboxes of members who are passionate about finding new insight and...
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A Cultural Practice for Conflict and Forgiveness
Today's episode is focused on the cultural principles of love, and is a reading from an essay I originally wrote for The New Quo Learning Community where I curate overlooked ethical and cultural wisdom straight to the inboxes of members who are passionate about finding new insight and inspiration...
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Self-love Comes From Unexpected Places
Today's episode is a replay from my storytelling event I produce and host titled Change My Mind: a live storytelling experience. We get everyday people to tell true non-fiction stories in front of a live audience in NYC about an event that changed their minds for the better. It's another form of...
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We need Black humor
Today's episode is focused on the cultural principles of cultural intelligence, and is a reading from an essay I originally wrote for The New Quo Learning Community where I curate overlooked ethical and cultural wisdom straight to the inboxes of members who are passionate about finding new…
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It's not too late to achieve your dream
Today's episode is a replay from my storytelling event I produce and host titled Change My Mind: a live storytelling experience. We get everyday people to tell true non-fiction stories in front of a live audience in NYC about an event that changed their minds for the better. It's another form of...
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why good people are happier people
Today's episode is focused on the cultural principles of hope, and is a reading from an essay I originally wrote for The New Quo Learning Community where I curate overlooked ethical and cultural wisdom straight to the inboxes of members who are passionate about finding new insight and inspiration...
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Tell Strangers Knock Knock Jokes
Today's episode is a replay from Christina Blacken's storytelling event she produces and hosts titled Change My Mind: a live storytelling experience, where everyday people tell true non-fiction stories about an event that changed their minds for the better. It's another form of ethical and…
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About this show
Our brains are wired to focus on what is wrong, but this means we often miss the wisdom right in front of us about what is working, good, and new to find real solutions to our problems. This podcast features stories of courage too good to erase or ignore that will inspire you, including personal development tips, interviews of unconventional leaders, live stories from Change My Mind, a live storytelling experience where people share true stories of courage live on stage. Hosted and produced by Christina Blacken, founder of The New Quo Foundation, a non-profit building a nationwide movement countering polarization and isolation through free, community-led storytelling events where people unite through their true stories of courage.
Hosted by
Christina Blacken
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