The Game Plan is a space to strategize, organize, and posterize for the future of the disability rights movement – subscribe, rate, review, and join us!

Welcome back to the Game Plan! In this episode, Eric is joined by community advocate, Sacramento City Councilmember, and Congressional Candidate Mai Vang. Mai describes her experience growing up as a first-generation daughter of refugees and one of 16 siblings as part of Sacramento's large and historic Hmong community. They discuss being a "lone warrior" in Sacramento politics, some of her fights at the city level, why she is running to primary CA-07's incumbent Democrat, and her sense of great urgency to drive new policies that center human care.

Links:

· History of the Hmong Community in Sacramento

· maiforus.com

The Game Plan is a space to strategize, organize, and posterize for the future of the disability rights movement – subscribe, rate, review, and join us!

On this episode of the Game Plan, Eric is in conversation with two esteemed experts in the Black mental health space, Kelechi Ubozoh and Yolo Akili Robinson. Together, the three break down generational differences in perspectives on mental health, discuss shifting narratives around Black masculinity, and unpack the impacts of racism on the psyches of Black people. We’re honored to have this deep dive just in time for Black History Month; it's a conversation full of heavy truths that need to be aired as well as joy, levity, and hope.

Content warning: There is mention of suicide at 9:07-9:11 and at 31:03-31:10. If you are struggling, you are not alone, and support is there for you. Call or text 988, anytime.

Links:

· We've Been Too Patient: Voices from Radical Mental Health, by Kelechi Ubozoh : https://kelechiubozoh.com/weve-been-too-patient/

· martyr nurturing: https://beam.community/martyr-nurturing-vs-healing-centered-nurturing/

The Game Plan is a space to strategize, organize, and posterize for the future of the disability rights movement – subscribe, rate, review, and join us!

This time on The Game Plan, Eric is joined by Dolores Canales (director of community outreach for The Bail Project,) a national leader and incredible activist in the fight to end solitary confinement. Dolores and Eric talk about their lives, activism, the history and future of disability and incarceration movements intersecting, and their shared work in the California Mandela Campaign, which seeks to end the use of solitary by any name in the state's locked facilities. Dolores' personal connection to the work is remarkable, her own life and her family's has been both afflicted by these issues but also brought great joy from the community of resistance. Dolores has traveled, uplifting the real needs, experiences, and stories of incarcerated people, to the far reaches of California, to Washington, D.C., and in pursuit of new learning and new models, as far as Norway. Dolores’s passion and knowledge on this critical issue are luminous, and we’re thrilled to have her on the show.

Content warning: There is discussion of suicide at 19:27-19:42 and 30:08-30:50.

Links:

• Book recommendation: Ending Isolation: The Case Against Solitary Confinement

• The California Mandela Campaign

• The Bail Project