The Deep End emerged like a primal scream after years of being buried alive in the trauma porn that passes for news. Anastacia Renee (my friend and cohost ) and I both felt afflicted with a binding depression from listening to story after story of people of color being shot and killed, oppressed, disproportionately suspended in schools, impoverished and imprisoned.

These stories are true. They are a crazy making, rage inducing and gut wrenching part of the challenges we face as people of color in this toxic political climate. It is important to bear witness to the ugly, vile and violent truths, but equally important is the ability to maintain hope. We set out to balance our media diet (as poet and activist Saul Williams called it) by creating a podcast that highlighted stories about beauty, joy, love, art, perseverance and thriving in BIPOC communities.

Anastacia is a writer, a teaching artist, an intuitive healer and in general a magical human being. I am also a writer, a community organizer, a youth worker and an assortment of other various titles and experiences (and magic). We are two black women, living in Seattle, doing our best to contribute something meaningful to the world with our time and talents. And yet we both have felt silenced and felt other people in our community being silenced. So what better way to be heard than to carve out time to speak: to speak deeply, to speak honestly, to break through the silences that have surrounded us.

We made for ourselves a small audio pocket of what we needed to hear in order to get up each day. Moments of resilience, laughter and levity, and also connection and vulnerability to inspire and feed us. Together with a crew of youth interns from Young Women Empowered and a couple friends who know much more about microphones and editing software than we ever will, we recorded our first three seasons. Each Season has a theme. Season 1: Liberation. Season 2: The Colored People’s Time Machine. Season 3: Rites of Passage.

Each episode is about an hour long. Some feature short segments by our youth interns. Every episode includes an in depth interview where we ask people of color from all walks of life what freedom looks like, smells like, and tastes like. We ask them not just about their work and their accomplishment, but about their spiritual practices, their relationship to success, and the love that feeds their vocations. We wanted to know what they are doing to find healing for themselves and their communities and to live in their fullness despite the deep discomfort of America.

The Deep End is an exploration of liberation. It’s an opportunity to hear from incredible people about their journeys, what they are doing to thrive and how they are contributing to broader movements of empowerment, love and liberation.

Our guests so far have included: New York Times best selling author and internet yeller Ijeoma Oluo, Reproductive Rights and Human Rights Activist Loretta Ross, Educator and Founder of Evergreen Dr. Maxine Mimms, plant whisperer and the Feest founder Cristina Orbe, genocide comedian Howie Echo Hawk, hip hop artist and writer, Gabriel Teodros, poet and scholar Dr. Bettina Judd, dancer and choreographer Dani Tirrell, and lawyer, activist, youth worker and former mayoral candidate Nikkita Oliver to name a few.

Tune in anywhere you get your podcasts or catch up online at: http://thedeependfriends.libsyn.com

If you live in Seattle you can hear us on the radio at KVRU 105.7 or Space 101.1