395. Nilanjana Dasgupta with Paula Boggs: How Small Changes Can Make a Big Impact
Town Hall Seattle Civics Series
Release Date: 10/02/2025
421. Rashad Robinson with Angela Rye: From Presence to Power
Town Hall Seattle Civics Series
Why do some fights for justice hit a wall while others succeed? What does it take to win social change, especially now? According to author and social change strategist Rashad Robinson, it all comes down to understanding one thing: the difference between presence and power. Robinson has watched many movements unfold in his more than twenty years at the highest levels of leadership in two of the most significant social movements of our time: the fight for LGBTQ rights and the fight for racial justice. He’s taken on tech giants and the criminal justice system, politicians in Washington and...
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420. Ben Wikler with Governor Jay Inslee: This Is The Plan: How to End America's Meltdown and Save Democracy
Town Hall Seattle Civics Series
Ben Wikler, hailed as the “preeminent state party chair” by Nancy Pelosi, led Wisconsin Democrats through a series of hold-your-breath fights against right-wing extremists that resulted, against the odds, in the unrigging of the political system of the most divided — and, until recently, most gerrymandered — state in the nation. His new book, This Is The Plan: How to End America’s Meltdown and Save Democracy, draws on decades of experience in everything from school-board races to presidential elections to bring readers inside the hidden web of power that shapes our lives....
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419. Cole LeFavour: A Memoir of Land, Love, and Queer Resistance in Red America
Town Hall Seattle Civics Series
Finding and forging one’s identity and purpose can be challenging enough. Doing that while also being a member of a marginalized identity living in a conservative milieu can add more complexity to this experience. For former state Senator Cole LeFavour, that was very much a reality. LeFavour chronicles their life in a new book, In the Arms of Mountains: A Memoir of Land, Love, and Queer Resistance in Red America. As Idaho’s first out LGBTQ+ lawmaker, LeFavour explores a journey through gender, power, and rebellion against a reactionary system. When LeFavour was 11 years old,...
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418. Barbara McQuade with Debora Juarez: Preserving Our Democracy
Town Hall Seattle Civics Series
New York Times bestselling author and former U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade offers an exposé on what she frames as an escalating threat of far-right politics to both national security and American democracy. In The Fix: Saving America from the Corruption of a Mob-Style Government, McQuade draws on her decades of legal experience to argue how systems of organized crime and political opportunism exploit the levers of power — using corruption, cruelty, and chaos as tools to dominate institutions and eliminate accountability. McQuade exposes government tactics like information...
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417. Peter Beinart with Smadar Ben-Natan: Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza
Town Hall Seattle Civics Series
As the Gaza war stretches into its third year, journalism professor and MSNBC analyst Peter Beinart claims that, as a Jew, he must reckon with the intense moral and theological tensions that not only he holds, but what he sees as challenges for Judaism as a whole. Because of these tensions, Beinart believes the Jewish community must build a new answer to the question: What does it mean to be a Jew? From his book, Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza: A Reckoning, MSNBC analyst Peter Beinart imagines a world where Israeli Jews have the right to equality, not supremacy, and in...
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416. Kimberlé Crenshaw with Angela Rye: Backtalker: An American Memoir
Town Hall Seattle Civics Series
By way of structured academia or outspoken social commentary, the work of Kimberlé Crenshaw can be found woven throughout the fabric of modern American sociopolitical discourse. Through establishing the concepts of intersectionality and critical race theory, Crenshaw helped lay a foundation for decades of discussion and activism around race and gender across the world. In her upcoming memoir Backtalker, Crenshaw recounts the personal journeys that shaped her as someone who champions taking notice and speaking up. With intimate and compelling storytelling, Crenshaw takes readers...
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415. Celebrating Bike Everywhere Month 2026: 2nd Annual Bike Month Bash
Town Hall Seattle Civics Series
Do you bike in Seattle — or want to? Join Cascade Bike Club for Town Hall Seattle’s 2nd annual Bike Month Bash. Seattle’s bike network and transit connections are expanding as the city prepares for the FIFA World Cup and a flood of visitors this summer. But gaps remain, and more work is needed to make people of all abilities feel safe biking in our city. There are also many opportunities to support better biking in Seattle, such as the Pedaling Relief Project that rescues and delivers food on behalf of multiple food banks. Bring your enthusiasm and questions for our panel of...
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414. Red May 2026: ICE-Age Policing presented by Town Hall Seattle and Red May
Town Hall Seattle Civics Series
a month-long spree of red arts, red theory, and red politics based in Seattle, Washington, gathers each spring to discuss a world beyond capitalism. For this year’s event at Town Hall Seattle, Red May brings together a panel to discuss policing in the age of ICE. “Counterinsurgency has come home. Since the end of the Vietnam War, innovations in militarized policing have come one after another. No knock raids. AI surveillance. Clear and hold neighborhoods. Each new tactic or strategy has been rubber-stamped in Congress by both Democrats and Republicans under the guise of a...
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413. Khiara M. Bridges with Dr. Karen A. Scott: Expecting Inequity: How the Maternal Health Crisis Affects Even the Wealthiest Black Americans
Town Hall Seattle Civics Series
Black people are three times more likely to die from a pregnancy-related cause, a harrowing statistic that reproductive advocate and author Khiara M. Bridges has been dedicating efforts towards examining for years. The heightened issues facing Black people in maternal healthcare have deep roots in the history of racial inequality in the US and — as Bridges’ most recent work unpacks — persist now even across income levels. In her newest book, Expecting Inequity: How the Maternal Health Crisis Affects Even the Wealthiest Black Americans, Bridges brings attention to the stories...
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412. Speaking of Seattle: Immigrant Rights Are Human Rights: Hosted by Marcus Harrison Green with Angelina Godoy, Roxana Norouzi, Erika Evans, and Alexis Mercedes Rinck
Town Hall Seattle Civics Series
At a moment when national politics are testing the boundaries of constitutional protections and human dignity, local communities are asking a vital question: What can we do to protect one another? Town Hall Seattle and The Stranger present the March 19 edition of the Speaking of Seattle civic conversation series, an evening focused on immigrant rights, community responsibility, and the everyday actions that help safeguard our neighbors. This timely conversation explores how federal immigration enforcement policies ripple through local communities — and how ordinary people can respond...
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How can one person fight for social justice? Can everyday people actually make changes in systemic, structural inequality? Social psychologist and author of the book Change the Wallpaper, Nilanjana Dasgupta offers science-driven answers to these questions, arguing that social shifts start with small changes to our “wallpaper,” or the things that we experience in our daily lives. In other words, we need to revise the hyperlocal cultures we live in to make broader change.
Dasgupta believes that these small shifts in our cultural “wallpaper” are far more effective in producing structural change than through popular movements such as bias awareness training, symbolic proclamations, or even just relying on people’s good intentions. By integrating a wide range of studies in psychology, neuroscience, education, sociology, economics, public health, urban studies, cultural geography, and even landscape architecture, Dasgupta shows how attitudes and beliefs are based on what we see and hear every day. They nudge our behavior to create or reinforce small inequalities that go unnoticed and ultimately accumulate over time. So, how do we change our wallpaper?
By consciously disrupting these patterns and habits, Dasgupta argues, we can create opportunities for social mixing across lines of differences, allowing new relationships to form, and promoting a better understanding of others’ experiences. These actions lead to organizing and larger social shifts. It’s through these small changes in our daily lives, Dasgupta explains, that we can all work toward justice.
Nilanjana Dasgupta, author of Change the Wallpaper, is Provost Professor of Psychology and inaugural Director of the Institute of Diversity Sciences at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She is the author of many articles, the winner of the Hidden Bias Research Prize from the Kapor Foundation, and the recipient of multiple U.S. government research grants. Her work has been featured in the New York Times and other major outlets.
Paula Boggs is the founder of Boggs Media LLC. A TEDx speaker, U.S. Army veteran, and musician, she previously served for a decade as Executive Vice President, General Counsel, and Secretary at Starbucks Corporation. Her career spans roles as Vice President Legal at Dell, law firm partner, Assistant U.S. Attorney, and U.S. Army captain. Appointed by President Obama to the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities, she actively serves on multiple nonprofit and corporate boards.
