How We Show Up: Reclaiming Family, Friendship, and Community

Mia Birdsong | June 2, 2020

Mia Birdsong is a pathfinder, community curator, and storyteller who steadily engages the leadership and wisdom of people experiencing injustice to chart new visions of American life. She has a gift for making visible and leveraging the brilliance of everyday people so that our collective gifts reach larger spheres of influence, cultural and political change, and create wellbeing for everyone. Mia’s approach marks a departure from traditional institutionalized change work, which seeks solutions from select “experts,” people often removed from the problems they’re charged to solve.

In her new book How We Show Up, Aspen Global Innovators Group partner Mia Birdsong explores how we make family and community. She “show[s] that what separates us isn’t only the ever-present injustices built around race, class, gender, values, and beliefs, but also our denial of our interdependence and need for belonging. In response to the fear and discomfort we feel, we’ve built walls, and instead of leaning on each other, we find ourselves leaning on concrete.”

Previously, Mia spoke with Kimberlé Crenshaw about racial injustice, intersectionality, and community building on The Bridge Podcast. “One of the things that I’m really excited about and want people to pay attention to is the relationships that they are building,” Mia shares. “In that deepening of relationships is really where really profound and really long term organizing happens.”

To learn more, join Mia on Twitter, listen to The Bridge Podcast and purchase How We Show Up.