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This is

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the TED Radio Hour. Each

0:04

week, groundbreaking TED Talks.

0:06

Our job now is to dream big. Delivered at TED

0:09

conferences. To bring about the future we

0:11

want to see. Around the world. To understand

0:13

who we are. From those talks, we

0:16

bring you speakers and ideas

0:18

that will surprise you.

0:19

You just don't know what you're gonna find. Challenge

0:22

you. We truly have to ask ourselves, like, why is

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it noteworthy? And even change you. I literally

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feel like I'm a different person. Yes. Do

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you feel that way? Ideas worth

0:32

spreading. From TED and

0:35

NPR. I'm

0:37

Manoush Zomorodi.

0:39

And our story today begins one

0:41

winter night in 2013 in

0:44

an isolated area of Scotland.

0:47

A small, like a hamlet called

0:50

Loch Eilat, fairly near the west

0:52

coast of Scotland. So yeah,

0:54

a very remote place. This is

0:57

Kate Stone. She's a physicist

0:59

and the founder of an electronics company.

1:02

But that night, she was on vacation.

1:05

Some of my close friends, we spent

1:07

a little time between Christmas and New Year

1:09

in an Airbnb. And

1:12

we went out to the pub, drank lots

1:14

of Guinness, and some locals were

1:16

playing music with their guitars

1:19

and violins and things. And we listened

1:21

to the music. And then they

1:23

invited us to go back

1:26

to their place, which was a little shed in the garden

1:28

where they played more music and drank

1:30

more whiskey. So we said yes,

1:33

and we followed our Pied Piper

1:35

through the dark woods at midnight.

1:38

I mean, it sounds like the perfect evening.

1:41

It was perfect. It

1:43

was all going well. And then

1:46

something completely out of

1:48

the dark happened. Something

1:50

out of the dark happened, yes. I

1:53

shouldn't really laugh. I think kind of what happened

1:56

is the locals walked a little too fast, disappeared into

1:58

the darkness.

1:59

My friends fell behind

2:02

and I tried to be that person that stayed in the middle to keep

2:04

the two groups together. So I ended up on my own in the

2:06

darkness.

2:08

The next thing Kate knew? I remember

2:10

just feeling a massive thud hitting

2:12

my chest and then

2:14

a second thud and then falling to

2:16

my knees and then realizing

2:19

there was a hole in my throat from where the deer's

2:21

antler had gone.

2:22

A stag, a deer with massive

2:25

antlers, had mauled Kate.

2:28

And I found out later that it stopped two millimeters

2:31

before my spinal cord and as I

2:33

tried to call for help it was really more

2:35

of a gargle.

2:37

Did you realize what

2:40

had happened? I was conscious

2:43

for 40 minutes. It took 20

2:45

minutes for an ambulance to come. And

2:47

my friend came to my side and the one

2:49

thing she said to me was, just breathe.

2:53

So I took my friend's advice and I

2:55

put all my attention onto breath. Lie

2:58

very still and focus on the

3:01

next breath in. And then when

3:03

you get there, focus on the next breath out.

3:06

And then I asked myself the question of like, you

3:08

know, am I happy with how I've lived my life? And I'm like,

3:11

you know, well, I wish it was a bit longer, you know.

3:13

And it's like, it's

3:15

as if my life was like, you know, a TV show,

3:18

a series. I was like,

3:20

I'm the protagonist. I'm the main character in

3:23

my show and they've written me out

3:25

as a great season finale. Like

3:27

come on, a couple more seasons.

3:29

Exactly. So yeah, so my end of

3:31

season finale was me dying in the forest floor.

3:34

But I'm like, I'm really proud of

3:36

who I am, what I've done. Okay, it's

3:38

time to go out, but I'm going to go out calmly.

3:42

But you didn't go out. You ended up being airlifted.

3:45

Yes. They operated on

3:47

me, reconstructed my throat, and

3:49

then they decided to put me in an induced coma.

3:52

So yeah, it took a while to get back to reality.

3:55

It was a slow process.

3:56

You've come to in

3:58

the hospital. you know what's happened,

4:01

you know you've got a long road of recovery. When

4:03

did you first know

4:06

that this had made the newspapers,

4:08

this had been in the press, your crazy

4:11

freak accident, you know,

4:13

tabloid papers, love

4:15

that kind of stuff. When did you figure that

4:17

out? Yeah, that was a few weeks. You know,

4:20

I gave myself the sort of the

4:22

luxury of not being on an iPad

4:24

or any social media or anything for probably,

4:27

my memory is about a month, but that, you know, that could be wrong.

4:30

So I tried to really keep away from that, said to my

4:32

sister, has there been any, like, has

4:34

it been in the news or anything? And she's like, oh,

4:36

a little bit. She

4:39

didn't tell me that newspapers wrote headlines

4:42

such as Sex Swap Scientist

4:44

Gored by Stag.

4:46

I just want to make it clear

4:48

to the listener what ended

4:50

up happening, which was that multiple

4:52

newspapers, national papers like

4:54

The Daily Mail, The Sun, your

4:57

accident was featured in all of them.

5:00

But what they did was put it into

5:03

the headlines. They called you Sex

5:05

Swap Kate, some of them did, and

5:07

in some ways they made the story about

5:10

your gender, not the accident. And

5:12

I guess just explain

5:14

to people how it

5:16

felt to read that. So,

5:19

yes, I'm a trans woman,

5:21

but calling me a Sex Swap Scientist

5:24

is derogatory and

5:26

not pertinent to the story, but

5:28

it implies that it is. And it

5:32

tells everyone who sees that,

5:34

which is probably a few million people, that

5:36

when you see someone that's trans,

5:39

you label them as someone that's trans,

5:41

to say, you know, hey, tranny,

5:43

I'm talking to you, you know, when it's nothing

5:45

to do with that. It's offensive. It's

5:48

absolutely inappropriate, but worst of all,

5:50

to me, is

5:52

it tells a nation that

5:55

this is how you refer to a trans

5:57

person. They wanted to know, form a name.

5:59

dates of operation, what operations,

6:02

you know, they made that part of the story.

6:05

It's not part of the story. It's absolutely irrelevant.

6:07

You know, I was lay on a forest floor, gored

6:10

by a stag,

6:12

and they wanted to sensationalize it. You know, my

6:14

children had to leave their home because

6:17

of the camera crews outside. They had to

6:20

leave where they were living to go somewhere else

6:22

because people were interested in this and

6:24

wanted to ask inappropriate questions

6:27

of people that knew me. And

6:29

so I was like, I

6:31

have to do something.

6:32

I know I can make a difference. I know I can't stop

6:35

them from doing this, but I know I can make

6:37

them less likely to do it.

6:40

For

6:40

Kate Stone, this invasion of privacy,

6:44

well, it felt like the world had let her

6:46

down.

6:47

And as much as she wanted to lean on

6:50

her family, her friends, her community,

6:53

she realized she needed to take matters

6:55

into her own hands.

6:57

So today on the show, DIY

7:01

stories and ideas about taking on

7:03

institutions, companies, and stereotypes

7:06

in ingenious ways, because

7:09

sometimes you just need to do

7:12

it yourself.

7:14

Back in her hospital bed, recovering from

7:16

her injuries, Kate began strategizing

7:19

on how to confront the UK press for

7:21

sensationalizing her accident and

7:23

especially her identity. A

7:26

warning in this section, we will mention

7:28

suicide.

7:30

I felt an overwhelming sense of responsibility

7:33

and duty.

7:34

And I'd seen what happens to other people. What

7:36

came to my mind was, I

7:38

think it might have been the previous year, a

7:41

newspaper wrote a piece

7:44

about a trans woman called

7:46

Lucy Meadows, who transitioned as

7:48

a school teacher. And

7:51

they wrote

7:52

in that the headline, not

7:55

only is she in the wrong body, but she's

7:57

in the wrong job. And

7:59

she then... commit suicide. Oh

8:02

gosh. And it's

8:04

heartbreaking and so I was

8:06

like

8:07

I know I can do something and

8:09

if I don't and someone else dies that's

8:11

on my hands as far as I was concerned. So I

8:14

knew I had to and you know

8:16

my kind of science brain is like identify

8:18

the goal which is

8:19

reduce the chances of them doing this again to

8:21

someone else

8:22

okay identify

8:24

you know the the resources I have

8:26

a hand which is connecting with

8:29

them communicating with them helping them see

8:31

what they've done

8:32

is wrong and then identify

8:34

what this is going to cost me and what this is going to cost

8:37

me is my privacy. You

8:39

know I take pride in

8:41

talking about who I am as a scientist being

8:44

outside of that open about being trans but not

8:46

talking about it and I only don't talk

8:48

about it

8:49

because

8:51

I want people to know but I want them

8:53

also to know that I'm a pretty awesome creative

8:55

scientist you know I want to

8:58

to be open about being trans in a way where

9:00

people who maybe have never met a trans woman and

9:03

maybe are a little bigoted for one moment

9:05

might be wow I hope my children

9:07

turn out to be like her you know I want to

9:09

be like that kind of role model so

9:12

for me to have to sacrifice my privacy

9:14

and tell 10 million people that's

9:17

the price I will pay to you know

9:19

hopefully achieve my goal.

9:21

Here's

9:21

Kate Stone on the TED stage. I'm

9:25

a kindness ninja I don't really know what a ninja

9:27

does but to me they slip through the shadows

9:30

crawl through the sewers skip across the rooftops

9:32

before you know it they're behind you they don't turn

9:34

it with an army or complain and they're laser

9:37

focused on a plan

9:38

and so I didn't attack them and they were defenseless

9:41

and I wrote kind and calm letters

9:43

to these newspapers and the Sun newspaper

9:46

the kind of Fox News of the UK thanked

9:48

me for my reasoned approach and and

9:51

I asked for no apology no retraction

9:54

no money just an acknowledgement that

9:56

they broke their own rules and what they did

9:59

was just wrong.

9:59

wrong. And

10:02

on this journey,

10:03

I started to learn who they are, and

10:05

they began to learn who I am. And

10:08

we actually became friends. And

10:10

after three months, they all agreed, and

10:12

the statements were published on a Friday, and that

10:14

was the end of that, or so they thought.

10:17

On the Saturday, I went on the evening news,

10:20

and with the headline, six national

10:22

newspapers admit they are wrong. And

10:24

the anchor said to me, but don't you think it's

10:27

our job as journalists to sensationalize

10:29

a story? And

10:30

I said, I was lay on a forest

10:32

floor gored by a stag. Is

10:35

that not sensational enough? And

10:39

I was now right in the headlines, and my favorite

10:42

one was the stag trampled

10:44

on my throat, and the press trampled

10:46

on my privacy. And it was the most read piece

10:48

of BBC news online that day, and

10:50

I was kind of having fun.

10:54

I mean, you didn't ask

10:55

for a retraction, right? You

10:57

didn't ask for, did

10:59

you ask for an apology? Like, what did you actually

11:02

ask for in your letters?

11:03

So in the UK,

11:05

the press is self-regulated. So

11:08

most of the press sign

11:10

up to the independent press standards organization.

11:13

And there's a set of rules by which they have to abide by

11:15

about reporting around, you

11:18

know, diversity, or

11:20

around gambling or suicide

11:23

or all those types of things. So I

11:25

just asked them to acknowledge

11:28

that it was wrong, and acknowledge

11:30

that it broke the rules.

11:32

And I asked for that to be published in

11:34

the press

11:36

Gazette, which is an industry

11:38

newspaper that's really not read by

11:41

the public. But I got it, I wanted

11:43

it on record. And they

11:45

responded in a really kind and

11:47

slightly shocked way, you know, Philippa

11:50

Kennedy, the ombudsman for the sun was like, wow,

11:53

we actually really respect the

11:55

way you've approached us. They

11:57

couldn't understand why I wasn't angry.

11:59

And I think I felt a

12:02

sense that other people, maybe in my community,

12:05

were angry at me too for not using

12:07

it as an opportunity to get people fired

12:10

or to actually bring a formal complaint

12:12

and get a judgment against them, get a ruling

12:15

made against them.

12:16

I just didn't feel for me that was the

12:19

most effective thing to do. I just

12:21

like to say I'm not an angry activist,

12:23

I'm a happy healer.

12:24

That's a nice way to put it. Because

12:26

I can see myself in these people. Like,

12:29

I just feel there but for

12:31

the grace of God, you know, like, I

12:34

can see myself in these other people.

12:36

I can see why they have

12:38

their perspective from the journey

12:40

that they've taken.

12:42

In a minute, how Kate's budding

12:44

relationship with reporters evolved?

12:48

On the show today, ideas about

12:51

doing it yourself. I'm

12:53

Manoush Zamorodi, and you're listening to

12:55

the TED Radio Hour from NPR. Stay

12:58

with us.

13:05

["The

13:14

Internet of the World"]

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Hey, before we get back to the show, I want to let you

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14:01

It's the Ted Radio Hour from NPR,

14:04

I'm Manoush Zamorodi, and on

14:06

the show today, DIY. Ideas

14:10

about rolling up your sleeves and fixing

14:13

things yourself. And

14:15

we were just talking to physicist and

14:17

engineer Kate Stone. Kate

14:20

had a terrible accident

14:22

in 2013, which the British media

14:25

sensationalized, along

14:27

with her transgender identity.

14:29

What I saw is

14:32

on the Daily Mail online article,

14:34

I saw like 180 comments and 179 of those

14:37

comments were

14:41

saying

14:42

the way you've spoken about her and spoken

14:44

about her being trans is inappropriate.

14:47

So I saw an industry that was out of touch and

14:49

old fashioned. So it was really

14:52

about holding a mirror up

14:54

and all it was going to take is a gentle nudge.

14:57

And done in a kind way. So you

14:59

got all six newspapers that

15:01

had written about you to admit that they were wrong.

15:05

And then

15:05

what? What happened was I

15:08

was encouraged by the newspaper industry to

15:10

apply to this

15:12

committee that writes these rules, which is formed

15:14

of the editors chaired by at the time,

15:17

the Daily Mail editor. So you have this

15:19

room filled with the editors

15:21

who make these decisions,

15:24

deciding what their own rules should be. It

15:26

was recommended to them that they include three

15:28

members of the public and they put me on

15:30

that panel. And six years later, I still

15:33

sit on that panel. Oh, you do? Yeah.

15:35

In the room with the editors who respect me

15:38

as a member of the public,

15:39

who has a brain and can contribute

15:42

usually and nearly exclusively

15:44

about things that are nothing to do with being trans. I'm

15:47

just a smart woman in the room who has

15:49

a seat at the table. That makes a difference.

15:52

And people will show, can show and

15:54

say how they still do some of these things.

15:57

But I know, you know, a report was commissioned and it showed

15:59

that one of the

15:59

the biggest impact on the press in the last decade to

16:02

do with trans reporting was what I

16:04

did. So I know it made a difference. I

16:07

just don't claim it changed everything.

16:09

No, but it goes to show that one

16:11

person taking

16:13

charge of a situation and being

16:15

willing to sacrifice yet

16:18

more of their privacy can have an

16:20

impact.

16:20

Yeah. I think there's three things that decides

16:23

what goes in the newspaper. One is

16:25

what the editor decides.

16:27

The other is the fact that you click on it and

16:29

read it

16:29

as a reader. And the other is

16:32

that you buy the products that are advertised

16:34

in that newspaper. And as members of the public,

16:36

we have to realize we hold the power

16:39

over two out of three of those levers.

16:41

We can choose to not buy a product

16:43

and we can choose to not click. Every time

16:46

you click, you are the reason

16:48

that thing is there. So you know that

16:50

we do have the power. We have two thirds of the power.

16:54

Do you see yourself as

16:57

an activist? Because there

16:59

are some people who might think, well, this

17:02

approach,

17:03

one woman

17:05

doing it herself, that

17:07

can't be scaled. She

17:09

needs to join organizations,

17:12

activist organizations that are trying to

17:14

change laws, that are trying to change not

17:17

just the way one industry

17:19

works, but the way society works. What

17:22

would you say to that?

17:23

I think it depends on the circumstance, right?

17:27

Sometimes joining the movement,

17:29

being an activist by joining another group

17:31

is the right thing to do. But sometimes

17:34

we can be in such an independent moment

17:37

where we can see how we can make

17:39

an impact by doing something directly ourselves,

17:42

by not aligning us with other

17:44

people and how other people do things. That

17:47

sometimes the most effective way is to do

17:49

it yourself. And

17:51

honestly, personally, I'd

17:54

rather be that one

17:56

person that tries to make a change

17:59

that no one ever knows.

17:59

or hears and

18:02

that change never happens, then

18:05

the millionth person that joins the million-person

18:07

march. Because

18:10

you know the biggest movement potentially

18:13

can come from the individual

18:15

who just says enough and

18:18

so we should not be oppressed by our

18:20

own feeling of insignificance.

18:23

We should always speak out even when

18:25

we tell ourselves no one's going to care because

18:28

it actually makes a difference. I

18:30

kind of believe in like

18:32

I call a quantum state of mind which

18:35

is everything is possible, everything

18:37

has a probability. Are those newspapers

18:39

gonna be mean to me? Probably.

18:42

Probably means they might not

18:44

be as well. Everything in the

18:46

future is a possibility and

18:49

our job is to try and

18:51

change the odds so that in the moment

18:54

they're more likely to do the thing

18:56

you want them to do and that's

18:58

the way I look at the world. That's

19:01

physicist and engineer Kate

19:03

Stone. She's the founder of the tech

19:05

company Novalia and you

19:07

can see both of her Ted talks at

19:09

ted.com.

19:10

On

19:12

the show today, ideas about

19:15

doing it yourself. And

19:18

for our next speaker, well

19:20

her story starts by doing not

19:23

much at all. Just scrolling

19:26

through social media. Yeah

19:28

so this was July 2014 and at that time I fully

19:30

would

19:31

use

19:34

Twitter and social media but mostly Twitter as

19:36

a sort of newspaper and just

19:39

scroll through my timeline for any sort of

19:41

news just to see what was happening

19:43

This is Tiffany Ashley Bell

19:46

and on that day in 2014, one news story caught her eye. I

19:51

ran across an article that talked

19:53

about how people in Detroit were about to

19:55

have to live without running water.

19:57

The article was in the Atlantic and

19:59

the headline read what happens

20:01

when Detroit shuts off the water of 100,000

20:03

people. At

20:06

the time, I was a consultant for the city

20:08

of Atlanta. So seeing

20:10

the story where another major city

20:13

was going to shut off the water of a ton of people

20:16

made me, you know, intrigued and confused. And

20:20

so I also just decided to read it.

20:23

The crew came out this morning and cut her off

20:26

by closing the tower. What she learned was pretty jarring. For

20:29

months, trucks had been going street by

20:31

street, shutting off the water to nearly

20:33

anyone who was overdue on their

20:35

bills. I can't take a bath.

20:37

I can't wash up. I don't have water to do anything.

20:40

And it's me and my three children. So people

20:42

had started collecting rainwater.

20:43

I think we're going into a third world

20:46

direction. Others walked to relatives' houses

20:48

to fill up jugs or take showers. My

20:51

neighbors who don't have water can come and get water.

20:54

Even child custody was at risk. A

20:57

child living in a home without

20:59

basic utilities like water is

21:01

living in a dwelling that's like the legal

21:04

language unfit for habitation. And

21:06

when that's the thing, then that child

21:09

can be removed from that home.

21:12

Turns out water in Detroit costs

21:14

twice the national average. And

21:17

one out of three residents live below

21:19

the poverty line. So sometimes

21:21

they just can't afford to pay for

21:23

water. Tiffany also

21:26

learned that the shutoff started after

21:28

Detroit declared bankruptcy in 2013. So

21:31

a lot of it had

21:32

to do with the city being under emergency

21:34

management. The day we decided to

21:37

file for Chapter 9 protection. Chapter 9 filing

21:39

came today. Detroit faces a long-term

21:42

debt estimated at a whopping $18 to $20 billion.

21:46

Detroit had a lot of bond debt

21:49

that they needed to pay. And so the solution

21:51

the city had at that time to collect the money

21:53

they were not collecting was just to shut

21:55

people off. And

21:57

so what I ended

21:58

up seeing was people. who were in truly

22:01

dire straits, effectively being

22:03

believed by the local government. And

22:06

that's what really triggered me.

22:08

Let's be honest, most of us probably

22:11

would have read the article, retweeted,

22:13

and moved on. Not Tiffany. Here

22:17

is Tiffany Ashley Bell on the TED

22:19

stage.

22:21

To me, how they were

22:23

being treated, and how easy it was

22:25

to simply deny them something that we all

22:27

need to live, was disgusting.

22:30

It's

22:32

disgusting.

22:35

But to me, this also felt personal, even though

22:37

I have no direct family ties

22:39

to Detroit. And here's why. Many

22:43

of the people who were facing shutoffs

22:46

were black. Many were also,

22:48

like myself, black women. And

22:51

Lord knows it's not the first time in

22:53

the United States that black people have been denied

22:56

basic human rights, like water.

22:58

So to me, that created an overwhelming

23:01

urge to do something, to help.

23:04

I mean, I couldn't just read that and then

23:06

go on about my day. Then

23:09

it became a question of what can I, sitting

23:11

in my pajamas as one person at home, actually

23:13

do? Well, what?

23:16

Oh, oh, but wait. I'm

23:18

a programmer. And a heavy,

23:22

heavy social media user. So

23:24

I decided to tweet. I

23:28

hate to hear people suffering and

23:30

dealing with what is turning into a completely

23:33

undignified situation. People are

23:35

without water. July 17,

23:37

2014, at 2.10 p.m. Is there a directory of any sort where

23:42

people from Detroit can go for water relief? 4.05

23:45

p.m. Info on what people owe Detroit

23:48

for water is online 1026 a.m. 1027 a.m. 1028

23:51

a.m. We want to connect people who

23:57

need water bill assistance to folks who

23:59

are willing to help.

24:01

Over the course of a few hours of back and forth

24:03

about what to do, we resolved

24:05

to do the simplest, most obvious thing.

24:08

We decided to pay some water bills. To

24:11

do that, I spent a few hours digging

24:14

around on the water company's website. And

24:16

I found something interesting that sort

24:18

of jump-started what to do for

24:21

people. For some reason, there was a

24:23

400-page PDF of

24:25

customers on the website that the

24:27

water company couldn't deliver their bills to

24:29

through the mail.

24:30

One of the things that was interesting about this list is that

24:33

it also included account numbers for people.

24:35

So you could just take one of those account numbers and at

24:37

that time, plug it into the website and

24:40

see everything about that account.

24:42

So I did that. And one of

24:44

the things that was interesting, though, there was that I

24:46

saw a Make a Payment button. So

24:49

the idea then became, what if we got

24:52

the account numbers of people that needed help

24:54

and then made payments for them? So

24:58

a few hours later, I built a website to find

25:00

those people and start

25:02

connecting them to people that needed help.

25:06

So you build the website, you

25:09

figure out a way to get people who maybe

25:12

have some money and are

25:13

mad like you that people can't pay their water

25:15

bills, that there's a way to pay them.

25:19

And you just put it out on Twitter? What

25:21

happened then? Yeah, so we

25:23

just tweeted it. My former

25:25

co-founder and I, we just tweeted it. And

25:28

people saw that and they began to

25:30

pay some bills themselves. I heard

25:33

from people over the years that they saw

25:35

the same article and just were like, oh, this is

25:37

great. I'm happy I can actually help somebody.

25:40

That's how in the first 40 or so

25:42

days of doing this, we paid

25:44

over $100,000 in water bills by

25:47

just simply. Thank

25:50

you. Thank you.

25:53

Thank you. By just simply sending people

25:55

directly to the utility company's website to

25:57

pay $5, $10, afford.

26:03

I mean, so it's a decade later, basically, since

26:06

that July day. And the Detroit

26:09

Water Project is now called the

26:11

Human Utility. Do

26:13

you remember when there was a moment where you thought

26:16

maybe this is something that needs to help

26:19

cities beyond Detroit?

26:21

I think some of the earliest stories,

26:24

and despite the fact that our website

26:26

originally said Detroit,

26:28

people from other places just started filing

26:31

applications and asking if we could help

26:33

where they were. And that's

26:35

always happened. We've had people ask

26:37

for our assistance in most of

26:40

the states in the US, basically.

26:42

Then also, we ask on the application

26:45

to what people's situations are. It's

26:47

a lot of the same stuff. People lost their jobs,

26:50

or there was a death in the family. We've

26:52

had people who have gotten

26:54

terminally ill and they can't work. And

26:57

utilities don't have a lot of resources

27:00

for folks, even in just that situation. So

27:03

we've helped in a lot of situations that are

27:05

pretty common across different

27:07

cities. I'm

27:09

sure you've heard all of the

27:12

criticism out there. This

27:14

is a much greater problem

27:17

than what you're tackling, isn't

27:20

it? I mean, people need water to

27:22

live. It's just that simple.

27:25

What do you say to people who say, you know,

27:28

that's a very nice short-term

27:31

solution that you've created, but how do we

27:33

change things

27:35

fundamentally? I mean, I hear

27:37

them. I think it's a

27:39

valid criticism. Some

27:42

people refer to us as a Band-Aid solution.

27:45

And a Band-Aid, at least, an appropriately

27:47

sized Band-Aid, at least gets you into

27:49

the healing process.

27:52

I also want to emphasize that we're

27:54

not the only ones that are doing something around this

27:57

problem. There are a lot of activists

27:59

and researchers.

27:59

researchers and policy makers

28:02

who are looking at this issue. And I think, you

28:04

know, for us, we essentially

28:06

give people a bridge to

28:08

be able to still maintain access to

28:11

water while these other folks are doing

28:13

work around policy change.

28:16

I always sort of believe we shouldn't exist, honestly.

28:19

It would be great in 10, 15 years if we didn't

28:21

have to do this for people because water is affordable

28:25

in the first place.

28:27

So what has been the response from

28:30

utility companies, places like the Detroit

28:32

Water System, what do they think of what

28:34

you've done? Do you talk to them?

28:36

Yeah, we do. We do. I

28:38

will say, and just be honest, initially, they

28:40

were not happy to see us.

28:42

We didn't mean to do this, but I think we embarrassed

28:45

them as far as having a program in place

28:47

that worked in certain ways before they

28:49

did. But I think we've

28:52

really tried to do the work and

28:54

built a lot of relationships with people at

28:56

utilities so that they know we're not, you know, they're

28:58

not there to antagonize them in

29:00

certain ways. We're just there to help

29:03

people. And once they see that you

29:05

sort of have the same imperative they do, they want to

29:07

serve the public and things like that, it's

29:09

easier to work with people.

29:12

When you put together and you start doing

29:14

something that's imperfect, people

29:17

will see what you're doing and they'll want to join you, make

29:20

what you're doing bigger, more impactful, more

29:22

meaningful, but all in ways

29:24

unique to themselves. For

29:27

us, that was the city employees who

29:29

answered our emails on weekends and

29:31

then during the week drove people to appointments

29:35

to get their water turn back on. It

29:37

was the people in mutual aid groups and

29:40

nonprofits that partnered with us

29:42

to completely pay off the

29:44

water bills for some families. It

29:47

was the people who actually really made this work

29:49

possible, some of whom had been in this situation

29:52

themselves a few years prior where

29:54

they couldn't afford their own bills, but they now could,

29:56

so they were generous about it.

29:58

It was the people who had... to

30:01

help people that they didn't know and would

30:04

never meet. People will see

30:06

you walking the walk, and they'll

30:08

understand that that compassion

30:11

is contagious. There's

30:14

something incredibly, like,

30:16

simple in some ways, or forthright. You read about

30:18

a problem. You got the information,

30:21

figured out a system, built

30:24

the thing, got people's

30:25

bills paid, and

30:27

then the water gets turned back on.

30:30

It really is that simple.

30:32

But what really seems like the hardest

30:35

part, to me, in some ways, is

30:38

not continuing to scroll

30:40

in Twitter, stopping

30:42

and deciding that, in some ways, the buck was

30:44

going to stop with you. Yeah.

30:48

Again, I think some of that is just my personality. And

30:53

for me,

30:54

as a black woman in the United States, when

30:57

you see, like, your people being impacted by something that's

30:59

just indefensible, at least for me, it

31:03

was easy to try to do something.

31:06

And I also am a military brat, and I grew

31:08

up not wanting for anything.

31:12

We didn't want for clothes, water,

31:15

food, housing, and I just

31:17

think that should be the baseline we provide

31:19

for everybody. Those

31:21

are just human rights for me.

31:25

But yeah, people really were enthusiastic about

31:27

having a really simple, transparent way

31:30

of helping their fellow man, basically.

31:33

It was the case of, if you build

31:35

it, they will come. I think so.

31:38

That's not always true, but I think it was a very

31:40

emotional thing for people. Everybody sees

31:43

problems in this country. People

31:46

are not blind to the suffering of others, but

31:48

there often is a sort of question of,

31:51

what can I do?

31:53

People tell me this all the time. You made it very easy

31:56

to do something.

31:57

And I think just that resonated

31:59

with me. people. Tiffany

32:02

Ashley Bell is the executive director

32:05

of the human utility. You

32:07

can see her full talk at TED.com.

32:11

And

32:11

a quick note, the city of Detroit

32:13

is now piloting a water affordability

32:16

program with 2% of

32:18

its residents. You're listening

32:20

to the TED Radio Hour from NPR.

32:23

I'm Anush Zamerodi, and we'll be right

32:25

back.

32:41

It's the TED Radio Hour from NPR.

32:44

I'm Anush Zamerodi. Today's

32:46

show DIY. Do

32:49

it yourself. It's an ethos

32:51

very often associated with hammers

32:53

and nails. Oh, I can talk about tools

32:56

all day long.

32:59

My

32:59

true favorite is a Makita

33:02

impact driver. It is the best

33:04

tool for driving screws. It makes a very

33:07

satisfying noise. It's like a dit-dit-dit-dit-dit-dit-dit.

33:10

But like way louder and screws

33:13

just go in like butter. This

33:15

is Emily Peloton Lamb. She

33:17

has always loved building.

33:20

Even as a young four or five year old, I was really

33:22

drawn to the physical world,

33:24

like building forts, going out in

33:26

the forest and like making ad hoc

33:29

tree houses.

33:29

And so it helped me feel

33:31

like, okay, I'm able to shape my own world.

33:34

When she was 16,

33:37

Emily worked on her first construction

33:39

site. And that was the first time

33:41

when the idea of a career

33:43

in building became tangible

33:46

and real for me. So

33:48

she decided to study architecture

33:51

in college and then in grad school.

33:53

And I loved my architectural education.

33:55

I really, really did. But I think

33:57

some of the rose colored glasses came off.

33:59

when I left graduate school and

34:02

I was met with a little bit

34:04

of disappointment that the love

34:07

that I found of building

34:09

physical things was kind of lost

34:11

within the architectural profession.

34:14

And she noticed something else. Within

34:17

the construction trades, only 11% of jobs are filled

34:19

by women. And

34:23

then on an actual construction site, only 4%.

34:26

So there's a huge gender imbalance.

34:29

And I have walked onto construction sites, I've

34:32

walked into rooms where

34:34

I have to do this social calculus

34:36

and think, like, how do I prove that I'm smart

34:39

enough to be here? How much

34:41

am I going to volunteer? How much am I going to show

34:43

what I know? How much am

34:44

I going to just like sit back and try

34:47

to understand the dynamic here? And

34:49

it's exhausting. It's frankly exhausting.

34:52

So when she turned 26, Emily

34:54

decided to call a time out on

34:57

her career.

34:58

It was a way for me to say, like, look, I

35:00

don't know how I'm going to practice

35:02

architecture, but I know how I'm not going to practice

35:05

it.

35:06

I kept thinking about

35:09

young people, like, how do young

35:11

people think about space? What kind

35:13

of future are we building together? And

35:16

so I was super interested in these like one off,

35:18

really small, really localized projects

35:21

that lived in your community.

35:24

And within a couple months,

35:26

I was standing in front of a class of students in

35:29

a barn that we had turned into a wood

35:32

shop. She got a job teaching

35:34

a coed woodworking class at

35:36

a high school in North Carolina. Yeah,

35:39

at a public high school within a town

35:41

of about 2000 people in

35:43

a way that really hadn't been taught before.

35:46

Thinking about shop class as a

35:48

mechanism for community service instead of

35:50

like, let's build birdhouses to take

35:52

home to our moms. So you're looking at

35:54

these kids and are they looking at you blankly

35:57

or are they thinking like, yeah,

35:59

let's.

35:59

do this? I think it was a little bit

36:02

of both. I mean, this is a school district where

36:04

everything is pretty standard. You

36:06

have five class periods, you have English,

36:08

math, science, maybe an elective and a language.

36:11

So to say, guess what? You're in this design build

36:14

shop class now, there was a lot of like,

36:16

huh? And what about the gender thing?

36:18

Did you see it playing out there?

36:20

The class itself did have more boys

36:22

in it. It was about two thirds boys,

36:25

but pretty much everyone's skill level was

36:27

about the same. I mean, my female students knew how to

36:30

use the chop saw as well as any of

36:32

their male counterparts. The biggest

36:34

difference that I saw was just

36:36

in that social calculus.

36:39

I would say like, hey, I

36:41

need someone to go cut 10 pieces at 96

36:43

inches on the chop saw. And I could just see that

36:46

brief moment of hesitation where

36:49

my female students would look around and

36:51

be like, should I raise my hand? Like

36:54

if I'm the first person to raise my hand and say,

36:56

I will do it, who's going to be

36:58

rolling their eyes at me? Like what

37:00

is that saying about the boys in the

37:02

room? Are they feeling threatened? Like these

37:04

are not things we should be thinking about, but they're

37:07

so ingrained in us. There

37:10

was an ongoing and ever

37:12

present and nagging voice

37:15

in my head that I think came

37:17

from my own experiences on

37:20

construction sites, in architecture firms.

37:23

There is a very gender dynamic within

37:26

really any industry that is responsible for

37:28

the built environment architecture, engineering,

37:31

construction trades. And as I was teaching

37:33

these classes, I started to feel

37:35

that that gendered dynamic

37:38

was also something that my female students were experiencing

37:41

even with me as a woman, as their

37:43

teacher. And that was really the moment

37:46

when I realized

37:46

my female students really

37:49

deserve to have a safe space.

37:52

We must create intentional spaces

37:54

for the next generation of tradeswomen

37:57

to learn technical skills while being

37:59

unconditional supported by a community

38:01

of other women. Here's Emily Pilaton

38:04

Lamb on the TED stage. So

38:06

in 2008, I

38:09

founded a nonprofit to teach

38:11

design and construction skills to middle

38:13

and high school students, specifically young

38:16

women of color. Now, nearly 14

38:19

years later, that nonprofit, Girls

38:21

Garage, has taught over a thousand

38:24

girls and gender expansive youth how

38:26

to use power tools, weld,

38:32

draft construction documents, and

38:34

work on a job site. And together, we have

38:37

built over 150 pro bono projects

38:39

for other nonprofits in our community.

38:42

When young women walk into Girls Garage,

38:46

they're acknowledged as capable and

38:48

whole. They're

38:50

taught by female instructors who

38:53

are architects and carpenters and welders

38:56

who've lived lives and who've walked paths

38:59

similar to their own. When

39:01

a student uses the chop saw for the very

39:04

first time, I'm standing

39:06

right next to them saying, you got this.

39:09

And these are the things that make the difference. And

39:12

so the next generation of tradeswomen,

39:15

our students, will

39:17

enter the trades knowing what it feels

39:19

like to be respected and valued

39:22

and will know how to demand it when they're not.

39:24

Hi, I'm Erica Chu. I'm 21 years old,

39:27

so I've been part of Girls Garage

39:33

for a decade now.

39:36

When I

39:36

completed my first weld,

39:39

I was 11 years old. And you can

39:43

imagine like a little girl in this like big

39:45

welding gear with like the shield on, you have

39:47

to put your hair up. And I do

39:50

remember being very timid,

39:53

seeing those flames for the first time.

39:55

I

39:57

mean, I've never like felt that

39:59

power of of using two metal pieces

40:01

together.

40:02

It was exhilarating. I

40:06

always say like, how many 11 year old girls do you know

40:08

that can weld? In

40:12

college, I'm studying civil and

40:14

environmental engineering with a focus

40:16

in construction management. Learning

40:19

how to build and construct

40:22

really made me want to apply

40:25

that into the real world and learn

40:27

how to work in construction.

40:31

Emily, your students are growing

40:34

up. I mean, it is clear

40:36

that you and Girls Garage

40:39

made a huge difference in Erica's

40:41

life. But I just

40:43

read a statistic that the number

40:45

of young people applying for technical

40:48

jobs fell by half

40:51

last year compared to 2020. I

40:54

mean, this country is facing a big problem. We

40:56

are not going to have enough people to build new

40:58

bridges or roads or

41:01

fix our infrastructure. Yeah,

41:03

the legacy of vocational education

41:05

is a complicated one, right? So

41:08

I think we're kind of up against this

41:11

pejorative history of like

41:13

vocational used to be the track for kids

41:15

that aren't going to go to college, right? It was for quote

41:17

unquote those kids, which is horrible.

41:20

I think our role in helping

41:22

young people think about their careers is

41:25

to ask, how do you

41:27

take that power that you feel when you're welding

41:30

and bring that into your college

41:32

applications or your gap year or

41:34

your job?

41:36

We've

41:36

had over a hundred graduates

41:38

and alumna and between

41:41

a third and half have gone into

41:43

a field related to the built environment.

41:45

So that includes architecture or engineering

41:48

or design or directly into the

41:50

trades. For women, a job

41:53

in construction can pay more than

41:55

twice the hourly wage of a

41:57

comparable job in childcare or health

41:59

care.

41:59

aid work. And

42:02

while the gender pay gap in the US hovers

42:04

around 82 cents earned by women for

42:06

every male earned dollar,

42:09

in construction, the pay gap is nearly

42:11

non-existent

42:12

at 99 cents to the dollar. The

42:19

trades desperately need women

42:21

too. With over 300,000 jobs

42:23

left unfilled, women

42:27

are hugely untapped labor pool.

42:30

And this is a time when the demand

42:32

for infrastructure is only growing.

42:35

We already understand the value of

42:37

having more women in historically

42:39

male dominated spaces, like

42:42

politics,

42:43

C-suites, and STEM.

42:46

What is it going to take for tradeswomen

42:49

to take part and to take

42:51

over? Your

42:56

talk is called, What if

42:58

women built the world they want

43:00

to see? In

43:02

your mind, what does that world look

43:05

like?

43:05

Yeah, so women do experience

43:08

the built environment very differently than men. We

43:10

think about safety. We think about

43:12

how we navigate space with

43:15

our families or with friends. And so

43:17

I think a world built by women is

43:20

more inclusive in its thinking about

43:23

how the physical world serves

43:25

people. And it's about rethinking

43:28

the really old and tired narratives

43:30

about who gets to build the world,

43:33

that the authorship should not just be

43:35

owned

43:35

by white men, that

43:38

we all deserve a say in what our world

43:40

looks like. That

43:43

was Emily Pilaton Lamb. She is

43:45

the founder and executive director of Girls

43:47

Garage, a nonprofit that teaches

43:50

design and construction to girls and gender

43:52

expansive youth. And many thanks

43:54

to Erika Chu. You can see

43:57

Emily's full talk at TED.com.

44:02

So, we've talked about people taking on the media,

44:05

utility companies, gender

44:07

stereotypes, and we want to

44:09

end our episode on DIY

44:12

with an individual who is taking on

44:14

economics on social media.

44:17

Because social media is, of course,

44:19

a place where anyone, anywhere

44:22

can make anything and reach

44:24

millions. Duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh,

44:27

duh, duh, duh,

44:27

duh, duh, duh, duh, This

44:29

is NPR's very own Jack Corbett.

44:33

But you won't hear him on air. I

44:35

make TikToks for planet money. Yup, TikTok.

44:39

Jack's job is making short, surreal

44:42

TikTok videos for NPR's Planet

44:44

Money. Videos that explain

44:46

how the economy works. And

44:48

what's happening when it doesn't work?

44:51

Take the collapse of the Silicon Valley bank.

44:54

We made a video that just kind of

44:56

went through all the processes, explained,

44:58

you know, fractional reserve lending, how

45:01

bonds and the bank run,

45:03

and pretty layman's terms. Just

45:06

like, yeah, simplify it.

45:08

Welcome to Silicon Valley Bank. I'd like to withdraw

45:10

all my money. Yeah, our vote is kind of out of

45:12

money. If you've never seen Jack's work,

45:15

picture a very tall young man

45:17

acting out strange skits

45:21

where he plays all the parts that end up describing

45:24

financial fundamentals.

45:25

So you guys screwed up. Well, no, this

45:27

is how banks work. So we only keep a fraction

45:30

of our total reserves available for

45:32

lending or for withdrawals at any

45:34

one point. It's called fractional

45:36

reserve lending. It's great. Unless

45:39

everyone tries to withdraw their money a little bit.

45:41

So I can have my money. No, everyone tried to withdraw

45:43

their money a little

45:44

bit. Jack writes, shoots, stars

45:47

in, and edits the videos. It's

45:49

like, like, like amateur, but not in

45:51

like the amateur bad, like amateur,

45:54

like, just do it for fun. Even though

45:56

I do it for work. And if

45:57

you're thinking the audio from these videos.

46:00

sounds terrible, that's

46:02

kind of the point. It's very low

46:04

budget kind of thing. Which is why he does

46:06

his own sound effects. That's

46:09

the great thing about TikTok. You can get weird.

46:12

You can get so weird. In fact,

46:15

Jack's Dada-esque hack together

46:17

style has helped grow the Planet

46:19

Money TikTok account to over 750,000 viewers and

46:25

made him social media famous

46:27

in the process. Sometimes people will come up to me

46:29

and they'll be like, so like fractional reserve lending.

46:31

And I'm like, man, I'm off the clock. The film

46:33

school student turned online educator

46:36

thinks he knows why he's hit a

46:38

nerve online.

46:39

I think it's just like speaking their language. I

46:41

mean, in film school,

46:43

I would just read a bunch of like film theory papers and

46:46

I became so frustrated with how

46:48

like

46:49

needlessly complicated

46:52

all of these giant words and self-serving

46:54

they were. And so I'm like, just like, just

46:56

talk like a normal person. Just like explain to me.

46:58

It's like, I'm from Ohio. It's like explain to an

47:00

Ohio guy like me what's really going

47:03

on.

47:04

I never studied economics.

47:06

And so I would always hear these things,

47:09

these terms like flying around. The

47:11

S&P ended the day down 3.6%. We're

47:13

talking about that death ceiling debate now. Federal Reserve

47:15

raising by one quarter point by 25

47:18

basis points. And no one was like explaining

47:20

them in like a way that like I was keen

47:23

on. I mean, like to just

47:25

put it simply, it

47:27

takes some time just to like find out like what really is

47:29

going on. I

47:31

did a video on tax brackets and I made it entirely

47:34

just because my mom didn't know what they were. And

47:36

like she thought that like, you know, if you made like a little

47:38

bit more money that you would like ultimately make

47:41

less money because you would go into a new bracket. Taxes

47:44

are confusing. But that's not how it

47:46

works. Like the first $10,000 you make is taxed at 10%. The

47:51

next $30,000 is taxed at 12%. Between 40

47:54

and $86,000 is taxed at 22%. You're

47:58

never gonna bump up into a new bracket.

47:59

bracket make less overall money and

48:02

i was like you know point there's gonna be people

48:04

in like my mom's position who like won't know this

48:07

but like there were so many more

48:09

people than i thought even my manager came

48:11

up to me and he's like oh i saw this one video about like tax

48:13

brackets i was like you know i'm like that was my

48:15

video so you do first you're

48:18

you're telling me about the video that i made uh...

48:20

for you yeah and

48:23

it's like i'd never took any economics

48:25

or financial literacy classes i

48:27

always thought it would be like you know either too complicated

48:29

or too

48:29

boring but i

48:32

don't know it's not doesn't have to be if you

48:34

just talk normal if you don't make it complicated

48:37

it's fun

48:39

are you concerned at all i mean tiktok

48:42

is in uh... hot water

48:45

here in the united

48:45

states i'm not thinking of this at

48:47

all from like a national security perspective

48:50

i'm just thinking of this as like a guy

48:52

who uh... likes uh... videos

48:55

i mean worse you know if if tiktok

48:58

is banned that would that

49:00

would that would stink

49:02

for me but in

49:05

college i think i'd be doing tiktok tell me

49:07

what you thought you'd be doing i thought i'd be making like experimental

49:10

documentaries and getting like maybe like

49:12

twenty people into a theater to see them uh...

49:15

instead you have a million you're teaching millions

49:17

of people about basic and macroeconomics

49:20

i know and i i i i studied

49:22

the least financially secure major out there

49:24

probably which is like experimental cinema

49:28

so i mean you know i got i got that

49:30

to fall back on i got experimental cinema

49:32

always

49:34

that

49:35

was jack corbett you can see his

49:37

work on the tiktok app at

49:39

planet money thank you

49:41

so much for listening to our show this

49:44

week d i y this

49:47

episode was produced by rachel falconer

49:49

white matthew clutier andrea

49:51

goutiers and fiona guren it

49:54

was edited by saana's meshkin poor and

49:56

me our production staff at npr

49:59

also includes james James De La Houssey, Hersha

50:01

Nahada, Lane Kaplan-Levinson,

50:03

Katie Montelillon, and Julia Carney.

50:06

Beth Donovan is our executive producer.

50:09

Our audio engineer was Margaret Luthar. Our

50:11

theme music was written by Romtine Arablui.

50:14

Our partners at TED are Chris Anderson,

50:16

Colin Helms, Michelle Quint, Jimmy

50:18

Gutierrez, Alejandra Salazar, and

50:21

Daniela Balorezzo. I'm Anush

50:23

Zamarodi, and you've been listening to the TED

50:25

Radio Hour from NPR.