We Conquer, a new youth organization founded by senior Anjali Das, started a podcast discussing race issues to spread awareness and provide a platform for people of color.

The first episode of the “We Conquer” podcast was released on Spotify on Sept. 21. Das and her co-host, senior Anaya Paxton, discussed and recorded an episode on colorism as their test-run episode. 

“We recorded the first episode as our guinea pig episode, and we knew we wanted to do it on colorism because that was something that me and Anaya discussed pretty much every week,” Das said. “We got amazing feedback. [It was] better than I expected.”

One of the goals of the podcast is to help students of color come to terms with and recognize instances of discrimination. The podcast also aims to encourage students of color who have faced discrimination. 

“[The podcast] is geared towards uplifting the POC [people of color] community, especially the young people in this group, because I’ve seen many people not living up to their full potential and not having access to the encouragement they need to go further in life,” Paxton said. “That is really the reason why this [podcast] is such a great idea. People need comfort with people that they can relate to.”

Responses to the first podcast episode have been positive. Students contacted both Das and Paxton to share their own instances of discrimination. Some listeners expressed their gratitude toward the podcast for discussing colorism, a prevalent issue within the people of color community. 

“I thought it was really cool because they took initiative to talk about something they’re really passionate about, and it’s very relevant to what’s going on today,” freshman Manushree Mallipuli said. “[They] showed that racism and prejudice toward the color of your skin is there, but there’s always a way to overcome it.”

In addition to discussing issues within the people of color community, the podcast is aimed at spreading awareness and educating non-minorities about racial issues.

“It is very important for non-POC to also listen to this podcast because they can get a better understanding of the struggles that the POC community face on a daily basis, and hopefully this will also help our society grow in a more positive direction,” Paxton said. 

The organization is currently planning to release their next episode. The release date is not set yet, but there are some issues that Das and Paxton are planning on discussing. 

“For the next podcast episode, I was thinking about reaching out to one of my close friends,” Das said. “She’s talked about her experiences as a Muslim woman within Hebron. We’re still working out the details, but that’s most likely what’s going to be our next episode — strictly based on Islamophobia and a slight touch on microaggressions.”

Updates on release dates and discussion topics are on their Instagram page. The organization has received some suggestions from listeners about future discussion topics, and Das is planning to expand the podcast to cover more topics on racial discrimination.

“It’s always easier to degrade a darker-skinned woman, so the job we have as a generation is [to help] kids understand that [their] skin color should not be an insecurity [or] something people can degrade,” Das said. “It should be [their] cape.”