Thenmozhi Soundararajan is a Dalit American artist, community organizer, technologist, and theorist. Currently, Thenmozhi is the Executive Director of Equality Labs, which she co-founded. Equality Labs is the largest Dalit civil rights organization working to empower caste-oppressed people in the US and globally. Through her work at Equality Labs, Thenmozhi has mobilized South Asian Americans towards dismantling eons-long systems of oppression, with the goal of ending caste apartheid, gender-based violence, white supremacy, and religious intolerance. Thenmozhi previously co-founded Third World Majority, an international media training organization and collective that supported people from disenfranchised groups in telling their own stories, in their own way.
Her intersectional, cross-pollinating work—research, education, art, activism, and digital security—helps to create a more generous, global, expansive, and inclusive definition of South Asian identity, along with safe spaces from which to honor the stories of these communities. Thenmozhi’s work has been highly recognized by several prestigious organizations including The Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center, The Museum of Contemporary Art, The National Science Foundation, and many more. She is a frequent contributor on issues related to South Asia, caste, gender, and racial equity, as well interfaith issues and peacebuilding, and has been featured in the New York Times, Washington Post, BBC, Guardian, ABC, and NBC news. She was also an inaugural fellow of the Atlantic Foundation for Racial Equity and is a current fellow at Stanford Center for South Asian Studies.
In this enlightening and informative conversation, Thenmozhi shares with Rachel her own personal experience of trauma from caste-based oppression, and explains the ways in which it inspired her activism and advocacy work. Throughout the discussion, Thenmozhi details the inherent religious abuse that accompanies caste discrimination and exclusion, and offers insights on overcoming it, both systematically and personally.
Before you go: Rachel explains how oppressive systems dehumanize minority groups to create hierarchy and maintain authoritarian control.
To learn more about Thenmozhi and her work visit her website at:
http://dalitdiva.com/
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More info on Equality Labs here:
https://www.equalitylabs.org/
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