Episode 12: Imagining and Acting with Heart (feat. Isabelle Katter, Cynthia Mendes)

00:00

Jocelyn

Speaker 1  00:07

Bell, welcome to from ideas to impact the show where students, professors and professionals seek to understand the overlap of creativity, innovation and a love ethic in various industries. I'm Jocelyn Bell, the professor of the human spark class at Bryant University, a class formerly known as the sociology of innovation and creativity, and we're in the segment of the podcast when we hear student reflections on and analyzes of the themes and ideas that emerged over the course of the class. Sometimes they used this final assignment as a chance to imagine what an episode of their own podcast would sound like. Other times, they put the episode together as part of the larger story of the class. One thing that's consistent throughout this segment of the show is that each student invites you into their thoughts on the overlap of creativity, innovation and a love ethic. When you listen to this episode from Izzy, I encourage you to pay close attention to her mention of love, ethic, systems, thinking and community, grounded leadership. They're important concepts that add depth to her analysis of Cynthia Mendez, visit you.

Speaker 2  01:43

Izzy, welcome everyone to from ideas to impact. The Podcast where we explore how love, creativity and innovation come together to drive meaningful social change across all industries. I'm Izzy Katter, and in this series, we're asking, how do people transform their industries through bold, love, centered action. Today we're diving into the story of Cynthia Mendes, former Rhode Island State Senator, health care advocate and political disruptor. Cynthia embodies what it means to lead with love, challenge power and dream bigger about what systems can be. She doesn't just critique broken institutions. She confronts them head on. This episode makes a sociological argument about a social phenomenon, the normalization of systemic housing inequality in the US political system. Using Bell Hooks concept of a love ethic and Donella Meadows system thinking model, we explore how Mendis innovative and love driven activism challenges this phenomenon and opens possibilities for more just, compassionate policy making. Our sociological argument is this, the normalization of systemic housing inequality is reinforced by institutional bias and political disengagement. Mendes disrupts this pattern using a love intervention in the form of community centered protest and legislative reform. If Systems Thinking is correct, then altering structures and feedback loops like public visibility and civic engagement should drive more equitable outcomes. Mandy's shows us that this is not only possible, but already in motion. In this episode, you'll hear how she organized protest sacrificed political capital and took on systemic housing issues, not with cold policy but with fierce strategic compassion. Her example illustrates how sociological theory is not just analytical, but actionable before becoming a state senator, Cynthia Mendez worked as an orthodontic assistant in a health program manager. These experiences exposed her to health disparities faced by working class families in Rhode Island. Her identity as a single mother and daughter of immigrants informed her drive to enter politics, not for power, but for purpose. When she entered the Rhode Island State Senate, she brought that same urgency. Her most widely known campaign involved sleeping on the State House, steps alongside unhoused individuals. This wasn't a stunt. It was a statement, one rooted in dignity, not

Speaker 3  04:12

charity. We ran for office and we won in the same year in covid, and covid laid bare a lot of the ways in which our society had left some people out and more or some people to feel the burden of disparity in whether it's with healthcare, whether it was working, even though it could cost you your life working and not being compensated well, like who lost their jobs, who lost their homes. And so the message of was that, if we love people, that we should make policies that reflect and fight for everyone resonated, I think, in a very particular way, in 20. 20 when everyone's thinking and looking around, going and volunteering and trying to help their neighbor and still saying something wrong somebody, things are not right here. And so to have a group of people who were not career politicians to kind of come in and go there could be a different way to do this. Was sure we ran very strategically successful campaigns. But there, I do think there was something about touching the heart of people, where we were at that moment, where we were really crushed by the system was exposed for what it was

Speaker 2  05:37

to make sense of Cynthia's story. Sociologically, we use two concepts. First, Bell Hooks love ethic, from her book, all about love. Hooks describes love as a mix of care, commitment, knowledge, responsibility, respect and trust. It's not abstract. It's embodied political and necessary for justice. Second, we use Donella Meadows theory of systems thinking, which helps us see that change isn't about tweaking roles. It's about shifting the relationships and structures that uphold systems of harm. Mendes doesn't just pass bills, she shifts power. We also draw from Melvin Delgado and Denise Morales 2016 research on Latino health disparities, which supports the idea that community rooted leadership drives more responsive policy. Mindy's trajectory aligns with what Delgado calls culturally grounded intervention. Her decision to camp outside the state house with unhoused people, was a radical act of love and action. Rather than relying on sanitized policy debates, she created a visual and emotional disruption that forced both public attention and political discomfort. She wasn't interested in temporary shelter solutions. She demanded structural change. That's where innovation came in, blending direct action with legislative advocacy to pressure decision makers.

Speaker 3  07:07

Positions, positions can give you power, but power is the ability to execute change and empowers the ability to to move love and make it happen and realize and I wanted a different way. So anyway, I'll kind of wrap up there. But that was one example of a few of the ways that collective action. We had, faith leaders, formerly unhoused people, advocates, people from all walks of life, political spectrum, out on that State House steps in the winter, sleeping outside with the idea that they were not okay with a state that didn't reflect their moral compass. So we end we end up making this message that said no one should in Rhode Island, no one should be outside poison to death. And the thing that ended up collecting all of those people wasn't necessarily a policy, it was a moral message. And that moral message brought a lot of people together and created enough power to be able to actually enact a policy. The policy came after the love.

Speaker 2  08:10

Of course, love alone doesn't dismantle systems. Cynthia faced major resistance from fellow lawmakers, media outlets and even liberal allies. The institutional bias was real, but so was her support. Grassroot coalitions, organizers and online communities rallied behind her, as Walter argues in the innovation journal, Social Innovation often depends on working both within and outside institutions. Mendes was part politician and part protester navigating both formal systems and community organizing spaces. This dual strategy reflects a growing sociological trend, the hybrid change maker.

Speaker 3  08:52

One important thing about Power is power is also and the power of love, it means it's also risky, and it can be very unconventional. And so there was this idea when we when we ran for office, when I ran, the political establishment wanted nothing to do with me and us. Little bit of caveat. I ran against one of the most powerful men in the state. He was the Senate Finance Chair who was not supposed to beat him. He had more money than God. It was just it was not supposed to be able to touch him. We beat him 62 to 38 which was quite embarrassing for the establishment. But the political establishment at that time had to then reckon with all of these wins and saying, like, maybe we need to start doing things so the $15 minimum wage, which they would not touch with a 10 foot pole. After those losses and elections, they passed the $15 minimum wage that first session, the Act on climate, which was a historic kind of climate bill that set really important benchmarks for us to meet as a state. They passed that unanimously first session and then leave. Lies in cannabis with automatic expungement. That meant clearing the records of people that were kind of carrying records for a really long time before other states of Massachusetts hadn't even done addressing the kind of carceral harm that had been had existed before. And so that was all risk. They had to do that. They had to do those things, because all of a sudden, now there were people that were like, I'll risk my political career to make you embarrassed. I'll risk my political career to say this more, because I never felt like I was supposed to have that anyway. This was a gift that, again, what did my ancestors teach me is that when you have an opportunity, you have to use it to fight for other people.

Speaker 2  10:42

You even after losing her Lieutenant Governor bid her protest tactics, policy priorities and love ethic shifted conversations statewide. More legislators are now openly naming housing as a human right. Her case shows that a love ethic in politics can spark social change, not just symbolically, but materially, as Professor Bell discussed in our class lecture on love as a mythology, love driven organizing creates alternatives to punitive, individualistic systems. Cynthia Mendes offers us a great model for this approach.

Speaker 3  11:21

Love taught me that you in community, you're risky. You also do it out in front of everybody. It's not something to be done in private. Love is something to be done in front of people. And so we decided, a group of us to go pitch heads outside the state house steps. The police kind of harassed us. I'll save that story. If you guys have some questions about that, and threatened to arrest us. They ended up not arresting us. Next night, 10 people came out. Next time, 13 people came out. 616 nights later, were 200 people outside. It got covered by local and national news, and finally, they had to start unlocking some of the money that they had been sitting on and create 400 new shelter beds in a program for helping with some affordable housing and housing assistance. And the reason why I'm kind of ending with that story, even though that's not quite the end of my story, is that it is that is the example of what I was sharing about how if, if you care, if you care about love, you care about power. That is what that means. That was a powerful way of weaponizing that position I

Speaker 2  12:40

had. So what can we learn from Cynthia Mendes that love, when paired with courage and strategy, is revolutionary, that disrupting systems requires both heart and hustle, and that sociological tools like love ethic and systems thinking can help us understand and support This work, if systemic housing inequality sustained by indifference and bureaucratic delay. Mendes proves that love and disruption are not only valid responses, but necessary ones. And with that, thank you for listening to from ideas to impact. I'm Izzy Katter, and I hope you walk away seeing love not as a weakness in politics, but as its greatest strength, Until next time, keep imagining and acting with heart you.

13:28

Tell me.