What does it mean to build an independent media platform, and what responsibilities come with it? Recorded before a live audience in New York City, Chenjerai talks with political commentator and streamer Hasan Piker about his path from The Young Turks to Twitch, playing Fortnite while discussing Israel and Palestine, and why telling the truth requires more than claiming neutrality.

They also discuss holding Zohran Mamdani accountable, why movements must remain bigger than their leaders, and why Palestinian journalists’ reporting is so often ignored until Western outlets catch up.

📣 DON’T JUST LISTEN - PASS IT ON

If you know someone who would appreciate this conversation, send it to them. Seriously, text them right now. Send a screen shot. Forward it in an email. Drop it in the group chat.

🚨 HELP US BUILD FULLY INDEPENDENT MEDIA!

Unruly Subjects is growing. In the last 30 days, 34 new members have joined our Patreon community. To every one of you: THANK YOU!

🎯 OUR GOAL: 100 paid subscribers by December 1st. We’re almost halfway there. We need 52 more listeners to step up and support us financially so that we can build something sustainable.

We’re doing this work from the muscle, and if we want to keep making the show, expand our coverage, and bring you more conversations like this one, we need more of our listeners to pitch in.

🙏 If you value worker-owned, independent journalism, join our Patreon community for as little as $5/month. Help us build listener-backed media at unrulysubjectspodcast.com.

Follow Chenjerai on Instagram @chenjerai and Bluesky @chenjerai.bsky.social and follow Unruly Subjects @unrulysubjectspod. Get in touch at unrulysubjects@gmail.com.

Unruly Subjects is also now on YouTube! Subscribe here: https://www.youtube.com/@UnrulySubjects

Production Help From Aowen Cao

Unruly Subjects is created in partnership with Rowhome Productions

Further reading & sources from this episode:

Hasan on Twitch
Watch Hasan’s livestream, where he combines news, political commentary, and gaming.

“The Battle for the Bros” by Andrew Marantz, The New Yorker
A profile of Hasan and the debate over reaching young men through online media.

“More Truth,” Scene on Radio
Reported by Lewis Raven Wallace, with John Biewen and Chenjerai Kumanyika, this episode explores journalism, objectivity, and democracy.

Trailer for Naza
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIBRLEEaueo

Trailer for Palestine ‘36
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1PWKE_9YtU

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What does it take to move from being right about the world to actually having the power to change it?

What happens within our movements and organizations and in our hearts when we stop believing that we can actually win?

Organizer, facilitator, and writer Yotam Marom joins Chenjerai to talk about what our movements can sometimes get wrong about power, leadership, conflict, strategy, and winning. They also discuss what it might take to build movements big and strong enough to meet this moment. Yotam’s new book is called For Louder Days: Reaching Beyond a Politics of Powerlessness.

📣 DON’T JUST LISTEN - PASS IT ON
If you know someone who would appreciate this conversation, send it to them. Seriously, text them right now. Forward it in an email. Drop it in the group chat.

Help us grow the Unruly community and organize so that we can move from just being right to actually building power.

🚨 HELP US BUILD FULLY INDEPENDENT MEDIA!
Unruly Subjects is growing. As I write this we now have 119 members in our Patreon community, including 45 people who have stepped up to support the show financially. To every one of you: THANK YOU!

🎯 OUR GOAL: 100 paid subscribers by December 1st. We’re almost halfway there. We need 55 more listeners to step up and help us build something sustainable.

We’re doing this work from the muscle, and if we want to keep making the show, expand our coverage, and bring you more conversations like this one, we need more of our listeners to pitch in.

🙏 If you value worker-owned, independent journalism, join our Patreon community for as little as $5/month. Help us build listener-backed media at unrulysubjectspodcast.com.

Follow Chenjerai on Instagram @chenjerai and Bluesky @chenjerai.bsky.social and follow Unruly Subjects @unrulysubjectspod. Get in touch at unrulysubjects@gmail.com.

Unruly Subjects is also on YouTube!
Subscribe here: https://www.youtube.com/@UnrulySubjects

Production Help From Aowen Cao

Unruly Subjects is created in partnership with Rowhome Productions

Further reading & sources from this episode:

Yotam Marom, Four Louder Days: Reaching Beyond a Politics of Powerlessness

From Bernie to Mamdani, how the Occupy movement transformed American politics. Yotam Marom, who helped lead Occupy Wall Street, discusses why power must be built through movements, not simply through elected officials

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jul/21/yotam-moram-occupy-movement

Why bravery and heartbreak are essential to organizing. Reflecting on decades of organizing — from Occupy to Mamdani’s campaign — Yotam Marom’s book “For Louder Days” offers a powerful guide to making hard choices.

https://wagingnonviolence.org/2026/08/yotam-marom-for-louder-days-book-review/

“Undoing the Politics of Powerlessness” - Yotam Marom

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Unruly Subjects is back in the building and back in your feed! After a long, hot summer hiatus we’re returning with a very special episode recorded live at the Socialism Conference in Chicago, featuring a conversation with the legendary scholars and thinkers Ruth Wilson Gilmore and Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò.

Chenjerai, Femi, and Ruth dig into these big questions: How do we reckon with this moment? And where do we go from here? (A huge thank you to our comrades at Haymarket Books for organizing the conference and for their ongoing support of independent media.)

🚨 HELP US BUILD FULLY INDEPENDENT MEDIA!
To bring you this episode, the Unruly team traveled from Philly and NYC to Chicago to record live on the ground. That kind of independent coverage takes real resources and it costs money.

Unruly Subjects episodes have been downloaded tens of thousands of times. And for that, we say THANK YOU! But right now, only 39 people are stepping up to help support the show financially. We’re doing this work from the muscle, and to keep going, expand our coverage, and talk to more folks, we need your support.

🎯 OUR GOAL: We need 61 more listeners to step up by December 1st to hit our target of 100 paid subscribers.

🙏 If you value worker-owned, independent journalism, join our Patreon community for as little as $5/month. Help us build listener-backed media atunrulysubjectspodcast.com.

Follow Chenjerai on Instagram @chenjerai and Bluesky @chenjerai.bsky.social and follow Unruly Subjects @unrulysubjectspod. Get in touch at unrulysubjects@gmail.com.

Unruly Subjects is also now on YouTube! Subscribe here: https://www.youtube.com/@UnrulySubjects

Production Help From Aowen Cao

Additional Music by Blue Dot Sessions and Grizzly Beatz

Unruly Subjects is created in partnership with Rowhome Productions

Further reading & sources from this episode:

By Ruth Wilson Gilmore:

• Golden Gulag: Prisons, Surplus, Crisis, and Opposition in Globalizing California
• Abolition Geography: Essays Towards Liberation

By Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò:

• Elite Capture: How the Powerful Took Over Identity Politics (And What We Can Do About It)
• Reconsidering Reparations

Support the show