Welcome Back to Route 24! This week I’m presenting at Generations United’s 2025 Global Intergenerational Conference. Learn more about the conference agenda and what I’ll be presenting, or if you’ll also be attending in Louisville, please send me a message.
The Route 24 Roadmap
I’m on a mission to help restore public trust. This is where I look closer at moments of global and national significance to show how cycles of misinformation and disinformation disorient communities.
Probable Cause is an XR civic education gaming experience that puts you in the driver’s seat during a routine traffic stop. Route 24 is its companion newsletter that invites you to explore our creative process on the project as we build, deconstructing traffic stop data, policing trends, and their community impact to jumpstart public awareness and, in turn, mobilize narrative change.
Driver’s Ed parks in your inbox on Mondays to shift your gears on key policy debates and test drive people-powered solutions.
Here’s where you come in. Every follow, share, and subscription helps to keep this work going and reach the people the mainstream media often misses. For riders in a position to financially contribute, your dollars support the creative team with the critical resources needed to iterate, travel, and scale.
Start your engines…
In this issue: There was a flash. Photographers swarmed like bees in a hive, trying their best to get a better view. A little voice permeated through the sea of overwhelm. Mama… He scanned the crowd, searching until he found her. The child looked no more than four…
That’s how my mom met Muhammad Ali. It was a happy accident. She’d somehow ended up standing in front of him as a wave of photographers rushed in. He’d swooped down and picked her up until she could be reunited with her mom. The Louisville Lip may have been known as a champion fighter, but it was these small moments of kindness that made him most memorable.
The training you endure for ballet and boxing is similar, and in part, why I’m drawn to the latter. Both have a unique rhythm and require a certain degree of agility, speed, and discipline. In a well-known quote from 1974, Ali gave this analogy:
“Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee — his hands can’t hit what his eyes can’t see.”
Anyone else feel as though we’re in the twelfth round of a never-ending fight to manipulate public perception?! It’s certainly altered my media consumption habits.
It’s also inspired deeper inquiry on the driving forces behind attempts at deliberate disorientation and how we might course-correct.
Perhaps what is most required to maintain hope in this moment is strength of will, something Ali spoke to when characterizing the defining qualities of a champion:
“Champions aren’t made in the gyms. Champions are made from something they have deep inside them: a desire, a dream, a vision. They have to have last-minute stamina, they have to be a little faster, they have to have the skill and the will. But the will must be stronger than the skill.”
It feels good to be back on this road. Thanks, as always, for riding with me!
Stay the course,
Sam
Sam Reetz, is a filmmaker, performer, and founder at Millennial Ethics, creating narrative solutions to complex issues.
Follow her work on Bluesky, Substack and Instagram.
Did you know? Since 1974, the Transit Authority of River City (TARC) has operated in Louisville, with currently 227 accessible buses operating in its fleet that run year-round. Source: ridetarc.org
Dividing Lines
Earlier this May, I attended the Library Foundation of Los Angeles’ discussion, Dividing Lines: How Transportation Infrastructure Reinforces Racial Inequality, featuring ACLU President Deborah N. Archer and Dignity and Power Now’s Helen Jones in conversation with Austin Cross.
Urban planning initiatives in the 1960’s deliberately designed transportation infrastructure to foster division between American constituencies. This meant the strategic placement of multilane streets, highways, and limited access to sidewalks and pedestrian crosswalks to racially and economically segregate communities, insulating the affluent from those of lower-income.
The impact of these policies is one lane in the conversation around what enables persistent divisiveness in America.
Listen to an excerpt of the full conversation here.
