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Good afternoon.
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It looks like many of you have had an opportunity
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to get some lunch.
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And those of you know that I mentioned this morning,
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that when I came back up at 12:30,
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that's your cue to sit all the way down.
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So I wanted to make a few announcements
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as our schedule has changed a bit
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because of our lovely unpredictable Texas weather.
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Rosa Clemente has just joined us.
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Her flight got delayed how many times?
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We don't know how many times.
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So those of you that were involved with the conversation
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with Rosa Clemente,
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that 11 o'clock event has been moved to 3:00 p.m..
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And those of you that were invited to that,
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you did get an email related to that.
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So what that means is all of the sessions,
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the afternoon sessions that were previously
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in the Union Senate room have been moved.
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So session three, Bridges over Borders,
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has been moved to 333B
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and session for the Coalition for Change
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has been moved to 333B.
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And so then everything else stays the same.
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And just a reminder that you can tweet your questions
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for Rosa Clemente and also for Dr. Stewart later.
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We will be taking questions from Twitter first
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to hashtag #EDC18at, the word at, UNT.
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And then we'll also take a few questions from the floor.
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So one question for you,
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are you ready for our keynote address?
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We're ready, okay.
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(audience applauds)
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So now we are going to enjoy the experience
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that we've all been waiting for.
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To be in the midst of an Afro-Latinx political commentator,
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community organizer, independent journalist,
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and 2008 Green Party Vice Presidential candidate
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and social justice change agent, Rosa Clemente.
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Applause, yes, applause.
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(audience applauds)
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She is applause worthy.
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We're glad to have her here.
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So from Harvard to prisons,
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Rosa has spent her life dedicated to scholar activism.
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She is the president and founder
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of Know Thy Self Productions,
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which has produced four major community activism tours,
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and consults on issues such as hip hop activism,
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media justice, voter engagement among youth of color,
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third party politics,
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intercultural relations between Black and Latinx,
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immigrants rights as an extension of human rights
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and universal healthcare.
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She's a frequent guest on television,
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radio, and online media.
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Born and raised in the South Bronx.
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She's a South Bronx.
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She is a graduate of the University of Albany
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and Cornell University
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and a doctoral candidate
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at the W.E.B. Du Bois Department of Afro-American Studies
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of the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
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Her academic, she's busy, right?
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Her academic work has focused on the research
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of national liberation struggles within the United States.
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Most recently, she was part of the movement
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to bring hashtag #MeToo, hashtag #TimesUp,
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and hashtag #PRontheMap to the 2018 awards
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with an esteem cadre of other women
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who ain't gonna take it anymore.
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I personally have been inspired by her tireless commitment
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to providing voice to the voiceless
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and reminding us that Puerto Ricans are Americans too
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through her PR on the Map efforts.
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Please join me in giving a Mean Green UNT welcome
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to our 2018 Equity
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and Diversity Conference keynote speaker, Rosa Clemente.
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(audience applauds)
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Wow, this is amazing.
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Thank you so much, UNT, wow.
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It was worth being at the airport at 4:00 a.m.
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and just getting here.
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And wow, what a crowd!
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So let me thank everybody for being here.
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I don't know if there's any way we could turn down
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the lights that are directly in my face.
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They're super bright and I suffer from migraines.
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So who's ever doing the tech stuff,
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I need them super lowered, please.
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I appreciate that.
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So I have about 55 minutes,
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so I'll speak and then obviously take any Q&A,
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it's a huge room, I'm just like taking it in.
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There's like over 600 people here, maybe I've been told.
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So first and foremost,
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I'm always grateful for the opportunity to speak.
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I always come prepared
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and I work off the energy in the room,
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as well as what's happening in the world.
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I think it's critically important for those of us
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who come through higher ed to say grounded and connected
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in our communities or what was the point,
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we just end up working for somebody else
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and not affecting any type of change.
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And too, for the younger people in this room,
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I did graduate 20 years ago.
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Well, no, sorry.
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I graduate almost 20 years ago from SUNY Albany,
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but I went in there in 1990.
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So I know what it's like to be a student on a campus.
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I know what it's like to try to find
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who you are as a person.
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And I think campuses are an all,
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let me not say campuses as the institution,
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but the people on them,
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especially people of color,
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especially black women, especially Latina women,
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especially ethnic studies, critical race studies,
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gender studies, women's studies.
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This is the only way we get by.
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So I think it's super important
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that young people take their rightful place,
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just like young people are doing right now
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all the way from Florida to Washington, D.C.,
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and taking their rightful place and struggle.
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So first and foremost,
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for those younger folks who on social media tweet,
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I'm all over, so tweet hashtag #PRontheMaps,
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engage in conversation.
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I think social media is a very important, critical tool.
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I don't think it replaces organizing though.
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So just do what you do.
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Go on Facebook on Facebook live.
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And then so all the groups that made this possible
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and everyone in here, let me just say again, thank you.
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And to the entire community and to all the workers right now
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who are feeding us and cleaning up,
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I hope that UNT is giving you a livable wage.
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And if not, that's where the students
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could start to struggle for.
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No one working in any institution that has money
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or these institutions have money,
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should not be treating their workers better
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than the rest of the society treats people, straight up.
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And if you want to talk about organizing,
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then that's where you start organizing.
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My husband is a custodian
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at the State University of New York at Albany.
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He works for the State of New York.
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And if me and him didn't have income together,
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he would be in the poverty level,
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working for the State of New York
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with benefits and a pension,
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but his salary would put him under the poverty level.
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That's crazy, especially for all workers.
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I didn't have scholarship.
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We don't just produce it for us.
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Scholarship is supposed to be for the community.
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Scholarship is responsibility and vision.
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That's why we should be coming to these campuses.
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I'm gonna start with this.
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I grew up in the South Bronx.
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I grew up in the South Bronx when the Bronx was Bernie.
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And then when my parents were nine years old,
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they moved us to, from the poorest congressional district.
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The Bronx to this day is one of the poorest congressional
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districts in the United States of America.
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They moved us to Westchester County,
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the second richest suburb in the United States of America.
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And they're only 19 miles apart.
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So I went from living on East Tremont and Harrison
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and my family on the Grand Concourse, East 174,
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all over the Bronx to then go into suburbs
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where we were the only Latinos at that time.
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But our school was,
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it was this little town, it still exists,
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It's called Elmsford, New York.
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If anybody's ever been to New York,
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you ever go to Westchester County, it's a small town.
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It's one square mile.
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I lived a very utopic life, five days a week.
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And then every week,
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and my mom would make sure
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that we still went to see our family
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and kept our cultural connections
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and our family connections in the Bronx.
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And to this day,
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my dad still has his business in the Bronx.
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So it was never that I didn't know that I was privileged
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because my dad hit a number,
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before there were lotteries in our communities,
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they were number runners and your abuela, or you,
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you dream a number and you go put a dollar on it
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and you end up with a thousand or whatever.
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My dad hit a number and he was able to go
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and put this down payment on a house in Westchester County.
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Just that alone obviously changed
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the entire trajectory of my life.
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So growing up in this utopic kind of school
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where it was less than 200 of us from seventh to 12th grade,
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our class trips were to Greece, Spain, Morocco.
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That's were our class trips.
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We weren't going to the Bronx Zoo
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or a museum around the corner.
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It was very idealic.
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In my imagination,
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particularly of African American people
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were African-American people
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that were middle-class whole intact
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as opposed to the pathology that's on TV,
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because that's the way the community was.
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So we were all expected to go to college.
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We were all expected to excel.
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There weren't cops in our schools.
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We were in clubs, and organizations, and rotary,
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and all of this stuff.
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I basically had
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what would now be a private school experience
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in a public school.
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Because I lived in the second richest suburb
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in the United States of America.
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My cousins unfortunately lived in the Bronx
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and all of them wanted to go to college.
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But then you start talking to the guidance counselor
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who tells you you're not good enough,
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or says you're Puerto Rican, or you don't write well,
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or you don't do this.
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So you should just work
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when nobody in your community goes to college.
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So that move changed not only the trajectory of my life,
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my brother and sister.
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So when I got to the State University of New York at Albany,
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I was very confident in who I was in my academics.
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But what happened was within weeks of being on the campus
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at the State University New York at Albany,
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a public institution,
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a predominantly white institution.
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Mind you, I had grown up around all white kids
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in Westchester County,
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and I don't ever remember one racial incident.
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I'm sure something happened,
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but those white kids that I grew up with in Elmsford
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to this day we're family,
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we all still see each other and keep up with each other.
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Because I didn't grow up here and I was a nigger,
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any of that stuff,
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I didn't grow up hearing that from white people
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until I went to an institution of higher education.
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And then within weeks it's not only that,
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is then the six white girls who are suite-mates saying
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that the three black or the two black people
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and Puerto Ricans were stealing their stuff.
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Then another week it becomes the fraternity row houses
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you got to walk by and then you're called a black bitch
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or a white boy jumps up on you.
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Like, these are the things that happened within a semester.
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And like many students of color
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in predominantly white institutions, I became depressed.
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You start partying, getting, high drinking,
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not going to class,
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maybe you're eating a lot.
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Then you might not know the resources on your campus,
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all of that kind of stuff.
266
00:13:29.650 --> 00:13:31.940
And what made me angry was I was smarter
267
00:13:31.940 --> 00:13:34.283
than most of them white kids, period.
268
00:13:36.540 --> 00:13:38.890
All we ever heard was you got here
269
00:13:38.890 --> 00:13:40.400
'cause of affirmative action.
270
00:13:40.400 --> 00:13:42.230
You're not supposed to be here.
271
00:13:42.230 --> 00:13:45.360
And then one day, one of my friends
272
00:13:45.360 --> 00:13:48.420
who was a Phi Beta Sigma, Mark Anthony Williams, was like,
273
00:13:48.420 --> 00:13:51.080
so what if we did reparations?
274
00:13:51.080 --> 00:13:54.630
And I was like, oh shit, I was like, this is funny.
275
00:13:54.630 --> 00:13:56.393
Like I was like, that's crazy.
276
00:13:58.780 --> 00:14:03.270
And I was second semester freshmen, really struggling.
277
00:14:03.270 --> 00:14:06.130
And I had gone to a black student union meeting.
278
00:14:06.130 --> 00:14:09.290
And Mark was like, next time they say that you say this,
279
00:14:09.290 --> 00:14:11.230
and next time them white boys run up on you,
280
00:14:11.230 --> 00:14:12.933
we're gonna have our own security.
281
00:14:15.317 --> 00:14:18.887
It was incredible that it was upperclassmen
282
00:14:19.970 --> 00:14:22.000
as brothers and sisters
283
00:14:22.000 --> 00:14:24.500
that were mentoring us and telling us right now,
284
00:14:24.500 --> 00:14:27.810
everything you thought is about to change.
285
00:14:27.810 --> 00:14:29.580
They don't want us here.
286
00:14:29.580 --> 00:14:31.580
We're not supposed to be here.
287
00:14:31.580 --> 00:14:32.480
So first of all,
288
00:14:32.480 --> 00:14:35.670
all U.S. freshmen needs to be taken a black studies class,
289
00:14:35.670 --> 00:14:37.810
you need to take a Puerto Rican studies class,
290
00:14:37.810 --> 00:14:40.430
you need to take a Latin American history class.
291
00:14:40.430 --> 00:14:42.727
And me as a Puerto Rican, I was like,
292
00:14:42.727 --> 00:14:44.157
"No, I don't, I'm Puerto Rican.
293
00:14:44.157 --> 00:14:45.650
"I know what I need to know."
294
00:14:45.650 --> 00:14:48.027
And they were like, "No, you don't.
295
00:14:48.027 --> 00:14:49.707
"You don't know who you are.
296
00:14:49.707 --> 00:14:52.557
"You don't even know you're a person of African descent."
297
00:14:53.720 --> 00:14:57.600
And I was like, "I don't understand what that means."
298
00:14:57.600 --> 00:14:59.570
And they said, "Come to the ASUBA meeting."
299
00:14:59.570 --> 00:15:01.560
And immediately I joined ASUBA,
300
00:15:01.560 --> 00:15:03.793
the Albany State University Black Alliance.
301
00:15:04.930 --> 00:15:08.830
And joining ASUBA is why I stand here today.
302
00:15:08.830 --> 00:15:12.840
Joining one of the strongest black student organizations
303
00:15:12.840 --> 00:15:14.390
in the State of New York
304
00:15:14.390 --> 00:15:17.110
in a time period where students were fighting back
305
00:15:17.110 --> 00:15:20.710
to wishing increases of $50 a semester
306
00:15:20.710 --> 00:15:24.580
'cause our tuition was $750 a semester.
307
00:15:24.580 --> 00:15:27.750
And the governor wanted to raise it $75
308
00:15:27.750 --> 00:15:30.663
and we shut down Albany for like a day.
309
00:15:33.100 --> 00:15:36.400
Well, we would connect with city college students
310
00:15:36.400 --> 00:15:41.400
where fraternity and sororities weren't just about parties.
311
00:15:42.820 --> 00:15:45.490
It was an incredible time.
312
00:15:45.490 --> 00:15:50.490
And culturally, we were coming in the '90s
313
00:15:51.730 --> 00:15:54.360
onto campuses where we had black scholars
314
00:15:54.360 --> 00:15:57.013
demanding Afrocentric curricula.
315
00:15:57.902 --> 00:16:01.940
And we can have, especially as faculty folks
316
00:16:01.940 --> 00:16:04.510
who studied Afrocentric scholars
317
00:16:04.510 --> 00:16:06.670
or are an Afrocentric scholar,
318
00:16:06.670 --> 00:16:10.510
or follow the works of Asante and other people,
319
00:16:10.510 --> 00:16:13.720
we can have debates about some of the flaws,
320
00:16:13.720 --> 00:16:16.830
the patriarchy and the homophobia
321
00:16:17.870 --> 00:16:21.853
that came out of the school of Afrocentricity.
322
00:16:22.900 --> 00:16:24.960
But that's the interesting thing,
323
00:16:24.960 --> 00:16:28.390
that that school of Afrocentricity,
324
00:16:28.390 --> 00:16:31.040
entire two generation of black scholars,
325
00:16:31.040 --> 00:16:34.163
of Latinx scholars have pushed it forward.
326
00:16:35.500 --> 00:16:38.053
That's why black studies is critically important.
327
00:16:39.730 --> 00:16:42.150
All of this is done within a context, again,
328
00:16:42.150 --> 00:16:44.200
of a predominantly white institution
329
00:16:44.200 --> 00:16:46.920
because the students were strong
330
00:16:46.920 --> 00:16:49.730
and the faculty members were faculty members
331
00:16:49.730 --> 00:16:54.360
who were, to me, the essence of what black studies,
332
00:16:54.360 --> 00:16:57.110
our ethos as black studies scholars is,
333
00:16:57.110 --> 00:16:58.873
scholarship and activism.
334
00:16:59.950 --> 00:17:02.743
And my mentor, Dr. Vivian Verdell Gordon.
335
00:17:03.830 --> 00:17:07.760
She wrote a book called, "Black Women: Which Way."
336
00:17:07.760 --> 00:17:11.010
And it talked about the triple oppression of black women.
337
00:17:11.010 --> 00:17:13.850
She also was the mentor to Clenora Hudson-Weems,
338
00:17:13.850 --> 00:17:16.133
who writes about Africana Womanism.
339
00:17:20.250 --> 00:17:21.480
She was everything to me.
340
00:17:21.480 --> 00:17:23.850
And unfortunately, she died of a crazy disease
341
00:17:23.850 --> 00:17:24.870
way too young,
342
00:17:24.870 --> 00:17:29.010
but she had been one of the first black women's PhD
343
00:17:29.010 --> 00:17:32.690
sociologists out of the University of Virginia.
344
00:17:32.690 --> 00:17:35.150
And that's no joke, I mean, especially for black people,
345
00:17:35.150 --> 00:17:37.980
we know University of Virginia is not friendly in 2018,
346
00:17:37.980 --> 00:17:41.273
let alone 1968, when she went.
347
00:17:42.520 --> 00:17:43.930
But being mentored by her,
348
00:17:43.930 --> 00:17:47.260
having strong black and Latino administrators,
349
00:17:47.260 --> 00:17:49.320
that if we were like, yo, we're about to shut it down,
350
00:17:49.320 --> 00:17:50.847
they're like, "Okay, so you might get arrested,
351
00:17:50.847 --> 00:17:52.377
"you might get suspended,
352
00:17:52.377 --> 00:17:53.917
"but I'm not talking you out of it.
353
00:17:53.917 --> 00:17:58.227
"Just know the consequences and do what you have to do."
354
00:18:02.550 --> 00:18:07.470
So our tradition of how we were on these campuses
355
00:18:07.470 --> 00:18:09.100
got passed down.
356
00:18:09.100 --> 00:18:11.360
And I think that is not being passed down
357
00:18:11.360 --> 00:18:14.540
to a new generation of scholars,
358
00:18:14.540 --> 00:18:19.293
particularly African-American Latino scholars young people.
359
00:18:20.770 --> 00:18:24.503
If you are African-American Latino or a person of color,
360
00:18:25.400 --> 00:18:28.630
you didn't get here because someone wanted you here,
361
00:18:28.630 --> 00:18:30.513
you got here through a struggle.
362
00:18:31.830 --> 00:18:35.670
You got here because post the Civil Rights era
363
00:18:35.670 --> 00:18:40.670
into the Black Power era of the late '60s and '70s,
364
00:18:41.250 --> 00:18:44.790
there were hundreds and thousands of shutdown sittings
365
00:18:44.790 --> 00:18:48.683
and takeovers of universities all over the country,
366
00:18:50.140 --> 00:18:52.733
all over the country, including that HBCUs.
367
00:18:57.020 --> 00:18:59.280
We didn't get here because some board of trustee
368
00:18:59.280 --> 00:19:00.780
or some chancellor was like,
369
00:19:00.780 --> 00:19:05.300
yeah, let's let folks of color in, let's diversify.
370
00:19:05.300 --> 00:19:08.130
Because even when those doors were broken down,
371
00:19:08.130 --> 00:19:10.380
look at these campuses in 2018,
372
00:19:10.380 --> 00:19:12.560
they do not reflect who we are
373
00:19:12.560 --> 00:19:14.610
and what our communities are going through.
374
00:19:14.610 --> 00:19:16.390
For the most part, they don't.
375
00:19:16.390 --> 00:19:21.110
The faculty doesn't reflect the diversity of the students.
376
00:19:21.110 --> 00:19:24.810
Black women get the less or the least tenured
377
00:19:24.810 --> 00:19:26.583
of any demographic.
378
00:19:27.540 --> 00:19:32.130
Latino women, 1% of us get our PhDs.
379
00:19:32.130 --> 00:19:33.920
That's not 'cause we don't want to,
380
00:19:33.920 --> 00:19:37.293
that's because these institutions are not microaggressions,
381
00:19:38.270 --> 00:19:40.150
they're macroaggressive.
382
00:19:40.150 --> 00:19:41.833
They don't even hide it anymore.
383
00:19:43.210 --> 00:19:44.360
So then the question is,
384
00:19:44.360 --> 00:19:45.950
if you're going to be here and struggle,
385
00:19:45.950 --> 00:19:47.433
what are you struggling for?
386
00:19:49.160 --> 00:19:52.280
That's what the campus will end up doing for you.
387
00:19:52.280 --> 00:19:53.963
It will fortify you.
388
00:19:55.120 --> 00:19:58.790
The strongest people I know are sisters are in the academy.
389
00:19:58.790 --> 00:20:01.260
We ought to deal with patriarchy.
390
00:20:01.260 --> 00:20:02.740
We have to deal with white women
391
00:20:02.740 --> 00:20:04.470
who can't handle strong sisters
392
00:20:04.470 --> 00:20:06.320
even though they say they can.
393
00:20:06.320 --> 00:20:10.210
We got to deal being in black studies and ethnic studies
394
00:20:10.210 --> 00:20:11.870
where predominantly men running it
395
00:20:11.870 --> 00:20:14.220
when we know we could be running it way better.
396
00:20:16.290 --> 00:20:18.703
Then we have to deal with administration.
397
00:20:20.440 --> 00:20:24.380
I know this 'cause I've been at a State University,
398
00:20:24.380 --> 00:20:27.820
Cornell, and Ivy League and finishing at UMass Amherst.
399
00:20:27.820 --> 00:20:29.553
And I wouldn't trade anything in.
400
00:20:30.990 --> 00:20:32.673
Because I understand the system.
401
00:20:33.900 --> 00:20:36.460
And young people, whatever part you're in,
402
00:20:36.460 --> 00:20:38.960
you got to at least understand where you're at.
403
00:20:38.960 --> 00:20:42.893
You have to understand the system that you're in.
404
00:20:44.380 --> 00:20:45.940
You don't understand the system,
405
00:20:45.940 --> 00:20:47.600
Neely Fuller says,
406
00:20:47.600 --> 00:20:50.210
until one understands the system of white supremacy,
407
00:20:50.210 --> 00:20:52.543
everything and anything else will confuse you.
408
00:20:54.260 --> 00:20:57.300
Once I understood that,
409
00:20:57.300 --> 00:21:01.540
once I not only joined ASUBA,
410
00:21:01.540 --> 00:21:04.300
I joined every committee and ended up being
411
00:21:04.300 --> 00:21:09.300
the first Puerto Rican woman president of the organization
412
00:21:09.390 --> 00:21:11.380
by the end of my sophomore year.
413
00:21:11.380 --> 00:21:13.650
I went from almost failing out and a year later
414
00:21:13.650 --> 00:21:15.620
to running the largest organization
415
00:21:15.620 --> 00:21:17.110
or being part of the leadership
416
00:21:17.110 --> 00:21:21.250
of the largest black organization on the campus
417
00:21:21.250 --> 00:21:23.293
and throughout the SUNY system.
418
00:21:24.660 --> 00:21:26.540
And I did that because
419
00:21:28.690 --> 00:21:32.030
it wasn't just about me as a leader.
420
00:21:32.030 --> 00:21:37.030
It was the idea of what Ella Baker talked about,
421
00:21:39.100 --> 00:21:40.477
being leaderful.
422
00:21:41.640 --> 00:21:45.570
So I came up through that and not once in my life
423
00:21:45.570 --> 00:21:48.223
have I felt that I've had to compromise who I am.
424
00:21:49.150 --> 00:21:51.270
I mean, there's been consequences for me,
425
00:21:51.270 --> 00:21:53.203
not compromising, that's real.
426
00:21:54.160 --> 00:21:56.790
You have to understand that too as young people,
427
00:21:56.790 --> 00:21:58.713
or there'll be a price to pay.
428
00:22:00.820 --> 00:22:02.710
But it's not gonna be like anything
429
00:22:02.710 --> 00:22:05.500
that our ancestors had to endure.
430
00:22:05.500 --> 00:22:07.380
It's definitely not gonna be like anything
431
00:22:07.380 --> 00:22:10.720
like Fannie, and Ella, or Lolita LeBron
432
00:22:10.720 --> 00:22:14.450
or our 16 Black Panthers
433
00:22:14.450 --> 00:22:16.600
that are political prisoners right now,
434
00:22:16.600 --> 00:22:18.990
as well as people like David Gilbert
435
00:22:18.990 --> 00:22:20.460
from the Weather Underground,
436
00:22:20.460 --> 00:22:21.810
who are political prisoners
437
00:22:21.810 --> 00:22:23.670
in the United States of America right now.
438
00:22:23.670 --> 00:22:27.660
Some are going 45 years into their jail sentence
439
00:22:27.660 --> 00:22:30.760
because they fought for their actual political beliefs
440
00:22:30.760 --> 00:22:33.550
that were revolutionary, and anti-capitalist,
441
00:22:33.550 --> 00:22:35.363
and anti-state violence.
442
00:22:36.530 --> 00:22:38.793
Right now they sit in prisons.
443
00:22:40.330 --> 00:22:44.010
Right now, there's a young brother that's been arrested
444
00:22:44.010 --> 00:22:47.693
from the State of Texas under the new designation
445
00:22:47.693 --> 00:22:51.373
the FBI has called black identity extremist.
446
00:22:52.660 --> 00:22:55.300
You know about that brother from Texas?
447
00:22:55.300 --> 00:22:57.250
His house was raided in December.
448
00:22:57.250 --> 00:22:58.500
You know what the police took?
449
00:22:58.500 --> 00:22:59.600
His books
450
00:23:01.310 --> 00:23:03.940
and his registered gun
451
00:23:03.940 --> 00:23:06.090
'cause black people can't have guns
452
00:23:06.090 --> 00:23:08.440
even when they're registered.
453
00:23:08.440 --> 00:23:10.340
We've seen that with Philando Castile.
454
00:23:13.790 --> 00:23:16.593
They took his books as evidence.
455
00:23:18.150 --> 00:23:20.353
I've seen a lot of movies about fascism.
456
00:23:22.030 --> 00:23:24.000
I think that's where it starts.
457
00:23:24.000 --> 00:23:26.363
Why are the police taking his books?
458
00:23:28.410 --> 00:23:29.510
That's crazy,
459
00:23:29.510 --> 00:23:31.350
but that's happening
460
00:23:31.350 --> 00:23:33.613
'cause last year, the FBI,
461
00:23:35.220 --> 00:23:37.170
or recently, not even last year,
462
00:23:37.170 --> 00:23:42.080
they updated who they think are gonna be problematic
463
00:23:42.080 --> 00:23:44.160
or domestic terrorists
464
00:23:44.160 --> 00:23:45.890
and black identity extremist
465
00:23:45.890 --> 00:23:47.860
is a designation that they have.
466
00:23:47.860 --> 00:23:49.850
What does that mean?
467
00:23:49.850 --> 00:23:51.660
That if you say black girl magic,
468
00:23:51.660 --> 00:23:54.130
you're black identity extremist.
469
00:23:54.130 --> 00:23:56.060
That if you protest against the police,
470
00:23:56.060 --> 00:23:57.710
you're a black identity extremist.
471
00:23:57.710 --> 00:23:59.150
That if you study black studies,
472
00:23:59.150 --> 00:24:01.100
you're a black identity extremist.
473
00:24:01.100 --> 00:24:02.680
If I say I'm a black Puerto Rican,
474
00:24:02.680 --> 00:24:03.620
I'm a black.
475
00:24:03.620 --> 00:24:05.770
Then on top of it, one of the other ones
476
00:24:05.770 --> 00:24:08.470
was Puerto Rican independence movements.
477
00:24:08.470 --> 00:24:11.360
Some like I'm doubled 'cause I'm black Puerto Rican,
478
00:24:11.360 --> 00:24:13.033
so I'm a double threat.
479
00:24:15.150 --> 00:24:18.000
They call them climate justice warriors.
480
00:24:18.000 --> 00:24:19.900
So you're talking about Standing Rock.
481
00:24:21.490 --> 00:24:26.490
That's what's happening outside of these spaces
482
00:24:27.380 --> 00:24:29.940
that's sometimes we're not connected to.
483
00:24:29.940 --> 00:24:32.620
Just 'cause you geographically place yourself somewhere,
484
00:24:32.620 --> 00:24:36.820
you can kind of live in a bubble in any institution.
485
00:24:36.820 --> 00:24:38.450
So we got to understand what's going on
486
00:24:38.450 --> 00:24:39.410
on the outside world.
487
00:24:39.410 --> 00:24:41.520
We have to understand the system.
488
00:24:41.520 --> 00:24:43.410
We have to have a very clear understanding
489
00:24:43.410 --> 00:24:44.643
of how we got here.
490
00:24:46.790 --> 00:24:50.130
My belief is that the American project has been failing
491
00:24:50.130 --> 00:24:51.193
from the beginning.
492
00:24:52.250 --> 00:24:57.250
Because when you start a project based on genocide,
493
00:24:58.340 --> 00:25:02.810
enslavement, forced labor,
494
00:25:02.810 --> 00:25:07.060
and the denial of your own women, founding fathers,
495
00:25:07.060 --> 00:25:09.350
your white wives and mothers,
496
00:25:09.350 --> 00:25:11.340
and you deny them equity,
497
00:25:11.340 --> 00:25:13.390
it was kind of flawed from the beginning.
498
00:25:15.790 --> 00:25:19.910
But there's always people who resist
499
00:25:19.910 --> 00:25:22.720
and want to create something better.
500
00:25:22.720 --> 00:25:25.620
And that's where young people have to step into right now.
501
00:25:27.850 --> 00:25:29.550
There are always people who resist
502
00:25:31.630 --> 00:25:35.740
because oftentimes we are only taught the history
503
00:25:35.740 --> 00:25:37.530
of our oppression
504
00:25:37.530 --> 00:25:40.333
and not the history of our resistance.
505
00:25:41.840 --> 00:25:43.390
We see how movements start,
506
00:25:43.390 --> 00:25:45.854
but don't know how they end,
507
00:25:45.854 --> 00:25:47.093
or why they ended.
508
00:25:49.140 --> 00:25:53.053
We don't know that when you look deep into history,
509
00:25:54.030 --> 00:25:56.543
that we as a people have been here before.
510
00:25:57.630 --> 00:25:59.560
I say we as a people
511
00:25:59.560 --> 00:26:02.930
because I consider myself a person of African descent.
512
00:26:02.930 --> 00:26:06.750
I am Puerto Rican, I racialize myself as black.
513
00:26:06.750 --> 00:26:10.393
I'm not this rainbow multiracial person.
514
00:26:11.930 --> 00:26:16.930
And I follow the politics of a black radical tradition
515
00:26:18.210 --> 00:26:19.780
in this country.
516
00:26:19.780 --> 00:26:22.600
That includes Puerto Ricans and Mexicans
517
00:26:22.600 --> 00:26:24.950
and all non-white folks.
518
00:26:24.950 --> 00:26:28.540
And it includes white folks who are anti-imperialist though
519
00:26:28.540 --> 00:26:31.020
or white folks that are more than allies,
520
00:26:31.020 --> 00:26:34.370
but want to be accomplices for racial justice, they exist.
521
00:26:34.370 --> 00:26:36.340
And I often think as a professor,
522
00:26:36.340 --> 00:26:37.930
what a disservice it is to young white kids
523
00:26:37.930 --> 00:26:40.280
that you don't even know your history for real.
524
00:26:41.250 --> 00:26:42.183
You don't know.
525
00:26:43.170 --> 00:26:44.620
You don't know white people
526
00:26:44.620 --> 00:26:47.930
who've been on the front lines from the beginning
527
00:26:47.930 --> 00:26:50.943
of this failing project to right now in 2018.
528
00:26:51.910 --> 00:26:53.580
You don't know.
529
00:26:53.580 --> 00:26:55.630
And I always say that's part of the plan.
530
00:26:57.820 --> 00:27:01.380
Public schools are failing our young people.
531
00:27:01.380 --> 00:27:04.510
The best public schools to the worst public schools
532
00:27:04.510 --> 00:27:07.373
are failing our young people at every turn,
533
00:27:08.330 --> 00:27:10.150
especially this younger generation
534
00:27:10.150 --> 00:27:11.743
that grew up on their testing.
535
00:27:12.861 --> 00:27:14.920
And then we, as professors are like,
536
00:27:14.920 --> 00:27:16.200
why don't they want to read.
537
00:27:16.200 --> 00:27:17.640
'Cause they didn't have to read in school
538
00:27:17.640 --> 00:27:19.440
for the last six years.
539
00:27:19.440 --> 00:27:23.780
'Cause all they've been taught is to take a test.
540
00:27:23.780 --> 00:27:27.370
They haven't been allowed to engage in debate.
541
00:27:27.370 --> 00:27:31.220
They haven't been allowed to become intellectually rigorous,
542
00:27:31.220 --> 00:27:33.270
to have an opinion.
543
00:27:33.270 --> 00:27:34.840
Feel me, come on, who's a professor
544
00:27:34.840 --> 00:27:38.330
and you're like why is no one talking?
545
00:27:38.330 --> 00:27:41.360
Have an opinion one way or the other, like,
546
00:27:41.360 --> 00:27:42.850
you like Trump, you don't,
547
00:27:42.850 --> 00:27:45.383
let's go at least talk about it.
548
00:27:46.530 --> 00:27:51.530
And then I see Latina women so quiet in my classes
549
00:27:51.600 --> 00:27:53.930
and I'm like, oh, the patriarchy is still
550
00:27:54.880 --> 00:27:57.670
maybe a little extra in the Latino community,
551
00:27:57.670 --> 00:27:59.253
the Latinx community.
552
00:28:00.300 --> 00:28:02.020
And then I see students who are like,
553
00:28:02.020 --> 00:28:04.490
I don't have to read Malcolm, I'll just Google him.
554
00:28:04.490 --> 00:28:05.903
Like, oh my God.
555
00:28:07.490 --> 00:28:11.670
Because for me, college, I took it so seriously,
556
00:28:11.670 --> 00:28:13.190
but I also had a lot of fun.
557
00:28:13.190 --> 00:28:15.120
Like I partied all the time,
558
00:28:15.120 --> 00:28:17.930
but I also did my work.
559
00:28:17.930 --> 00:28:21.380
And I think it was 'cause I got turned on.
560
00:28:21.380 --> 00:28:23.620
I took that Intro to Puerto Rican Studies class
561
00:28:23.620 --> 00:28:24.980
and realized, I didn't know anything
562
00:28:24.980 --> 00:28:27.180
about who I was as a Puerto Rican.
563
00:28:27.180 --> 00:28:29.900
I was like, oh, we're a colony.
564
00:28:29.900 --> 00:28:31.983
That's why I'm a United States citizen.
565
00:28:33.040 --> 00:28:34.500
At that time we used the word Hispanic,
566
00:28:34.500 --> 00:28:36.210
oh, other Hispanics are not,
567
00:28:36.210 --> 00:28:38.140
what's undocumented people?
568
00:28:38.140 --> 00:28:42.060
Wait, Puerto Rico had an independence movement.
569
00:28:42.060 --> 00:28:43.710
Not everybody wants to be a state.
570
00:28:43.710 --> 00:28:45.870
Wait, we're not white.
571
00:28:45.870 --> 00:28:47.653
There was slavery on the island.
572
00:28:49.610 --> 00:28:51.310
There was an independence movement,
573
00:28:51.310 --> 00:28:53.910
and when I got to college,
574
00:28:53.910 --> 00:28:58.570
there we also we had 17 Puerto Rican people in prison.
575
00:28:58.570 --> 00:29:00.590
There was a Puerto Rican political prisoners
576
00:29:00.590 --> 00:29:02.640
that people were fighting to get out.
577
00:29:02.640 --> 00:29:07.071
I didn't know that Lolita LeBron and Rafael and Oscar went
578
00:29:07.071 --> 00:29:11.950
and did what would be a revolutionary guerrilla tactic,
579
00:29:11.950 --> 00:29:13.690
is shot up the United States Congress,
580
00:29:13.690 --> 00:29:15.070
so Puerto Rico could be free.
581
00:29:15.070 --> 00:29:16.620
Like, I didn't know this stuff.
582
00:29:18.010 --> 00:29:22.120
But I had grown up so proud to be Puerto Rican,
583
00:29:22.120 --> 00:29:24.550
but I didn't know any of my history.
584
00:29:24.550 --> 00:29:25.550
I didn't know anything.
585
00:29:25.550 --> 00:29:27.260
And I got so angry at my parents.
586
00:29:27.260 --> 00:29:29.230
I didn't go home for almost two years.
587
00:29:29.230 --> 00:29:30.740
I stayed in the summer.
588
00:29:30.740 --> 00:29:33.313
I stayed at SUNY Albany to study more.
589
00:29:35.780 --> 00:29:38.360
It turned me on and it was like,
590
00:29:38.360 --> 00:29:43.173
again, learning what I was saying, our resistance.
591
00:29:44.170 --> 00:29:46.770
Then the more I started to specifically study
592
00:29:46.770 --> 00:29:48.760
the Puerto Rican independence movement
593
00:29:48.760 --> 00:29:51.470
and find out what the United States government
594
00:29:51.470 --> 00:29:54.030
did to Albizu Campos,
595
00:29:54.030 --> 00:29:56.850
which is torture him, imprison him.
596
00:29:56.850 --> 00:29:58.500
Then when they imprisoned him,
597
00:29:58.500 --> 00:30:03.170
put a cancer light in his cell that gave him radiation
598
00:30:03.170 --> 00:30:06.410
or radiation light that gave him cancer.
599
00:30:06.410 --> 00:30:08.783
So that's how he ultimately dies.
600
00:30:10.700 --> 00:30:14.610
That Cuba wasn't bad like everybody was being told,
601
00:30:14.610 --> 00:30:16.180
that I was told,
602
00:30:16.180 --> 00:30:19.243
that Fidel might be bad, but he might not,
603
00:30:20.270 --> 00:30:24.160
that the Cuban revolution might've been a good thing,
604
00:30:24.160 --> 00:30:27.030
that Latin America suffering from war
605
00:30:27.030 --> 00:30:28.900
is not just 'cause of what they called,
606
00:30:28.900 --> 00:30:31.400
back then they called them banana countries,
607
00:30:31.400 --> 00:30:33.120
but what's that word?
608
00:30:33.120 --> 00:30:34.932
Somebody probably knows.
609
00:30:34.932 --> 00:30:35.765
Banana republics.
610
00:30:35.765 --> 00:30:39.330
Banana republics, that's how I grew up learning.
611
00:30:39.330 --> 00:30:41.620
And then I find out that the United States has been
612
00:30:41.620 --> 00:30:44.503
intervening in Latin America since Latin America.
613
00:30:46.150 --> 00:30:50.143
And then I took my black studies, intro to Africans,
614
00:30:51.470 --> 00:30:54.153
the history of slavery in the Americas.
615
00:30:56.140 --> 00:31:01.140
And when the professor put a hundred million Africans
616
00:31:01.500 --> 00:31:03.810
were taken from the continent,
617
00:31:03.810 --> 00:31:06.070
and then she put,
618
00:31:06.070 --> 00:31:09.400
and most ended up in the Caribbean,
619
00:31:09.400 --> 00:31:11.620
and what is known as Latin America,
620
00:31:11.620 --> 00:31:13.740
mostly end up in the United States.
621
00:31:13.740 --> 00:31:16.480
I was like, well, all right, that's why my dad's black.
622
00:31:16.480 --> 00:31:18.990
That's why everybody in my family's dark
623
00:31:18.990 --> 00:31:22.370
or that's why there is a multitude of,
624
00:31:22.370 --> 00:31:24.380
I guess we could say colors in our family,
625
00:31:24.380 --> 00:31:28.060
but me and my sister and my father and other people,
626
00:31:28.060 --> 00:31:30.820
I was like, okay, that's why my grandfather was black
627
00:31:30.820 --> 00:31:32.193
as black can be like.
628
00:31:34.050 --> 00:31:37.023
And learning all this,
629
00:31:38.630 --> 00:31:42.200
yeah, like I said, it's like when you meet that person,
630
00:31:42.200 --> 00:31:45.200
you fall in love with whoever they may be,
631
00:31:45.200 --> 00:31:46.870
regardless of gender or that,
632
00:31:46.870 --> 00:31:49.320
or that person you have a connection to
633
00:31:49.320 --> 00:31:53.163
is kind of how I felt.
634
00:31:55.982 --> 00:31:59.300
In that experience and my subsequent experiences
635
00:31:59.300 --> 00:32:01.440
as an organizer and activist,
636
00:32:01.440 --> 00:32:03.810
and part of a lot of spaces and movements,
637
00:32:03.810 --> 00:32:08.370
I've been super humbled and grateful to be in spaces.
638
00:32:08.370 --> 00:32:10.600
I know that one thing that's always important
639
00:32:10.600 --> 00:32:12.890
is always reclaiming who we are
640
00:32:12.890 --> 00:32:15.640
no matter who tells us differently
641
00:32:15.640 --> 00:32:18.210
and to understand what it means
642
00:32:18.210 --> 00:32:20.450
to not only reclaim that truth,
643
00:32:20.450 --> 00:32:23.000
but to know where we are in the moment.
644
00:32:23.000 --> 00:32:24.900
And the moment that we're in right now
645
00:32:26.140 --> 00:32:29.773
is a moment that everyone should be very afraid of.
646
00:32:32.210 --> 00:32:35.393
There is a megalomaniac in the White House.
647
00:32:37.040 --> 00:32:39.653
There's a predator-in-chief in the White House.
648
00:32:41.690 --> 00:32:46.690
There's someone that has to have notes written down for him,
649
00:32:48.600 --> 00:32:51.460
so that he's able to show emotion
650
00:32:52.450 --> 00:32:54.483
to students from Parkland, Florida.
651
00:32:56.640 --> 00:33:01.020
And while I've been watching it, I'm not only saying it.
652
00:33:01.020 --> 00:33:02.320
This is what's being said.
653
00:33:05.210 --> 00:33:07.630
Those are your kids.
654
00:33:07.630 --> 00:33:10.240
And when I mean your kids, white America,
655
00:33:10.240 --> 00:33:12.410
those are your kids.
656
00:33:12.410 --> 00:33:14.690
Most of those victims were white.
657
00:33:14.690 --> 00:33:16.040
And most of these students
658
00:33:16.040 --> 00:33:18.780
that you're seeing right now are white.
659
00:33:18.780 --> 00:33:20.420
And there's two reasons for that.
660
00:33:20.420 --> 00:33:23.900
Black and brown young kids don't get to walk out of schools
661
00:33:24.900 --> 00:33:26.610
because the minute black and brown kids
662
00:33:26.610 --> 00:33:27.870
have been walking out of schools,
663
00:33:27.870 --> 00:33:29.370
we've seen what's happened.
664
00:33:29.370 --> 00:33:30.780
They've been met with tanks,
665
00:33:30.780 --> 00:33:33.343
tear gas, pepper spray, and police repression.
666
00:33:34.920 --> 00:33:37.220
I've been to Ferguson, Baltimore,
667
00:33:37.220 --> 00:33:39.390
and everywhere where there's been uprisings,
668
00:33:39.390 --> 00:33:42.390
including Chicago, including from Dream Defenders
669
00:33:42.390 --> 00:33:44.640
to Black Youth Project, to Black Lives Matter,
670
00:33:44.640 --> 00:33:47.030
Movement for Black Lives, Mijente,
671
00:33:47.030 --> 00:33:49.460
DACA, and young black and brown people
672
00:33:49.460 --> 00:33:51.870
have been in these streets the last five years,
673
00:33:51.870 --> 00:33:54.990
and all they're met with is police violence
674
00:33:54.990 --> 00:33:57.900
and repression because they're trying to stop the killing
675
00:33:57.900 --> 00:34:01.290
of black people every 28 hours by the state,
676
00:34:01.290 --> 00:34:04.113
and brown people, and native American people.
677
00:34:07.200 --> 00:34:12.200
So here is now white kids, the children of America saying,
678
00:34:13.420 --> 00:34:17.090
no, that's it, we're tired.
679
00:34:17.090 --> 00:34:20.023
We cannot go to school like this.
680
00:34:21.530 --> 00:34:24.700
And the president has to have someone write a note
681
00:34:24.700 --> 00:34:26.113
to say, show emotion.
682
00:34:29.590 --> 00:34:32.930
That Marco Rubio and that woman from the NRA
683
00:34:32.930 --> 00:34:36.020
could look mothers in their faces and say,
684
00:34:36.020 --> 00:34:38.810
nope, you can still get an AR-15
685
00:34:38.810 --> 00:34:41.003
before you could get a pack of cigarettes.
686
00:34:42.490 --> 00:34:43.513
Is sick.
687
00:34:44.400 --> 00:34:47.550
And young people recognize the sickness.
688
00:34:47.550 --> 00:34:51.110
And that's why we're right now on the precipice.
689
00:34:51.110 --> 00:34:52.663
We weren't here last week.
690
00:34:53.730 --> 00:34:55.750
And now right now we're on a precipice
691
00:34:55.750 --> 00:34:58.400
of young people making some major moves
692
00:34:58.400 --> 00:34:59.800
in history right now.
693
00:34:59.800 --> 00:35:02.830
And in engaging how these white young folks
694
00:35:02.830 --> 00:35:04.510
for the majority, okay,
695
00:35:04.510 --> 00:35:07.350
I'm not saying there are not Latino kids in Parkland,
696
00:35:07.350 --> 00:35:09.690
or African-American, I'm saying the majority.
697
00:35:09.690 --> 00:35:13.140
And what would it look like if black and brown kids
698
00:35:13.140 --> 00:35:15.820
could even walk out in mass,
699
00:35:15.820 --> 00:35:18.490
this whole country would be shut down
700
00:35:18.490 --> 00:35:23.473
until all young people got what they're demanding.
701
00:35:26.040 --> 00:35:27.640
But what's about to happen
702
00:35:27.640 --> 00:35:30.540
is gonna be an interesting moment in history.
703
00:35:30.540 --> 00:35:31.480
And as young people,
704
00:35:31.480 --> 00:35:33.960
you have to take your place in it right now.
705
00:35:33.960 --> 00:35:36.110
You can't wait for it.
706
00:35:36.110 --> 00:35:38.170
You can't ask permission,
707
00:35:38.170 --> 00:35:40.520
you have to take your place in it right now.
708
00:35:40.520 --> 00:35:42.520
And our job as those that are not young
709
00:35:42.520 --> 00:35:44.620
'cause I know it's not only young people in here,
710
00:35:44.620 --> 00:35:47.890
but look, my message is to y'all right now
711
00:35:48.750 --> 00:35:49.980
because the adults,
712
00:35:49.980 --> 00:35:52.680
excuse my French, I've done fucked it up, y'all,
713
00:35:52.680 --> 00:35:56.010
from black and brown to the patriarchy,
714
00:35:56.010 --> 00:35:59.250
the non-gender, all of it, my entire generation,
715
00:35:59.250 --> 00:36:00.460
the hip hop generation,
716
00:36:00.460 --> 00:36:03.160
those of us right now born after 1969,
717
00:36:03.160 --> 00:36:05.043
we made some mistakes.
718
00:36:06.940 --> 00:36:11.420
These young people, the last five years, black and brown,
719
00:36:11.420 --> 00:36:16.420
mostly women, mostly queer led within years broke
720
00:36:16.440 --> 00:36:19.070
the standard way of what black
721
00:36:19.070 --> 00:36:22.650
and Latino leadership looks like.
722
00:36:22.650 --> 00:36:24.370
We're done with the patriarchy,
723
00:36:24.370 --> 00:36:26.423
we're done with the gender binary.
724
00:36:27.360 --> 00:36:32.360
We're done with women issues not being part and parcel
725
00:36:33.640 --> 00:36:35.270
of our freedom movements
726
00:36:35.270 --> 00:36:38.483
because women have always been on the front lines.
727
00:36:39.410 --> 00:36:40.870
But this new generation does
728
00:36:40.870 --> 00:36:43.470
something very different to break that.
729
00:36:43.470 --> 00:36:46.230
And here we have an entire new generation breaking
730
00:36:46.230 --> 00:36:48.210
what we consider the gender norm.
731
00:36:48.210 --> 00:36:50.160
And it's not easy.
732
00:36:50.160 --> 00:36:51.690
Like I often find it interesting
733
00:36:51.690 --> 00:36:53.900
that people my age and older just can't be like,
734
00:36:53.900 --> 00:36:55.403
yo, I'm confused right now.
735
00:36:56.730 --> 00:36:58.143
I don't understand.
736
00:37:00.240 --> 00:37:02.220
Break it down to me.
737
00:37:02.220 --> 00:37:04.500
And then when we're in movement spaces,
738
00:37:04.500 --> 00:37:06.950
especially those of us who are scholar activists,
739
00:37:06.950 --> 00:37:09.380
it's our job to immediately accept that.
740
00:37:09.380 --> 00:37:10.900
Is like, all right, this is what it is.
741
00:37:10.900 --> 00:37:13.800
Switch it up, this is what the young people are demanding.
742
00:37:15.100 --> 00:37:18.683
Because we know on top of it, it's the human thing to do.
743
00:37:22.780 --> 00:37:25.140
All that's been happening, I would say,
744
00:37:25.140 --> 00:37:26.700
especially the last five years,
745
00:37:26.700 --> 00:37:29.480
and I always find it interesting
746
00:37:29.480 --> 00:37:32.240
I want somebody to do something about,
747
00:37:32.240 --> 00:37:34.350
like do a research project on this,
748
00:37:34.350 --> 00:37:36.523
I actually want an entire,
749
00:37:38.120 --> 00:37:40.420
I don't know what the word is I'm looking for,
750
00:37:40.420 --> 00:37:43.520
but I need maybe a journal article
751
00:37:43.520 --> 00:37:46.100
about how under a black president,
752
00:37:46.100 --> 00:37:47.573
we get Black Lives Matter.
753
00:37:48.800 --> 00:37:52.653
Under a black president, we get Dream Defenders in,
754
00:37:53.730 --> 00:37:57.170
more police killing of black and brown people.
755
00:37:57.170 --> 00:37:59.603
And then what I realized is the system.
756
00:38:00.910 --> 00:38:03.420
And at the end,
757
00:38:03.420 --> 00:38:08.000
people want to believe that we're in a democracy
758
00:38:08.000 --> 00:38:12.440
and that the electoral political system
759
00:38:12.440 --> 00:38:14.863
that the United has is the best thing ever.
760
00:38:17.130 --> 00:38:19.910
So people may not like the president,
761
00:38:19.910 --> 00:38:22.470
but they like the office.
762
00:38:22.470 --> 00:38:25.230
And I think what we're gonna see is younger people
763
00:38:25.230 --> 00:38:28.363
and then building off the legacy of Du Bois,
764
00:38:29.480 --> 00:38:31.530
who was in 1965, said,
765
00:38:31.530 --> 00:38:33.590
I'm not voting for either of these two parties,
766
00:38:33.590 --> 00:38:37.780
they're exactly the same, in 1965.
767
00:38:37.780 --> 00:38:39.440
Or many of our leaders
768
00:38:39.440 --> 00:38:42.383
that never depended on the ballot to do the work.
769
00:38:43.360 --> 00:38:47.610
Our greatest leaders are never elected officials.
770
00:38:47.610 --> 00:38:48.970
Like they're not the ones people
771
00:38:48.970 --> 00:38:51.200
are writing legacy books about.
772
00:38:51.200 --> 00:38:54.100
I mean, yeah, the presidential scholars, that's their job.
773
00:38:55.680 --> 00:38:57.920
I mean, there'll be a lot of Obama critiques
774
00:38:57.920 --> 00:39:02.050
and analysis probably coming out of many fields.
775
00:39:02.050 --> 00:39:05.430
But for the most part, when we look at the leaders,
776
00:39:05.430 --> 00:39:07.660
the revolutionaries,
777
00:39:07.660 --> 00:39:10.130
the ones that were able to take,
778
00:39:10.130 --> 00:39:11.190
as we say in hip hop,
779
00:39:11.190 --> 00:39:16.190
took the L to the consequences for freedom,
780
00:39:16.530 --> 00:39:18.010
they were never elected
781
00:39:18.010 --> 00:39:20.763
and they never depended on the ballot to do the work.
782
00:39:22.740 --> 00:39:24.760
And that's to say that the mistake
783
00:39:24.760 --> 00:39:25.870
that young people will make right now
784
00:39:25.870 --> 00:39:29.540
is to put all this energy into voting Democrats into office,
785
00:39:29.540 --> 00:39:31.040
the same Democrats that sold out
786
00:39:31.040 --> 00:39:32.810
the Dreamers three weeks ago,
787
00:39:32.810 --> 00:39:35.193
including my Senator, Chuck Schumer.
788
00:39:36.040 --> 00:39:38.223
Chuck Schumer's from New York sellout.
789
00:39:40.250 --> 00:39:44.130
Nydia Velazquez and Congressman Jose Serrano,
790
00:39:44.130 --> 00:39:46.830
both congresspeople from New York sellouts.
791
00:39:46.830 --> 00:39:49.833
They voted for PROMESA that destroyed Puerto Rico.
792
00:39:52.530 --> 00:39:56.530
And then I was looking during Trump's State of the Union,
793
00:39:56.530 --> 00:39:57.990
and I said, why is any Democrat
794
00:39:57.990 --> 00:40:00.310
sitting there normalizing this?
795
00:40:00.310 --> 00:40:02.050
I don't want you wearing black.
796
00:40:02.050 --> 00:40:02.923
Get out.
797
00:40:04.150 --> 00:40:05.463
Walk out.
798
00:40:08.980 --> 00:40:12.513
What we have right now running this country, y'all,
799
00:40:13.710 --> 00:40:15.130
people are gonna disagree,
800
00:40:15.130 --> 00:40:16.580
people are not gonna like it,
801
00:40:16.580 --> 00:40:18.580
but read the steps of fascism.
802
00:40:18.580 --> 00:40:21.220
It's not a joke, young folks.
803
00:40:21.220 --> 00:40:24.170
See, black and brown people have already been under attack,
804
00:40:25.300 --> 00:40:26.773
already been under attack.
805
00:40:28.670 --> 00:40:30.823
We know how to negotiate some of this.
806
00:40:31.990 --> 00:40:33.760
Some people don't know how to negotiate
807
00:40:33.760 --> 00:40:35.603
what's coming down the pipeline,
808
00:40:36.810 --> 00:40:40.060
because while all this stuff is happening around Trump
809
00:40:40.060 --> 00:40:43.063
and Russia and all of this, just sessions,
810
00:40:43.900 --> 00:40:47.350
what he's doing in the Department of Justice
811
00:40:47.350 --> 00:40:49.890
is going to destroy more generations
812
00:40:49.890 --> 00:40:53.300
of black and brown people, straight up.
813
00:40:53.300 --> 00:40:56.580
What they are doing by undoing everything
814
00:40:56.580 --> 00:41:00.610
that people fought for to get public policy-wise every day,
815
00:41:00.610 --> 00:41:03.030
he's dismantling that.
816
00:41:03.030 --> 00:41:04.013
He's dismantling that.
817
00:41:04.013 --> 00:41:06.740
What the mainstream media does,
818
00:41:06.740 --> 00:41:11.740
Fox, CNN, and MSNBC is not ever talked about
819
00:41:11.890 --> 00:41:13.150
for the most part.
820
00:41:13.150 --> 00:41:17.560
I mean, I shouldn't even put Fox in news.
821
00:41:17.560 --> 00:41:22.550
I meant Fox, the alternative world of whatever,
822
00:41:22.550 --> 00:41:26.670
make up belief castles, and I don't know.
823
00:41:26.670 --> 00:41:30.840
And then CNN and MSNBC, they are just as bad.
824
00:41:30.840 --> 00:41:33.600
One is still obsessed that Hillary Clinton lost the election
825
00:41:33.600 --> 00:41:35.950
and the other one's obsessed with Russia.
826
00:41:35.950 --> 00:41:37.560
And you're like, yo,
827
00:41:37.560 --> 00:41:39.650
people are still getting shot by the police.
828
00:41:39.650 --> 00:41:41.550
There's still income inequity,
829
00:41:41.550 --> 00:41:44.460
student loan debt is still the biggest debt in the country.
830
00:41:44.460 --> 00:41:46.350
Young people can't buy houses.
831
00:41:46.350 --> 00:41:47.990
Dreamers don't know literally
832
00:41:47.990 --> 00:41:50.800
what's happening to them day by day.
833
00:41:50.800 --> 00:41:52.930
Imagine living under that fear day by day,
834
00:41:52.930 --> 00:41:55.830
you don't know if someone's gonna raid your house,
835
00:41:55.830 --> 00:41:57.040
pick you up.
836
00:41:57.040 --> 00:41:59.070
They're going after movement folks,
837
00:41:59.070 --> 00:42:00.700
the Dreamers that have been speaking out,
838
00:42:00.700 --> 00:42:02.470
they're showing us what they're doing.
839
00:42:02.470 --> 00:42:05.860
They're going after the organizers and activists.
840
00:42:05.860 --> 00:42:09.040
Housing, health care.
841
00:42:09.040 --> 00:42:11.123
Attack on reproductive rights.
842
00:42:12.180 --> 00:42:15.500
Man, that just seems insurmountable.
843
00:42:15.500 --> 00:42:20.280
But look, I never believe in institutions
844
00:42:20.280 --> 00:42:21.493
are gonna save us.
845
00:42:22.480 --> 00:42:26.420
I believe the people organized,
846
00:42:26.420 --> 00:42:28.650
being part of movements,
847
00:42:28.650 --> 00:42:31.260
speaking truth to power,
848
00:42:31.260 --> 00:42:34.970
and creating what I call a youthsome movement pipeline
849
00:42:34.970 --> 00:42:36.830
is what we need right now.
850
00:42:36.830 --> 00:42:39.530
We need to create at this point,
851
00:42:39.530 --> 00:42:41.560
anybody who's over 40,
852
00:42:41.560 --> 00:42:44.540
straight up, you need to be talking to six year olds
853
00:42:44.540 --> 00:42:45.750
and up right now.
854
00:42:45.750 --> 00:42:47.700
We cannot wait til they come to college
855
00:42:47.700 --> 00:42:50.250
'cause most of our people don't come to college.
856
00:42:50.250 --> 00:42:52.150
We can't wait til we're intervening
857
00:42:52.150 --> 00:42:53.220
'cause something is wrong,
858
00:42:53.220 --> 00:42:55.283
and we can't wait til high school.
859
00:42:56.350 --> 00:43:00.270
If the state can shoot Aiyana Jones at seven
860
00:43:00.270 --> 00:43:03.700
and kill Tamir Rice at 12,
861
00:43:03.700 --> 00:43:05.930
then we need to start talking to our babies
862
00:43:05.930 --> 00:43:09.410
from the minute they're born about what this society,
863
00:43:09.410 --> 00:43:12.190
the institutions are trying to do to them,
864
00:43:12.190 --> 00:43:15.183
and then how they fortify themselves to fight back.
865
00:43:16.920 --> 00:43:19.110
And there's many ways to do it.
866
00:43:19.110 --> 00:43:20.870
Some of you do it in your classroom.
867
00:43:20.870 --> 00:43:22.500
Some of you do it by counseling,
868
00:43:22.500 --> 00:43:23.940
some of you do it in a church,
869
00:43:23.940 --> 00:43:27.070
some people do it by being part of a fraternity, sorority,
870
00:43:27.070 --> 00:43:30.100
some do it by being in the prisons, by mentoring,
871
00:43:30.100 --> 00:43:32.670
some do it because when a lot of our brothers
872
00:43:32.670 --> 00:43:34.860
and sisters come back from prison,
873
00:43:34.860 --> 00:43:36.780
we're the ones that they depend on.
874
00:43:36.780 --> 00:43:38.650
Some of us are taking care of our families.
875
00:43:38.650 --> 00:43:41.320
Like, look, people are doing the work.
876
00:43:41.320 --> 00:43:44.030
Well, we have to have organized efforts.
877
00:43:44.030 --> 00:43:46.670
We have to have organizations.
878
00:43:46.670 --> 00:43:50.850
We have to have people ready to be grassroots on the ground.
879
00:43:50.850 --> 00:43:53.820
We have to have particularly young people
880
00:43:53.820 --> 00:43:55.080
that are gonna be brave enough
881
00:43:55.080 --> 00:43:56.913
to start sacrificing something.
882
00:43:59.440 --> 00:44:02.283
I say this because I have a 13-year-old.
883
00:44:04.458 --> 00:44:07.570
Let me check the time, I think, yeah, okay.
884
00:44:07.570 --> 00:44:09.420
I have a 13-year-old.
885
00:44:09.420 --> 00:44:14.133
And from the minute Alicia was born, I would say,
886
00:44:15.460 --> 00:44:17.283
Alicia, you're a black Puerto Rican.
887
00:44:19.000 --> 00:44:21.053
It was literally the minute she was born.
888
00:44:22.130 --> 00:44:24.410
They brought the birth certificate in
889
00:44:24.410 --> 00:44:29.020
and had already checked Hispanic.
890
00:44:29.020 --> 00:44:31.180
And I was like, yeah, I'm gonna need a new one.
891
00:44:31.180 --> 00:44:33.060
And they were like, you just gave birth.
892
00:44:33.060 --> 00:44:34.450
And my husband was like, "Really, babe."
893
00:44:34.450 --> 00:44:35.647
I'm like, "No, this is how it starts
894
00:44:35.647 --> 00:44:38.170
"right here on the birth certificate."
895
00:44:38.170 --> 00:44:41.070
My daughter is not a descendant of Spain.
896
00:44:41.070 --> 00:44:43.653
There ain't nothing European about this little girl.
897
00:44:45.610 --> 00:44:47.630
She's not a descendant of Spain.
898
00:44:47.630 --> 00:44:48.637
I can't believe we're in New York
899
00:44:48.637 --> 00:44:50.843
and they still have the category Hispanic,
900
00:44:51.860 --> 00:44:53.160
but that was 2005.
901
00:44:53.160 --> 00:44:55.210
They changed it after now they have Latino,
902
00:44:55.210 --> 00:44:58.260
and then there'll be like non-black, yes black,
903
00:44:58.260 --> 00:44:59.480
Latinos are confused.
904
00:44:59.480 --> 00:45:01.130
They're like, what the hell?
905
00:45:01.130 --> 00:45:02.930
Like, what's a non-white Latin.
906
00:45:02.930 --> 00:45:05.060
I don't know, I'm a black one,
907
00:45:05.060 --> 00:45:06.783
they don't have that category.
908
00:45:07.653 --> 00:45:09.800
And I was like now,
909
00:45:09.800 --> 00:45:10.800
there's always the other.
910
00:45:10.800 --> 00:45:13.580
And I literally put black Puerto Rican.
911
00:45:13.580 --> 00:45:14.970
And these crazy,
912
00:45:14.970 --> 00:45:17.810
the hospital sent in,
913
00:45:17.810 --> 00:45:19.850
they would send us a social worker after,
914
00:45:19.850 --> 00:45:24.020
but I was really sick during my pregnancy, very, very sick.
915
00:45:24.020 --> 00:45:26.630
So they sent in a social worker to make sure
916
00:45:26.630 --> 00:45:29.040
if I did need extra health coverage or whatever.
917
00:45:29.040 --> 00:45:30.710
And she's like, "And by the way they're saying
918
00:45:30.710 --> 00:45:32.427
"that you want to change the birth certificate."
919
00:45:32.427 --> 00:45:34.930
And I was like, "Are you serious right now?"
920
00:45:34.930 --> 00:45:37.827
I was like, look, just get the people in here
921
00:45:37.827 --> 00:45:39.183
and put the stamp on it.
922
00:45:43.130 --> 00:45:46.910
My husband was just like, "I get it,"
923
00:45:46.910 --> 00:45:48.037
after we got home and I'm like,
924
00:45:48.037 --> 00:45:49.297
"No, this is how it starts.
925
00:45:49.297 --> 00:45:51.367
"This is how they take who we are.
926
00:45:51.367 --> 00:45:54.030
"This is how they take our identity."
927
00:45:54.030 --> 00:45:57.420
I cannot allow my daughter to not have,
928
00:45:57.420 --> 00:46:00.983
or be 18 and start learning who she is.
929
00:46:02.310 --> 00:46:03.820
It was more a pride thing.
930
00:46:03.820 --> 00:46:06.700
But the older she got,
931
00:46:06.700 --> 00:46:08.900
and then when Black Lives Matter is rising,
932
00:46:08.900 --> 00:46:11.210
and at that time, we're in California,
933
00:46:11.210 --> 00:46:13.793
see my daughter on the streets with other kids,
934
00:46:15.080 --> 00:46:18.977
and we came home from a rally and she said,
935
00:46:18.977 --> 00:46:21.260
"Mommy, is this the first time children have done this?"
936
00:46:21.260 --> 00:46:23.020
And I said, "No."
937
00:46:23.020 --> 00:46:25.190
And I started showing her books and pictures
938
00:46:25.190 --> 00:46:27.460
from the '50s and the '60s
939
00:46:27.460 --> 00:46:29.960
of seventh and eighth grade, middle school
940
00:46:29.960 --> 00:46:32.750
black children walking out of their schools,
941
00:46:32.750 --> 00:46:34.563
but being taken to prisons.
942
00:46:35.757 --> 00:46:36.963
And I said, no.
943
00:46:38.140 --> 00:46:42.310
I said, the only thing is now your new generation,
944
00:46:42.310 --> 00:46:45.010
hopefully the patriarchy will be less.
945
00:46:45.010 --> 00:46:46.690
And the maleness will be less
946
00:46:46.690 --> 00:46:48.810
and the homophobia will be erased.
947
00:46:48.810 --> 00:46:53.810
And that we now know that our queer and trans women of color
948
00:46:54.300 --> 00:46:57.910
are usually, or our trans women, black women, Latino women
949
00:46:57.910 --> 00:46:59.400
are usually the most attacked,
950
00:46:59.400 --> 00:47:02.170
and to start bringing in new perspectives
951
00:47:02.170 --> 00:47:06.040
so that those pictures that she saw in the '50s and '60s,
952
00:47:06.040 --> 00:47:08.300
when she sees pictures of her and her friends
953
00:47:08.300 --> 00:47:10.940
is gonna be very visually different.
954
00:47:10.940 --> 00:47:12.740
And I think that's important too.
955
00:47:12.740 --> 00:47:14.550
And Robin Kelly talks about that,
956
00:47:14.550 --> 00:47:17.223
capturing the black imagination.
957
00:47:18.610 --> 00:47:21.920
So it doesn't surprise me that a movie like Black Panther
958
00:47:21.920 --> 00:47:24.123
would capture the imagination.
959
00:47:26.220 --> 00:47:30.143
But it's sad that in 2018,
960
00:47:31.980 --> 00:47:35.500
black and brown people at this moment feel more powered
961
00:47:35.500 --> 00:47:38.040
over fictionalized movie than the reality
962
00:47:38.040 --> 00:47:39.823
of what America is.
963
00:47:44.940 --> 00:47:49.110
As much as everyone in America is loving it,
964
00:47:49.110 --> 00:47:53.330
I think of a quote that Chuck D from Public Enemy says,
965
00:47:53.330 --> 00:47:55.070
when he does lectures, he goes,
966
00:47:55.070 --> 00:47:58.120
you love hip hop, but do you love black people?
967
00:47:58.120 --> 00:48:00.040
And I'm like, y'all love Panther,
968
00:48:00.040 --> 00:48:01.810
but do you love black people?
969
00:48:01.810 --> 00:48:03.333
Do you love brown people?
970
00:48:05.720 --> 00:48:10.720
No, it's proven to not be true for the most part,
971
00:48:11.840 --> 00:48:14.853
the institutions, and the state, and the government.
972
00:48:15.840 --> 00:48:17.713
But we're not going nowhere.
973
00:48:19.700 --> 00:48:22.180
And as we become the majority,
974
00:48:22.180 --> 00:48:26.300
our job then is to make sure
975
00:48:26.300 --> 00:48:30.853
that we never mistake visibility and numbers with power,
976
00:48:32.270 --> 00:48:36.100
that we are living in dynamics of power and balance,
977
00:48:36.100 --> 00:48:39.173
and that we have to turn those upside right now.
978
00:48:40.360 --> 00:48:42.620
Is one of the reasons in 2008,
979
00:48:42.620 --> 00:48:44.077
when Cynthia called me and said,
980
00:48:44.077 --> 00:48:46.970
"Do you want to run for vice president?"
981
00:48:46.970 --> 00:48:49.640
I said, yeah, without hesitation.
982
00:48:49.640 --> 00:48:51.460
Because at that point I had already been
983
00:48:51.460 --> 00:48:53.220
out of the two-party system.
984
00:48:53.220 --> 00:48:56.850
I had no faith in electoral politics.
985
00:48:56.850 --> 00:49:00.060
But I have faith that we could spread a message
986
00:49:00.060 --> 00:49:02.630
that we could grow a third party.
987
00:49:02.630 --> 00:49:05.283
Some of that happened, some of it hasn't happened.
988
00:49:06.470 --> 00:49:09.600
10 years later, I'm of the belief that
989
00:49:10.850 --> 00:49:12.840
there's really not much to be gained anymore
990
00:49:12.840 --> 00:49:14.373
with electoral politics.
991
00:49:16.710 --> 00:49:18.330
That we can have a debate.
992
00:49:18.330 --> 00:49:20.570
That's something I'm struggling with.
993
00:49:20.570 --> 00:49:22.310
It's not saying that I don't vote.
994
00:49:22.310 --> 00:49:24.010
It's mostly saying, look,
995
00:49:24.010 --> 00:49:26.350
there's a reason half of the people don't vote
996
00:49:26.350 --> 00:49:28.520
and they're not all stupid.
997
00:49:28.520 --> 00:49:29.830
They're not all dumb.
998
00:49:29.830 --> 00:49:31.360
They're making choices.
999
00:49:31.360 --> 00:49:33.433
Like my husband, formerly incarcerated.
1000
00:49:35.088 --> 00:49:37.840
We all do work to get felons the right back to vote,
1001
00:49:37.840 --> 00:49:38.870
which is critical.
1002
00:49:38.870 --> 00:49:40.627
And I'm always reminding him, he's like,
1003
00:49:40.627 --> 00:49:42.280
"I ain't voting."
1004
00:49:42.280 --> 00:49:45.187
He's like, "Listen, I was locked up.
1005
00:49:45.187 --> 00:49:47.457
"It took me this many years to even get a job
1006
00:49:47.457 --> 00:49:49.610
"and I'm still making poverty wages."
1007
00:49:49.610 --> 00:49:51.930
He's, "I have no faith in the system."
1008
00:49:51.930 --> 00:49:54.100
He's, "I have faith in my family."
1009
00:49:54.100 --> 00:49:55.610
I was like, "But babe,"
1010
00:49:55.610 --> 00:49:56.547
he's like, "No."
1011
00:49:57.560 --> 00:49:59.490
And he's like, "That's what's wrong with you?"
1012
00:49:59.490 --> 00:50:01.410
He said, all you intellectuals.
1013
00:50:01.410 --> 00:50:02.680
You all talk, talk, talk,
1014
00:50:02.680 --> 00:50:04.810
but you never ask the people what they want.
1015
00:50:04.810 --> 00:50:06.400
I was like, "Babe, I'm not one of those intellects."
1016
00:50:06.400 --> 00:50:07.700
He's like, "I'm not saying you are."
1017
00:50:07.700 --> 00:50:09.410
He's like, "But sometimes."
1018
00:50:09.410 --> 00:50:12.630
And I'm like, "No, you're right."
1019
00:50:12.630 --> 00:50:16.620
And that's always the struggle to how
1020
00:50:18.760 --> 00:50:20.850
we don't disconnect with our communities
1021
00:50:20.850 --> 00:50:23.000
and often for people of colors,
1022
00:50:23.000 --> 00:50:25.230
because once we're in these spaces,
1023
00:50:25.230 --> 00:50:27.360
we already have monetary privilege
1024
00:50:27.360 --> 00:50:29.180
that most of our people will never have
1025
00:50:29.180 --> 00:50:32.740
and it geographically dislocates us because straight up,
1026
00:50:32.740 --> 00:50:34.990
I'm not raising my daughter in the hood.
1027
00:50:34.990 --> 00:50:36.900
Like, I'm sorry, I'm not.
1028
00:50:36.900 --> 00:50:38.610
I'm not feeling guilty about it.
1029
00:50:38.610 --> 00:50:41.630
But what I'm saying is that if I'm not doing the work
1030
00:50:42.470 --> 00:50:45.083
of being in my community,
1031
00:50:46.240 --> 00:50:48.557
geographically, I could live in a community
1032
00:50:48.557 --> 00:50:52.730
that's being shot up to prove who I am,
1033
00:50:52.730 --> 00:50:56.340
but I definitely cannot be disconnected by making sure
1034
00:50:56.340 --> 00:50:59.510
that any of the work I do includes everybody
1035
00:50:59.510 --> 00:51:00.483
in the community.
1036
00:51:02.666 --> 00:51:05.423
So I just will end with this.
1037
00:51:09.160 --> 00:51:13.220
The idea of self-determination is the idea
1038
00:51:13.220 --> 00:51:16.300
that you not only control yourself,
1039
00:51:16.300 --> 00:51:19.280
but as people that we can control the politics,
1040
00:51:19.280 --> 00:51:21.080
and the business, and the things that happen
1041
00:51:21.080 --> 00:51:22.960
in our community.
1042
00:51:22.960 --> 00:51:27.370
And yesterday was the 53rd anniversary
1043
00:51:27.370 --> 00:51:29.750
of the assassination of Malcolm X.
1044
00:51:29.750 --> 00:51:31.480
And Malcolm spoke a lot about
1045
00:51:31.480 --> 00:51:33.393
that idea of self-determination.
1046
00:51:36.495 --> 00:51:38.750
The only way you get there
1047
00:51:38.750 --> 00:51:42.550
is to have a clear understanding of who you are,
1048
00:51:42.550 --> 00:51:44.113
where your people have been,
1049
00:51:45.270 --> 00:51:47.683
to have a clear understanding that,
1050
00:51:50.180 --> 00:51:53.620
I always think about Africans who were enslaved.
1051
00:51:53.620 --> 00:51:55.920
They didn't vote to become free.
1052
00:51:55.920 --> 00:51:59.150
They literally broke chains to become free.
1053
00:51:59.150 --> 00:52:01.360
They organized.
1054
00:52:01.360 --> 00:52:06.360
So ultimately, this having a good identity, a good politic,
1055
00:52:07.050 --> 00:52:08.740
understanding the history
1056
00:52:10.030 --> 00:52:12.960
that when we leave these institutions,
1057
00:52:12.960 --> 00:52:17.550
no matter what level we're at, bachelor's, master's, PhD,
1058
00:52:17.550 --> 00:52:22.343
that we're not just leaving because we want to know things,
1059
00:52:23.390 --> 00:52:27.570
but that we're ready with that knowledge we acquired
1060
00:52:27.570 --> 00:52:31.690
to apply that through a social justice, racial justice lens
1061
00:52:31.690 --> 00:52:33.253
that fights for full freedom.
1062
00:52:34.090 --> 00:52:35.193
I believe that.
1063
00:52:36.320 --> 00:52:38.070
I believe in Kwame Ture,
1064
00:52:38.070 --> 00:52:39.660
in what Kwame Ture said,
1065
00:52:39.660 --> 00:52:41.540
formerly known as Stokely Carmichael,
1066
00:52:41.540 --> 00:52:43.550
step into the confrontation.
1067
00:52:43.550 --> 00:52:45.530
Step into the confrontation,
1068
00:52:45.530 --> 00:52:49.770
show your discontent and become a revolutionary.
1069
00:52:49.770 --> 00:52:51.420
Because as young people have been saying,
1070
00:52:51.420 --> 00:52:52.840
particularly the last five years,
1071
00:52:52.840 --> 00:52:55.570
African-American Latino, young people all over this country,
1072
00:52:55.570 --> 00:52:58.390
South Asian, Palestinian, Vietnamese,
1073
00:52:58.390 --> 00:53:00.293
Philippine, native people.
1074
00:53:01.160 --> 00:53:03.120
What they've been saying or chanting
1075
00:53:03.120 --> 00:53:04.833
is I believe that we will win.
1076
00:53:05.890 --> 00:53:08.650
I also know we're gonna take more losses.
1077
00:53:08.650 --> 00:53:09.940
But as a revolutionary,
1078
00:53:09.940 --> 00:53:12.560
my faith never lies in an institution,
1079
00:53:12.560 --> 00:53:15.720
a building, a grant, a job, a PhD.
1080
00:53:15.720 --> 00:53:18.420
My faith always lies in the people,
1081
00:53:18.420 --> 00:53:20.930
in the power of the people.
1082
00:53:20.930 --> 00:53:23.870
That there are people all over this country
1083
00:53:23.870 --> 00:53:28.280
that know we could be living life based
1084
00:53:28.280 --> 00:53:30.230
on the principles of humanity
1085
00:53:31.420 --> 00:53:34.950
and by any means necessary stopping the climate catastrophe
1086
00:53:34.950 --> 00:53:37.520
that's confronting every single person.
1087
00:53:37.520 --> 00:53:40.263
I know that firsthand coming from Puerto Rico.
1088
00:53:42.150 --> 00:53:45.700
My Island and all the islands and anybody from the Caribbean
1089
00:53:45.700 --> 00:53:48.513
are people on the front lines of a nightmare right now.
1090
00:53:51.890 --> 00:53:53.523
This thing with Puerto Rico,
1091
00:53:54.510 --> 00:53:58.110
again, if Trump ain't gonna like his own kids,
1092
00:53:58.110 --> 00:54:00.370
he definitely don't care about no Puerto Ricans,
1093
00:54:00.370 --> 00:54:02.463
whether we're American citizens or not.
1094
00:54:04.188 --> 00:54:05.720
The entire United States government
1095
00:54:05.720 --> 00:54:07.010
has let down Puerto Rico.
1096
00:54:07.010 --> 00:54:08.740
The only choice Puerto Ricans have now
1097
00:54:08.740 --> 00:54:11.310
is to fight for independence and be decolonized.
1098
00:54:11.310 --> 00:54:13.740
There is no other conversation to have anymore
1099
00:54:13.740 --> 00:54:15.760
when it comes to Puerto Rico.
1100
00:54:15.760 --> 00:54:16.850
What's the solution?
1101
00:54:16.850 --> 00:54:18.320
Decolonization.
1102
00:54:18.320 --> 00:54:19.380
What's the solution?
1103
00:54:19.380 --> 00:54:20.720
The United States out.
1104
00:54:20.720 --> 00:54:22.830
That's the solution right now.
1105
00:54:22.830 --> 00:54:24.510
'Cause them young people in Puerto Rico
1106
00:54:24.510 --> 00:54:26.260
who are surviving right now
1107
00:54:26.260 --> 00:54:28.840
and creating farms and agroecology
1108
00:54:29.700 --> 00:54:32.750
and brothers and sisters putting up lights by themselves
1109
00:54:32.750 --> 00:54:35.440
and going back to homeopathic medicines
1110
00:54:35.440 --> 00:54:37.420
because the hospitals are...
1111
00:54:38.380 --> 00:54:43.320
What's happening in Puerto Rico is not a tragedy per se
1112
00:54:43.320 --> 00:54:47.140
of how is being a report is a climate catastrophe
1113
00:54:47.140 --> 00:54:50.160
with government neglect that has now awakened
1114
00:54:50.160 --> 00:54:51.410
an entire Island,
1115
00:54:51.410 --> 00:54:54.010
who was always afraid of what would happen
1116
00:54:54.010 --> 00:54:55.800
without the United States government.
1117
00:54:55.800 --> 00:54:57.680
And we don't need to be afraid anymore
1118
00:54:57.680 --> 00:54:58.940
because we know what's happened
1119
00:54:58.940 --> 00:55:00.460
with the United States government.
1120
00:55:00.460 --> 00:55:01.730
Not only are we surviving,
1121
00:55:01.730 --> 00:55:04.260
we're about to thrive and make Puerto Rico free
1122
00:55:04.260 --> 00:55:06.243
and independent forever.
1123
00:55:07.288 --> 00:55:09.150
And that's what's gonna happen.
1124
00:55:09.150 --> 00:55:11.430
And that's an incredible thing.
1125
00:55:11.430 --> 00:55:15.927
That's why my faith lies in communities
1126
00:55:15.927 --> 00:55:17.750
and our brothers and sisters
1127
00:55:17.750 --> 00:55:21.150
and queer and trans folks that are incarcerated
1128
00:55:21.150 --> 00:55:25.470
who organize in the prisons to just have food
1129
00:55:25.470 --> 00:55:28.390
without maggots and roaches in them,
1130
00:55:28.390 --> 00:55:31.660
who are shutting down prisons but we never hear about that
1131
00:55:31.660 --> 00:55:35.120
and we forget about our incarcerated people.
1132
00:55:35.120 --> 00:55:37.310
Whether our brothers and sisters
1133
00:55:37.310 --> 00:55:39.483
that are working three jobs.
1134
00:55:40.570 --> 00:55:42.240
I feel there's people all over
1135
00:55:42.240 --> 00:55:43.890
who are committed to striking,
1136
00:55:43.890 --> 00:55:45.150
as Du Bois said,
1137
00:55:45.150 --> 00:55:48.430
a hammer to the system of white supremacy every day.
1138
00:55:48.430 --> 00:55:51.160
And now we need to be extra
1139
00:55:51.160 --> 00:55:54.540
in how we stop the madness of hyper-masculine behavior,
1140
00:55:54.540 --> 00:55:57.270
a hypo-capitalistic society.
1141
00:55:57.270 --> 00:56:00.830
And we have to commit ourselves to being not activists,
1142
00:56:00.830 --> 00:56:03.350
but organizers every day.
1143
00:56:03.350 --> 00:56:06.430
That particularly for young people is not about visibility.
1144
00:56:06.430 --> 00:56:10.300
It's not just a Snapchat or a hashtag, a t-shirt,
1145
00:56:10.300 --> 00:56:12.290
or a button you can switch on and off
1146
00:56:12.290 --> 00:56:15.420
and say what you're down with and not down with.
1147
00:56:15.420 --> 00:56:17.633
It's actually a commitment to a fight.
1148
00:56:18.650 --> 00:56:23.550
And because of the legacy of mostly black and brown women
1149
00:56:23.550 --> 00:56:25.750
in my personal life,
1150
00:56:25.750 --> 00:56:30.630
and now a new generation of black and brown strong leaders,
1151
00:56:30.630 --> 00:56:35.630
queer, trans as well,
1152
00:56:36.050 --> 00:56:39.970
I really think we're just in a powerful space.
1153
00:56:39.970 --> 00:56:44.970
So my thing is that I fight as hard as I can every day
1154
00:56:46.850 --> 00:56:49.180
to not ensure a better world for my daughter,
1155
00:56:49.180 --> 00:56:51.700
but to ensure a better world for everyone.
1156
00:56:51.700 --> 00:56:54.300
But that's not just something I'm gonna say.
1157
00:56:54.300 --> 00:56:56.420
As a revolutionary,
1158
00:56:56.420 --> 00:56:59.363
I'm usually on my feet trying to do the work.
1159
00:57:00.210 --> 00:57:04.040
I'm usually trying to write and have vision for the future,
1160
00:57:04.040 --> 00:57:05.860
even if I'm wrong.
1161
00:57:05.860 --> 00:57:08.420
And I'm definitely at any moment ready
1162
00:57:08.420 --> 00:57:11.950
to confront unbridled, unchecked power.
1163
00:57:11.950 --> 00:57:15.500
And because of the legacy that I come from, like I said,
1164
00:57:15.500 --> 00:57:18.840
there's nothing that won't ever stop us.
1165
00:57:18.840 --> 00:57:20.610
Assata Shakur reminds us.
1166
00:57:20.610 --> 00:57:23.050
It is our duty to fight for our freedom.
1167
00:57:23.050 --> 00:57:24.810
It is our duty to win.
1168
00:57:24.810 --> 00:57:27.080
We must love and protect one another.
1169
00:57:27.080 --> 00:57:29.140
We have nothing to lose, but our chains.
1170
00:57:29.140 --> 00:57:30.760
Peace, everybody.
1171
00:57:30.760 --> 00:57:33.368
(audience applauds)
1172
00:57:33.368 --> 00:57:34.201
Thank you.
1173
00:57:34.201 --> 00:57:37.284
(audience applauds)
1174
00:57:48.709 --> 00:57:49.900
Thank you so much.
1175
00:57:49.900 --> 00:57:50.733
Thank you.
1176
00:57:53.846 --> 00:57:55.120
Thank you.
1177
00:57:55.120 --> 00:57:56.400
So I went a little over,
1178
00:57:56.400 --> 00:57:59.300
but I know I can take Q&A and I never read my speech.
1179
00:57:59.300 --> 00:58:00.533
So sorry about that.
1180
00:58:01.430 --> 00:58:02.483
I had a speech.
1181
00:58:03.660 --> 00:58:06.870
So thank you future Dr. Rosa Clemente,
1182
00:58:06.870 --> 00:58:08.460
who just schooled us
1183
00:58:08.460 --> 00:58:12.750
and you gave me quite a few things to look up.
1184
00:58:12.750 --> 00:58:15.660
And as someone who is half Caribbean,
1185
00:58:15.660 --> 00:58:16.610
you have reminded me
1186
00:58:16.610 --> 00:58:19.890
that we need to answer the call to action as Caribbeans
1187
00:58:19.890 --> 00:58:21.120
and all of us really,
1188
00:58:21.120 --> 00:58:23.130
and being reminded what's going on in the Caribbean.
1189
00:58:23.130 --> 00:58:27.540
So I'm going to turn it over now to Alex Sylvester,
1190
00:58:27.540 --> 00:58:30.523
our social media strategist that I introduced you to.
1191
00:58:30.523 --> 00:58:31.550
That is generous.
1192
00:58:31.550 --> 00:58:34.503
I'm just a tall, pretty, and enthusiastic about Twitter.
1193
00:58:35.770 --> 00:58:37.300
Hi, my name is Alex Sylvester.
1194
00:58:37.300 --> 00:58:38.290
When people speak about me,
1195
00:58:38.290 --> 00:58:41.010
I expect that they use they, them, and their pronouns.
1196
00:58:41.010 --> 00:58:42.310
If you've been joining us on Twitter,
1197
00:58:42.310 --> 00:58:44.123
using the hashtag #EDC18atUNT,
1198
00:58:46.800 --> 00:58:48.570
the dialogue has been really rich there,
1199
00:58:48.570 --> 00:58:50.530
in fact, so rich, and robust, and engaged
1200
00:58:50.530 --> 00:58:51.460
in what Rosa is saying,
1201
00:58:51.460 --> 00:58:53.880
that there aren't a lot of questions for Rosa
1202
00:58:53.880 --> 00:58:55.140
in that hashtag right now,
1203
00:58:55.140 --> 00:58:57.510
but a lot of quotes and comments about what she's saying.
1204
00:58:57.510 --> 00:58:58.810
So if you've got questions,
1205
00:58:58.810 --> 00:59:01.260
but you don't necessarily want to take the mic,
1206
00:59:01.260 --> 00:59:04.660
tweet them into hashtag #EDC18atUNT,
1207
00:59:04.660 --> 00:59:06.530
and I will be looking for them.
1208
00:59:06.530 --> 00:59:07.440
But for right now,
1209
00:59:07.440 --> 00:59:09.010
it looks like we should start with some questions
1210
00:59:09.010 --> 00:59:10.760
from our live studio audience.
1211
00:59:10.760 --> 00:59:12.680
Wonderful.
1212
00:59:12.680 --> 00:59:14.720
I'm quite sure y'all have questions
1213
00:59:14.720 --> 00:59:16.150
'cause I've got about 10 in my head.
1214
00:59:16.150 --> 00:59:19.340
So if we could just have folks line up at the microphones,
1215
00:59:19.340 --> 00:59:22.040
there are microphones on either side of the room.
1216
00:59:22.040 --> 00:59:24.820
There's one here and one on that side.
1217
00:59:24.820 --> 00:59:27.483
And you let me know our timeframe.
1218
00:59:31.020 --> 00:59:32.460
And I'll be short.
1219
00:59:32.460 --> 00:59:34.920
I'm usually long winded, but I'm committing.
1220
00:59:34.920 --> 00:59:36.170
I'm trying to change that
1221
00:59:37.580 --> 00:59:38.723
on the Q&A part.
1222
00:59:40.190 --> 00:59:42.450
Hi there, first of all, great talk.
1223
00:59:42.450 --> 00:59:43.910
I wanted to jump out my seat,
1224
00:59:43.910 --> 00:59:46.200
but it probably wasn't appropriate.
1225
00:59:46.200 --> 00:59:51.200
I wanted to ask you about your comments on systems.
1226
00:59:52.810 --> 00:59:55.010
So one of the things that I've talked
1227
00:59:55.010 --> 00:59:59.010
with colleagues about family, friends was how sometimes
1228
00:59:59.010 --> 01:00:00.700
the things that we want to do conflict
1229
01:00:00.700 --> 01:00:02.540
with the systems that we're working in.
1230
01:00:02.540 --> 01:00:04.100
So for example,
1231
01:00:04.100 --> 01:00:06.580
I think we have a really passionate group of students
1232
01:00:06.580 --> 01:00:08.870
here at UNT that are ready to take charge.
1233
01:00:08.870 --> 01:00:11.540
Sometimes they lack context,
1234
01:00:11.540 --> 01:00:13.580
they don't have that history.
1235
01:00:13.580 --> 01:00:15.890
And the system that we're working in,
1236
01:00:15.890 --> 01:00:17.560
for example, the degrees,
1237
01:00:17.560 --> 01:00:18.880
you can't add extra hours.
1238
01:00:18.880 --> 01:00:20.850
So if you wanted to say, hey, go and take,
1239
01:00:20.850 --> 01:00:23.170
you should go take this class, like you talked about,
1240
01:00:23.170 --> 01:00:26.530
then we sort of are budding up against, well,
1241
01:00:26.530 --> 01:00:28.160
but my degree program doesn't allow me
1242
01:00:28.160 --> 01:00:30.710
any freedom to do that, then I'm over my hours.
1243
01:00:30.710 --> 01:00:31.940
Then I don't have
1244
01:00:31.940 --> 01:00:33.770
this particular tuition benefit or whatever.
1245
01:00:33.770 --> 01:00:36.590
So in trying to work within that system,
1246
01:00:36.590 --> 01:00:40.380
how would you suggest that we go about giving our students
1247
01:00:40.380 --> 01:00:43.110
the context that they need to be better leaders
1248
01:00:43.110 --> 01:00:45.840
in the kinds of struggles that we're talking about?
1249
01:00:45.840 --> 01:00:48.040
Yeah, I mean, I would say for student's saying that,
1250
01:00:48.040 --> 01:00:49.030
that's an excuse.
1251
01:00:49.030 --> 01:00:50.630
You do the reading and the work.
1252
01:00:50.630 --> 01:00:54.430
Like, I don't understand how you're just learning
1253
01:00:54.430 --> 01:00:57.263
or reading if you read in a classroom.
1254
01:00:58.180 --> 01:00:59.833
Like, no.
1255
01:01:00.870 --> 01:01:03.140
Even if you were taking all liberal arts,
1256
01:01:03.140 --> 01:01:06.700
you know how many women's studies departments I've been
1257
01:01:06.700 --> 01:01:08.900
in a part of unseen curriculums
1258
01:01:08.900 --> 01:01:11.350
where they literally don't talk about black women
1259
01:01:12.890 --> 01:01:15.180
or how many gender departments are,
1260
01:01:15.180 --> 01:01:17.900
or now there's been a reframing of women's studies
1261
01:01:17.900 --> 01:01:19.370
to gender and sexuality,
1262
01:01:19.370 --> 01:01:21.670
but then there's that all happening right now
1263
01:01:21.670 --> 01:01:23.423
with trans and queer studies.
1264
01:01:25.400 --> 01:01:28.270
Dr. Gordon, the mentor I spoke about said,
1265
01:01:28.270 --> 01:01:30.340
you got to do double the work.
1266
01:01:30.340 --> 01:01:31.970
Do your classwork,
1267
01:01:31.970 --> 01:01:34.220
which is not 80% gonna reflect
1268
01:01:34.220 --> 01:01:35.800
what you should be really learning,
1269
01:01:35.800 --> 01:01:38.500
and then join a study group,
1270
01:01:38.500 --> 01:01:40.980
get politically educated, join an organization.
1271
01:01:40.980 --> 01:01:42.210
That's all we're saying like,
1272
01:01:42.210 --> 01:01:44.190
yo, if you're a young person
1273
01:01:44.190 --> 01:01:47.410
and this is one of the problems that right now
1274
01:01:47.410 --> 01:01:49.310
we allow younger folks in the movement.
1275
01:01:49.310 --> 01:01:53.003
They're web smart in terms of tactics,
1276
01:01:53.980 --> 01:01:57.290
but they're not politically educated.
1277
01:01:57.290 --> 01:02:00.680
So then, like I believe my job
1278
01:02:01.520 --> 01:02:04.010
when I get back into the academy
1279
01:02:04.010 --> 01:02:06.950
and start teaching and I'm back in that classroom,
1280
01:02:06.950 --> 01:02:10.853
my job is to turn all them young people into organizers.
1281
01:02:11.780 --> 01:02:13.620
That's ultimately my classroom
1282
01:02:13.620 --> 01:02:15.460
and I'm in humanities and liberal arts
1283
01:02:15.460 --> 01:02:16.720
is a little bit different.
1284
01:02:16.720 --> 01:02:19.430
But even if you are teaching engineering,
1285
01:02:19.430 --> 01:02:23.420
don't tell me like, I'm not saying you as a faculty,
1286
01:02:23.420 --> 01:02:27.123
that you can't be multi-disciplinary.
1287
01:02:29.080 --> 01:02:32.980
That's what all these colleges are supposed to be about.
1288
01:02:32.980 --> 01:02:36.990
And then also understanding that students learn
1289
01:02:36.990 --> 01:02:39.710
in multiple ways too.
1290
01:02:39.710 --> 01:02:44.190
So I think it's more about decolonizing ourselves
1291
01:02:44.190 --> 01:02:47.810
on what the system of higher education has done to us
1292
01:02:47.810 --> 01:02:51.873
as the faculty, as the administrator is that.
1293
01:02:52.760 --> 01:02:54.690
Young people will listen.
1294
01:02:54.690 --> 01:02:56.330
Sometimes you got to tell a young person like,
1295
01:02:56.330 --> 01:02:58.223
yo, slow your roll, you're 22.
1296
01:02:59.865 --> 01:03:01.893
I've been in this for 25 years.
1297
01:03:02.760 --> 01:03:05.520
You might learn a little something from me
1298
01:03:05.520 --> 01:03:07.770
so that you can take what I've had
1299
01:03:07.770 --> 01:03:12.770
and how I didn't ride or how I didn't get to the vision
1300
01:03:13.380 --> 01:03:16.180
'cause I made some mistakes and not make those mistakes.
1301
01:03:17.160 --> 01:03:18.280
I don't think we should be.
1302
01:03:18.280 --> 01:03:23.280
I think sometimes we coddle like students too.
1303
01:03:23.770 --> 01:03:26.360
So I think that's a lot about us.
1304
01:03:26.360 --> 01:03:28.160
And then it's again, pushing the student,
1305
01:03:28.160 --> 01:03:32.690
like, listen, you might be taking liberal arts all your life
1306
01:03:32.690 --> 01:03:35.710
and still not know who Malcolm X is for real.
1307
01:03:35.710 --> 01:03:39.020
So I'm gonna give you a syllabus
1308
01:03:39.020 --> 01:03:42.480
or make sure you audit a black studies class
1309
01:03:42.480 --> 01:03:44.220
or at least start some study groups.
1310
01:03:44.220 --> 01:03:46.780
I think that's where it can
1311
01:03:46.780 --> 01:03:49.510
a lot of what addressing what you asked.
1312
01:03:49.510 --> 01:03:51.670
Hi, my name is Joanna.
1313
01:03:51.670 --> 01:03:54.400
So I was just listening to what you're saying.
1314
01:03:54.400 --> 01:03:57.550
It sounds like you're more discouraged at the national level
1315
01:03:57.550 --> 01:04:01.370
of how the government is being conducted.
1316
01:04:01.370 --> 01:04:03.520
I was wondering,
1317
01:04:03.520 --> 01:04:07.360
do you recommend being more local in the local government
1318
01:04:07.360 --> 01:04:08.980
and incorporating that
1319
01:04:08.980 --> 01:04:13.890
into the organizational initiative for change?
1320
01:04:13.890 --> 01:04:14.880
Yeah.
1321
01:04:14.880 --> 01:04:17.200
So look, this is where I stand.
1322
01:04:17.200 --> 01:04:20.270
I support all the efforts, essentially,
1323
01:04:20.270 --> 01:04:22.730
that's gonna come up in 2018
1324
01:04:22.730 --> 01:04:25.900
when I see young people stepping up and doing some work.
1325
01:04:25.900 --> 01:04:28.150
What I was more trying to address is that
1326
01:04:28.150 --> 01:04:30.590
at this point in my life, I'm about to be 46,
1327
01:04:30.590 --> 01:04:34.360
my time is limited and I'm starting to recognize that.
1328
01:04:34.360 --> 01:04:36.500
And 'cause I ran for office 10 years ago,
1329
01:04:36.500 --> 01:04:38.270
when all this money wasn't in
1330
01:04:38.270 --> 01:04:40.170
and Citizens United had impasse.
1331
01:04:40.170 --> 01:04:42.440
And what we've seen in the last decade,
1332
01:04:42.440 --> 01:04:45.890
at that moment, I had some faith that a third party
1333
01:04:45.890 --> 01:04:49.400
could really finally break the court duopoly.
1334
01:04:49.400 --> 01:04:52.150
So on the federal level,
1335
01:04:52.150 --> 01:04:54.550
I don't have too much faith in any of that,
1336
01:04:54.550 --> 01:04:56.460
from senators to congresspeople.
1337
01:04:56.460 --> 01:04:59.900
Just the money it takes alone to run for a Senate seat,
1338
01:04:59.900 --> 01:05:03.310
to become a Senator of the United States.
1339
01:05:03.310 --> 01:05:05.880
These are $50 million campaigns.
1340
01:05:05.880 --> 01:05:08.270
Of course you're going, selling out to the NRA
1341
01:05:08.270 --> 01:05:09.890
and every Monsanto group
1342
01:05:09.890 --> 01:05:12.220
and trying to get money from the Coke brothers,
1343
01:05:12.220 --> 01:05:13.943
and even if you're a Democrat.
1344
01:05:15.530 --> 01:05:17.130
'Cause of the money.
1345
01:05:17.130 --> 01:05:19.943
Now, local, I think can be different.
1346
01:05:20.830 --> 01:05:24.913
But what it is is that the local engagement,
1347
01:05:26.420 --> 01:05:28.620
so many young people,
1348
01:05:28.620 --> 01:05:30.650
especially in communities of color
1349
01:05:30.650 --> 01:05:35.290
are so tired of crooked politicians.
1350
01:05:35.290 --> 01:05:39.453
They come from the supervisor all the way to the top.
1351
01:05:40.730 --> 01:05:43.480
And you can look at Baltimore for an example.
1352
01:05:43.480 --> 01:05:44.740
Let me tell you, you know Baltimore
1353
01:05:44.740 --> 01:05:48.640
is an all black-run city, all Democrats,
1354
01:05:48.640 --> 01:05:50.847
all black and Latino.
1355
01:05:50.847 --> 01:05:53.660
And Baltimore is now the most dangerous city
1356
01:05:53.660 --> 01:05:55.420
to live in again.
1357
01:05:55.420 --> 01:05:58.020
The public schools are horrendous.
1358
01:05:58.020 --> 01:06:01.490
Every mayor has sold out every promise
1359
01:06:01.490 --> 01:06:04.570
and it's been all black and brown folks doing this
1360
01:06:04.570 --> 01:06:06.922
to black and brown people.
1361
01:06:06.922 --> 01:06:10.350
At the end is like maybe a sign
1362
01:06:10.350 --> 01:06:13.130
for young people to do
1363
01:06:13.130 --> 01:06:17.270
what is a movement in Europe, in Africa, in Latin America,
1364
01:06:17.270 --> 01:06:20.560
and taking hold here is set people's assemblies.
1365
01:06:20.560 --> 01:06:23.580
And look at organizations like in Jackson, Mississippi,
1366
01:06:23.580 --> 01:06:25.440
there's Cooperation Jackson.
1367
01:06:25.440 --> 01:06:29.470
Look at Ras Baraka, who's the mayor of Newark, New Jersey
1368
01:06:29.470 --> 01:06:30.940
and what he's been able to do,
1369
01:06:30.940 --> 01:06:32.970
but that's 'cause he comes out of movement.
1370
01:06:32.970 --> 01:06:34.640
He's accountable to a movement.
1371
01:06:34.640 --> 01:06:36.380
Same with Chokwe Lumumba,
1372
01:06:36.380 --> 01:06:39.310
the now mayor of Jackson, Mississippi,
1373
01:06:39.310 --> 01:06:42.320
he's accountable to a movement that got him in there
1374
01:06:42.320 --> 01:06:45.670
and he has the right politics for the most part.
1375
01:06:45.670 --> 01:06:47.670
All politicians are gonna make mistakes.
1376
01:06:48.560 --> 01:06:50.130
What I'm saying is if you're gonna engage
1377
01:06:50.130 --> 01:06:54.800
in electoral politics, be smart, know who it is,
1378
01:06:54.800 --> 01:06:56.810
and if you're ever gonna run,
1379
01:06:56.810 --> 01:06:58.920
run outside the two-party system.
1380
01:06:58.920 --> 01:07:02.211
Until we break the two-party system in this country,
1381
01:07:02.211 --> 01:07:04.190
we're gonna be stuck with same old same old
1382
01:07:04.190 --> 01:07:06.483
at every level, every level.
1383
01:07:08.680 --> 01:07:10.040
I've got a question coming
1384
01:07:10.040 --> 01:07:12.620
at you live from Twitter, if that's okay.
1385
01:07:12.620 --> 01:07:13.513
Great, super.
1386
01:07:15.410 --> 01:07:18.642
So Julian Caesar says,
1387
01:07:18.642 --> 01:07:20.980
what are some ways that we as young people can begin
1388
01:07:20.980 --> 01:07:24.100
to dismantle these mechanisms of systemic oppression?
1389
01:07:24.100 --> 01:07:27.490
People suggest that reform is needed,
1390
01:07:27.490 --> 01:07:29.670
but it seems that reform simply
1391
01:07:29.670 --> 01:07:32.240
recreates relics of oppression.
1392
01:07:32.240 --> 01:07:34.250
Well, I would agree, I'm not a reformist.
1393
01:07:34.250 --> 01:07:35.560
So like my thing is like,
1394
01:07:35.560 --> 01:07:36.920
I don't want to make prisons better.
1395
01:07:36.920 --> 01:07:39.530
I want prisons to not exist.
1396
01:07:39.530 --> 01:07:40.860
Like I'm an abolitionist.
1397
01:07:40.860 --> 01:07:43.990
I was like, we're gonna make a prison nicer.
1398
01:07:43.990 --> 01:07:45.973
Like what oxymoron is that?
1399
01:07:46.860 --> 01:07:49.520
Or I don't want to just stop bombing one country,
1400
01:07:49.520 --> 01:07:50.590
I want the United States
1401
01:07:50.590 --> 01:07:53.760
to stop spending trillions of dollars on war.
1402
01:07:53.760 --> 01:07:57.010
And I don't want nuclear weapons to be whittled down.
1403
01:07:57.010 --> 01:07:58.590
Why do they exist?
1404
01:07:58.590 --> 01:07:59.893
I want them all destroyed.
1405
01:08:01.432 --> 01:08:02.650
I'm not a reformist.
1406
01:08:02.650 --> 01:08:06.130
So I think that ethos
1407
01:08:06.130 --> 01:08:09.283
of being revolutionary requires vision.
1408
01:08:10.260 --> 01:08:12.500
And that's what I try to surround myself with,
1409
01:08:12.500 --> 01:08:15.120
people that have vision
1410
01:08:15.120 --> 01:08:18.460
and have a different way at looking at the system
1411
01:08:18.460 --> 01:08:21.460
and would fight to dismantle them
1412
01:08:21.460 --> 01:08:25.860
because police reform, what has that done?
1413
01:08:25.860 --> 01:08:27.310
Nothing.
1414
01:08:27.310 --> 01:08:29.110
Body cameras, what that has done
1415
01:08:29.110 --> 01:08:31.310
is surveil more black people.
1416
01:08:31.310 --> 01:08:33.510
And then what do they do now, the cops?
1417
01:08:33.510 --> 01:08:36.170
So for years, people fought for body cameras
1418
01:08:36.170 --> 01:08:38.680
and now every time a cop gets caught,
1419
01:08:38.680 --> 01:08:40.150
they're like, "I didn't have it on."
1420
01:08:40.150 --> 01:08:41.723
I know you didn't have it on.
1421
01:08:43.200 --> 01:08:44.870
Of course you didn't have it on.
1422
01:08:44.870 --> 01:08:47.200
So you have your body cam, you forgot to turn it on.
1423
01:08:47.200 --> 01:08:49.350
Of course you did.
1424
01:08:49.350 --> 01:08:52.750
So I would think that part of that is joining then
1425
01:08:52.750 --> 01:08:56.800
organizations that are very much about self-determination,
1426
01:08:56.800 --> 01:08:59.550
can self-sustain themselves,
1427
01:08:59.550 --> 01:09:04.120
are not within like the nonprofit hierarchies
1428
01:09:04.120 --> 01:09:08.450
and organizations that are also looking to not have
1429
01:09:08.450 --> 01:09:12.880
what is called vertical leadership top down,
1430
01:09:12.880 --> 01:09:16.080
but horizontal leadership and what that looks like.
1431
01:09:16.080 --> 01:09:18.930
And there's people out there doing amazing work
1432
01:09:18.930 --> 01:09:22.470
to look out the things I just mentioned.
1433
01:09:22.470 --> 01:09:24.137
And one of them is Adrienne Maree Brown,
1434
01:09:24.137 --> 01:09:26.820
and she has a book and I hope this is helpful
1435
01:09:26.820 --> 01:09:27.680
for the person.
1436
01:09:27.680 --> 01:09:30.880
She has a book called "Emergent Strategies,"
1437
01:09:30.880 --> 01:09:34.140
where she employs a lot of Octavia Butler's work,
1438
01:09:34.140 --> 01:09:37.070
and it's an incredible model of
1439
01:09:37.070 --> 01:09:39.013
how we should be participating.
1440
01:09:41.740 --> 01:09:44.060
And I will shout out three of my favorite organizations,
1441
01:09:44.060 --> 01:09:45.440
hands down,
1442
01:09:45.440 --> 01:09:49.050
Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle out of Baltimore,
1443
01:09:49.050 --> 01:09:53.420
Cooperation Jackson out of Jackson, Mississippi,
1444
01:09:53.420 --> 01:09:57.400
and UPROSE, which is a Puerto Rican organization
1445
01:09:57.400 --> 01:10:00.840
that's really been on the front lines of climate justice,
1446
01:10:00.840 --> 01:10:03.510
but now is the frontline, I think organization
1447
01:10:03.510 --> 01:10:07.190
in the United States for Puerto Ricans in the diaspora
1448
01:10:07.190 --> 01:10:10.390
who want to again see Puerto Rico free,
1449
01:10:10.390 --> 01:10:12.123
but are doing some amazing work.
1450
01:10:13.870 --> 01:10:15.720
Hi, my name is Robin Lopez.
1451
01:10:15.720 --> 01:10:17.320
I use the pronouns he, him, his.
1452
01:10:18.330 --> 01:10:20.440
First of all, I want to thank you for being here
1453
01:10:20.440 --> 01:10:22.103
and sharing your wisdom with all of us.
1454
01:10:22.103 --> 01:10:23.750
I really appreciate that.
1455
01:10:23.750 --> 01:10:26.820
I am a resident assistant here in housing.
1456
01:10:26.820 --> 01:10:29.340
I work for West Hall here on campus.
1457
01:10:29.340 --> 01:10:32.330
And so there's a lot of conversations that go on
1458
01:10:32.330 --> 01:10:33.760
with a lot of the Latinos and Hispanics
1459
01:10:33.760 --> 01:10:35.510
that we have in the residence hall.
1460
01:10:36.440 --> 01:10:39.120
And one of the issues I still see
1461
01:10:39.120 --> 01:10:42.780
and I myself have trouble trying to find a solution to
1462
01:10:42.780 --> 01:10:45.710
is me talking to, I'm Latino,
1463
01:10:45.710 --> 01:10:47.850
me talking to my fellow Latinos and Hispanics
1464
01:10:47.850 --> 01:10:50.770
and trying to get them to understand,
1465
01:10:50.770 --> 01:10:52.470
and this gets deep a little bit,
1466
01:10:52.470 --> 01:10:54.760
trying to get them to understand
1467
01:10:54.760 --> 01:10:58.710
that their use of the N word isn't welcome
1468
01:10:58.710 --> 01:11:00.170
and it should not be accepted.
1469
01:11:00.170 --> 01:11:01.860
And so I have trouble with engaging
1470
01:11:01.860 --> 01:11:03.150
in conversation like that
1471
01:11:03.150 --> 01:11:07.030
and trying to get them to understand my side
1472
01:11:07.030 --> 01:11:11.157
because it's about it and I will never like condone it,
1473
01:11:11.157 --> 01:11:14.090
but I understand why they were raised in that way,
1474
01:11:14.090 --> 01:11:15.870
because it wasn't until my sophomore year
1475
01:11:15.870 --> 01:11:17.700
that I actually used those words too.
1476
01:11:17.700 --> 01:11:21.750
And it wasn't until I myself educated myself, read articles,
1477
01:11:21.750 --> 01:11:25.320
I took classes, Tracy Everbach, she's here somewhere.
1478
01:11:25.320 --> 01:11:28.000
I took her class too, she's amazing,
1479
01:11:28.000 --> 01:11:29.250
she opened my eyes a lot.
1480
01:11:30.420 --> 01:11:33.230
But I have trouble facilitating those conversations
1481
01:11:33.230 --> 01:11:34.900
and finding resources to use
1482
01:11:34.900 --> 01:11:37.660
and good methods in which to articulate
1483
01:11:37.660 --> 01:11:38.610
what I'm trying to say to them.
1484
01:11:38.610 --> 01:11:41.170
I don't know if you could give any good tips
1485
01:11:41.170 --> 01:11:43.450
or recommendations or something I can use.
1486
01:11:43.450 --> 01:11:46.290
Have you watched the documentary, "The N-Word."
1487
01:11:46.290 --> 01:11:47.123
I have not.
1488
01:11:47.123 --> 01:11:50.193
So watch that and show that.
Is it on Netflix?
1489
01:11:50.193 --> 01:11:51.480
It's like Chuck D
1490
01:11:51.480 --> 01:11:54.890
and a lot of black scholars talking about it,
1491
01:11:54.890 --> 01:11:56.090
so it's a documentary,
1492
01:11:56.090 --> 01:11:59.073
it came out maybe almost eight years ago.
1493
01:12:00.510 --> 01:12:02.810
You could do like a showing of that, but look,
1494
01:12:03.900 --> 01:12:05.990
I got asked this question yesterday,
1495
01:12:05.990 --> 01:12:08.690
but it was a white student wanting to know
1496
01:12:08.690 --> 01:12:10.720
why they couldn't say it.
1497
01:12:10.720 --> 01:12:13.220
So my question is like, why do you want to say it?
1498
01:12:14.740 --> 01:12:15.910
Start with that.
1499
01:12:15.910 --> 01:12:17.560
Why do you want to say that word?
1500
01:12:19.450 --> 01:12:21.100
No one should be saying the word.
1501
01:12:22.040 --> 01:12:23.650
It's vulgar, it's offensive,
1502
01:12:23.650 --> 01:12:25.520
it's steeped in violence, period.
1503
01:12:25.520 --> 01:12:27.070
Now, look, I come from hip hop.
1504
01:12:30.670 --> 01:12:35.670
My generation, I'm sure you've learned this in your classes,
1505
01:12:36.000 --> 01:12:38.430
arguments about reclaiming the word and all of that.
1506
01:12:38.430 --> 01:12:41.410
My take is, it's vulgar, it's offensive,
1507
01:12:41.410 --> 01:12:43.350
it's dehumanizing.
1508
01:12:43.350 --> 01:12:47.720
And certainly like if you're not within,
1509
01:12:47.720 --> 01:12:51.130
I believe like an African-American context,
1510
01:12:51.130 --> 01:12:53.663
no one should be saying that.
1511
01:12:53.663 --> 01:12:55.660
That is not in that context.
1512
01:12:55.660 --> 01:12:56.930
And also you can begin
1513
01:12:56.930 --> 01:12:59.040
to then address issues of anti-blackness
1514
01:12:59.040 --> 01:13:00.750
in the Latino community.
1515
01:13:00.750 --> 01:13:04.900
That as many of us are finding our Afro Latino identity,
1516
01:13:04.900 --> 01:13:08.040
a lot of that stuff is also confronting
1517
01:13:08.040 --> 01:13:09.300
not only white supremacy,
1518
01:13:09.300 --> 01:13:10.960
but confronting anti-blackness
1519
01:13:10.960 --> 01:13:14.020
and that for a lot of Latino, Latina, and Latinx folks,
1520
01:13:14.020 --> 01:13:16.740
the colonized mindset is no joke.
1521
01:13:16.740 --> 01:13:18.140
So, you know what I'm saying?
1522
01:13:18.140 --> 01:13:19.000
Like the fact that people
1523
01:13:19.000 --> 01:13:21.763
are still calling themselves Hispanic in 2018,
1524
01:13:22.680 --> 01:13:24.960
or have these fantasies of who they are,
1525
01:13:24.960 --> 01:13:28.283
because we've been taught this race to whiteness,
1526
01:13:29.610 --> 01:13:31.270
'cause essentially ask that's what it is.
1527
01:13:31.270 --> 01:13:32.970
It's a race to whiteness,
1528
01:13:32.970 --> 01:13:34.730
is essentially an America.
1529
01:13:34.730 --> 01:13:35.990
If you don't have to be black,
1530
01:13:35.990 --> 01:13:38.020
why would you say you're black,
1531
01:13:38.020 --> 01:13:40.320
especially the way black people are treated in America.
1532
01:13:40.320 --> 01:13:42.420
Your new generation, Latino folks,
1533
01:13:42.420 --> 01:13:45.260
some of y'all have not been to your homeland,
1534
01:13:45.260 --> 01:13:46.320
some don't speak Spanish,
1535
01:13:46.320 --> 01:13:48.820
some don't have that strong connection.
1536
01:13:48.820 --> 01:13:51.300
Then many of us have grown up side by side
1537
01:13:51.300 --> 01:13:53.870
with African-American brothers and sisters, Africans,
1538
01:13:53.870 --> 01:13:56.440
how we grow up in our communities,
1539
01:13:56.440 --> 01:13:59.980
a false narrative that we all like hate each other
1540
01:13:59.980 --> 01:14:02.520
and don't understand the nuances and all of that.
1541
01:14:02.520 --> 01:14:05.490
Those are all ways because I feel anybody
1542
01:14:05.490 --> 01:14:07.120
who's using that word,
1543
01:14:07.120 --> 01:14:08.570
there's something they're missing inside.
1544
01:14:08.570 --> 01:14:10.230
I really believe that.
1545
01:14:10.230 --> 01:14:12.100
'Cause there's no way would use that word
1546
01:14:12.100 --> 01:14:14.240
knowing the history of it.
1547
01:14:14.240 --> 01:14:16.637
Okay, thank you.
So thank you.
1548
01:14:18.110 --> 01:14:21.460
(audience applauds)
1549
01:14:21.460 --> 01:14:22.940
So please join me y'all
1550
01:14:22.940 --> 01:14:25.190
in giving Rosa Clemente a final hand.
1551
01:14:25.190 --> 01:14:26.023
Thank you so much.
1552
01:14:26.023 --> 01:14:27.470
I'll see everybody at other stuff.
1553
01:14:27.470 --> 01:14:28.753
Thank you for having me.