- 6 days ago
What does it feel like to be Black in America today, shaped by past traumas and ancestral experiences? This session will explore the intersection of Black identity, resistance, and reimagination, highlighting how historical injustices continue to impact Black communities while offering strategies and tools for building a more equitable future. Through insightful discussions, we’ll examine the resilience of Black activism and leadership, providing actionable steps to advance justice, equality, and empowerment in our communities. Join us as we delve into the politics of being Black in America and explore the paths forward toward transformation and liberation.
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03:29And Nicole Hannah-Jones, night chair in race and journalism at Howard University and domestic correspondent for the New York Times.
04:09It doesn't feel like the right word today, so we're going to just say July 4th.
04:14Thank you so much for being here.
04:16This is a really important conversation.
04:18And I want to start with you, you wrote last week in the New York Times magazine that Trump has upended 60 years of civil rights in just two months.
04:30Help us to put this moment, help us to put this moment for black people into some sort of historical perspective.
04:40Hello, can you all hear me?
04:41Okay.
04:42Okay.
04:43Everybody must be at the Target booth.
04:46I was trying to avoid that question.
04:51No, happy to have you, you know, happy to be in conversation with you all, and I think it's obviously particularly profound to be having this discussion on the 4th of July.
05:04My argument that most black Americans today have not lived in this America is to say that most of us who were born after the civil rights movement or even who fought in the civil rights movement haven't lived in an America where the federal government has been weaponized against us in this way.
05:24We've certainly lived under a federal government that was neglectful, a federal government that didn't care that much about civil rights.
05:31But if we want to go back to a period where the federal government was actively promoting segregation and discrimination, we would have to go back a century to the period known as the Great Nadir.
05:42So I said that as a warning to us because we hear a lot of times, well, black people have been through worse.
05:49We've survived worse.
05:51And one of my answers to that is many of us didn't survive that worse.
05:54And so there has to be a time where we don't have to expect that we will have suffering, that we have to survive.
06:01But also a warning to us that most of us, we need to be realistic about what this administration is intending to unleash against black people and other marginalized and oppressed people.
06:12And that's an experience that none of us have had.
06:14And if we're not honest about what we're facing, it's going to be very difficult for us to survive it.
06:19And I was reading that piece and I was thinking, I wanted to know from you, like, how do you, how permanent do you feel like this is?
06:28Is this, I think a lot of people are struggling with the question of, is this part of a political cycle, something of a flash in the pan, although more harsh than that?
06:40Or is it what you just described, which is the beginning of a Jim Crow 2.0, basically?
06:49So, you know, I'm not going to try to predict the future.
06:53But what I can say is, if we study the past, it gives us some ideas about what we might be facing.
07:01So if we think about the fact that we had Reconstruction following the end of slavery, have black men serving in Congress, we have black senators, we have black people attending integrated schools in the South.
07:12And then within 12 years, we lose that, and we won't see that again for a century.
07:17So we wouldn't see another black man serving in the Senate for 100 years.
07:21We wouldn't see southern universities integrated for 100 years.
07:25I'm not saying we are entering a 100-year period, but what I am saying is, if you look at how we got here, the conservatives have been working on this moment since the civil rights movement.
07:37So they are now enacting a 60-year strategy, and if they can collapse nearly the entire civil rights infrastructure of the federal government in a matter of a couple of months,
07:50then I think that tells you that we are in for a long-haul struggle, that this is not going to be eradicated and made right just by the next midterm election or the next presidential election,
08:01if we have a fair presidential election in two years or midterm in two years or four years.
08:07I think what they have in store for us is something that's not just going to go away if Trump goes away.
08:16Rashad?
08:18So Essence published an article in January entitled, Black Women Are Done, Reclaiming Power After the 2024 Election.
08:28And since then, we've had a torrent of articles about black people participating or not participating in protests and people saying they're arresting or they're sitting out.
08:41Considering all of that and what Nicole just said, what does or should the posture and engagement of black power and black people look like now?
08:54Yeah, I think this is a really important question because I do see a lot of media that, you know, black people are done, black people are not doing anything.
09:05And at the same time, when you look at so many of the sectors where people are showing up and resisting, it is black leadership that is showing up and pushing.
09:16And it's always been black leadership.
09:17But it doesn't necessarily mean that all of this has to be in public.
09:22And so black people may not be showing up to protest led and conceived by white people.
09:27So that doesn't necessarily mean that black people are not participating because they're not showing up to tables that are not set for them and by them.
09:35I think I really do appreciate what Nicole is saying.
09:38And I think that it ties into the analysis that sort of I've really tried to drive over the years as we think about what does it mean to have power?
09:47What does it mean to build power?
09:49What does it mean to use power?
09:50And far too often, I think we mistake presence and visibility for power.
09:55Retweets, shoutouts from the stage, black faces in high places as metrics for actually being able to change the rules, whether they're written rules or unwritten rules.
10:04And when we mistake presence for power, we can think that we've done something that we haven't done.
10:09We can think that a black president means that we're post-racial.
10:13We can think that a black celebrity getting a lot of corporate sponsorship or stopping the Internet when they sort of announce a new album means that America loves black people as much as America loves black culture.
10:24And America can love and celebrate and monetize black culture and hate black people at the same time.
10:30And those two things are not necessarily in conflict.
10:32In fact, they work together quite well.
10:35And so I do think that over these coming years, showing up in presence to protest is not the same as building strategies that build power, that build power that changes rules, that hold enablers accountable, that build structures for how we use our money and our resources, how we build political power.
10:55And so we think about the long haul and recognizing that as much as the Internet may tell us a story of instant gratification, none of the progress we've ever achieved has happened overnight.
11:07And this progress that is now being under attack is not under attack overnight.
11:12Our opponents build long-term political power, and now they're using it to undermine everything we achieved.
11:18And so we have to fight like everything is on the line, but we have to build like we're actually building a house that we want to be able to sustain and be able to stay strong long-term.
11:28But Jess, but this moment does live in the shadow of the summer protest, which was the largest in-person protest probably that the world has ever seen.
11:40It was a global protest.
11:41Are you saying that, moving forward, black activism and black power building probably won't look like that or not?
11:53I think that is one piece of how activism looks.
11:56I think that we need integrated strategies.
12:00And integrated strategies means that we protest.
12:04It means that we hold corporations accountable inside and outside.
12:08It means that we build new levels of media infrastructure so that we don't have to rely on traditional forms of media which are gatekeepers and keep us out.
12:17It means that there are a range of different ways.
12:20It means that as we watch so much of the legal standards and precedents that we've leveraged and used over the years to build power destroyed, that we have to think about what's new.
12:32And recognizing that we're not going to go back to the old days of DEI departments that used to look the way they did.
12:39That we're not going to go back to sometimes the way the courts used to work and operate.
12:43That we're not going to go back to an era where the people relied on media the same way.
12:50New media, new stories, all of this will look different.
12:53And we actually have to be part of building a new future.
12:56But that is what black people have always done.
12:58When we've been kept out of religious institutions, we've built our own.
13:03When we were kept out of media institutions, we've built our own.
13:06When we were kept out of news institutions, we've built our own.
13:10And schools and so forth and so on.
13:12And so I continue to think that both we have to have a strategy of forcing institutions to be accountable while working to also build our own.
13:26Nicole, Trump's big policy bill passed yesterday.
13:34I don't want to call it the big, beautiful bill.
13:36I don't think that's appropriate.
13:38But what does that piece of legislation mean for black people in this country?
13:48And also just for black power.
13:49I mean, a lot of it is not about finances.
13:52It's a lot of structural material in that bill as well.
13:58Yeah.
14:01One, I think it's important to understand that our communities are already vulnerable.
14:09Our communities are already the most likely to be uninsured, the most likely to live in states that refuse to expand Medicaid,
14:17are already dying at the highest rates, have the lowest life expectancies, are already living in areas where they face the most pollutants.
14:27I mean, we're here in Louisiana.
14:30They had a landmark environmental justice case in Cancer Alley to protect people in a community, a black community,
14:37that had faced the highest rate of pollutants of anywhere in the entire country.
14:43And the Trump administration pulled out of that.
14:45So what we're going to see, honestly, is suffering of, you know, I posted about this yesterday on Instagram.
14:52We all know people who work every single day and yet work jobs that don't provide health care insurance.
14:59And that those people then get sick and can't get health care.
15:02Now we're going to see even more of that.
15:05So when I even think about the language that has been used on this bill, such a disdain for our fellow citizens,
15:13basically saying our fellow citizens are lazy people who don't want to work and just want other people to take care of them,
15:18when in fact we know that people are working and they're working jobs in a country where we don't want to increase the minimum wage
15:25so they actually can afford to pay for health insurance and then we don't give them health insurance.
15:29So there's going to be a lot of suffering.
15:33And we know suffering, but again, we also die earlier.
15:37We live less healthier lives.
15:40And what I'm hoping is what Rashad said, is that one thing that we know as black people is we come from a people who have had to care for ourselves.
15:49Government has never worked in our favor.
15:51It has never taken care of our needs.
15:53We have had to build our own institutions.
15:55We've had to do mutual aid.
15:57And so, no, black folks, I know I'm going off your question, but no, black folks are not out in the streets right now.
16:03We did that.
16:04And, yes, black people were tired after that.
16:07We did not vote for this.
16:09In fact, we voted for this black men and black women against this at the highest rates of other people.
16:14But organizing is happening.
16:15What black folks are saying is we're not going to perform our organizing in front of you to make you feel like we're working on your behalf again, that we're actually moving in silence right now, building our own institutions, building our own structures of self-care.
16:28Because I think the way that we survive this moment is to engage in self-protection.
16:34They are coming for our institutions.
16:36They are coming for, you know, our HBCUs.
16:38It's not just whether they're going to purge us from their organizations.
16:43The plans are to make it hard for us to even take care of our own.
16:47And so we have to be in a mode of not announcing our plans because they have AI bots that they're sending out where if you mention that you're doing something for black folks, they're trying to find that and then sue you for doing that.
16:59So the way that we survive this moment is actually to not project what it is that we're doing and just engage in self-protection and do what it is that we need to do to take care of ourselves.
17:14Rashad, many activist strategists believe that coalition building is the best way to fight for rights and equality.
17:20Much of your own work has been, it has included coalition building, but now many of the traditional coalitions have strained or fractured.
17:30You've fractured over Gaza.
17:32Coalitions have fractured over the election.
17:38They've fractured over whether or not people should be fighting this hard for trans rights.
17:43How do you see coalitions and allies in this moment?
17:50That's a really good question and something that I've been wrestling a lot with as we think about sort of what we build and where we go from here.
17:59And coalitions are strategy.
18:01And it's not Pollyanna.
18:05It's not about that we all just have to sit around and sing Kumbaya.
18:10It means that we bring something to the table and the people who say they're with us bring something to the table.
18:17And through those conversations, we sometimes have to have tough.
18:20conversations about where we're going and where we're at.
18:24I think there are a number of tough conversations that have to actually happen if a coalition is to remain strong, if a coalition is to be effective.
18:31And if a coalition is going to do what it's supposed to do, which is effectively deliver real things for real people.
18:37One of the tough conversations I think we have to have is the deep level of anti-blackness that exists in that when so many people come here, they do not want to be associated with black people.
18:50And we saw it show up and we see it show up time and time again in some of the ways that people show up on issues or don't show up on issues.
18:59And I think about sort of the work that I've tried to do over the years around racial profiling as an example.
19:05And where we couldn't get a lot of immigrant communities and organizations to stand up around racial profiling on stop and frisk and other issues at scale at national organizations.
19:17We definitely had local groups and folks engage, but it was always looked at as a black issue.
19:22And now as this, all of these resources are heading to ice and all of this infrastructure is heading to make ice such a huge infrastructure, had there been a real coalition built, had people seen their issues tied to black people and not sort of running away from black people and black issues, we might be in a different place.
19:44But it doesn't mean that we sit around and lament because it's strategy.
19:49And racial justice is not simply about morals, it's not simply about doing the right thing, it is about strategy.
19:58Because at the end of the day, I'm not doing this to sort of feel good at the end of the day, I'm doing this to win as many possible things I can win for black people.
20:06And when black people win, the history of this country is that it moves in the right direction for so many other people.
20:12But part of any good coalition building is making sure that people understand that when we fight and we win, we win for them, and that they show up for us as well.
20:21And far too often, that doesn't always happen. Far too often, there are sort of questions about whether or not folks should show up and I think that this is going to be part of that work of really calling in leaders from Latino communities, calling in leaders from API communities and making sure that they are addressing the ways in which anti blackness shows up in their communities, the ways in which people want to be as far away from black people as possible in black communities as possible.
20:49Because what everyone has learned now is that white nationalists who are leading this country right now don't actually want you.
20:58And so this is a historic opportunity. And I am an optimist, so I think about these things through the lens of opportunity and think about coalitions through the lens of opportunity.
21:09But opportunity is not once again about having our heads in the cloud, it's about having our feet on the ground and recognizing that every single day we have to do the hard work
21:19to build the structures and the systems that actually move us forward. And I think if we're going to have coalitions, coalitions have to be about what are we winning?
21:27How are we winning? How are we holding each other accountable? And how are we doing the work that we're not just saying we're showing up for one another, but along the way we're actually winning things together?
21:38So, yes. Nicole, we have two minutes left. Rashad has already said he's an optimist. I'm not going to ask you to do some don't worry, be happy kind of situation, but is there anything that on the horizon that gives you hope or inspires you about what is possible now for black people in the middle of all this horrible news?
22:06No. No, I'm playing. Let me just quickly second what Rashad said. And I want us to understand the reason they attack our history and try to make it difficult for us to understand our history is twofold. One is an answer to your question, but another is an answer to coalition building.
22:26So the majority of Latinos and Asian Americans actually came to the United States after the civil rights movement. That's because we had a racist immigration quota system that kept out most nonwhite immigrants from entering the United States.
22:39So they don't actually have it in their collective memory what it was like to live under a racial apartheid. We do. And so when they come here, the first thing that they're taught as part of the Americanization process is you have to distance yourself from the people who are on the bottom of the caste system.
22:53That success means stay away from them even as you are able to come into a country and have your rights because of the black freedom struggle.
23:00But if you learn that history, that history is then transformative for you because then you appreciate who your coalition should be with are the people who allowed you to actually be able to immigrate here and have full rights of citizenship in the first place. But we don't teach that history.
23:15So you hide that history as a wedge because then you can wedge other immigrant groups against us. But we also have to understand they might be building those camps for them today, but we know who's going to be in them tomorrow.
23:28We know who's going to be in them tomorrow. We know who's citizenship is going to get stripped next even because birthright citizenship was created by us now. Now I've run out of time. So let me just quickly say on hope. I'm not a hopeful person. Rashad and I are always good together because I'm very down on everything and he sees a brighter day.
23:45But I just came back from Mississippi, which is my ancestral land with people who were in the civil rights movement, literally in the movement, who were beaten, arrested. The youngest freedom rider was 13 years old when he was arrested the first time, was arrested 100 times. Democracy in the United States is younger than the people I was on that panel with.
24:05They could not have imagined that they could actually dismantle racial apartheid in the United States. When that one person, that one 13 year old stood up and said, I'm going to ride and I'm going to test the 1964 Civil Rights Act. He couldn't have believed that that one action would be joined with a whole bunch of other actions and toppled Jim Crow.
24:25So I think where I am hopeful is that I know that our ancestors and even those who are still living with us today had the ability to imagine a world that didn't seem possible.
24:37And so we have to work in that tradition to know Frederick Douglass in 1837 could not imagine that slavery could end in 30 years, but it did.
24:47Right. Fannie Lou Hamer could not have imagined that we would be the products of the struggle that took her life, but we're here.
24:55And so we have an obligation to ourselves, be good ancestors one day. And so that's what gives me hope.
25:05Now, I don't know. Where are our handlers? Am I supposed to take questions here?
25:11Hello?
25:15I don't know. Get a hook. Get me off the stage or else I'm going to keep talking.
25:21Can somebody tell me what we're supposed to do now? We're supposed to take questions.
25:25I'm about to wrap. No, I'm just joking.
25:33Hello?
25:37We'll just keep talking. I have a couple more questions.
25:39All right. So, Rashad,
25:41when it comes to, like, new technology,
25:46how should we be thinking about that in terms of activism?
25:51How do we fold it in?
25:53For instance, is AI
25:54good?
25:57I mean, it's probably a complex answer,
25:59but is it good for our activism
26:00or is the danger in it
26:03outweigh whatever good it holds?
26:06You know, that's such a good question.
26:07You know, I think back to,
26:09you know, the early days
26:12of social media
26:13and I would go into rooms
26:14and people would say,
26:16Arab Spring, Obama,
26:18it's allowed us to, like,
26:19open up all these new opportunities
26:22and
26:22we didn't actually get rules
26:25of the road to actually
26:26hold it accountable,
26:28to make sure it had to
26:29be accountable to civil rights laws
26:32and all of these other rules.
26:35And now we've seen the ways
26:37in which social media platforms
26:38owned by billionaires
26:40have destroyed our press,
26:44have destroyed our democracy,
26:45have destroyed so many of the ways
26:47that we exist in communities.
26:49So this is not about
26:51whether or not social media
26:52is bad or good.
26:53This is about
26:54we shouldn't have institutions
26:55that force us to go beg billionaires
26:58for their benevolence.
26:59Our cars are not safe
27:01because of the benevolence
27:02of the auto industry.
27:03They are safe
27:04because there's accountability,
27:06there's oversight,
27:08there are rules,
27:09and regulation.
27:10And there is none of that
27:11for social media.
27:12So I think about
27:13some of the ways
27:14in which black people
27:16have fought for
27:16a better tomorrow.
27:18Voting,
27:19legislation and regulation,
27:20going on strike,
27:22protest.
27:23In each of those areas
27:24over the next five to seven years,
27:26gender of AI
27:27is going to destroy
27:28many of the sort of ways
27:30in which we have used
27:32our bodies,
27:35our innovation
27:36to actually move things forward.
27:40And so Bayard Rustin
27:41used to have this saying
27:43about putting a stick
27:44in the spoke
27:45to slow down our opponents.
27:47And we are going to need
27:49new spokes.
27:50But sometimes
27:51when I show up
27:52into rooms
27:53of black folks
27:54who are talking about AI,
27:55we can sometimes think
27:56we're going to be
27:57the next Zuckerberg.
27:58or that we just need
27:59to learn how to use AI
28:01better than
28:02or as well
28:04as the people
28:04who have created it
28:05and have designed it
28:06to actually create
28:08more wealth
28:09and more opportunity
28:09for them.
28:10And so I don't think
28:12we're going to
28:12be better capitalists
28:15than the capitalists.
28:16I don't think
28:16we're going to
28:17make these systems
28:18work better on their own.
28:20We are going to have to
28:21of course understand
28:23how they work.
28:24We're going to have to
28:24of course use them
28:25where they can
28:26but they are absolutely
28:27not designed
28:28with us in mind.
28:30They are not
28:30absolutely designed
28:31with us having
28:32more wealth,
28:34more health,
28:34more opportunity
28:35and more resources
28:36in mind.
28:37And so this is not
28:38about not using AI.
28:39This is about
28:40recognizing that
28:41the technology
28:42that has so much
28:43potential to bring us
28:44into the future
28:45can drag us
28:46into the past
28:47and we only have
28:48to look at the ways
28:49in which social media
28:50has operated
28:51across our elections,
28:53across our journalism
28:54and across our economy.
28:55and so we have
28:56to be able to walk
28:56and chew gum
28:57at the same time.
28:58Where we use it
28:59and where we leverage it
29:00is incredibly important
29:02and I've innovated
29:03some of the most
29:04important campaigns,
29:05social campaigns,
29:07whether it's holding
29:07corporations
29:08or government accountable
29:09using the newest technology.
29:11And at the same time
29:13we have to recognize
29:14that we have to
29:15hold it accountable
29:15as well.
29:16We have to make sure
29:17our elected officials
29:18are better educated
29:19and we have to fight
29:20for the type of infrastructure
29:22that actually makes sure
29:23that these tools
29:24don't take us over,
29:26don't drag us back
29:27and don't prevent us
29:28from being able
29:28to use the levers
29:29that we've used in the past
29:31to be able to move us
29:32into the future.
29:33So I saw the hook
29:34as soon as Rashad
29:35started talking
29:35so I want to give
29:36a big round of applause
29:37for both of my panelists
29:39who are amazing.
29:40Thank you guys so much
29:41for coming out.
29:42Appreciate it.
29:42Just a little bit
29:44from the start
29:44from the start
29:45and I'll see you next time.
30:15We'll see you next time.
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