- 2 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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00:00This is July 4th. I would normally say happy July 4th, but happy doesn't feel like the right word today.
00:07So we're going to just say July 4th.
00:10Thank you so much for being here. This is a really important conversation.
00:15And I want to start with you, Nicole.
00:18You wrote last week in the New York Times Magazine that Trump has upended 60 years of civil rights in just two months.
00:27Help us to put this moment for black people into some sort of historical perspective.
00:35Okay. Hello. Can y'all hear me?
00:38Okay. Everybody must be at the Target booth.
00:45I was trying to avoid that question.
00:51No, happy to be in conversation with you all.
00:55And I think it's obviously particularly profound to be having this discussion on the 4th of July.
01:03My 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,
01:13or even who fought in the civil rights movement,
01:16haven't lived in an America where the federal government has been weaponized against us in this way.
01:21We've certainly lived under a federal government that was neglectful,
01:25a federal government that didn't care that much about civil rights.
01:28But if we want to go back to a period where the federal government was actively promoting segregation and discrimination,
01:34we would have to go back a century to the period known as the Great Nadir.
01:39So I said that as a warning to us, because we hear a lot of times,
01:43well, black people have been through worse.
01:45We've survived worse.
01:47And one of my answers to that is many of us didn't survive that worse.
01:50And so there has to be a time where we don't have to expect that we will have suffering,
01:56that we have to survive.
01:58But also a warning to us that most of us,
02:00we need to be realistic about what this administration is intending to unleash
02:04against black people and other marginalized and oppressed people.
02:09And that's an experience that none of us have had.
02:11And if we're not honest about what we're facing, it's going to be very difficult for us to survive it.
02:16And I was reading that piece and I was thinking, I wanted to know from you,
02:21how permanent do you feel like this is?
02:25I think a lot of people are struggling with the question of,
02:30is this part of a political cycle, something of a flash in the pan,
02:35although more harsh than that, or is it what you just described,
02:41which is the beginning of a Jim Crow 2.0, basically?
02:46So, you know, I'm not going to try to predict the future,
02:50but what I can say is if we study the past,
02:53it gives us some ideas about what we might be facing.
02:57So if we think about the fact that we had Reconstruction following the end of slavery,
03:02we have black men serving in Congress, we have black senators,
03:06we have black people attending integrated schools in the South,
03:09and then within 12 years, we lose that, and we won't see that again for a century.
03:14So we wouldn't see another black man serving in the Senate for 100 years.
03:17We wouldn't see Southern universities integrated for 100 years.
03:21I'm not saying we are entering a 100-year period,
03:24but what I am saying is if you look at how we got here,
03:29the conservatives have been working on this moment since the civil rights movement.
03:34So they are now enacting a 60-year strategy,
03:38and if they can collapse nearly the entire civil rights infrastructure
03:43of the federal government in a matter of a couple of months,
03:47then I think that tells you that we are in for a long-haul struggle,
03:50that this is not going to be eradicated and made right just by the next midterm election
03:56or the next presidential election if we have a fair presidential election in two years
04:01or midterm in two years or four years.
04:03I think what they have in store for us is something that's not just going to go away
04:08if Trump goes away.
04:12Rashad?
04:13So Essence published an article in January entitled,
04:20Black Women Are Done, Reclaiming Power After the 2024 Election.
04:26And since then, we've had a torrent of articles about black people participating
04:31or not participating in protests and people saying they're arresting or they're sitting out.
04:35Now, considering all of that and what Nicole just said,
04:42what does or should the posture and engagement of black power and black people look like now?
04:51Yeah.
04:53I think this is a really important question because I do see a lot of media that,
04:58you know, black people are done, black people are not doing anything.
05:02And at the same time, when you look at so many of the sectors where people are showing up and resisting,
05:09it is black leadership that is showing up and pushing.
05:12And it's always been black leadership.
05:14But it doesn't necessarily mean that all of this has to be in public.
05:18And so black people may not be showing up to protest led and conceived by white people.
05:23So that doesn't necessarily mean that black people are not participating
05:27because they're not showing up to tables that are not set for them and by them.
05:31I think I really do appreciate what Nicole is saying.
05:35And I think that it ties into the analysis that sort of I've really tried to drive over the years
05:41as we think about what does it mean to have power?
05:44What does it mean to build power?
05:45What does it mean to use power?
05:47And far too often, I think we mistake presence and visibility for power.
05:52Retweets, shoutouts from the stage, black faces in high places
05:55as metrics for actually being able to change the rules, whether they're written rules or unwritten rules.
06:01And when we mistake presence for power, we can think that we've done something that we haven't done.
06:06We can think that a black president means that we're post-racial.
06:09We can think that a black celebrity getting a lot of corporate sponsorship
06:13or stopping the internet when they sort of announce a new album means that America loves black people
06:18as much as America loves black culture.
06:20And America can love and celebrate and monetize black culture and hate black people at the same time.
06:26And those two things are not necessarily in conflict.
06:29In fact, they work together quite well.
06:31And so I do think that over these coming years, showing up in presence to protest is not the same
06:41as building strategies that build power, that build power that changes rules,
06:46that hold enablers accountable, that build structures for how we use our money and our resources,
06:50how we build political power.
06:52We think about the long haul and recognizing that as much as the internet may tell us a story
06:58of instant gratification, none of the progress we've ever achieved has happened overnight.
07:04And this progress that is now being under attack is not under attack overnight.
07:09Our opponents build long-term political power, and now they're using it to undermine everything we achieved.
07:15And so we have to fight like everything is on the line, but we have to build like we're actually building a house
07:21that we want to be able to sustain and be able to stay strong long-term.
07:26Jess.
07:28But this moment does live in the shadow of the summer protest, which was the largest in-person protest
07:35probably that the world has ever seen.
07:36It was a global protest.
07:39Are you saying that moving forward, black activism and black power building probably won't look like that or not?
07:49I think that is one piece of how activism looks.
07:53I think that we need integrated strategies.
07:56And integrated strategies means that we protest.
08:00It means that we hold corporations accountable inside and outside.
08:05It means that we build new levels of media infrastructure so that we don't have to rely on traditional forms of media,
08:12which are gatekeepers and keep us out.
08:14It means that there are a range of different ways.
08:17It 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,
08:25destroyed, that we have to think about what's new and recognizing that we're not going to go back to the old days of DEI departments that used to look the way they did.
08:35That we're not going to go back to sometimes the way the courts used to work and operate.
08:40That we're not going to go back to an era where the people relied on media the same way.
08:47New media, new stories, all of this will look different.
08:50And we actually have to be part of building a new future.
08:52But that is what black people have always done.
08:55When we've been kept out of religious institutions, we've built our own.
08:59When we were kept out of media institutions, we've built our own.
09:03When we were kept out of news institutions, we've built our own.
09:06And schools and so forth and so on.
09:08And 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.
09:22Nicole, Trump's big policy bill passed yesterday.
09:31I don't want to call it the big, beautiful bill.
09:33I don't think that's appropriate.
09:34But what does that piece of legislation mean for black people in this country?
09:45And also just for black power.
09:46I mean, a lot of it is not about finances.
09:49It's a lot of structural material in that bill as well.
09:55Yeah.
09:58One, I think it's important to understand that our communities are already vulnerable.
10:05Our communities are already the most likely to be uninsured, the most likely to live in states that refuse to expand Medicaid,
10:13are already dying at the highest rates, have the lowest life expectancies, are already living in areas where they face the most pollutants.
10:24I mean, we're here in Louisiana.
10:26They had a landmark environmental justice case in Cancer Alley to protect people in a community, a black community,
10:34that had faced the highest rate of pollutants of anywhere in the entire country.
10:39And the Trump administration pulled out of that.
10:42So what we're going to see, honestly, is suffering of, you know, I posted about this yesterday on Instagram.
10:48We all know people who work every single day and yet work jobs that don't provide health care insurance.
10:56And that those people then get sick and can't get health care.
10:59Now we're going to see even more of that.
11:01So when I even think about the language that has been used on this bill, such a disdain for our fellow citizens,
11:09basically saying our fellow citizens are lazy people who don't want to work and just want other people to take care of them,
11:15when 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
11:21so they actually can afford to pay for health insurance and then we don't give them health insurance.
11:26So there's going to be a lot of suffering and we know suffering, but again, we also die earlier.
11:34We live less healthier lives.
11:36And 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.
11:45Government has never worked in our favor.
11:47It has never taken care of our needs.
11:49We have had to build our own institutions.
11:51We've had to do mutual aid.
11:53And so, no, black folks, I know I'm going off your question, but no, black folks are not out in the streets right now.
12:00We did that.
12:01And yes, black people were tired after that.
12:04We did not vote for this.
12:06In fact, we voted for this black men and black women against this at the highest rates of other people.
12:10But organizing is happening.
12:12What 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,
12:19that we're actually moving in silence right now, building our own institutions, building our own structures of self-care.
12:25Because I think the way that we survive this moment is to engage in self-protection.
12:30They are coming for our institutions.
12:32They are coming for, you know, our HBCUs.
12:35It's not just whether they're going to purge us from their organizations.
12:39The plans are to make it hard for us to even take care of our own.
12:44And so, we have to be in a mode of not announcing our plans.
12:47Because they have AI bots that they're sending out where if you mention that you're doing something for black folks,
12:53they're trying to find that and then sue you for doing that.
12:56So, the way that we survive this moment is actually to not project what it is that we're doing
13:02and just engage in self-protection and do what it is that we need to do to take care of ourselves.
13:09Rashad, many activist strategists believe that coalition building is the best way to fight for rights and equality.
13:17Much of your own work has been, has included coalition building.
13:22But now, many of the traditional coalitions have strained or fractured.
13:26You've fractured over Gaza.
13:29Coalitions have fractured over the election.
13:34They've fractured over whether or not people should be fighting this hard for trans rights.
13:40How do you see coalitions and allies in this moment?
13:47That'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.
13:56And coalitions are strategy.
13:57And it's not Pollyanna.
14:01It's not about that we all just have to sit around and sing Kumbaya.
14:07It means that we bring something to the table and the people who say they're with us bring something to the table.
14:13And through those conversations, we sometimes have to have tough conversations about where we're going and where we're at.
14:20I 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, and if a coalition is going to do what it's supposed to do, which is effectively deliver real things for real people.
14:34One 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.
14:47And 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.
14:56And I think about sort of the work that I've tried to do over the years around racial profiling as an example.
15:02And 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.
15:13We definitely had local groups and folks engage, but it was always looked at as a black issue.
15:19And now, as 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.
15:41But it doesn't mean that we sit around and lament because it's strategy.
15:46And racial justice is not simply about morals.
15:50It's not simply about doing the right thing.
15:53It is about strategy.
15:54Because at the end of the day, I'm not doing this to sort of feel good at the end of the day.
15:58I'm doing this to win as many possible things I can win for black people.
16:03And when black people win, the history of this country is that it moves in the right direction for so many other people.
16:09But 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.
16:18And far too often, that doesn't always happen.
16:22Far too often, there are sort of questions about whether or not folks should show up.
16:26And 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 and black communities as possible.
16:46Because what everyone has learned now is that white nationalists who are leading this country right now don't actually want you.
16:56And so this is a historic opportunity.
16:58And I am an optimist, so I think about these things through the lens of opportunity and think about coalitions through the lens of opportunity.
17:06But opportunity is not, once again, about having our heads in the cloud.
17:10It's about having our feet on the ground and recognizing that every single day we have to do the hard work to build the structures and the systems that actually move us forward.
17:19And I think if we're going to have coalitions, coalitions have to be about what are we winning, how are we winning, how are we holding each other accountable,
17:26and 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.
17:33So, yes, Nicole, we have two minutes left.
17:41Rashad has already said he's an optimist.
17:44I'm not going to ask you to do some don't worry, be happy kind of situation,
17:48but is there anything 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?
18:03No, no, I'm playing.
18:07Let me just, one, 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.
18:20One is an answer to your question, but another is an answer to coalition building.
18:23So, the majority of Latinos and Asian Americans actually came to the United States after the civil rights movement.
18:30That's because we had a racist immigration quota system that kept out most non-white immigrants from entering the United States.
18:36So, they don't actually have it in their collective memory what it was like to live under a racial apartheid.
18:42We do.
18:42And 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.
18:51That 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.
18:58But if you learn that history, that history is then transformative for you.
19:02Because 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 to citizenship in the first place.
19:11But we don't teach that history.
19:13So, you hide that history as a wedge because then you can wedge other immigrant groups against us.
19:20But 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.
19:26We know who's citizenship is going to get stripped next, because birthright citizenship was created by us.
19:32Now I've run out of time.
19:33So, let me just quickly say on hope.
19:35I'm not a hopeful person.
19:36Rashad and I are always good together because I'm very down on everything, and he sees a brighter day.
19:41But 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.
19:52The youngest freedom rider was 13 years old when he was arrested the first time, was arrested 100 times.
19:58Democracy in the United States is younger than the people I was on that panel with.
20:03They could not have imagined that they could actually dismantle racial apartheid in the United States.
20:09When 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.
20:16He couldn't have believed that that one action would be joined with a whole bunch of other actions and toppled Jim Crow.
20:21So, 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.
20:34And 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.
20:43Right, Fannie Lou Hamer could not have imagined that we would be the products of the struggle that took her life, but we're here.
20:51And so, we have an obligation to ourselves to be good ancestors one day, and so that's what gives me hope.
21:01Now, I don't know.
21:03Where are our handlers?
21:04Am I supposed to take questions here?
21:05Hello?
21:08Hello?
21:12I don't know.
21:13Get a hook.
21:15Get me off the stage or else I'm going to keep talking.
21:18Can somebody tell me what we're supposed to do now?
21:20We're supposed to take questions?
21:25I'm about to wrap.
21:26No, I'm just joking.
21:29Hello?
21:30Hello?
21:30We'll just keep talking.
21:34I have a couple more questions.
21:35All right.
21:36So, Rashad, when it comes to, like, new technology, how should we be thinking about that in terms of activism?
21:47How do we fold it in?
21:49For instance, is AI good?
21:52I mean, it's probably a complex answer, but is it good for our activism, or is the danger in it outweigh whatever good it holds?
22:02You know, that's such a good question.
22:04You know, I think back to, you know, the early days of social media, and I would go into rooms, and people would say, Arab Spring, Obama,
22:14it's allowed us to, like, open up all these new opportunities, and we didn't actually get rules of the road to actually hold it accountable,
22:24to make sure it had to be accountable to civil rights laws and all of these other rules.
22:30And now we've seen the ways in which social media platforms owned by billionaires have destroyed our press, have destroyed our democracy,
22:42have destroyed so many of the ways that we exist in communities.
22:46So this is not about whether or not social media is bad or good.
22:50This is about we shouldn't have institutions that force us to go beg billionaires for their benevolence.
22:56Our cars are not safe because of the benevolence of the auto industry.
23:00They are safe because there's accountability, there's oversight, there are rules, and regulation.
23:07And there is none of that for social media.
23:09So I think about some of the ways in which black people have fought for a better tomorrow.
23:14Voting, legislation and regulation, going on strike, protest.
23:19In each of those areas, over the next five to seven years,
23:22the gender of AI is going to destroy many of the sort of ways in which we have used our bodies,
23:32our innovation to actually move things forward.
23:37And so Bayard Rustin used to have this saying about putting a stick in the spoke to slow down our opponents.
23:43And we are going to need new spokes.
23:47But sometimes when I show up into rooms of black folks who are talking about AI,
23:52we can sometimes think we're going to be the next Zuckerberg.
23:55Or that we just need to learn how to use AI better than or as well as the people who have created it
24:02and have designed it to actually create more wealth and more opportunity for them.
24:06And so I don't think we're going to be better capitalists than the capitalists.
24:12I don't think we're going to make these systems work better on their own.
24:17We are going to have to, of course, understand how they work.
24:20We're going to have to, of course, use them where they can.
24:23But they are absolutely not designed with us in mind.
24:26They are not absolutely designed with us having more wealth, more health, more opportunity, and more resources in mind.
24:33And so this is not about not using AI.
24:35This is about recognizing that the technology that has so much potential to bring us into the future can drag us into the past.
24:44And we only have to look at the ways in which social media has operated across our elections, across our journalism, and across our economy.
24:52And so we have to be able to walk and chew gum at the same times.
24:55Where we use it and where we leverage it is incredibly important.
24:58And I've innovated some of the most important campaigns, social campaigns, whether it's holding corporations or government accountable, using the newest technology.
25:07And at the same time, we have to recognize that we have to hold it accountable as well.
25:13We have to make sure our elected officials are better educated.
25:16And we have to fight for the type of infrastructure that actually makes sure that these tools don't take us over, don't drag us back, and don't prevent us from being able to use the levers that we've used in the past to be able to move us into the future.
25:29So I saw the hook as soon as Rashad started talking, so I want to give a big round of applause for both of my panelists, who are amazing.
25:36Thank you guys so much for coming out.
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