Transcripts For CSPAN Womens Convention 20171228

Organizers of the 2017 womens march on washington held convention in detroit. Includes of the event advocates, Group Leaders and sanders former press ecretary talking about how to dismantle oppression and end discrimination. [cheers and applause] good morning, everyone. How is everyone doing . [cheers and applause] are we fired up . [cheers and applause] we ready to go . Yes. Thats what i like to hear. Well have an amazing, amazing conversation about intersectionality. We do that, i want to give some love to some folks. Irst of all, i want to give some love back to all of you for showing up so early, so thank you. [applause] just kind of want to say that how many of you have to the social justice city . [cheers and applause] yes. Thats such an amazing place for e because initially it was a vision that was implemented by a woman named nikita. That you have been able to go visit. Things that many i could participate in, and texts say that 10,000 sent out to remind people to races. Key theyre in room 358 all weekend doing phone banking and texting. [applause] director foritical our revolution, future for congressional politics. Lets give it up for erica. Of been the arc george action and judicialtically organization working for justice, inclusion, and equity in the u. S. Yes. We have rebekah, a former obama seniorouse staff and fellow for disability policy at the center for american progress. [applause] we have liliana, a translatino working to uplift trans women of color voices. We have my luck, the Senior Vice President for social justice. A Senior Vice President for social justice and the former chair of the independent Oversight Agency from new york citys police department. Yes. Last but not least, we have the executive director of the San Francisco area Office Council of islamic relations. [applause] carmen i have to say, i am excited to moderate the panel this morning because intersection audi is my existence. I am an them a who grewmerican woman up in Southern California in a Poor Community where there were gangs but i also grew up playing basketball. There are different different intersect with. Intersection audi allows me to be my whole self. When i studied feminism at uc leadership, ier learned the word intersection audi. Was coined by Kimberly Crenshaw in the 1980s, the idea that social identities, system of oppression and Group Identities intersect to create a whole that is different from the component identities. Said, a lot of what we were organizing the womens march on washington, we were intentional about being intersectional. With the panel, we will gain more knowledge of how we begin andncorporate that term ideology into our work and every day lives. That although say thee is a visibility during womens march, people have been organizing intersectional he for many decades. It is not a new concept. It is not a new term. Now becoming more visible. We will go ahead and go across the board and i know we had talked about, and we will have a casual conversation, are you ready . Alright, i first want to start off because we have powerhouse is on the stage now. I wanted to start off with me asking all of you, especially becausebecause often times, wom, especially all of you, see the women and do not women and do k it is achievable. You are often like, ok, that person has organized for 20 years. How can i even get there . I wanted to start by admitting that rome was not built in one day and i want to ask all of you, what was your first job . Was 11 years old, i had a paper route. How many had those . Now i am the executive director of an organization and cofounder. Many years. Y took along the journey, it allowed me to embrace several identities that havegies supported my ability to become more intentional about my work. We will start with you. Good morning, everybody. Excited to be here and grateful for the opportunity to have a conversation with all of you and the esteemed panelists. I am in antipoverty policy and advocacy leader. Anown Organization Organization that is state rooted but concerned about the needs of all. It has in the name protestant. I take it to me and we care about all of our neighbors. We are concerned about everybody. My first job, interestingly, was working on the women, infants, and childrens program, doing research on with, a program that is at risk right now, which provides food and support to low income mothers. Interestingly, i stumbled into it. I am a child, though of civil rights leaders. Great grandchild of preachers and activists, social justice leaders. Think for me, growing up in a household where we were told to speak our truth, my dad is to say freedom is the ability to say no to a lie. Growing up in a household where that was poured into us, that is what formed who i am today, i believe. Is this on . Great. My first job. If you ask me what my first it is a whole different question. Was at chuck e. Cheese. Really the question informs a lot of my frustration ant i developed as undocumented woman pair i worked at a daycare with a lot of undocumented women there for almost a decade sometimes working without documents like me. At the same time, i already graduated from Arizona State university. Job getting paid less the minimum wage in arizona. I couldnta diploma use. It is one of the first experiences that got me angry at wyatt could not use my degree, working in a daycare. It was really hard. It was not what i wanted to do. I am grateful that happened because it pushed me to figure out how to make it that are for me and for other women. [applause] good morning, everyone. Honor to be here among women. I moved out of my house when i was 16 working full time, going to school, i was a punk rocker, had bright orange hair and a shaved head and that was the job i could get. That will not be a job i could live on so i am grateful for that job. First off, i did not know you were a slug. You are . That means we went to uc santa cruz. We are slugs. Banana slugs. Perhaps the greatest most intersectional School Mascot that there is. My first job was being a broad specialist for victorias secret. What it taught me, and i still use it to this day, people are shocked i put it in my bio and it is still on my resume. I tell people that Public Policy and lingerie is the same thing. You have to make people want to put their money out that for something that will not actually impact their lives. It is usually filled with some substance, hot air or oil or something id unidentifiable. You have to make them care about it. This in my daytoday life every day. Good morning. Was itsy first job, i a backup and Substance Abuse awareness. It i was 16 and did not want to work in fast food. I decided i could get an office job to literally right emails and office flyer stearate ironically, it has led me to become an lgbt tobacco Treatment Specialist and Substance Abuse specialist. Only because i did the work and it seems like any job i went to, they said, oh, awesome, get this certification. A specialist without wanting to become one. [laughter] [applause] it is a hard one to top. Like jennifer, i grew up with parents who are civil rights activists. Distinguish work and job. One thing my parents and grandparents before them taught us is that it takes work to be a citizen. Our first job is citizenship. Work astalk about opposed to job, the first work was a bunch of us kids, children itthe activist organizers, was the time of the vietnam war and we formed groups, children against the vietnam war. I think i was seven. Jamieader was congressman raskin, who was eight at the time and we would all meet at his house, all five of us, to have organizing meetings for the for the we would have war in vietnam and he would all on theyou would pull out coffee table and lecture us on in vietnam. The war and another kid named david was heading spit balls at my and i was trying to hide behind the chair. The point was at the end of s, our parents had against the war in vietnam. We were called children against the war and there were six of us at the time. The police were expecting a huge and massive antiwar 500nstration, had about Motorcycle Police officers, and the only people on the sidewalks were our parents, 10 to 12 people. Cheering us on as we marched down saying stop the war, stop the war. Good morning. I am with care the council on islamic relations. I am not sure how to follow that. My first job was folding close folding clothes at mervyns does anyone remember it . Wanted as a kid a food service job, which sounds odd to say out loud especially if you know how hard those jobs are. My parents were not down with they were in pursuit of what they thought was the american dream. They said you cannot work in food service so i worked at mervyns and folded clothes during the holiday season. I was aware of the privilege i had to work through college and do it for extra money and not because i needed to pay my bills. As a product of the California Public education system, i worked all the way through and my favorite job, which informs ,ow i do my work today organizing professors and students to push back against tuition increases, and with the national union, organizing home guards,kers Security Industries not often organized what to recognize that we are more powerful when we Work Together. Stories. All these we could just keep going. I will say i think it allows us to see how your lives are intersectional and we think we as women are monolith but we are not. So in your work that you do why is it important to organize across movement and do you personally think it is an effective way to build power . I will begin. In my daily work, i am focused and the needs and concerns of our neighbors, our brothers and sisters, some of us who do not have enough money on a daily basis. Powers hadtical their way, they would look at it as a class issue, independent of race experience and gender experience. They would ignore the fact that when they talk about diversity, they separate race from gender. At what corporations do, they place greater influence on gender. That allows them to distinguish between race and gender and not to together. Looks like is if i want to meet the quota if you women,et me hire more be women ofhave to color. Let me hire africanamerican men. Let me hire latino men. It leaves out latino women, indian women, grow across the board. If i am fighting poverty, i have to appreciate intersection out and the movement has to coexist at the that the influences are introduced canary, that we cannot say poverty is a race or issue alone. Or class issue alone. I have to fight for the intersection out it. Right now, i am addressing issues of criminal Justice Reform and im a shading increasingly that what we do in america is we do not appreciate that race and poverty and criminal injustice are all intersected. We look at taking on criminal Justice Reform as though it is just an experience tied to perhaps poverty. 80 of people incarcerated are poor. 60 are latino and black. If we address criminal Justice Reform only through looking at what is happening in the Court Systems but not in black or latino communities, and look at how people do not have access to jobs or education, then we miss the mark. That is why we have to focus on intersections all of these rings. The last point, you have to always remember structural powers that be want to keep things keep things segmented. If we are always focusing on class, then we are not appreciating a race undercoat undercurrent. Gender alone, we do not look at how we strip away the economic attention here in we have to keep movements focusing on intersection out in set we remain united. [applause] how many of you paid attention to the 2016 president ial election . Because that is a presentday answer to the question. Haver one, power should represented the 3 million more votes that resulted in the united ok . And the only reason 3 million plus votes did not was because of the electoral college. We had that because slavery. The entire country has a man with his finger on the Nuclear Button who assaults women and who forgets the name of men who who has notield, doubt with the dreamers ability to continue to work and learn in this country, who have told us that police should be a little rough with people when they get put in police cars and maybe not their heads against the door, because we never have resolved the fact that as a country, we have constructed a politics built on race. Race was also builds on class and gender. It was. Cannot fight any of that unless we recognize that we are in it to together and what it fundamentally represents is whether you are a coal miner in kentucky, or a garment worker in womanrk, or simply a taking care of a family at home, fundamentally, what dr. Martin luther king jr. Said remains true, which is that fundamentally we are bound up in it together and we will either rise or fall together and we will take the rest of the world with us. What that means in terms of our organizing is fundamental. See the relationship between police misconduct, criminal justice, education and investment in education, health care, immigration, because all of these has become have become pushbutton issues to divide us. We do not have to let that be the case. If we see the relationship and we can be in the relationship in the way we can be, there is nothing more important than after and a fellow players started taking a need during the National Anthem, a white woman who was going to sing the National Anthem took her knee while she sang it. I think intersection analogy is important because we see the impact of what happens to extremely marginalized people when Public Awareness heightens. When the lgbt movement, a very white movement, started its takeoff, lgbt, potatoes specifically trans people and specifically trans people of color were left behind. The year that gay marriage was legal, there was the highest number of trans women of color has ever been documented. We think about trans women of color and the amount of people murdered simply because of who they are, if you are not doing intersection out a, youre part of the people killing me and us. This is a worldwide phenomenon. In the United States, black trans women are murdered at higher rates. It is not because of anything but if i go to the gas station and i am authentically me, i will get shot and nothing happens to the people that killed me and nothing happens to let itmunity that happen. I am doing work and not allowing people like me to be afraid to walk in the street. Rebecca. Rebecca i heard there are 5000 women here. Is that the latest count . About 4200. If there were 5000 women here. 1250 of you are my people. If you are a cancer survivor, you are a woman with a disability. If you have an eating disorder, you are a woman with a disability. If you have ever gone to therapy in your life, you are a woman with a disability. If you are coming through Substance Abuse and recovery, you are one of hours. Im here to tell you now, the house of representatives is pushing hr 620, which will systematically dismantle title iii so you could not come to this in to this convention because you could not get through the damn door. Over 400 arrests, over 400 disabled activists were arrested , 400, and yet we are continually erased any time they rattle off the list of people who put their lives on the line to save health care. Rico. 00 dead in puerto over 900. That is not even talking about the hundreds of people with disabilities impacted going into all of the people as a result. Those are my people and your people. Me, no one will question my need for a stool. Us, i amone in four of not the only one appear. The privilege of being able to disclose. If we will push back and reserve rights for all of our people, egg knowledge the fact that disabled women are already in your movement. I need to add to what rebecca said. While we are organizing the march, several people work with us on ada. When we were putting together a linda, it erases so many people who cannot stand. Even the intentionality is important when we are putting together narratives and stories that we have to ensure we are bringing other people to the table. Thank you. Do,or me, the work i intersection audi for me is very important because, for me, i am can weking at who lift up as a candidate just because they are female or because they believe we should reproductions to i want to be able to bring in women because they have the right intention through fixing problems in the communities that i come from and a lot of the people i know come from. I was working for the bernie campaign. Want to talk about the politics of 2016 but just to give you a sense of why a started working, for me, before i went to the campaign, i was consulate. The because i wanted to work with children coming from coming from said central america. Literally hadirls to take contraceptive literallyd to take contraceptive pills to cross the border because they knew they would get raped, or because they were ready to be raped. They were mentally ready to be raped as they crossed the border. Many of them, 14yearold girls and already pregnant. No one was talking about it. Like, who is talking about these girls, the children coming from central america. There forsee who is the children. I did not see that in thethey we women. Worke in my work, and the you are doing locally in an elections and electoral work, we need to lift up women who are progressive, who are willing to ,ook at in intersection away because ofaps their race and their class and disability and anything else we etc. Oing through, so yes, that is very important. Thank you. Wo things, thank you, rebecca i am excited to be on panels where i learned something new. As a woman who goes to therapy, i did not know that that counted as being a woman with a disability. It ise right that difficult to disclose or i have been doing it for two years because how does one do this work over and over and be full and beat present, without getting professional help . Is difficult to disclose or i have been doing it for two years because how does one do this work over andso thank you, thanr starting the conversation and supporting those of us who are trying to figure out how to disclose and normalize that this is what we do to get help and be whole. And thethe first thing second thing is really the story. I shared in my introduction i am the daughter of immigrants who came to the United States in pursuit of the american dream. Though we were raised in a faithbased home where we knew that social justice was a part of our being, we did not necessarily connect that to challenging the police or the war on drugs, or to questioning government. And walker,ops texas rangers, and her renders shows that glorified lawenforcement and we did not think the war on drugs had anything to do with us as a family. Fastforward to 2010 and a young man walks into my office and i am a new lawyer at the time and he says i found a gps tracking device on my car and i said that sounds like a television show, what are you talking about . He said we happen to look under it, not something i had ever done, and we found a device that andbigger than the iphone 6 we found a battery pack and we did not know what it was and we took a picture of it and posted it online and other tech geeks online helped us figure out that it is a tracking device. Two days later, the fbi showed up at his door and asked for it back. I kid you not. Would not believe it if we did not have the freedom of information act and documents to prove it and had we not suit them. What i learned as the daughter of immigrants is this was not the first time it had happened. It had happened for decades to black and latino committees. Our lawsuit was not even the first lawsuit. They were existing lawsuits. It took the Supreme Court over 10 years to say to a blackour le first man on the is coast who similarly found a device on his car, that is a violation of your Fourth Amendment right. By the time they decided that, Law Enforcement was no longer using devices that big. They were getting the information directly from the tech companies. For me, this was a turning point recognizing it is one thing to talk about intersection audi but another thing to care about an issue that does not seem like it impacts me at the moment. I would like to say we should all come to the selflessly because it is the correct thing to do but there is also a selfish reason to do it. With do not stop them cousins, friends, copanelists, and neighbors, they will come for us in the same exact way. [applause] being the last person to answer this on the panel, it is an intense experience. I will say a few things that, for me, it is a project if the endeavor is social transformation, as opposed to social reform, intersection audi is actually necessary, that we make a verytatively different and under recognizable World Without doing the work. To me, it feels like a key feature of what is needed for all of us. I want to reflect what was said last night, that as women and people with different identities and experiences and have compounded experiences with oppression are on the table and are architecting the vision for governing in the future. Be Public Policies will entirely different and not leave people behind. They will reflect all of the in ae we are connected to very different way. I will finally say i believe the work of intersection audi is healing and their is a way in are making an ancestral and lineage repair when we do the work of intersectional organizing. I want to say how meaningful it was last night, a group of choose were gathered to bring the sabbath and by the conference, by the convention organizers, we were provided a space to gather and sing and pray. Some observe it by not spending money or observing dietary laws. Organizers had gone to the effort of not only space providing food so people would not have to choose between a observance and practice and participating. It was a concrete demonstration of what it means. That was healing, that was so healing. Many of us, including people who were white, and multiracial choose with 20 of of color, we have felt alone and spent thousands of years of murder and displacement and genocide, we know it is cyclical and it is precisely when it appears the most invisible that we are at the greatest risk and we know that we are right now less at risk than every person on this panel. That our job to be clear we are all in this together and what happened last night was a profound moment of healing, so thank you. As i listen and appreciate and learn, which is critically important, i am also reminded of the fact that if we do not organize across movements, we run the risk of the oppressed becoming the oppressor. A win is achieved for a certain segment of the dutch n to the lets take the black womans response to feminine feminism in the 1960s and 1970s. She believed the black womans experience was not fully represented in the feminist movement. Black women were struggling for survival. They were beginning to see the impact of incarceration, unemployment, on them underemployment, on their families. The feminist movement was focused on sex and independent sex and independence. The right to have your own voice. The concerns of the black woman or not fully represented. Haveok forward and we black women fighting against white women. We do not want that. Take sheryl sandberg. Did anyone read the book lean in cold it is a good book but women have to aspire to be more to get ahead, be more assertive and more aggressive. She has said in commentary about the book that black women do not lean and enough. She does not appreciate that lack women have been found to be more assertive and to be more aggressive. The fact is, they are kept from the table. Up the experience of women as a whole and not understanding nuanced experiences of women of color, and he getsthat termed a gender issue, and maybe some get ahead but others dont. We have to be careful about the oppressed becoming the oppressor. And he gets i love that. I find myself along three cochairs, particularly the women of color, being called fake feminist. Understand is to white radical feminism does not include black feminism. It does not include me. What i have also learned in my studieswhite radical feminism dt as a feminist is that feminists feminism was founded in the late 1800s by a man who was a french philosopher. So the initial iteration of feminism had some patriarchy and so the initial iteration of feminism had some patriarchy and it. The white suffrage movement, though i am extremely grateful for the gains i am able to experience and the privileges i have, it did not include black women. Feminism, was introduced and that is when she, we were able to talk about how we were part of something that we have always been living every single day. When they were sued describing what a feminist was, i was like, that is my mother. I never labeled it. Aboutin, we have to think what it looks like and it segues into my question of, what are challenges of organizing intersectional he . What are the challenges we find ourselves in . When we put together the policy platform of the womens march, everyone wanted to march against trump and that would have been an easy thing to do but we had to march toward something. We brought together 27 to 30 women, trans women, to talk and findingissue intersection audi through a gender lens. And that was accomplished. So we marched for immigrant ,ights, criminal Justice Reform but it is not easy and as we talk about organizing and making are intentional and intersectional, it does not happen overnight. What are challenges you all face trying to be intentional and intersectional . Start witho something rebecca said. Working in an set into an in an intersectional way, it recognizing when we support the fight on specific issues that Impact Communities that we may not always identify ourselves with, we benefit. An example was when people with disabilities fought for the ada, and one in the streets, who benefited . Everyone pushing a stroller, right . People with the walkers. When women fought to become Police Officers and brought sex discrimination cases against Police Departments that had arbitrary requirements on height, short white men got to become cops for the first time. Because one of the challenges with working intersectional he is sometimes livenizing, we do not single issue lives. We dont. Right . At the same time, there are times when we must push on particular issues and that can be difficult for people with limited resources and time. Sometimes people recognize why they should push on a specific not be themight primary issue of the moment. These examples of recognizing everyonet will come to in defending the rights and demanding investment in particular issues in particular time, it is sometimes the most strategic thing to do and it demonstrates exactly what i think jennifer is talking about, not becoming the oppressor as we fight for issues were putting most of our time in. For the Disability Community, it was twopronged. When it came to the plan, the womens march planned, when i saw the Disability Community and sawwhite, four ofi will saw the Disability Community and saw that the original draft was composed by a people, seven of which were not lie, i had to load the to blow the damn thing up and i did it for shits and giggles. Im sorry, 50 of people being killed by cops right now are people with disabilities. Intellectualwith abilitys are raped or assaulted by 18. It is important but will not impact our lives on the ground. Family leave. Meant deconstructing that in our own community and saying this is bullshit. This does not represent who our people are. How do we reframe it and center the voices of women of color with disabilities to ensure it is representative of all of us with Mental Health tip abilities, those with the with eating disorders, chronic conditions, crohns, chronic , those that might not come to the rally but we know you are included in the mix. For us, and i would strongly encourage folks to take a moment and google and looked at completing the vision because theves, movement for black flies, disability is pretty much significantly erased and it. Leaderslack disabled who attack and said let us create a supplement for this, and make sure that experiences as a black disabled woman are not arranged in this document. It is not only looking at our Community Classes issues, but also being willing to come to the table with all of you and have tough conversations saying already in your mix, how can we help you fix this . [applause] already in your mix, how appreciate the point i rebecca is making. One of the challenges we face, assumptions,make that if we have got a certain person in the conversation, we can check the box, oh now we understand all of the issues of a person with disabilities so we do not need to learn anymore and do not need to look further, and dont need to unmask some of the things right in our face. One example im always reminded of, being concerned about issues of criminal Justice Reform and the intersection of poverty and race, is as people move forward and try to make strides in over incarceration in the country, experiences in communities of color, one of the over incarceration in theefforts that has been underwy box. While now is been the when you go to complete an application for employment and there is a little box, have you ever been arrested or convicted of a crime, have you ever had to be imprisoned, there has been an effort in many jurisdictions to get rid of that locks. It feels good, right . What we do not appreciate is if we do not lean in, that lack male who fills out a job application, he cannot account for two years or four years or six years, it is not going to be assumed he is home taking care of mama, it is not because mom is dying and he needed to be there. The assumption will be whether he checked that box or not, he is somewhere else, he is off to college, i. E. He was incarcerated. We have to appreciate if we dont dig deeper and dont playstand how reality into the policies we are seeking to change, reforms, and how people will interpret them, it may be gone but the mindset is still there so we have to challenge that. One thing about the cochairs, into thewho are coming space and saying, i do not see this issue being here talked , your space should be , we are trying to. Et people in power speak up we all have, sometimes we were not completely aware of the things we should be including in our own platforms. Or people putting together a convention, we sometimes do have blind spots. It is important that, you know, we have women willing to be and upfront can say, youre missing my voice or you are missing the voice of my mother or the voice of you know, the people i love. Important is really to do that and not just calling each other out but rather lets figure out how to have conversations and get people to understand we have to have other voices in this kind of gathering even on political platforms, to push social change forward. [applause] it seems obvious on some one ofut it feels to me the fastest ways to address challenges is to be in a relationship with one another and understand that we live in a society that deliberately set us and evenegated though it lives in proximity with one another, we are trained to distrust and be in opposition to one another so systems of power can continue. To proactively reach across the us thefferences gives ability to understand one anothers lives and understand what it is like to be you, me, have less of ae chance to mess it up in the first place. Then when we do, because that is live in a, that we world that is so broken that in the process of repairing it, we will make mistakes, it means we have relationships and the love and care for one another that we can have the conversations that are brave conversations, that we apologize, and then we act different. It only happens if we build relationships intentionally. If we build relationships over time, not just one time at a conference, but years and years of getting to know one another and loving one another. [applause] i would say the challenge with intersection out he can sometimes be that if my people are dying, if it is our lives on the line and it is bad news, bad news, bad news every day, it takes hard work to stop and say we are not the only one, not the only ones suffering, not the only ones impacted, and this is not the only way in which oppression is happening. When im drowning on work on the muslim ban, i have to be intentional about coming up for air and inking, what is going on with daca and health care and antisemitism . That takes intention now the end it takes a transformational relationship. The one that is not just reallytional or no one gives an open and honest answer, it takes hearing from people in the communities that to us and neighboring us and intersecting us about what is going on with them. The way forward even when we not doing fulltime intersectional and havemay be all what iswork on is killing my people is to make willing to except a win for my what is killing my people is to make sure we are not becoming the oppressors. I am not people if it comes on someone elses back. [applause] zahra i am not willing to sacrifice anyone elses liberty from my liberty. If we fight for Immigration Reform without talking about why people are migrating worldwide and what it is about our Foreign Policy the forces them to move, if we are willing [applause] zahra to close some jails and ban the boxif we but do not get bail reform, that we do not get restorative justice, those are not wins. Even when i feel like im drowning and maybe all i have time to work on is one issue, i have to be sure that when i move that issue, that i am moving it and i amor everyone not sacrificing anyone elses rights for the sake of my own. [applause] i think we have to understand our perception of when we work with people. In my line of work as a trans woman of color, im highly educated, highly degreed, and highly credentialed. I say that because i had to do that to navigate the space. People would not just hire me because im a chance present. That is not how it works. It means i tried really hard to know what im talking about and know what im doing. Because i work with people that had historically not worked with trans women of color leaders outside of community organizing, people assume im a client, so the perception of trans women of color usually seen as a client when i go to nonprofit government world, they assume im a client and they look at me as a client rather than a specialist. It directly impacts the power they feel they have over me. I have been given books about how to write logic models, i have a masters in Public Administration and they taught me that. So when i talk to people and their like, let me help you with resources, it is because they assume they assume i do not know anything. When you think about how to work with people and communities, how are you perceiving them . Are you only working with them because they are clients and if you are, then you have a power over them and maybe you do have a power over them and they just allow it, but that impact versus intentionality, like it really does not care what your intent is if it hurts, it hurts. Be mindful of your perception. [applause] all of these challenges are critical and there is one we should name. Trauma. We live in a country that has produced so much trauma across so many communities, whether it is young women who have to be prepared to berate when they cross the border, whether it is seeing a trans woman worrying about whether you will be physically attacked, the person with a disability who shows up at a Job Interview on time in a wheelchair and then got asked, how we you get to work on time, these things are various forms of trauma. I would say people have also suffered trauma and some of the positions they take, which i think a fundamentally against the best interests of the country are also borne of trauma. Unless we start to recognize that it is sometimes very hard to Work Together because of the experiences we all carry, until we start to demand a country that invests in Mental Health and Mental Health services, [applause] is nobecause the reality one has to suffer from trauma. There are treatments. There are treatments available and you have to be wealthy to pay for them. To say it is a challenge to intersectional work and all of our work and it is even a challenge to come country and have the kind of dialogue on facts that will produce a policy outcome we need to invest in a prosperous future for all of us. [laughter] [applause] [applause] i appreciate what you are steepedall of us being in structural racism, sexism, and classism. It is an appreciation that one of the greatest challenges we also experience in we showtional work is up to the table, but we show up bringing our identity alone to the table. We speak from our own perspective and vantage point, which is critically important, but we are not necessarily listening in or trying to really understand the experiences of others. That all works together. The fact of the matter, speaking to your point, is if we dont are not justat we fighting a fight for some rights, but for all rights, if we dont appreciate that what we do is taketrying to do is take down structural and institutional racism, classism, sexism, right, and all of the phobias borne out of it, then we lose sight of the bigger vision and we actually lose the war. We start fighting these little fights and we lose the bigger war. That we have to do is to not only educate ourselves about the issues we work on on a daily basis, but really try to get understanding. Be an expert in our own spaces but try to be the best generalists we can be about the people we are intersecting with and their issues and concerns so we can fight the war together. Before we close the panel out, lets give everyone a round of applause for being so really and and amazing. [applause] carmen some of the takeaways we is we have to be intentional in our organizing, understanding there are times when we invite people to the table that we also may have to give up our seat. There is a lane for everyone to get involved. Lets also be mindful of those who have been oppressed and for us to not become oppressors. Listen, lets lean in, dig deep within ourselves, lets keep our eyes on the prize, on the mission and our vision and liberation, and lets not make assumptions about one another. Lets proactively challenge ourselves in our organization, as well as have brief another. There is so much we can do. Learning is a process. We are going to make mistakes. Lets the mindful while we are seeking our own liberation that we are not hurting others on our journey there. Thank you, everybody. [applause] thank you. End on one note of hope . I want to call this out because it is so important. When black players in the National Football league started taking a knee, one of the things they did was create a list of principles, and on that list they not only talked about police misconduct, they talked about sexism, immigration, internationalism, investing in communities, and that it was an example and a place where we do not as a country typically think about intersectional leadership, and men, we do not think of intersectional leaders come absolutely representing the power and importance of intersection analogy. And it was on that note with regards to men, i think it is beautiful about lack feminism is during the time when that was theyd put together, what recognize, black feminists recognize, is they were fighting alongside their fighters fathers, sons, and husbands. When we are talking about inclusivity, we have to include our men in this conversation. I wanted to highlight that because i know i am i am able to do the work i do because i have an amazing father, an amazing set of brothers, and i have a wonderful boyfriend who is somewhere here named jared jordan. Thank you, everyone. [applause] all right. Thank you. Enjoy todays session. The luncheon honoring maxine here. Begins at 11 45 cspan, cspans cities tour and our visit to Tacoma Washington the, washington. In 1997, the interview with kathryn gave grant katharine graham. At 7 00 eastern, our interview with author john farrell about his biography on richard nixon. Posthe new movie the opening up, we will show you an interview of the late owner of the washington post, catherine graph. Graham. A topic includes the watergate scandal, the pentagon papers, and a journalist strike from 1997. Tonight, events from 2017 featuring celebrities talking about issues they care about. Jennifer garner talked about visiting a young boy and mother with save the children staff. Here is a portion of what you will see tonight. Was stagnant. Boy the coordinator brought something for this child, along with a book bag of books and a long for the mother to fill a never she read to her child. This boy had never seen a ball. Son,ne your children, your with his first ball. This kid looked at that ball and looked at his mom and his mom was putting up with this, and the coordinator said role that ball to your son. She did. She did, she rolled her to it him, and could not believe what was happening. And he rolled it back. The mother sat there, and the coordinator said, he is playing with you. She rolled it to him again. Soon as she was [sound] is that my time . Ok. You guys are worse than the oscars. The baby made a noise. The baby made a noise, and the coordinator said she is talking to you, and she said, he is not, and she said, he is. This is speech, connection. State the things back to him. The mother did, and the childs child said it the said it back. I saw a light switch go on with the little boy that day, and because we visited that mother a week later, that light switch , andurned on long enough there was a connection, and the mother knew she could play with her child, expect a response, and she was encouraged by her child, and that child had a chance to go to kindergarten, ready to learn. A look at celebrities talking about issues they care to back. Cared about. Olympian Michael Phelps on doping in sports, and a supporter of president trump, tonight at 8 00 eastern on cspan. Farrell, and this year we visited 24 cities exploring the history and litter a life. Now we will show you several stops from our visit to tacoma, washington, a city chosen in the 19th century as the western terminus of the Northern Pacific railroad. Nowhe area we are standing is the southern section of puget sound, a great inland water, and when the railroad came, there were stuck about one day being able to span puget sound