Last night’s panel shed light on the past and the future of racism and democracy. The panelists and audience began with a tribute to recently deceased Congressman Elijah Cummings.
At the core, panelists allege, U.S. democracy – to the extent that it exists at all – excludes large groups of the population on the basis of race, ethnicity and immigration status and has done so since the nation’s founding, which incorporated dynamics of race and exclusion to allocate power to whites and disenfranchise the rest. White supremacy continues, partly louder than before, through racialized capitalism (Hooks) boosted and amplified by web-based weapons (Daniels).
The brilliant panel, led by Dr. Johnnetta Betsch Cole, president of the National Council of Negro Women, featured Jelani Cobb of The New Yorker, The Graduate Center’s own Jesse Daniels, Mary Hooks, co-director of SONG, a home for LGBTQ liberation across all lines of race, class, abilities, age, culture, gender, and sexuality in the South; and Bitta Mostofi, commissioner of the Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs, New York City.
The panelists emphasized that intersectional work is at the root of reversing white-supremacist barriers to true democracy. Disadvantaged groups and marginalized communities, including immigrants, are all connected and must stand together to fight for their rights to overcome racialized power. In order to overcome deeply engrained dynamics, we need to step outside the confines of white history-as-progress narratives (Cobb) and acknowledge the personal is political (Hooks), be ready to leave our own comforts if won on the backs of other marginalized groups (Mostofi) and ask ourselves every day how to turn our outrage into useful action (Cole).
Evalaurene Jean-Charles, fellow in the Futures Initiative Leadership and Democracy Program, CUNY BA students at John Jay College, and founder of Black on Black Education, was very happy she came. She felt most inspired by Mary Hooks’ activist bent: “You have to stand together as marginalized people and groups to stand up against a government that is based around the idea of white supremacy. Racism is not just a blemish. We have to fight together and not pick groups apart, to say that our humanity is worth it,” she summarized immediately after.
If you missed this important event, please stay tuned for the upcoming video.