Author: Briahnna Brown

The Third Annual Martin Luther King Jr. Lecture tackled overcoming racist ideas and building an anti-racist America.

The first step to being an antiracist is confession and recognition of racist ideas you may have, American University History Professor Ibram X. Kendi said Wednesday at the Third Annual School of Medicine and Health Sciences Martin Luther King Jr. Lecture.

Dr. Kendi said that the next step to being an antiracist is clearly defining and understanding the contrast between racism and antiracism in policies and people.

This can be learned by looking at the totality of Dr. King’s life. In doing this, Dr. Kendi said, it is also necessary to reject the “widely ahistorical” analogy of how far we have come, and how far we have to go, to reach Dr. King’s dream.

Rather, he said, there has been a dual progression of racial progress and racism—antiracism breaking down barriers, and racism rebuilding new and more sophisticated barriers to exclude and exploit people.

“While hailing racial progress over the last five decades, Americans have largely ignored racist progress,” Dr. Kendi said. “If King’s well-known dream symbolizes the glorious and true march of racial progress over the last five decades, the unknown nightmare symbolized the inglorious march of racist progress over the last five decades”

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While discussing her newly released books at GW, the senator from California emphasized her “no false choices” mantra.

There are no false choices for Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), and, as she explained, there are no reasons to be bound by societal limitations.

These are lessons she learned as a child, and she shared these during a Wednesday night discussion co-sponsored by George Washington University and Politics and Prose for her newly-released books, “The Truths We Hold: An American Journey,” and children’s book, “Superheroes Are Everywhere.”

The audience in a packed Lisner Auditorium roared when the senator from Oakland, Calif., appeared on stage, dancing along to 2Pac’s “California Love.”  The conversation was moderated by The Washington Post’s Jonathan Capehart. Ms. Harris dodged questions about a potential 2020 presidential run, noting that she will make a decision soon. Instead, she focused on her upbringing and how that framed her political stances.

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The senator from Vermont talked about his new book and what the Democratic Party must do to advance a progressive agenda.

Even though his 2016 run for the Democratic presidential nomination ended in a loss to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the campaign Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) launched what he calls a political revolution.

According to Mr. Sanders, the issues brought to the forefront of political debates—such as free public college, Medicare for all, $15 federal minimum wage, affordable housing, immigration reform, criminal justice reform and gun safety legislation— were the same causes he fought for when he campaigned and continues to fight for today.      

Lisner Auditorium was packed on Tuesday night for the discussion. The event, co-sponsored by George Washington University and Politics and Prose, signified the official release of Mr. Sanders’ book, “Where We Go from Here: Two Years in the Resistance.”

The book picks up immediately after the 2016 primary election when he met with Ms. Clinton to discuss next steps. Then, they devised a plan to bring their campaigns together and developed “the most progressive platform in the history of American politics,” he said, which they hoped would bring people together and help her win the election.

On election night, he said, he thought it was likely she would win but wouldn’t have been surprised if Donald Trump won. Mr. Sanders followed his normal election-night routine: watching election returns at his Vermont home with family and friends. He would speak to people and the media after election results came in, but on that night, he said, he was too depressed to leave the house.

“It was clear to me, if not all my supporters, that on her worst day, she would have been a much better president than Trump,” Mr. Sanders said of Ms. Clinton.

“I was asking, I think, the question that millions of Americans were asking,” he added. “How could Secretary Clinton have lost to a man who was a pathological liar, who was a sexist, a racist, a xenophobe, a homophobe and a religious bigot?”

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CBS News Senior Producer Chloe Arensberg and Political Director Caitlin Conant talked about combating the fake news narrative during a Women’s Leadership Program panel.

To present the news objectively, it is all about how you frame the story, Caitlin Conant and Chloe Arensberg of CBS News told a group of first-year students Thursday night at a Women’s Leadership Program event.

Remaining objective is an ongoing conversation in the newsroom, and as producers, Ms. Conant said, they work behind the scenes and make decisions every day to deliver the news to their audience as fairly as they can. For them, it is not about interviewing a Democrat after every Republican in every political story, but rather ensuring that the news anchors ask the right questions in a fair and balanced way.

“What questions do you ask, are you holding them accountable, are you making sure that you’re at least acknowledging their point of view,” Ms. Conant said.

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Nicaraguan-born writer and activist Prisca Dorcas Mojica Rodriguez gave an unapologetic keynote address for the Latinx Heritage Celebration.

Prisca Dorcas, founder of online activism platform Latina Rebels, has not always been a “woke brown girl.”

During her keynote address for the 2018 Latinx Heritage Celebration on Monday night, Ms. Dorcas told the George Washington University students in Dorothy Betts Marvin Theatre that her journey involved unlearning much of the self-hatred she grew up with. She became radicalized after experiencing racism as a graduate student in Nashville, Tenn., a culture shock from her upbringing in Miami where she was surrounded by Latinx people like her.

She read some of her written pieces that dealt with her learning from these experiences, many of which were published in the Huffington Post Latino Voices, including a piece she wrote to herself called Reminders.

“Some days whiteness will make you forget that you are beautiful, and you’re capable of anything, because of the barrio that you come from and the clothes that you wear,” she read.

“Some days whiteness will make you forget that you are smart and that you deserve to be in these institutions, because you might stutter when you have to speak English in front of a room of people whose English is their first language.”

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