so my name is lori poloni-staudinger. i'm the dean of the college of social behavioral sciences here, the beautiful university of arizona. and we're happy to be hosting event. and i was honored to moderate this panel. i'd like to introduce our panelists and then we'll get right questions. maybe you can wave hand as i introduce you. fpn olivarez is the author of my bible die of sorrow, a memoir of immigration from the lines, published by hatchet books in 2022. he's the deputy director of the

immigrant justice project at the southern poverty law center. he was the lead lawyer, and his success, a landmark petition to the interim commission on human rights on behalf of families separated under the zero tolerance policy. he previously directed the and economic justice program at texas civil rights project and his writings on immigration law and policy have appeared. the new york times, usa today and newsweek. he's also testified before congress about immigration and border policies as part of his work representing, separated families was featured in. the 2019 cbs news documentary the faces of family separation. and he just found out recently that his book was selected as a finalist for the texas literary for nonfiction.

olivares was the first member of his family to attend college. he is a graduate of the university of pennsylvania and yale law school. next to him. we have told you already, but he's the white house bureau chief for the washington post and coauthor of his is george floyd one man's life and the struggle for racial justice, published by penguin house in 2022. previous to the post, tolliver spent five years at bloomberg news, where he reported on politics and policy from washington and florida he has reported from five continents and more than 20 countries. as part of the presidential press corps. he started his career at miami herald, where he covered estate, natural disasters and crime, sometimes all at once once, holding a b.a. and m.a. in sociology from stanford taylor has been honored as a national book awards finalist. receive the george polk award for justice reporting and is a

peabody award winner. and then we have steve phillips is a national political leader, bestselling author and columnist. he is the author, the new york times bestseller brown is the new white house demographic revolution has created a american majority in his current book how to win the civil securing a multiracial democracy and ending white supremacy for good was published in 2022 by the new press. steve is columnist for the guardian in the nation and an opinion contributor to the new york times. he is the host of democracy in color with steve phillips, a color conscious polit pod on politics. he is the founder democracy in color, a political organization dedicated to race, politics and the progressive new american majority is a graduate of

stanford university and the university of california college of law, san francisco, and practiced civil rights and employment law for many years. please welcome steve. so i told you my first question is to you. you write in your book and i'm quoting how the murder of george floyd sparked a movement where we saw white suburban moms march in the streets along poor black boys to demand that their country treat them. why do you think mr. floyd's death sparked this sort of when countless others had killed by the police before him? and has this same passion persist since then. and in an answering this if you can speak a little bit to the of george floyd's death. thank you for this question and thank you to this entire crowd for coming here. my coauthor and i have been really gratified to see many people are still interested in these subjects and still willing

to have these conversations, even though we've seen backlash to this kind of discussion of backlash, these kinds of books. so i really appreciative of of your attendance and so to the question why did george floyd's death three years ago spark the kind of reaction that it did? i think there are a number of different factors. if you were to rewind the clock back to may of 2020, we were in the middle of, a pandemic that was scary for a lot of people. and people were stuck at home. people were not allowed to have the normal diversions that we normally have in life concert arts and sports games and, you know, the kinds of gatherings that we normally have. and so when the video of george floyd's death ended up running on news news feeds, we had to sit and pay attention and watch and it wasn't sort one of these grainy videos where there's a shot that happens in a split second. and you kind of question whether not the decision was the right decision, whether the officer might have feared for his life. this was nine and a half minutes

of someone dying on camera, screaming for life, pleading for mercy, crying for his mother. and so there's something universally about the way he died, the way he was murdered that struck a chord with people across all kinds of different backgrounds, across the political spectrum and i think that's one of the reasons why his death created the kind of movement we saw afterward that was unlike some of the other movements that we've seen where it's very easy. use this disinformation to court to make people this disunited over whether or not the officer was in the right, whether or not the person who died deserve to be killed and whatnot. george floyd's death heinous in way that struck a chord with from a number of different backgrounds. and so that's one of the reasons i wrote that sentence that way and that, you know, whites, moms and, you know, black boys felt the same way after they saw george floyd die. and they felt the need march to make the country different and

the fact that we were in a pandemic at the time, i think everyone's attention in a way that it's to do when you're not in the middle of trying national tragedy like the covid 19 pandemic was. and so looking back three years later has that passion. i think it's hard to argue that it has not. have seen not only a number of the things that people were calling for after george floyd died come to pass a of the federal legislation that was called for ended up just sort of dying in washington, d.c., as things do when they get caught up in, you know the back and forth of our political system. but that's not to say there has been no change. and i think the fact that people are willing to have these discussions to an event like this is a sign that we're in a different place than we were on may 24th, 2020, before george floyd killed. i think people are willing to engage with books like these, are willing to have some of these discussions, maybe were

difficult to have in past even in the in the of backlash in the face of pushback from a number of people who don't want these conversations to be happening. so it's constant battle to try move the country on the issue of race is such a daunting issue for so many people. but i think we have to look at it as a glass full. and the fact that we are still these conversations and we are still having people who are willing to have conversations. and for all the people who are disillusioned or don't want be involved in these kinds of discussions. i think it's important, those of us who are open minded to just continue to push and, continue to be open and continue to fight for that of enlightenment among people. the first step in getting people to change minds is for them to open their minds and for them to understand the life of someone like george floyd and how we as, a country, owe it to.

the young boys who are still to make their mistakes and yet to make their decisions and yet to be become about the american dream, to have a shot and have a chance. and so i hope that a book like the book that i wrote and a lot of the other books that were written after george floyd died will give us an opportunity to some of those issues. thank you. steve. the next question for, you and i want to read a sentence from introduction of your book that states if we first recognize that we are in a war and then learn the lessons, follow the lead of those who have shown they know how to prevail. we definitely win the civil war, secure a multiracial democracy and end white supremacy for. good. can you explain a little bit what you mean by this and why you chose the militarized analogy in describing your book? yes. thank you. and i also think the all of the

organizers of the festival and of this panel in particular, as well as the opportunity to share the stage with my co panelists, who's actually of those books are synergistic with the message that trying to make in this country. and interestingly as i start my book picking up from the end of the civil war and then to talk about george floyd's great great grandfather, what his life was like as an illustration of what black people faced after the civil war and then have a whole chapter on texas and putting into context and its significance historically and for the future of this country and i think that that also, you know, that was drawn out as well. so by argument that i try to lay out in the book is that the civil war never ended. and i that out as a theoretical framework and as a metaphor for understanding this current in politics. a publisher. the new press came to me in april of 2020 about writing

another book and said, let's look at civil war as a metaphor. this current moment. and then in january, after that people carrying the confederate flag, wearing sweatshirts, saying maga civil war. january six, 2021, stormed the united states capitol to stop the democratic peaceful transfer of power. and then, as i began to get more into doing the research and understanding the the actual history of country, the civil war itself began when. the candidate, backed by most black people and the losing candidates to accept the elect. the election outcome in 1860 and then succeeded the union. that's how this civil war actually began in. that we talk a lot about lincoln in this country and hold him up as an example of of a great. you know lincoln was probably among the presidency but we don't understand and didn't understand for writing this book exactly when and exactly why

lincoln assassinated. so the civil the surrender the supposed surrender of the civil war happened april. 1865, couple of days. lincoln gives a speech from white house where he makes, you know, not hearted, but, you know, not radical statements about black suffrage. and then john wilkes booth is at that speech turns to his friend and says that means n-word, citizenship, the last speech he'll ever give. and then wilkes booth, then goes into ford theater a couple of days later and shoots lincoln in the back of the head, five days after the surrender, it appears that. and so not surrendering. and so what i try to draw is a through around how there's what i call a consistent confederate battle plan ever. 1865 that has these multiple elements that part of it is ruthlessly rewriting the rules silently terrorism and that is

what is is you know you know you lift up in terms of george floyd's great great grandfather built wealth and then had it taken through white domestic terrorism and then his family was plunged into the struggle that a lot of black people are. so what i try to illustrate in the book is that that we are still engaged in that fight, which is truly an existential battle in this country. and is going to be a multiracial democracy? or is it going to be a white nationalist nation? and that continues to this. and that's the subtext sometimes not so sad, but all these attacks on crt through all the attacks on immigration. right. there is no more question. the very first immigration law passed this country in 1796 is to be a u.s. citizen, have to be a free white person. and we've been fighting that issue. and so what i also try to always that we talk about, you know, mexico and texas and the not texas most the southwest, this country used to be part of mexico until the u.s. went to

war because they wanted to be able to perpetuate slavery. so that battle continues to rage. and then i try to lift up in the second half of the book and all these examples, case studies of places which have made change, not least of which is arizona. and so when arizonans fought against the anti-immigrant, anti-immigrant law, sb 1070, in 2010, it produced a whole generation of activists who have done this work over a decade to register people of color, bring them the electorate changed the composition hundreds of of latinos have become voters over the past decade and that what propelled biden to win this. that is what propelled mark kelly to the senate, which transformed the whole united senate. so that's the kind of the essential essence of the message. and so i'm putting forward i'm not advocating a militaristic framework. i'm just pointing out that we had a civil war in this country where the equivalent of 7 million people were killed.

americans against americans. and that the people who waged that fight and their ideological, in some cases, genealogical heirs are continuing that fight. and so i'm just trying to clarify for us and also to disabuse many us who want this to be a multiracial democracy about the nature of this struggle and that we are not engaged, well-meaning people who all subscribe to the same social contract. and that's what we saw january six or as an effort to destroy the will of the people. the democratically determined will in order to preserve white nationalism. and that is the essence of the struggle. and that's why i'm trying to make it very in my book. to ephron. the title of your book is my daughter, my boy will die sorrow. and it stems from a very exchange that you recall in writing the book.

can you this by perhaps reading us a passage that where that phrase comes forward? thank you, laurie. and thank you to the organizer of the festival for having me here. it's my pleasure to share the stage with stephen and tolu on this very topic that steve was saying permeates not immigration law, but every aspect. our legal system, the criminal legal system, our institutions. in may of 2018, i found myself at a courthouse in, mcallen, texas, where i had been there many times before. but that particular day and in that particular courtroom, i saw over hundred men and women of all ages handcuffed, shackled packed into benches, are typically reserved for the public and who are about to prosecuted for the misdemeanor charge of having crossed the border without authorization. it's a misdemeanor offense that carries the same penalty as running a stop at the pentagon.

and yet those who had been traveling a child had been from that child and did not know where the child was, who was caring for them, when they might see them again. and i was there to interview parent and one of those very first interview issues, which is the opening chapter of book, is what ended up giving the title to the book. and i can answer the question by reading a very brief excerpt excerpt. i was to leonel, who was also guatemala. he was less a year younger than me and wore a plaid short sleeved shirt white with, dark and light blue lines and cowboy buttons that kind of snapped together. he must have been no than five feet, seven inches in broken spanish. he explained that he had come his 11 year old son, daniel, like viviana and sandro, another they were traveling alone and they were inseparable. he and daniel were both first

time crossers. they had no family in the united states. they were hoping to apply for asylum due to the persecution had faced in their indigenous village. i got all the critical from leonel, but i couldn't believe that the agents had not given him. an information about his son, where he was being taken, or who would care him. surely the must have told him something about the process and about what to expect. i thought, what do you think would happen? i asked leonel if are deported and your son doesn't go with you if he stays here. he looked down as if thinking about it, and when he looked up, he shook his head. his look was one of resignation. nope. was meaningless. and one of the tricks to sell. my boy will die of sorrow. for a second. my eyes didn't leave his. i struggled to write down what he was telling me. i burst my lips and looked down, swallowed hard and couldn't find words to.

that. that passage obviously gave the title to the book and it's been very meaningful me that it's not my voice it's the voice of one of the impacted families is that is the title of the book and it was not uncommon to hear during that the summer of 2018 and even today from you know opponents of that policy from opponents of anti-armor on public policy to say this is not who we are as a country. this is not america, this is not the true america. so i started writing the book. i let's take a look at the history. how immigrant families been treated in. the u.s., particularly families who have who were deemed to be white because, who is deemed to be white, has changed over the course of history in the and i was frankly surprised i didn't

it was going to be that bad from 1790. you know for the first hundred or so years of the u.s. there was no federal immigration law, no restriction. and the restriction was the chinese exclusion. to this day, the only federal law that explicitly a nationality and in its title and explicitly designated to exclude the chinese for the same arguments that we hear today. they're bringing in disease. they're going to take our jobs. they're going to bring crime. it's the same arguments time and again and every time there has been an of nonwhite immigrants, we see the backlash in the early 1900s, irish and italian jewish refugees who at the time were not deemed to be white, led to the backlash. and in 1924, you have the national origins which had quotas limiting by country, who could come to this country, and over 85% of those quotas were

reserved to northern european countries, predominantly white countries. and time and again, you see that backlash. world war two, japanese-americans, immigrants and you as citizens alike, sent to internment camps and separated from their children. and, you know, i share that not to criticize united states or to chastise history, but i think it's also important not to sanitize it and romanticize it. the immigration laws in particular, time and again have motivated by a desire to keep this country a country. equating america with the whiteness and the people who have that vision have been able to make it into law. it has been a fringe position, an outlying position has been the mainstream that has driven our immigration laws and in the last seven years. the gloves and the pretense have come off and you hear replacement theory every night on prime time. and that's the battle that we a

vision like steve was described of a multiracial democracy, multiyear, pluralistic society or, a vision of united states for white people. i think you. so all three of these books are, as you can probably tell from what the authors have talked about so far are to varying extents deeply personal. so i'm wondering if you could expand bit more on the motivation behind writing your books and how you all mentally dealt with the emotional toll of telling stories that were intertwined with your your own experiences and? totally. why don't we start with you? sure. that's that's a great question. and i wrote this with another author who happened at the time to be reporter at the washington post and. as journalists, a lot of times we don't get into the idea of our own emotions, our own

feelings or a thought to separate ourselves and not sort of think about the things that we're writing about as personal or as things in which we have a personal stake. but the death of george floyd sort of blew up that construct and made it very difficult to work outside your own personal body and say, i'm just going to cover this as a news reporter, actually. when george floyd killed, i did not want to be part of the coverage plans to cover things in the past i had covered previous protests. i was in ferguson and i sort of knew was a choreography to how these things work and i somewhat selfishly in the middle of a pandemic and with all the other things going on in my own personal life did not want to be part of that traumatic experience of sort of the choreography of seeing the conflagrations that happened after. someone is killed on camera and as a country go through these things and then not much changes. and so i wanted to sort of remove myself from that and do other things but think once we

did start to see the country respond in a different way and those initial weeks it was clear that there was more responsibility that we had than to just do go through the motions of telling the story of what happened in the moment. there's a sort of a traditional thing that happens after someone is killed on camera and becomes a hashtag. and in newsrooms you sort of write a profile of their life. it's usually not a very great profile. you don't have a lot of time to talk to a lot of people, but you've, you know, pieced together the stitches of their life and presented in the newspaper and move on and, you know, some of our editors said we wanted to do something different in the aftermath of george floyd's death. we wanted to dig deep. we wanted to make ourselves a little bit uncomfortable and explore how racism operated in george floyd's. and for me, that was an emotional process because i had to deal with some of my own and my own experiences in and relate

to some of george floyd's experiences the similarities and differences and it became more about writing about his gruesome death and about the video of his death, which at the time, i had not watched at all. i didn't watch it until it came to the time to write this book and write that scene. and so that was one of the things that steeled me as we were going through this process, is realizing that it wasn't just going to be the process of putting forward a of some sort of someone who died, allowing the process to move forward, allowing people to grieve publicly and protest in march. and then nothing changes. wanted to dig much deeper. tell the story of george floyd's life, not just his death in the aftermath of his death, but actually how he lived as a person. so even as it was an emotional process to deal with some of the demons of systemic racism in america, it was also illuminating for me personally to learn about some of things that george floyd experienced

up, some of the injustices in the country that took place away from the cameras behind behind the scenes when no was looking, when no one was paying attention, when no one news reporters were watching, when the school systems were students in houston, texas, and underfunding the students where the black students went and when the housing system doing much the same thing in public housing systems in houston third ward. and when the medical system having the same impact and so as i was sort of educating myself on a lot these things and realizing that there's value in them into a book, it made it easier to deal with some of the traumas of knowing that some of those very same systems are also arrayed against people who look like me. i that it's a small part of what can do as someone with a pen or someone who doesn't have a subpoena power or who doesn't have the power to, you know, put in jail or call people in front of a court room, ask them why they're doing what they're doing. i do have a pen in the power to

educate people. and so that made it easier to deal with the fact, yes, there are a lot of injustices that are out there. but by educating ourselves and starting with myself educating myself about some of these things it made the hardship of understanding some of these easier and it made it easier to with the some of the dark places that we had to go in writing this book. and i'll just say one other thing is that. while there's a lot of, you know, hardship covered in the book because, you know, george floyd had a hard life, also a lot of light moments and. there's a lot of understanding that he was a regular he was a regular american. he was someone who had ups and downs, who had days, who had light days, who, you know, experienced the ups and downs of growing up in america like else had. he took his fair share of lumps and he had his own mistakes. and we cover all of that in the book. but was important to not make this just exercise in pain, just an exercise in to write his as a

full person. and that made it easier us as authors to to deal with some of the harder of the book because we realized he was a full person, someone who had ups and downs and enjoys as well as the sorrows that ultimately ended in his death and that was one way we were able to deal with that. thank you. steve. i thought that i was an elder on panel, but now i know that tolu writes with a pen still so it's i would say i think there's 2a2 part answer to that question. i'm i was an african-american studies major in college and i've been an activist around you know, political social change racial justice whole life and that i've felt very connected to those who have gone before

historically and always felt a very profound sense of responsibility to carry that struggle and to honor those have waged that struggle. and so the my book basically divided into two parts. and the first part is the the unending effort to continue the civil war since 1865. and the second part are the examples and the case studies of how we have actually won and made progress and so on. in the first part, i really wanted to honor and dignify and memorialize who have waged the fight and who have gone and have gone forward. i mean, one point debate, how much the how best to illustrate the sheer of people who have been lynched within this country. those debates, i actually, i guess, run a few pages of the names of people to able to convey that and so that whole sense of historical responsibility and obligation and connection was very much

fueled trying to tell their stories as clearly and powerfully as so. that was one big part of it. also, as you know, writer as a english major, somebody who was influenced by a lot of, you know, great writers over the years to and then writing my book during the pandemic, i have all these books from my, you know, college and subsequently literally behind me. and i felt this real sense of obligation to try live up to that standard in terms of really try to write something actually, june jordan was, one of my favorite writers and i was trying to find a from her and i came across, i got on this book so she had this letter. she has this essay called notes from a barnard dropout. and so my and she wrote it in like 1980 89 something like that and my niece is at barnard and i got a copy the book and i sent it to her at barnard and i just it gave me this pause and this realization around, you know,

you're also really are we in big enough platforms, enough people looking at our stuff. and she wrote for the progressive, which is not a huge, you know, piece but i was like, well, if you do good work, maybe 30 years from now, somebody will take your essay and send it to their knees, right? so i kind of had that kind of a connection. and the other piece, frankly, is i wrote this. this gets to the second telling these stories in the second part. so i wrote the i mean, obviously during pandemic, but also in terms of the you know really the last years of my wife's battle with cancer. and so i, you know, we knew the time was short and so really trying to be mindful of creating something which would be like my dedication is to trying to make it a legacy both in terms of the the quality. she always impressed upon me in the point telling stories and that being critical, something being readable and so i try to infuse the book through thoreau from start to finish of lots of

stories, but also to lift up the subsequent, the legacy and the impact of the work, right? so my wife, a philanthropist and she was the first national donor to stacey abrams in 2012. and that then to see that throughline from that work, what's see this as he came to us and says know there are million a half unregistered voters in georgia i'm going to go register them to vote and did that work over the course of decade that led to then flipping the united states senate to led to literal successor to martin luther king being elected the united states senate. so that was a very obviously manifestation around and i didn't even really fully realized it was then that a lot of the work that she invested in that she and i had done the the work texas that alliance san diego we talked there and she was the first donor to that organization trying to honor and tell that as well particularly at a moment when we see it all coming to pass that. the, you know, believe me, in

2012, 2014, people did not believe in georgia. and so to see that that moved to the point where it took center stage and so fundamental really trying to document and make that case and that people would often tell, you know, people of, you know color particularly, those are some politics like, well, we have to win. so that has to take a back seat. and i was like, wait a minute, we're right. we won in arizona, we won in georgia, we won in harris county, texas. we won in san diego. the world needs to know about this. and so that was a lot of the personal drive and motivation to tell those stories and. in in 2018, when i was working with the immigrant families trying to find their own children, my was 15 months old and the contrast of being able to go home and talk into bed

every night comfort him. he was crying and then hear from the families the next morning in court was was very painful that summer one particular day my wife carla took him to first day of daycare and. less than an hour later, she got a phone call from the daycare that she should come and pick him up because he wouldn't stop crying and that and she did and that felt like such a painful privilege blessing you know to be able to do that when the parents i was representing were telling me that they had no idea where their daughter or son was. but the other piece that did not connected the time and it took me many months, is that i myself could have been one of those children. when i was nine years old living in mexico my father left for the u.s., moved to texas in search

of work while my mother and my siblings i stayed in mexico and for the following four years we saw my father occasionally when he was able to visit for the and i never thought of that at the time nine 1011 years old as as a family as something traumatic when you're that age life what it is right that's kind of your life. it's normal. my my friend's parents would go to work and come home at five or six in the evening. my dad just came back three weeks, four weeks later. and i didn't think much of it until many, many months after after that 2018 summer when giving presentation to first generation college students about the work where started to make the connections. i was like, well, yeah, i guess i was apart from my father, i guess he wasn't there every day in our lives and i suppose that was hard in retrospect and starting to put it to put two and two together and how that experience impacted who become as an advocate, as an immigrant,

embracing that what it did for my mother. we hear a lot about those who make the dangerous journey to the u.s. and all their sacrifices. but we don't hear that much about those who stay behind and their sacrifices. and it's especially the mothers who stay behind. so it has also let and in writing the book, i increasingly appreciative of the role that separate nation has and the immigrant identity team by definition migrating necessitates separation you separate yourself from your from your country, from your home. and it almost always also entails separating from someone, a family member, typically a close to one. and i've had many come to me after reading the book, you know, i never thought of my own experience. but yeah, i guess i was supposed to not see my mom for a couple of weeks and that turned into two years for x or y reason.

colleagues at work who have had similar experiences so. my book flips back forth between the 2018 crisis and my own childhood experiences. so the chapters are braided. they go back and forth until the two stories emerge. the story of the so to speak, and the story of the immigrant. then the immigrant advocate. and it has been it's difficult to do this work as an immigrant. you have literally skin the game. it's not a policy among pundits. it's my life. and when one policy is personal, you look at it differently. the stakes higher. and it's not just a theoretical conversation. i think we probably have time for one more question and then we'll turn it over to the audience so at this country's is one that's intimately entwined with racism and you all in your

own ways make the that we can't understand what we've seen today or seen recently. january 6th, george floyd's murder, the separation of children and parents without understanding the historical legacy of whiteness and given this what do you make of the movement florida about banning teaching ethnic studies or changing ap african-american history or the university of texas system being told to halt dti diversity, equity and inclusion policy on campuses? in the face of this, how do we to systemic change and civil i'll have you go first. well start with none of this is new in that most significantly profoundly is the story of the civil war itself. right. and so, you know, as saying the most bloody significant battle within this country's borders, within our history, we've quite

unapologetically and explicitly about that this should be a white nation where white people are to buy and sell black people. and then you have well, first we'll play those called the clansman, then turned into the movie called birth of the nation. and then you had a writer, margaret, who was very influenced by that, loved that play. and wren wrote gone with the wind, which has become the, i believe, still most successful ever, you know, inflation basis, which transform armed the civil war from what it was into this romantic tale of, you know, dashing, leading and charming leading woman. so that was that was the antithesis out of its day and even of this day where there's a 2017 survey of books that had gone with women still is one of the most popular that in this country we they finally took down this statue the like

multistory high statue to robert e lee in richmond after george floyd's murder that statue went up decades before the lincoln memorial. there was all this resistance to creating a memorial to the man who had actually signed the emancipation proclamation. so that's my friend of my point. this has going on for a very long time, very i talk a lot about the united daughters, the confederacy and the work they have done to, try to police the the classrooms, what it's taught in and preserve these matter, those monuments to white nationalist mass murderers and they try to make the point that there are no monuments to nazis in germany, but we have these fiercely monuments within this country. so i guess that would say that is the is my response in that i don't think we're being bold enough in terms of fighting back around what's happening in texas and in florida. and i'm in the in these other states. and if so, what happens?

so you have texas try to you have florida try to, you know, attack the ap class on african-american. why only just in ap class and african-american history when they've been doing ap classes since the 1955 is a whole other question. but then the responses been, well, you're taking away parent's choice. so desantis is saying, black history doesn't count. it doesn't have merit. and we're responding by saying, well, you're taking away parent's choice. we're responding to say, yes, it does count. and what you are talking about is whitewashing history and elevating white supremacy. so i think we have to take these things on frontally. and that would be my main advice, i guess, in terms these places where these attacks are coming is to go back at them directly. and i actually believe i've to document this in both my book that the majority of people will support the notion of. and that's what we had in 2020, i would argue, had a choice between one candidate, was a proud, unpopular proponent of

white nationalist sam and another candidate who had african american and indian woman of color on his ticket talking and the country chose. and so if we if we preserve that choice starkly, i actually quite confident that we will prevail. but i think there's still too much timidity around those issues up front. although i couldn't agree more and i would just add that there's the among some segment of the society that with the changing times with the younger generation becoming more diverse, that naturally we will just get to a place of more unity in our and i think that and on the one hand, it's that there's more diversity and young people, people on college campuses more willing to have some of these discussions than they might have been ten, 20, 30

years ago. but that kind of complacency is a risk, i think. and we see what happens. you know, there are people in power who made uncomfortable by the fact that these conversations are happening and they to shut those things down. they want to target young people are learning and decide what can be taught in schools in part because they are worried that will start to learn more about the country's history and maybe not have as much a whitewashed opinion of the history of the country. i think it's important. tell the full story to tell the great that are that are part of this history and the great things that america has done as well as to cover in a very honest way, trials and tribulations and struggles different groups have had in this country. and to tell it, tell it all as a journalist, that's my fundamental belief that we're in. we are made better telling stories by telling the full stories, by not hiding things, by not, you know, banning and

banning books and making it seem as if information itself is the enemy. and so i do think that that is a risk that can become complacent, that we can think that, you know, just by allowing the natural of time to pass, that things will change. think, because some of these systems are so entrenched as we found in our book and we did the research, george floyd's family line going back 200 plus years, you a lot of the very same systems harm george floyd's ancestors harmed him when he came of. and so a lot of those systems are entrenched in there. they are very tough to move and shift and change and so i would just advocate against this idea that, you know, we can just allow the next to pick up the baton and, take over, because it's incumbent on all of us to to move the needle as much as we can, we hand that baton over and i are hoping that you, by educating ourselves and by putting out some of these stories and by pushing back against these efforts, ban

information and ban books that we may be able to set up the next generation to be able to take on the work, because if we don't, they're there they're going to be up for a very major challenge in trying to fix some of the problems that we're leaving behind behind. during the height of the family separation crisis, i remember being extremely frustrated and disappointed hearing from the parents 12, 15, 20 parents a day who are separated from their children. one city alone and there wasn't enough outrage enough public outrage around it you still had people doing moral acrobatics to defend the policy. you blaming the parents? well, it's the parents fault. they brought the kids and they the border illegally. and i remember thinking at the time, there's got to be an agent who will leak a photograph or a video to show the situation of the children. and that's what will do it. that'll turn the tide and.

it was not a photo or a video it was only an audio. some of you might remember it was an eight minute long audio published by propublica, where you hear children crying nonstop for 8 minutes. it's extremely difficult to listen to crying mommy and daddy for 8 minutes nonstop and that video was that audio excuse. it was leaked on a monday evening and by wednesday at 2 p.m., the president had signed an executive order purporting end the family separation policy. they then fully end. and it's complicated, but the magnitude really changed and that audio was really the turning point when people heard that what the policy sounded like, that was too much. and i'm convinced that the reason that audio was so powerful and led to such outrage to end policy was because you hear those children cry, you don't see the color of their.

and all children cry the same so then people started thinking my children just like that or if you don't have children. i used to cry that and it became much to other them based on the color of their skin. the immigration status, the language they speak and it just made very evident for me the role that, you know, skin color has on how one fares in immigration system and the legal system more broadly in this country. and i also want to be clear that this is not an issue of the path of the chinese exclusion act or the early 1900s, i imagine lot of you have seen the news around the busses that the governor from texas is sending of immigrants to to other parts of the country are the flights that governor desantis had as paid for to send immigrants. but think about who is on those

flights. where are they from? what do they look like? i have not seen a single report of busses, flights of ukrainian asylum. somehow we found the resources that the staff to process thousands of ukrainian asylum seekers, the political will to do so and i'm happy with that that they needed they were fleeing a horrendous situation but so are the haitian asylum coming to our borders. and how do we receive as haitian asylum seekers on horseback and with a whip. so this is very much of today it's a reality of our legal system, immigration system that the darker your skin color the worse you fare in the and to this point about passing the baton a firm believer of passing the baton of perhaps we're not going to over the finish line in my lifetime but we've got to

keep pushing for those behind us keep pushing further and that that arc of history doesn't bend on its own. we've got to bend it towards justice justice. do we have questions from the audience? and if you could wait for them, get the mic towards you so we can pick it up for the broadcast. that would be. great. he's coming around with the mic. this gentleman right over here. i have a question for the panelists. do you see a where we might actually in this country end in a actual out and out internal war do settle what's going on and? what do you think would be the outcome of that if that did occur? i, i can start and i'll be brief because i know there are a lot of questions.

my, my existential hope is that that will never happen. and i have to believe that will never happen just to keep going and to keep doing what i do. but i'm interested. hear what my panelists think. but i, i think that the systems that we have in place have been in place for quite a long time. we've been able to manage without breaking out into war. and it's been horrendous that we the disparities that we do. but i that war is so extreme in such a loser for so many different parties that my hope is that that that we would never to that but it is hard to see how some of these challenges and disparities resolve themselves because are on a tinderbox there there's a lot bubbling underneath surface and so my my my my hope is that that would never be the case but we've some

strange things in this country in the last several so we just have to we be complacent and think that it will never happen. we have to make sure that we are fighting to move things forward and progressing in a positive direction and not towards that level of disunity. yeah. and i would just add that that's why i think it's important to continue to hold front and center the reality of we have had a civil war in this country in that so that it has happened and it was fundamental and think that that in terms of what is possible we've been there. so i just think that that's an important thing to not, you know, push into the past what's actually transpired and that just to reiterate the point is making before around we didn't just start with war. it started with separation, right. i was in virginia, in indiana where, you know, we went to the richmond, virginia library. they have the newspapers and. they were showing us these different paper. and i was like, do you have the and so forth and so to see mundane this with which the

take that to january six, you take that to the former of the united states tweeting out that we should discard the 2020 election and reinstall him. so this succeeding from the social contract and the institutions of democracy is playing itself out right now. so i think should be very sober about that. what gives me hope is that i believe there is and i think that a a multiracial american majority and that if we have a, you know, vote which i really believe it by hard the right wing is trying to stop people from voting because they understand the significance of that. so i think the danger is very, very real. but i think that should be able to that by maximizing democracy and having people participate too. then our elected leaders will be people who don't want to go that direction, who do want to have a multiracial democracy.

i'd i'd hear. okay, i and my name is vivek. thank you very much. coming to tucson and sharing your work with us. i really appreciate it. i think so. i took some notes before i forget. so they look around this room, i see a amount of labor power and i'm guessing some money and. i'm just wondering, we all know the big organizations that do a lot of work are able to advertise, have the resources to out to us all done a lot of research traveled all over the place. i'm wondering like who are the grassroots organizations that you've come across doing the work that's going to intervene in the lives of young black people out there in the of refugees who trying to find a home that they deserve. and whether you could share some of that that with us, i really appreciate steven phillips mentioning yesterday during his other panel, their work up in phenix. also, just a quick observation

that racial justice can connect all of these stories. i believe that reproductive justice can connect these stories with the story of anti-trans legislation that's happening all around the country. and i really hope that we see more panels like this in the next year making those connections. not only do trans deserve to live and thrive, but they're being right now by the gop an effort to consolidate power and voting blue is not enough on its own. it's a thank you for your time, effort can you get us? sure. so in the back, my book, i have a list of organizations doing work on behalf of and asylum seekers at the border from san diego, tijuana, all the way down to brownsville and and here in arizona, the florence florence project represents asylum seekers. when want to make sure to give

them a shout out and. in addition to that there's a website immigration advocates talk and regardless of where you in the united states you can find your state and scroll zoom into your town and find someone to volunteer and support immigrants wherever you live because there immigrants everywhere in the u.s.. you know just quickly the whole second half of my book, i lift up the examples of these five different places and i reference different groups and individuals. so lucio in, arizona, arizona, we're in sort of arizona, texas, future project. texas organizing project, new virginia majority alliance, san diego, you know, the work in. georgia people came away on williams and, stacey abrams have done. so there's a whole array of them. i wanted to throw them out as we may, lifting up those names, but thank you for the question because that's one of the pieces i talk about how we win is we have to find them back. those groups and those leaders.

we have time for one more quick question. this woman over here in the with the mask, in the blue shirt. thank you so much. look at me. that's how i feel in life. i'm a woman of color, the fact that i live with. this is not for effort. i am the doormat of the world. but at the same time i persist. i'm going to persist. where do go? what do i do? because even when you go to work with, people there is systemic discrimination as how i'm supposed to serve, what i'm supposed to do. and the last thing i'll put out. i'm an educator. i did not understand was happening in this country. i was part the school reform

movement in the 1990s. i did not know that that was an effort to privatize education and in education it is so i don't even know where to begin. i want to know where to go, where to get help, because teachers, we are the one profession where we have been commodified and that a teacher i was removed from a classroom because who knows now because they think i did crt, i wouldn't even know where to begin. so what can we do to get teachers good to be noticed in this country no one speak teachers don't speak themselves the unions people who do not represent teachers speak for and i'm just at a loss and want to know where do we get help? because this is a big part of the conversation that's not being addressed. i'll just say really very quickly that i met with randy perez is the new executive director of the arizona

education association. and randy comes out of the movement against sb 1070. he has written book called dignity by fire talking about the whole. he led the charge to recall russell pearce here and now he's trying to turn take that organizing person of color sensibility and his ability into the arizona association and put its resources behind helping people like you be part of their. so i would really commend what randy is trying to do with aca as one place to start telling it. i would just add to that that there's a lot of power in telling story. there's a lot of power in your in your and there's a lot of people who don't you to use your voice they don't you to use your vote. they don't want you to speak out. and so as a journalist, i always encourage people to use the power of their voice, whether it's to someone in the media talking, someone in your local community, speaking up at local city council, you know, it's hard.

it's to say that those things don't matter. but i can speak for someone who works in washington and knows sort of how a lot of these things get done and get change. and it starts often with one person in a room, their voice to speak, their speak, their voice and getting more around them, getting more people organized them. and so i would not discount the power of your own voice, speak out and to let people know happening. because what we're seeing with the book banning and with the suppression of information, the suppression of votes is that people don't want voices to come out they want things to be swept the rug. and so as much as you're willing and able to shout out and speak out with your voice, i think that is a good start to to a lot of the change that a lot of people are fighting against happening at this moment in our country.

professor condon hansen, coeditor of the reed smoot hearings and investigation of a mormon senator and the making of americel