books. meltzer,itehead, brad cory doctorow, and many others. their books have been read by millions across the country and around the world. if you are a reader, plan to join us for in-depth. it's an interactive program the first sunday of every month. you can talk directly to your favorite authors. it all kicks off on january 7 at noon. ignatius, a washington post columnist, joins us. you can watch it live or on-demand at the.org. tv.org.ok >> the organizers of the women's march met up at a convention new york -- detroit. apices -- advocacy

leaders. this is just over an hour. >> there are so many of you. i just took a class on how to publix week but you're the biggest promise spoken front of so i'm glad there are a warm welcome here. i want to thank everyone who has been organizing the women's convention. it was amazing yesterday and it will be amazing today. many have worked tirelessly to make this possible.

mark, i am theie cofounders of the ba rudolph foundation. we work to level the playing field for women pursuing careers in public service and the finances. specifically, we find unpaid internships. we provide mentorships and professional development workshops and networking, ranging from salary negotiation to speaking with confidence. we believe that all people, regardless of gender, ethnicity, economic status, or any other aspect of your identity, you should be looking work in washington dc or any other city. if you want policy to reflect people in impacts, you need people from all backgrounds of the policymaking table. that opportunity to change the , it shouldn'tou

exist only for the people who can afford to work for free. excited toy i am so introduce the moderator of this morning's session, carmen perez. she is a role model and an inspiration to the women we support. .he has done it herself she spent her life working for social justice including fighting is the prison industrial complex. she served as they executive director of gathering for justice. national, one of the cochairs of the women's march on washington. carmen received the justice freedom award at the fci knows martin luther king civil and human rights awards.

top 50ne of fortune's women world leaders and one of times most inferential people. please join me in welcoming to the stage, carmen perez. [applause] >> good morning, everyone. how is everyone doing? are we fired up? are we ready to go? yes. that's what i like to hear. morning, we are going to have an amazing, amazing conversation about intersection audi. before we do that, i want to give some love to some folks.

first of all, i want to give some love back to you for showing up this early. thank you. say, howst want to many of you have gone to the social justice city? yes. that's such an amazing place for was aause, initially, it vision that was implemented by a woman named nikita. i'm excited you have been able to go visit. there's so many things you participated in and i'm glad to say the geo tv team sent out 10,000 texts reminding people to vote next week in key races in virginia, new jersey, michigan, and other states. room 350 all weekend. go visit them, please go there. let's get started here. waiting, ladies?

we are going to bring up jennifer austin jones, who is a ceo. she is part of a policy fighting and advocacy organization. toya who is aand political director for our revolution, future for grassroots and congressional politics. let's give it up for erika. we have the ceo of been the arc -- bend the arc jewish action and unapologetically jewish national organization working for justice, inclusion, and equity in the u.s. yes. we have rebecca, a former obama white house staff and senior fellow for disability policy at the center for american progress. [applause] carmen: we have liliana, a

trans -- latina working to uplift trans women of color's voices. wiley, 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 city's 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 intersectionality is my

existence. i am a mexican-american woman who grew up in southern california in a poor community where there were gangs but i also grew up playing basketball. there are different themes i intersect with. intersectionality allows me to be my whole self. feminismudied chicana at uc santa cruz under leadership, i learned the word intersectionality. that social identities, systems of oppression, and group identities intersect to create a whole that is different from the component identities. so, with all that said, a lot of us, what we were organizing the women's march on washington,

were intentional about being intersectional. with the panel, we will gain -- we can actually begin to incorporate that term and ideology into our work and every day lives. and i also want to say that although there was this visibility to it during the women's march, people have been organizing intersectionally for many, many decades. it is not a new concept. it is not a new term. it is now becoming more visible. we will go ahead and go across the board. and i know that we had it is about, you know, -- and we will have a casual conversation. are you already for this? [cheers] want to start off with, because we have powerhouses on the stage now. i wanted to start off with me

asking all of you, especially because oftentimes, people, and women, especially all of you, effectivewerful, woman and do not think it is achievable. you are often like, ok, that person has organized for 20 years. how can i even get there? so i kind of wanted to start by dispelling the myth that rome was built in one day. and i want to ask all of you, what was your first job? when i was 11-years-old, i had a paper route. how many of you had a paper route. yes. and now i am the executive director of an organization and cofounder. but it really took many years. and along the journey, it allowed me to embrace several identities, ideologies that have supported my ability to become more intentional about my work. we will start with you.

jennifer: good morning, everybody. excited to be here and grateful for the opportunity to have a conversation with all of you and the esteemed panel. i am in antipoverty policy and advocacy leader. i run an 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 children's program, doing research on wic, 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. i and the child and

great-grandchild of preachers and activists, social justice leaders. i think for me, growing up in a household where we were told to speak our truth -- my dad used to say freedom is the ability to say no to a lie. to veto untruth. [applause] 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. it depends. i am undocumented, so if you ask me what my first legal job was, out it is a whole , different question. my first job, without papers, was at chuck e. cheese. me, this question is important to a lot of my frustrations. that i developed as an undocumented woman.

after chuck e. cheese, 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. so i was pretty much stuck at a job getting paid less the minimum wage in arizona. and also with a diploma that i couldn't use. that really is one of the very first experiences that got me very, very angry at why i could not use my degree. working at a day care, i loved those babies, but 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 better for me and for other women. [applause] >> good morning, everyone. it is an incredible honor to be

here among women. dishest job was washing at the mall. i moved out of my house when i was six and and was going to c -- ior old time -- to s moved out of my house when i was and was going to school full-time. 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. [applause] first off, carmen, i did not know you were a slug. carmen: banana slug. >> you are? >> that means we went to uc santa cruz. so we are slugs. banana slugs. carmen: perhaps the greatest, most intersectional school mascot that there is. [laughter]

>> my first job was being a bra specialist for victoria's 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. when i tell people is that public policy and lingerie is the same thing. you have to make people want to put their money out for something that will, in no way, shape, or form will not impact their lives. it is usually filled with some substance, hot air or oil or something else unidentifiable. and you have to make them care about it. -- lobbying and larger a yeah, i use it in my day-to-day life every day. [laughter] [applause] [cheer] lilianna: good morning. my name is lilianna reyes.

i think my first job -- it was a tobacco and substance abuse awareness. i was 16 and did not want to work in fast food. i decided i could get a six hour a week office job to literarily e emails and office flyers. 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, you did this work? awesome, get this certification. so i became a specialist without wanting to become one. [laughter] [applause] maya: that's a hard one to top. i, like jennifer, grew up with

parents who are civil rights activists. so i want to 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. [applause] about work as opposed to paid job, the first work was a bunch of us kids, children of the activist organizers -- it was the time of the vietnam war. we formed a group called children against the vietnam war. i think i was seven. [laughter] the leader of our group was someone you may know, congressman jamie raskin. who i think was eight at the time. and we would all meet at his house, all five of us, to have organizing meetings for the protests we were going to have against the war in vietnam.

jamie would pull out -- literarily in his family room, would pull out the coffee table, stand on it, and lecture us on the evils of the war in vietnam. [laughter] meanwhile, this other kid named david was shooting spit balls at my head, and i was trying to hide behind the chair. the point was, in the end of this, our parents help us get a parade permit to have a march down pennsylvania avenue in front of the white house against the war in vietnam. [applause] [cheers] we were called children against the war. i think there were six of us by this time. we had added one more. and the police, expecting this huge, massive, antiwar demonstration, had about 500 motorcycle police officers. [laughter] and the only people on the

sidewalks were our parents. which meant 10 to 12 people. cheering us on as we marched down saying "stop the war, stop the war." [applause] [cheers] zahra: good morning, everyone. my name is zahra billoo. i am with care the council on american islamic relations. i am not sure how to follow that. my first job was folding clothes at mervyn's. does anyone remember it? i was sad when it closed. when i was a kid, i really wanted 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 that. they were in pursuit of what they thought was the american dream. they said you cannot work in food service. so i worked at mervyn's and folded clothes during the holiday season. i will say i am fortunate and

cognizant of the privilege i had to work through college and do it for extra money, and not because i needed to pay my bills. by the time i got to law school, i had to work pay my bills. as a product of the california public education system, i worked all the way through. in my favorite job, the one that in forms the work i do today, where the times where the faculty, organizing professors and students to push back against tuition increases, and with the service employees national union, organizing home care workers, security guards, industries often not organized but recognized that we are more powerful when we work together. [applause] [cheers] carmen: i love all of these stories. i think we did just keep going. i will say that i think this allows us see how your lives are intersectional. we often think that we, as women, are monolithic.

but we are not. your organizing, and the work you do it every single day, why do you think it is important to organize across movements? and do you personally think that this is an effective way to build power? jennifer: i will begin. in my daily work, i am focused on poverty. the needs and concerns of our neighbors, our brothers and sisters, some of us who do not have enough money on a daily basis. if the political, structural, powers had their way, they would look at it just as a class issue. they would look at it independent of race experience and gender experience. they would ignore the fact that when they talk about diversity, in the main, they separate race from gender. when you look at what corporations do today, they place greater emphasis on

gender. or they distinguish between race and gender and not the two together. what that looks like is if i want to meet the quota, if you will, let me hire more women, they do not have to be women of color. let me hire african-american men. let me hire latino men. then, that leaves out african-american women, latino women, indian women, across the board. if i am fighting poverty, i have to appreciate this intersectionality and the movement has to coexist. that it is not just a race or class or gender issue alone. it has to be looked at together. i have to fight for that intersectionality. right now, i am addressing issues of criminal justice reform. what i am appreciating increasingly in america is that

what we do in america is 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% of people incarcerated are latino and black. if we address criminal justice reform only through let's look at what is happening in the court systems, but not what is happening in black or latino communities, and look at how people do not have access to jobs, do not have access to education, people of color, then we miss the mark. that is why we have to focus on intersection of all of these things. the last point -- you have to always remember structural powers that be want to keep things segmented. if we are over here focusing on class, then we are not reshooting the race undercurrent.

if we focus on gender alone, we are not looking at how we actually strip away the economic potential. we have to keep the movement focused on intersectionality, so while they try to divide us, we remain united. [applause] >> so how many of you paid attention to the 2016 presidential election? [laughter] that is really the fundamental, present-day answer to the question. number one, power should have 3 million moret votes resulted in a different president of the united states, ok? [applause] [cheers] maya: and the only reason 3 million plus votes did not was because of something called the electoral college. and we have the electoral college because we had slavery. so now the entire country has a

man with his finger on the nuclear button who assaults women, who forgets the name of servicemen who die in the field, has not dealt with the dreamer's 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, maybe knock their heads against the door, because we never have resolved the fact that, as a country, we have constructed a politics built on race. and race was also built on class and gender. it was. [applause] and we cannot fight any of that unless we recognize that we are in it to together. and that what it fundamentally represents is whether you are a coal miner in kentucky, or a garment worker in new york, or

simply a woman taking care of a family at home, that fundamentally, what dr. martin luther king jr. said remains true, which is that, fundamentally, we are bound up in it together. and either we are going to rise up together or we will fall together and we will take the rest of the world with us. what that means in terms of our organizing is fundamental. it means that we have to see the relationship between police said,duct, as jennifer criminal justice, education and investment in education, health care, immigration, because all of these have become pushbutton issues to do exactly what jennifer said -- divide us. we do not have to let that be the case. if we actually see the relationship and be in the these fights in the way we can be. there is nothing more important players started

taking a knee during the national anthem, a white woman who was going to sing the national anthem took her knee while she sang it. [applause] [cheers] >> i think intersectionality is important because we see the impact of what happens to extremely marginalized people when public awareness heightens. for instance, when the lgbt movement, a very white movement, started to take off, lgbt, -- specifically trans people and specifically trans people of color -- were left behind. the year and the year after that gay marriage was legal, there was the highest number of trans women of color murdered that has ever been documented. when we think about trans women of color and the amount of people murdered simply because of who they are, if you are not

then intersectionality, you are part of that violence. you're part of the people killing me and us. and this is a worldwide phenomenon. in the united states, black trans women are murdered at significantly higher rates. latina 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 can get shot. and nothing happens to the people that killed me. nothing happens to their community that let it happen. i am doing work and not allowing people like me to be afraid to walk in the street. [applause] [cheers] carmen: rebecca. rebecca: i heard, at latest count there are 5000 women here. , is that the latest count? carmen: about 4200. rebecca: well, if there were 5000 women here. carmen: there are more than 5000

watching. rebecca: 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 ours. and i am here to you right now the house of representatives is pushing hr 620, which will systematically dismantle title iii of the ada, so you could not even come to this convention because you could not get through the damn door. over 400 arrests -- over 400 disabled activists were arrested for all of your health care. 400. [applause] [cheers] 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.

over 900 dead in puerto rico. is the latest news. over 900. that is not even talking about the hundreds of people with disabilities that were impacted going into this storm, and all of those people coming out of the storm will have acquired disabilities as a result. those are my people. those are all of your people. i come into this space with a woman with a physical disability, and that is my privilege. no one will ask me, no one will question my need for a stool. but if it is one in four of us, if you do a quick count of the panel i am not the only one , appear. but i have the privilege of being able to disclose. if we will push back on 620 and preserve the rights for all of our people, you need to acknowledge the fact that disabled women are already in your movement. [applause] [cheers]

>> i need to add to what rebecca said. while we have been organizing the convention and the women's march, we have several people who work with us on ada. and let we were putting together a campaign for our sister linda, and we wrote the #istan dwithlinda, it erases so many people who cannot stand. even the intentionality is important when we are putting together narratives and stories and hashtags, that we have to ensure that we are bringing other people to the table. thank you. [applause] >> thank you. so for me, the work i do, i do work through our revolution. intersectionality and politics is very important. because, for me, i am not looking at who can we lift up as

a candidate just because they are female or because they believe that we should be having, you know, the -- they believe in reproductive justice, etc. for me, i want to lift up women not just because they are women, but because they have the right intention through fixing problems in the communities that icon from. and a lot of the people i know that are usually not paid attention to come from. i was working for the bernie campaign. just to disclose this. [cheers] i do not want to talk about the politics of 2016, but just to give you a sense of why i started working, for me, before i went into the campaign, i was working for the watermelon -- gu atemalan consulate.

but not from guatemala, because i wanted to work with children coming from central america. what was heartbreaking for me was these little girls literally had 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 come already here, were 14-year-old girls and already pregnant. no one was talking about it. for me, i was like, who is talking about these girls? these children coming through central america. i want to see who is there for those children. unfortunately, i did not see that in the women. and in they work, work you are doing locally, in elections and electoral work, we need to lift up women who are progressive, who are willing to look at the world in an

intersectional way, not just reproductive justice. also, women who, perhaps, have problems because of their race or their class or a disability or anything else that we are going through, gender identity etc. ,so for me, that is very important. >> >> thank you. to things. one, thank you, rebecca. i am always excited to be on panels where i learned some new. as a woman who goes to therapy, i did not know that that counted as being a woman with a disability. but you are right. that it is definitely difficult to disclose. it is something i have been doing for two years, because how does one do this work over and over again and continued to show up and be full and be present, be whole, without getting professional help? so thank you.

thank you for starting that 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. that is the first thing. the second thing is really just the story. i shared, in my introduction, that i am the daughter of immigrants who came to the united states in pursuit of the american dream. and though we were raised in a faith-based home, where we knew that social justice was a part of our being, we did not necessarily connect that to challenging the police, challenging the war on drugs, or to questioning government. growing up, we watched we watched "cops" and "walker, texas rangers," and other horrendous shows that glorified law-enforcement and did not think the war on drugs had anything to do with us as a south asian immigrant family.

fast-forward to 2010, and a young arab-american 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 says i took my car in for an oil change, and we happened to look under it -- not something i have ever done -- and we found a device. it was bigger than the iphone 6. we found a battery pack with it. we took it off. we did not know what it was. we took a picture of it and posted it online. and the other tech geeks online helps us figure out, through the serial number on there, it is a tracking device. two days later, the fbi showed up at his door and asked for it back. [laughter] i kid you not. i would not believe it if we did not have the freedom of information act documents to prove it and had we not sued them to learn more. along the way, what i learned as the daughter of immigrants, was

this was not the first time this had happened. it had happened for decades to black and latino committees. -- communities. our lawsuit was not even the first lawsuit. they were existing lawsuits. took the supreme court well over 10 years to say to a black man on the east coast, who had similarly found a device on his car, that is a violation of your fourth amendment rights. and by the time they decided that, law enforcement was no longer using devices that big. they were just getting the information directly from the tech companies. and i share this story, because for me, it was a turning point. in recognizing it is one thing to talk about intersectionality. but it is another thing to care about an issue that does not seem like it impacts me in 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. if we do not stop them when they

come our brothers, sisters, cousins, friends, co-panelists, and neighbors, they will come for us in the same exact way. [applause] [cheers] stosh: being the last person to answer this on the panel is an intense experience. so i will just say a few things that, for me, it is a project if the endeavor is social transformation, as opposed to social reform, than intersectionality is absolutely necessary. that we cannot actually, allocative way, make a very anferent world, unrecognizable world, without doing the work. to me, it feels like a key feature of what is needed for all of us. i also want to reflect what was

said last night. that as women and people with different identities and experiences and who have compounded experiences with oppression are at the table, actually architecting the vision for governing in the future, it will mean our public policies will look and be entirely different and not leave people behind. it will reflect all of us and all of the people we are connected to in a very different way. finally, i will say i believe the work of intersectionality is actually healing. if there is a way in which we are making an ancestral and lineage repair when we do the work of intersectional organizing. [applause] and i want to say how meaningful it was. last night, a group of jews 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. and not only that, because some by notserve shabbat

spending money or observing dietary laws. organizers had gone to the effort of not only space but providing food, so people who wanted to be at this convention would not have to choose between jewish observance and practice and participating. it was a concrete demonstration of what it means. for jews, that was deeply healing. that was so healing. many of us, including people who are white jews, like myself. there it is important to say the jewish community is a multiracial community with 20% of jews and jews of color, we have felt alone. we have experienced thousands of years of murder and displacement and genocide. while now it looks like someone that looks like myself is safe, we know it is cyclical, and it is precisely when it appears the safest and 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. it is our job to be clear that we are all in this together. and what happened last night was a profound moment of healing, so thank you. jennifer: let me add one more point. as i listened, 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. right? where wins are achieved for a certain group. a certain segment of the population. to the detriment of other segments of the population. the you understand what i am saying? let's take feminism. let's take the black woman's response to feminism in the

1960's and 1970's. when alice walker coined the term "womanism." because she believed the black woman's experience was not fully represented in the feminist movement. black women were struggling for survival. they wanted to care for their families. they were beginning to see the impact of incarceration, unemployment, underemployment, on their families. and the feminist movement was focused on sex and independence. right? freedoms. the right to have your own voice. and so the needs, the concerns of the lack community and the -- theblack community and black women were not fully represented. we look forward, and we have black women fighting against white women. we do not want that. take sheryl sandberg. did anyone read the book "lean in"? good book. but she says women just have to aspire to be more to get ahead,

be more assertive, be more aggressive. she has said in commentary about the book that black women do not lean in enough. what she does not appreciate that black women have been found to be more assertive and to be more aggressive. the fact is they are kept from the table. in lifting up the experience of women as a whole and not understanding the nuanced experiences of women of color, she ignores that. and, in turn, it gets termed a gender issue, and maybe some get ahead but others don't. we have to be careful about the oppressed becoming the oppressor. [applause] carmen: i love that. because i will say that in planning the women's march and the women's convention, there

are times where i find myself alongside my other three cochairs, particularly tamika and linda, the women of color, being called fake feminists. what it has me understand is that white radical feminism does not include black feminism. chicana feminism. it does not include me. what i also have learned in my chicanaas achic -- a feminist is that feminism was founded in the late 1800s by a man who was a french philosopher. so the initial iteration of feminism had some patriarchy in it. the white suffrage movement, although i am extremely grateful for the gains that i am able to experience and the privileges i have, but it did not include black women. and then black feminism was

introduced. and that is when chicana feminism were able to talk about something we have been part of every single day. when they were talking about chicana feminism, when they were describing what it was, i was like, that is my mother. i never labeled it. so again, we have to think about what it looks like. if we are intentional and inclusive. that segues into my question of what are challenges of organizing intersectionally? are putting we together the policy platform within the women's march, everyone wanted to march against trump. that would have been the easy thing to do. but we had to actually march toward something. and what we have asked people to do is we brought together about

27 to 30 women, gender nonconforming and trans women, to talk about their issue and finding their intersectionality through a gender lens. and that was accomplished. and so we marched for immigrant ia writes, criminal justice reform, but it is not easy. as we talk about organizing and making sure we are intentional and making sure we are intersectional, it does not happen overnight. so what are some of the challenges you all face in your organizing in trying to be intentional and intersectional? i will start. i want to start with something rebecca said. being intersectional and working in an intersectional also means recognizing that when we support the right on specific issues that impact communities that we may not always identify

ourselves with, we benefit. so one example was when people with disabilities fought for the and won sidewalk cuts in the streets, who benefited? everyone pushing a stroller, right? i mean, every -- elderly 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. so our -- i say that because one of the challenges with working ly, sometimes, is recognizing that, in the words we do not live,

-- audre lorde, we do not live single issue lives. we don't. 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, to recognize why they should push on a specific issue that might not be the primary issue of the moment. and these examples of recognizing the gains that will come to everyone in defending the rights and demanding the investment in particular issues at particular points of time, is sometimes the most strategic thing to do and demonstrates exactly what i also think jennifer is talking about -- not becoming the oppressor as we fight for issues we might he putting most of our time in. [applause] rebecca: i think for the disability community, it was two-pronged.

carmen, i want to go back to what you were talking about, when it came to the plan, the women's march planned, when i first saw the disability draft and saw that the original draft was composed by a people, seven of which were white, four of whom were men, i will not lie, i had to blow the damn thing up, and i did it for shits and giggles. because it said the number one issue for disabled women's was u.n. convention for disabled people. i am sorry -- 50% of people being killed by cops right now are people with disabilities. 80% of women with intellectual disabilities are raped or assaulted by 18. the u.n. convention is important, but it will not impact our lives on the ground. we need fair pay. we need family leave. our issues are fundamentally women's issues. so it meant deconstructing that . in talking to our own community and saying this is bullshit. this does not represent who our people are. how do we rebuild it?

how do we reframe it and center the voices of women of color with disabilities to ensure it is representative of all of our folks. folks with mental health disabilities. with eating disorders, chronic conditions, crohn's, chronic fatigue, those that might not come to the rally but we know you are included in the mix. [cheers] and the challenge for us has been -- and i would strongly encourage folks to take a moment and google the harriet tubman collected and look at completing the vision for black lives, because in the movement for black lives, disability is pretty much significantly erased in it. it was black disabled leaders who went back and said let us create a supplement for this. let me make sure that natasha mckennon's experiences as a black disabled woman are not

ignored in this document. it is not about planning the too damn male and stale. inis saying we are already your mix. how can we help you fix this? [applause] jennifer: i appreciate the point rebecca is making. one of the challenges we face, sometimes we make assumptions, that if we have got a certain person in the conversation, we can check the box. "oh, now we understand all of issues of persons with disabilities, we do not need to learn anymore, we do not need to look further, we don't need to unmask some of the things right in our face." one example i'm always reminded of, being concerned about issues of criminal justice reform and the intersection with poverty and race, is as people move

trying to make strides in tackling over-incarceration in this country, the experience in communities of color, one of the efforts that has been under way for a while now is something called "ban the box." everyone familiar with ban the box? 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? their -- there has been an effort in many jurisdictions to get rid of that box. it feels good, right? what we do not appreciate is if we do not lean in, that black male who fills out a job application that cannot count for two years or four years or six years -- it is not going to the assume that he was taking care of mama because she was sick. it is not because mom is dying, and he needed to be there. the assumption is going to be,

whether he checked that box or not, he was somewhere else. he was "off to college" -- i.e. he was incarcerated. we have to appreciate if we don't dig deeper and don't understand how reality plays into the policies that we are seeking to change, the reforms, and how people will interpret them, the box may be gone, but the mindset is still there. so we have to challenge that. [applause] one of the things that i really appreciate -- erika: one other thing i really cochairs isbout the women who are coming into the space and saying, i do not see this issue being here, talked about. or, you know, your is not about

people that we should be talking about, and their issues. i am just is also -- really trying to get people in power to speak up when they have to. we all have -- sometimes, we are not completely aware of the things we should be including in our own platforms as organizations or politicians or people putting together a convention. sometimes, we do have those blind spots. that is why it is important that , you know, we have women who are willing to, and be really strong and upfront and say "you're missing my voice" or "you are missing the voice of my my mother or the people that i love." for us, it is really important to do that. not just calling each other out but rather let's figure out how to have conversations and get people to understand we have to

-- we have other voices in this kind of gathering, even on political platforms, to push social change forward. [applause] stosh: it seems obvious on some level, but it feels to me one of the fastest ways to address challenges is to actually be in a relationship with one another and understand that we live in a society that deliberately segregates us and even though is we lives in proximity with one another, we are trained to distrust and be in opposition to one another so systems of power can continue. sowed to proactively build -- so to proactively build and reach across the many differences gives us the ability to understand one another's lives and understand what it is like

to be you, me, you, and then, we have less of a chance to mess it up in the first place. but then when we do, because it is inevitable, that we live in a world that is so broken that, in the process of repairing it, we will make mistakes, it means we have the relationships and the trust, and the love and care for one another that we can have the conversations that are brave conversations, that we apologize, and then we actually act different. but that only happens if we build relationships intentionally. and 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]

zahra: i would say the challenge with intersectionality 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. but when i'm drowning on work on the muslim ban, i have to be intentional about coming up for air and thinking, what is going on with daca and health care and anti-semitism? but that takes intersectionality . transformational relationships. the one that is not just transactional and we say "how and no one really gives an open and honest answer, it takes hearing from people in communities next to us and neighboring us and intersecting us about what is going on with

them. the way forward even when we not doing full-time intersectional work, or may be all and have time to work on is what is killing my people is to make sure we are not becoming the oppressors. that i am not willing to accept a win for my people if it comes on someone else's back. [applause] i am not willing to sacrifice anyone else's liberty from my liberty. so if we fight islamophobia without fighting anti-semitism, if we fight for immigration reform without talking about why people are migrating worldwide and what it is about our foreign policy that forces them to move, if we are willing -- [applause] to close some jails and not others, if we ban the box but do not get bail reform, if we ban the box but do not get restorative justice, those are not wins. so even when i feel like i'm drowning and maybe all i have time to work on is one issue, i

have to be sure that when i am moving that issue, i am moving that issue for for everyone, and i am not sacrificing anyone else's rights for the sake of my own. [applause] do you have anything you wanted to say? lilianna: 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, i'm highly educated, highly degreed, and highly credentialed. and i say that, because i had to do that to navigate the space. people would not just hire me because i am a trans person. that is not how it works. because i have all of that, it means i tried really, really try really really hard , to know what i'm talking about and know what i'm doing. but because i work with people that had historically not worked with trans leaders outside of community organizing, people

assume i'm a client, so the perception of trans women of color usually seen as a client when i go to nonprofit worlds, they assume i'm a client . speaking at me as i am as a client rather than speaking as 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. they taught me how to write logic models. when i talk to people and they say let me help you with resources, it is because 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. so be mindful of your perception.

[applause] >> all of these challenges are critical, but there is one we have not named. 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 be raped when they cross the border, whether it is a trans woman worrying about whether you will be physically attacked walking down the street, the person with a disability who shows up at a job interview on time in a wheelchair and then got asked, how will you get to work on time, these things are various forms of trauma. i would say you do not agree on policy issues 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 trauma experiences that we all carry, until we start to demand a country that actually invests in mental health and mental health services -- [applause] maya: because the reality is no one has to suffer from trauma. there are treatments. there are treatments available. and you have to be wealthy to pay for them. and so i just save this to say it is a challenge to intersectional work. it is a challenge to all of our work. and it is even a challenge to come together as a country and have the kind of dialogue on facts that will produce the policy outcomes we need to invest in a prosperous future for all of us. [applause]

jennifer: i appreciate what you are saying, maya, and i will harken back to a comment you made earlier -- all of us being steeped in structural racism, sexism, and classism. it is an appreciation that one of the greatest challenges we also experience in intersectional work is that we show up to the table, but we show up bringing our identity alone to the table. and so we speak from our own perspective and our own vantage point, which is critically important, but we are not necessarily listening in, trying to really understand the experiences of others. and how that all works together. and the fact of the matter, speaking to your point, is if we don't appreciate that we are not just fighting a fight for some rights, we are fighting a fire for all rights -- if we do not appreciate that, what we're really trying 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 then we actually lose the war. so we start fighting these little fights, and we lose the bigger war. the importance -- the work 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 generalist we can be about the people we are intersecting with and their issues and concerns, so we can fight the war together. [applause] and so, before we close this panel out, let's give everyone a round of applause for being so brilliant and intentional and amazing. [applause] [cheers]

carmen: and some of the takeaways that we have for today is we have to be intentional in our organizing, understanding that 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. and also, let's also be mindful of those who have been oppressed and for us to not become oppressors. let's be open, let's listen, let's lean in, let's dig deep within ourselves, right, let's keep our eyes on the prize, on our mission and our vision and liberation, let's not make assumptions about one another. let's proactively challenge ourselves and our organizations,

as well as have brave conversations. build intentional and transformational relationships with one another. and so there is so much that we could do. and so this is a journey. learning is a process. intentionality is a process. we will make mistakes. but let's be mindful that while we speak our own liberation, that we are not hurting others on our journey there. thank you, everybody. [applause] >> can we end on one note of hope? i just 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 of principles, they not only talk about police misconduct, which is critically important, they talked about

sexism, they talked about immigration, they talked about internationalism, investing in communities, and it was an example in a place where, we do not, as a country, typically typically think about intersectional leadership, and men, we do not think of intersectional leaders, absolutely representing the power and importance of intersectionality. [applause] regardsn that note, in to men, what i think is really beautiful about black feminism is during the time when that was being put together, what they recognized, black feminists recognized, is that they were also fighting alongside their fathers, sons, and husbands. when we are talking about inclusivity, we also have to include our men in our conversation. i wanted to highlight that, because i know i am -- i am able to do the work that i do because i have an amazing father,

amazing brothers, and i have a wonderful boyfriend, who is somewhere here, named jared jordan. [laughter] thank you, everyone. [applause] >> all right. thank you. enjoy today's session. >> the sojourner truth lunch honoring congresswoman maxine waters begins at 11:45 here in hall c. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2018] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> coming up, new year's weekend on c-span. new year's day at 10:00 a.m. eastern, a summit on the self driving revolution. at noon, for more clinton administration officials on the legacy of bill clinton. >> he got there every day. he knew the people he wanted to help. through thick and thin, when times were good and times were bad, all he cares about was

could he deliver for the people who needed the government to be on their side? >> watch this new year's weekend on c-span. >> tonight on the "communicators," a look at the internet, broadband expansion, with u.s. telecom president jonathan spalter. can you talk a little about that -- you hear a lot about five g networks, ultrafast, ultradense wireless broadband network. can you talk about how we get to that stage? >> sure. -- in theion will essential ingredient to moving forward with not only extending more broadband to americans but also ensuring global

competitiveness is this wonderful technology called "broadband. committed to are providing the networks to get more broadband connectivity to americans. it takes a lot of work. it takes the right amount of investment and business models. it also takes the right types of smart 21st century forward-looking policy frameworks that can accelerate invest in what is needed to move forward. >> watch "the communicators" tonight on c-span 2. ♪ "q&a,"er: this week on

former chair of the democratic national committee donna brazile discusses her book "hacks." brian: donna brazile, author of the book "hacks." who was lionel? donna: lionel was my dad, born -- he was the 12th child. the baby in a large, catholic family. he was born in new orleans, served his country proud in korea. raised myself and my other eight siblings. i am the third of nine children. he was an amazing man. when i was a little girl growing up in louisiana, my father frightened me because he was so tough, so courageous. everyone in the neighborhood respected him. his nickname was goose. they called him goose because they said he could fly like a goose. he was a basketball player. he played baseball. he was an amazing man, a great father. tough, b a