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As many of you know, the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art opened in 2007, with
the mission to raise awareness of feminism's cultural contributions and to educate new
generations about the meaning of feminism and feminist art. In addition to being the
home of The Dinner Party by Judy Chicago and ongoing changing exhibitions of feminist art,
the center is a place for presentations, discussions, lectures, and dialogues on feminist activism,
feminist art, and all things current on our social and political landscape. So, with this
in mind, I can think of nothing more important, and more current, than a discussion on the
state of politics and the media, one year after the historic election and inauguration
of Barack Obama and just days after his first State of the Union Address. We at the foundation
and at the center are so delighted to have Courtney back to moderate her third panel
discussion here. Courtney is a writer, teacher, and speaker, living here in Brooklyn. Her
first book, Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters, How the Quest for Perfection is Harming Young
Women, was awarded a Books for a Better Life nomination. This year, Beacon Press will publish
her next book, Do it Anyway, The New Generation of Teachers, Advocates, and Activists. And
Seal Press will publish her first anthology, coedited with J. Courtney Sullivan, entitled,
Click, Moments We Became Feminists. She's a widely read freelance journalist, editor
at Feministing.com, and a senior correspondent for The American Prospect online. Her work
has appeared in Newsweek, The Christian Science Monitor, Glamour magazine, and she contributed
to the Shriver Report, released by the Center for American Progress last fall. Courtney
has been on Good Morning America, the Today show, CNN, MSNBC, and quite effectively took
on Bill O'Reilly last year on The O'Reilly Factor. So hats off to you for that one. Courtney
consults with social justice organizations throughout the nation, including the Ms. Foundation
for Women, the National Council for Research on Women, the Women's Funding Network, and
the Bartos Institute for the Constructive Engagement of Conflict. I could go on and
on about her many important accomplishments. But instead, I would prefer to hand the event
over to Courtney so that she can introduce the fabulous roster of panelists we have and
get the discussion started. Thanks a lot, Rebecca. Thanks to the Brooklyn Museum. I'm
sorry Dr. Sackler's sick, or I would thank her specifically. She's made the Sackler Feminist
Art Center a really dynamic space. If people haven't had a chance to go out there and check
it out, she does a really amazing effort to bring in all sorts of conversations and sort
of create this intersectional dialog that I think contemporary feminism is very much
about. So it's a real honor to be a part of that effort. And it's also an honor to basically
just get to invite some of my smartest, funniest friends to come have a conversation with me,
which is what I've done today. We have Charlton at the end, Smita in the middle, and Ramin
right next to me, and I'll read their bios more specifically when each of them presents.
But I just want to sort of put in perspective, very quickly, the conversation we're going
to have. And we do hope it's a conversation. So for those of you sitting there, we're not
going to talk at you very long. Each of my buds here will do 10 minutes, and then we
really do intend it to be sort of an interaction, a give and take. So please be thinking about
what questions you have, what thoughts you have. Let's figure out where we're at first,
right? It's a chance to reflect on and discuss Obama's first year in office. What a year
it's been. Just a few numbers, to put things in perspective. There have been 2,425,000
U.S. properties which received foreclosure filings this year. The jobless rates are the
highest they've ever been in 26 years. No wonder Obama used the word job as many times
as he did in the State of the Union, right? $787 billion stimulus package, 80 percent
of which has not yet been spent. But we learned this morning, or last night, perhaps, that
the economy grew 5.7 percent this last quarter, the fastest in six years. Right? So things
are still very scary, but perhaps things are looking up a little. 47 million people are
uninsured. That doesn't even account for the number who are uninsured. And we've all watched
this health care reform process unfold. I don't know. Unfold may be too graceful of
a word, actually, for what we've been watching, but nevertheless. Two months before the Iowa
caucus, Obama said the following in Des Moines, The dream that so many of our generation fought
for feels as if it's slowly slipping away. Most of all, we've lost faith that our leaders
can or will do anything about it. Now he's become that leader, right? He's become the
one that we're wondering, Can he do anything about it? Will he do anything about it? Let's
be frank. The man has inherited a *** storm, right? He got into office right at a moment
when this conglomeration of terrible things all came to a head. And the American public
expected him, in many ways, to fix all of it, immediately, or they would hate him. So
president number 44 started off on an historic high, with 68 percent job approval ratings.
The Washington Post ABC News poll currently stands at 53 percent, with 44 percent disapproving.
Among independents, 49 percent approve, which is actually the lowest of any of his recent
predecessors at this point in their presidencies. So Obama's got some haters on his hand at
the moment. It's also an especially good time to be having this conversation because of
the State of the Union, clearly. How many of you watched the State of the Union or read
the transcript? All right. So we've got a good, educated audience here. He spoke about
the numbing weight of our politics, which was one of the phrases that, I don't know
for you, but for me, just really resonated with me. And I think it's something we'll
be talking about today, this notion that perhaps it's not American society that's failing,
but our actual polity, right, that the government itself no longer works for the American people.
There's a really interesting article in this month's Atlantic by James Fallows, in which
he basically asks the question, Is America going to hell? A very subtle question. But
he goes around and he asks all of these different historians and politicians and public intellectuals,
and he concludes, America the society is in fine shape. America the polity most certainly
is not. What I have been calling going to hell really means a failure to adapt, increasing
difficulty in focusing on issues beyond the immediate news cycle, and an increasing gap
between the real challenges and opportunities of the time and our attention resources and
best effort. We saw this really interestingly yesterday in this House Republican retreat,
in which Obama, on live camera, had a real discussion with a bunch of our strongest,
most strident Republican leaders. And perhaps that's a sign that things are starting to
unravel, that we are starting to admit that there needs to be a different kind of political
dialog, a different kind of conversation. I'm going to ask you personally to think back
to Obama's election. Whether you voted for him or not, put yourself back in that place.
There were 1.8 million people gathered in chilly, 27 degree weather, kind of like today,
at the inauguration at the National Mall. Millions more of us watched it on television
or live on the web. At that moment, what did you think was going to come out of Obama's
presidency? At that moment, what did you think 2009 was going to look like? And from that
place, we'll have this conversation, sort of looking back and reflecting. Actually,
all of us are involved in either creating media or analyzing media. And one of the things
we all find incredibly frustrating is the lack of attention span, and the 24 7 news
cycle and the way in which that creates a really coarse, fairly uninteresting conversation.
So we're going to attempt to be very fresh and really look back and say things from our
hearts about what we hoped and what happened. And we hope you'll do the same, so this can
be, really, a conversation that transcends the very disappointing news cycle that we
all experience so often. As I said, we're each going to talk. I'm not going to, but
they're going to talk, each for 10 minutes, and then we're going to have the group discussion.
I think I'm going to start with Charlton. Are you cool with that, Charlton? So let me
tell you a little about him. He's an associate professor of media, culture, and communication
at New York University, the coauthor of the forthcoming book, Race Appeal, The Prevalence,
Purposes, and Political Implications of Racial Discourse in American Politics, coeditor of
the forthcoming Routledge Companion to Race and Ethnicity, and the codirector of the Project
on Race and Political Communication. That's at raceproject.org. Charlton has provided
expert commentary on a wide range of racial issues for state, national, and international
media, such as CNN, the New York Times, NPR, Associated Press, Reuters, TV, O Globo, Le
Monde, CTV and many others. He's also very, very serious, I added this, Charlton, by the
way, he's also very, very serious about grilling, from what I hear, that I have not yet tasted
his burgers, which is a damn shame. And I, on another personal note, I met Charlton cause
I interviewed him for NYU Magazine, the alumni magazine, actually, about a poll previous
to Obama's election, even. I think it had just come out of the Department of Sociology
that was sort of, wrestling with how folks felt about, was it OK to vote for Obama, because
he was black? Was it OK to vote for him from, sort of this, post racial point of view that,
you did not vote for him cause he was black, but you couldn't vote for him because he was
black? And I felt like, when I interviewed Charlton, he made so much sense of a lot of
these things that were, really quite new then, in terms of real questions to be exploring.
And so I've been bugging him for quotes and to be on panels ever since. So, thanks for
being here, Charlton, take it away. Thank you, this mic, can you hear me OK, out there?
All right. I'm going to begin, actually, with a short clip, what that turned out to be the
only person to come with one today, but a short clip that we're going to play from Michael
Eric Dyson, commenting on the recent Harry Reid incident, if you want to call it that.
And then we'll kind of take it away from there. Mr. Obama has a responsibility to step up
to the bully pulpit that he has inherited, and not to continue to be loathe to deal with
the issue of race, and say, this is a teachable moment. Yes, we can accept the apology of
Mr. Reid, but let's deal with *** dialect, let's deal with the fact of light skin versus
dark skin, and let's teach America about some of these more vicious and invidious issues.
Otherwise, they do look like hypocrites in my book. And let me tell you this. I think
we should push the president. This president runs from race like a black man runs from
a cop. What we have to do is to ask Mr. Obama to stand up and use his bully pulpit to help
us. He is loathe to speak about race, as a result of that, his disinclination to speak
about race means that he won't even take this teachable moment to help America understand.
And he shouldn't do that, as a black man, by the way, he should do that because he's
President of the United States of America. Well, we're out of time, and I certainly appreciate
it, but, Professor Dyson, I will have to ask you, are you going to apologize now for saying
that the President runs like a black man from a cop, or are you sticking by that one? I'm
sticking by that, cause the brother runs very well, and he's running like a brother running
from a cop. I'm going to have to stand by about that. Thank you, bro, I, greatly appreciate
it. Thank you, both. Hot topic this morning, wow. All right. I show that mainly for comedic
purposes. I'm the funny one in the group, right? But, I showed this clip, really, because
it speaks to what I've really been thinking about. I'm one of those folks who, with Obama's
election, had hopes when it came to the issue of race, or had high hopes when it came to
the issue of race, and having Obama be able to, perhaps, start or continue what I thought
might be a more productive conversation about race here in the United States. Of course,
Obama dazzled us, and dazzled the American public with his 2008 race speech. People had
high hopes for Obama, this person most poised to bridge the racial divide, and after centuries
of racial animosity, usher in an age of racial harmony. He was the post racial, the transracial,
the superracial candidate, and when we elected him, many declared that we are all post racial
now. Able to escape the trappings of racial thinking, and talk more openly and honestly
about race. Many, of course, expected Obama to lead this charge. But, throughout his first
year, a familiar pattern emerged. Where there was criticisms about Justice Sotomayor's wise
Latina statement, Henry Gates' claims of racial profiling, or Harry Reid's talk of light skinned
Negroes, racial controversy erupted. Silence from Obama usually followed. Next, came vociferous
criticism from those expecting Obama to shoulder the responsibility of instigating a national
dialogue about race, as can be clearly seen here, with Mr. Dyson. But it is unfair to
expect Obama to be America's porter in chief, carrying the weight of the nation's racial
baggage. It is simply not his role. To the degree that he owns the bully pulpit that
comes with his presidency, he's obliged to use it for purposes originally and popularly
intended. It doesn't matter whether we're talking about FDR new deal, Kennedy's space
race, Johnson's great society, or Reagan's arms race. The audacity of presidents to skirt
congressional deliberations, to build up a public opinion and good will among the American
people, has always been in the service of building a national policy, not a national
teach in on how to bridge group differences. Beyond that being his role, leading a national
dialogue about race would be disastrous for both Obama and the country from the standpoint
of both politics and race. The sharp ideological and political party distinctions magnified
in Obama's first year dooms any such national dialogue, especially if Obama is the one leading
it. I think we sometimes forget that while Obama dwarfed McCain in electoral votes in
the last election, he defeated him by only seven percentage points in the popular vote.
And most whites, in part because many of them were Republicans, voted for John McCain. At
the beginning of Obama's presidency, Democrats by more than a 22 percent margin of Republicans,
said things will get better for blacks in the next four years. By margins of 35, 32
and 15 percent respectively, Democrats more than Republicans said that the voting rights
act is still necessary, said that they were influenced by Martin Luther King's dreams
and his legacy, and believe that we can still fulfill that dream. Even more telling is the
divided national response to the year's racial controversies. When critics pointed out the
racist overtone expressed at the Republican tea party rallies across the country during
the health care debate, conservative mouthpieces like Rush Limbaugh back and down to the rank
and file, Steele started calling their critics racists, many saying Obama was the racist
in chief among them all. Well Obama later defended Professor Henry Gates calling attention
to issues of racial profiling, Obama's conservative detractors used it as evidence that Obama
really does have a secret chip on his shoulder and really wants secretly to do to whites
what whites did to American slaves. And in such an ideological and political divisive
environment any attempt for Obama to call for and lead a national conversation about
race will be discounted and soiled by the same kind of toxic partisan and ideological
divisiveness that defines our nation's persistent racial problems. But even if Obama did shoulder
this responsibility, and even if the country were not so sharply divided by anything else
but race, President Obama still is not the person best suited to lead this kind of national
dialogue about race, no matter how national in scope and effective dialogue comes down
to a few people sitting down, face to face, talking, listening and understanding. They
may disagree but they agree to keep talking. This kind of dialogue, the kind we really
need to have about race, is best facilitated not by a President, but by pastors, priests,
rabbis, teachers, coaches, mentors, heads of fraternal organizations, leaders of self
help groups. These are the people best capable of leading, building and continuing a lasting
and productive dialogue about race, those who are not entangled in parties and politics,
or in and out of an office in four years, or more importantly subject to the sensational
webs of mass media. Time and again the media and partisan public figures demonstrate their
inability to lead this conversation. Over and over we see a familiar pattern of how
the news media and political figures frame racial conversation. We go back to Harry Reid
here. Democrats defended his statements, Republicans rebuked him interestingly enough, but both
sides are missing the real point. First while intent might matter in a court of law, it
means little when it comes to race, racism and adamant statements like Senator Reid's
and other candidates do have. Second, members of both parties share the same fundamental
racial hypocrisies, yet the media and political figures spend their time playing pin the tail
on the racists. That is, the only thing that is important when one of these so called teachable
moments occurs is, is Harry Reid really a racist? Who is the racist here? Republicans
say, No, the Democrats are racists, and the Democrats say, Oh, Republicans are racists,
whenever we have a chance to pick up one of them out and hang that label over them. The
media and political figures in both parties would rather squabble over, debate and divine
the complexities of particular individual's racial motives. Each wants to gain the moral
high ground so demonizes the other for being racist, yet while doing so each conveniently
and conspicuously avoids something far more important, and that is doing something that
changes the fundamental systemic racism that continues to plague the United States. Republicans
do so because they are in denial, hiding behind a thin veneer of colorblindness to avoid action.
Democrats, on the other hand, as the last few months of the health care debate has shown,
perhaps simply don't have the stomach for it. Both, however, apparently recognize that
it takes a lot less time, effort, and investment to call each other racist every chance they
get than it does to actually try to debate and discuss how to really end or address racism.
At the beginning of his tenure, Attorney General Eric Holder made the controversial statement
that America is a nation of cowards for refusing to talk about race, but Holder was wrong.
It's not so much that we don't want to talk about race, we simply don't know how to do
so. Until we learn to talk about it in more proactive and productive ways, Obama's best
contribution to improving race relations in this country is to focus, as, incidentally
he always has, on shaping public policy that seems to ameliorate racial disparities and
improving equal opportunity. I'm going to stop there. Thank you. Next we're going to
have Ramin to my right here. He is a 29 year old segment producer at The Daily Show with
Jon Stewart, perhaps the most trusted man in news right now, right. He is actually a
comedian. He will gladly explain what that means, segment producer, if you ask him. Since
graduating from Columbia University in 2002, he has started an online financial news service
called New Ratings, counseled juvenile delinquents in East LA, and worked for Real Time with
Bill Maher. When he's not disemboweling the media and dismembering Washington politicians
through his work at The Daily Show, he likes to run long distances and play with his twin
niece and nephew, the cutest little people on the planet, which I can affirm. He also
recently had a big success. A lot of his job ends up being sort of to play the watchdog
in the media that media used to be, right? Journalists used to be watchdogs. Now comedians
are watchdogging the journalists. He noticed that Hannity had been using visual footage
that was actually not from the protest he was actually covering. Because of the weather
you noticed, right? Yeah. Right. So he brought it to the attention of Stewart and the whole
team, and they decided to do a bit of a segment on it. They did this segment, and Hannity
actually apologized on his show, sort of owning up to the fact that they hadn't been very
exact with the visual, the footage they were using there. So that was actually Ramin who
caught that. He is also one of my best friends on Earth, so I am excited to share him with
you here today. He is going to talk about particularly the media but also this question
that I brought up earlier about sort of the structure of politics, the way those conversations
are happening, and sort of the failure of journalism to actually do it's job. So without
further ado, Ramin. Howdy. What was great about that Hannity apology was that he apologized
to Jon and not to his viewers. Don't need to hear that. So last year I spoke mainly
on how often a politician goes on a cable news show and just basically recites talking
points. And they are most often unchallenged. Sometimes what they say is true. Sometimes
it's not, most often not. And one year later, I'm proud to report, nothing has changed.
So let me just give you a recent example. Our ex mayor Rudy Giuliani went on This Week
with George Stephanopoulos, actually it was GMA, sorry. He said, we had no domestic attacks
under Bush. We've had one under Obama. This is Rudy Giuliani saying this, the guy who
made his career off of our domestic attack. So George Stephanopoulos says nothing to that.
He didn't challenge it. He just let it go. Giuliani also said after the State of the
Union, He said the least about national security than any American president I can recall at
a time in which we are at war Islamic terrorists. And notice, once again, he never used that
word. This is like Franklin Roosevelt during the Second World War not mentioning Nazis
and not mentioning war. He did say terrorists three times. I mean, you can count, it doesn't
matter. But he was unchallenged on that point as well. And this goes on all day. You can
talk about why it happens. They have a lot of time to fill. They are tweeting. They are
not listening. They want the person to come back on the show so they don't want to ***
them off. Who knows. But at this point they've become basically conduits for talking points.
They just sit there, allow anyone to say what they want to say, and move on to the next
segment. These talking points, they get out. They seep into the media's consciousness.
The media builds a narrative. You may hear an Obama opponent go out there and say that
he's not showing enough leadership. He's not tough enough. And then you hear the media
ask, is Obama tough enough? Can he save his agenda? So you start worrying. I'll admit,
after the Scott Brown win, I was one of those people. I watch this stuff every day, morning
to night, and, you know, I got caught up in this whole, He's Scott Brown. They're building
momentum and they're tasting blood. Now they're going to go into the mid terms. He's just
getting his message out. He's not communicating. I'm just getting all worried. So I came into
this panel earlier this week thinking, I'm going to have some choice words for Obama.
I just don't think he's doing it. And then he gave the State of the Union and he did
his Obama thing. Like he wooed me. You know, he starts smiling and he's joking. I think
he looked up at Michelle and he said, thanks honey. And he's just out there. He's making
fun of Republicans, Democrats, the Supreme Court. He's going after everyone and I just
felt like I was home again. I feel like that's his thing. When *** gets out of control he
is able to kind of bring everyone in, always with a speech, but just kind of bring everyone,
gather around, and be like, shh, let's all pull it in right now. And he did that with,
if you want to go back to the race speech, Reverend Wright. Everyone was saying when
those videos came out, Obama's a radical and his judgment is terrible. How could he sit
in those pews for that long? The media was just going out of control. It was crazy. Everyone
is bearing down on Obama, and then he gives the race speech and you're like, oh, we're
good on that. All right. Moving on. It's like his grandmother was racist, it's all good.
And then you saw it with Afghanistan where he was, again, criticized for dithering and
he's taking too long. He's putting our troops in danger. And then when he did commit troops
it was, he's hawkish now. He's continuing Bush's policies. He's not that different than
Bush. He's not the progressive we thought he was, and all this stuff. Then he gives
a Nobel Prize speech and talks about a just war and lays out this whole history and all
of a sudden you're like, yeah, war is cool, yeah. I'm down. Let's do war. And then the
health care as well. Death panels and we're going to pull the plug on Grandma and all
this stuff is going on. The media is running wild and going nuts and then, you know, he
gave a presser in the summer which the Gates thing ended up kind of derailing. And then
he gave his address to Congress which You lie ended up derailing. But that was his kind
of attempt to bring it back, to kind of get the media on the same page and spell out the
narrative so that it's not spelled out for him. And he did it again with the State of
the Union. But I think with the central issue now being the economy, it's hard to do that.
I mean, the economy is in numbers, it's not in talking points. He can't go out there and
convince people that it's cool to be unemployed or that it's OK. And there's no speech that
he can give going forward that will make jobs appear or will turn the economy around. And
so I think it's just interesting to take note of this moment where his chief weapon, being
his ability to give a great speech, is rendered unusable. I just don't know if he can give
a speech that will help. So his rhetoric I think has reached a limit, and I just wonder
what will happen going forward with the economy, because I just don't think it's under his
control. Will you say a little bit more about the media and the accountability issue? Have
you seen that get worse over the last year? Do you think that shows like The Daily Show
are the only ones holding people accountable? Yeah, I mean it's. Well, actually talk about
what you said earlier about the House, the whole thing that went down yesterday, and
how Obama's like the journalist in chief? Well, that might be on the show. A special
preview for this very tiny audience. Yeah, a special preview and the camera rolling,
I could so, hell yeah. Well, Obama, if you saw yesterday, he went before the House leadership,
Republican leadership, at a retreat they had in Baltimore and basically just smacked them
down, left and right. It was amazing to see. You should go watch it on YouTube. It's pretty
impressive. He comes in, and someone would get up there and ask him a question and kind
of recite talking points, Republican talking points on various issues, and he would just
say, that's a talking point. You're doing this to get reelected. Just one after the
other. And so, I think one of the points we're probably gonna make on Monday's show is that
he is the journalist. He's the journalist in chief now. He is the guy who's responding
the way the news anchors should be responding when they hear something like that. So it's
just stuff that was pretty interesting. Sorry. Don't blog a guy. Don't blog. Don't blog about,
all right. Don't. Please don't. No tweet or twatter, about that. No tweeting, yeah. All
right. Thank you very much, you're mean. Last but certainly not least is Samhita, and she
is a 31 year old writer, educator, and activist. I know her, because of our shared work at
feministing.com, which for those of you who don't know, is the most widely read feminist
publication in the world, we're very excited to know. We were shocked when we found that
out. Samhita has this incredible voice and place in the blog. She's the one who writes
often the most controversial posts, often the posts where people say, what does this
have to do with feminism? And those are the folks who don't know enough about the contemporary
perception that feminism is really about race and class and gender, and all these intersectional
issues coming together. That we can no longer just talk about women and men or just about
gender and expect there to be a really radical conversation. So I encourage you to come check
out her voice. Come check out the topics that she's choosing, because she's carved out this
really important place in the blogosphere with her voice. She's now the executive editor
of Feministing, in fact. She is also the web manager at the Center for Media Justice, an
Oakland based organization. She has a bachelor's degree in sociology and women's studies from
SUNY Albany and a master's degree in women's studies from San Francisco State. She's focused
on blogging, gender, social networking, technology, and activism. I recently sat on a panel with
her where we started talking about some of these issues, and I was like, oh! You've really
thought about this stuff. I was just sitting in my pajamas talking about my cat, but she's
actually thought a lot about why this stuff is really radical and important. She's written
for New American Mediawire, Top Color Lines, The Nation, and The American Prospect. In
2007, she was named the Champion of *** Literacy by the National Sexuality Resource
Center. She focuses most of writing on popular culture, race, gender, the present industrial
complex, and my personal favorite in her bio, the romantic industrial complex. If you're
wondering what that is, stick around. That's panel part two, the romantic industrial complex.
Samhita's going to focus particularly on Michelle Obama and the ways that Michelle has become
this really interesting symbol over the last year, and the ways in which she is and is
not living up to the potential of that symbology. So take it away, Samhita. Thank you, Courtney.
Can you guys hear me? That was quite the introduction. I'm really excited to be here. I'm kind of
gonna veer off and talk about, I'm really interested in stories and the way that narratives
are produced around race and gender, and how we understand these public figures. I think
that there's obviously a lot to be said about the role of gender in the Obama administration,
and that's one thing that I think we could talk about a lot. But then there's that whole
question of, but he has all these other pressing issue to worry about, so let's not talk about
gender right now. I'm kind of more interested in, and it's been interesting like what Ramin's
saying, how many different things I've felt this week alone about the karma. Because this
week I started, and I was talking to all my radical organizer friends in Oakland, and
I was like, that is enough. We threw our support behind him, and this is crazy. Stop telling
us we need to organize, you guys need to be accountable or whatever. And then the State
of the Union happened, and I still kind of felt, you're kind of a bully, but OK, I see
what's going on. But this range of emotions that I'm feeling, and I think that the one
moment that really captured the contradiction of feelings is when Chris Matthews said after
the speech that he forgot that Obama was black, because the speech was so good. And I think
that that, so writer for the Atlantic Monthly, Ta Nehisi Coates, wrote very articulately
about, how, because the black experience is so not projected in this complex way in the
mainstream media, people don't have a variety of discourses to draw from. And so they equate
being articulate and well dressed and knowing how to do your job as white qualities. Nobody
ever forgets you're black when you're incarcerated, right? So I thought that little juxtaposition
really spoke to what I'm feeling in terms of feeling like I need to defend the first
black President and First Lady, and then also hold them accountable for all these decisions
that I feel he is making that are not good for my community or the folks that I work
with. That said, I'm interested in Michelle and the role and the transformation that she's
had over the last three years. And I think if you can think back to when the campaign
first started, she was a little bit more mouthy. She would say stuff that was a lot more controversial.
I remember, I can't remember where the interview was, but she was like, well, Obama's a black
man. He could get shot at the gas station or something really controversial. Everyone
was like, oh my God! She's this maniacal angry black woman. She will never make it to the
White House. And the campaign tamped down on that pretty quick. They were like, unh
unh, it's not going down that way. And so her even just speaking the truth, or whatever
she was saying, it was perceived as angry and militant and castrating. So she was very
much coiffed, and they put her in a lot of Jackie O. outfits, and all of a sudden, she
was demure. And all of a sudden, people were shocked that she was so successful, that she
had a degree from Harvard. She has a law degree from Harvard. Because there was no narrative
to draw from, either the angry, militant black woman, or the Claire Huxtable. And Claire
Huxtable, let's be real. What's that, 20 years ago now? People didn't have the bank of images
to draw from. I just remember a series of interviews, actually, even on The Daily Show,
where she would just be like, yeah, everything on the campaign is really nice. It's just
all really nice. Sarah Palin's really nice. And I'm like, you have a Harvard law degree.
I know you don't think that. But she didn't have the opportunity, and she could really
speak to what she was actually going through in the campaign. And you kind of see this
through her media coverage. At first she's saying some things that are a little controversial,
and then it's like, I think people should eat organic food. And it's like, what? Organic
food, you know, and it's like, What? I'm like, I know you think more than that. So, after
the election, I think, as a feminist writer, the First Lady is not exactly the definitive
end all, be all of like, feminist accomplishment. It's a very spectacle position. It symbolizes
a visual cue of what femininity is for the country. It symbolizes motherhood. And I wikipediaed
Michelle for this presentation. And under accomplishments, the first thing is fashion.
It's like, notable fashion contributions. And then the second, kind of like, footnote,
is issues she's working on. And again she has a Harvard law degree so, it's kind of,
the way that she's been put into this position, where she has to, reflect these very feminine
ideals, so as not to be threatening. And I think, as a pop culture analyst, those are
really exciting things. She defies some normative standards of beauty. She' not blonde, she
doesn't look like Jacqueline Kennedy, no matter how many Chanel couture dresses we put her
in. So there is this kind of, like, she is pushing against normative understandings of
beauty. But then, she also kind of reinforces them, because she has this very preppy look
and whatever. So I think that's a piece of her spectacle making, is the way that she
looks, and how that influences young women. And it's so interesting, like, it's doppelganger
week on Facebook, so you have to pick pictures of who you look like. Don't pretend you don't
know, everyone's like, Oh, I don't know, I'm not on Facebook. So, like, I was all distraught,
cause, like, I couldn't find a celebrity that looked like me. And so, I'm like, asking,
and people are leaving all these ridiculous comments, like, Christina Ricci. And I'm,
like, no, that's wrong. Someone else said, Madonna. And then, someone else said, 1970s
Pam Grier. And I was, like, you know, and I'm grown, like, I was like, you know, that's
really frustrating. There's no one in the media that looks like me. So thinking about
what she symbolizes for young women of color and for women that are looking to be successful
and want to go into politics, and this kind of stuff, is the only way for me is this overly
feminine role. So, I think that's one of the spectacle pieces of her. And then, another
is her role as mother. And not only national mother, as the First Lady, but also as, what
she talks about, about the importance of motherhood. And Melissa Harris Lacewell, an amazing writer,
if you haven't checked her out, she wrote about this kind of cycle of bad, like, villainized
black mothers in the media. And this fear that she had that when Michelle came into
the White House, that, all of a sudden, there'd be all this Claire Huxtable imagery. Like,
OK, the coiffed mother that can do it all but that actually didn't happen. So there
was this, the cycle of villainized black motherhood continued. And interestingly in contrast to
Sarah Palin and her motherhood choices that were considered really off limits, right?
Like, she has five children. She has a daughter who had a child out of wedlock, a teenage
daughter. If Sarah Palin had been black, how different would that conversation have been?
So, or if Michelle had five children, and a daughter with a child out of wedlock, would
they even, would she even be considered a potential contestant for First Lady? So Lacewell
draws the point that white motherhood is still the land of opportunity. It's still the potential
to reconstruct the American nation, but black motherhood is a failure. So, it's interesting
that those competing discourses are still happening, despite the fact that we have this
kind of First Lady, who's very much like, I can do it all, and garden. So the last,
am I going over? No, no, you're good. So, the last thing, I think, in terms of her role
as spectacle, is the issues that she's chosen to take. And you know and I know, I just feel
like I know a lot of motivated people, women of color, and I'd just feel like, after having
done all this education, their top political priority wouldn't be obesity. Which is what
she just announced last week is going to be her big campaign for this year. And falling
in line with all First Ladies have taken on is campaigns of personal accountability like,
Don't do Drugs, Volunteer in Your Community, Go to Church, if that's the case, or Eat Well,
Eat Organic, whatever. So there is a moment in the State of the Union on Wednesday where
Obama was like, And Michelle is working on obesity. And he was like she gets a little
bit embarrassed. So I was doing a live chat on this blog called Post Fuji which you should
also check out. I wrote, I think she's embarrassed that she's using her law degree to solve obesity.
And all these people got really upset. You tell them like it is. All these people got
really upset. They are like, Well, she had a state school degree, would that matter more?
I was like, look, I have a state school degree. That's not what I'm saying. But, this question
of what is considered relegated to, like, feminine issues versus masculine issues. Somebody
else was like, Well, children issues are really important issues! I was like, Yeah, but how
would you feel if Obama started the State of the Union with, We really need to focus
on obesity? You'd be like, Oh, great! You're tripping. We're doomed! That's not to say
that there isn't this big conversation that needs to happen with the food industry and
the health care industry and all these larger political issues. But, the way that they are
depoliticized to become feminine in domestic issues, I think, is the interesting part of
it. So that's my take on Michelle Obama. Awesome. Thank you. Well, it's interesting as I am
listening to everyone I was thinking about one thing that certainly hasn't changed from
a year ago. It is that we're all taking politics very personally. You heard it, every single
person up here talking about their own emotional roller coaster of the last week, and granted
we all write and talk about politics, but, I think one of the things we've really seen
is that the excitement that totally unprecedented election season created among regular Americans
about their own government has really been sustained in a lot of ways. That there has
been an engagement in the political project of citizenry that we haven't seen in years.
It may not look like some of us up here would like it to look i.e. The Birthers or the Teabaggers
etc. But, there is this impulse to take this stuff very, very personally in a way that
I think we probably wouldn't have seen years ago. I think also is a real product of Obama's
world view, his political view. He thinks that salvation lies in engaged citizens. He's
always said that. He always turns back on the citizen when we are turning him into a
deity, he's constantly talked about over and over in his speeches, about the fact that
it lies in the citizenry, that the solutions lie in people and regular Americans caring
about and advocating for themselves. On that note, I wanted to follow up with Charlton
with one question. The end of your talk you said basically the way that the government
and the way that the media are structured right now we can't have a quality conversation
about race. We should have it in other places, families, community centers, classrooms, I'm
assuming, are some of the places you are thinking about. Do you think it is OK for us to give
up on the idea of having quality conversations about race in mainstream media or do you think
there are some things we need to be doing as consumers to demand things different, or
you're of the mind, Look, we've tried. It's not going to happen. Let's go to our respective
regional places and have these conversations, but don't look to the media to ever get it
right? There is a yes and no I think to that question. One is out of my cynicism that the
media can and will ever change. But, I would think primarily no. We shouldn't give up on
that. When you think about the fact that there are so many news outlets, and that they are
doing stuff 24 hours a day there is no reason why the news media can't really structure
and be the leader in proactive kinds of discussions about race. Think about all the crazy stuff
we spend our time talking about, the media spends its time focusing on. So I think the
possibility is there and we shouldn't give up on it. I think we have to figure out some
way of getting media institutions to say, Hey, there is something more important than
just the gotcha thing and sensationalism. Once that's over, why not have some conversation
which you've got access to viewers and listeners. Use that in a more productive way. Yeah. And
it may come down to an issue of economics and funding, right? Like if we're funding
media that isn't based on controversy and ratings and shock and awe. You see the most
interesting things about race on PBS, on these channels that are publicly funded for the
most part. So there may have to be a whole shift in how we fund those things. On that
note, I wanted to ask you, sort of from the blogs from an alternative media point of view,
this idea that, why do you think, or maybe you do think this is happening but from my
point of view it's not happening enough, the kind of margins of media, the Racialicious
and all these other great blogs that are analyzing race in a really complex way, why aren't they
influencing the big, mainstream media more. One of the things at Feministing that we found
is one tool that we really are able to sometimes influence the way CNN, for example Fran's
story because CNN producers read Feministing and then they'll call up and say, either to
get one of us on the show but also say, We thought that was a really interesting take
on this issue. We didn't think of that as a story, but you guys wrote about it and now
we think of that as a story. Right? So an interesting way that sort of on the margins
you are able to influence the mainstream. But I don't see that happening as much with
race. Maybe I'm missing it. That's sort of like the race analysis. Yeah, I mean, I think
there's a couple of different things. I think the blogs in particular that you mentioned
are a little bit academic and longer form, so I think that tends to be harder. Feministing
are small posts that I think are easier for producers that are, I'm sure Ramin could speak
to how much media you are combing daily to put a subject together. You want five sentences.
You don't want a dissertation, right? That's part of it. But I also think that the media
thinks they deal with race well. I don't feel like they think they need advice on it, right?
Like I really do. I think the New York Times was proud of themselves for so much of the
campaign and the election they were writing about race on the front page even though these
conversations were terrible, right? All the kind of race, gender conversations on the
front page of the New York Times. If you study race and gender at all, you are just like,
what are you talking. It's just, even in the op ed section and that kind of stuff, people
didn't feel like they needed extra resources because it's really a question of the spectacle.
So it's like, that person's a racist, spectacle. That person's not a racist. That's this person
doing this. It's not this kind of really fleshed out or deep conversation, it's just this kind
of flat. Did you happen to see on CNN, TJ Holmes did a story about swagga this past
year. He interviewed five. And it wasn't a Saturday Night Live special? It was so painful.
He interviewed five black men of varying ages about what swagga is. This is like them tackling
the race issue. Right. This is what they thought. This was like the big piece. Yeah, we're getting,
like, swagga. Let's get into this. So, yeah, that's the state of race discourse. And to
kind of just add to that, I think one of the things that TV producers and journalists look
to blogs for is sources, right? So they are like, well we have people of color to talk
to, and so it's like, oh, well let's go look for women at a feminist blog. You know. Right.
It's kind of not necessarily that they're looking for the analysis as much as they're
looking for sources. Right, yeah. Which, again, puts some of this back on the folks who get
called to do these spots, like our Original Cliff. He's talking about Obama using a bully
pulpit but he actually has a bully pulpit in that moment to say something more complex
and. But they are not challenging what they say. I mean, they bring them on just to get
a he said, she said. Right. You have this view, you have this view. Say them, great.
OK, we're good. We did our job. We presented both sides. But what analysis did you do?
What did you have to say about it? Where do we go from there? How do we merge these ideas?
Right. And as someone who has been in that position myself, the structure of the show
makes it almost impossible to try to say something more than, and maybe I'm not as skilled as
some of the people who do this constantly, but I find I leave those shows and feel like,
if all I can do is try to say one mildly complex thing or one unintended, able to bridge from
a really stupid question to something that actually adds to the conversation, then I'm
happy. I never go in or leave expecting to have any freedom to actually have a real conversation
or make a point. Can I just. Yeah, go for it. Something really quick. An interesting
interaction I had on that point and getting interviewed at CNN once on this issue of one
of those black face issues with Vogue, Vogue France I think it was, back this last year.
I forget the reporter's name. Jason, really light skinned black guy with curly hair. So
off camera before the interview we start this long conversation as he's trying to figure
out what I'm going to say and so forth. We had this very deep conversation. It was evident
that he had researched this topic and had a lot of good questions. Then, of course,
there's about a 25 second byte of mine that makes it on that thing. I'm like, why couldn't
that whole conversation that came before be on? What else is going on? They have all the
time in the world. I mean, why don't they show it. Three more minutes and you have something
productive but the structuring is just. There's sort of like a tyranny of low expectations
among a lot of television producers working in that 24 7 news. Probably under funding
and over work and all those issues play a role too. We could really get off on media,
obviously, because that's a lot of what a lot of us think about. I want to pull it back
to Obama, Ramin, and ask you, you talk about being sort of soothed by Obama's amazing rhetorical
skills, wooed I think is the word you used. Do you think there's a danger in that? Do
you think his incredible charisma as a public speaker is somewhat equitable to his capacity
to create policy, be a leader, and motivate not just us to want to trust him but the actual
kind of legislators that he is supposed to be corralling. Yeah, I mean, I'm not sure
they see him as an effective legislator. I think they see him as an effective communicator
or speaker but he didn't spend much time in the Senate. I'm not sure how Pelosi and Reid
think that he is an effective legislator. I know Biden likes him because he's sitting
him with that *** eating grin the entire State of the Union. That guy's got a great
smile. But I think this is the point where he has to demonstrate that he can be an effective
legislator. He has to not communicate to us but communicate to them, especially with health
care, what he wants, what specifically he wants, and whether that's trimming it down
to fewer things or whatever that might be. And do you think his intervention yesterday,
like those kinds of interactions, will make him a better legislator. Yeah. Or do you think
they will allow him to actually influence some of those guys that he was sort of calling
to the carpet? Well, sure. I think he is calling the Republicans' bluff. He is putting them
on the spot. He is going to force them to vote on things. Like he wants to do this jobs
bill and it has tax cuts in it. Do they support the jobs or be against tax cuts? He's forcing,
I think there's going to be a lot more of that hopefully. There's something to be said
for someone who can speak really well, it goes a long way, that's your job. Yeah, you
can make the argument that that job has become even more a job of symbolism than ever before.
Someone at MSN, Howard Fineman on MSNBC, said if a presidency could be judged just on how
you speak they'd already be, like, chiseling Mount Rushmore for him. Yeah. Because he's
got the. Yeah. So questions from the audience. Please join our conversation. Thoughts or
questions? There's mics set up, right? Yeah. I think so, yeah. There's one over here. I
don't see. Yeah, there's one over here. Come on, smart people. I know half of you and I
know how smart you are so you can't pretend that you don't have questions. All right.
First brave soul. I've got one. Yes. Hello. This is for the sister. There is an article
in Essence right now, I believe it's out this month, and it's about this whole Michelle
Obama gardening thing but it takes a look at it from a different perspective, the concept
being a whole bunch of fellows had written in saying, say, hey, Michelle's doing this
gardening thing. She has lightened up. What happened? Is it about her arms? this and that.
And the response says, OK, that's how a white feminist sees it. Now from a black woman's
perspective, what's fascinating is to see a woman with a Harvard education actually
go into a yard with fifth grade, black students and dig into the soil, and get them motivated
to actually reconnect and touch the earth. Coming from a history of slavery, where in
all reality, in our community touching the earth is actually, it's almost taboo just
to do that because of all the resentment that people have from slavery. So that her doing
that, in many ways, at least in the black community, and her even speaking about organic
food, which we're the people with the highest rated diabetes, we're the. You know what I
mean? We're going through it with that. There's a way in which that agenda is much more radical
than it looks in other communities. I just want you to speak to that. Deep. Right? Should
I speak to that? Yeah. Yeah. I think the subversive reading of that is absolutely right. And I,
that if there was some kind of dominant conversation around displacement from land and reconnection
with that land, I think that I would feel more confident about that being a narrative.
And again, to quantify, I actually love Michelle. I think it's awesome, the organic gardening
and all that stuff. It's more the way that those decisions then get interpreted by a
mainstream media, which is not versed on. Even if you look at the gardening movement
right now, it's happening mostly, in super urban environments, in Detroit, and in Oakland,
and places where organic gardening has taken on because they don't have grocery stores,
and things like that. So there's definitely this very radical connection to organic gardening.
It's not this boujee activity. It's something that a lot of people are doing because they
don't have food in their communities. So all of those connections, and possibilities, and
readings are absolutely there. Right? I completely trust and believe that Michelle's smart enough
to know that. I just don't know if that's actually getting translated to the way that
she's being read on a mainstream level. Yeah. That makes total sense. Thanks. Yeah. Yes.
I disagree with you on what you said before, about Obama being a legislator. I know he's
a great orator. I don't think he has to be a legislator. I think that it's up to, as
far as I know, we have a legislative branch of government, which is the Senate and the
House of Representatives. It's up to them to work together to pass the laws that are
necessary. I think as far as the health care reform is concerned, I think he gave them
great ideas. He had specific points that he was hoping would be in the bill. I think that
some of those have been incorporated. I think that in the Senate, all the Republicans are
very set on insuring that nothing he wants is passed. I think it's more political than
anything. And us, as the voters, who vote in order to get these people into Congress.
I think that we need to take some action. I think it's up to us now to really think.
And the news media is another area, and I agree with certain things that you said, that
slant the arguments. And I don't think they take enough time to vet the information that
they're putting out there. They have people come on, whether the person is giving truths
or false, you don't know the difference. And you just let them speak and say what they
want. It slants. Even in the papers, in that form of media, the same thing. There are written
opinions and other things that are completely wrong. And nobody is trying to vet what's
being sent to the average person, and I think this is creating a big problem. And it's up
for each citizen here in the United States to take some action to make sure that you
get the appropriate person into Congress, either the Senate or the House of Representatives,
or the country will never get anywhere. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. I guess I'll just address
the first portion of your question about him being an effective legislator. I think he
tried the approach of letting Congress take control of the health care bill and do what
they wanted with it. And we saw where that has ended up. You know Democrats are not like
Republicans, whereas Republicans they fall in line. They are much more united in what
they think on a variety of issues. Democrats have a very big tent. I mean they have, Democrats
in Red States just disagree on a lot of issues with Democrats in Blue States. So it is I
think up to him now to try to get all them on board, something that he didn't do a very
good job of in his first year. I also should say, I meant to say this in the beginning,
they just asked me to say this that my views do not represent that of the show. It's amazing.
I just had to say it. Tell all your friends that already left. Yeah, I know. This is for
Ramin, not Jon talking. So I just, I'm sorry I had to say that. OK. You actually reminded
me, this morning, I don't know if anyone saw Charlie Blow's op ed in the Times where he
said, he basically was arguing that Obama's State of the Union went over Americans heads.
And that if you poll Americans they know very little unfortunately about how our government
works, right? And he said, We subsist on Twitter twaddle, a never ending stream of ideas and
idiocy, where emotions are rendered in anagrams and thoughts are amputated at 140 characters.
The most trusted newsman may be well be a comedian, Jon Stewart, and stars of the Most
Trusted News Network, Fox, may well be a comedian's dream. The president must communicate within
the environment he inhabits, not the one he envisions. Which is basically an argument
for Obama to talk down to us, right? And gets back to this idea to engage citizenry and
sort of, why are we settling for within our own selves, our own lives that makes this
all possible. I am thinking about in the State of the Union when he talked about being more
transparent about earmarks, that we were going to publish every earmark online. How many
of us are going to go to that, say, and read about all the earmarks, right? In a perfect
world I wish we would, but we're not going to which gets back to sort of our consumption
as citizens, our sort of political aspirations for ourselves, what we feel accountable to,
how much energy we're willing to put towards this project, right. So it seems like there's
a real moment going on, kind of wrestling with both from the sort of perspective of,
is Obama fulfilling his role, but also are we fulfilling ours. And what does that look
like? How can we hold the media accountable? How can we hold ourselves accountable? Because
we're all pretty quick to complain obviously, but it doesn't seem like a lot of us take
the time to really, really investigate some of these issues. Is there someone over here?
Thank you. Sure thanks. So I've been having an internal debate the past couple of weeks
about Obama's first year in office, and whether he's been too ambitious or whether he should
have taken smaller steps, and built his way up to big problems like health care etc. And
I read the Time Out New York article on this panel, and I hope I'm saying it correctly,
Professor McClain, right? McIlwain. McIlwain? Yep. I think you had touched upon this a little
bit, but I wanted to sort of just get the panel's view, whether he has been too ambitious
and really going after a too large of issues right off the bat instead of building momentum,
tackling smaller issues and gaining political strength in his first year so that eventually,
he could tackle large issues like health care. And I just wanted to get your perspective
on that. Yeah, a great question. Thanks. I'll start with that. And I mentioned in that article
I gave him high marks because he didn't sort of bow at the temptation of starting off small.
Let me get a quick context. Time Out New York ran a little piece where they asked each of
us to grade Obama's year in office. So that's the grading piece we're talking about. Go
ahead. Yes. And I think this is one of those things that distinguishes a president from
say a legislator, that is you can do more than one thing at a time. And we expect you
to do more than one thing at a time. And we expect you to do big things at the same time.
So I gave him high marks for that thinking that, number one, is his job, but number two,
that was part of our expectations of him. It was part of his promise. It was part of
our expectations. And, politically speaking, I think it was wise given what we now know,
about the ending of this first round of health care. If he'd waited til his third year, what
then? We're in campaign season again, and all is lost. So I think it was a very smart
move on his part to say, I can do this, I'm going to try, and we'll see what happens.
Yeah, and also the metaphor comes to mind of, like, the really lazy second grade teacher,
who, like, didn't teach anything they were supposed to. And then, the third graders go
to the third grade, and that third grade teacher has to be incredibly ambitious and try to
get them caught up to speed, because, like, the last guy was so lazy. And I feel like,
that's one of the things he tried to say in the State of the Union, is, Look, like, I
inherited a terrible State of the Union, like, I'm doing my best here. And I basically have
to be ambitious. Health care, you know, obviously we could've, depending on your perspective,
delayed that as a big project. But in terms of the economy, the dude had no choice, right?
I mean, he was really inheriting a classroom of starving citizens. And like you said before,
his approval ratings were high, he had the whole country on his side, a lot of the country
on his side. And he has a 60 seat supermajority, which hasn't happened in forever. So I think
he had to try to push a lot of stuff through. I think he was doing a lot of stuff. I remember
over the summer, I was just noticing, like, every Monday, he would come out and have,
like, Got to do high speed rail, We've got to do credit cards, We've got to do banking.
Like, it was just one after the other, and I was like, how do you do all these things?
it's amazing. And I wonder if his trying to do all of those things at once took his attention
away from health care too much and took him out of the process. Like the nuts and bolts
of what do I want in the bill? What are the things that I need in there? Instead of saying,
Well, you guys kind of, let me know what you think, and we'll figure something out. So
ambitious, yes, and I think it was good to be ambitious, but I just wonder if it got
too far and then he lost focus a little at times. Great question though. Yes. Hi. Hi.
Keeping in mind the President's focus on this bipartisan reconciliation and truth telling
and calling people out on what they're doing wrong, I wanted to take issue with Charlton's
point that now's not the time, and he's not the President to lead the talk about race.
Cause I was thinking about the more perfect Union speech and hell didn't break loose,
he was OK. The American people got it, something resonated. So I'm just wondering if now isn't
the time, we have these amazing formats, we have this truth and reconciliation format.
We have dialogues, we have town halls, we have these mechanisms that we can use to talk
about race. If this isn't the President and this isn't the time to really have an honest
conversation, when can we do this? And, if it is the time, how? Yeah, I think now is
certainly the time. The moment is right. I just don't think that he's the person. I'm
thinking back to the end of Bill Clinton's presidency, when he had this initiative to
start this dialogue on race. What ended up happening was, it ended up becoming just another
political issue in the way that other issues go. And I think that's the danger here. But
I don't think there's anything stopping Obama from saying, here are some people, to begin
this task, or organize and start things in these different ways. I just don't think he
should be the spokesperson for it. But I think the time is certainly right. I'd like to figure
out how to do that. Hi. Hi, Andrew. Hi. So I went through a similar emotional rollercoaster
that most of you described over the past week. And in the beginning of the week, my question
is about idealism versus pragmatism. Obama talks a lot about, I want to change the tenor
of politics. And that's what he was trying to do yesterday with the questions, and part
of me was, like, Yeah, like, he's totally controlling the room, and he's the smartest
guy in the room, and I love it. And the other part of me was, like, I just want him, I mean,
speaking, Courtney, I'm talking over people's heads, part of me just wanted him to really
be backroom and conniving and Machiavellian and get stuff done. And this is the tension
I've been feeling a lot, like, OK, you want to change the tenure of Washington. He even
said, Look, guys, I gave you a stimulus bill that was a third tax cuts and a third state
stuff, and you still didn't like it. He's still surprised by that. Whereas a more kind
of cynical politician would be like, I'm just going to ram stuff through with my super majority
and forget about bipartisanship. I keep waiting for that moment when he's going to do that.
The day after Scott Brown got elected, I wanted him to just be like, oop, we've got to push
this thing through. Instead, he said, That wouldn't be civil. We've got to change the
course, which is great. I love it, but I also hate it because I just want him to do stuff.
Yeah, great question. Question mark. Question mark, right. Yeah, I think he wants to be
everything to everyone a little too much, like with that budget freeze. He's like, yeah,
it's a budget freeze. It's not across the board. It is a scalpel. It's not a hatchet.
It's like, just do it. If you're going to do it, just say what it is. Call it what it
is. It's tough because he's dealing with a bunch of children. He's really dealing with
people who want to get elected again, and I'm glad he's calling them out. But I don't
know if it's going to change. I think once they leave the room, then they're like, all
right, how else can we screw this guy, how else can we advance our agenda. You have to
think that, maybe, if he keeps saying it over and over again, it'll start to permeate and
just start to get in the heads of the media. I don't know. I mean, I hope. I hope. Yes,
we can hope. So, yeah, but I'm kind of with you on that. He needs to be forceful, but
he's trying to really change the culture in Washington. That phrase is used a lot, but
he really is trying to change the culture little by little. I think yesterday it was
like nuts and bolts, trying to deconstruct what they do and how talking points become
narratives and how narratives advance and become consciousness and really trying to
stop that cycle or, at least, make people aware of it. But it's really hard work. I
don't know if he could do it himself. I think he needs journalists to get on board. I totally
feel you on it. He needs to jam stuff through, but I don't know how. He's dealing with a
really tough set of circumstances. Anyone else want to weigh in on it? I also feel like
it's related to this ambition question, also, that maybe his idealism is a little ambitious
or there's too much ambition in his idealism. And sort of looking at, what are the moments
when he trades in his idealism for some pragmatism and how that rhythm happens because it certainly
would have to be a very complex process for a leader in his position. Probably some of
the confusion on our part about it is the same confusion he feels to a certain extent
about what to do those things. That's a great question. Hi. This is a question for Samhita.
I really enjoyed listening to you talk about Michelle Obama and femininity, and Courtney,
I know you think and write a lot about young women. I was wondering if you could talk a
little bit about Sasha and Malia and the media treatment of them, and what you think that
might mean on a wide scale. Yeah, I don't know. I remember when Obama was elected my
brother was joking to me about Barack was sharing a story about how the older, which
one is the older child, Malia? Sasha's the older. Sasha is the older child, and she said
that apparently. This is from the inauguration. Who said that line? Oh, yeah. Sorry. Sasha
said that she was going to write all her papers sitting up at this desk in front of a picture
of Abraham Lincoln, and my brother was joking about how middle America probably reacted
to that. It's this young black woman, this child, is going to be like, I'm going to use
that desk, just like it pushed, we never had anything to compare it to, right? Those are
such traditional places that are in these realms of control. But to, I guess, touch
on your question, sadly I haven't followed a lot of their coverage, but I do think that
they are kind of de sexed and neutralized in a lot of ways. For fear of demonizing them.
I think that's a very strategic decision on the part of the family. And I also think it
will be interesting to see what happens in the next few years as they get older and they
do become more in the public eye and stuff like that. I still also, one of my favorite
moments during election season was, I can't remember exactly in what, maybe it was the
Democratic National Convention. When was it? When one of them just got to be on camera
and started yelling at her dad who was on screen. Is anyone remembering when this was?
Yeah, when was that? It was the DNC, but like the first day or something. And I thought
that was an amazing moment, because it was really like she had hijacked the most watched
moment on television to be a kid. And yell and interrupt her presidential father. His
reaction was fantastic and Michelle's reaction was fantastic. It was this very real moment.
So, I'm particularly interested in that little one, the ways in which she's ready to hijack
some ***. She wants to get in there and actually have some opinions. I was thinking when Samhita
was talking about Michelle, I was contrasting with the Clintons in my head a little bit.
There's so many differences here in how she's being framed and what her future potential
is. Because I'm like, Is there a Michelle for president moment? And it doesn't seem
like there is based on how things are unfolding. Obviously it's too early to know, but maybe
there's a Malia for president moment. Because she seems to have a real voice, it will be
interesting to see how that unfolds. I also think, more interesting than the coverage
of the daughters has been the coverage of Obama as a father. Obviously Clinton and Chelsea,
there was a clear connection there and he would talk about it from time to time. But
I don't think I, in my time, have been as aware of a president owning his fatherhood
role. And valuing it publicly in such a concerted way. Obviously that's very tied into race
and what he's trying to do around the conversation about race and fatherhood. But I think that
is really interesting to continue to follow. A little of that has faded, it seems. But
particularly early on it seemed like there was a lot of talk about him as a president
father and the importance of that for him. Do you have any thoughts on that, Charlton?
Yeah, in part I think it's a continuation of what he started to do in the campaign,
which is very interesting. There's that moment of contention with Jesse Jackson and others
where Jackson, this was the famous, I'd like to cut his nuts off comment, for talking down
to black people. Saying that we need to have some responsibility and accountability and
does that, just because you can have kids doesn't make you a father. You have to be
present, you have to be there. So I think this attention to that fatherhood image is
both deliberate but important. You brought this up. It's a way of living that conversation
without talking the conversation about race, in a way. Which is, I'm saying it's important
to have an image of black fathers with black children, and that in a way, speaks louder
than any other kind of conversation that we can have. So I think it's very much tied in
that way. And also it reminds of the Chris Matthews comment in some ways, because part
of what he was saying was like, Well he wasn't saying this, but he should've been. Is that
we don't always have to talk about race to be talking about race. So we could be talking
about fatherhood and the subtext is, this is a black man who takes fatherhood seriously.
But we've gotten to a point where we don't always have to say that totally explicitly.
Of course Chris Matthews was not saying that. I loved Coates said, Chris Matthews didn't
forget Obama was black. Chris Matthews forgot that Chris Matthews was white. Which I think
is the more important point there. Or Chris Matthews forgot that he was a racist, which
is another. Important point. Let's take a couple more questions. Yeah. The common theme
through all of your panels is that the media has this ability to hijack and distract from
the real issues going on. Someone states that the Medicare reforms are going to be death
panels and suddenly that's what we have to discuss. Someone yells the word racist and
now we have to have this very important conversation on race, completely distracting from any real
issue. I even remember watching on CNN, they were having a whole program on whether this
Reid comment was even worthy of news. And yet they were making it worthy of news by
devoting half an hour to discussing it. It almost seems as if the media wants the President's
agenda to fail, it would be better off for the media. Do you think this is true? Do you
think this is any different treatment than past presidents? And what can we do to hold
the media accountable and have them stop distracting from the real issues? No, great question.
Well, yeah. I think Samhita might have said sensationalism is what's fun to watch. I mean
it's fun to watch people get in a fight and conflict is more interesting to watch than
not conflict. You watch a show like, Christiane Amanpour has a show on Sunday on CNN and Fareed
Zakaria, and they're great shows, but people aren't watching those shows. They're watching
the Hannity's and the O'Reilly's because they get to see a fight or they get to see their
own views mirrored back to them, in Hannity's case. It's hard for me to say what, to go
back into like the Clinton era with news, because I think it's really just taken on
a new, it's a different animal now than it was back then. We were also like 12. Yeah,
I didn't really follow politics. Let's be honest. But at the same time the news hasn't
really pounced on the fact that the president just gave these Republicans a huge smack down
yesterday. That's conflict and why aren't they harping on that and getting back to,
that the President is trying to get the conversation back to the real issues. They're not focusing
on any of that. Because American Idol was on. Also, Friday is a tough news day. Usually
if the administration or anyone has some news to dump, like they're moving Gitmo, I mean,
the Khaleid Sheikh Mohammad trial's getting moved and they purposely issued that on a
Friday because they know that throughout the weekend it can get, people don't follow the
news as much on a Friday and Saturday. But what was I going to. It was the front page
of the Times. I'll be surprised if people don't make some hay out of that. No, it will
be a big thing. I think it will be a big conversation. But your question of, does the media want
Obama to fail, is a really important one. And I think, it's hard to talk about media
writ large, first of all, because that's a very big term. But the immediate concern everyday
when you're in a newsroom is, How do we fill this time? We know what makes ratings go up.
Therefore, if things are going well that's not going to make ratings go up. So the basic
structure, getting back to these structural issues, is set up for producers to be looking
for ways in which there's a controversy or things are going to hell. Right? The fact
that that question is, even that we entertain that like, Are they rooting for Obama to fail?
Are you having a moment? Yeah, it's pretty deep that they. No, you know. I don't think
so. I mean, FOX is of course. But that's not news. Other networks, I don't think so. I
don't think they have a horse necessarily. MSNBC you could argue. I think that's one
thing we've seen in the past year is that each of the three networks, or at least FOX
and MSNBC have really dug into their camps. More so than they ever have been before. MSNBC
especially. FOX is a political organization, they're not a news network. Glenn Beck was
just, on a Harris Poll was rated the number two TV personality in the country. And they're
ratings are triple CNN, triple MSNBC, daily. So they're a force. Well then, maybe the problem
is that we are actually calling these stations, these entities, news organizations. When in
reality they are not. And what we need to hold them accountable is to have these actual
neutral reporting people, who do want to report on how it really is. But as long as they have
the ratings, where is our accountability? Like a bunch of public intellectuals in Brooklyn
being like, FOX, tell the truth. As long as my uncle in Colorado Springs is watching a
show every night, like they're going to keep framing it like how they are going to frame
it. So it's also at a conversation between consumers, between American citizens talking
to one another about this. I keep going just because we've got much time. Yeah. But I thank
you for the question. Yeah. Brian, here. Yeah, this is for the entire panel. You guys were
touching on some points that have been interesting looking at a year of Obama's presidency and
seeing where things have moved or haven't moved. Samhita touched on something that really
is a heart at heart. Something that's really troubling to me. You talked about how black
equals fail and how there's no diversity in images of black people. I just think that
in this era of personal accountability every American needs to go out there and engage
blacks on a general level. And all these snafus would be dismissed. Dia Reeds, his comments,
Chris Matthew's comments. They wouldn't happen if they really knew a black person. So, like
Jon Stewart says, Meet a black person, or whatever. Seriously, just engage. Otherwise,
you just have these stereotypes of the swagger. These swagger episodes will happen and will
continue to happen. Aha. And that's just my personal thing. I just wanted to get some
feedback from you. Yeah. I think even just changing the conversation from black to white.
Living in New York is such a diverse place. You have so many different groups of people
that are interacting on a daily basis. A New Yorker has different opinions even of diversity
than someone who hasn't ever interacted with any people of color, right? He looks at me,
and they are like, Are you Arab? Are you? So, I think there is no reflection. We have
these growing extremely diverse colleges, right? We have business centers. All these
places where people are interacting with people that they are not used to interacting with.
In really unique and new ways. And for some reason, that's not being reflected. That kind
of very complex diversity is not being reflected in the mainstream media. And when it is, it's
like, What was that horrible movie, The Crash? The kind of dialogue that everyone has to
pull from is very frightening. It's very frightening. So I think that, and it does get back to the
media accountability issue a little bit, is to continually produce types of media that
takes to task this flat analysis of the way that people of color live their lives. There
isn't one kind of south Asian experience. There isn't one black experience. And to continually
produce sitcoms about complex family situations, and that's what really changes people's minds.
It's not necessarily what I write at Feministing that's going to change people's minds. But
it's going to be something like, other than Apu on The Simpsons. Really pushing the boundaries
of how we understand race. We also have to get past the level of tokenization to this
Critical Mass idea. So, like right now, Obama is all, a lot of people know about a black
person in leadership, in some way. You could put Condoleezza Rice and you could pick some
other folks. But, in gender and race and all these issues, until we have a critical mass
of peoples, they could go, Oh! Black leadership can look like that, and like that, and like
that, and like that. Or, Women in financial positions can be like that, and like that,
and like that. Because instead you have minorities, whatever they are. In the case of gender or
race, imitating a majority just so they can be tokenized and get in the door. But they
aren't allowed to have an authentic presence in that space. Because there aren't enough
of us to be in that space. It's like the women in the 80s with the giant shoulder pads at
work. It was an attempt to distract everyone from the fact that they were women, who are
just like you, who will act just like you, etc. So I think we're all aching to get to
this critical mass place, where there'll be enough diversity in the spotlight that people
can actually be authentic in that space. Instead of feeling like they have the whole weight
of being the one person who gets to project that for the country. Yes, let's do this.
Second to last question. We'll finish with you. Thank you very much for facilitating
this panel. I just don't think that we could sit here and have this conversation about
what Obama's doing unless we bring up, what are we doing? And I know that might sound
cliché, it really might. But there have been a lot of discussions that have taken place,
as we know, over the past couple of weeks. What is Obama doing? What grade can we give
him? This, that and whatever. But I know there are also a lot of conversations that might
be happening not on such a pedestal, I guess you could say, about what are we doing as
people? A friend of mine named Salmae Hallerina has a campaign that she started called I Promise,
where you can upload a 30 second YouTube video about, what are you doing? What have you done
to contribute to this whole idea of changing the face of America, how we really want things
to run for ourselves? So I don't think that we could end this conversation without having
some concrete things for the visitors to take away about what they can do, and how they
might be able to progress. And how maybe they could contribute to, the way you contribute
to media. How can they find out more about you? Awesome, thank you Alicia. I think right
off the top of my head I'd say one of the most difficult and important things, and this
gets back to the point earlier is interrogating your only daily practice of media consumption.
And thinking about, what are you watching, what are you reading, and what kind of feedback
are you giving the producers or editors who create that media? Because a lot of us are
very passive in terms of our media consumption. So that's just one, like, take action tomorrow.
I was actually thinking it would be interesting to do a week of vetting your own media consumption,
like writing down every time you go to a website or watch something on television. And just
keep track. Some of us don't even know what we're consuming. So that might be an interesting
experiment, for a day or for a week, to figure out who are you paying attention to? I have
a mentor friend, Gloria Feldz, who's actually been on this panel with us previously, who
puts on a sticky note the producer's name and email address. Or editor's name and email
address of the media that she consumes the most and just sticks it on her computer. So
it makes it very easy for her, every time she goes, she's like, Oh that thing I watched
last night was great, let me give feedback to that producer that that was a good thing.
She'll just jot off a very quick email. And I think that's a great technique for keeping
yourself in that involved accountability space. Does anyone else have any really practical
suggestions for people. I was thinking just how we look at the 24 hour news networks and
the frenetic pace and the amount of stuff they're trying to jam in there. I was trying
to see it as a reflection of who we are and not just this animal that's separate from
us, that's doing to us. But that we are the media. So if you watch them, and they're tweeting,
they're doing 20 different things at once. That's kind of the way we are. That's like
our lifestyle, reflected back to us. Our attention spans are short. We don't necessarily ask
the questions that we want answered. So how can we expect the media to do the same? I
mean, they're people, they're charged with the task of doing that, but when it comes
down to it they are people just like us and maybe we need to be more of the media that
we want to see. And how many bipartisan conversations do we have? Like look at who I chose the be
on this panel. Yeah, exactly. It's not the most bipartisan panel in case you didn't notice,
right? And in our daily lives. Like, how many conversations do we have across political,
racial, etc. lines. Any other? I was going to bring up just a follow on that point. I
think a great thing to do that I've challenged myself doing. I'm not sure if it's to my betterment
or what. It's to start and instigate conversations regularly with people who don't think like
us. For me that comes in the form of, I used to live in Oklahoma for a lot of years. So
I amassed a lot of very conservative, Republican friends that are great friends, but we think
quite differently from each other. So I use my Facebook page, sometimes, to engage in
questions and conversations with them. You can imagine how some of those might go. But
what I find, it just keeps your attention focused. Every time you have that, as Ramin
was saying, the tendency to just go off and we've got kids and we've got work and we've
got so many things to do. How high is keeping the media accountable up on our list, and
we've got all this *** to do every day and only 24 hours. And so I find having that conversation
and making myself at least once a month sort of spend some time engaging, keeps my focus
and keeps me saying, you know, somewhere along the way I've got to impact this process, whether
it's impacting you and how you see things, or using what I learned or a product of our
conversation, you know, to instigate something somewhere else to try to make some change.
But I think, you know, as you say we, very few of us have the nerve I think sometimes
to do that or the time to do that, but I think it's important. So I've been thinking of a
lot of different things right now. So let me try and. So I work with this amazing organization
in Oakland called the Center for Media Justice. Go to their website, check it out, I helped
build their website. And they work on campaigns of media accountability, right. And they start
with ownership, and they train community organizers and community members on how to talk to the
press. How to send letters to the editor. How to place op eds. Right. So they give you
kind of like skills that you would think we would all know about, but for some reason
because we've gotten so distant from media, in so many ways and thinking that we actually
have a right and a say in what is said in the media, they actually try and recenter
that. And it's really interesting, like Arianna Huffington put out an article the day after
the State of the Union, being like organizing 2.0. That's what needs to happen. We need
to get back to organizing. And I don't know, I feel like most of you that are in here since
you're here on Saturday afternoon, you're probably pretty politically involved. You
probably know some organizers. They're like the last people that need more work on their
plate. The organizers I know are completely overworked. They're at capacity. They've been
doing the work for sometimes 20, 30, 40 years. And so thinking about how this burnout and
exhaustion that we feel and this kind of frustration that we've been waiting, waiting, waiting
for this kind of presidency for this hope, most of my friends that are organizers, like
their politics were so far left of Obama that they kind of took some time out of the campaign
that they were working on to support Obama's campaign. But ultimately it didn't actually
address the local organizing initiatives that they were working on, right. So, you know,
thinking about that burnout, what are like some of the more concrete ways and creative
ways. And it makes it, I'd watched, this week I watched Howard Zinn's documentary, since
he passed away earlier this week, and thinking about this like really activist professor,
right, like he completely shut his whole life down and committed his life to anti war efforts.
And to fighting racism and to fighting the way that history was documented. But really
what I found most notable was his actual organizing efforts. Like what he did on the ground. I'm
thinking about this division that I feel happening between my friends that are doing the work
on the ground or the people that I knew that are doing organizing, and folks that are kind
of producing the media. And it's like, where do we as citizens kind of fit between this
division. Ultimately, the media will be most effective when it's led by the people that
are doing the organizing on the ground. So I think supporting initiatives of the accountability
reflect the stories of what's actually happening on the ground. And so that might have to be
going back to traditional. And a good example is how Lou Dobbs got kicked off the air. Because
Presente, the national Latino organizing initiative, got him kicked off in a lot of ways. So these
kind of like measures, really thinking about media, as something we have to organize against
to dismantle. Last question over here, please. I'll keep it brief. But there's been so far
a great discussion about what we've seen in Obama's first year. But I'm going to be the
media a little bit and hijack the discourse. Just to ask, you know, based on what's been
discussed about Obama being a rock and a hard place on a lot of his issues and trying to
please everyone. What do you think we can hope to see Obama change over the next three
years of his presidency? Amazing last question. Awesome. OK. So let's go down the line. I'll
give you guys a second to think about that. What do you hope to see. Or not see. I'll
start. Kind of what I think your conundrums, you were talking about wrestling with earlier,
which I also sort of do. I want to see a lot more of what we expected with Obama's choice
of Rahm Emanuel as Chief of Staff. Some of the stereotypes that went along with Chicago
politics and Obama and I kind of want to see some of those commit. I want to see some of
the very hard edged, take no prisoners politics and get a few things done that are good. Yeah.
I want to see more of what he did yesterday with the Republicans yesterday, obviously.
I want to see health care reform passed, without some kind of amendment that's going to dictate
that I can't have an abortion or have reproductive health at all. I want to see the end of the
Iraq war in the next three years. And I want to see some really concrete plans about Afghanistan,
and I think that, those are my top three right now. On the Rahm Emanuel thing, I think he
needs to get his people in order. I think they're not as ruthless as like the Cheneys
and the Roves were, those guys. And I think they're the ones who do the dirty work, they're
the ones who work getting there with the Democrats and arm twist and all that stuff. And I don't
think that they've been doing as ruthless a job as like Rove and Cheney did. Which I
think Obama needs, because I'm not sure he's great at that. I am not sure that's his forte.
I mean, I think he may just be kind of like a foreign policy you know, inspiring speech.
Not limited to that. But that's more of his wheelhouse. And getting in there and the arm
twisting. I just don't think that that's his thing. And also, like something the New Yorker
touched on a couple weeks ago, is that he cares too much about what people think of
him. He may not seem that way, but I think he really does. I agree with that notion that
he does really care about what the media thinks about him. You see him addressing a lot of
criticisms made by the media, FOX, whoever, coming from all different directions in his
speeches. And I think Bush insulated himself a little more from that and kind of let his
underlings deal with it. But Obama was saying in this article, like he's a voracious news
consumer, like he's, there's a picture of him in the Times, with the New York Times,
reading it. And that's great. I mean, it's great for him to be informed and to know what
all the attacks on him are coming from. But I just wonder if it will contribute to more
to that feeling that he has of just wanting to be everything to everyone. So, you know.
Cool. Well, first I want to thank all of you for being here, this has been a really substantive
conversation which has been refreshing as we've been talking about in this kind of media
landscape, this moment. I'm particularly thankful that you came out on such a cold day. It's
the last weekend for the rock and roll photographs, which I hear are amazing, so stick around
and check out the museum if you haven't already. I want to thank my amazing panelists. You
can see why I call all of them friends and like to have these conversations with them.
And I'm going to leave you with two quotes, the first is for Martin Luther King, who said
change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggles. I
think some of what I feel like we're all sort of chipping away at here is this notion of
this continuous exhausting, but yet worthwhile, struggle to see that our politics actually
reflects our personhood. And in that spirit I'm going to give Obama the last word, because
that is his incredible strength in the State of the Union. What keeps me going, what keeps
me fighting, is that despite all these setbacks, that spirit of determination and optimism,
that fundamental decency that has always been at the core of the American people, that lives
on. So, thank you for sharing your ears with us today. And I will be hanging out afterwards
if you want to talk. Thanks.