“State violence is not just police brutality or the prison industrial complex. The failure of Congress to take strong action on climate change, which is disproportionately harming people of color around the world, that is state sanctioned violence too." See further coverage in the Washington Post.
"I hope we keep asking important questions... how am I taking up space? Am I listening to ask and not to respond? Am I elevating the stories and voices that are being ignored? Am I understanding what people care about and need? Am I fundamentally using the power and privileges I have to work with people- not above them, not on behalf of them, but with them?"
"With more celebrities coming out everyday and television shows welcoming the story lines of LGBT characters, does coming out still matter? Tonight for the first time we will share our own coming out stories and delve into what it means when the personal and the political intersect. We were interviewed by Dominique Hazzard and our featured guest was Sarah McBride."
Dominique Hazzard, 22, who took to the feminist blog "Disrupting Dinner Parties" to list “4 Reasons Why, Actually, You Cannot Touch My Hair,” said black women often have to contend with strangers asking to touch their hair or, worse, grabbing it without asking. Though Hazzard said she understands most people in such cases do not have bad intentions, she said the idea that strangers somehow have a right to touch black women’s bodies does stem from a history in which African-Americans were once others’ property.
“As a woman of color at a predominantly white institution, you move around this space and you know — even though I’m in Wellesley in the year 2012 — I know this space wasn’t created for me,” she said. “To have this as a physical representation of Wellesley’s commitment to change and inclusion, and making it a different place than when it was founded, is really meaningful for me.”