The Myth of Post-Racial America
The election of Barack Obama as President has led many to view our country as entering a "post-racial" era. The Sotomayor nomination, the arrest of Prof. Henry Louis Gates, Jr., reaction to Attorney General Eric Holder's "nation of cowards" remarks, the controversy over the New York Post cartoon of a police officer shooting a chimpanzee and many other incidents indicate that Obama's election may only be the beginning—not the end—of a post-racial America. Panelists will discuss and share analyses on the role of race both following President Obama's inauguration, and its impact on progressive thinking and communication.
Keith Kamisugi is the Director of Communications at the Equal Justice Society, a San Francisco-based national strategy group heightening consciousness on race in the law. At EJS, Keith is responsible for media relations, online strategies and developing communications coalitions and alliances. He is a former chairman of the Young Democrats of Hawai'i, served on the executive staffs of two Hawai'i governors and sat on the national steering committee of the Asian American and Pacific Islanders for Obama Leadership Council. Keith is a member of the Netroots Nation advisory board. He's @keithpr on Twitter, at facebook.com/kamisugi and keithpr.com.
Rinku Sen is the Executive Director of the Applied Research Center (ARC) and Publisher of ColorLines magazine. She has written extensively about immigration, community organizing and women's lives for publications including The Huffington Post, Jack and Jill Politics, The San Francisco Chronicle, Forbes.com, AlterNet, and ColorLines. She has written two books: Stir It Up: Lessons in Community Organizing (Jossey-Bass) and most recently, The Accidental American: Immigration and Citizenship in the Age of Globalization (Berrett-Koehler), which won the Nautilus Book Award Silver Medal. Rinku was named one of 21 feminists to watch in the 21st century by Ms. Magazine.
Rich Benjamin is author of Searching for Whitopia: An Improbable Journey to the Heart of White America, winner of a 2009 Editor's Choice Award by Booklist and the American Library Association.
As a journalist-scholar, Benjamin tackles issues surrounding the nation’s middle class, demographic change, democracy, immigration, economic inequality, and race. Benjamin’s work appears regularly in the media (MSNBC, CSPAN, Fox, NPR, USA Today, The New Yorker, Salon, Alternet, and Huffington Post).
Currently, Benjamin is Senior Fellow at Demos, a non-partisan national think tank with offices nationwide.
Annabel Park is an award-winning filmmaker whose acclaimed documentary about America's culture war over immigration, 9500 Liberty (http://www.9500liberty.com/), is currently playing in theaters around the country.
In February, her FaceBook status about the Tea Party sparked a national grassroots movement, the Coffee Party. It is now a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization with local chapters across the
country. (http://coffeepartyusa.com/) It is a major presence of FaceBook (http://www.facebook.com/coffeeparty) with fans outnumbering most organizations and political parties including the Republican Party, Libertarian Party and the Democratic Party.
Annabel was born in Seoul, South Korea and immigrated to Houston, TX when she was nine years old with her family. She grew up in Texas and Maryland. She studied philosophy at Boston University and political theory at Oxford University as a Marshall Scholar.
Annabel’s life experiences include working with inner city children, management consulting, writing and directing theater, and combining new media and political activism. In 2007, Annabel was the national coordinator for the 121 Coalition, organizing a historic grassroots effort to successfully pass U.S. House Resolution 121, also known as the “comfort women” resolution, which will be the subject of her upcoming film Journey Into the Divide.
9500 Liberty has won three film festival awards: the "Breakthrough Filmmakers Award" at the Phoenix Film Festival, the "Best Documentary" at the Charlotte Film Festival, and the "Audience Award" at the St. Louis International Film Festival.
