The Hofstra Chronicle October 2, 2018

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The Hofstra

HEMPSTEAD, NY Volume 84 Issue 3

Chronicle

Tuesday

October 2, 2018

Keeping the Hofstra community informed since 1935

Ta-Nehisi Coates covers race, politics and Jefferson statue By Jill Leavey & Emily Barnes N EWS ED ITO R/ FEATU R ES ED ITO R

Peter Soucy / Hofstra Chronicle Coates visited Hofstra as part of the Cultural Center’s Signature Event Series on Sept. 20.

Ta-Nehisi Coates, a former correspondent for The Atlantic, author and comic book writer, visited Hofstra University on Thursday, Sept. 20 to discuss his career and personal takes on politics and race in the United States. Students and faculty from the University, along with students from various local high schools, gathered in the John Cranford Adams Playhouse. The conversation served as the first installment of the semester in the Hofstra Cultural Center’s Signature Event Series and as the inaugural Hofstra Votes event. “When you don’t vote, you vote,” Coates said at the top of the discussion that underscored

the gravity of being an active rather than a passive citizen, in terms of civic engagement. He emphasized this in the context of before and after heading to the ballot box in the weeks leading up to November’s midterm elections. This difference, he noted, is what sets apart “C” citizens in what he claims is doing the bare minimum of voting, and the “A” citizens who are actively engaged. “[O]ne should struggle because it’s a beautiful way to live and a beautiful way to die,” he said of activism and political involvement. He contrasted this idea of engagement with Colin Kapernick’s protest and the subsequent Nike advertisement that was released in September. “I don’t think [Nike] should be saluted at all for anything,” he said. “I hope that many students,

especially high school students, took the importance of civic engagement, grassroots movements and protesting away from his discussions of voting,” said Genesis Rivera, a senior double major in political science and sociology. “Motivating younger generations to involve themselves in political discourse to pressure the establishment and create change.” “Coming up in a country where mass media, more so than today but still today, actively as far as I’m concerned, preached racism and preached white supremacy in its aesthetics in its notion of what intellectual achievement looked like ... to be ensconced in a world where everybody who lived out those values were black had a tremendous effect on me,” Continued on A4

Courtesy of University Relations


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