The Biology of Good and Evil

I attended the talk with speaker Robert Sapolsk a neuroscientist professor from Stanford. His talk was divided into the different levels of the mind and the different times that it could be imprinted. He spoke about the amygdala and how it was the fear center of the brain and how your hormones would reach it faster than visual information. He spoke about how that is problematic and causes split second decision to go wrong. His example was how officers often mistake toy guns for the real thing because they act before they properly analyze their environment and often times they have an implicit bias which doesn't help either.

2017 MLK Commemorative Speech:NAACP President Cornell Brooks

At the beginning of the semester I had the tremendous honor of getting to see the president and CEO of the NAACP, Cornell William Brooks, speak at our Athenaeum. His entire talk was centered around Martin Luther King Jr. Day, so he used some of his skills as a former preacher in becoming the great orator necessary to give Dr. King some of his due respect. He spoke much about the vision of Dr. King and the ongoing struggle for racial equality, but with a hope, quoting Dr. King's "the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice." He also talked about the #BLACKLIVESMATTER movement and what they are doing right in making the conversation of race something that America is talking about. It was particularly awe-inspiring when he spoke about his meeting with then-President Obama and a number of notable BLM activists, along with police chiefs, about what America can do to ameliorate the situation regarding relations between cops and Black people, really showing his dedication to the topic. I was hoping for more of a political commentary during his talk but he mostly focused on Dr. King, his life, and his legacy, but I did have the honor of meeting and speaking with him before and after his talk, bringing the reality of what I am doing right now in relation to race and politics. It is one thing to see fellow Black people doing well, but it is a whole other thing to personally speak with the president of the NAACP, and I am still wrapping my head around my worth and privilege to be able to meet with someone who was meeting with President Obama just weeks prior. Wow.

The Disbelievers - Larry Rosen

This Ath talk was on the political statistical analysis of the presidential election by and Edison polling representative.  In his presentation he shared many remarkable statistics, my favorites were concerning the political factionalism when talking about the issue of climate change. He also concluded that Trump did win the election and contesting that fact only undermines our system of democracy.  The was expressed with the caveat that there was no hacking on the side of Russia.  I was disappointed that the pollster was so centrist and I have loved to hear a conclusive statement that the election was fraud however the talk was intriguing and I was happy I went.

The state against Blacks

On March first I attended an extremely decisive Ath talk concerning the implications of government programs meant to remote restitution after slavery and Jim Crow/Civil Rights movement.  The speaker made an argument that government involvement and affirmative action have helped widen racial disparities as well as being a main contributing factor for ongoing racial discrimination within the country.  My favorite moment in the talk was when the speaker used the analogy that while it is true that on average black citizens must pay more upfront and have a higher premium on a home loan, asian americans have a lower over head than whites; in turn, he insinuated that one type of discrimination cancels out another. Interesting talk to say the least!

The Importance of Being Earnest

I attended the Ath on Wednesday to see our school's performance of Oscar Wilde's "The Importance of Being Earnest". I had never before seen a play at the Ath, so this was a new experience for me. I have seen this movie before and I signed up for this Ath presentation because it peaked my curiosity. The theater students did a marvelous job in their rendition of this piece of art. I quickly picked up several differences between the movie and the play. As the play was only one hour and forty five minutes long, as you would except, several scenes where not included. Nonetheless, the actors successfully demonstrated the take-away of how crucial it is to be earnest. After the play, the actress of Ms. Prism told me that the actors were given the freedom to individualize their lines. She mentioned that one actor often spun his scripted lines on the spot, adding a significantly larger number of lines each time! I enjoyed the entertainment that our fellow CMC students provided and loved seeing how they incorporated their own stylist preferences and interpenetration into this well known comedy. I hope that you all had a chance to see it to :).

Storytelling

Before the break, I attended Firoozeh Dumas' Athenaeum presentation. She grew up in Iran but her family moved to Whittier, Southern California when she turned seven. In her Ath talk, she explained her experiences as an immigrant in America through numerous anecdotes. Dumas has a natural gift for storytelling, as I should have expected from the title of the talk. She said that she learned this skill from her father, an optimistic man who attended school in the US and believed he could achieve the "American Dream". Although her presentation revealed the rough challenges of assimilation into American culture still faced by immigrants today, she tied humor into every experience. She is the author of several novels and is most known for "Funny in Farsi", "a memoir of growing up Iranian in America". Many of the anecdotes that she shared during the talk are incorporated into this novel. When her family arrived in America, many of their American neighbors knew nothing about Iran or where it was on a map. Neighbors welcomed Dumas and her family and helped them settle into their new environment. A few years later, Dumas experienced a second wave of culture shock when a news headline broke out: Iranians take American prisoners hostage. This was a turning point in which Dumas and her family experienced first-hand a hostile attitude towards Iranians. After hearing Dumas' talk, I immediately ordered this novel and started reading it. It is an eye-opening book and tactically includes the same humor as in her verbal speech. If you are looking for a humorous, captivating, and educational book with a twist on immigration, I recommend that you give it a read. This was by far the best Ath speaker I have heard and I now feel motivated to improve my own storytelling skills.

The State Against Blacks

This past Thursday I attended a talk by Jason Riley, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a columnist for the Wall Street Journal. I must preface by stating that I was already reading some of Riley's book, "Please Stop Helping Us: How Liberals Make it Harder for Blacks to Succeed", in my Black intellectuals class and already had some issues with him and his argument, but nothing could have prepared me for the Ath talk. Though I could not sit at the head table, a friend of mine did and said that he got into a heated discussion with him right before his talk. During the talk, he gave a number of statistics to argue that: Black representation in politics, government programs/help, increased employment, lenient on crime policies, etc. within the same vein actually have no correlation to Black incarceration rates and often times can have a more averse affect on the communities. He argued that the government should butt out of issues withe Black community for that such was the case in a time of great economic prosperity and low incarceration rates for Blacks, pre- Civil Rights movement and Great Society programs. He also blamed Black behavior for these trends and flirted with the concept of a shift in Black culture being necessary to change the behavior and how Blacks are perceived by the rest of society. This was proposed as opposed to using racism as a cop out for community trends. Naturally, this was met with a lot of animosity and the question and answer section of this talk was often characterized by bickering, nitpicking of data, disrespect, and raising of voices. A number of fellow attendees said that this was probably the wildest Ath talk they had been to.

Neoplatonism

I attended a lunch at the Ath for a talk on Neoplatonism by Professor El-Bizri.  Prof El-Bizri is a visiting lecturer here, he normally teaches at the American University of Beirut, and was brought to CMC by my religious studies teacher, because Prof El-Bizri is one of the foremost scholars on Arabic studies and philosophy.  He discussed Neoplatonism, a philosophic movement that started in the 3rd century and is mostly based on Plato's theories.  The biggest concept with in neoplatonism is "The One," which is the highest transcendent principle that has so much existence that it overflows and creates everything around us.  It is self-aware that it is different than everything it creates, which is everything, and this self-awareness is recursive in all things.  The philosophical implications of this thinking were very deep and somewhat hard to follow because Prof El-Bizri has practically an excess of knowledge in the area.  However, he was extremely engaging and discussed enough background information, especially on Plato's theory of forms, that the detailed philosophical ideas had context.

Racial Disparity in the Criminal Justice Court System

I attended the Athenaeum talk "Racial Disparity in the Criminal Justice Court System" given by
Phyllis Morris-Green.  She is public defender for San Bernardino County, and she has dedicated her life to protecting those treated unfairly in the court system. She discussed the blatant inequality in the justice system that causes minorities to be incarcerated disproportionately compared to non-minorities. She showed a powerful video called "Racial Facial" that I recommend every look at. It gives an overview of America's racist past and present injustices that minorities have dealt with.  Her talk was extremely passionate and moving; it highlighted that as a country we must continue to work together to ensure equal treatment for all. I would definitely recommend this talk.