The Boulder Daily Camera covered the Campus Liberty Tour event cohosted by The Steamboat Institute and the Benson Center for the Study of Western Civilization at CU Boulder. The debate, “Liberty and Justice for All: A Conversation on Identity Politics and Social Justice,” featured Jason Riley, columnist and editorial board member at The Wall Street Journal, and Donna Brazile, a veteran Democratic Party strategist. Writes the Daily Camera:
Former Democratic National Committee chair Donna Brazile and Wall Street Journal columnist Jason Riley debated social justice and civil rights Monday night at a live event hosted by The Steamboat Institute and the University of Colorado Boulder’s Benson Center for the Study of Western Civilization.
Brazile and Riley offered differing views on what causes issues facing marginalized people, including Black Americans. Brazile pointed to systemic racism and other civil rights issues, while Riley focused on the need for personal responsibility and development among Black Americans.
Moderated by Patrice Onwuka, director of the Center for Economic Opportunity at Independent Women’s Forum and a fellow at The Steamboat Institute, the event drew a crowd of about 85 people as well as an online audience.
“If our identity informs our politics, we can still live and work together with those who have different identities and different politics,” Brazile said in her opening remarks. “Just as our own striving should not be dismissed as wokeness or cancel culture, so we need to respect and accept the legitimacy of contrary voices.”
Riley recalled a 1961 quote from Martin Luther King Jr. that states there are issues Black people must face that are separate from what is wrong in the “white world.”
“By contrast, many activists and politicians today who express concern about the plight of Black underclass ask almost nothing of Black people,” Riley said. “They spend much more time making excuses for the kind of antisocial behavior that prominent Black leaders of the King era would regularly condemn.”
Read the full article in the Boulder Daily Camera HERE.