Poppin' Off: 4th Edition (Event Recap: The Root Institute 2022)
Last week I attended the 3rd annual Root Institute, and the first one held in-person. Here are some of my observations of the event.
Poppin’ Off is the weekly arts and entertainment wing of Observations In Blackness content highlighting conversations happening in “the culture” and providing insight into dialogue that may not be the trendiest of trending topics, but are culturally relevant and substantive all the same.
Let’s see what’s poppin’ off…
Reflections from The Root Institute 2022
Last week I had the opportunity to attend the 3rd annual Root Institute hosted by The Root.com. The 2-day event was billed as a gathering of “our community’s most talented thought leaders, activists and cultural curators for a series of insightful conversations about the future of Black America,” and the Black star power was definitely on hand as influencers from various fields participated in a series of salon-style discussions moderated by The Root staff.
Held at the famed Martin Luther King Memorial Library in northwest D.C., this year’s institute was the first in-person edition as the previous ones were held online as a preventive Covid measure. A modest number of attendees sat engaged in the library’s auditorium over the course of two work days as well-known cultural leaders covered various topics ranging from politics to activism to mental health advocacy, financial literacy, criminal justice reform and more.
I took the over half-hour commute into northwest D.C. from my home in Bowie, Maryland on the first day of the institute. I opted to take the metro on the second day after realizing there was a station stop directly across the street from the library. If you have ever navigated the traffic jungle of one of the busiest areas of the nation’s capital, you know it’s a good move to utilize public transportation when convenient. But whether driving or public transit system, the trek from where I live to pretty much anywhere in D.C. requires a coordinated effort.
Fortunately, The Root Institute was a good investment in my time.
For the sake of brevity, I will not get into the details of every session I witnessed. However, there were a few highlights from the institute that I’d be remiss not to specifically mention. They are the following:
“How Movements Made Us Stronger” w/ Rev. Dr. William J. Barber
I fashion Rev. Barber as a modern-day Martin Luther King Jr. for a number of reasons. His cadence and candor. The way he blends a vast knowledge of history, sociopolitics and theology. His commitment to eradicating poverty, and his analysis of it as a root cause of American inequity, both seen and unseen.
I have been following his work for the past few years and have always enjoyed him as an orator, so it was a treat to see/hear him speak in the flesh. Check out the audio clip below of him speaking about how today’s MAGA Republican movement is a continuation of the Southern strategy that has long been used as a tool of political subjugation against minorities in America.
“Activism in Trying Times” w/ Tamika Mallory and Dr. David Johns
One of the most highly engaged conversations of The Root Institute was the session titled “Activism in Trying Times” with renowned activist, Tamika Mallory, and Dr. David Johns, executive director of the National Black Justice Coalition. As co-chair of the 2017 Women’s March and Co-Founder of the social justice advocacy organization, Until Freedom, Tamika Mallory is arguably one of the most high-profile advocates of social justice of this generation.
In the clip below, Tamika spoke candidly about how disheartening it has been to witness Black people circulate false and/or incomplete narratives about the movement for Black lives, especially when the information came from noted anti-Black sources.
Dr. David Johns, who I admittedly was not familiar with prior to seeing him at the institute, dropped a plethora of gems about the role intersectionality plays in the total liberation of Black Americans. In the following clip, Dr. Johns eloquently breaks down the ways that hyper-visible examples of white supremacy (e.g. The Proud Boys, “Unite the Right” rally) are in some ways a distraction from the insidious work of white supremacy that marginalizes people of color on a policy level.
“Impact of Covid on Black America” w/ Dr. Ashish Jha
One of the institute’s few non-Black speakers was White House COVID-19 Response Coordinator, Dr. Ashish Jha. Dr. Jha, who is also the Dean of the School of Public Health at Brown University, has been a go-to medical adviser on Good Morning America for several months, regularly providing viewers with current information on infection trends, disease progression, treatments, etc. throughout the pandemic. As someone who regularly watches GMA and has been appreciative of Dr. Jha’s insight, I looked forward to hearing additional commentary from him regarding the coronavirus’s impact on the Black community.
In this clip, Dr. Jha spoke a plain truth about how persistent inequity in the healthcare system led to many Black communities not having equal access to testing facilities and vaccines. Toward the end of the clip, he essentially says that inequity is a function of the American healthcare industry.
“Police Brutality and Defunding the Police” w/ Chance D. Lynch
Another dynamic panelist at The Root Institute who I was previously unfamiliar with was civil rights attorney and pastor, Chance D. Lynch. I was especially curious to hear his perspective on one of the most hotly debated matters of criminal justice reform and policing in America — the call by many activists and advocates to defund police departments.
There are practically no politicians at the federal level on either side of the aisle that support the idea of defunding American police departments, as criminal justice in the United States is primarily administered punitively, and American police are the frontline arbiters of punitive justice.
What Pastor Lynch explained in his session is a sentiment that mostly every advocate of defunding the police has said when met with contention around the subject: which is that the call to defund is not about robbing police departments blind, but rather to reallocate funds to other social services that can function as an intervention in moments of crises, and potentially disrupt episodes of state-sanctioned violence.
Check out his explanation in this clip:
There were several other brilliant speakers at this year’s Root Institute such as Misty Copeland, Stacey Abrams and Courtney B. Vance to name a few. I collected a fair amount of content and will likely parcel more of it out in future pieces focused on specific topics.
Overall, I’m glad I attended The Root Summit, and have plans of doing more recaps on similarly themed events.
“There are practically no politicians at the federal level on either side of the aisle that support the idea of defunding American police departments,”
Well, there’s quite a movement at present to defund the FBI! :-)
Thanks for the recap. I wish I was there.
Given the history of the "F* you Bunch of Intimidators", they should have been defunded and disbanded after COINTELPRO.