- So why are we being statistically stripped from our racial identities on the basis that some survey methodologist has never taken a Black studies course before?

So we have to understand what it means to be statistically visible, to be represented in numbers.

- As we look at this moment today in time, in 2024, we're challenged with new laws in our state and in many states across the nation that seek to not only ban diversity, equity, and inclusion offices on universities' campuses but turn diversity into a bad word.

- So my challenge to all of us is to reflect on our collective wardrobe of resistance, to inspire, inform, and set intention for the ways we can continue to disrupt spaces and agitate systems.

I challenge us to assume a new aesthetic, one that becomes a uniform that we all try on.

(chime ringing) (soft instrumental music) - So I went to the doctor a few months ago for my annual physical, and on this visit I noticed something peculiar.

One of my medical forms had a few demographic characteristics about me, my name, my age, my gender, and in big bold letters right beneath this information was my race, which read Caucasian.

And I'm sure you're all puzzled by this.

After all, I stand before you right now unambiguously Black.

I can walk through any street in America and without effort, be classified as Black, 11 out of 10 times.

So how could it be that my medical provider had me classified as white?

It's not as if I told them I was white.

No, there was something happening behind the scenes that led me to being misclassified this way.

I would later find out it was due to my ethnicity.

See, once upon a time, if you were Latino, you were automatically defaulted to a white racial identity.

And apparently, I became a statistical victim to this archaic racial classification logic.

Whatever the case, I immediately ran to have this problem corrected.

I told them that you must update all my records to be Black.

Now, you might ask yourself, "Why does this even matter?

What's the big deal?"

A medical practitioner is supposed to give you quality care regardless of your racial or ethnic identity.

But how do we know what quality care looks like if the experiences of Black folk are conflated with the experiences of white folk simply because they got the same ethnicity?

Research tells us that Black Latinos have worser health outcomes compared to the white Latino counterparts.

Research also tells us that lumping Latinos into one racial group makes all those disparities disappear.

Take the story of Maricet Espinosa González, an Afro-Cuban Olympian and judo champion who recently died at the age of 34 after experiencing a heart attack.

The American Heart Association says that Black women have a higher likelihood of dying from cardiovascular disease.

That same association says that Latina women have a lesser likelihood of dying from cardiovascular disease.

Where would Maricet fit in this picture?

Maricet is Black.

Maricet is Latina.

And as a Black Latina, her experiences will be completely obscured because she would not be classified alongside other Black women simply because of her ethnicity.

Now, I want you to hold on to those thoughts for a second.

Let me redirect you 'cause I don't want you to think that this issue is specific to Maricet and me.

The U.S. Census Bureau estimates that the multiracial population skyrocketed from 10 million people in 2019 to 38 million people in 2021.

Ladies and gentlemen, that's almost a 300% increase in the multiracial population within a short span of just two years.

So what do you think is more likely, that 28 million people all of a sudden woke up one morning and collectively decided to identify as multiracial in the Census?

Or did the Census make changes to the way they classify multiracial responses?

That's a rhetorical question because not only did the Census Bureau make these changes, but they characterized these changes as improvements.

Now, let me give you a quick example of how these, quote unquote, "improvements" look like.

Let's say you are a white South African immigrant.

You get your Census form, you go to the race question, check the white box, and underneath that box you write down "South African."

According to the classification logic used by the U.S. Census Bureau in 2020, South Africa is listed as a Black place of origin.

So you, a white South African would be reclassified as both Black and white and then made multiracial.

Let me give you another example, this time using my own circumstance.

I go to the race question.

I check the Black box, I write down Panamanian.

Because Panama is not considered as a Black place of origin, I too would be reclassified as multiracial.

So here we are, misclassified, separated from our racial identities on the basis of our ethnicity and national origin.

And let me ask you a quick question.

How many of y'all think it's a good idea to equate race with geography?

Are there white people in South Africa?

Y'all can answer.

Go ahead.

- [Audience] Yes.

- [Ricardo] All right.

Are there Black people in Germany?

- [Audience] Yes.

- How many y'all ever been in Latin America?

Any country in Latin America.

All right, are there Black people in Brazil?

- [Audience] Yes.

- Panama.

- [Audience] Yes.

- Colombia.

- [Audience] Yes.

- Honduras.

- [Audience] Yes.

- Cuba.

- [Audience] Yes.

- [Audience Member] Nicaragua.

- Nicaragua.

(audience laughing) Of course there are.

So why are we being statistically stripped from our racial identities on the basis that some survey methodologist has never taken a Black studies course before?

So we have to understand what it means to be statistically visible, to be represented in numbers.

It seems like every other year, I come across some article about Black voting districts at risk of being gerrymandered.

What do you think happens to Black voting districts when people like me are removed from the category?

Just makes it easier to redraw political boundaries and dilute Black voting power.

Couple that with the fact that Black people have been undercounted in every single Census in this country since 1790.

The last thing we need is to be undercounted and misclassified.

I wanna take you back to 1903.

W. E. B.

Du Bois writes in "Souls of Black Folk," opening line, that the problem of the 20th century is the problem of the color line.

In my estimation, the problem that we face today is this attempt to blur that color line through artificial and statistical means to make that color line colorblind.

Now, when I say colorblindness, I speak to this idea that race is irrelevant, that race is declining in significance, that it has no place in policy because all problems in society are rooted in class, not race.

This is a political agenda.

It's a political narrative.

And I'm not saying that the U.S. Census Bureau is engaged in a political agenda.

I'm just saying that the U.S. Census Bureau is relying on a classification logic that buys into this colorblind ideology.

And this, my friends, is what puts racial statistics at stake because it gives an excuse for policymakers 10 to 15 years from now to say, "You know what, race and ethnicity data is not doing what it's supposed to do.

It's time to stop asking questions about race and ethnicity altogether."

Now, where does that leave us for trying to understand why Black women continue to have higher rates of maternal mortality or why Black men have higher rates of incarceration?

Or why Black boys and Black girls in predominantly white school have higher suspension rates?

Just means that all these disparities will continue to persist without a way to statistically detect them.

So here are my action items.

Number one, can we recognize that race and ethnicity are two different things?

Like racial disparities exist, but racial disparities also exist within ethnic groups so we have to be really cognizant about those disparities.

Number two, can we recognize that policy is the best place to confront and interrogate racial disparities head on?

So contrary to the beliefs of colorblind activists, race-conscious policies do matter.

And then number three, which probably should be number one, really, can we recognize that good quality race and ethnicity data is necessary in order for us to do any of this work?

But no matter how you slice it, it all starts with the data.

Everything does.

It wouldn't be statistically sound to strip someone away from their Black identity on the basis of their socioeconomic status, their educational achievement level, their sexual identity.

Why would it be any different for matters of ethnicity or national origin?

Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Ricardo Henrique Lowe, Jr. As a demographer, as a statistician, and as a member of the statistically invisible, I'm committed to ensuring that Black people everywhere are seen and accounted for both within and beyond the data.

Gracias a todos.

(audience cheers and applauds) (gentle instrumental music) - I went to what many people call a diverse high school.

91% of students were Hispanic, Black, Asian, and a few people who checked more than one box.

The smallest demographic group of students was white people at 7%.

That was my normal.

Another aspect of my normal was the everyday experience of anti-Blackness.

Assumptions of my lesser intelligence despite my grades being better than most and assumptions that my admission to universities had to do with affirmative action even when those universities didn't practice it.

Another aspect of my high school normal had to do with the number of students that I was around, 127 in my senior class.

So imagine what it was like to then attend a large, predominantly white public university with over 50,000 students and still very few Black people.

I was a smiling 18-year-old walking into classes and feeling real different.

I walked into my first classroom and there was not a Black person in sight.

My muscles tensed and I held my breath, hoping the looming discomfort will go away.

Walking the halls of the university's Communications Building wasn't much better.

As it turned out, 95% of students in my major were women and 2/3 were white, so in class after class, I felt like I stood out.

Often the experience was pretty unavoidable.

One day in my phonetics class, for instance, we turned to the topic of Black vernacular.

I sat uncomfortably as the speech of my home community was dissected and discussed as interesting and different.

No one was ill-intentioned, but the situation was super awkward.

It became moreso when my professor looked to me and said, "Ah, yes, Brianna, you ought to be able to tell us about this, right?"

And my peers all looked to me, apparently expected me to speak on behalf of all Black people.

In contrast to that experience of being the only one, I eventually found my source of ongoing support, and it came in the way of Black student community.

I was introduced to this community during Block Party, which was one of the events, a part of something called New Black Student Weekend.

Block Party was offering me a huge, warm welcome in contrast to my experience moving in.

Stepping into Block Party, I was met with controlled chaos like music blaring, multiple conversations, Black students everywhere.

And upperclassmen welcomed me to the event and rushed me towards the other freshmen.

And I let out that breath of relief and smiled with the realization that I realized that I was exactly where I needed to be.

It was in this space that I found out about Black Student Alliance, a student organization focused on the empowerment of the Black undergraduate community.

And throughout my first year, BSA set me at ease but also pushed me into deeper conversations.

One day early on, the topic was the 5%, which was reference to the fact that less than 5% of the student population was Black at the university.

Upperclassmen asked us how our classes were going, and out of the mouth of another freshman came this excited proclamation, "This is the first time I've seen Black people all day."

And the upperclassman sees the moment to push the conversation further.

"Raise your hand if you're the only Black person in your classes."

Majority of the room raised their hands.

Another wave of relief hit me.

This space was home, and it was a place with plenty of opportunities to get involved and play a meaningful role right away.

During my first year, I served on the BSA Freshman Action Team where we were able to plan events geared to the first year experience.

And I also sat on the executive board with upperclassmen as they discussed the needs of our community from their depth of experience.

So from super early on, the Black student community was a place for both leading and learning.

And I'm not alone in my experience.

Generations of university students have grown and developed through the participation in Black student community.

Even the earliest students at my university, we call them the precursors, found community.

There weren't many of them, but they all had each other.

Now, as we look at this moment today in time, in 2024, we're challenged with new laws in our state and in many states across the nation that seek to not only ban diversity, equity, and inclusion offices on universities' campuses, but turn diversity into a bad word.

Elected officials have sought to ban university support for organizations and spaces and activities that are majority Black.

But when you walk into different spaces on my old campus, you are much more likely to run into organizations that are almost all white than you are that are mostly Black, but for some reason, the mostly white spaces have seemed to escape notice.

On January 1st, SB 17, the anti-DEI law, was fully implemented in the State of Texas, making it a lot harder for students like me and who look like me to receive institutional support, traditional funding for activities dried up, rooms became harder to reserve, and offices were shut down.

But a funny thing has happened.

Students are organizing.

Black students and students from a range of backgrounds are working together to see the university do a better job of interpreting and implementing this law, and it's student advocacy that will make the huge difference.

And how do I know this?

Because mass movements has always been common with students, and we learned from those who paved the way.

We learned from our experience like the precursors did in the 1950s after Sweatt v. Painter and Black students during the Hopwood era in 1996.

And students now will learn from their experiences in community like I did during my days in my alma mater.

Student coalitions are supposed to be spaces of support, learning, and advocacy.

Therefore, the Black student community and overlapping student groups require two things, participation and collaboration.

For community to be a space for growth and safety, the people themselves need care and cultivation.

So what does that even look like?

It starts simply with showing up for each other.

Safety begins and ends with relationships.

When I set foot on my campus, Black student-led programming helped me create what are now long-lasting friendships.

After my days as an underclassman in BSA, I made a point to be an active participant in organizations because that's where my people were and where I wanted to be example for those behind me.

My participation continued as I followed the growing path of leadership.

When I became president of my favorite Black organization in my junior year, I told my exec board this.

"I want us to feel like in Mama's house where you don't have to worry about anything.

And to make our org feel like home, we need to meet students where they are."

I carried those same lessons with me when the world stopped in 2020.

The global pandemic and the murder of George Floyd shook my community.

And as president of the Black President's Leadership Council, I chose to focus on uplifting the voices of all my Black peers.

And I leaned on them to share with me their experiences, their fears, and their hopes.

And we worked together those months to flesh out a list of demands that we felt represented our Black students' needs at my predominantly white institution.

And although that progress today is under threat, students should know that if we changed things back then, y'all can change things today 'cause when I look back, that's why I'm here on the stage.

It was my community that saw my potential to lead before I saw it for myself.

It was my community that pushed me to change my major, study abroad, and apply for graduate programs.

And it was our community that came together to demand the university president to address Black student needs.

And now, to Black students everywhere and in this room, I say it's your Black student community where you get to decide how you will take care of each other.

So pick your role, get involved in co-creating and demanding the experiences that you deserve to have on your campus.

And know that participating in the smallest ways actually makes the hugest difference.

And whenever it gets hard, 'cause it will get hard, just say, "Not only will I survive this time, but I will thrive because my community has been here before and it has given me the blueprint."

So I know that we could do this together.

Thank you.

(audience applauding and cheering) (gentle instrumental music) - So our clothes have always had cultural and political currency.

For centuries, we've seen clothing anchor cultural practices, affirm social status and even have the potential to agitate the status quo.

At the highest echelons, clothing has the power to communicate our beliefs while also designating our social position.

And at this intersection of politics, culture, and fashion has always been Black people.

Our sartorial expression is a shorthand for how we examine the world, how we examine people.

It offers clues into class, national origin, social conditioning, and can even reveal the most detailed nuances like, what neighborhood are you from?

What's your political affiliation?

Our dress, in some ways, for better or for worse, informs how we address each other as people.

From the braiding of rice into our hair to mark the trail to freedom during the Antebellum Period to the Black is Beautiful movement of the 1960s to Afrofuturism shaped in the millennium, Black people have used threads to fashion political and social discourse amongst invisibility, intolerability, and injustice.

But perhaps most remarkable is the link between the styling of our wardrobe and some of the most significant Black social justice movements in America's collective memory.

The iconic images of past protests are the ways in which we have styled choices to pointedly reflect our dress as a political statement, not just a fashion statement.

And at every turn, Black women have powerfully forged pathways of liberation through the legacy of defiance and (snaps fingers) serving looks.

Allow me to highlight a few critical snapshots in our country's cultural archive.

You see, upon first arrival to the shores of the Americas, there has been an unspoken dress code for Black America, one that demanded our adaptation, appeasement, and at times assimilation in order to reduce the often painful and oppressive impact of slavery, bondage, and the white gaze.

This performance put Black bodies on a stage to evaluate our worthiness of humanity, respect, civility, and power.

It's what Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham called respectability politics.

So, Fannie Lou Hamer, the Mississippi-born daughter of sharecroppers, whose voice became synonymous with the radical truth in the beginning stages of the Civil Rights Movement, was first recognized when she attended the Democratic Convention of 1964.

Sure, it was her profound words and her poignant critique of white America that positioned her as a voice for the movement, but less discussed, although just as significant, was what she chose to wear.

Dressed in a prim, secretarial style dress, loafers, and hot comb pressed hair, this Southern farm girl presented herself in a way palatable to the white TV audience.

These intentional 1960 conservative choices signaled to white America on the spectrum from irate and bigoted to progressive and sympathetic that Blackness was not to be feared or rejected but humanized, perhaps even respected.

These images of protestors helped steer national discourse and fashion major legislative triumphs from the labor rights movements to the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

And yet what quickly became apparent was that no pencil skirt could reshape the power structures of America.

The uniform that informed the Civil Rights Movement visualized a sentiment of integration, acceptance, and assimilation.

So the rebuttal by the Black Power movement shortly after was that of disruption and dismantling the status quo so that we could truly honor our cultural expression and communal needs.

"Black is beautiful," "Natural is best" by the Grandassa modeling agency and the Black Panther Party articulated a demand far more than just, "Give us some rights," but, "Give us a rightful place on America's political and cultural runways."

So what I posit to all of us is, what role can style play in our continued resistance?

So in an effort to invite you into this consideration and guide your own reflective practice, I thought I'd offer you some insights into my identity, my personal style.

So we flew a lot growing up, especially for a Black family of six, and particularly given I grew up during that golden age of the road trip.

Traveling with four kids comes with a lot of complexities and a hefty price tag.

So my parents tended to choose to fly us using that almighty Delta Airlines Buddy Pass, which means we could be assigned any seat, anywhere, at any time.

It wasn't until I was a little older that I found it peculiar that while other kids my age were sporting sweatpants and Mickey Mouse PJs as they boarded the plane to spring break or to see grandma, my mother insisted that we wear attire one level shy of wedding guest.

And when we inquire or rather complain about wearing slacks and Peter Pan collar shirts, sundresses, and Mary Jane's instead of the pink high tops that I begged her to let me wear, she'd responded, "Because it's important that our family look presentable wherever we go."

She never really elaborated past that one short explanation, but I observed on a few occasions flight attendants questioning our family's place in that space.

This type of cultural and political affront has followed the Black experience in America for centuries.

The questioning of our bodies and spaces, the violent penetration of the white gaze and the pressures to succumb to arbitrary visual aesthetics just so we could comfort white fragility.

I didn't know it at the time, but these adventures through the airport were in fact lesson plans that would inform my relationship to my threads and my tresses for the rest of my life.

And so as we continue to innovate and iterate on the practices and precedents set by our ancestors, we have the opportunity to examine ways that our liberation, our collective freedom will require the use of all of our cultural modalities.

The fabrics that adorn our bodies are in fact armor for the battles we daily face in a country that has often failed to protect us.

This truth is most viscerally embodied in the simplest of garments, the T-shirt, a universal item that costs less than $2 to make, but it's become one of the most powerful devices for collective activism.

Starting in 2012 after the murder of Trayvon Martin, we've witnessed grassroots impact that has amassed significant attention, influenced policy changes, and perhaps most importantly, helped shape new cultural paradigms around Black bodies and the sanctity of Black life.

The impact of the T-shirt is logical.

It's a product that functions as a threaded billboard that builds connection and collective movement.

T-shirts are signifiers of political dissonance and cultural power and are equally as compelling whether they're worn on the street, at a concert with a miniskirt, or elegantly worn under a power suit in the halls of Congress.

And through social media, it's become a powerful tool to ignite movements and amplify messages like "Black Lives Matter," "I can't breathe," "Say her name," and "Black women are not just your mammies and martyrs."

The irony that the textile that subjugated Black Americans through the brutality of slavery for centuries makes up the very fabric that has stylized a new form of protest should not be lost on us.

Photographs of Black slaves picking cotton still chill me to my bones.

It's an image that captures the labor, cruelty, and dehumanization endured in order to drive the wealth of a nation.

To physically reconstruct this fabric to resist the very systems that once chained Black bodies is not just radical, it's healing.

So y'all, perhaps it's not just DE&I training, new legislation, the diversification of another boardroom, or even the election votes or election results that will liberate us.

Perhaps it will take stylizing new tactics of resistance because the truth is, while 2020 prompted a heightened visibility around racial injustice, the momentum and urgency spurred by those moments has quickly waned.

The black boxes have disappeared.

The budgets have dried up.

So today, tomorrow, and the year ahead requires renewed and reimagined practices of agitation.

Justice is urgent and liberation is our current style guide.

So my challenge to all of us is to reflect on our collective wardrobe of resistance, to inspire, inform, and set intention for the ways we can continue to disrupt spaces and agitate systems.

I challenge us to assume a new aesthetic, one that becomes a uniform that we all try on.

It's time to fashion a new America, and I have no doubt that the resistance will indeed be stylized.

(audience cheers and applauds) (gentle instrumental music) (gentle instrumental music continues) (cheerful flute music)