Episode Summary

In this inaugural episode of The Tight Rope, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez aka #AOC shares her whirlwind journey from New York City to the halls of Congress, pulls the curtain on power, and explores what it will take to heal our nation. Plus, hosts Cornel West and Tricia Rose reflect on the movement to #DefundThePolice in their Office Hours segment.

 

Cornel West

Dr. Cornel West is Professor of the Practice of Public Philosophy at Harvard University. A prominent democratic intellectual, social critic, and political activist, West also serves as Professor Emeritus at Princeton University. He graduated Magna Cum Laude from Harvard in three years and obtained his M.A. and Ph.D. in Philosophy at Princeton. West has authored 20 books and edited 13. Most known for Race Matters and Democracy Matters, and his memoir, Brother West: Living and Loving Out Loud, West appears frequently on the Bill Maher Show, CNN, C-Span, and Democracy Now. West has appeared in over 25 documentaries and films, including Examined Life, and is the creator of three spoken word albums including Never Forget. West brings his focus on the role of race, gender, and class in American society to The Tight Rope podcast. 

 

Tricia Rose

Professor Tricia Rose is Director of the Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity in America at Brown University. She also holds the Chancellor’s Professorship of Africana Studies and serves as the Associate Dean of the Faculty for Special Initiatives. A graduate of Yale (B.A.) and Brown University (Ph.D), Rose authored Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America (1994), Longing to Tell: Black Women Talk about Sexuality and Intimacy (2003), and The Hip Hop Wars: What We Talk About When We Talk About Hip Hop and Why It Matters (2008). She also sits on the Boards of the Nathan Cummings Foundation, Color of Change, and Black Girls Rock, Inc. Focusing on issues relating to race in America, mass media, structural inequality, popular culture, gender and sexuality and art and social justice, Rose engages widely in scholarly and popular audience settings, and now also on The Tight Rope podcast.  

 

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Serving the 14th district of New York in the Bronx and Queens, U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez touts a 100% People-Funded Democratic Socialism platform. She is an educator, organizer, service worker with a deep understanding of income inequality. As a third-generation Bronxite, AOC believes in combating systemic problems by fighting for systemic solutions, like Medicare for all, federal jobs guarantee, the end to mass incarceration, and the Green New Deal. She attended Boston University and previously worked as Educational Director with National Hispanic Institute where she helped Americans, DREAMers, and undocumented youth in community leadership and college readiness. AOC serves working-class people over corporate interests and advocates for social, racial, economic, and environmental justice.

Insight from this episode:

Strategies on not being “locked in” while on lockdown. 

How to respond and intervene in systems that are impoverished of empathy and compassion. 

Behind-the-scenes look at Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s meteoric rise in politics, including the impact of her education, time abroad in West Africa, and close relationship with her father. 

How to remain true to your morals, values, politics, and spirituality when faced with pressures to conform or be reduced down to a niche. 

Benefits of the discipline of non-attachment to work, money, social acceptance, and ego. 

Details on what “defunding the police” really means to Dr. West and Professor Rose.

 

Quotes from the show:

“I am one point that is a result of waves of generational inertia.” –Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez The Tight Rope Episode #7

“You can’t let your identity be subsumed with this superficial political identity of red or blue or this tribe. [It’s] not what do you want to be but how do you want to