[inaudible conversations] good evening, friends. Welcome to the Berkeley Hillside Club and the latest in a series of events produced by the wonderful folks at berkeley arts and letters. We are very privileged to have been as a regular contributor to our cultural events here. Evan karp is the boss and you having to think and his volunteers to thank for this come for all these wonderful events. [applause] how many of you have been in this hall before . A fair number, thats good. How many of you havent and havent a clue what this place is . Thats great because uncle to take about 30 seconds to tell you about the Berkeley Hillside Club pick the club itself was founded in 1898 by a group of berkeley women who were really concerned about the plans the city fathers had for laying a grit over this thing and paving and grading and instead they got really active physically active. We think we probably need some more about these days. But there able to get the city to turn up the wait has and a large measure is just one of the most beautiful cities in this part of the country. In 1910 that gentleman under the two lights out there, bernard, he was a president in 1910 and he designed and built the first clubhouse. Unfortunately it burned out and a huge conflagration which swept through this entry. 80 of his clients homes were burned as well. It was much bigger than the oakland fire. Such replace the beautiful clubhouse investor and decide his brotherinlaw come under the architect named john white built this wonderful tudor revival structure and its been our clubhouse ever since. We have a long tradition of involvement in civic activities. Where cultural activities. We do concerts and talks like this one and dances and dinners. If youre interested in joining the Hillside Club, either our membership applications in the hall, our membership roles are currently open. Its a great or position to become a part and help contribute to. If youre also, shameless commerce i apologize this come we rented this all for certain discrete event. We dont do fraternity mixers, but earth day parties and memorials are people look for that format. In any case, keep that in mind if youre interested, rentals at Hillside Club. Org will get you there. I think thats all i have it if you have any of those electronic annoyances that were all too often tended to care in a pocket please turn them off. If there are any empty seats available, raise your hand next to a 90 seat. A couple of them. I was looking for seats still . I think we are good. All right comes im going to bring it evan up, berkeley arts and letters, let them take over from here. Thank you very much. [applause] hi, everyone. Thank you, Bruce Bigelow to think the Hillside Club for hosting us tonight and as a regular host for our series. We generally come with an event for seven years. We host exceptional authors and thinkers with new books. Its a Pretty Simple concept. We have hosted everybody from patti smith to eduardo and michael. You can find out more about our past and Upcoming Events berkeleyarts. Org. Tonight we are excited to be hosting Rebecca Solnit in support of her new book, the mother of all questions, and with her tonight is jeff chang, im very pleased that jeff back with us. With anybody here in november when we hosted to jeff ballou . Awesome. So you are very excited like me to have him back. [laughing] i do, i just want to thank both rebecca and jeff for being here tonight. These are, these guys are asking the hard questions for all of us in fighting on behalf of all of our rights. I just want to give them a round of applause. [applause] so im going to read a little bit about them and then get out of the way, just in case there are books others that you dont know about, youre about to find out. So Rebecca Solnit is a writer, pestering from activist and writewhatabout 60 books about a, king of the art, politics, hope and memory including the National Bestseller main explain things to me, opened the door, the faraway nearby, a paradise built in hell, i field guide to getting lost, a history of walking, a river of shadows. The technological wild west. For which she received a guggenheim, the National Book critics circle award in criticism and the land and literary award. A product of the California PublicEducation System from kindergarten [applause] shes a contributing editor to harpers, and as you probably know the mother of all questions is a collection, a new collection of feminist essays. Joining rebecca as a set is jeff chang. Jeff has most recently published we gon be alright which is a total mustread collection i should mention we have all the books, not all of the books, but we have a bunch books in the back. Amy is waving at you right now. So berkeley arts and letters is organized by booksmith in San Francisco and we would be happy to sell you books tonight. So jeff has written extensively on culture, politics and the arts pick a second creek lakeland book was released in paperback recently under the title who would be. He cofounded culture strike and color wars and color lines, and serves as executive director of the institute for diversity in the arts at Stanford University. Hes been a usa winner of the north star news prize. He was named by the reader one of 50 visionaries changing your world. In 2016 he was named as one of his 100 list of those shaping the future of american culture. Would you guys might helping me welcoming them to the stage . [applause] whats so funny about that . [laughing] i didnt want to spill it. I think david was laughing at me for pulling books out of my bag or something. Good evening. Hello. Thank you so much to evan, to berkeley arts and letters, to the booksmith staff, wonderful staff, to the Hillside Club, to all of you for coming out tonight. I get the honor of asking you questions tonight. Well, hiphop, right . Although i dont wrap. Im not going to wrap tonight. Shall we start . We shall. The last time i got to talk you had just gotten back if i remember correctly from Standing Rock. Was it that long ago . I went down to incentive edges with a real sense about that was at the center of the world and wanted to see what was happening. And it was amazing being there. I was lucky i went out when the weather was balmy. I is so much admiration for the people who stuck it out through the winter. Its one of those things. You know, like occupy, like the air spring, like black lives matter were nobody knew it was coming, and thats one of the things i like quinoa supposed to talk about this book, but we could talk about this one, too. We definitely well. Iic, and so much of a Standing Rock which fell like i was not not there address one pipeline, but to really kind of remedy and turn half a millennium of a ratio dehumanization and disposition and i think in meaningful ways has done that and a lot of ways we dont know what Standing Rock has done because it wont take decades to find out. But yeah, it was amazing being out there. Lets pursue the idea in the second, but also if remember correctly, when youre coming back from north dakota you were sitting next to a trump supporter . This is what happens when youre from San Francisco. Ive had two conversations with trump supporters. [laughing] you know, my friends in nevada and new mexico, i was, i dont know what to remember. Both of them were voting for a man who was completely fictitious. It wasnt even the official trump propaganda. It was there imaginary ideal trump. Their platonic trump. [laughing] who was at this platonic trump to them . On the way back to Standing Rock i sat next to an evangelical farmer who sends both at addiction problems, which is how you know youre in america. The kind of agrarian junkie, you know, and he was like, this is right around, was it before the grabbed him by the waxed he brought all the scandals were fabricated and that was a really who come he thought he was a much better man. He basically thought trump was a lot more like him than any of them. And then every four years my amazing friends all focus, that radical Progressive Coalition for the kid nevada. I do the get out and vote. Its my sacrifice to try to ward off evil. I was collectively suburb about ten miles north of downtown we are doing it at the boat and this Foundation Woman started badgering me because shoes there to get out the vote for trumpet and i just wanted to get why she liked trump that you two think usually committed to come and that there was no arguing with her beverages convinced that and document immigrants were preventing her family from, she was egyptian, she thought and document immigrants were preventing her family from Legal Immigration as though the quotas system was somehow tied to like all these people walked over for mexico so now you cant, which is completely ridiculous. Although theres a really weird kind of relationship there because in some ways you could argue that undocumented, not undocumented folks, but the government approach to undocumented folks is a reason she has been able to do, legalize. She was legal but she won her family to come and she claimed somehow legal immigrants, people couldnt get visas, they couldnt get the paperwork to become Illegal Immigrants because of this idea clogging up the system. There not even in the system. Thats true that because of the research has been moved away from naturalization to enforcement. Thats something thats happened since the reagan administration. So before this emigration used to be about lets try to get people naturalized as fast as possible. The main issue was the kind of quotas they put on each country, which for the most part they get rid of the 1965 and which still limit the number of folks who can become illegal lives every year. So if in the queue and your filipino or mexican, it will take you 20, 30 years to get to the head of the line, so to speak. Shes right in a really weird way, but for the wrong reason. But she also thought it was literally kind of like a numbers game, like if 5 million undocumented people disappeared, and 5 Million People would suddenly get immigration papers. The other thing she told is that she believed about Climate Change and trump is going to do things on Climate Change and he wasnt going to favor fossil fuel, you know, and bring back the bush era and things like that. Its like where did you get your information . Can i just go wring some doorbells and hanks and door hangers and escape from you . She was very for citrus and wanted to argue. So those are my two trump supporters. Except for all the men on facebook. [laughing] who are busy explaining. Its a long, theres variations on the scene. I didnt want, i dont want to sort of relitigate or relive november, but i guess i were to ask sort of how you are feeling now . And it was like trunk is rich and powerful people. So i find nothing about whats happened shocking except the intensity and courage of the resistance. I thought it might be a little bit like life after 9 11 where a lot of people were intimidated and afraid to speak up and there was kind of a patriotic paul over the land and were not having that problem right now. People are ferociously, energetically, beautifully outspoken and thats what i didnt anticipate. It makes me think of this as a you wrote in this book , thinking about sort of the loudness of the now. The sort of. Which i really want to get into but i also wanted to talk about sort of what that comes out of. You have this beautiful essay called the short history of silence in the book. And so i was wondering if you could Start Talking first of all about how you think about silence as opposed to quiet. Yeah, the english language is full of synonyms and words that overlap. And theres a good sense of silence, silence in a monolithic retreat, in terms of not looking to , listening to traffic noises but theres also being silent which i thought could really stand for a huge amount of what feminism has tried to address and theres literally being silenced, no Woman Holding positions of power in congress and the Supreme Court and the legal system, a womans testimony about being discounted, of things like that but theres also, you know, for the purposes of this i thought that client was kind of voluntary removal from noise units and silence was the thing thats enforced and you could really use that as a summary condition for what feminism has tried to address. The silencing that you know, that suspends your right to consent or not consent to what happens to you. Thats agency, thats the right to vote that we got in 1920, most of us and had to fight for all over again in the south and for men and women. But it was an interesting effort and i sat down to write about the way women are silenced and realized that gender is a system of reciprocal silence. Theres a kind of mail silence as well, that men are silent in different ways than women are. And that patriarchy requires different silences from people according to their categories. And that theres, you know, you had to look at the whole system as a whole. One of the things different about this book from men explaining things to me is as much about men and children as it is about women but its all feminism. Can you talk about the ways in which women are silenced in the ways in which men are silenced and which they are different . Im thinking in particular, i look at Stanford University and the brock turner case of course. It seems to illustrate many of these different kind of things but im curious if you can unpack what you think are the main differences in the silences and how those silences are overcome in different ways and what that means. I think of mail silence as all the things that men are not supposed to do and say and feel and like and i recount the conversation with my fiveyearold nephew a few years ago and his favorite colors were like pink, purple and orange and i was monitoring that, i knew that he wasnt going to stay with us so i was asking why he didnt like pink anymore and i knew exactly why. I knew that was girly and he couldnt like girl things and hes not yet five. Its not coming from his parents, its ambient. So many of you are parents who try to keep your sons from guns or wargames or Something Like that but its ambient , that stuff. Parents dont succeed in doing it alone. So i went shopping for my not yet born god sons, in the Clothing Department and the generating of newborns close was kind ofshocking. Boys close , it was rocket ships and astronauts and cowboys and Football Players and dinosaurs and reptiles, all this cold, active, distant stuff. Girls were all this passage, conley , stop but we all know boys dont cry, men are not supposed to express weakness in doubt and certain kinds of feelings and under these conventions and i think that theres a great deal of deadness. As you go to brock turner, to be able to do something horrible to another person, whether its any kind of violence, degradation, abuse, you have to have kind of shut down your capacity of empathy which is in a and a lot of small children and a lot of us retain imperfectly. Ive written about other places that you have to kill off part of yourself before you can become a killing machine and theres a way men are starting to weapon eyes as well. That they are not told this experiential sensation, they are kind of their weapons and you see all all that in the brock turner case. Which then had all these interesting wrinkles when the victim spoke up in court and became maybe the most well heard rate victim ever with that incredible letter she wrote. That really turned the tables in the power dynamic, she was given a chance to have a voice. We are in an era where victims were supposed to completely disappear although she appeared imperfectly because she never revealed her name and there was still that need protection from shame or further threats or the story following her and she just read this extraordinary thing that made him, that just. With justice diminished men do nothing in a very powerful way, it was extraordinary and spoke though with empathy for all other victims of similar crimes and really express the kind of greatness in her. In a way in which by having that voice, that empathy, that strength she hadnt been destroyed by an act that was meant to dehumanize and destroy her. You know, for me reading this, is just beautiful. Violence against women is often against our voices and stories. It is a refusal of our voices and what our voice means. The right to selfdetermination, to participation, to consent or dissent, to live and participate, to interpret and marry. Those are sort of what it means to be human. And we can talk about physical rights and Property Rights and economic rights and things like that but at the very core, having a voice is what it means to be human and we can look at jim crow or the for some reason ive beentalking about the antiantichinese riots in 1977 or different kinds of , theres a lot of ways that the disposition of native americans, of genocide, you know, the criminalization of homosexuality. Theres innumerable ways people have been silenced. The disappearance of the disabled but i thinkfeminists , its been a project of arriving at voices and quoting Susan Griffin is in the audience who is a great feminist heroine. [applause] and a great sort of new role model and friend of mine and she was part of this incredible thing that happened in the 70s. In the 60s, late 60s into the 70s which is the feminists writing about silence. Audrey ward wrote about it, is in wrote pornography and silence and kelly olson wrote silences and in the sai name a dozen works by feminis