It didn’t matter how little sleep we had had the night before, we made ourselves get up in order to be on the road by 6:30 a.m. on the two days in the fall when we would attend The Atlantic Festival of Ideas in Washington, D.C. Most of the time, the weather was beautiful, but sometimes there would be rain and flooding. On the occasions when there was heavy rainfall, we had to leave home even earlier in order to get to the parking garage and find a spot near the front of the lines waiting to get into Sidney Harman Hall where the Festival forums would take place.
We liked sitting in rows close enough to the stage so we could see the faces of the guests in real life rather than on a screen. I was always eager to see the journalists from The Atlantic and NPR, as well. After so many years of reading their work or listening to them on radio, I felt as if I knew these journalists and I wanted to see if my preconceived notions of what they looked like panned out. Never did. I was always way off in how I thought they might look.
We saw members of Congress, journalists, artists, entrepreneurs, educators, environmentalists, and many other thinkers who were asked questions about their take on a wide range of current events and the future issues. I was amazed at how all of us were able to just sit for hours and listen to one guest after another chat about the world and our place in it.
Because of the COVID pandemic, the Festival was virtual this year. The guests were just as interesting as when we could be in the same room with them, and we were up close where we could clearly see their faces on the screen, yet the virtual experience was less satisfying for me.
I tried to get at what made the experience less satisfying than being in Harman Hall in person. For example, although I’d be taking notes furiously on the questions interviewers posed and the responses offered by the guests, I could, at times, look down the row from where we were sitting or look at the people in the row in front of us and try to guess how they might be judging what they were hearing. There were people of all ages at the Festival but not much racial diversity. Over the years, I would look in wonder at the many rows of people who shared the same skin color, but not mine.
When there were breaks, we would seek out other people who looked like us to start a conversation, exchange cards, and sometimes promise to follow up. The people who planned the virtual Festival were aware of the need for people to interact, so they set up chat rooms so people could make connections. This didn’t appeal to me. I remained silent.
Treats of the onsite Festival included exhibits of up-and-coming innovations, an opportunity to see documentaries and films that may not be shown in many theaters, and the “Food for Thought Break-Out Lunch.” These lunches were sponsored at different restaurants in D.C.’s Penn Quarter or might be a box lunch at Harman Hall. The lines were too long at all the eating places and there was a scramble to find a place to sit, but it was well worth it because speakers such as the initiators of Black Lives Matter were there to have a conversation with us. The crowds of people—all eager to learn—evoked a vibe that I could not feel during the virtual Festival.
It was during the many hours I spent online getting a lot of information from the speakers that I had the best understanding of what students probably experienced as they took their course work online this past year. For some of us, just because the material presented virtually is the same as that presented in the classroom does not make it comparable. My learning is more than just the transfer of information from someone to me; it’s the feeling of engaging in a common quest with others that stimulates my desire to learn.
Along with students and teachers all over the world, I hope that in the next year and the years to come that learning in “community” will again be the norm for those of us who need it.
While there is something missing when the Festival is virtual. I am grateful for the opportunity to engage with the Festival despite not being able to be there in person. The fact is, without the virtual opportunity, I would have missed the Festival altogether this year because I no longer live in a place where I can just get up and drive to D.C. whenever I like. I hope that when people can congregate in one place to enjoy the Festival, those of us who are not in proximity to the event can still join in virtually. In the meantime, following are some of my notes from the 2020 Festival. The quotes may not be exact, but they are accurate enough for my purpose here:
September 23
- “1.3 million people would not sign an agreement not to discriminate.” – Brian Chesly, CEO of Airbnb
- Author James McBride and actor Ethan Hawke talking about the film based on McBride’s book The Good Lord Bird:
- “The blood has already been shed, the path has already been cut, now we just need to put on our hats and go on down the road.” (McBride)
- “To do well by people, you have to not do what society wants you to do; you have to break the box.” (Ethan Hawke)
September 24
- Samantha Bee, host of Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, on “Finding the Funny During a Pandemic”:
- “You have to prove that you’re vital, so I had to keep doing the show.”
- “There was a lot of innovating and building new systems and trying to make things more visual rather than a flat experience.”
- “This form of entertainment is our planting our flag on what’s right and what’s wrong.”
- Dr. Ibram X. Kendi on “Antiracism in America”
- “Trump’s denial of racism has become a mirror for other Americans to see themselves as deniers of racism.”
- “We’re in the midst of a time when writers, organizations, and Black Lives Matter are making people aware of racism.”
- “Removing Trump from the White House will not be a postracial time.”
- “The path forward is to replace racist policies, structures, and systems with antiracist policies, structures, and systems.”
- “On the interpersonal level, make sure we’re seeing racial groups as equal.”
- “Racist ideas deflect us from what’s preventing us from coming together as a human community.”
- “The resistance gives me the most hope.”
- Echelon Insights Research—“Opportunity for Young People to be Successful”
- Only 13% of those surveyed think the next generation will be worse off than the current generation
- 43% think higher education is too expensive
- 40% worry about health care
- 35% worry about racial inequality
- The American Dream consists of a husband, wife, white picket fence, opportunity to better lives where people are equal; freedom and financial stability.
- Key Themes: Importance of the environment 74%; importance of education 72% (want more career and life skills)
- Journalist and author Bob Woodward
- “Trump was elected to break norms. His voters loved the lack of decorum.”
- “We’re in store for a quadruple train wreck after the election.”
- “Trump has no moral compass.”
- “Dr. Fauci says that Trump is obsessed with one thing and that’s to be re-elected.”
Gwen Dungy 