Homeroom with Sal & Congresswoman Karen Bass - Wednesday, August 26

• Hi everyone, Sal Khan here. Welcome to this Homeroom live stream. As always, I'm very excited about the conversation we're going to have with our guest today, Representative Karen Bass.

But before we get to that, I'll give my standard announcements. First of all, a reminder that Khan Academy is a not-for-profit organization. We only exist through philanthropic donations from folks like yourself, if you're in a position to do so. So if you can, please think about going to Khanacademy.org/donate.

I also wanna give a special shout out to several organizations that have been helping to support Khan Academy, especially as we've gone through the COVID crisis. We were already running at a deficit before the crisis, and you could imagine the load on our servers has been two and a half, three times normal. Registrations have been more than 10 times normal.

We've been trying to accelerate a whole series of content and product and programmatic elements, and to help us there, special thanks to Bank of America, Google.org, AT&T, Fastly, Novartis, and actually the Amgen Foundation, and the many other supporters of Khan Academy over the years that have really put us in a position to be able to do the work that we're able to do now to support so many folks through this difficult time period.

I also wanna remind folks that if you've enjoyed watching these Homeroom live streams, or maybe you haven't had a chance to watch as many, and you would just like to listen to some of them, this live stream is adapted for podcasts now, and so you can find "Homeroom with Sal: the Podcast" anywhere that you would typically find your podcasts.

So with that, I'm excited to introduce Representative Karen Bass, member of the US House of Representatives representing the 33rd district of California, former speaker of the California Assembly, chair of the House Black Caucus. Thanks for joining us, Representative Bass.

• Thanks for having me on, nice to be with you today.

• So there's a bunch of stuff I'm super eager to cover with you. First of all, your life's journey, I think, is very inspirational, so I wanna go into that. A lot of young people kind of trying to figure out what to do with life. I think the second element is, where it's some major milestones in history or at least anniversaries of milestones, we've got the ratification of the 19th amendment, as well as Martin Luther King's March on Washington in 1963, kind of the 57th anniversary of that.

And I'm also just curious about politics and the operations of Congress generally. But maybe we'll take it in that order.

• Sure.

• For young people watching, and I don't think we get enough of this when we watch the mainstream press, they'll see folks like yourself, who I've looked like they've accomplished a lot and have accomplished a lot. And they're like, "How do I do that? What are the steps that I take in order to become the next Karen Bass?" (Karen laughing)

So as much as you can tell us about what was your own journey, maybe starting in middle and high school?

• Sure, well, first of all, I will tell you that my journey, I never imagined that I would be a member of Congress, that's most important. But I did decide at a very young age that I really wanted to focus on improving the quality of life and addressing social and economic issues.

And that's because I grew up in a time period when all of that was happening, post-civil rights, antiwar, everything was exploding in the world, and I was very captured by that. And so it didn't occur to me that I could actually make a living and be politically involved. And so I whipped down many paths, one of which was the medical field.

So I worked in the medical field, one as a nurse, and then as a physician assistant for a number of years, and after work, I volunteered in the community and focused on different issues. Now, ironically, given what's happening today, one of the first issues I focused on was police abuse because we had terrible problems in Los Angeles, and we are on the heels within 24 hours of two terrible shootings that took place in two different states.

So many decades later the issues are still the same. And after a while, I started a community organization that was also focused on these issues, and from there ran for office. But I did not set out to say, "I wanna be an elected official."

• And to any young people out there, I think there's kind of two categories of young people. There's those who are idealistic, and they say, "I could run for office and I could play a role in civic change," and it could be as being an elected official, or it could be in other ways. But there's also increasing cynicism about politics and polarization, and I wanna talk more about that.

But just from your point of view, what would you tell a young person? Who's right there, are they both right? Is there a way to have a more idealistic track in politics and policy?

• Well, I think they both are right. And I went through periods where I felt cynical as well, but cynical about what? I've never felt cynical about people and people's ability to bring about change. But one thing about politics is that there are so many ways to get involved in being in office is just one of them. And so when I went through a period where I was pretty cynical, I was involved on a community level, and I wasn't interested in elected politics.

That's why I said I never imagined myself being in Congress. But I think at a certain point in time, if you're really committed to change, then you wanna see something happen. And so getting involved at the community level, I did that first, and then I was working with elected officials to bring about change, and then ultimately decided to go down that path myself.

But let me just say that if you are cynical and if you make the choice to not be involved at all, then you are essentially allowing other people to control your life, and I think that's an important decision to make. Do you want to be in the driver's seat or do you wanna be in the passenger seat? And regardless of whether you choose to be involved or not, the powers that be will be involved in your life. So it's a question of whether or not you wanna participate with them or not.

• And what advice would you have for young people who wanna be in that driver's seat, or at least start exercising that muscle of nudging their way into the driver's seat? What could they start doing right now?

• Right now, you see the wonderful thing about the generation of young people that are watching this is that you have technology that didn't always exist. And so there are so many ways to get involved now, there are tons of organizations that focus on different issues.

So what I always tell people is that, where's your heart? What really interests you? Is it the environment? Is it immigration? Is it race? All so many different issues. Find out an issue that interests you, and then find out other people that are involved in that issue, because now with technology, any issue you pick, there's millions of people already involved.

• Absolutely, and I wanna remind everyone watching, you can put your questions in the message boards on YouTube and Facebook, and we have team members who will surface those questions to Representative Bass and to myself, and I'll try to get to as many of those as possible.

• Can I add one other thing? Is that it doesn't matter what age you are. I have worked with eight-year-olds and nine-year-olds who were interested in politics. Now today they're 20-year-olds. (Karen laughing) So your age should not prohibit you from being involved at all, don't see that as a barrier.

• You know when you say that, it reminds me, I remember when I was, let's call it 12 or 13 years old, and you're pondering your place in the universe. And I always looked at people who were 30, 40, 50, 60 years old, and I'm like, they must have it all figured out, they've been around for so long.

• (laughs) right.

• The reality is adults stop thinking about a lot of this stuff. A lot of kids actually are deeper thinkers about society than a lot of adults. So kids don't feel insecure about that, you have as much of a right to have an opinion about these things as anybody.

Given these anniversaries we're going into, which is always a time for reflection, you have the hundred-year anniversary of the certification, I guess the ratification of the 19th Amendment, giving women the right to vote, 57th year anniversary of, or about two on August 28 hit, of the March on Washington.

You know, these are related, you could argue, but the women's right to vote and participate in politics is a civil rights issue, and then you have obviously the broader notion of civil rights when it comes to race, and these feel very connected.

Where do you think, and you can take them separate or intermingled, these two, where do you think we are on that journey in both women's rights and civil rights in general?

• Well, let me just say, first of all, that it is the 100th anniversary. But really, when the 19th Amendment was signed, it did not apply to all women, so it only applied to white women. Black women were not allowed the right to vote, neither were indigenous women or women who were immigrants.

And so, um, it is an anniversary to celebrate, but I think it's an example of how we have a rocky road. I mean, we move forward, there's some progress, and then sometimes we have a move back. So while we're celebrating these anniversaries, we are 69 days away from the next election, and everybody watching this who is 18 years old and older, I know you're registered to vote and I know you plan to vote.

Even in 2020, we still have to deal with the fact that people in the United States do not automatically have the right to vote. Because now there are tactics that are done, voter suppression. So the latest area that we have to be concerned about is the post office and COVID.

So here we have an election 69 days away, and people are worried about going out to vote because they might get exposed to COVID, and in some states they're not gonna make it easy for people to vote from home. And so, in 2020, we are still fighting some of the same issues, there has been progress.

But one thing we've learned from the last few years is that you can make progress, but that doesn't mean it's permanent. You always have to be vigilant and stay on it because the progress you made can be reversed.

• And from your point of view, I mean, I'm curious, the voter suppression tactics over the years, obviously if you go back decades, you had things like poll tests and things like that. Do you think that we're kind of in some ways reverting? I mean, some of this conversation with the post office, I mean, you're much closer to the issue than I am. I mean, what is going on? I mean, one view is, does it hurt everyone equally? And so maybe it doesn't,

• No.

• Have a dramatic outcome. I'd love to hear your thoughts.

• Sure, sadly to say that voter suppression tactics are very targeted, and they're targeted to communities of color. They're also targeted to young people and to students. And so the form that voter suppression has taken over the last few years, and this is all because the Supreme Court did a headache decision a few years ago that essentially pulled the teeth out of the Voting Rights Act.

One of the main accomplishments of the civil rights movement was the Voting Rights Act, which protected the right to vote initially for black people, but also for other people of color, where in the South in particular, but this also happens around the country.

In the South, black people had to risk their lives to go vote, and sometimes they had to suffer violent consequences. And so the federal government had to step in to protect the right to vote. While the Supreme Court a few years ago really kind of undid that. And so the minute the Supreme Court made that decision, within hours of that decision being made, many states imposed very strong restrictions that limited the right to vote for certain people.

• One thing I'm curious, as a member of Congress you obviously interact a lot with people, Congress members from throughout the country of both parties. And actually, you have a reputation of being very well liked and respected by both sides of the aisle. When you talk to folks who are on the other side and you bring up these issues, are they kind of like, "Yeah, this is a real issue," but there's all this political gamesmanship to try to make the numbers work for one side or the other? Or do you feel that they're just not seeing the issue?

• Well, I know my colleagues see the issue; they’re smart. (Karen laughing) The sad thing is that people in power wanna stay in power; they wanna stay in office. And so what they tend to say is they tend to talk about voter fraud, and that they're protecting against voter fraud.

The problem is, is that there is just virtually no evidence that voter fraud is a very big problem. As a matter of fact, the most significant voter fraud that took place in 2018 took place in North Carolina, and it was done by Republicans. So one thing that you learn about when you serve in a legislative body, whether that's local, state, or federal, is you learn to compartmentalize.

So there are some subjects, some issues that I work very well with my Republican colleagues on, and then there's some issues that we don't talk about because we know we have diametrically opposing views. But important is, is that whether you agree or disagree, there's no reason at all not to be respectful and nice to the other side.

So I might disagree with them terribly on one issue, but then 10 other issues we agree on. And so you tend to focus where you can work and compartmentalize where you can't.

• It makes a ton of sense, and I actually have more questions about Congress. But a really good question from YouTube came up from Rupesh Cathy, who says, "Representative Bass, the racial discrimination has been such a main issue in recent years, but it seems like we're seeing the same results over and over. How do we really improve it?"

• Well, actually, we have suffered terribly over these last three and a half years because we have someone at the top who's pretty open about his feelings about other people. But at the same time, because he has been (Karen laughing) so divisive, let me say, it has allowed people to see race in another way.

And I'm actually very encouraged after the horrible murder of George Floyd that there is a new awareness in our country about racism. What we have tended to do in our country is we only like the good part of our history. We don't wanna hear the bad news, and so it's hard for people to accept that slavery existed in this United States for over 200 years, 250 years to be exact, 100 years before the country was actually formed.

And so we don't wanna talk about these difficult subjects like race. But I feel like, especially with the younger generation, there is an openness now to say there is discrimination within the institutions of our society. Let's examine where the discrimination exists, and let's get rid of it. And I'm hopeful that we're about to approach a new milestone in our history, but we are going to have to have new leadership at the top in order for that to take place.

• And where do you think the rubber hits the road? Clearly, what happens at the national level sets a tone, kind of sets a context in which everything happens. But when we talk, think about George Floyd's murder, that seems like a local police reform issue, although it seems like it's somewhat systemic across many geographies.

What levers do you have in Congress or at the federal level? And then what are the other levels? Is it mayors? Is it police commissioners? Or is it something else that changes things?

• Sure, it is all of the above, and I would encourage your listeners to watch a documentary on Netflix that's called "13th." It's about the 13th Amendment.

Watch that documentary because it goes through the history of policing in the United States. So this has long been an issue, especially with African Americans. And I think that every level of government is involved.

So the rubber meets the road on the federal level because the federal government has the purse strings. We control the money, which is given out on a local level. The locals are important because they implement and set policy.

So after George Floyd's murder, we passed legislation in the House. Now it stalled in the Senate. But the good news is just the mere fact of us going about introducing legislation led to many states and cities and counties also moving ahead in advance of us and passing their own legislation to outlaw things like choke-holds, where a police officer can choke somebody to death, or a no-knock, which Breonna Taylor died when her door was smashed in, and the officers were in the wrong house.

Now it's unveiled that they've done that before, and they shot her; here she's in bed asleep. So there are certain practices that police have that make it very difficult to sue police officers, to fire them, or to prosecute them. That's why the man that was killing George Floyd on video was looking dead at the camera; he wasn't worried because he knew he could act with complete impunity. We need to change those laws so officers cannot act with complete impunity.

• And that's just one dimension of kind of this ongoing movement towards racial equality, and we also talk about gender equality. What are, if you could wave a magic wand from a legislative point of view or other points of view, what are the things that we should be striving for, we should be working for, moving forward towards?

• Well, first of all, in the environment of COVID, I am extremely concerned about the disproportionate death rate amongst communities of color and healthcare. That's one.

I'm also, because of COVID, very concerned about education and the achievement gap, a great role of Khan Academy complaint is that many households do not necessarily have the technology or the parents aren't there, especially with young children because they're essential workers.

We already have an achievement gap between kids of color and white children. Well now, with COVID, I'm concerned that that achievement gap is going to be really increased, and so we need to think about that when we're past this pandemic.

And then of course the entire criminal justice system, which involves policing on one end, is that we have more prisoners in the United States by proportion than any other country in the world. There's just no reason for that, especially because the vast majority of people that are incarcerated are poor people who can't afford bail, and that is one of the big reasons why they're locked up; this just shouldn't exist in our country.

• Absolutely, I mean, there's these three dimensions; there's kind of the criminal justice system, there's education that you just mentioned, and obviously that's where we are trying our best. You're right, we're part of a much bigger ecosystem.

And then there's the economy. Where are we right now when COVID hit, and we had the shutdowns of some form in society? Congress, and I would say, and the executive branch, everyone was fairly fast to pass these first few stimulus bills.

Now it seems like things are a little bit more stuck, maybe 'cause we're getting close to the election. What do you think is the right thing that needs to happen given the moment that we're in?

• And actually, because we're near an election, you would think that they would be fast-forward. The right thing to do always is to protect people, period. And so the idea that we passed the bill over a hundred days ago that's languishing in the Senate.

People lost their unemployment insurance several weeks ago. People need stimulus checks. One of the things holding up the bill is that some of my colleagues feel, if we give a $600 check a week to people that that will be a disincentive for them to go to work.

That hurts my heart, considering that we passed legislation that gave half a trillion dollars to major businesses like the airlines and the hotels. Now, I'm fine with that, but just like we need to bail them out, we need to bail the average citizen out as well.

The other thing is, is that we have 178,000 Americans that died in the last four months. And I don't believe that they needed to die if we had dealt with the pandemic correctly. So we need money for testing, for tracing, and for treatment. All of those things are in the bill that has been sitting in the Senate for 100 days.

• And I'll add to that, we had Ray Dalio, famed hedge fund manager, who runs the largest hedge fund in the world, who clearly has a very deep understanding of economics. And sometimes the left-right argument is stereotyped as the left will say, "Oh, we need more supports. We need to support people."

And the right would say, "Well, the incentives that might create, or that might drive inflation." But we're in an emergency where people essentially can't work, none of their own choice.

• Right.

• And deflation is our biggest risk; interest rates are at an all-time low. And Ray Dalio, in his own words—who, I wouldn't call him a political ideolog by any stretch of the imagination—said, "There's really no better option."

And this was a conversation about two months ago.

• Yeah.

• But clearly, we're getting in a place where the economy is sputtering, and the most obvious thing to do frankly, regardless of what side of the aisle you're on is to just to make sure that that fuel keeps circulating. So just me as my economics teacher, it makes a lot of sense. (Karen laughing)

• Well, and I don't understand, I mean, exactly what you said. We are near an election. So you would think that everyone would want to make sure that communities have support.

So I am baffled by why my colleagues on the other side of the aisle in the Senate are holding up the bill. And you know, we've talked about COVID; we've talked about kind of the progression, or a little bit of the progression on civil rights issue.

On where women are, especially women in politics or women in society, clearly there's a lot of progress that has been made over the last hundred years. You are in a position of—you are one of the most influential Congress people.

We now have Kamala Harris as the vice presidential nominee on a major ticket. Is this the beginning? Are we going to get to a new inflection point? Or is this more superficial and there are still some deep-seated things that we need to fix?

• I think it's also all of the above. I mean, I do think that Kamala Harris, and hopefully our side will be successful and it will be Biden-Harris sworn in in January—that’s huge, that's breaking a glass ceiling that is major.

And so I think that that's important. On the other hand, we still need to pass legislation for the Equal Rights Amendment. We need to amend the constitution for pay equity, all of those things. So we still have a ways to go.

But it is very important, just as you said, it's so important to acknowledge progress because otherwise that adds two sentences. When people say, "Well, I haven't seen major change," it's always important to understand history because if you know history and understand history, then you can see how things do change.

And that's why we need everybody that's watching to make sure that they, one, vote in 69 days, make sure you fill out your census form, and then stay involved, stay involved. We need you.

And maybe the last thing, right before we went live on this live stream, you and I were talking a little bit about all of us having to work on video conferencing now.

And I am curious about Congress itself; I read this, I read a lot of science fiction books. A lot of them are behind me right now. But there's alternative models of representative democracies.

Obviously ours is based on geography because we didn't have even telephones when our government was architected. Do you think that there's gonna be things that come out of this crisis or even new ways of working that actually might alter Congress as a whole?

And I'm also curious, we touched on kind of the polarization a little bit. Is it as bad as it looks from the outside? And what is the cure for that?

• Sure, well, first of all, I do think it's gonna alter our way of functioning, period. And not just in Congress. I think all of us are gonna be different now. And there's some good things about it; good things about it in terms of Zoom, in your ability to interact with lots of people online.

But in terms of the polarization, I think that, I mean, I hate to say it this way, but on the one hand, you see what you see from us on TV is theater, okay? We don't hate each other. We actually do work together.

We do disagree on some things, but there's lots of things we agree about. It's just that it tends that that's not really newsworthy, so you don't hear when we actually do things, and that needs to change.

But I think the polarization, we need to have a less divisive leader. Let me leave it at that.

• Okay, and you know, the last point, I mean, you mentioned what we have to do in education. I completely agree with you, and I wrote an op-ed in the New York Times last week.

We can't let this education crisis turn to an education catastrophe for all the reasons that you mentioned, where the kids who are already not fully resourced are now the ones the most likely to either not have access, or when they do, they don't have the right supports, et cetera, et cetera.

What could we do at Khan Academy? What advice do you have for us? And I also want advice because a lot of folks have been telling us, that we'll have to work more closely with government.

In a lot of ways, the work that Khan Academy is doing is maybe somewhat a role of government.

• Yes.

• How should we navigate this? (both laughing)

• I think that's absolutely right. And you do play a tremendous role, and it's a tremendous benefit to people. And maybe the way in terms of coordinating with government might be the case.

And I think you becoming, the Khan Academy becoming more well-known, certainly within the halls of Congress, there are people that know and people that don't. And like I mentioned to you before, two of my staff members have benefited from Khan Academy; you helped them with calculus.

And with me, I mentioned to you that I have used Khan Academy with adults who've experienced health crises, like a heart issue, for example, and really didn't understand how the heart worked.

And so it's very helpful in a variety of ways.

• Now, I have to tell you, I think it was about four or five years ago, I got separately invited to the House Republican Caucus retreat and the House Democratic Caucus retreat; this was like a year apart.

And when I presented, folks were like, "Wow, what kind of games to trying to do represent what our party is trying to do?" And both parties separately said this. So I feel like we might be threading the needle on a bipartisan issue.

So I would love to work with you to figure out how we can especially reach the kids that need this most right now. And I 100% agree; a lot of it could be free, it's just amplification.

There's a lot of folks who know about Khan Academy, but there's a lot of folks who could know about it, who aren't benefiting fully just yet.

• Exactly, and so you know what? I'm gonna go back and tell our new caucus chair, you need to come back to our retreat next year. (both laughing)

• Sounds good, I'd probably be less traveled; we'll probably be on Zoom. So hopefully we're through the crisis by then.

Any last parting words of advice for kids who are watching, who are just trying to absorb everything we just talked about?

• Just that the most important thing is to be healthy, to be safe, to abide by the public health requirements, and make sure that your parents fill out that census form.

And just remember you are never, never, never too young to get involved in politics and community issues; there's always room for you.

• Well, thank you so much, Representative Bass; this was an inspiring conversation. I say it every time, these conversations go way faster than I expect because they're so interesting.

But thank you for taking out the time at a time that I know is very busy and a lot of important things going on.

• My pleasure, thank you.

• Well, thanks everyone again for participating. I continue to be very impressed with everyone that we talk to, and especially Representative Bass, I find to be a very inspiring figure.

But thanks for joining; hopefully, you got some good advice. Hopefully, we do figure out a way to work with Congress in some way to be able to support more folks as we go through this crisis and then beyond the crisis.

And I hope to see all of y'all tomorrow, where we're gonna be doing another Homeroom live stream, and this will just be one of our classic Ask Sal Anythings.

So I really look forward to that; that's always a fun thing for me to just ask me anything. And so start thinking of your questions, and I'm literally happy to answer a question about anything. I'm very hard to offend or surprise. So I will see y'all tomorrow.

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