Moyers & Company- Optimist for Our Times 2012 04 13 PBS

Moyers & Company- Optimist for Our Times 2012 04 13 PBS

285 mb/56mins/mp4


An Optimist for Our Times
April 13, 2012

Angela Glover Blackwell has spent her adult life advocating practical ways to fulfill AmericaΓÇÖs promise of ΓÇ£life, liberty, and the pursuit of happinessΓÇ¥ for all. Now, with our middle class struggling, poverty rising, and inequality growing, the founder and chief executive officer of PolicyLink, an influential research center, finds reasons for hope in the face of these hard realities.

On this weekΓÇÖs Moyers & Company, Bill Moyers and Blackwell discuss what fuels her optimism.

“I’m not discouraged, and I wouldn’t even dream of giving up, because we’re at a moment right now where I think we have more possibility than I’ve seen in my adult lifetime,” Blackwell tells Moyers. “Part of what I’ve been feeling is that all the issues are finally on the table… So many people who are being left behind are now in places where they have voice, and influence, and they’re forcing their way into the conversation.”

ΓÇ£America doesnΓÇÖt want to talk about race,ΓÇ¥ Blackwell states, but says the future ΓÇ£is a five-year-old Latina girl. It is a seven-year-old black boy. What happens to them will determine what America looks like.ΓÇ¥

ΓÇ£And so this country, as a democracy, really cannot expect to continue to be proud on the world stage, competitive in the global economy, or having a democracy it can put forward as working in a multi-racial society if we donΓÇÖt invest in the people who are the future.ΓÇ¥


flv: http://billmoyers.com/episode/full-show-an-optimist-for-our-times/