Cornel West, Miriam Rivera discuss race, class, educational access
The panel featuring venture capitalist Miriam Rivera, left, and Cornel West, right, was moderated by Alexandra Bernadotte, founder and CEO of Beyond 12.
Becoming a fully engaged participant in our democracy requires more than simply pulling oneself up by his or her proverbial bootstraps. Indeed, it requires hard work and the personal fortitude required to delay gratification. But no one succeeds alone.
For scholar Cornel West and venture capitalist Miriam Rivera, it took a lot of love from family members and great teachers, librarians and other adults who may never even know the extent of the impact they had on individual lives.
And even in this so-called "post-racial" or "post-gender" society, that kind of support is vital. Rivera and West spoke during a forum titled "Access, Success, Impact: How Low-income Students of Color Succeed in College and Beyond" on March 5 in a crowded Memorial Auditorium.
"Simply because we're less racist does not mean we're post-racial," said West, the Class of 1943 University Professor at Princeton University.
Rivera, who holds four degrees from Stanford and serves on the university's Board of Trustees, talked about her experience growing up in a poor Puerto Rican family in Chicago and the role poverty played in her academic and professional journey.
"One of the things that's missing here is class," Rivera, co-founder and managing partner of Ulu Ventures, said of the discussion.
The forum was moderated by Alexandra Bernadotte, a Stanford School of Education alumna and founder and CEO of Beyond 12.
Saturday’s forum was co-sponsored by the Stanford School of Education and Foundation for a College Education (FCE), an educational success organization based in East Palo Alto that works to increase the number of students of color in surrounding communities who graduate from four-year colleges and universities. West is FCE’s national adviser.
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