This is Democracy – Episode 149: Breaking Barriers in American Society

[0:00:05 Speaker 0] Yeah, this is Democracy, a podcast about the people of the United States, a podcast about citizenship about engaging with politics and the world around you. A podcast about educating yourself on today’s important issues and how to have a voice in what happens next. Welcome to our new episode of This is Democracy. This is a very special week. We we often have a policy experts and activists and other kinds of really impressive people on our podcast. This week. We have a true pioneer, uh someone who I’ve had the opportunity to get to know a little bit through conversations on the telephone and and she’s really an extraordinary person. She’s someone who’s going to share with us the experience of breaking barriers of serving your country in new ways and helping your country and your society see new possibilities in itself. This is Lieutenant Colonel Christina, hopper and Christina. Welcome to the show.

[0:01:10 Speaker 1] Thank you, jeremy, thank you for having me on.

[0:01:12 Speaker 0] Christina is a graduate of the University of texas at Austin. She graduated a little more than two decades ago and was commissioned as the distinguished graduate of the Air Force Reserve Officer Training Corps program. She earned her air force pilot wings in 2000, completed F- 16 training in 2001. Uh and was one of the only two black female fighter pilots in the Air Force until 2021. I just want to underline that point, she was one of only two black female fighter pilots in the Air Force until 2021. Christina’s first F 16 assignment was to the 524th fighter squadron at Cannon Air Force Base in New Mexico. Following the tragic events of September 11, she flew numerous combat air patrols over the United States protecting the president of the United States, critical infrastructure in many other parts of our society. One year later, she was deployed to support operations for Iraqi, freedom and southern watch and she flew more than 50 combat missions, earning four air medals. Christina, served 10 years in active duty and has been in the reserves for eight years and instructed in both F- 16 and T- 38 aircraft. And I noticed the other day when I was watching, I think it was an NBA playoff game Christina. The Air Force is um advertisement for people to join actually has a picture of you on it. Did you know

[0:02:36 Speaker 1] that are you talking about the Air Force commercial?

[0:02:39 Speaker 0] Yes.

[0:02:39 Speaker 1] Yes. Yeah, that was that was something that we did. Um I think the year before Covid hit.

[0:02:48 Speaker 0] So I think that when I saw this we had just gone from Lebron James to Christina hopper a step up in an impressive nous on my television screen

[0:02:58 Speaker 1] during

[0:02:59 Speaker 0] her time in the Air Force, Christina has been an advocate for women and minorities and aviation. She’s mentored hundreds of young women through various programs lean in super girls, which is a program Christina started Sisters in the Skies and and many others. The list of her achievements and her work particularly with other women uh in the military and in other settings. It goes on and on. She’s been featured on the Harry Connick Show in Family Circle magazine, Good Housekeeping magazine. Um and she speaks all across the country and and all across the world, I’m sure as well, so we really are delighted that we get a chance to learn from your experiences Christina. Uh before we turn to our discussion with Christina. Of course we have a poem for Mr Zachary. Sorry, what is the title of your poem today? Zachary? Just a little more earthly. Just a little more earthly. Let’s hear it in my imagining of the moment. Probably wrong. You shoot up into the sky like a bullet or a rocket ship. That’s just a little more earthly. In my imagining of the moment you float like a balloon until your ears drop back into understanding and you can hear the jets and recognize that you are human. And that in my imagining of the moment is when you turn your head just for a second and you look down from the cockpit and by then the sun is setting and you see the land unfold gilded and orange. And only then do you remember that there are guns strapped to your wings, that there really are rockets in your hold and bullets on your fuselage and that you aren’t up here to watch a sunset, That you aren’t up here to learn something about America or to realize your own singularity. But still you watch the sun sink and you find something out about this land and you can’t help it if your own rhythm materializes in the clouds. It’s a very vivid poem. Zachary. What is your poem about My poem is really about how I imagine uh, the moment of flying a fighter jet, uh, someone who has never experienced that and probably never will in my entire life. This is how I imagine it unfolding and how I imagine how important and life changing that experience must be. Yes. Yes. I imagine it’s incredibly exhilarating. Uh, Christina.

[0:05:22 Speaker 1] What

[0:05:23 Speaker 0] drew you to this world and to this journey you’ve been on for more than two decades now.

[0:05:29 Speaker 1] You know, it’s interesting that Zachary mentioned that he could never imagine himself doing it and I would say that that was definitely true of me as well. Um even though I grew up in an Air Force family, both of my parents were enlisted in the Air Force, I never imagined that I would be able to fly or especially that I would be able to fly fighter jets. Um In fact, my older brother was the one who would draw pictures of F16s when we were young and talk about how he was going to fly. Um so when I went to college at the university of texas, um I had no intentions of going into the Air Force or being a pilot, but the year before I went that summer before I went to U. T. I was up at the campus for the freshman orientation and there was a table set up where ROTC members were standing outside and they had that familiar blue uniform on and I thought uh I’m like I just felt drawn to go and talk with them. And so my mom was with me and I told her I said hey mom, I want to go talk to the folks over there. And she said hey I thought you said you didn’t want to be in the Air Force. I said I know, I know, I just want to talk to them. So I went over and I started talking with them about the Air Force and opportunities and if that would be compatible with doing sports at University of texas. And they told me all about the program and it sounded interesting so I decided to sign up. Well it wasn’t until my junior year that my ROTC commander called me into his office and he asked me why I hadn’t put in my application for pilot training and I told him sir I’m not qualified and he said well why not? And I said well I’m a psychology major and I thought you had to have a technical degree and he said no you just have to get your degree and your commission. And I said huh? So they had a qualifying test that you had to take, it was like a standardized kind of S. A. T. Type test in my scores and the pilot navigator category weren’t high enough for me to put in my application. So he told me that I needed to take the test again. Um And at that point it was kind of one of those moments in your life where you take a step back in and envision what your life could be if you did if you did it differently than what you had planned out at that moment. And so I told him I said I need to pray about this. So when I did pray about it, I had this very vivid dream and the dream was so vivid that when I woke up the next morning I knew that I needed to pursue being a pilot. And so I tell people that I didn’t find flying, flying found me, but when we were joined together, it was a match made in heaven. And that’s kind of how that played out for me. I put in my application, I was selected to go to pilot training and then um through going through the training, a lot of the things like the hand eye coordination that I learned from athletics and um you know, just that spatial reasoning that comes with doing sports um and maneuvering in a very dynamic environment. They all just came together for me and uh pilot training. Um you know, I did well in pilot training and was able to get selected to fly fighters. So that was kind of the process that led me along that path. But it wasn’t something I definitely set out to do when I was a young girl.

[0:08:51 Speaker 0] It’s a wonderful story because you’re recounting what’s true for so many, which is that you one choice or one decision leads to another. You don’t always know where you’re going until you’re until you’re pretty far down that pathway. You talked about the commanding officer who encouraged you, Did you have others who encouraged you?

[0:09:15 Speaker 1] Yeah. You know the funniest thing about it was whenever I was getting ready to tell my parents that I wanted to go and fly airplanes, I thought that they were not going to like the idea at all. Um I felt like maybe they were going to be worried about their daughter going off to, you know, fly fighter jets and two, Um, you know, to go into combat. But when I told them they were so excited and my parents have always been very supportive of everything that I’ve pursued and I had three other siblings. They were the same with all of us, just 100% behind us. And so I shouldn’t have thought that it would be any different in this case, but I just knew it was such a different path than what I thought I was going to be doing. And so that they have always been, um, I would say probably my biggest cheerleaders and I think they were a huge support to me and knowing that I was going down the right path. And why do

[0:10:06 Speaker 0] you think there hadn’t been more black women before you doing this?

[0:10:12 Speaker 1] Well, first of all, I would say that there weren’t that many women before me doing it when I When I was selected to fly fighters, there were only 50 women in fighters. And that was because in the 1990s, right after desert storm, uh, in the early 1990s, I want to say 1993, when I was a senior in high school, that was the first time that women were, the doors were opened for women to go into fighter combat aircraft. And So they were just then opening those doors. And so when I graduated from University of Texas in 1998, I mean, we just weren’t very far down down the line into allowing women into fighters. So it was a whole new frontier for for women in general. And so I would say that that is probably part of the reason why the pool of black women was even smaller. Um, when it comes to black women and minorities in aviation in general though, I think some of it has to do with exposure where you grow up whether or not you’re exposed to aviation opportunities. Um, whether or not you have parents, family, siblings or close friends who are in aviation, it’s kind of kind of one of those fields where if you don’t get that exposure early on and kind of learn about the opportunity, then you don’t necessarily do the things that would lead to being prerequisites to you being qualified, um, at the time that you would have to make those decisions around college in your early 20s.

[0:11:45 Speaker 0] Uh, is

[0:11:46 Speaker 1] there something also

[0:11:47 Speaker 0] about the contemporary assumptions? I think about My growing up in the 80s, in high school in New York City and one of our favorite movies was top

[0:11:58 Speaker 1] Gun. And

[0:11:59 Speaker 0] of course all the pilots are white, right there, all white

[0:12:02 Speaker 1] men.

[0:12:03 Speaker 0] And I don’t know, maybe I’m misremembering, but I don’t think of a single, you know, african american heroic pilot. I think the, the only african american woman I can think of who was in a role of being a kind of pilot is the the lady who was on Star trek, I think. Um, so I wonder if that’s, if that’s part of it and I wonder if in your experience you’re seeing that change. Uh do you see more, more um acceptance as the sort of standard image of a pilot of a fighter pilot that it could be an african american woman?

[0:12:34 Speaker 1] Well, you know, I, I teach on diversity and um and one of the things that we talk about in the diversity sphere is just the role of unconscious bias in making choices. So I would say that definitely there can be a an area of unconscious bias of your picture of, of what a fighter pilot looks like or what a pilot looks like. Um, I know that throughout my career, um, there were times when people would find out that I was a fighter pilot and they would say, you don’t look like a fighter pilot. And that would give me pause to think, well, what does a fighter pilot look like? And I thought, um, you know, they would say that you’re very feminine, you know, you’re very elegant and so that seemed to not fit that stereotype of that idea of what a fighter pilot was. Um, going back to your, your discussion about Top Gun. Um, it’s been a while since I’ve seen Top Gun, but I think I do remember there being a black navigator in, um, in Top Gun. Um, I’d have to go back and watch you make sure. I think that I think that was right. Um, so you do see it, but just the fact that you didn’t remember or recognize that could be an indication of, you know, unconscious bias. And that fact that, you know, even though there was a person in there that had that role, your brain didn’t remember that and it didn’t stand out to you. So I definitely think that that can play a role in what you think your opportunities are. Um, to me, I think diversity can, can involve kind of what I call the three es and there’s exposure and then there’s setting the example and then there is encouragement. And so exposure is, hey, these are the opportunities that lie before you. You know, the sky’s the limit. What do you want to do with your life? And then they’re setting the example and people talk about that is hey, seeing people that look like me, seeing examples and role models helps me to know that that is an opportunity that’s available for me. And finally then having those mentors and role models, you can get encouragement, you can find people who can tell you, hey, what does it take for me to do this? This uh thing that seems fantastical to me, what are the steps that I need to take? What do I need to be thinking about at the different stages of my life so that I can set myself

[0:14:48 Speaker 0] up for success. What kinds of barriers did you face beyond the ones we’ve talked about? I imagine you had many supporters through your career and through your training, but I imagine you met you had naysayers as well and and certain institutional biases you faced in addition to the unconscious biases. Could could you share some of those with us?

[0:15:10 Speaker 1] Sure. So like I talked about when I enter the fighter pilot career field, it was very new to women and I think there was still a mentality or just kind of that question mark looming of can women do this? Um, do we want them here? Is it going to change the dynamic of the squadron, the good old boy program and the brotherhood? And so when I showed up to my first fighter assignment, I was the first female to go through and be a part of that fighter squadron. Um, so you can imagine the structure of the squadron um, is very tight knit and it’s kind of a fraternity of sorts. And so just being able to fit into that fraternity and to be able to prove myself when I arrived was a barrier. I would say that some of that barrier was placed upon me and some of it I placed on myself. So the part that I placed on myself is just this pressure of, okay, I know I’m the only woman here and so I know that I’m standing out and so I want to make sure that I do a good job because if I don’t do a good job, then maybe they’re going to think that women don’t belong here. So my failure could be a failure for all other women that would come after me. So that was pressure, you know, that I placed on myself and then there was another pressure that I think I could feel from my peers kind of scrutinizing and looking at me to see is she going to succeed? Is she going to be as good as us? Um, is she going to be able to do the same things that we do? Um, so that was one barrier. Uh, the other barrier I would say was equipment and resources. So in the fighter, unlike your heavier aircraft, like when you go on an airliner and you get an hour or two hours into that flight and you have to go to the bathroom, you have a place where you can go well in a fighter jet. We don’t have that. And so some of the equipment that they had for the men, um, to utilize to go to the bathroom on longer missions. They didn’t work for women. Um, and so that was another barrier to just being able to go on a deployment and fly a 10 hour Sordi where I was going to need to go to the bathroom and so you’re talking about just practical functionality of equipment and such. So those were some things that I had to work with life support with two um you know, kind of be a guinea pig of myself and do experiments to figure out what was going to work well for myself and for other women. And the women that were there with me were, you know, working on the same types of things. So we all kind of had a part in trying to find flights, suits with long enough zippers um to be functional. There are things that you don’t really think about until you’re in the middle of of a flight and you need it. So, so I would say those were some of the practical things. The third thing, I would say we’re policies, um some of the policies related to pregnancy when you were on active flying status were not necessarily conducive to you being able to continue to progress in your career. And so those were some other issues that um that myself and my contemporaries worked on to try to open up more doors and to retain women, because um I felt like we were losing um some of the women were exiting at the end of their commitments because of some of those barriers that were in place with regard to policies and them not being able to keep up with their peers in the process. And so the Air Force has made a lot of strides in that area. And over the past several years I’ve seen policies come out that I feel like our direct result of the inputs that myself and the women that were um contemporaries of mine um invested in.

[0:18:54 Speaker 0] Has that environment changed at all? Since you’ve been in the Air Force, Do you think someone like you starting out today would would have the same experience?

[0:19:04 Speaker 1] I think that it is 100% better than it was when we started um in fact when I deployed um and was on my first deployment in Operation Iraqi freedom after we had been there for about a month or two, I remember one of my supervisors pulling me aside and my call sign is thumper. So he said, thumper, you know when they first told me that women were going to come and fly fighters, I just thought this is a terrible idea, it can’t work, it’s going to fail. And he said, but you have changed my mind and I can tell you that from that point on a couple of decades ago till now I have seen a huge now I teach pilot training. So I see a huge number of women coming through pilot training and I do feel like what I’m seeing is is exponential growth. And the more I think we call it critical mask when you reach a certain percentage of of of a diverse group within a community. That’s when you start to naturally affect change. And I think we are striving and working toward that point. Um for example, when I first got to this unit that I’m in right now where I teach pilot training, I was the only uh t 38 instructor there, so we teach the trainer that leads people to the fighter or bomber track within the Air Force. And so when I first got here I was the only female. Um so I counted for about 1% of the total Instructor Cadre. Well now we’re seven years down the line and after I got to the unit, then we got another female the next year. And now seven years later we have seven females. And so that has gone all the way from 1% to 10% and that’s exponential growth. And so having more female instructors has led to more female students coming to t 38 seeing the opportunity and the example and understanding, hey, this is an opportunity for me. Women do this, they do it successfully, they have Children, they are able to continue to have families and to do the other things they want to do in life while also doing this job. So I would say yes. Um I have seen a huge improvement um in the numbers as well as the dynamic of the community.

[0:21:26 Speaker 0] And what do you think has allowed the Air Force to succeed as you describe so well in becoming more diverse in this way? Whereas other institutions, including other military institutions, have not been as successful, What what do you think distinguishes the work you and your contemporaries have done?

[0:21:44 Speaker 1] Well? I won’t say that that we have arrived, you know, at at the exact numbers they’re looking for. The Air Force is still making, you know, policy changes and doing things to try to increase the numbers of diverse members that we have, especially within the aviation community. So I don’t know, um, I haven’t really compared us to other organizations, but I’ll say this about the military in general. The military has generally been on the tip of the spear when it comes to um any type of social change that happens within our country. Um, you know, when you look at uh the opportunities during World War two, the Tuskegee airmen, um, them leading in the fighter community. And, and I honestly think that for me, and I don’t know if this is 100% correct, but this is just my perception. I really believe that social change begins at the grassroots. Um, I think that it’s the best and most effective when it begins at the grassroots, when the people who are in the mix find something that is important and significant to them and they highlight it, um, and, and, and uh, work with others to perpetuate what they’re trying to do. So, for example, um, when I was in the fighter community, I saw that there were issues with our resources and equipment. And so I worked directly with people, I highlighted it to my supervisors. They maybe weren’t even aware that it was a problem and, and probably didn’t even see it as a problem until I elevated that. And so when I elevated it when my, uh, female peers elevated it, then they realized, hey, we’ve got to do something to help our women be able to succeed here. And so, um, so I kind of think that that’s the, the avenue, at least the avenue that I have seen become very effective in, um, in affecting change within a community.

[0:23:40 Speaker 0] I think there’s so many lessons in that what I struggle to understand Christina, that is how that can be true, which I know it

[0:23:48 Speaker 1] is. And at the

[0:23:50 Speaker 0] same time you also see evidence of hostility to, you know, people with different sexual orientations in the military and things of that sort. Why does it seem that at some moments certain groups are able to mobilize and change the institutions and other groups struggle more,

[0:24:06 Speaker 1] you know, and even with regard to sexual orientation, I do see improvement there as well. Um I think that honestly, I think that it comes down to what lies in the heart of mankind. Um I don’t see it as institutions being discriminatory towards individuals, as much as individuals can be discriminatory towards other individuals. And unfortunately the onus lies upon the person who is being discriminated against in many cases to be able to um to show their worth. And once they, you know, once you get to know, for example, when you get to know a person individually, like when my supervisor got to know me, when he saw my work ethic, when he saw my competency in my job and he saw me excel, then he realized, oh my gosh, women can do this. And so I think that that is frequently the kind of the linchpin or the key that leads to opening up the doors for uh for minorities um to progress in different areas of society. That may not be the answer that people like to hear. Um I think it’s difficult because we often feel like it’s um now, should it be that way? No, um, we should just be able to look at people who have come into the job and they’re competent to do their job. And we should assume by the fact that there there, that they are competent to do their job, but that’s not human nature. And so human nature, that’s why we call them barriers. And and it’s human nature to then as the person who is different to go in and break down those barriers. Like I said, that’s not a popular answer. I don’t think that’s what people want, but that is I think part of human nature

[0:25:55 Speaker 0] well, and I think what you said matches the history of social movements in our society, um, for better or for worse, it requires courageous people on the ground as you said, So, well who get their themselves into the institution, forced their way into the institution and then change the institution from within. And, and often it requires a lot of sacrifice on their, on their part. Yes.

[0:26:22 Speaker 1] And I would like to add this that when, when they do courageously push their way in and and sacrifice. I think that frequently what happens is sometimes the people that were the most hostile toward the change or the most against it end up being some of the greatest advocates. That’s what I’ve seen in my own personal experience. And, and that’s what I’ve witnessed. And so to me, it’s not as much about Changing and transforming institutions as it is dealing one on 1 with changing and transforming one heart. If you have transformed one heart, then again, just like I talked about with exposure being an example and encouraging others that that leads to exponential change. And the same thing happens when you transform a heart. When you went over one heart towards you. You’re talking about building exponential change because now they’re part of your team, they’re your peer, they’re your friend there, your advocate.

[0:27:26 Speaker 0] It’s that’s such a powerful way of putting it. I love it. And I think it captures uh the central point that you’re making so well, which is that we have to treat people as individuals not

[0:27:37 Speaker 1] as categories. You

[0:27:39 Speaker 0] would treat people thought that the person who the commander who said you convinced him that women could fly, he thought of you as a woman, not a pilot. And then when he saw you as a pilot, he changed the way he thought about you.

[0:27:50 Speaker 1] Yeah, absolutely. And I’m telling you what? After that, nothing if anybody would have ever said anything negative about me or what not, he would have been the first to defend me. And so I mean that’s the power of transforming a heart and a mind, you know, to your corner. Um, and I think that we affect social change so much better when we are looking at it from the perspective of relation building instead of, you know, outrage. One of the things I see as a detractor to social change in our culture today is just this idea of outrage and everybody fighting each other. And um, I would like to see us being able to come together with some common ground and realizing, hey, we may not all agree at how we solve the problem, but we can all agree that that humanity is better off when, when we are working together toward positive results, positive

[0:28:45 Speaker 0] outcomes. This is of course what Dr martin Luther King called the beloved community building and community of love. Um, I I think your message of of love and determination and working with people and building relationships. It’s it’s so powerful and it’s so practical. What do you say though to uh individuals who do carry a lot of anger? Those for instance, I’ve had and talked to many people like this who are, you know, maybe students of mine or others I encounter who have been, let’s say, mistreated by the police or have been kept out of an institution or we can move it out of race, even if it were talking in different terms, those who have been kept out of an institution because of anti Semitic attitudes or something like that. How do you how do you address their legitimate anger?

[0:29:33 Speaker 1] Yes. Um so I look at mentalities of you can have a mentality that is fixed or a mentality of growth and I call it the victim versus victor mentality in the victim mentality. Uh you can you can be victimized, you can be you know, oppressed, you can be mistreated by others. And we all experienced that whether it’s via race, sexual orientation or you know, maybe you’re just the weird kid. You know, there’s so many different reasons why why people are picked on why why they are discriminated against. Um and then the mentality that we choose out of those difficulties, out of that adversity determines our outcomes. And so you can choose to be the victim out of that outcome. And what that leads you to is other people get to determine your worth. And when you live in anger and hostility toward those people who have mistreated you, how is that serving you? It’s hurting you more than it is hurting anybody else. But when you take on a victor mentality, the victor mentality says that my worth is intrinsic. People can mistreat me, but they don’t get to determine my worth. And when that is my reality, when that is my truth, then I will always overcome because people can hurt me and they can mistreat me, but I’m always going to succeed and rise above that because my worth remains intact and I realize that the fault and the shortcoming is inside of them and not inside of me. And so that would be my message to those who are holding on to that anger. Yes, you may have been mistreated. Yes, you may have been hurt, was it right? Absolutely not. Should there be justice? Depending on the circumstance? Probably. But the fact is is that if you continue to hold onto anger, it only is going to destroy you and your internal worth.

[0:31:27 Speaker 0] So. So how do you translate that? How have you translated that into maintaining what is I think? Absolutely. And a uh an appropriate and eloquent way of thinking about positive worth, self worth and still mobilizing people to change something that needs to be changed. Maybe it’s a superior who’s acting towards you in an in an inappropriate way or a police officer who is acting approach towards you in an appropriate way. Or it can be reversed. It could be some, you know, a civilian who’s mistreating a public service officer. Uh, sometimes at least what some would argue right, you have to mobilize people to make a change. Because otherwise the status quo can just continue if you, if you don’t mobilize people. So how do you mobilize people and still at the same time not over emphasize the victimization that that you want us to move away from.

[0:32:22 Speaker 1] So I think that when you are going to go into activism and there are times to to mobilize and activate, um, you know, depending on what that can be. Um, I like what you mentioned earlier about martin Luther king JR. I just think that his mentality about how we pursue social change was so poignant and so powerful and so effective. And so when you do that, you do it from a place of love, from a place of, hey, we are an equal people. We deserve to be treated equally and we use the legal means that we have, but we within our own hearts, we keep our peace. We remain calm and you don’t allow that to affect your psyche. What I see in in today’s society is I see people blaming other people for their feelings of of of lower worth. And the only person who can affect how you feel internally about yourself is yourself. And so you can do the activism. But the heart and internal attitude with which you you do, your activism will determine whether or not you come out on the other side as a happy, you know, well balanced person or whether you are breaking down internally. And so I guess that’s what I’m more focused on. Um, I do believe that there are places for activism. Um, you know, depending on what what the topic is and what the scenario is, but at the same time within your heart, you maintain your own piece towards your own situations. Um, I think it’s very easy for us to um to internalize everybody else’s pain. But each person has enough pain and enough uh you know, adversity in their own lives to not need to take on the entire weight of the world. Um, I think today’s society opens us up to take on more emotion and more outrage than than probably our bodies can handle because of social media, because of our vast, vast network, global network that we have. I mean, we are taking in so much information and I don’t know that that the human body was intended to take in so much information and and so much pain and knowledge of everybody’s pain from all over the world at all times. So I think that that can level a huge burden on people. Um I don’t know if that answers your question directly, but that’s the kind of abroad without getting into specific, you know, Absolutely, absolutely,

[0:34:57 Speaker 0] absolutely what I hear you saying, and I think it’s very instructive and and and born out in your career is is you can maintain love towards all those who work with all those around you and still hold them accountable and hold yourself accountable, but and I think that’s that’s the space where I guess we can think of an activism of love, which is precisely what what martin Luther King and Gandhi and and others were talking about. So, I think, I think that’s a very powerful message. We like to close Christina every episode with um some positive, optimistic ways in which the experiences you have had and the experiences you’ve shared with us, how they can guide younger listeners and as they go forward, everyone listening to this podcast will, will face certain barriers. It doesn’t matter who you are there, barriers all over our world, and and that’s nothing new. Maybe the barriers are greater today than they’ve been before. Who knows? What’s your advice to people who want to move forward and change the world and and go through these barriers? What’s your advice for them?

[0:36:10 Speaker 1] Adversity. Frequently, we look at adversity and pain and we want to shy away from it, and we want to basically stop the pain. But I would like for the listeners to view pane to view adversity and difficult circumstances as instead of looking at them as failures or barriers to overcome, look at them as stepping stones, stepping stones to your next success. Nobody who has ever succeeded in life um has done so without pain, has done so without difficulty. And we say that people succeed in spite of their pain, but I say that people succeed because of their pain because of their adversity, and because of the things that they’ve been through, those things are the things that make you the strong person that you need to be in order to be successful and to affect change in this world. So that’s what I would leave them

[0:37:06 Speaker 0] with well and your proof that that works, you made your way to point that very few have been at before from your background and have opened so many doors through your hard work, as you said in the adversity that you’ve overcome Zachary. Is this um inspiring you think for um listeners, younger listeners, do you think this is this is helpful because there does seem to be so much negativity in our world today, as as Christina said. And and sometimes these words I find they can sound naive to to some people, what do you think? I I do think that it’s very important for people to hear these words about, um, embracing self love, but also a beloved community. And I think that there’s there’s a really important hole in in, in in in many of our, in many of our communities for public servants and and people who who dedicate themselves to public service, uh, not just uh, to to serve their communities, but to break down barriers. Um, I do think there’s also a place in society for for angry people and and sometimes we do need angry people, but I think there’s there’s there’s there’s not enough people out there who really want to dedicate themselves to serving their country, to serving their city, to serving their community. And I think that that’s something that will continue to inspire our generation today, is that promise and Christina model so well, uh the what we need beyond anger, whether whether anger is avoidable or should be there, it’s there in our society. But I think part of the problem and I think this is where Christine is going is the anger has, has, has enveloped us. It’s taken us out of out of where we should be in motivating ourselves and using the best that we have with us. The the last question I want to ask you Christina before we sign off is

[0:38:58 Speaker 1] can I just interject one thing please, please? Yeah, I was going to say what Zachary said really stood out to me and and um I agree with you Zachary. Uh, and I guess my follow up to what you said would be get angry. Don’t stay

[0:39:10 Speaker 0] angry. Yes.

[0:39:11 Speaker 1] You know, and I think that’s that’s key. So good point

[0:39:15 Speaker 0] and and that actually is exactly the direction I wanted us to go in. Our closing Christina. What are you most optimistic about today? What what inspires you, Where do you see your life, philosophy and what you’ve achieved going today? Where where what are the pathways that really excites you?

[0:39:34 Speaker 1] Well, I really like the opportunity to get up in front of people and just and speak on these topics and to to share a more positive outlook. Um I see that uh through mentorship um through speaking with various groups, whether they are older white men or whether they are, you know, young minority kids, um just from all the different groups that I interact with and speak with, um I do see that even when we don’t agree politically or religiously or on many different topics that can be very volatile and hot that we can still come to some common ground and an agreement um on our desire, our desire for connectivity. And so, um so I guess that that excites me the fact that that there is something within um all of humanity that does cry out for connection for belonging, for wanting peace. Um and so I guess the question just becomes, you know, how do we get

[0:40:39 Speaker 0] there? I I think that’s such a perfect note to close on its, it’s exactly what our podcast is about every week. Uh finding that hope, finding that inner spirit of democracy that franklin Roosevelt and others talked about that, that element that makes us want to connect and makes us want to serve our fellow citizen in a common society with the common good as as a goal for all of us. And you’ve articulated that you’ve modeled that so well, you’ve certainly inspired me and I’m sure many of our listeners thank you Christina hopper for joining us today. I hope our listeners will look you up. We’ll have your information on our website and maybe even invite you to come to come and speak to their communities because I know you have a lot to share and we’ve only just heard a little bit of it today. So thank you again, Christina.

[0:41:26 Speaker 1] Thank you. It’s been my pleasure

[0:41:28 Speaker 0] and thank you Zachary for your poem as always. And most of all thank you to our listeners for joining us for this week of this is Democracy. Yeah. Yeah. Mhm. Mhm. Yeah. This podcast is produced by the Liberal Arts I. T. S. Development studio and the College of Liberal Arts at the University of texas at Austin. The music in this episode was written and recorded by Harris Komotini. Stay tuned for a new episode every week you can find this is Democracy on Apple podcasts, Spotify and stitcher.

[0:42:05 Speaker 1] See you next time