An hour with Pulitzer Prize-winning Columnist Connie Schultz

- Transcript
cummings than ninety pierre presents the school year is winding down and at the end of the first academic year for kansas state president for salt and university of kansas chancellor bernadette grade level what would you like to know about their first year on the front lines today i'll be interviewing chancellor grade level and presidential on an upcoming kbr percent and i'd like to hear from you know it's your chance to pose a question to either one or both about the year gone by and their plans for k you encase day just go to our website at art that you that you and look so the photos of chancellor grade level and presidential your questions for acadia chancellor gray well and kansas state presidential coming soon and katie are prisoners of the liberal institute of politics at the university of kansas a pr present pulitzer prize winning columnist connie schultz schulte is a nationally syndicated columnist who writes on a variety of political
issues including social justice human rights and inequality she's also written two books in two thousand and six she published life happens a collection of her columns and then two thousand seven a second book entitled and his lovely wife a memoir of her experiences on the campaign trail with her husband sherrod brown who won election to the us senate in two thousand six this is cunning salt his second visit to the dole institute she didn't talk and book signing after the publication of her second book her april twenty eight two thousand ten appearance is as these second jana maggie distinguished lecture in honor of katie's student joanna mackey who was murdered july third two thousand eight before her lecture schulz met privately with jana mackey's appearance christie and kurt barnard shields begins her lecture with the word to the brim guards i really wanna start this by simply saying i'm so sorry about your daughter and italy did not quite two years yet greece sneaks up on you
and ninety two years is a very short period time whether somebody who made such a difference in your life and i am mindful of wait you said christy when i i had a chance to get to sit with on progress for a while today and talk to them before the speech tonight as was as i asked warren you're very nice so accommodating that when i i asked the question that you know i always want us especially when it's a young woman from the west as a hijab or become such a feminist and actress he said to me i didn't raise her to be a feminist she raised me to be a feminist i mean you were so humble about that and he said she became a furnace without the support of her mom as you said you're grown up in a much more conservative traditional i think you got nowhere a little hurdle yes that well another thing she tell me about anne is that she tended to hang out with the kids who were ridiculed and ostracized when she was
younger and she told you i'd rather be right than popular and i love that bumper sticker i think that's a great way to go about it so that's why i'm here because of your daughter because of work you're doing and i dont even for a moment i can see it i can imagine what would be like to lose when i taught i can imagine on to readily what i see it is i don't know it too that you forced me to think about it and i really appreciate that because it's why i'm here i was talking to stare at to up earlier today she picked me up at the airport was driving and she said that jenn it was the kind of kid who you know date don't tell me i can't because i will and i will love dad and oh please tell me i can't because then i must i really understand that piece and it reminded me outside to quotes from the african american poet lucille clifton that i had kept on that gets to the mainstream of both my desktop computers and i've had it there for years what they call you is one thing
when you answer to something else what they call you is one thing where you answer to something else and i suspect there are a few people in this room critically the women among those who can identify with that pretty quickly and i had to because i really know what it's like to have solitary which you can't do including write a column for years and years and this isn't about me that i need to go into a line that i think it's really important that we keep them i always said you will always be people who will tell you which are usually what you are capable of doing an adjusted for anything is there was this divide paso opinion of years a move ahead and i like that about him she also you can tell from the photos you see of her eye i've seen some of the stories about her on the jet had such a sense of humor and you know we we found this film in that way all the time i only say that when i was a you know have a sense your eyes and you have no idea how much were last year we had a great and i love
what i read but says she found kindred spirits who believed in good cheer good life and making a difference and i think as the perfect combination i think it's really important and we're here because of a somber event but we're here to celebrate a life that was so full of joy and hope and willful willful determination and it is imported keep her sense of humor and a little bit about why that might matter to rush limbaugh for example does not like me and sometimes he goes off on in his show you can always tell when that's happening because also gets re earn forty emails a sound exactly alike because the lemmings to have to jump back left and they tend to major russian you just nuzzle a couple of hours or for media matters is that a post exactly what he said about you know that the fans you and i might be used to but because you call me a blue that bladder leakage heredity call me a datsun like that all i know it's going on here in elko my need to write it you know my mom seven boys start calling your names his cousin have a crush on you i
will like that at all every time i make him as his temper i wear them and it's you know you when your columnists and you're a feminist in the midwest in your writing is gone he will get calls that you don't expect sometimes and i was just telling people that a couple months ago sitting at my desk and this guy called me up the star john if you were my wife i castrate myself as that what i want to know what it and you just learn over time but the last thing you want to do is engage at their level and it's instructive when you get a nasty call and it's instructive when you're doing the biggest pals of your life they it's not that way things a joke but then it's really important to keep a sense of humor as nothing will disarm them like your ability to laugh and your ability to smile even when they're trying to take it down her iq figure out something you said to me today you said janet didn't die she didn't pass away janet was murdered and that is of course that the
crux of this issue that she was a victim of the very crime she was trying to prevent and so that means to us what we take from that well they can say yes this is a tragedy because it is in life will bring you to your knees as we know we all have those moments if we had not already that some moments are way harder than the next and what happens what brings you back out what makes you stand in who you are after that it will make all the difference i admire you so much for being able to do this i tell you honestly i don't know that i could but i understand why you did you told me sick within six hours after she had died her friends were saying you want to re do what should we do what can we do catch you mentioned that with that you're killing was really what can we do about this talk about embodying the lessons that janet presented and in her life on a daily basis so the single question of what can we do as the reason we're here today we can bring jenna back in way that question cannot bring her back he is going to pass but we
can prevent her dream from done and that sounds a little too fancy this is what we really mean is that's not enough no matter what we do now will not be enough because nothing can bring her back but it's something and if we do it right it's a lot i thinking about a lot today is either toughness abroad and think about my mother now my my i come from some you know he loved and all i come from a working class was the first in my family to go to college and i grew up in a little working class town hall asked to below ohio it's just an hour east from cleanness right on lake erie and my mom was about well she was four foot eleven and she said be high pitched i'm a lot taller and you didn't but she died and she was really fancy like obese or should have done an easter basket a little legs nessa feddis senior i do their hair so anything about my mom she was a hospice home care worker in the joke about my mom was when she showed up when janey show up
people live longer because you want to hear other people's stories it's so easy for me to tell the fun stories about my mom's i think about it she was so short shorts with one summer i was played softball and one summer my mother does that read a play together on a co ed team as you know is one play softball too well because she was so sure and she had this giant hair and she wore pedal pushers know make a fighter strikes them so she was always walk in the first place but what you want to do is slow so she would always whenever possible slide into home plate and her home care we just shared to the side and she would take one big swath popper right back and it points out a cheery ladies and say aqua net slash my mother and my mother raised her three daughters she our customers telling us don't bury him until you see how it treats the waitress
and courts we understand what she was saying up how he how we treat those were allowed industry is a measure of who we are and she often told us that in large part because she and my father both for people who are allowed to be in the street right now under jobs how to navigate the world there are kids we can play with because a lid on the wrong side of the tracks so she did was to turn into the kind of people who made her feel so lousy for a place with a boil down to but she also the sadder side about my mom in her story in accra she died young she was sixty two when she died she died in idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis that that the more we looked into was probably from washing my debts close with asbestos others years and she died young and she would always say to me is as getting older and she was a we don't know where perry came from a jay porter but we don't know where she came from is i just was different in that way it sounds a lot like janet my mom said like i'll never forget when marilyn french's book about the women's room women my age or not but i'm in college i remember there's a lot that my mom used to read these
so i mailed her copies a month i think it's a really like to be a plea as roth iras my dad calls me weaknesses what the hell's a book you get your mother so i call him and then i said ah forces as well i was sitting there and i was reading this book and i started thinking about all the things he's done it all things i put up and he was saying watch a game on tv shows and just blitz mr emad up are the reason for that is because she didn't put up with a lot and my dad was a large an angry man i want him that he was a difficult man he was a hard name and she used to say to me so often i want you to be braver than i am and i want to speak out in a way to say things that are on your mind i don't want you to be scared like me and i've never forgotten that because in large part of who i am because my mom wanted to be different from who she was and i'll never forget about six months before she died i was taken to a doctor's appointment i just wrote about this recently
and she reached over and she touched my hand and she said you're so much stronger than i was so much braver i said mom i'm braver because eu and she was thought to be her eyes once was really basic gas yes i listen to you but she never had the kind of confidence that wouldn't ever made her believe that she could do this for example you know i'm sure she could have so i'm i'm very mindful of the legacy that i inherited it wasn't just the legacy of their hopes and dreams it was a legacy of fear they came from some of the women who pass on what they knew and hope that i would leave them behind frankly is basically what they're dreamers and i'm sure i'm not the only one here who thinks that but now as i am and fifty two almost thirty three and saw him start to think a lot more about legacy in a different way and you know if my success of that long list of awards you ruffled
up if that's all that i accomplish in my life in my why success dies with me and i have like nothing behind him and i've been having a lot of fire pretty troubling conversations with younger women who feel that we're not being supported in the way that we couldn't that were not nurturing and the way we ought to on that they had new ideas on new ways to use social media for example we can shoot them down and talk about fairness and i've seen a lot of this firsthand in ohio recently it's breaking my heart because we have a hot primary race a democratic primary for senate to ramp it's an open seat and one of the candidates is a sector state is a woman and neither candidate is the current attorney general lieutenant governor who is a longtime progressive and these girls the young women are doing exactly what we raise them to do the making up their own minds and in doing so not all of them are good number them are not supporting a mormon candidate
and they are really getting attacked for this by women my age and older and i encountered it first hand over the weekend when i was in cincinnati at a pancake breakfast and a group of these women fellow feminist love my issue of older came up and they all had this woman's tonight i'd taken a position in the race you know i've made it very clear as is my husband were not endorse in this race were just a lot of fun and they're very angry about that and he got angry when i said you know i don't like what i'm hearing from a lot of the young women especially young feminist mothers i don't i don't like this message or given them that they can't support anybody but her and i can't tell you what it feels like to be almost fifty three years old and in the receiving end of a lecture about what it means to be a feminist so i went home and tried to facebook because my kids did not want me to dr young the start would not friendly for a year
and you carry my ex using on the entire time as a nice guy you'd say i'm not here to be your friend i'm here to be your mother as if i'm effeminate cbs i composed for forever while it they did you know you can't close any way some on facebook by was to prove that you can have identities and have very spirited discussion still as opposed the anonymous comments online i am a woman with multiple agendas at any given moment and that's one of the i want this book about twenty two hundred people there it on facebook and i said that has schulte like to remind some ohio activists that families can vote for the guy and not be on the triggers to the cops well i just want to poke the bear but they can sit at listed are pretty interesting and most fitting that something that butler broke my heart or the private emails i was getting in response to the status update animals are from young women and never to them writing saying i am crying as i write this and
one who's been had a very long relationship with a very well known columnist in our area who is there will your triplets were born who is their grandparents divert is no wonder speaking to her and know i've been on the receiving end of wells temper tantrums this person and here's the thing first time i think we've learned something from the two thousand a presidential democratic primary it i was an ardent supporter for hillary rodham clinton in partnership and supper so supportive of me it into gaza six when my husband won the senate race you know there are calling for obama's going john edwards is going on joe biden as a long conversation his airways are and they're now rallo and it does go on and the only person who did this was hillary clinton when she called in the first words out of her mouth work on your congratulations and the second thing she said was please tell koenig not let anyone tell her she can't have this career and actually a little bit about what she's talking about there but i'll never really know if i had based my friendships in two thousand a man
who among my friends were willing to support hillary clinton i'd been a very lonely person by the end of it because a lot of women want to support for obama and there's that including two of her daughters and i'll never forgets standing in the kitchen and saying our daughters at one point and you know these kids you know young women who insist on teaching us anti aging us as i understand how you can it be fabulous and not support hillary clinton and my daughters than my we already get the strong women part she looked very weary at that moment that i was raised by one and you raise me to make up my own mind and it really stuck with me and it and she was right about that and it was the same with my friends some of whom surprised me but i don't think it's proper body of animal the state a lot to campaign for sharing your way which i knew all these people and it really help me remember the most important message of feminism it is all about choices i know every issue is about choice and i don't want to discourage that and i'm a little disheartened to think perhaps we didn't learn a lesson at least
in ohio is here's the thing at my age you have to concede the point you know when young women don't i don't have your mentor you don't have my wisdom and clearly there is a trade off of all so there's no point my being better that i'm no longer show as you did your time it is your day there's just no point to this however do not think they you know have a thing left to learn that's why i'm here and that's why women like me are here but we need some guidance from him my concern is that all those private emails were being said publicly and i want you to learn to speak out you know a wheat women wait for the invitation very very important things never happen and i'm reminded of that scene and i own newsroom actor as we have two thousand to two thousand three and a good friend of mine who's one of the few at that point women city editors on the desk of an assistant city anderson she looks so upset my walk orders with snyder and she points to all her male
colleagues were huddled talking and she said i'm trying to figure out why i'm not being included that discussion at the way an honor baca says joe is i could i'm trying to figure out why a win for the invitation because if we had waited for the invitation we would now have the right to vote and i won a remind us of why we have the right to vote and a bunch of men who thought we should have the right to go after an awful lot of work by women so it's really important to remember that we always are better in a group i think about my husband's mother said that she was dying a year ago was february we are taking care of her hospice and emory campbell brown was from georgia a junior lost her oxygen from mansfield jordan mansfield ohio and jews alike person could turn my name indicates syllables in a primary but when she was dying she won white haired sheriff says share it i would so loved to hear one of the songs from our lutheran hymnal and beautiful younger son that he is he went into the family life are about the hymnal and saying merciful savior
they could come he did three verses i was doing over much his mother's baton and we had it passes that's up for in the living room an actor some of you may have heard my husband tv viewers like this and he sings like this and it was wonderful to watch and they're very touching and the next day she said don't you know sharon i wish that to numerous hearings whether francis is beautiful center i love are heard saying to me the single mother and i did say to you yesterday three versus and she says yes i know you're better in a group i'm teaching right up to the end of the play is we are better in a group in a subway i don't want us to lose sight of desert region was about i love hearing officer army stories about her about organizing and there are good or i was raising a family we had the jacket jesus what jack kennedy and uses on the same on the other so and my dad was a union organizer
and the idea was you know when you're individuals without power the only way you get power is to organize and to stand shoulder to shoulder and say we will not know and we're this is our day and this is our time so i really get that and i remind us of who do that before us for us as women but i was when i read a little bit of a passenger rub the several years ago and i basically went to a little awkward transcripts to get them to get it right it's i wouldn't say about the women who lived before us the women were innocent and defenseless and by the end of the night there are barely alive already prison guards wielding clubs in the warden's blessing went on a rampage against the thirty three women wrongly convicted of quote obstructing sidewalk time they'd be lucy burn the gender hands to the cell bars above her head and left are hanging for the night leading and gasping for air and hurled door louis into a dark cell smashed her head
against an iron bed and knocked her out cold her soulmate palace comes to that lewis was dead and suffered a heart attack additional affidavits describe the guards grabbing dragging meaning charging slamming pinching twisting and kicking women the sun folded the night of terror on november fifteen nineteen seventeen when the warden at the account when workhouse of virginia ordered his guards to teach a lesson to the suffragettes in prison there because they dared to picket woodrow wilson's white house for the write about for weeks the women's only water came from an open pale their food on a colorless life was infested with worms when one of the leaders alice paul embarked on a hunger strike they tied her to a chair forced a tube down her throat and poured liquid into her until she vomited she was tortured like this for weeks until word was smuggled out to the press
when i read that passage when i think of what they went through i imagine that most of those women standing around me and i said this many times when i talked about this that i just imagine them looking out into the audience and saying remember please remember why i think the spirit of jim i think of how she has a noble invitation to join the women who went before us and i think of how she would say never forget and so i'm here to tell you tonight i look out in this room full of people in a particular are young man and i daresay that as long as the women in this room draw breath we will never forget gina mckee thank you and it's a prize winning columnist thank you know we've got some time for questions so let's have a
conversation with my dear it's only minor know that christie and her like to hear and any questions or comments on start and i hope someday young women are grouped hispanic connie when you were here in two thousand and seven you said something that resonated a lot with me and now something about how women your age and my mother's age are not used to strong women my age man n about climbing allied air and what that means eighteen the collective group wisdom that you talked about which you mind sharing that serve everyone here that really makes you think those were my daughters about six singing i'm just melted off all the time i'm married some pledges that karen douglas says ms jamar you're recently speak my mind you know i should say what i was so everyone i said i said not with me and as well as crystallizing moments when you realize that you were that she is turning into exactly what you had intended for her to be and when she was growing up when i was a single mom for eleven
years and we and the subtext our phone number was always nineteen twenty because that was the year when that book and i think it when you look at when you give people the phone number used to tell them that you're reminded that you you met another william arkin would do that so one night i was making a salad and she was ordering a pizza and she was again sixteen that magical here and now i'm i heard are given information for the order and then she gives the number i know she knows i'm looking right at her city does that je ne sais she said i was the year women got about an entire say you know that how old are you are you registered about iran tell me you know i hear about in nineteen twenty but it's a wise ass became aware of these other reality that at some point it was gonna feel like she should be taking over a lot of things that used to be in charge and why things and when you are the generation who
fought for a lot as much as you say you want to carry as you climb you have a very hard time given that up given up whatever power it is that you've earned an especially the there are many of you know i deserve the news as we finally have our first woman editor in cheek it was the first time ellison two hundred year history of the paper gail collins who admit when she became editor of the editorial page in the maritimes is the first time in their newspapers entire history there's just a few years ago so there are a lot of us in leadership sometimes it can feel silly of our age and you can feel personally feel threatened because if you're not used to being mentored your last night used to mentor him and you're not quite sure how it works and i see this a lot in women my age and under the anxiety of that and so what is we're trying to create is a climate of acceptance that it doesn't mean you're giving up and doesn't mean you're giving it and it means that you're giving and then you're trying to create a climate you know i've always said i wanna be
a safe place for people i love and the people i care about then his friends and family and eat and now increasingly young women who need to talk about what's on their minds and to be that's a place i have not seen them as a threat to my status a threat you know i never know it like you get to look like a few and was your age <unk> but it's not about that anyway we get two daughters on who struggled with eating disorders and they're voting very well right now but i can tell you it is the most scary thing to deal with and at all yet just look around look at this culture and what we do to our women why we do it our women and of course we're here to talk about domestic violence what we do there are women also start about just the messages of self loathing they were communicating over time so it is important here is the current it's also important if we put a handout to grab it we can't do it on your own i love you think you can i love especially you feel so empowered when you're still in college
and then you get into the workforce and you find out that it's not quite as much of a done deal as you might've thought you are in the state of kansas tiny detail what's going on in your state legislature write down the issue of choice and how about oklahoma as i said judge rosen classmates a gift that keeps on giving for a columnist they're doing so many things that to me just resonate with the sudden he turns one and it was interesting to me how many women want to talk this week about it in the last eight days epic upon university i've been in south bend which was yesterday and knowing here and so many young women care about what's happening in arizona and it was interesting to be in a journal journalism class just today on your campus when someone brought up you think you feel your ohio i know your syndicate very favourite about on immigration the future was having an arizona ice evacuate years why has now you look like a mexican you look like a mexican
i start when anybody who had skin darker the money every single one of them could potentially be stopped in arizona now and have to prove their citizenship that is not a man's issue or a women's issue that is a patriots issue and as patriots as is is not what america stands for and i wanna see lots of women speaking out on that though is what about for women if i was to surprise them they expect you know people don't want women weighing in expect us to weigh in on the issue of abortion rights they expect us to weigh in on the issue of health care what they don't understand is that every issue is a women's issue so it's really important what every year issues are in this room that you speak out on them and i'm reminded of the activist maggie coach was the founder of the gray panthers at an advocacy group for seniors says is because they had heart imagine now but together they're pretty outspoken purposes long before all that was an early seventies mid june said speak your mind even if your voice shakes
isn't that wonderful to speak your mind your voice shakes and i know there are any number of people in this room who think that they can't really start speaking out until they've had more education or of what once they get up you're married settled down and it was a good that new spouses all around or get their graduate degree of people's credentials i see a star or you are in the thing i've noticed i had done many many advance where somebody gets up to ask a question and it's clear that they're still nervous here she's so nervous because of voices troubling you know what happens when it's so quiet and so respectful because everyone in the room knows that that person has never saw this really matter to this person to get up and speak because it's so hard so it's ok that your voice shakes what isn't ok see you silence your own voice i think about my mom is to say those girls all the time you know girls really are kind of people what is the lesson that you are going to criticize you
and pacify your flaws might be one of them and they're great too are not to be one of them what else is a month over here yeah i told your liturgy have to close here in the room or thirty you still have a closed air banks own as a male feminist your campus anymore insight experienced enormous support and people your voice really embrace that but as early as this week are as recently as this week as far back as i could remember is a bit involved in women's movement i've encountered a lot of negative criticism a lot of feedback from other activists and i was just curious where you being a very involved activists ii men's place within the movement and if you believe in something that they should be involved with as a whole doesnt tell me please a little bit about the criticism you hear on well i mean the criticism you get a lot for men is that you know well my dad for one i asked you if i'm a women's studies major keys it obviously puts women and those kind of things are you a lot about from the man who orders involved in the movement but
there've been other women within the movement or not unlike name names it's not until they outbid asked you know why are you involved is the woman's movement you're part of the patriarchy were you involved in this and that there's a common when my classes awhile ago about how no woman can be safe as long as there's any men on the years and yes and i am and the dude generalization there is about it may and i'm just curious where you having you know you've traveled all over the country and you've been involved in various people who have been involved in various forms and factions of the feminist movement see men see their role and put in the movement as it's all we i remember a few couple years god i got up there that i give a talk and said you know the pride of the fantasies you hate then i said no we just a stupid band and make comments about women they're unacceptable what he'll be a feminist never met time for every kid that lacked who he could train who could ignore on and i'm sorry this happened you as i played out earlier tonight we would have to write
about it and then had the support of our write about and as john lewis would tell you in a heartbeat on those colors and john lewis from georgia and built a human heartbeat that civil rights cannot happen if jews are lots of other white people have stood shoulder to shoulder with them and i mean we always need somebody else i do a lot of advocacy for gay lesbian rights in part because i know they need on it's straight people to stand up for them because we're all in this together and weddings were talking about earlier in the journalism classes you know is such that they for some reason so often now we want to meet we demonize someone they don't agree with our summer were suspicious or someone who doesn't look or sound like as an you spent five minutes or the person actually start talking the scary thing is redefining a more common than you i think that's also the most reassuring thing is that we have more in common than we want to think and you will always get
if you stand for anything for tvs ever anything he will make enemies you have your critics but the alternatives to be liked by everybody and stand for nothing and i think they knew about not liking herself very much what i am grateful for is that men like you know occurred knowing my husband do you stand for when you stand up for women and i checked before you got a shared with ordinary six years he was in the house when he first slam semi a very suck up you know compare me barbara kingsolver he denies that suck up that ladies clothes jump into gaza suck up i looked up his votes on gay marriage and choice before you go out and have it at you when you're in your forties there's just no point to coffee scientists are and i've come to see your time because i saw the sun that saturday some of them are very angry at my husband for not stepping up to the woman candidate and i just thought tonight either way are you going to
suggest that he is not a progressive is not a feminist because it is hard to be on the receiving end of that i'm sorry i happen to you what i really appreciated showed up anyway and that's what changes minds and it grows skinny don't even know you needed to get out there that having an early action is a good thing in the long run but it really feels pretty lousy right now and i'm sorry that happened i was a play on feminist and iran has inserted aipac is lunch and how their forgive my first are a danger and when you let him a copy for me and i wrote about the snipers because he finally sat me down because i psychic no company says honey let me make your heart because i mean you're giving up your rights to own property in to vote ok let's see how you make up that it makes for a real time now but giuliani that reality check sometimes we get really dug and
and it's it's important people like euros to remind us of the can get pretty extreme i see him back there i know as a young woman a lot of women my age feel like feminism is already been achieved and i have a friend who's going to law school next year and she said you know i don't understand what women are fighting for because gospel i'm going to use fifty six percent wanted the majority i am i responded i was an engineering student have satin classes with sixty seven students and grew and so my question is as feminist she seen a lot of progression in our country what do you feel are the areas where we still have the biggest gains to make where women still lag significantly behind well i have two words for its two pac i cannot believe how's the stupak amendment almost around health care reform and i cannot believe all the hand wringing are debating i cannot
believe somebody in the gallery call youngest effect finally agreed to join the democrats and about and called out baby killer uses nano i met the ones are getting abortions oh thank you felt much better think you got another island i don't understand young women thinking it's done i really don't i i look at the numbers of women editors in my profession i know it's not done i look at the legislation that's pending in kansas a look at the legislation that just passed an apartment over the veto the governor in oklahoma i look fat then mail it in in ohio fraud and i liked it you know i also look at what insight into reasons i oppose the anonymous comments and newspaper websites is it really invites the trolls who are very angry people mostly men and what a lot of people don't know because there just look at the anonymous comments we could see for a while the recovery could see the email addresses there are decorating for by the kennedys for themselves an agreement themselves on line so the mud like eighty people commenting and it's a now you are
brilliant it's like you're very smart we just tell the readers it's all the same person used i couldn't sell so what's interesting about those comments is no matter what i write about for example there's a certain percentage of my hate mail that will be simply about my gender that estate they resent that i have a column they resent that i get paid to give my opinion you know how quickly china and saw me they call me fat they call me ugly they call me old they call me a lesbian which expire was because really laugh but bp are very persona attacks i would say there's an example right away of how i know and in it and there were still allowing an online that i have to make an argument that there's something wrong with this that we've created this climate for that and only ryan crime stories we had shut down the comments if there's a big if there is any issue of race in the crime which shut them down because we know we're going to get and i would think women which are very deeply about that as well
and so here's the thing ah i imagine a lot of young women who feel that way and perhaps not in the workforce very long at that that will educate you like nothing or i'll look it also you know i guess when an increasing becoming concerned about is how women treat women there's a big year the mommy blogs the money blog movement and a friend of mine jennifer mendelsohn wrote a piece for the new york times recently about a mom blog conference and i you know they're they're very upset that they felt she was not taken seriously that it was it would be taken seriously don't call it what was that beauty campaign or something or something silly and money blocks from the curfew and there but they went after her the attacks were so personal that i've been interviewed twice over stories are coming up about how she was treated and i know it's coming from i was a stay at home mum and secure you can be and then i was a full time idaho area moms a
full time working mother but as working for money outside the home and i felt really guilty and here in ohio is still insecure about it and you know i don't mean as a male friend a fellow columnist he's a lacrosse originate in my daughter was announced on elementary school i said you know sam i still so terrible here we have the time change because it gets dark so really and i feel so bad that she's there and i feel guilty that i have to have something taken care it's like at home he said i understand that because if you are a working she'd starve such a matter of fact years are they really insured so what i would like to see first laws of women are telling other women you don't need to be concerned about this i like to think i would like them to step back from or think so why why does she care so much and i care so little less like it happened right now right so what was required of you is what was required of us patients patients more patients and their willingness to forgive them for doubting when they need you and that really is what distinguishes so many women activists a long haul
so many activist period is i always think it's not that involve them is like a touch their lives and then accounts and how you respond that will make all the difference they keep talking about it i mean i think it's clear i believe in talking anyway but i'm a big believer in cuts away talking about what matters to you and putting an example general my daughter was young when things i used to play out turned television advertisers want to get that pre woman next that car but you know i've been driving and why that might be so you could have that conversation and talk about why they would use that pretty woman that have nothing to do with the color who had nothing to do with the car and you just see a costly educating that's the best you can do right now sometimes because here is what we know there will be another opportunity we'll have more opportunities white house over there i'm like i'm going into nursing school in parenting and the menace a lot of people ask me why i don't go
for a more empowering job such as a doctor something like that that mostly men over all and have the most population and i don't really know how to like explain to them that's what i want to deal that they want to know why don't you something higher it that way the hang up the wrong people because i can imagine you telling your dreams become a nurse and it's a whopper nearly there were to be a doctor but you said that the doctors have the power then on a hospital ward the nurses are heroes and nurses the end one of the main reasons i think of nurses as heroic as they know the patients me it as a reporter as a commerce how many stories have i seen and many of them i've reported where was the nurse it's a polite the nurse saw the drug interaction the nurse that realize what was really wrong with the patient could talk to the doctor the doctor wasn't listening to the doctor was available i have nothing against doctors but to suggest to you that you know years ago i
guess and it's a person or most you know i have to defend major andy i am i am frank your lawn and time and one of the best ways to the swift response i'm su question it's not fair it's just the sun and i looked at them and what i did is added to that when i get that i get some doozies sometimes hustlers and trying to figure out why you think that's an appropriate question asked me or to simply i'm trained for why you would ask me that question anti semitic people pretty uncomfortable because it shine because as and i can imagine somebody doing that you're sorry that's happening but i don't think anything to be defensive about you know when i i do remember the day they had the pulitzer awards and alisa talk about women it does today's those days where i have been on one of the editors of the biggest newspapers the country cannot leader in the cocktail hour nice it's so honey i'd never known of what was they cut their purse was going away and i had one is what causes
passion i keep hearing you know i say well bill safire to tell you i guess it's too late for you i like the way you work and work you know i mean i can open a couple lines make of the selleck yeah as i i really need to explain to him that you know his quest to reveal far more about him than it did about me that i felt that all i'm sorry that happen in the next attack i'd like to hear your thoughts on why you think sayre pale and i'm michelle bachmann's popularity is rising as guy has one hell of a sense as your work how yeah it does apart these two women they do not act they make they keep no outcome fellas lots of that they are not feminists in a way that i would define a fairness in terms of being supportive of other women but what it does is against republican
than it has to say see we are willing to look how you tapped them your hypocrites well michele bachmann i know or starve her sarah pay when i do have very strong views on it not find her funny i don't fire folks are cute a finder dangerous because i saw the heat she stirred up in the state of ohio during the presidential race and when she started talking about brock obama pal ing around the pick terrorists his security increased yet and we're because you know that was that was like oh to those militants the citizen militia groups and don't think for a moment that that did not occur to her she just didn't care and then so she's trying to drum up violence and soon she didn't care if she was and the most races posters i saw any rally was her rally in strong still ohio and it got national attention because of the image she started talking about death panels when she absolutely knew there were no death panels and so the michele bachmann absolutely knew there were no death
panels but they knew that fear works people it's much easier to get people scared them to make them brave it's much easier to make him fearful they make them trust and so you get people scared and all the sudden we got metal detectors at my husband's health care forums in the summer the town halls because he was getting death threats over health care over health care immigration so i think they are popular because it allows women who've always women and then the boys would be critical feminists who wanted to pick this is people you know women who never say who secretly longed for women to put up with men it gives them a chance to say but see if you really believed and feminism you would be supporting those women i was so insulted when they suggest in a way most european made a contrast herself that what you want hillary clinton he'll only basically what she was saying hindsight new no no no but i saw the appeal do it was right to make whatever intelligence know what's the cost of
that i don't think we should make fun of people's grammar i don't like how she gets folksy when she feels like i don't like that she chose that wink wink and you know if god speaks to her answer and prepared a strong faith and god's not telling me right in the palm of my hand and in addition to everything she makes a virtual camera and she has a work as it was in the bible really i get a little tired of that because what it does is it's an attempt to call up my christian faith and to suggest that somehow i'm not a christian because i don't agree with their payment and you know i was raised by a born again christian my mother she's never bumper sticker on their car and my boss is a jewish carpenter a second isn't a very jewish shaker heights but pay for interesting roles to the grocery store but she also said this being a christian means fixing yourself and helping others not the other way around fixing yourself and helping others i don't identify the brain a christian is a sense of people around fixing everybody up it's but i also don't wanna make fun of them for and i think it's
that's where we get that's true really i was so beloved television and i am alive and leverage on that i've been on her show a number of times and she wasn't that she really dangerous is an extremist key government and so the chris matthews all of make fun of any woman on but i don't think it benefits us to just ridicule her i think we should be talking about the dangers that hurt her speech pose for america and i know we're very morose i don't think i mean she's a reality television show i heard right so i can imagine know who knows me i think that maybe that's the route to the white house ad i don't think so and visiting i know so many moderate republicans are mortified and they're angry at mccain for picking her there is a very cynical move on his part but it's really muddied the waters and it's made them as very defensive again i don't think we have anything to defend i can easily distinguish between her and hillary clinton for example this year you seem very passion and you speak about change how does one go about
translating that passion to actual progress in both journalism and activism what lessons i've been talking a lot lately as i say an activist for journalism because i really do believe in and journalism a newspaper journalism declared not the newspaper you hold but the traditions the on best practices a traditional journalism and so i've been sneaking around the country and writing alot more about it on ice and south then yesterday and partner with the south bend tribune staff at the invitation of the editor to talk about why they matter still the case you cannot have a thriving democracy if you do not have a thriving and free press and there is no question in mind about that and the longer i'm married to a member of congress the more convinced i am of how important is that we have people be reporters in the real charles keeping an eye on these people and i mean no disrespect i just mean there's so much power concentrated in so few people and their staffs can get very for themselves and they're very good dedicated people on the hill and there are people who have no business working there and if you didn't you
know that half the states in the country right now have not even a single reporter in washington half think about that who is watching and virtually none of the name or the pentagon the state department all the big parties have used to cover cell my passion for that comes easily because i really do care about journalism and i see the difference of journalism can they eat through my career and the crews are so many i respect activists in itself that the voice thought about activism has this it comes a moment you change you want something or you hear something you think oh they can be and then you find out is you know what we're not going to change and he reached up where we think with it that i can help make that change i got to do something about that it is a long road and when things i often told my carrots on the treasury to be a scary thing to put yourself out there that brave and the courage to come
if you're waiting for that moment when you really finally feel really write and really break it it may not ever come on my friend jackie often disguised as summits roser had over the fence i have to go after them you know i will make a stand i get around that and keep talking about this and i get scared about it on but i also i like to tell a story and share it because in this respect would share got elected in nineteen ninety two he was in the majority party for exactly two years and it has a very long dry spell and during that time especially in the buildup to the iraq war what we had started dating right around that time we used to joke that one of our things we had in common were these images appear ugly now on fridays as we both were getting so much about they used a vote against the war is running against the warriors review letters opposing the war in iraq from constituents a's can't remember raymond they were to morning like he kept reading the letters afterwards because ohio is
fifth in the country the number of people we've lost in iraq and afghanistan so these wounds they go deep in ohio and one day said to me just really tired really tired and he said you know i don't know at boeing where we keep the phone never goes away and i said well here's what i think it is easy to inspire people when you are in the majority of any group you know you you all know you're in the minority here because you care about these issues so deeply on and so when you're the majority it's easy keys you got that got the biggest megaphone what really inspires people notice when you clearly do know and you won't give up when it is clear that what are the obstacles you can see you will not give up and that's when it matters most and sunday is the best most of us can feel really trying to bring change as we get into that same question mark soohoo i be today well i be the person who finally gave up or i be the person who keeps fighting and one of things it keeps me going
or the messages its messages i get from women on usually when they're green with me but they call after hours they don't want to talk to me in person and it's clear to me from the message that they're leaving that they wrote it out and they're reading it because they were so scared they were so nervous about isis leaving their opinion and i think as long as there are women out there too afraid to speak their minds i'm going to have to keep fighting a keeps me going and sometimes that's the best idea but it's really great as the two women here and it's only watch the music video earlier about ideas standing strong no matter what and that that's what some port had gatherings like this because you look around you see you're not alone and i jokingly when we we had the robert f kennedy wore thick up a poor people's pulitzer i could never knows how tired we all want a dozen iraqi progress we had to fight in the newsroom to get the stories and often that was our first out on our bows to get the public to care about it but we get it and they'll keep doing it so you're not
alone in here and i think it's really important have moments like this could dance like this i'm so grateful to you well to do that you want to do this in the name of your daughter in the memory of your daughter because it gives it emboldens everyone in the room may if you're still standing i'm not sitting and if they're still standing when is that safe for us and they had an idea that i heard that janet i got no problems today one more time for one more agreeable more of a nanny for four girls at home and an i hate watching television with them to heat their role models as he watching material carefully cockeyed like blows my mind so what would you say to women of my generation and how we could be better role models and find a role models for these younger girls which are named catherine bathroom the first thing i hear about that is that these four a very fortunate young girls have catherine for a nanny
so you are already modeling for them and because you had this concern about them and i have a distinct impression and filling the energy here you know is that the key to know your opinions to yourself when you're there and one of the things that is so remember is you in your role you are your role model the alliteration up what does work on a model levy it's sidney catherine that you already know you need to do you just need permission permission granted you've just heard honda sold finance and syndicated columnist and pulitzer prize winner silva spoke of the dole institute of politics at the university of kansas april twenty eight two thousand and she gave the second deny maggie distinguished lecture in honor of slain k u student an activist joanna mackey i'm j mcintyre kbr present is a production of kansas public radio at the university of kansas just reminder kbr
present wants to hear from you if you've got a question from my upcoming interview with katie chandler bernadette grade level or taste a president kirk solves visit our website k pr that k u dot edu
- Producing Organization
- KPR
- Contributing Organization
- KPR (Lawrence, Kansas)
- AAPB ID
- cpb-aacip-86572fece26
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- Description
- Program Description
- Nationally syndicated columnist Connie Schultz won the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for commentary for her writings about human rights, social justice, and inequality. She's also the author of "And His Lovely Wife," a memoir about life on the campaign trail with her husband, Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown. Schultz spoke at the Dole Institute of Politics at the University of Kansas as the 2nd Jana Mackey Distinguished Lecture, in honor of slain KU student Jana Mackey.
- Broadcast Date
- 2010-05-23
- Created Date
- 2010-04-28
- Asset type
- Program
- Genres
- Talk Show
- Subjects
- Jana Mackey Distinguished Lecture
- Media type
- Sound
- Duration
- 00:58:58.651
- Credits
-
-
Host: Kate McIntyre
Producing Organization: KPR
Speaker: Connie Schultz
- AAPB Contributor Holdings
-
Kansas Public Radio
Identifier: cpb-aacip-a928a83d2a3 (Filename)
Format: Zip drive
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- Citations
- Chicago: “An hour with Pulitzer Prize-winning Columnist Connie Schultz,” 2010-05-23, KPR, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC, accessed May 7, 2025, http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-86572fece26.
- MLA: “An hour with Pulitzer Prize-winning Columnist Connie Schultz.” 2010-05-23. KPR, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Web. May 7, 2025. <http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-86572fece26>.
- APA: An hour with Pulitzer Prize-winning Columnist Connie Schultz. Boston, MA: KPR, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Retrieved from http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-86572fece26