![]() Understanding that history, in all its complexity, is the best foundation for unity, and allows us to come together to participate in the future of our democratic institutions, which offer powerful tools for shaping democracy. We need to find a way to hold, at the same time, our most pressing immediate needs alongside an understanding of the large sweep of our history. As a historian, when I think about what unity might look like now, I think both about the more recent challenges we are dealing with, such as the role social media plays in our politics and our discourse, and then very old issues, questions around race and equality that have essentially been at work since the founding of this country. What will that actually look like, in your opinion?ĭubois: All of the events of the last few years and the last few months have really made us think about our institutions and Americans’ investment and involvement in the project of democracy itself. ![]() Joe Biden has repeatedly referenced his hope of bringing the country together. Dubois is the Democracy Initiative Professor in the Corcoran Department of History. Barnes, who directed the White House Domestic Policy Council during President Barack Obama’s administration, is also a professor of practice at UVA’s Miller Center of Public Affairs and a Distinguished Fellow at the School of Law. On Wednesday, we spoke with the initiative’s leaders, Co-Director for Policy and Public Affairs Melody Barnes and Co-Director for Academic Affairs Laurent Dubois, to get their take on Biden’s call for unity. UVA’s Democracy Initiative, for example, was founded in 2018 and uses research, teaching and public events to explore pressing challenges to democracy worldwide and share insights with students, researchers, policymakers and the public. Students and faculty at the University of Virginia have been reckoning, and will continue to reckon, with the issues Biden referenced through a range of efforts focused on democracy, both in the United States and worldwide. This is our historic moment of crisis and challenge, and unity is the path forward.” “In each of those moments, enough of us have come together to carry us forward and we can do that now. Our history has been a constant struggle between the American ideal, that all are created equal, and harsh, ugly reality of racism, classicism, nativism …” Biden said, citing moments of crisis through American history. I know that the forces that divide us are deep, and they are real. “I know that speaking of unity can sound to some like a foolish fantasy. Unity, the new president said, is the path forward. Even the steps where he was standing had been overrun by an insurrection exactly two weeks ago. Capitol.īiden, joined by new Vice President Kamala Harris, gazed out over a sea of flags representing the many thousands of Americans who could not celebrate his inauguration in person during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, and acknowledged that the country faces many challenges. Speaking at his inauguration Wednesday, newly sworn-in President Joe Biden issued a call for healing and unity from the steps of the U.S.
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