 My first speaking engagement this year, so I really appreciate that. I always try to do my best and write my speeches and do my research. And let me just tell you, Ms. Blanchett and Mr. Salazar gave me homework and God knows, I can't wait to get back home and watch Scandal. And by the way, when I was introduced, I just want to let y'all know I've appeared on The Good Wife three times. And next month, I'm going to appear on The House of Cards. I'm an actress. But at my age, I'm best suited for the Game of Thrones. So thank you so much for having me. And by the way, since I can add to my own, just last year, President Obama appointed me to the Fulbright Board. It's the Fulbright Scholars Program. And I love education and I will have an opportunity to send our scholars, our young talent, abroad. And I will also have an opportunity to approve their scholars and their young people to come here. But just over the weekend, they sent me my first batch of applicants. Bless you. And of course, me being the kind of person I am, I told them off from day one. I said, you know, I want some diversity. Yes. I've been coming here over the last few years. Dennis Kennedy, my good friend, the Texas Diversity Council. I told them I want some diversity. I want more women, more minorities, African-American, Hispanic, Asian. Oh my God, you should see their eyes when I walk into the room. I said, y'all got some diversity. And as you all know, they're scrambling. But it is going to be a wonderful, wonderful change now that I'll be looking for diversity. I use that to tell y'all as an example that when you get a position of whatever influence, you know, what is teaching at Georgetown, CNN, where I work, I always say, I am not coming into the room to be your token. And I do not look like Wendell Dressen. I believe in diversity. It is important in the 21st century that we make room at the table for everybody. And I'm going to continue to fight for that. So let's take a few questions and comments and then we'll do some selfies. I've been on YouTube, the internet. He inspired it. We're going to use it tonight. Hello, ma'am. Hi. What's the Scuttle Button Washington about how the Supreme Court is going to go on the marriage decision? You know, I've heard that, first of all, I think it's very difficult once people have assumed the right to somehow or another deny or take it back. As you know, I feel that way in terms of voting. I feel that way about the Affordable Care Act. I mean, can you imagine you're getting healthcare and the Supreme Court might decide that you're no longer eligible for subsidies because your state, Texas, decided not to participate in the exchange. Okay. So when it comes to marriage equality, I think it's going to be very difficult to roll back. Under what pretence? Equal justice under the law. How are you going to amend that? So you can carve out a second-class citizenship. I mean, we've spent over 200 years trying to make an exception to equal justice under the law to somehow another, you know, endorsed slavery and Jim Crow and all the other craziness. I believe that the Supreme Court will get out of the way and this issue will go away. That's my view. I could be wrong. I don't have many conversations with Thomas, Alito, Scalia, Roberts. The best we can do is continue to pray for Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Justice Sotomayor and Kagan and Byron and pray for that man with a last name called Kennedy. Hello there. Hello. First, I wanted to say I love your monthly column in O Magazine. Thank you so much, ma'am. And I also wanted to ask, you mentioned three changes to the voter laws. The first one was photo identification. The second one was early voting cutbacks and early voting. I missed the third. Third is voter registration. Okay, in general. Do you know that in some states it's illegal for you to register voters and to submit them to the county registrar? I mean, there are places where the legal women voters are suing simply because they put another hurdle to people. Once upon a time, like the voter registration card you have out here in some states, you can't do that. We have voter registration restrictions. Okay, thank you. Lovely little thing. I got so much notes and research. I could keep you here all night, but then again I know it's thirsty. Hi there. Hello. And I just love you, period. Thank you. My name is Deborah Eaton. Thank you. And I'm a 28-year veteran of the United States Army. Thank you for your service tonight. Thank you. It was a great privilege and opportunity. One that I took very seriously. My concerns now that I've come home, well, I've come to San Antonio. I'm originally from Chicago. Education. Yeah. Mainly our special needs, children. The things that I see going on in the school system right now with the number of children that I see us face dealing with drug babies, they are not going to stay babies forever. And they're coming into the school systems. And some of the districts are being overwhelmed because we have lack of training. Not because the teachers are not adequately trained in educating them, but the special needs that they have. And there's something that we have to do with that as far as not only in Texas, but across the United States, standardizing the tests, the procedures, the things that are used to qualify them under those programs. Not only for the special needs, children, but I would love to see, especially at the high school level, we have standardized high school educational programs. Some states you go in, you only need 21 credits to graduate. Some states you need 27 credits to graduate. It should be standardized. We shouldn't be saying, well, Mississippi is the lowest state in the union and, you know, Connecticut is number one. If we standardize it across the board, what is it that we can do as I'm working on a master's PhD program in early childhood education with an emphasis on special needs? What can I do and some of my fellow students do to help standardize that or who do we need to talk to? Well, you know, the problem is, you know, ma'am, with education is that it is a state-specific issue. Although the federal government, you know, provide resources with regard to elementary and secondary education, higher education, et cetera. But governors have more to do with, you know, whether or not we're implementing common core standards or we have other curriculums. Education, if I go state by state, I can tell you four different strategies that states are developing to deal with special needs kids. I have two special needs kids in my family, and I can tell you that they are treated differently because one lives in Louisiana and one lives in South Carolina. I can give you a simple answer right now, but I can tell you that we have to be engaged on this education from the day whether we have children or not have children, but from the day we inaugurate our new governor. Because a lot of what you're dealing with is the policies are being generated in your state legislature. And I can guarantee you this new state legislature you have now in Texas and your governor, good luck. So you're going to, you're going to, I think, working with the teachers union, working with the PTA, working with all of the other interest groups involved in education standards, educational curriculum. This is going to be a very difficult hurdle, but I think the first place to start is right in Austin and then in all of these school districts, which are super, I'm having lunch with the superintendent of D.C. Public Schools on Monday. And I don't have any kids in D.C. Public Schools, but I'm doing that because I care about our public schools. I care about public education. And I'm a strong support of our public schools. And I'm a strong support of our nation's public school teachers as well, who don't get enough credit for the work that they're doing. But those standards, my friend, those standards and the investment that is needed for our public schools and for special needs, all of that is a state and local issue. And the more engaged we are and the more involved we are, the better off our children will be in our communities. And let me tell you, when you keep hearing about rollbacks and cutbacks and people don't want to pay taxes, we have a problem in our society because in many of these school districts, where they rely on local taxes, local revenues, property taxes, they're cutting back on that. And Louisiana, our governor just announced over $200 million cut in education because of the lack of revenue that's coming in as a result of the decline in the price of oil and gas. And you all in Texas are about to experience that same kind of retrenchment. But they continue to build prisons. Yeah, of course. Of course, because prison, you know that. And outsourcing, you know, cash cow, like military. But we have to fight that. That again, it goes back to voting. That is the central, if you vote, you're involved. Also on Tuesday, I mentioned on Monday I'm meeting with the superintendent of our D.C. public school on Tuesday, I have jury duty. Because I'm a registered voter. You know, the sad truth about Ferguson is that 75% of the people not eligible to be on a jury. Because then I registered a vote. And that's why there's a voter registration campaign. That's a very important issue, ma'am, and I hope as a result of you raising that issue, maybe there's someone in this room who know a little bit more about the Texas education system and maybe some of the organizations and groups that are fighting for those same issues here that you can join in coalition with. And thank you again for your service and our military, and God bless you. Thank you for your service. Thank you, ma'am. Hi there. Hello, Mr. Brazil. By the way, I don't know what's going on in Louisiana, but thank goodness they sent people like you and James Carvel up to shake it up in D.C. Thank you so much. I got to love it. I appreciate you talking about voting. And one of the things you talked about the voter registration, one of the things I tell people now, whenever they talk to me about that, I say go see Selma and then we'll talk. Amen. One of the things that I would say on this, though, is in Texas, as you know, we're kind of at the bottom of the list of voter turnout. And part of that's because of the registration, but the other thing is that nasty word called apathy. And I wanted to get your thoughts on how we can turn around voter apathy because that's a real thing that just drives people who can vote but just don't go out. You know, when I was growing up again and everybody I told you my age, we took civics. So in fifth grade, I was Ms. Bucca. I was Ms. Ohio. Because we had to learn all of the states, all 50 states. I mean, I was laughing the other day when I was one of my little nephews. He's four years old. And, you know, I still bomb those little big puzzles of the United States and say, okay, where's Louisiana? And I knew where Louisiana was. I actually could tell you all of the parishes, okay? But we don't teach civics. We really don't talk about the importance of voting and why voting is important. But this is a representative democracy. It's we the people, not we the politicians. It's not we the donors. It's we the people. And if people don't understand their rights and why it is so important to vote, then they won't vote. There's a scene in the movie, some of you who spoil alert, where Dr. K makes the argument that if we don't have the right to vote, we cannot choose the governor who choose the judges. If we don't have the right to vote, we cannot elect the mayor who appoints the police. He made it plain, as Malcolm X would say. He spelled it out. But many of our young people and a hell of a lot of our so-called old people, too, older young adults, they're not voting. Some people have given up. They can't give up because they give up on themselves. I often tell my young friends, especially my students, to say, you're mad about the fact that you don't have a living wage when you go work for McDonald's, Burger King, and Hardy, and all those other places. I say, elect politicians who will support raising the wage. And if you don't believe the politicians will do it, go above their head. You can petition. Five states last year, Arkansas included. Five states, Nebraska, Alaska voted to raise their wage. All across this country, the paid leave initiative that the president announced the other night, the voters in Massachusetts passed at this past fall. I don't have to tell you about marijuana. Oh, there's a study out today that is not as corrosive on the loans. It's the paper that you're wrapping at. Hey, we just voted for it in D.C. But as you all know, Congress controlled the district of Columbia. I love the vote. I couldn't wait to vote. I couldn't even wait to start my own voter registration campaign. And I didn't wait until I was 18. It was the year after Dr. King tragically was taken from us. That I worked on my first campaign. I was nine. And I wasn't registered. Of course, I was nine. Had a big mouth. I wish my mother had lived long enough to see me working for ABC and seeing this. Donna, shut up. I had an opinion about everything. That's why I write newspaper columns. Donna, shut up. And I would say, is Ms. Hermione registered? I'm going to knock on her door. And I would say, are you registered to vote Ms. Hermione? No. And then I would tell her how. I went to Mr. Jack and I went to Ms. Lois Jean and Mr. Jill. I went door to door. We won that campaign. And you know, I had one issue. Now, you know, they kept thinking, why are we doing this? I said, well, they're going to pave the roads. Nobody had a car. They all called the bus. But that's all right. We're going to pave the roads. And that was the best one. But they're going to build a playground. The kids don't have a playground when it rains outside. And you know, it always rained in Louisiana. You guys might have a drought, but, you know, we need four seasons for shrimp, crab, crawfish, and oysters. And I would, I just went door to door until, you know, we got enough people and we won. I mean, I got so excited. I'm still excited. I'm excited. My councilwoman won. She's the mayor of the DC. I said, look, come to my house and bring my friends. Let's have some barbecues and chicken. You know, I ain't going to be cooking nothing else. It's July. It's hot because we're not going on the stove. Anything that can be grilled, we're going to eat. Okay? But it can't be grilled. We're not having it. But you know what? I introduced her around. She won. I'm still excited about politics. And yes, ladies and gentlemen, every time I go over to that White House, I just sit back there and smile and have some eggnog. I'm so grateful that we have this ability to vote, but I am sad. When an election night, I'm on ABC or wherever, they're reporting the results. And you said to yourself, yeah, I mean, look, I tell you, I'm a Democrat behind God's name. That people just stay home. Only 28% of the voters in New York bother to even turn out. And some communities turn out was 12%. I mean, we deserve better. You're right. So when you're sitting home watching C-Span, and hearing as I did last night, 17, I was sitting in my room. I was sitting in my hotel room in Austin. Y'all know I was bored because I was watching C-Span. And I'm like, one, two, three. They were talking about the unborn pain act. I don't know about y'all, but have y'all ever known a man to have a period? Have y'all ever known a man to give birth? And they were talking as if they've been experiencing it. And it was all mad. I kept saying, God, please, we need one female. Just one, one, one female. Just one. It was like almost 1130 at night. One woman showed up. I said, thank God. And then when I heard her, I turned the TV off. I said, oh. I said, I've listened to more sex on television than I've had an opportunity to read Fifty Shades of Grey. It just makes no dog on sense. But that's what we elected, but I'm not voting. Seriously. And you know, once they get in the office, they redraw all of the districts, and they carve you out. They carve you out. They carve that section. They ghetto ties everybody. And let's put all of the Hispanics here. The Mexicans go there, the blacks go there, and nobody can mix. And then you have this whole other territory for everybody else. And they do it night at night in broad daylight. And I don't care if I lived here, I would go right up to Austin. It's not a long drive. I did it today. I would go into these chambers, and I would speak up and keep doing it. And you're going to have to do so much more. And by the way, and I'll say this, we got to educate people. Don't assume that people know it's election day. Not everybody's tuned in to watching CNN. And remember, in presidential years, you know, Democratic voters are like those locusts. They come out every four years. It's like they think it's the World Cup every four years. Now I'm like, no, it's the World Series. There's an election every year, but we have to do a better job of educating people, becoming advocates, and encouraging other people to vote. Because sometimes people want to see a little change. Okay, I forget it. Yes. I'll be right back. And I'll try to keep my answers. Got my voice back. Yes, ma'am. Yes. Thank you so much for your being here and enlightening us with your words of wisdom. Thank you, ma'am. And I am Theodora Berry, Associate Professor and Director of African American Studies at the University of Texas at San Antonio. Yes. We're going to talk to you now. Yeah. LSU. No, I'm joking. Okay, now go spurs. All right. And I am here with my colleague and one of my doctoral students and the three of us and some other faculty teach in diversity and in African American education. And one of the things that is troubling to me and my colleagues and I were talking about this just a little while ago, is the seemingly homogenous way in which our students seem to think that race is not an issue anymore. And sort of squirming their seats when we start talking about some of the issues that they should be paying attention to and a handful of them finally got quasi-excited about trying to address some of these issues around Ferguson and New York and so forth and so on. So I want to get some of your insights about how we can get some of our young people to be a bit more sensitive, I guess, for lack of a better word, around what's really going on instead of being in this post-racial coma that they seem to be in these days. First of all, thank you for your service. I too feel the same frustration at times when I teach my class, Women and Gender Studies at Georgetown. And my students look at me and they're like rolling their eyes when I talk about all of the injustices and when I go back to Elizabeth Katie Stanton and Lucretia Ma, and how it all came about in 1848 and they're looking at me like, and you know, nowadays when you teach they all have their little gadgets in front of them and you want to say, hey, look at me. Oh, no. But, you know, it's so funny because I don't think we should be angry at the fact or upset that they don't see the world as we see it. We've experienced it. Many of us know what has occurred. Some of us have wounds. Some of us know what it feels like to be discriminated against and know what prejudice is all about and racism, about and sexism and homophobia, anti-Semitism. We all know. Some of us have had direct experience with it. A little too much of it. They don't see it. But it doesn't mean that they're not sensitive to it. They're not going to fight the battles that the way we fought. But still, I believe that this generation is going to have a much greater impact. And here's why. Let us not forget that they put Barack Obama in the White House and they might put Hillary Clinton in the White House. These millennials. Yeah, I do believe. I don't want to put words in their mouth, but I do believe that they will seize the future. But too often, they don't believe that they should march to our music. That they have their own songs and melodies and their own way of responding to what I call their isms of this day. So, I like to think of myself as somebody who helps guide them. Somebody who helps propel them and push them forward. When I talk to my students, by the time I get to the section in my class about the Equal Rights Amendment, they're still in that, what is she talking about? And then when I pull up my credit card, and I say, you know, just 20, 25 years ago, before Bella Abzug and Lindy Byg spoke up, I couldn't have this because my husband are my dad's signature. When I talk about women being fired simply for being pregnant on the job, then all of a sudden you see them tuning in, like, okay, now let me turn down this iPad or whatever they're looking at, and then they do this. And when I finally get to tell them about how much money over their lifetime they will lose because we don't have equal pay for comparable work, then I have totally caught them. Oh, hell, no, I ain't making less. You mean I'm coming out of Georgetown and I'm gonna make, oh, hell, no. We gotta find ways to bring a man. We gotta find ways to let them know that those fights that we had in 65 and 66 and 68 and whatever, we're still fighting. And they can play their music. I'm not gonna lie, I've never been able to march to Rihanna or Beyonce. But if that's what it takes, I'll put Curtis Mayfield back. Y'all know I told my nieces and nephews I said, I don't even know how y'all make love to that kind of music. I mean, how y'all have babies and there's no loo rolls or loofer? I have no idea how y'all do it. I mean, come on, I don't want nobody jumping on me with that music. Madam professor, they're gonna create their own music. They're gonna march to their own rhythm. We just gotta make sure they see it. Because if they see it, they're gonna see it. I guarantee you, they're good. They're smart. I like them. I really do. That's why I'm still in class from some 20 years later. Y'all ain't the money. Y'all know that. All y'all teachers. Y'all know they ain't the money. It's the love. This generation give me so much hope. I came on Wednesdays. That's the only day of the week. I mean, I just, I say, I thank God that I am a teacher. I am an educator. Because my teachers inspired me. And I just want to be a source of inspiration for them. And I know you will be. Thank you for your service. Hello there. I'm gonna cut it short. I know it's 9 o'clock the all time. Okay. So I just, you know, talking about wounds, it brought up some stuff for me. I'm a veteran as well. Thank you for your service. Navy veteran, they told me when I joined the Navy, Navy stood for Never Again Volunteer Yourself. I didn't make it 10 years because I was in the Navy when it was a crime to be gay. Right? So I got out. But I went on to finish college for my H-Buck. Thank you. And from there, I started my own company. I lived in Washington, D.C. for about 12 years. Benefit of the Veteran Own Business 8A program and those things. But I really just wanted to stand up here and tell you that you are my role model. And that I admire and appreciate the work that you have done. Thank you. You have made politics interesting and palatable. And I can't help but notice that you have on the Saints colors today. And I know you are a Saints fan. And I wanted to ask you about the Benson family and what the heck is going on with the Pelicans and the Saints. And then while we're at it, we can talk about that Washington football team that we shall not name and what's going on with all of that. And I feel like I could talk to you forever, but I'll just leave it there and just say thank you. On a day that we're talking about the Flated Balls, you want to bring a football? I had no idea. Yeah, I knew I had on Saints colors today. I love sports. I don't know what's going on with the Benson family. I follow the Saints. I love the Saints. My daddy paid me a quarter to watch the Saints and I'm still a devoted Saints fan. I'm looking forward to the Super Bowl. I love those Seahawks. I think they're a dynamic team. And, you know, I watched Tom Brady today try to explain it. Like I said, I don't want to touch that. But I don't know what's going on with the Saints and the Benson family. There's a lot of little, you know, family squabbling. And I love Rita, but as you know, she's the granddaughter and there's the wife and there's a lot of other drama there. With relationship to your second topic, I don't know what will it take. Dan Snodder is, he is basically said, no way we're not going to change the name of the team. You know, we're talking about the Washington team, the football team. It's really crazy. I don't think people understand how insensitive to have that name. We can find a better name, a more suitable name. After all, the Washington Bullets changed their name to the Washington Wizards. So we have some precedent there, but we got to continue to organize and petition. And hopefully I haven't been to a game in a long time. And that's my way of protesting. And hopefully we will resolve that issue in Washington. And thank you for your service again. Yes, ma'am. Good evening. My name is Adriana Contreras. I'm the executive director of the San Antonio Education Partnership, which is a nonprofit that helps to equip students for success in college. You can imagine my excitement when I heard about President Obama's Community College initiative and that. So I think it'd be great. Every day I work with students who struggle, you know, trying to get financial aid and everything else they need for college. Is it realistic? Do you think that it'll pass Congress? Do you think it has a chance? You know, I don't even know why we're having a conversation about it. I was in Germany in November, and as you know, they just decide in Germany to make college affordable and free to just about any citizen who meets the great. I don't know why we have to litigate this in our society. You know, this idea did not just come in the midnight hour. President Obama saw it being instituted in the state of Tennessee and the city of Chicago and places all across the country. What President Obama did that most people don't know, I know because I follow all of this, is that basically he decided to come up with a cookbook and he decided to go and find all the best chefs around the country. Many of them are Republicans because they control stay houses and he found all the ideas and all the things that he's trying to bake, so to speak. And he put it in a cookbook and guess what? Gave it to the Congress and they said, no, we don't want it, we don't want it. These are all Republican ideas. So the problem is that if the author of the book is Barack Obama, they don't want the idea. Maybe what we should do is just say, go ahead, John Boehner, who by the way, look is not, look very well. I counted one, two. Wow, Joe Biden was the only white person back there. Being from Louisiana, he could pass. And what he should do, and by the way, Mitch McConnell recently said, I don't want to do no scary stuff. Well, scary stuff is doing nothing. Doing nothing while people languish, people languish and waiting for jobs to be created, waiting to go to school and waiting to start their careers, waiting to stay in their homes and that's scary. But I think the President is just going to have to wait for Republicans to wake up and realize that his broadband initiative, that was from the state of Iowa. I mean, these initiatives, ladies and gentlemen, the President is not just creating this to start a fuss and a draw a line. He's trying to find some help. You know, he needs their help because that's the legislative branch of the government. He's an executive branch. And let me just say, I'm proud of this President. And I say that as a Democrat who spent three years, the last three years of George W. Bush's term. I was appointed by the Governor of Louisiana to the Louisiana Recovery Authority. And I spent three years working directly with the Bush administration and George W. Bush. It didn't matter if George W. Bush was purple, green, Republican or Democrat. What mattered was making sure that the people of Louisiana and Mississippi and the Gulf Coast, including Texas, were able to get back home after those two catastrophic hurricanes. And nowadays you can't get Republicans to work with Democrats because, of course, they'll get a Tea Party challenge. Very unfortunate. Very unfortunate. All right, the last three. Hello. I was just wondering what your opinions are about the international community about the United States after Ferguson and what kind of role model we stand with the world and what we can do to stand, you know, be a stronger part of that, you know, leadership. So, thank you. Thank you so much. You know, in the aftermath of Ferguson there were protests all over the world. People saying, we are Ferguson. So many people in communities, cultures, all stood with us, from South Africa to Indonesia to Thailand to Beijing and all throughout Europe and Latin America. Protests. People care about us. But likewise, we should care about what happens outside of our borders, too. That's why I'm proud that this president has opened up relations with Cuba. You know, I've been to Cuba. I've actually tasted food. I've tasted a little bit more than that. Hey, I'm from Louisiana. We've got to taste things. And yeah, those cigars are interesting. And yes, the mojitos were the best. But there's no reason why I can visit Cuba, but a Cuban, someone of Cuban descent who lives in America can visit their ancestors or their family. So, I'm glad. I actually went to prison for the first and thank God, hopefully, my last time. I went and I saw Alan Gross. I am so happy Alan is back home. And he's adjusting very well. So, we need to be able to express solidarity whether it's a terrorist attack in France or, you know, some of the violence in the Middle East when we see violence, when we see people who are hungry, displaced, as in the Sudan, when we see Boko Haran taking our girls from their families and their communities. Am I my brother and my sister's keeper? You're all right, I am. We should. We should care about what happens but be on our borders. And thank you for asking that question. Yes, sir. Yes, good evening, Ms. Brazil. Thank you so much for making it out here to San Antonio, Texas. We all greatly appreciate you being out here. Thank you so much. Thank you for having me back. Full disclosure, I am pretty libertarian in my views, kind of conservative right-leaning, but I still respect greatly, you know, this dialogue and discussion. What I want to ask you was, who in your mind of the conservatives slash Republicans do you think you can work with or that maybe the Democrat coalition can work with as opposed to, you know, people who you can't work with at all? You know, the interesting thing is that I work with everybody. I don't have a closed mind and God knows my heart's not closed. I love people. I love to hear the best ideas from everybody. On my bucket list this year is to sit down with Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina. He's the first black Republican elected from the Deep South since Reconstruction. I want to talk to him about renewing the children's health care program. That's up. I want to sit down with Rand Paul, who I've had conversations with with criminal justice reform. I want to talk to Orrin Hatch about some of the tax initiatives. He sends me music from the Mormon tabernacle cry. So I don't have a closed mind. You know, hanging out with white people ain't no bad thing. Hanging out with black people, Latinos. I don't want to tell people the last name of my Brazil. Of course I'm playing immigration reform. Okay? I mean, I don't see all of this craziness that we have. I mean, look, am I Attilogue? What do I care about? I'm passionate about my faith. I am very passionate about my faith. I am a big believer in the power of prayer. But I don't impose my religion on anybody. I don't impose my views, my value. Well, I can't sit at my nieces and nephews. But you know, they're getting of the age now where they can just say, wait a minute. And I say, okay. But I don't get this where once you profess to be something, oh, I'm a libertarian. Oh, I'm a liberal. I'm a whatever. Then you're all of a sudden a demon. You're not a demon, sir. You just have, you have a particular way in which you see the world and you see government and see other things. And I have a particular way. And I would love to sit down with people who have different views in my own and find common sense, common ground solutions. You know, at the end of the day, sir, we all are going to go someplace and we're not going to be judged by what part we voted for. We're going to be judged by how we treated the least of these. I still believe that is going to be the standard. And if your views and your values and your politics get you to that place, quicker than my views and my values, and it's the right place we should be, then I'm going to come and say I'm going to steal your idea. I might give you credit on a Monday, but by Friday it's going to be my idea. And thank you for your question. Last but not least. Thank you. My name is Esther, and I just want to say thank you for being an agitator and an inspiration. Thank you. There are 17 school districts in the San Antonio and Bear County area. And I live in a school district that prides itself on being rural, so you read into that what you will. So two things happened in that school district. The longtime superintendent retired, and there was a search. The one woman, the one candidate was a woman. She'd been in her previous school district for 15 years. She'd worked her way up. She knew everybody, all the staff, most of the students, most of the families in that school district. And the other candidate was a coach. So you know which one my school district elected. And there was a majority on the board that said, this is who we want. I didn't. So between being really pissed off about that and first hearing your name, I ran for that board. In a very small community that doesn't have a large population, but the population that it does have is mostly inside the city limits, where those people are black and brown. I was lucky enough to get on that board when we did have a tiny bit of growth and we needed to build two new schools. And I'll be damned if I didn't sit in closed session. And the minority tried to say, we earned those schools and they tried to build them out in the sticks where 550 inner city kids would have been bussed so that 50 kids in the rural areas wouldn't have to be bussed. So I just want to say thank you for being an agitator. Because between being pissed about the superintendent that was put in place and hearing you speak right and hearing you speak, hearing your views, it forced me to do something very uncomfortable. And my husband said, you don't have the stomach for politics. I don't. That was the worst three years of my life. Worst. But that doesn't mean I don't do everything I can behind the scenes. Well, thank you. And thank you for your service. Thank you. What you have the stomach for is what Dr. King had the passion for. So, ladies and gentlemen, I wanted, first of all, once again, to say thank you. Thank you to the San Antonio Library. Thank you to the Carver Cultural Center. Thank all of you who had a great part in making this evening a success. I want to leave you with scripture. And that's because when I was a little girl my grandmother would call us and order our birds. Cheryl Ciladonna, Tata Chet, Lisa Demetri, Kevin Zola. And she would sit us down at night. My parents were working. And she would always find something in the Bible useful for us to know. My favorite scripture that she loved as well came from the book of Galatians, chapter six, verse nine. And it is, do not grow weary and doing good for in due season you'll reap a harvest if you don't give up. I know many of you are doing the Lord's work. And you're doing it sometime alone with not a lot of help or accolades. You're not on cable television and you're not bringing home a big check but you're still making a way for someone else to be able to sit at that table to continue to do the Lord's work. God bless you. And may you have a wonderful 2015. Thank you so much for having me. Thank you. Thank you.