UBC’s School of Public Policy and Global A ffairs hosted Charles M. Blow\, Op-Ed columnist at The New York Times and b est-selling author\, for a virtual event as part of our 2021 Phil Lind Init iative series on The Anti-Democratic Turn.
Series: The unprecedented assault on the rules and norms of democracy in th e US over the past four years has exposed its vulnerability. The problems h ave become all too familiar: corruption\, disinformation\, foreign interfer ence\, gerrymandering\, social media complicity\, voter suppression\, and t he previously inconceivable threat that the outgoing president would refuse to concede and instead launch a series of futile but harmful legal challen ges to democracy itself. Despite the eventual outcome of the presidential e lection\, democracy in the US may not be as resilient as we once thought. I f we accept that the previous administration is a symptom of more deeply ro oted problems in American society\, how do we begin to address these emergi ng fault lines in the democratic process? How can we protect the integrity of our democracies in an era marked by authoritarian resurgence and nativis t backlash?
Learn more about the 2021 series\, The Anti-Democratic Turn.
Bio< /strong>: Charles M. Blow is a n Op-Ed columnist at The New York Times\, where his column appears on Monda ys and Thursdays. Mr. Blow’s columns tackle hot-button issues such as socia l justice\, racial equality\, presidential politics\, police violence\, gun control\, and the Black Lives Matter Movement.
Mr. Blow is also a CN N commentator and was a Presidential Visiting Professor at Yale\, where he taught a seminar on media and politics.
Mr. Blow is the author of the critically acclaimed New York Times best-selling memoir\, Fire Shut Up in My Bones. The book won a Lambda Literary Award and the Sperber Prize and ma de multiple prominent lists of best books published in 2014. People Magazin e called it “searing and unforgettable.”
Mr. Blow joined The New York Times in 1994 as a graphics editor and quickly became the paper’s graphics director\, a position he held for nine years. In that role\, he led The Ti mes to a best of show award from the Society for News Design for The Times’ information graphics coverage of 9/11\, the first time the award had been given for graphics coverage. He also led the paper to its first two best of show awards from the Malofiej Infographics World Summit for work that incl uded coverage of the Iraq war. He then went on to become the paper’s design director for news before leaving in 2006 to become the art director of Nat ional Geographic Magazine. Before coming to The Times\, Mr. Blow had worked at The Detroit News.
He graduated magna cum laude from Grambling Sta te University in Louisiana\, where he received a B.A. in mass communication s\, and he holds an honorary doctorate from Massachusetts College of Art an d Design in Boston. He lives in Brooklyn and has three children.
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