Student: My name is [June?], I'm part-Yemeni and part-Iranian; I'm not an American, but I do know that America affects my life every day, and it's in the way that a lot of taxpayer money is allocated for funding the military whether it's in backing Saudi Arabia, or in Palestine. And I bring this up because you brought up how the power of the people and demonstration and organizing is very valuable in America [Kamala: Yeah.]

But I see that over the summer there have been protests and demonstrations in astronomical numbers standing with Palestine, but then just a few days ago there were funds allocated to continue backing Israel which hurts my heart because it's an ethnic genocide and displacement of people the same that happened in America and I'm sure you're aware of this. And I bring this up also because of the issue of how Americans are struggling because of lack of healthcare—public healthcare—lack of affordable housing, and all this money ends up going to and funding Israel and backing Saudi Arabia and whatnot, and I think that the people have spoken very often in what they do need and I feel like there's a lack of listening and I just feel like I need to bring this up because it affects my life and people I really care about's lives, and this was just something I had to bring up.

Kamala: I'm glad you did. I'm glad you did and again: this is about the fact that your voice, your perspective, your experience, your truth, should not be suppressed, and it must be heard, alright? And one of the things that we're fighting for in a democracy, right? A democracy is at its strongest when everyone participates [June: Mmhmm] It is at its weakest when anyone's left out. And that's not only about being physically present but that your voice is present.

I mean, I'll get back to the point I was making and hinting at about—the whole point about community, right? Our goal should be unity, but not uniformity, right? When we talk about coalition building, when I think of coalition building and bringing everybody together in a unified spirit it's about—yes, everyone, we should bring people together and understand our commonalities, but unity should never be at the expense of telling any one person—for the sake of unity, "Oh, you be quiet about that thing. You suppress that thing. Let's not deal with that thing." That's not unity. True unity is that everyone in that room has a voice.

And then we see where that ends up in terms of a healthy debate on the issues, right? And the point that you're making about policy that relates to Middle East policy, foreign policy, we still have healthy debates in our country about what is the right path. And nobody's voice should be suppressed on that.