President Barack Obama’s Former Speechwriter, Sarada Peri, spoke to B-CC students on Tuesday, November 29. In this installment of B-CC’s Gaslighting Series, Peri described her career path and how gaslighting factored into it, answering students’ questions along the way.

As for gaslighting, Peri expressed that it has always existed, but modern technology and social media have changed its scope: “You couldn’t dupe an entire 150 million people as you could today.” 

Prior to writing for Obama’s White House, Peri was a principal at West Wing Writers, a strategic communications firm led by former Clinton, Obama, and Biden Administration speechwriters. She worked with corporate, political, and nonprofit clients on speeches, op-eds, books, and message strategies. Peri was also a member of the 2012 and 2016 Democratic National Convention speech writing teams.

Despite her impressive resume, Peri candidly told students that speechwriting had never been something she classified as a real career or felt interested in before she explored it. She quickly discovered that speechwriting was as real as any career, especially because of its ability to inspire and persuade audiences.

Her parting message to students was to stay dedicated to our democracy. The Tattler encourages all students to do so by tuning into the next speaker, Marc Minsker. As the vice principal of Jackson Reed High School, formerly known as Woodrow Wilson High School, Minsker has done amazing work to address gentrification in NW DC.

Don’t believe us? Hear it from Minsker himself on December 8th!