Transcripts For CSPAN African Americans Discrimination Disparities 20180114

Africanamericans in the u. S. Posted by the Manhattan Institute, hosted by the Manhattan Institute, this is two hours. I think we are ready to get started. I want to thank everyone for joining us today. Riley, im ason senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and i would like to welcome everyone to our symposium, which is called prospects for black america. Dean ball,ke to thank i want togton and thank them for their hard work. The idea is to bring people from different points of view about addressing racial problems in america. You will be hearing from liberals, conservatives, but most importantly, you will hear from people who have given serious thought to these issues. Everyone here is here to engage. There are people who are not afraid to touch third rails. Tois not because we want promote for the sake provoke for e being provocative, it is that we do not want to shy away from addressing the difficult and complicated questions. Was washington goodell washington sedenzel washington was asked if it is possible for blacks to improve environment. He said if you do not find a father, you find a father in the streets. In on theed to weigh criminal Justice System he gave the same answer. Blamed that you cannot the system . It is unfortunate we make such a easy work for them. Washington took heat for those comments. Plays ao doubt racism role in Racial Disparity we see today. I believe othertors play a r ole. The question is to what extent does racism explains these outcomes . And unemployment in other areas. Other factorse to we do not discuss . Answers impact where we focus our time and resources. Some are so eager to attribute Racial Disparities to the legacy of racism that they play down other plausible explanations. The progress that blacks made efter leaving slavery and th impact of the 1970s is not considered today. 50s, blacks and Labor Participation rates were higher than white Labor Participation rates. The black poverty rate fell by 40 Percentage Points between 1940 and 1970. Of blacks in middle class professionals quadrupled. Quadrupled. Ns the legacy of slavery and segregation is to blame for this, but what explains the oneress of blacks generation after jim crow. It as exists but citing the only reason for racial right. Ity today is n not delve into what may or may not be hampering black progress today as the al of this event. We will start with a Panel Discussion and some q and a. Then we will have ben carson make remarks. We will focus on education reform in particular. To my immediate left is darrel bradford, the executive Vice President of the organization 50 can and a longtime educational reform advocate. Ago. T years he contributed to education debates and several boards dedicated to putting the needs of family and students first. To darrels left is mark whitaker. Memoir he author of mark is aip home and journalist. Former managing editor of cnn ofre he was the head Washington Bureau at nbc. All agreek we can that Race Relations are in a bad place right now in america. Agree thatably also the current president does know that. With him. Start even if he has made matters worse. If you look at the numbers on racial relations coming out of the last demonstration, they wer worse than in the 1990s. Do you have thoughts on how we got here . Darrel i think there is a vast difference between the state of an black america, mark i think there is a vast difference between the state of my bookack america is about a Small Community in pittsburgh that produced the largest black newspaper in america. Some of the greatest black baseball teams. A sportswriter who thought to introduce Jackie Robinson to the major leagues. The greatest black playwright came out of this relatively small Industrial Town in pittsburgh and there were other black communities like that in detroit and in baltimore. Chicago, cleveland, st. Louis, etc. I will not get into the reasons why tse cities declined but e neighborhoods now are v astly worse off than they were 50 or 60 years ago. Which is amazing when it comes to the quality of living in america. You have to make a distinction between black folks living in y direities that are trul are issues and those who living in the middle class. Theres problems on campus and in professional workplaces but it is hard to argue that the black middle class is worse off than it was in terms of opportunity. The discussion of race, lets have a conversation about race seems to forget the that theseems to think is theof black america same across all classes. There are horrible problems for lower class black america. But there are issues for the black middle class. Jason when we talk about problem and it race probl ematic Race Relations darrel i would like to thank the Manhattan Institute for inviting me here today. There are a million questions to answer. I do think the situation for low income black folks in cities that were once great is wholly other. The economic and social conditions are ones that arrest progress of that might be in a way that is unique to Industrial Towns where not many are collegeeducated. The middle class is interesting. There is a professor from emory who did a study on housing value. The value of houses for black Property Owners goes up slower forwhite slower than white Property Owners. A idea thatere was you should move somewhere with some black people. Like policyings and redlining that have created that. If you look at it and want to ascribe it to Something Like race, you see that middle income black folks are suffering from legacies of prior policies driven by race anyway other in a way other folks are not. I think it is across the board. Derrel one of the best mark tok one of the best way improve Race Relations is to im Economic Opportunities. Ways tone of the best improve Race Relations is to improve Economic Opportunities. Rel what is it, the ira i have become suspicious about to idea of policy being able take us out of the mire. Are giving schools people an opportunity to get to their best selves. And those people are changing the world. About if you are talking mark if you are talking about black business or black selfhelp, you have to talk about the fact that, again in about,iod you talked you had a community really that cared about no choice itey had to stay in those communities and become leaders. A lot of them opened businesses. One of the perverse and unintended consequences from the advance of the Civil Rights Movement is you have an entire able toon he was my fatittsburgh, her, he got a degree and never came back. They had opportunities they never had in the predominantly white world. Derrel you are talking about what was happening under legal segregation. Then a time when government could be described as indifferent to blacks or hostile. We still hear talk of society threeegregated re segregating. That achieving this academic success that is off the charts does not stop critics from sayinga they are segregated. Nd that is and that is a bad thing. What should trump what . Are we more interested in the child learning or a child sitting next to a white kid in class . How do you respond . It is mark complicated. I grew up in the derrel i grew up in the 80s kidi was the only black at my school. Youe is a currency understand of how to deal with the ruling order when you are in people in situations of people who are not like you. An academy to school, you see kids looking theythe sun come up when talk to you. People are not assigned to these schools. A couple of people who happened to be black or hispanic decided to take a school that mirrored their values and it was no more segregated than the paper school next to them. Underexcellence is attack. When you have the Lowest Performing School were nobody is learning anything, yet the heat that open because it is all about democratic values. I support integration but i think it is being held up as the new poverty. A dangerousre in place where we built a policy framework where it is ok to attack black excellence that is chosen versus supporting that. Schools destroying futures in the name of values not conveyed to the kids attending. Are badthink things enough that we have to focus on what is best for the kids. There are kids who benefit from being in a mostly black environment where they feel a sense of identification with t eachers and classmates and do not feel the anxiety they feel in a white environment. You cane like derrel, throw them into a mixed environment and they an can thrive. Black kids, we have to learn at some point we are a largely white society. You are not being prepared for adult life if you do not have contact with white folks at some point. Jason you talk Higher Education and say you want to keep it real havekids but you likeizations on campus black lives matter that has made headway with these kids. Make of campus activism and the world where blacks are leading efforts to downe safe spaces, to tear is this aampus positive development . Rel mark i think college is a time for experimentation of ideas and identities. I think there are a lot of us who were more activist minded on and then people ll are still on the front lines. As a one advantage aboutd alum, i can talk going to that school as an undergraduate without being a jerk. I worked on the College Newspaper and my first beat was covering the admissions office. I was part of the first generation where there was enough black students at the kansas so they could at the selfs that they could segregate. Or could have a black table chose youere if you could live there. That existencee but what i also knew was that them came from the same environment that the white kids did. Thirtyd gone to one of 40 prep schools. 70 of all students across all races came from that selection of schools. They had already had the experience of dealing in a white environment but for some reason they wanted once they got to harvard to spend most of the time with eachother. In terms of how i felt about my experience was, they were m issing out. What i thought was great about college was the opportunity to meet people i would never meet or would have met in the environment i came from. In terms of background and ideas, the College Newspaper was a great place to do that. You can get righteous aut it and talk about defending or fourking but college is years and a life you do not get back. To be exposed to different ideas would sayriod i the same about white kids who orer meet a black kid hispanic kid. Derrel i am deeply disappointed campus protesting. An unwillingness of people to be in spaces with them. Who disagree with undermine the fundamental adversarial relationship that makes things go in the name of you cannot be around any ideas you want. Mark obvusly w live in a very heated polical moment. I keep thinking about where this is all elading and where all thing that the one is certain is a lot of us are going to be around but off the stage. A new generation is going to take over in terms of Political Leadership and so forth. That the facte that we all live in bubbles is a problem in our country, if there is going to be a solution, the solution must come from the next generation. Theres not enough time left to solve that problem. How do you prepare to lead a society where everyone is not living in a bubble if you live in a bubble during the most formative educational experience in your young life. Jason you have a background in print and cable news, what role doou think media perceptions the educational reform there talking about and reformation of black america in general. Andan watch cat videos Police Shootings sometimes i worry increased News Coverage is thatng for certain trends may not be there. Can you critique the media environment . I have already talked about polarization. The tone on Political Television increases that. It is economics. It is cheaper to program a 24hour cable channel with people arguing then sending people out than sending people out doing reporting. There is an issue that straddles traditional media and social media. Everybody is performing now. If you are not performing for a camera, you are curating the persona you present on facebook or instagram i worry in addition to the polarization that everyone is busy posing, so it is hard to really have a conversation. On education in particular but on other issues, what is required is a conversation. It is hard to have a conversation when you are p reening for the camera. I want to make time for questions. How much time do we have . You talk about or have thought about education reform and increasing the opportunity for families to p improves their to improve their educational situation. Attitudes ofack education. You can have the best schools down the street but if you value blackducation education does this play into the antiintellectual strain in the subculture. Derrel i would like to thank you for saving the softball question for last. It is not that the black community has a problem with education, it is american communities. In see a similar attitude lots of racial subgroups. Re are some anagram, subgroups black that really knock it our of the park. Some do not. As country, we have a narrative of what education is supposed to be but a lot of kids do not believe it. In a lot of places it is not true or it is not accessible. I want to highlight that. Questionnk about this often. I have no idea how i got to college. Wish i had a playbook for it because that would have been really helpful. If we could have another panel talk about sequencing. There are a few things your parents should want to do before you get here. And there are things you want to make thingst will likely get better. I did not have that sequencing. I think one of the things that changes attitudes is a people see a path to doing things. Thek people grong up in worst places in america, there are few people who put that path in front of you. Another thing interesting in having this discussion, like the really school instance relief. Is in high there are folks in communities of color who want better demonstrably. They have a strong sense of what look from a to z should like. That is not just immigrant communities but people of color. What frustrates me is those attitudes are attacked often. If you are a black striver and you want the school best for you kid, people say you cannot do that. That will undermine the republic. They might present themselves in attitude or Public Policy or perception. With education, you see a bit of a double standard with how black folks want to be discussed. Mark this is where family is key. But you are describing is something that exists nand has not always been the case. Jason in your study of early 20th century whitblack america, did you detect a shift in attitude . Mark the reason the community i studied had so much accomplishment was a shift and education. There were Educational Opportunities in pittsburgh that were quite unusual for the time. Now the western Pennsylvania University started admitting black students under a then the western Pennsylvania University started admitting black students under the sponsorship of a black abolitionist. On his own steam so he couldolina study there. Because of all the gilded age at the ende of the 20th century, there were thehighschools that were most expensive public high schools ever built in america. They both admitted 10 of the students in the 1920s. It was a huge value, musical famousy, they produced jazz musicians. There was a tremendous culture of musical appreciation and competition in pittsburgh. Friend atow, our harvard says we used to be the book. Of the what happened . Something did happen. We see it here in new york. Even in the poorest communities, if you have a grandparent or aunt or uncle who really cares about you having an education, those kids can still brake through. Through. When you have parents who do not care about their kids, you have all the advantages in the world and still do not succeed academically. Jason we will open it up for questions. This question for mark in particular, given your status as editor in chief of newsweek. I would like to get your opinion on these data the state of black people in media circles. One of the more some of the more prominent africanamerican journalists are called on to talk about race and ethnicity. Mark i think that is true. The thing about journalism now,s has been, but moreso there is no one path. My advice to all young journalists has always been when you are starting out, go to the places that will give you the opportunity. Nothe old days it was do necessarily go to the new york times. Go to a small regional paper. Go to a small market where youll get a lot more air time and stories and work your way up to the bigger market. Now with the decline of traditional media and rise of other forms, that is even more true. Choicesmaking more and the variety of places you can work. Anyone comes to concerned about being pigeonholed, particularly when you are early in your career and many financial responsibilities, you may says choices where you can have the opportunity that you want. You do not have to be pigeonholed doing the black story. There are many organizions where you can get hired on an entry level. Choose is that. Choose that. Lots of people want to be doing the race story and there are places they can find that. I could get on my high horse and talk about the responsibility of media organizations to do more hiring and promoting, but it is hard given the state of the industry. From young journalists, you have to take a bit of your own initiative and sau what kind y but kind of stories and do i want to be doing areas then you doing. Then you find it and sell make it clear you do not want to work for that place. Directorhe executive of the new york civil rights coalition. My question is the larger cultural attitude about what you call selfsegregation. Are there any studies you can tell us about where whites are turned away from tables where black students are sitting with respect to black housing, socalled black dorms, how can minority students get black dorms without the participation of the colleges. My question is the larger culture, the attitude of the white school who rejects integration and blacks on ca mpus. Derrel i am trying to dig out the nugget if the question. Whitedorm at penn is a dorm except the black one. We live in a country that is segregated. New york city, which per capita should have the most integrated schools in the galaxy is segregated. I do not want to answer your question. I want to offer that there are other factors at play tribalism. You can assign a benevolent ord or a malicious one at the beginning you spoke about the decision that showed great progress for the black community as a whiole until 1960s. What would you attribute to the turnaround in the direction of black communities in america . I was talking about the world home wartime economy that was lifting all folks, including blacks. There was a great migration to take advantage of Better Living conditions in the north. You have millions of blacks moving into the northern cities. Their standard of living increase. It increase at a faster standard than it did for whites in terms men and women and educational attainment. Late 60sook at the and 70s, you see a slowing of these trends. Greatibute it to the society introductions. The introduction of the welfare state. That played a role in the slowing of those trends, the stalling of those trends and the reversal. Mark one of the important things to realize is that there is a lot of literature and discussion that paints a lot of these Government Programs as america. Inst black kindof them did start as idealistic new deal programs. Overnight things that change to the directory of black trajectory of black pittsburgh renewals. M it was considered something that would benefit black folks. S money made available by washington. If you could make the case that you had a black community in terms of the housing and so substandard, you can get a lot of federal dollars to tear down and build a tear it down and build a new Housing Project to improve the lot of black america. In pittsburgh it was that effo at dtroyed the heart of traditional black neighborhoods. What was supposed to be modern, more humane Housing Projects became prisons. Cityyou look at city after ism the north to miami, it it isf a high rise sort of a florida version of a Housing Project. It was a disastrous turn for conditions for blacks across the country. Jason were going to stop there. I went to thi i am going to turn things over to my colleague. [applause] [indistinct conversation] good morning, again. Continue witho our program. Our panel is called coulters family cultured family. Answerbe considered one to the problems of africanamerican poverty and its persistence. I want to ask the panelists to reflect broadly on that. You have a very distinguished panel. Jean, an author who grew up in the missiippi delta and ha and has been surrounded by american poverty his whole life. Guest is the director for the center for human flourishing. And the author of the book liberated black theology. A professor at virginia commonwealth university. She is the president at the American Society for public administration. She has completed a fascinating news that he new study she will be talking about. I will start with jean. I brought up your book to quote from it. We were talking about programs and efforts, concentrated, government directed programs and whether they have helped or hindered. There was some skepticism about them. There is a lot of skepticism. Trilons of dollars were s pent and the results of the method programs were elusive massieve programs were elusive t best. Writing that said i cannot think of anything lastingved to be a consequence. For all hear calls Marshall Plan, a major Government Intervention to uplift the black floor. What lessons should we learn. Jean the Marshall Plan is the favorite metaphor for black leadership. One of the things to take away is once you deal with the federal government, it has to go down with the local community . You end up with the same problems which are bureaucracy, inefficiency and lack of accountability in terms of these programs. There are a lot of small programs that work. Everyone has a favorite. The 60s in terms of the hope tha occurredt once legal segregation wasemed was a bit of an illusion. In 1964 you had race riots in major cities. New york, philadelphia, rochester and other towns in new jersey. After civil rights 65, you had watts that occured. There were other issues and complex cities. The framework for dealing with legal segregation are different from what we have today and the problems surfaced immediately in the 1960s. That is the start with that. Howard give us some specific. The like of of accountability and bureaucracy . Is there anything you look back on . Certainly some people were helped, whether he was pittsburgh or any other place. Theill always come back to Building Block of society and this predates education which is the family, community and religis organization what ies waht concentrate on the book is how to move a mass of black america into the economic mainstream. Who have black elites excelled in every aspect of american life. Room in thea has white psyche for a black elites. Theuld like to talk about private sector because there needs to be a Major Movement in terms of the private sector as well as the income and asset gap of the middle class. Howard those are things we want to leave on the table. I will be interested in how you want to expand. Let me turn to dr. Gooden. This will be a bit of a breath of fresh air considering the context we have been involved in so far this morning. Susan has been looking at three admittedly small programs that arken back to the values jason riley was talking about in the early 20th century. Id love for you to tell us about these programs. About the programs and what you found they were accomplishing and how you see their effectiveness. Susan thank you, howard. I would like to thank the Manhattan Institute. It is a privilege to be a part of this panel. Howard mentioned i was president , im actually be immediate past president. I want to make sure the current president does not give the hate mail. As howard mentioned, these were three very fascinating programs. There were two parts to the study. We looked at three nonprofit organizations led by africanamericans. One is in harlem, not too far from here. One is in new jersey. The third is outside of chicago, illinois in glenwood. Each of these programs had three enars of focus. One was on the preservation of gospel music. For the new jersey, it was oral speaking skills and performance. For the other it was general College Preparation and life skills. One in 2015, we went out to all of the high and we in that area surveyed three groups of students. We surveyed those that had participated in one of the africanamerican led programs. We surveyed students that had not been in any of those programs. Then we surveyed students that had been in some sort of afterschool program, but not one of the three. We look at four dimensions apathetic performance academic performance, behavior, family and social support, selfesteem and resiliency. When we crossed these three groups, and there were over 700 students included, we found that the first take away was that being involved with something after school or extracurricular was certainly better than nothing at all. So we think there are two things going on there. Of of the positive impact doing the afterschool program, whether it is basketball or an africanamerican lead program, and also the protection against perhaps doing more negative things during that time. What we also found was that the africanamerican led programs outperformed the other programs. These were a wide way of wide array of programs. Particularly in terms of Overall Academic performance, and also in terms of selfesteem and resiliency. Selfconfidence, confidence in their ability, resiliency and ability to navigate conflict. They outperformed the other two groups. Fastforward. This past spring, the summer of 2017, the students have graduated and we did a followup study. The question was, where are they now . We did followup interviews with all of the students that had participated in the africanamerican led programs, as many as we could get. We got about 79 of them altogether. We found that close to 88 of them are attending college or have attended college in the past year. Many of them are doing it in competition with work. That compares with an attendance rate of about 40 overall nationally among africanamerican students. Certainly much higher. We also found that about three quarters of them, 72 , rated their experience with africanamerican led organizations as very effective. They cited that is very effective in being able to navigate life. Two things that we think we associate with that, one is i think the promotion of oldschool values. I think weve already had some discussion of that. Howard you cant just drop that phrase and not explain it. Oldschool values. What the heck is oldschool values . Dr. Gooden oldschool values is a term that really references respect for others, respect for elders in the community, respect for self. It also represents being able to pull out the best in someone, that the best in someone is not predetermined by an sat score where their grade point average asdate, but the idea that long as there is a desire to learn and a desire to do well, that with the appropriate amount of support this student can excel. So i think the closest term but it is not exactly that term is tough love. It still doesnt quite capture it because there is a sense of compassion, but also a sense of expectations and responsibility that go along with that. Howard it sounds like what you are saying is that despite the hand wringing about altra and family, that theres some thsidue culture and family, there is me residue of this upward mobility culture you are hearing about as having been vanquished somehow. Dr. Gooden absolutely. I think this is one of the things first of all, i think we saw throughout the program that mentors in the program and leaders in the program are able and ability tou excel while being black from someone who has had that experience firsthand. I think that that is a very powerful thing that these programs are able to do. I think that the students who are receiving this information are getting it from very trusted sources. I think that that is also one of the features or one of the factors that makes it successful. Howard excel while being black. That is a very powerful phrase. Dr. Gooden yes. I thinktially and this gets back to some of the points in the earlier panel there have been successful africanamericans and have remained successful africanamericans. I think what happens is the narrative is dominated by those who are not successful, those who are struggling. I think part of it is that success in the Africanamerican Community largely becomes invisible. I think one of the things each of these three programs does is increases the visibility of africanamerican success, and they are able to convey that to the youth that are being served. Howard visible for the students themselves. Dr. Gooden yes. I should mention that the students served by the programs are not all africanamerican. It is open to students of all races. But they are africanamerican lead and predominantly serve africanamerican youth. Howard are these government supported in some way . Dr. Gooden they are not government supported directly. Some of them may have in formal ties, but these are grassroots organizations. Are being they supported by volunteers in the community. Individuals and respect to the individuals leaving the program and the training leading the program in the training. To enter the where are they now, in addition to evaluating the programs as being effective, we are seeing large numbers, close to 80 , enrolled in college. The not so great news is the amount of student debt that these students are reporting. Of course, we know that this is an issue that is a national issue. Over 52 have already taken out Student Loans exceeding 5,000. 17. 4 have taken out loans just in their first year between and 29,000. 5,000 howard let me turn to dr. Bradley. Susan gooden talked about programs in new jersey. At least two of those have links to the africanamerican church. New Jersey Organization started in a church basement. It is clearly putting forward religious tradition explicitly, and i suspect that the members of reclaim the youth may know each other from church. Dr. Bradley, we have always heard about the black church as the vanguard of selfimprovement, upward mobility, community cohesion. Is it still that today . Dr. Bradley absolutely. Again, thank you for having me. Im delighted to be on the panel. The black church historically has always provided people with two things. One is hope. In the midst of lives that are challenging and seemingly insurmountable, you can do it. Theres just a lot of hope, a lot of encouragement. Secondly, it is a community where there is accountability and expectation. When you have hope and accountability, you often have success. The othe contribution that black churches make historically softe cultivation of the skills that make people successful in a marketplace. Respect, respecting your elders, your employers. Saying please, saying thank you. Dressing well. I was born and raised in the black church. When you were a child, you see older men and you say, i need to be like them. They are successful. I need to do what they do. I need to dress like they do. I need to model myself after them. You have those sort of soft skills that are the real engine of progress within a marketplace. It is a challenge, though. There has to be some market opportunity. When you look at the reason there were riots in detroit is the Economic Opportunity had started to decline by the time we got to the mid to late 1960s. You had this great migration of to the north and the jobs were starting to disappear. Skills,se great soft you also have to have real Economic Opportunity where people can begin to see that they can make a difference in their community in terms of employment, that they can make things that the market needs. We also i think sometimes forget that the basis of family is employment and jobs. I will give you a great example. In the church im currently serving in harlem right now, we have a lot of extra offenders exoffenders. When they come out and get a job, then they get married. Then they want to take care of the children. Then they want to plug into the community because now they have employment. They are a part of the marketplace. They are a part of the community. So we have to have both of these things. You have to have the soft skills development, but also economic and real Market Opportunities that often are undermined by all sorts of good intentions programs that remove the low Skilled Labor market from the proximity were people need jobs about thats the most the jobs the most. Howard tell me more about that. Bradley you have the people that are low skilled, but they live very far on the places that have those low skill opportunities. There is a mismatch spatially. I see this on the subway. If you take the subway in the morning here, there is a big difference between who is on at 5 00 a. M. And who is on at 9 00 a. M. 5 00 a. M. Is mostly black and hispanic m. At not a clock it is middleclass people like me ddle 00 a. M. It is mi class people like me. You have people coming out early for low Skilled Labor. The professionals come in later. Mismatch where the people that need the opportunities dont live near where those entry points are. If you look at a neighborhood in atlanta, detroit, philadelphia, d. C. Where you have low Skilled Labor and economic depression, there are a lot of job opportunities. Howard i thought maybe we could talk about minimum wage, too. Dr. Bradley we could come of it there are not even jobs that allow them to have minimum wage jobs we could, but there are not even it jobs that allow them to have minimum wage jobs. You have minimum wage, osha regulations, all sorts of barriers of entry in all sorts of businesses. A few years ago i wrote this piece. If you go into any community of color anywhere in the world coming youre going to find people who are naturally entrepreneurial. The question is, why is that naturall entrepreneurial spirit not given a place to grow . They see opportunity and want to meet those real needs. There are lots of issues that actually undermine those Economic Opportunities for people. That happens also in the context of a virtue and moral and character formation. Howard we have an interesting issue on the table here in pleasant lay, which is common to culture and family soft skills, are they necessary to get jobs, with there something wrong the marketplace that is not serving the poor . You have raised the private sector as being somehow problematic. Could you expand on that somehow . We are talking about black College Students and with a major in. The nexttudied category in terms of finance or engineering or stem or computer work is all clustered around 5 to 7 . These are College Graduates all of a sudden getting an income gap. You move down the scale in terms of where the pipeline is from high school to college. Students of black ne remiawork. When you talk about specialized skills, for example, the United Negro College fund, essentially had four different categories reading, english, math, and science. Category ofk, what black person was ready in three of those categories . There is only 10 . Hispanics was 24 . You get the white population at 50 . You are moving down the line in terms of, we know what the capabilities in terms of the new York City School systems are in terms of math skills by third to eighth grade. Again, back into the family, what does the family mean . In terms of simplistic terms if we are talking about extra income, love, attention, and discipline, what we are doing now is dumping those kids with the statistic being between 65 and 70 of all black children under 18 raised in singleparent homes, youre dumping those kids into the School System with the small programs and they are trying to supplement what is missing in the families. The tough love part actually should be started much earlier. Howard so youre making two points. One is returning to family, but lets go to that College Majors point. When people say private sector, i suspect you think youre going to go somewhere as follows there needs to be more hiring. Silicon valley doesnt represent enough africanamericans. The media, as we heard from the question before, doesnt do a good enough job of reaching out to the Africanamerican Community. You are saying something else. Youre saying that the job skills that are available in the marketplace are not being chosen by african americans. We have two africanamerican College Professors here, so lets test this. Its tough love. Dr. Gooden i think this goes back to the point you asked about earlier, what does it mean to excel while being black . I think part of it is realizing that and understanding that racism and Structural Racism is part of the reality in america. Theres lots of evidence to suggest that, so that is part of the status quo. But we look at majors, part of that is opportunity. If you look at, for example, the offering of ap courses, students who get into the most selective universities and are able to major in stem fields and the like oftentimes have taken ap courses as part of that, part of making them attractive to university x or y. But if we look at that operated ap courses, there are just fortunately few of them that are there are disproportionately few of them that are offered in minority schools. When we look at that, i think that is why we have to think about what is the role of individual responsibility and structural opportunity that is afforded through the Public Sector. And even through the private sector. One of my favorite programs i like to watch from time to time is this program called undercover boss. I think one of the things that happens there is at the end of the show, the ceo has established some sort of rp with rp with some sort of rapport with the frontline worker. Theres this recognition implicit that just doing this youre able to show up for and do day in and dayut, o will not get you where you need to be. Otherwise there would not be this allocation of resources. I think one of the things that is really missing in American Society today is that we have lost that ability to empathize. I think it came up on the talkedng panel when mark about on the cable news network, it is cheaper to have people talking to each other rather than going to communities and learning about each other. I think once we can restore empathy, that goes a long way to fostering wanting to have the best for humankind. Howard again, we see in your remarks the intertwining of for the marketplace with a sense of opportunity denied by the powers that be. What do you see at Kings College here in new york . You see that choice of majors or prospects in life as being the reflection of opportunity denied or bad choices . Dr. Bradley in my experience as a professor, neither of those things. It has more to do with exposure. I was just having this conversation with an africanamerican student last night after i gave an exam about her career. She is a singer. This was a course called christianity in society, a course on a christian social thought in the west. We were simply talking about her future. What i was doing for her was giving her suggestions and expanding her imagination for what she could do. Her imagination was law school. I said come what about this and this and this and this . Opportunities part of business, be a job andtor, why dont you go not simply work for a nonprofit, start your own. The entrepreneurial. She has be entrepreneurial. She has fantastic guests. This is the elephant in the room, that the black middle class left. When the black middle class left urban america, they took with them the moral and vocational imagination for what you could do. Youve always had black doctors and engineers and scientists and things like that, but what happens when the black middle and professionals moved to the suburbs which wasnt a bad thing, by the way. I was the beneficiary of that when my own parents moved out into the suburbs of atlanta. They took all of their professional values, those soft ,kills, those virtues with them and what was left in innercity atlanta were people for whom their frame of reference was limited. You had kidschurch who would grow up and see a black doctor, lawyer, engineer and say, one day i could do that. Communityad an entire who would then invest in this child to make sure he or she could get there. A lot of that has been lost. But we have done, we are now reliant on government institutions to provide a surrogate context for those sorts of things. We have created a lot of nonprofits to create a surrogate some of thoser things, but that is with his black church has always done, provided that. I had a fantastic opportunity to mentor this man who was absolutely headed to prison. I took him under my wing. I took into my familys house in atlanta. We drove around atlanta. I would say, hey, africanamericans live here, and his eyes would pop out of his head. Just seeing Something Different changed the imagination. He didnt need a program. He didnt need a grant. He just needs to see somhing different and it changed his whole vision of how heted to live of a black man. Live as a black man. Those of the opportunities we need to infuse more imagination. Programming alone, and my opinion, doesnt do that. It really takes that personal contact to infuse a sense of i believe in you and here are some of your options, and to put people in some of those directions. Howard susan, you talked about excelling and being black and linked it to programs, but theres a lot of personal elements of the programs you studied. If we did think there is a spark in the kinds of programs you studied and it seems to me there is because the results look pretty good the obvious is, we are only helping a few hundred kids. Come if we are talking about changing norms, which is the hardest thing to change how, if we are talking about changing norms, which is the hardest thing to change, how do we get it to scale . Should we worry about that . How do you think about that . Dr. Gooden first of all, i think we have to avoid setting up a false dichotomy. Isompletely agree that it often times when we look andsk individuals who have been successful, perhaps coming out of very difficult environments, they will sometimes mention a teacher, a program, a family member, someone who has invested in them. I think that can come room a relative, a program, a School System, wherever it comes from. I think it is great and i think we need to have more of it. We shouldnt close it off to say it can only come from the family or a government or a nonprofit organization. We wanted to come from all of these and be mutually reinforced because there is certainly sufficient work to be done in that regard. In terms of replication and scaling up, ive always been a bit skeptical of that. I know that is something that is always ok, this program works, so now how do we replicate it . I think oftentimes these are built on relationships, and a lot of those our community and contextually based. I know we spent a lot of time on urbananel talking about afroamericans. I grew up in a very rural Africanamerican Community. Country blue roots. I think that thinking about these as only urban issues, i dont know that a model that works for an urban community is necessarily going to work for a world community. I dont think rural community. I dont think we should be on the search for a magical silver bullet. Howard that gets me to g ene. In your book you have a parable 100ississippi, the effort years ago to create a selfreliant black economy in world mississippi desyrel in rural mississippi. There were mixed messages i think still apply today. Gene it was probably the most allblack community in america, and had major support from Frederick Douglass, booker t. Ashington, Theodore Roosevelt it was a black community about 20 miles from where i grew up, and ive done studies theirs and had kids do fellowship programs and Research Programs there, etc. It was started as a Cotton Community and it thrived for a little while, but we always get back to economics. The roller coaster economic world of cotton basically destroyed it because theres no way to have a selfcontained, selfsufficient ethnic economy within the mainstream. It has to be integrated. We have to get back in terms of when the integration and assimilation is possible. It was crushed in terms of the cotton economy. When cotton prices went down, there was no infrastructure around it to compete or to support it. Becomes, for me, the example of the impossibility of a selfsufficient economic community. Howard theres that beautiful picture of the steppingstones. En we were talking about scale, it turns out that melt by you mount b mount bayou cant scale. Gene this is getting back to the Previous Panel in terms of, you have to start with an integrated School System at the beginning, and i agree the real core question is, where does the skills that come from . Where does the ambition come from . At a certain point, the black student has to be exposed to the white student and the white student has to be exposed to the black student. The ideal place for this, obviously, is the university. Theres no residential segregation. What concerns me in terms of where we are today is the separatism on campus, the ability to interact oneonone, persontoperson. Disagreement, discussion about core topics that even orange race related. Could be economics, historical, etc. I think that is gone. We are using institutional crutches now in terms of circumventing the frank discussion. It could be the government. It could be a group identity. An interventionist organization that gets involved. We need to have more oneonone discussions in terms of those people. University is the proper place. Even at a corporation to be put in the diversity section, we need to be discussing what is important in terms of making that corporation or your business successful as opposed to the ancillary issues. I think we are a little bit behind that. We talk about racism, i think we should basically start defining what it could be. It could be a slur. They could be discrimination. They could be violence. We cant use the term racism as an umbrella topic anymore. Howard let me just push back a little bit on dr. Bradley. It was kind of a friendly disagreement here, where susan was saying you cant just look to oneonone because that is going to do it. Then we get this issue of how you change norms. If everybody did something and ender on theoff tour and said, this is really great, that doesnt sound scalable. How do you think about this changing of norms toward the kind of things youre doing with your students . Dr. Bradley it actually is scalable. We just dont need a program and we dont need to federalize it. What happens to the idea of caring about your neighbor and wanting your neighbor to thrive and flourish . Maybe what needs to be scaled is actually caring about other people other than ourselves. Maybe that is actually the core problem. Maybe there is just too much narcissism andonsumerism and materialism. Maybe those are the reasons we dont really care about our neighbors anymore. What we need, i would argue, or more local solutions. We need people who know their own issues in their own communities who build partnerships with people who have solutions to those issues, and so that local communities do that on their own terms and leave them alone. They dont need someone to parachute in from d. C. , or in some cases they may not even need someone to parachute into from the statehouse to direct the program. Let local people lead local solutions because that is the context where people are actually known, where real needs are actually met, and they are runeffectively in the long because the best information about that area is being met by the people who know the area the best. Part of our problem, i would argue, is that we actually dont encourage local imagination for local solutions. So we need more small programs. Howard that is a really fascinating remark because the disappointment that we begin this discussion with about shoots programs brings of hope that susan brought to us, now you are telling us the federal programs may help suffocate local imagination, to use your term. In terms of caring for our neighbors, i guess you do really teach western christian thought. Dr. Bradley theres a lot of competion. We want local communities to be empowered to take ownership of the issues and the problems in their own communities and not simply be dependent on a federal source. Howard we will have an inspiring story, i know, from dr. Ben carson in our keynote. We will have a q a. Yes, young woman in the middle there. Policy you are and who you want to tell us who you are and who you want to direct your question to tell us who you are and who you want to direct your question to. My name is rachel. I guess whoever would like to take the question is fine. One of the things keep being best accus ringing in my year is something what my my professors one of the things that keeps ringing in my ear is something i think my professor would like to rebut. In a lot of his work, he looks at comparing black and white families or individuals who have the same level of education, who have the same family structure, etc. A lot of these variables you have been talking about, and still seeing large disparities in outcomes, particularly in to the point of fragility of assets in the black middle class. My question to you is, if not structural issues, then what come on we have already accounted for people who have , when we have already counted for people who have two parent families and multiple differences between their outcomes, especially wealth . Howard huge is a key phrase there. Gene i think it is a great question. I think one of the things in the black community i have noticed is the deemphasis in terms of the private sector. The higherpaying jobs i mentioned are not looked at carefully within the black community, and theres been a real dichotomy. I think Frederick Douglass and booker t. Washington understood this in terms of what i call the occupational shift. That has not occurred within the black community. Part of it is not a demonization , but it is a clear lack of interest. I dont think it has anything to do with social racism. Howard that is a very powerful reply. I suspect your professor would want to take strong issue with that. Soviet. So be it. Ok, other questions. Yes, in the back. Phyllis to you are tell us who you are. Jesse from nashville, tennessee. Many of you probably refer to this as segregation, but i tend to refer to it as educational redlining that i went through during my formative years in tennessee. What i mean by that is that as you grew through the educational system, i found it interesting that the Previous Panel did not address the competitiveness of america based on the need for the transformation of our educational system. What i experienced during that time was the redlining that was taking place was that we were trained to go after getting a job by going through high school, going to college, and getting a job versus going through high school, college, and creating a job. I didnt understand that because i wanted to be a researcher, technology and research. But in nashville, nobody really did that. The Research Center was located up in new jersey, which was called bell loratories, which i learned about through College Professors from stanford. But i couldnt get to new jersey because i was living in tennessee and the educational system was directing me to manufacturing and things like that in tennessee. The question that i would raise is this Educational Transformation with the Cultural Impact of his panel is talking about, how do we deal with american competitiveness given the educational system, the way the culture is set up . Something needs to change, right . Otherwise we will continue to technologicalg edge we have had in the United States to compete. Howard that circles us back to genes point about College Majors. Again, we have two University Faculty members. Thatis conventional wisdom we are falling behind, we are not competitive, and we are not doing enough. Within academia, how do you see that . Dr. Gooden i think one of the a societys is that as we are satisfied with leaving too much Untapped Potential on the table. That is a problem we see structurally from day one. There is a young man, a cousin of my husband, and we became his legal guardians about three years ago. He grew up in one of the worst Housing Projects in the city of richmond. Now he is in our home. He is still in public schools, but in a much better public School System. What is going to be his story five or six years for now . I dont know that he is going to come back and say it was because they took me into their home. Maybe that was a factor. Or maybe he will fail is because he went to a School System in which he was supported. It can be difficult to disentangle. I dont think it is necessarily helpful to disentangle. Was it a different Public Sector intervention . Was it a different home environment . How do all these things make an impact . What i think happens is that, regardless of how it happens, we have untapped talent or talent that may have otherwise gone unrecognized that now hopefully is on the path to which he is going to be able to become a very successful young man not just for his own self, but also for society at large. We start thinking about that, whether looking at private schools, public schools, homes, well as humans have to talent that is before us in the youth, and how can we best do that . If we all get on board was doing that, then i think churches will do their part, schools will do their part, leaders would do their part, business and industry would do their part, and we can get there. But we dont need to say it needs to be this and not that. Theres so much work to do. Why would we want to close off any potential avenue . Howard theres kind of an unspoken implication to the question, which is a great question, that we need something grand. The problem is so big we need the big, grand solution. It gets me back to dr. Bradley, who said we need local imagination. Are you willing to resist the rent solution . Dr. Brett the grand solution . I am, because i have not seen a grand solution and the longterm. We had a lot of untapped talent that often gets herded into things that typically underperform in the marketplace. For example, around the city i will say, do you want to go college . Yeah i want to go to college. What do you want to major in . Criminal justice. Why . Why would you want to major in that . There are so many other things you can major in. Why dont you jo major in something that unlocks your imagination for the needs of the marketplace. Major in something beyond what you heard. It takes someone actually giving them a larger menu. This is why some of these high schools are terrible places. They herd minority kids into the musical arts in performing as if it is the 1940s and that is what we do, we perform. They danced and sang, but we dont have very robust liberal Arts Education that exposes students to the sorts of things that allow the people in this room just exceed and flourish in the marketplace. We have to give people more options and more exposure so are actually stirred up to want to do things beyond what they have seen in their immediate context. Those things are going to be local, but again, it is going to take People Like Us who have the success and resources to personally put ourselves in front of people and give them that imagination. Howard in some ways you have sued it all up. The Untapped Potential we are , a lot ofor constructive responses to a very difficult problem. Please join me in thanking our panel. [applause] if everyone could be seated, we can keep things going here. I am jason riley of the Manhattan Institute. I just wanted to introduce our keynote speaker today. Ben carson did not need to become the u. S. Secretary of housing and urban development to distinguish himself in life. Before he took this job, he had already become a worldfamous pediatric neurosurgeon. He had already made medical history by separating twins joined at the head. He had artie been the head of neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins hospital already been the head of neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins hospital, performing some 500 surgeries a year, twice the caseload of a typical neurosurgeon. Hed already been awarded the president ial medal of freedom. Hed already established an Education Scholarship fund for low income kids. Hed already been a bestselling author. Hed already had a movie made about his life. A black kid raised in poverty in the 1950s and 1960s, id say. I became a journalist because it is really all i could do. [laughter] dr. Carson clearly had many other options in life, and i want to thank him for opting to join us today. Dr. Carson. [applause] dr. Carson thank you very much. Thank you and good morning. It is a real pleasure to be here with you, and i would like to thank your president and all of the talented men and women who ,ork at the Manhattan Institute the panelists and the moderators for tackling such an important topic today, and to all of you for braving the cold weather and the threats of terrorism. You know, it will take a lot more than a failed bombing to discourage new yorkers. In his 1964 address to graduates of the university of michigan, where i went to medical school, Lyndon Johnson said we have the opportunity to move not only toward the rich society and the powerful society, but upward to the Great Society. The Great Society rests on abundance and liberty for all. It demands an end to poverty and racial injustice, to which we are totally committed in our time. Those were good sentiments and a grand division. The question we face today is whether the federal government has succeeded in making this vision a reality. Familiesit means to seeking a good life today. As president johnson created the programs which would ultimately form a welfare industrial complex, Daniel Patrick moynihan was being raked over the coals for his dire warnings about the future of the black family. Thatamous report warned the precarious Economic Situation of black men in america could become a National Crisis with social and cultural fallout affecting families for generations. Many have heard it said that the black male in america is an endangered species. Why do people say that . Because in many communities there are more black males incarcerated than there are in college. Because in many of our major cities, the number one cause of death for young black males is homicide. And anybody who knows anything about education knows that young black male students my kindergarten, first grade, second, third grade students, they are just like everybody else. What happens . That your pressure begins to kick in. The begin to study that are pressure that peer pressure begins to kick in. They begin to study american history. Where do i fit in . What did my ancestors do . Then they come home and turn the tv on. Oh, there we are playing basketball, baseball, football, wrapping in those rapping in those baggy pants, acting a fool on the sitcom. You get a different impression of who you are and what success constitutes for you. You think you are going to be the next Michael Jordan or the next coffee daddy test the next the next puffy daddy or whatever. [laughter] but that doesnt pan out. The next thing you are looking at the six block news and you see a man with handcuffs on trying to shove his face from the cameras that have committed some crime. And you say, thats little johnny. What happened . He was such a good boy. The same thing happens to little johnnys everyday. Anybody could have taken that young man by the hand when he was six years old, walked down the streets of manhattan, and given him a black History Lesson you would of never forgotten. They could have started by pointing to his shoes saying, it was a black man who invented the automatic shoelace and machine that revolutionized the shoemaking industry throughout the world. A black man invented the street sweeper. Inventedblack man who refrigeration system for trucks, later adopted for airplanes, trains, boats. You come to a stop at a red light and tell them it was a black man who invented the traffic signal, and he also invented the gas mask that saved lots of lives during the war. Then you talk about a black woman who invented the underwater cannon that made it possible to launch torpedoes from submarine. You will see a dutiful black woman walking down the street. A black man did not invent her, but you can use that opportunity walker, aout madame black woman who invented cosmetic products for women of dark complexion, the first woman of any ethnicity to become a millionaire from her own efforts in the United States of america. And you walk by the hospital and talk about daniel williams, the First Successful openheart , a mortality rate of less than 1. 5 . Thomas edison you didnt know he was black, did you . [laughter] he wasnt, but his righthand man was. He invented the filament that made the lightbulb work for more than two or three days, and then and a diagramamp for the telephone by Alexander Graham bell. Most people have never even heard of him. You walk past the railroad tracks. Andrew beard invented the automatic railroad. Automatic lubrication system for automated trains. He had so many inventions when something new would come out in the industrial realm, people would say, is that a mccoy . Is that the real mccoy . People likeacist david duke talking about the real mccoy and they dont even know who they are paying homage to. [laughter] and i am just barely scratching the surface. You can see that young man had no reason not to believe that his ancestors played an Important Role in the development of his country. Theres been so much selfhatred promoted amongst black people, and you are going to be in for a real treat when i get finished. You are going to hear a young man say a poem, lord, why did you make me black . It is going to really summarize those sentiments very well. Many people werent interested in hearing about all the things i just talked about, unfortunately, in Lyndon Johnsons time or even now. But what Daniel Patrick moynihan certainly bona fide by history. , in 2015,rs later more than 70 of africanamerican babies were born out of wedlock. Century and 22 , that massive percentage flipped on its head. This is one of the most tragic statistics in america. It represents so much unrealized human potential. So many families deprived of the educational, moral, and psychological benefits of having a mother and a father. And it leads to a lot of poverty. The Brookings Institute did a study on poverty and concluded that there were three things that a person could do that would reduce their risk of living in poverty to 2 or less. Number one, graduate from high school. Number two, get married. Number three, wait until you are married to have children. Those three things, less than a 2 chance of living in poverty. We should be thinking about those things when we make our policies. It is not to say that single mothers cant be successful. Herself,own mother by worked two to three jobs at a time to make sure that her sons had a better opportunity than she did. She would always say to us, there are two roads you can take. You can take the road where you sit and spend all your time complaining and concentrating about unfairness and prejudice, or you can take the road of opportunity and you can put your energy in there. And i think she was right because one of her sons became a narrow surgeon, and the other became a rocket scientist. Neurosurgeonn a , and the other became a rocket scientist. She succeeded against odds that many, through no fault of their own, cannot beat. This is one of many indications that we must rethink the Great Society, how it can be achieved, who it benefits, and which institutions are best equipped to fulfill its promise. There are indications that some policies like the socalled man in the house rules for welfare were directly harmful to societal stability. Warren,g to roland former president of the National Fatherhood initiative, there are systems in place, wellmeaning as they may become, that incentivize people to make choices that ultimately do not strengthen the black family. It also did not help that the war on poverty sometimes conflicted with the war on drugs, which often dealt harshly ,ith nonviolent offenders taking them away from their families and disproportionately affecting minority communities. And of course theres the issue of dependency itself. Our National Safety net became a net trapping millions of americans from rising above it. But many researchers point out that other factors like the sexual revolution, changing social norms, lack of jobs have had a far greater impact on families, poverty, and crime then anyone governmental policy, which is that crime than anye the crime than one governmental policy. It was not capable of replacing the institutions which used to neuter and guide used to inture and guide americans their social improvement. These were the scalpels and sutures of civil society. But Lyndon Johnsons Great Society brout a sledgehammer to neurosurgery, to a delicate process. Of course, countless americans have been saved from hunger, homelessness, sickness, and extreme deprivation by federal programs. Aserial poverty has declined standards of living, even those he need who need help, have risen. Men and now millions of the housing and urban Development Secretary forlopment from p assistance around the country. Our efforts have not been sufficient to help people derive thrive. We have a quarter of the people china have and that means has and that means we need our people to thrive. Numbers we will not win in the future. It is not shareable tocharitable to pull the rug out from under people, but it s pretend itight to has worked. Lyndon johnson said this cannot rely solely on the strange resources of local authority. They require us to create new sources of cooperation between the National Capital and leaders of local communities. That is what he said 50 years ago. The new model. Nothing new under the sun because that is what we are talking about but now we need to enact it. Returnh forward is to to a cooperative model for social improvement that promotes the initiative of americans in their own communities publicprivate partnerships. That is the key to defeating poverty. Those conditions are fostering by american themselves rather than by the federal government. We must do our duty for those who have come to depend on public assistance in many forms, while refocusing this assistance to lead our countrymen back to selfsufficiency and selfdetermination. We wont know we have succeeded when fewer americans need our service. It will mean Something Different in every government agency. From more School Choice in the department of education to unleashing Free Enterprise at the department of labor and expanding Employment Opportunities for those in low Income Housing and in areas where Affordable Housing is being constructed. Sectionto empower three, which says if you are getting fed money you need to hire local, loading low income peol people. Hardly ever used because people p. Y there is a skills ga n with thee a brai ability to think. Workforce with the skills to help them escape poverty. Educationalnding provide centers that for people climbing upward. Vision centers will become hubs for mentorship. Who areme children mentors finish high school and a higher rate than those who are not. Them become selfsufficient children that to their so we can break the evergrowing cycle of dependency. So theyle health care do not go to the emergency room all the time. It means exposing children to the myriad of jobs and careers they have never heard of that many of them would be so good at. By helping americans in diverse areas of their lives, we can raise families from poverty and help them build up their own futures. Getting them ownership of their future is the first step for selfsufficiency. The Vision Centers are going to help them not with big Government Programs but with locally grown solutions. It means reforming other forms of government assistance to provide a path to responsible homeownership to as Many Americans as possible. This cornerstone of the American Dream is a step towards independent and equity independence and equity passed down. Ofters have a net worth homeowners, 200,000. We need to get people out of the rental situation but it needs to be done responsibly. The last time it was not done responsibly. It does not do any good to put someone in a home they cannot afford. Embracing the president s executive orders to reduce regulatory burdens on americans and their businesses, especially those providing jobs and housing for fellow citizens. I believe this is the way forward. Not just for black americans but for all americans. When we empower our countrymen to determine their own futures, when we preserve a culture of family, faith and friendship and they preserve us in turn, when we ignore the purveyors of andsion and hatred recognize that no divided society can flourish for long,a been proven as has by history. We have a choice of what kind of people we are going to be. Other going to hate each because of a difference of opinion or will the sitdown and openly communicate and resolve our issues . That is going to determine whether indeed we have a great site. Great society. [applause] thank you for those remarks, dr. Carson. We have a few moments to open up questions to the audience. You mentioned about settling our differences with one another as a society. It is no secret that Race Relations are pretty frayed in the country. How bad do you think things are and what do you think can be done about it from the perspective of someone who runs a department of housing. You are dealing with poverty issues. Sec. At is a seen iswhat we have wages being driven in our society in relation to race, religion, income. You name it and wages are being driven. Iave been to austin date have been to all 50 states and say the American People are decent people. They are willing to extend their hand to their neir and a discussion. But we have rabblerousers. We have people trying to convince us that we are enemies to each other. We have to concentrate on what draws us together. Any two people are going to have differences. You can take those differences and magnify them or you can take the things you have in common. I love the movie independence today with will smith. The aliens are coming and all of thedden the israelis and palestinians are best buddies. I think rather than talking about things, we need to show people we care. We are creating programs that empower people. Createto use money to and escrow associated an escrow for each housing unit. The money will come out of escrow to fix things. It continuesused, year. K year after you leave public assistance within the 10 years, you get the money for the down payment. A lot of people work hard and it teaches them to think like a homeowner. It teaches them to think a year ahead, which is how successful people think. They do not think we too weak week to week. Tension is the source of great dysfunction in anything. You look at marriages. Two biggest reasons marriages break up, economic tension and other marriages. [laughter] sec. Carson you are jason you are a Government Official who has long expressed skepticism of the government and Government Programs. Feeling they can take a limited role in helping people. How do you strike the balance at hud between what the government to and what people need to do for themselves can do and what they what people need to do for themselves. Sec. Carson i am against the idea of overriding government. Government doing everything for people. That is not how this country was designed. We went from the pinnacle of the world in record time and then we started thinking the government was there to solve our personal problems. I do not like bureaucracy. Bureaucrats are people who think the rules are more important than the goals. I think it is changing throughout our government. Government can be wonderful but when we look at some of our desperate neighborhood, when the government can come in and provide the confidence and foundation that allows the local government commentary, nonprofits, the Faith Community to get involved. I have saying it happen in communities 0 i have seen it happen in communities around the country. This is the way it needs to be done. Instead of the govnment riding in on a white horse with a bucket of money and saying build this for these people, we have the government coming in and facilitating the relationship between the combined parties. Jason lets open it up for a few questions. A manhattan contrary, here we are in manhattan where we have 50,000 units of low Income Housing subsidized under lived under 50,000 people in them. Ofis a subsidy per family 50,000 to 100,000 per year for family and they are still in poverty and will be for life. What is the plan to get out of it . Sec. Carson that is one of the reasons we have the vision cent ers. What we have been doing everything last many decades is throwing money at the problem and not providing a vision. People twant to show what they can do. Connect people with opportunities. Right now we have people who things andnd people who have opportunities. App willion Center Connect those people and helpng people to themselves. We have this program called time banking, there is someone who does not know how to do something, how do we trade those things so we improve relationships and help the environment. I have been extremely gratified by the number of people who have agreed to help us as we change the paradigm. This country is full of goodhearted people. We are not the country they portray on the news. Andeed to rise above that we will solve these problems quickly. Thank you, dr. Carson. I was wondering how you compare the challenges of your present job with separating Siamese Twins . Sec. Carson pediatric neurosurgery was more difficult. Because you are always juggling multiple peoples lives. Were doing now impacts more liv es. It is every bit as important. I have learned a lot of things and my medical career. One of them was no matter how talented, not getting anything accomplished without other people working with you. We have a fantastic team at hu d. People who are truly dedicated to buyer trying to do and that is to get people out of poverty. We are measuring success by not many people we can get into Public Housing but how many people we can get out of it. Reagan administration, we agreed to get the president to try to get more housing vouchers. Sec. Carson both programs have pros and cons, i like to give people a short board. Hemogezboard. For some people a voucher is perfect. Other people want to be around the environment they are familiar with with their family and friends. What is important is when we do revamp or build places in iner placesr cities or of poverty concentration, we do it the right way. Jobo it with jobs and training in place. We do it with food so we do not provided budgets and we various types of opportunities for people. I love the model where we use mixed Income Housing. In felt pride inn the the place where they lived. Because we have people invested, it is not deteriorate like in Public Housing. Jason this raises a point we were discussing earlier about segregation and that america is resegregating. See residential do you Residential Housing patterns that bother you . Neighborhoods that are too white, do you think it is the job of the government to make sure there is enough diversity . Sec. Carson that is a place where the government overreaches. When you create the right kind of neighborhood with mixed income, it solves itself. We have time for one more question. Dr. Carson, i may be fan. Newyou talk about in the year talking about what might be happening in regards to welfare reform whether that is medicaid reform, work requirements and things like that. What can you do to support the . That . Sec. Carson i cannot give away any secrets because i will have to shoot you. [applause] [laughter] sec. Carson that will be the next thing after the tax bill. The interesting thing about the tax bill, people say it is for the rich, but i remind people, look at your 401 k . Look at what has happened. Not rich people. One of the reasons we have had the crisis recently in for the last 10 years 401 k s did not do anything. People are trying to rete an they did not have the money they needed. When we create a policy that works for everybody, it is extremely ameliorating to the circumstances of our country. That is the same principle involved with welfare reform. We are not looking to keep people comfortable in poverty but to give them a letter out of poverty ladder out of poverty. We do not want to pull the people whenrom they start climbing. We have to integrate the years andfrom these we can have the resources, compassion and will to solve these problems. Thank you very much. Sec. Carson im going to best jason jason im going to turn things over to my colleague. He is going to finish things up. Thank you, jason. I think you are going to really enjoy this last part of our program. In 1985, a half dozen africanamerican professionals in somerset, new jersey became concerned that the young men and women they knew in their community did not know how to present themselves for the job interviews for which they might otherwise be qualified. They set about building a program that has expanded across the state that involves hundreds of students. It is called the new jersey order. I would like to recognize lec oise sandals. Your way out you can think of a copy of the study. What we want to pick up one 30those young orators, years after they started, the oratories competition is going on. We have the winner of the statewide orators competition. Here joined he is by his parents. Stand up. [applause] now i give you a new jersey poemr to recite the , lord why did you make me black. Good morning. De,o;adeiye demiladeiye osinubi and i will recite a poem by a poet who has self published one poetry. 9 books of he poem was inspired by the book of genesis chapter one. God said let us make men in our image and god created man in his own image. Male and female, he created them. This poem was written, copyrighted and published in 1994. I chose this piece because this piece tommy that the color of my taught me that the color of meskin should not make ashamed. I hope this piece motivates you to be proud of who you are. I present to you why did you make me black. Black, you make me lord . Black . Hy did you make me why did you create someone the world would hold back . Dirtyis the color of clothes, or grimey hands and feet, black is the color of darkness, of tired, beaten streets. Me thick lips,e broad nose and kinky hair. You create someone who receives the hated stare. A bruisedhe color of of. Black is the color darkness, of dirt. And notmy eyes brown the color of the daylight sky . Why do people think i am useless . Why do people see my skin and think i could be abused. Understand, do not what is it about my skin. Wants it some people me and not feel the person within. Black is the color of shadows cast. Black is the end of the day. Lord, you you know my people mistreat me, and you know it just aint right. Like my hair. They dont like my skin. As they say, im too dark or too light. Lord, dont you think its time to make a change . Redo creation and make everyone the same . Reply. Black . I make you make you black . Made you in the color of coal, from which Beautiful Diamonds are formed. Made you in the color of oil, the black gold which keeps people warm. Your color is the same as the dark soil that grows the you need. Your color is the same as the stallion and panther, oh, creatures indeed. All of the colors of the rainbow can be found throughout every nation. When all these colors are blended, you become my greatest creation. Aur hair is the texture of lambs wool. He. A beautiful creature is i am the shepherd who watches over them. I will always watch over thee. You are the color of the midnight sky. Put star glitter in your eyes. A beautiful smile hidden pain. Your that is why your cheeks are so high. The color of the dark clouds, from the hurricanes i in september. So full andlips kiss, theyen you will remember. [laughter] bone structure is thick to withstand the burden of time. The mirror,u see in that image that looks back, that is mine. Of your knees. Look in the mirror and tell me what you see. I did not make you in the image of darkness. The image of me. Thank you. [applause] that will conclude the program. For coming. L again our newsmakers this weekend, House Minority whip. He talks about the year ahead in congress and democrats chances of taking control of the house, in the upcoming midterm elects. Discusses ongoing efforts to protect socalled dreamers. 10ch the interview sunday at a. M. And 6 p. M. Eastern, here on cspan. Afterwards, on Georgetown University law edelman looks at the way the Court Penalizes the poor through excessive fines and fees, in his book not a crime to be poor. Georgiaerviewed by congressman hank johnson. Was poverty an issue in terms of the war on drugs or the drugs . Of the war on sure. How did poverty play into that . Man around. What happens to families. Havehappens to the men who been locked up, all the collateral consequences so they get jobs, theyre not allowed to live in Public Housing. 45,000 laws across the country, collateral consequences of one or another. It destroys somebodys life. If they werent poor when they went into prison, theyre definitely in poverty for the their lives. Its totally connected to poverty. Watch afterwards sunday night at 9 00 p. M. Eastern on book t. V. , on cspan 2. Isjoining us from boston christa case bryant. Shes a heartland correspondent at the Christian Science monitor. Of ourere as part spotlight on magazine series to talk about her recent piece, at how st. Louis, missouri is working to overcome racial discrimination, after the riots in ferguson threa