But in this country it feels like who belongs in our demos and the people of our nations his nations highest calling. 10, 20ke up on december 16, picked up the New York Times, saw the headline i am prejudiced, and then we kept talking, and i want to show you the video because it started at cspan sometime before that, and i will ask you to explain the whole thing. [video clip] may be one of you guests can help me change my mind. I am a white male, and i am prejudiced, and it is something i wasnt taught, but it is something i learned. When i open up the papers, i get very discouraged about what young black males are doing to each other and the crime rates. I understand it is an environment of drugs and you have to get money to get drugs, fears, and iese dont want my fears to come true, you know . So i tried to avoid that, and i come off as being prejudiced. But i just have fears. I dont want to be forced to like people. I want to like people through example. What can i do to change and to be a better american . Heather mcghee . Heather thank you so much for being honest and for opening up this conversation because it is one of the most important ones we have to have in this country. You said more, but i will let you tell us what happened after that. Heather that was a remarkable moment. To stepi took a moment off the set. Was. Owerful it there was something in his voice that touched me and i could hear it. It was so authentic as he searched for the words to say that most of us would not admit in our homes, i am prejudiced, and the way he ended his question, what can i do to change and be a better american . Just reached right in and grabbed my heart. I had to just kind of had to pause. I was trying to communicate with this person, who really reached a hand out to me. As ahe said things that sister and daughter of a black hear, ands painful to i knew there were many more stereotypes of black men that he said, but at the same time, i know that we are all swimming in , sea of racist stereotypes that the media over represents black crime, it has become the aim of a lot of politicians actually do make people distrust one another, and particularly, distrust people of color, so could i blame him for feeling that way, especially when he was asking for ways to change . Heather what happened next . Heather i work in law and Public Policy. Key for that call, i was talking about Student Loans and trade policy, and yes, talking a little bit about Race Relations, garry from tell that North Carolina, really wanted really simple answers to his questions about how he could integrate his life. Off the top of my head, i said, gets to know black families, and if you are a religious person, join an interracial church, and join in with people of different races with a higher common purpose. To turn off the nightly news because it is a warped vision of who commits crimes in this country that comes in many media markets. And i asked him to read about black history. I got a sense that who he was talking about was black people. And of course we talk about stereotypes against immigrants, but it felt like with this question, it felt like he was asking me, a black woman, of how to overcome his prejudice against black people. And then what . Heather i just kept going with the great program. I had a text message from my colleague, gwen, and she had watched it. And she was there with another one of my colleagues, a young , and woman from the south they looked at each other with tears in her eyes and said Something Special just happened. A few days later, they put it on ofebook, just the clip garrys question and my full answer, and by monday, it had about one million views. And that never had happened to demos before. And aggregators picked it up and put different headers on it, and askscame a racist caller this black woman a question and here was the response, and it really went viral. You had comedians in public figures talking about it. Is an organization that works on Public Policy. Arele who follow us online people who care about the specific issues we work for like raising the minimum wage or democracy reform, but this was getting out there. My sisterinlaws hairdresser says, i saw this, you know . It was starting to really break out of the bubble. I think part of the reason for that you have to remember this was august, we had this raciallycharged summer with Donald Trumps campaign with black lives matter and the police shootings, and the tragic events all in baton rouge and dallas, and it was really a time when people felt all they were seeing on tv about race was bad news. And here was, first, a white man admitting that he was prejudiced, which for people of finally,ind of say and we have donald trump same he doesnt a number prejudiced bone in his body, and he was this guy willing to have the courage to say i have these prejudices. We found this on your website. Tell me how this happened. [video clip] i went down to North Carolina and i met with gary, and we furthered that conversation about race, and asked each other hard questions, and it was amazing. Talking again and thatet to know people [indiscernible] she had there were 8 Million People who responded positively to my questions. Step,taking that first but that is the hardest thing. How did you find gary . Heather garry found me. Garry, a few days later, was watching cnn, and i went on cnn and had an interview about the fact this clip had gone viral and it reached 8 million views. So, he heard my voice again, and he had never seen or heard me before the cspan show, and he heard my voice again and ran into the living room, saw me talking about the clip, and at the bottom, it said my twitter handle, so garry got on twitter for the first time in his life, and his first tweet said, how does this thing work . And he found me. He entered in my twitter handle, and he said, i am garry from North Carolina. And i immediately i wanted to know, you know . The way those shows were, i gave my answer and then we went onto the next call, so i did not know how it landed with him. I did not know if you brushed it off, or anything about who he was. There was no way to know. So he found me and said i am garry from North Carolina, and i sent him a private message and i said, garry, i would love to talk to you about what you thought about my answer to your question. So i gave him my phone number, and a few days later, i got a phone call, and he was sitting at a burger joint having lunch, and he decided to call me. He was very nervous and i was very nervous, but he said you know, what you said changed my life. To which i was shocked. I thought, sure, when asked a pretty hard question at the top on my head, i gave some decent answers, but i did not think it would be something he would take so seriously, and he explained path. That he is now on a he wanted to get right about this before he died. He said he was inspired by the fact that newspapers across the country, and obviously it went viral on social media, but it was picked up in the normal press, and he was inspired by that, and said, there probably a lot of other people like me out there who have these prejudices, about what would happen to them if they admitted it. When did you go down there and why . Heather we had a few phone conversations. The first one was good. He said, i dont know what you want to do with this, but it seems like a big thing, and if you are willing to keep talking about this, he said, i am willing to talk with you about it. So use me to keep the conversation going because the country needs it. And so, i took that to heart. I did not know exactly what and ie of it, but got married, and i got and i talked to garry once before i got married. He talked about the books he was reading and told me a funny story about going to the bookstore to get a bunch of africanamerican studies books and send me a little photo of himself to show me he was at the bookstore, and then, i got an invitation to go speak at Wake Forest University in North Carolina. So, my new husband and i said, lets call garry and see if we could driveby and meet with him. So we did that. And garry and i were very nervous to meet each other. We had no idea what would happen. My husband is a documentary filmmaker, so i said, garry, i think we should record as meeting, and he said, yeah. That footed you saw was from my husband that footage you saw was from my husband and it was a really beautiful conversation. It exceeded my expectations. Where is that . Heather he lives outside of asheville, North Carolina. He wanted us to meet in asheville. It is in a park outside of a hotel in downtown asheville. It was a beautiful fall day with the changing leaves. It was a week before the election. And we did not talk about the election. We did not talk about politics. He told me about his life. We got to know each other, where he is from, the experiences he has had in life. How old is he . Heather he is in his mid50s. He was born in connecticut, new haven, connecticut, but he was in the navy, and had a heart condition, and went down to asheville in his early 20s for heart surgery. And had in his life in connecticut, this is one of those beautiful things that peoples stories where the things he was afraid of from the media stereotypes about africanamericans had been a part of physics. His expenses growing up in connecticut with gangs that have been a part of his experiences growing up in been a part of his experiences growing up in connecticut with gangs. He was an electrician, an operator, and i think hes mostly retired. Has he been married . Heather no. So he has had no children . Heather no. Havew often in your life you heard the kind of things he was staying about he is a white man thought about black people . Mean, it is innumerable account. Staying thatomeone to me personally, probably not so many times. Started career, really out as an Economic Policy person, and would go across the country in my role at demos and other jobs, talking to groups of people about the economy. And often times, you know, in church basements, union halls, talking about what is happened in our economy so that working people finding it so hard to get about and i talked globalization and technological change, Corporate Power in washington, and trade rules and tax rules and workers rights, but i felt that if i did not mention race, i was not telling the whole story. A piece of the puzzle was really missing about how it was my grandfathers generation, you could have had a workingclass job, did not have to go to college, and you had a great job with benefits, retirement, Public Schools were wellfunded and you could go to college debtfree, but something changed in the late 1970s. There are lots of reasons why that change, but something shifted in our politics were the very idea of a government that invests in its people and supports workingclass folks and supports mobility, had become tarred, and racialized so that the conservative argument against government very much carried on these stereotypes of undeserving people of color. I was, it felt to me like getting drawn into more and more conversations about race, even when i was supposed to be talking to a white laidoff field worker about the economy. And i sort of learned a way to talk about race with white seele that allowed them to their self interest in it, their story in it. Back in your own life, tell us where you were born . Heather i was born and raised on the south side of chicago. My mother at the time i was born, my mom was a Holistic Health practitioner on the south side of chicago, and ended up working in social policy, so i come by rightly. My father was a photographer. For they together . Buther they were together, divorced when i was young, but i had a Great Community i grew up in. My grandparents on both sides had come up on the south side and worked in the Public Sector as a cop and a social worker. It was a great way to grow up. How many white people were in your high school . Heather that is a great question. In mostly grew up allblack schools until i went away to boarding school. And this was a decision my mom made when i was in seventh grade, pretty early. I went from growing up in to a virtually all the white school in new england. It was a small school in western massachusetts. I was one of two black children in the whole school. A pretty phenomenal adjustment. 11, but in, i was some ways, being that young helped. It helped me still be a child and have a sense of adventure about this incredible cultural shift that i had just experienced. That i my high school went on to was diverse, but a very elite prep school and most of the kids were color came in on scholarships. Where was that . Heather that was Milton Academy outside of boston, massachusetts. And how were you treated at 11 years old by the white girls . Heather it was hard. We were kids. In some ways, we were just young ofugh to have a little bit that childhood innocence. There are a lot of moments where they did not understand kind of some of the basic things about being black and young. Like i went from living with my family to living with all white people. All white dorm parents and fellow students, so the little upngs of the way i grew versus how they grew up, but i developed wonderful friends. I flourished in the school. And then going from a big Public School to a tiny school where you sat around in a library room with five teachers and a book. Students and a book and a teacher. In in many ways, a many ways, i was very fortunate. For your parents wealthy were your parents wealthy . Heather no, but they were able to use Financial Aid and it was a big leap my parents made to say, i wasnt getting the challenge i was in Public School. One ofthe people the things people noticed when you answered garrys question was that there wasnt an ounce of anger in your voice. . Ow did you do that and when people are not nice to you, how do you get this even temperature about you even temper about you . Joke aboutere is a the obama anger. He has to do that all the time, the amount of disrespect thrown at him and the amount of victory all he has had to rise above. That is the way he has managed to be president of the United States. How do you do it . Heather i think there has to in ao be a person of color white, dominant society, you , at least i have learned, to have and 51st. Garrys question was extraordinary. Is different when someone is racist to me at a line to me in a line at a store. He was sane, i am prejudiced and i need to change. He was staying, i am prejudiced, and i need to change. It is racism or prejudice some and that is an individual people, or is it baked into the fabric of this country and is communicated in subtle messages every single day in our media . And if we believe, as most racial as most social racist racial advocates do, it is is about a and system that was set back in this country to communicate a belief in a hierarchy of humans value, then is it any surprise that people would absorb that belief . I am not saying that that takes the blame away from everyone, but it does mean when someone identifies and is willing to admit that, yeah, they have absorbed a lot of stereotypes about our fellow americans, should be answer that call . I think we have to. I think we all have to. One of the big mistakes this country, this culture has shifted over the course of my stopped talking about race and it made in that prejudice about race, and admitting that racism is far more common. How many times have you talked to garry . I have talked to him several times on the phone and met with him in person three times. What is the future of the heathergarry relationship . Heather i dont know. He is on this incredible journey and he created this system all on his own where he forced himself to interact with people of color that he normally would not have. He started in the waiting room at the v. A. Where black men sat created am, and he system, on a scale of one to 10, i am not going to like him. We will have a bad interaction. I am kind of afraid of him and i am anxious. He would rate the person of three, then he forced himself to i 91really bad traffic on or whatever or some kind of opening, and get to talk, and then after the interaction, he would rate how he felt about the interaction. It was a five to seven point spread. That is not something i would have come up with and showed him to do, but in some ways, it is basicingly simple and the spirit of it, which is, if you have gone to a point, were not only do you consume a lot of stereotypes on television, but in your life, you are finding it is affecting who you feel comfortable sitting next to or talking to, sending your children to school with any work up that ladder, paying taxes to support their education, we got work to do. I want to talk about class because this may be an example. When you look at your background, what happened after high school . Wenter i went to yale and to law school at uc berkeley. How did all that happen . That is an expensive ride. [laughter] heather the good old american of Student Loans and debt. What was moving you . Heather that community i talked about in chicago where i grew up, there was a sense growing up everyone has to sort of do something, whether it is work in the Public Sector, or work at a nonprofit. It was how i grew up. I really never question the idea that in some ways, making this country better was going to be the work of my life. What did you start right after you went to law school . Heather i started working at demos right after college, a year after college. It was an entry level position and i was 22 years old. The organization had only been around for two years, and i got a job because i had some jobs during college, actually working, doing research for a small Public Policy organization and worked on issues for low income families and children, and i was able to get this job working on the issue of debt. At that time, we were working on how the issue of how Credit Card Debt and Mortgage Loans and payday loans had become this plastic safetynet for working and middleclass families. This was early on, we before this became an understanding about the economy. I worked on that issue at demos and then decided to go to law school. Thehat is why i brought up subject of class. Did garry go to college . Heather i dont think garry went to college. When you think of the military, you think of it is the most integrated institution in our society. But that was a long time ago for him. Lived thethen, he has life of a workingclass guy, working in the south. A veryarolina has diverse political landscape, but you know, it became clear through our conversation, among his friends, racist jokes and wayknow, it was part of the they would entertain themselves. And howus about demos, much money you spent a year . Heather demos is 16 years old staff,d we have about 60 and have grown from a handful of people working on democracy and economic issues, to now 60 folks. We are a 10 million a Year Organization and i became president three years ago, and. Ook over from miles rappaport know, when i took over , a mid 60s white guy, i had grown up with the organization and was therefore a number of years, and then i came a tonn 2009, there wasnt i could do to change it, but i did want to raise the understanding of all of our staff from the person in accounts payable to the economist and the lawyers of how race affects us all. Did to biggest thing i transform the organization was to embark on what has now been of three year Racial Equity transitional process. The organization is predominantly white. It was much more so when i took over. That conversation about race with white people was something we took on head on at the organization. Brian what is the most offensive thing a white person can say to you . Heather can say to me . Brian or has . You say to yourself, there it goes, that is it it is a signal. Heather i think probably the most pernicious lie about people of color i say it is the most pernicious because it is actually pervasive, and it is core to undermining the sense of social solidarity and a shared contract that is essential for our country. The most pernicious lie, is the lie that people of color, black people, immigrants are, in some ways do not want the same things that everybody else wants. That we are lazy, not intelligent. That any kind of not deserving of any kind of the same kind of support that made the white middleclass flourish in the middle of the century. It is that idea that for example, we see it in Health Care Debate today. There is so much of this prejudice undertone in the conversation about taking away from medicare, which is seen by many folks, particularly white folks, as something that older white people have earned, and put money inside to give free things to undeserving people who just do not deserve it, basically. The communities of color that i grew up among, that i know are so seldom in the popular imagination among white people. Particularly those who watch a lot of conservative media. Where there is a very clear racial narrative. The stories that are cherry picked in some ways, it is Donald Trumps vision of black america. You have nothing to lose, people shooting people every day, families are broken, all of the immigrants who come to the country are rapists and criminals. That idea tears at the fabric of the country. How are you supposed to hear that message about communities that you do not live near, then say, yes, i think those kids should have health care subsidies. I think we should raise all of our taxes so that college is debtfree for those Community College students. It is a very slippery slope from a stereotype that is at an individual basis to tearing apart the sense of who we all are as americans. It comes back and affects white people, too. Brian going back to the video from our call in show, it was 8 million at one point. You know what the number is now . Heather it was 8 million before the New York Times oped. I am sure it is much more now. Brian what has happened to you as a result of this . Anything . Heather it was a rough fall. I was in North Carolina meeting with gary the week before the election. In many ways, for me personally, and for many other people who dedicated their lives to social justice, Racial Justice and economic justice, the election of a billionaire who spouted a lot of disdain, distrust, and disgust for many members of the American Community was a pretty rough, and continues to be a pretty rough proposition. My relationship with gary who should be a trump voter by demographics. He is not a democrat, as he told me when we first met. But did not vote for trump. He has become someone who recognizes his own stereotypes. Almost gets a little but of joy for catching them as hes as he thinks them and kind of shifting his consciousness to a more generous idea of who americans are. That has given me hope. Brian i am going to Say Something that i guarantee you people are watching this right now, it will affect them. You know why, and you will know immediately. Who is the chairman of your board . Heather i thought you were going to say you are prejudiced. I was so excited we would do something here. [laughter] heather i do want to say, we are all prejudiced. We all have stereotypes and hold stereotypes. For some people, it may be about muslims. For some people, it may be about immigrants, women, or obese people. Brian you know why i asked this question . Heather yes, sorry brian i dont mean to make a big deal. When you tell us who the chairman, people listening will go, one way or the other. Heather amelia, who is the daughter and collaborator on a number of books with Elizabeth Warren, the senator from massachusetts. Brian it is her daughter. Heather yes, it is her daughter. Not only is it her daughter, but they have worked together on a number of books, including the true income trap. Which is how i got to know Elizabeth Warren when she was a professor. This argument we were making about Credit Card Debt and how the rules had changed and was drowning working families. It was one that she and amelia were making in the early 2000. That is why we got to know each other. I have always been a fan of senator warren. Senator warren and i have had a number of conversations about race. About how you talk about the economic populism she delivers so compellingly, and also told that missing piece of the story of how race has been used as a weapon in the war to drive people who have common class interests apart. Brian if President Donald Trump called you and said i would like to meet with you, would you . Heather that is so interesting. When i was in North Carolina and i met with melissa harrisperry, we had a conversation. She said if Hillary Clinton called, would you work for the white house . I said no, i love what i am doing at demos. Then she said, if donald trump called and said i want you to lead my racial reconciliation, would you do it . In your hypotheticals, i dont know why he is calling me. Brian he is calling you because he want you to come to the oval office, by yourself, he will have nobody there and you get to sit with him, no drama and or cameras and he will say, now tell me why it is black folks dislike me. And what can i do about it . Heather i would have a lot to say to donald trump about the story he holds in his mind about people of color in this country, and how dangerous it is for our demos, for our sense of being a whole people in our country. I have a lot to say to donald trump, i would be happy to say. Brian you look him in the eye, you will tell him things. First of all, lets assume hes going to say, im not prejudiced. I cant say this out loud, but this was all part of the act for getting elected. [laughter] heather i would tell him that he has created lasting damage. His incredible megaphone that he has used to reify some of the worst stereotypes about immigrants, muslims, women, about people with disabilities, africanamericans. Brian how deep is it . Heather it is so damaging, and heres why. He was able to connect one of the most significant crises of our time. The decline in living standards, particularly among people without a college degree. The gulf in wealth inequality in this country. The fact that you cannot work your way out of poverty today. He was able to connect that to scapegoating people of color. That particularly for those of us who have dedicated our whole lives to trying to call the countrys attention and call the elites attention to what has happened to the working and middle class in this country, making the solution to that, a, voting for someone who says i alone can fix it, as opposed to saying it is about collective action. We actually made the middle class in this country and transformed dangerous factory jobs into good jobs through collective action and collective bargaining, which he is opposed to. And b, the fact that he made, tied the concern about the decline of good jobs in america to violence, encouraging scapegoating. Antidemocratic litmus tests for coming into the country based on religion is devastating and it will last longer than the donald trump presidency. All brian one of the questions is why are most black folks so antia black person who is a conservative . Anticlarence thomas, ben carson they do not speak for me, it is a big negative on them. Heather in some ways, i feel like it is similar to white folks who are against Elizabeth Warren. It is about the politics. I wish the conservative ideology was not so easy to create a division among racial lines. Race has been racism has been so central to the policy solutions, and the stories about the country, that so many conservatives have told it is really hard. When you get an africanamerican, or a latina, or any person of color who gets into political life and wants to gut the enforcement of civil rights, wants to abolish the minimum wage, wants to bust unions, which are even more of a ticket to the middle class for working black folks and latinos, because the job discrimination is so strong outside of the union. It is not about race, it is about the policies and the ideas of what they have done and will do to the communities. Brian bill oreilly talked about race on his show december 20, 2016. It was about white privilege. I want you to hear it and react to it. Bill very few commentators will tell you that the heart of liberalism in America Today is based on race. It permeates almost every issue. That white men have set up a system of oppression. That system must be destroyed. Bernie sanders said that. Hillary clinton did. The liberal media tries to sell that all day long. Socalled white privilege, bad, diversity, good. Brian yes . Heather sure. Unearned privilege based on race is bad and diversity is good. I think that racial and Ethnic Diversity is the source of american exceptionalism. The fact that we are a country that we were not descended from one ethnic group as European Countries were. Our immigration laws have created a place where there is someone here in the United States with ties to every Single Community in the globe it is the thing that makes us exceptional and extraordinary. Yes, diversity is good. And yes, privilege that is based on skin color is not democratic, it is not egalitarian. Yes, it has been baked into the fabric brian is there privilege . Are most whites White Supremacists . Heather those are two very different questions. Brian here is another way of asking it what do black people say about white people when we are not around . Heather that is a good question. So i am trying to think of an actual example. Brian there has to be things you say. Heather sure. I mean listen, our country we have this very strange, kind of double consciousness in this country, where we admit and on Martin Luther king day our country was legally racially segregated up until recently, but the footage is black and white. And yet we really do not want to actually admit that, that has some effect on all of our systems. It really is about the beliefs. There is this idea that white people who were racist before the civil rights movement, maybe they were just bad people. We know that is not actually true. We know the vast majority of White Americans tolerated a system of apartheid in our country and does that mean that they were evil and would literally kill a black person before they would sit next to them . Obviously not. If that is the truth, how can we help but understand that the tacit beliefs and they have different justifications now. It may not be biology, it may be that black culture is inferior. Of course there are some good black people. I really want to make sure that we dont fall into that trap. It was very easy to do so when you had an africanamerican family in the white house. It is not all black people, it is just the culture of so many, and too many black people. Brian i want to go back to more video this is from april 30, 2016 with the president and Larry Wilmore. I will ask you more when you hear what he says. Larry to live in your time, mr. President , when a black man can lead the entire free world. [applause] words alone do me no justice. So mr. President , i will keep it 100, yo barry you did it, my [nword. ] thank you very much, good night. [applause] brian i will just add to this, i recently saw the movie fences. The nword is used a tremendous amount along the black folks in the movie. What should white people react to this use . When black folks use it, bad, when white folks use it, really bad. I mean, good when black folks use it among themselves. Heather one of the difficulties of understanding Race Relations is the need to understand there is a difference between equality and equity. Different communities are situated differently. There is a power differential among the communities in this country. I personally do not use that word. My family grew up and we did not use that word. At the same time, i know that a lot of people have defended it because it is reclaiming a word that, when used by white people is used with hate, derision, disrespect. And when used by people of color, the intent, as you can tell by Larry Wilmore saying it to the president , was not hate, division and disrespect. What is the meaning behind the word . What is the intent of the word . It is obviously very different. So, that kind of thinking the understanding that if you are going to be in a society that has a lot of different communities, and frankly, that has communities that have different power differentials. You and i may not have a massive power differential, except for the fact that you are asking the questions and i am answering them. As a young africanamerican woman, as an older white man, older, i did not say old [laughter] there are power differentials there. Brian youre the one with a law degree from uc berkeley. Heather i am so glad you said that. There will always be exceptions. You look at the median wealth of a white man. White households have 10 times the typical wealth of an africanamerican household. That is still the case when it comes to white and black families of equal education, because of the history of racial segregation, predatory lending, and wealth stripping. The thing that is challenging, but not so challenging, and gary has been able to really understand it and make it a part of the way he now sees the world. There are Group Dynamics. You and i are incredibly idiosyncratic, individual people with our foibles and stories. As groups in this country, if you lay all white men, africanamerican women, latina women, etc. Out, and look at the way that they have access to power, who is represented in the senate and congress, 90 of the elected officials in the country are still white. Two thirds are white men. If you look at the difference of wealth and income, the ability to walk into a room to get a job and a callback. If you have an africanamerican sounding name but no criminal record, you are less likely to get a call back for a job and if you are a white person who has a criminal record. Does that mean that i cannot get a job, or that any white person will always be able to get a job . No, but it does mean these Group Dynamics still exist, and we have to acknowledge them. Brian are your parents alive . Heather yes, thank goodness. Brian what do they think of your success . Heather they are proud of me. My mother really has dedicated her life and career to racial healing. She is particularly proud of me. Brian still live in chicago . Heather she lives in Prince Georges County outside maryland. My grandfather is not still alive, and he was a Chicago Police officer. Was very close to Harold Washington yes, first black mayor of chicago. I wish he were still alive. He would have a lot to say. Brian where is your dad . Heather my dad is in sacramento. Brian so, where did you meet your husband . Heather i met my husband in high school. [laughter] brian and his name is . Heather shepherd. He is a perfectly american story. His mother was a Foreign Exchange student from pakistan in the 1960s and met her husband, my husbands father in school. They had this incredibly unlikely love story. He was a White American from denver and she was a pakistani woman from karachi. He grew up in this interfaith, intercultural family. Brian so you have a mixed marriage . Heather yes. Brian any of your own black folks resent that . I hear people talking about that. They dont want whites to marry blacks. What is it like from the black community . Heather i think there is resistance there are prejudices in every community. I would just say that prejudice in the White Community is backed up often by the force of law and the economy. That is why it matters more to the fate of black children that white people are prejudiced than if a black woman is prejudiced against white people. I will say that i fortunately my marriage has been embraced very much by our communities. Brian those who may have tuned in late, gary is who . Heather gary said he was a white man and i am prejudiced. That is how he opened up his call on cspan. He lives in rural North Carolina. Brian has he changed since that call with you . Heather tremendously. He has done first of all, on a personal level, this is someone who spent most of his time watching tv, and did not have many interactions with people. He has really pushed himself to interact with people of different races. He has been flown to d. C. And new york to meet with me. He has been interviewed for the new yorker magazine and on cnn last week. But more importantly, he is taking it on himself to learn about the truth about race and racism in the country. Brian here is a little bit from that cnn. Actually, the fellow that is interviewing you i believe is on your board. Heather van jones, yes. Van how are they reacting . Gary i think they are curious. I think they are wondering what i have gotten myself into. I have a few friends that i can count on my hand. I dont make a big thing about it. I told them i was doing this thing and had this new friend who mentors me. It was a long time ago, i had a different kind of conversation with them. Brian is there more to do on the part of demos with the story . Are you going to take it anywhere else . Heather i think so. For about a year now, i have been wanting to write a book. I started working on the book proposal before the fateful call with gary. The idea of the book is to really catalog the different ways that racism is actually bad for white people. Brian will you write it for whites or blacks . Heather for white people and people of color who are trying to find common cause. Gary was in a lot of pain. The degree of anxiety and fear that he had, coupled with the sense of moral guilt. One of the things that really shook him this year was the murder in charleston, dylann roofs murder of innocent people in mother emmanuel church. That really shook him. He lives in the south, and had never really noticed the confederate flags everywhere, but then he started to notice it. He thought about his own prejudiced views and racist jokes he told. He said, if i dont do something about this, i will have a stroke. It really caused him pain. I do not think that any of us, as americans, get away scott free with racism still being the cancer that it is in our society. Brian heather mcghee, president of the demos organization. If people want to contact you and get on your website, what is the address . Heather www. Demos. Org. Brian unfortunately, we are out of time. Thank you very much for joining us. Announcer all q a programs are available on our website or as a podcast on cspan. Org. Next sunday on q a, pat buchanan on his book nixons white house wars, the battles that made and broke a president and divided america forever. That is q a next sunday at 8 00 p. M. Eastern and pacific and on cspan. Next, we are live with your calls on washington journal. A look at the First Six Months of the brazilian president s first term in office. The discussion on the Global Energy market. Live at 6 00 p. M. , senator Amy Klobuchar of minnesota meets in iowa. Tonight on the communicators, we talk about the future of journalism in the age of big tech firms with news media alliances david and matthew shears with the Communication Industries association. Facebook, google, apple. They employ zero journalists