Transcripts For CSPAN2 Stamped From The Beginning 20170916

Good evening and welcome to busboys and poets. My name is kristin king. On the book Events Manager here at the busboys and poets books and i want to thank you all for joining us this evening. A couple minutes before we begin first and foremost the book is available for purchase in the bookstore and will be available after the event. In addition to that there will be assigning. Second we do have a fantastic fall lineup coming up at all six of our busboys and poets locations this fall. Theres a signup list being passed around so please feel free to add your name and your email address to that. Thank you again for joining us. Please join me in welcoming andy and dr. Kendi. [applause] its a pleasure to have all of you here on this rainy afternoon although compared to whats happening our hearts and minds go to the people they are. I want to welcome all of you for being here and let you know independent bookstores are a dying breed. They can only make a comeback if you support them and i support them i dont mean just say its nice to have been there but actually to buy books there. I want to admonish to not to go home and buy it from amazon. Amazon has good things but looks are not one of those. Authors are very important in and i understand it but i think their bookstores are equally important and you can show your love for purchasing books there so thank you. We are thrilled to have with us this ibram kendi a professor of history and National Relations and the founding direct her of the Antiracist Research policy center at american university. He is a frequent speaker and has been everywhere lately. For those of you who may have hurt him or seen him hes been on many different programs and shows anything other of the book we are going to speak about today but also the black campus movement, black students in the reconstitution of higher education. The book we are talking about today stamped from the beginning the definitive beginning of racist ideas in america. Hes working on a third book right now, how i became an antiracist. And what should we expect in that book . That is what your publisher is asking. Exactly. Welcome to busboys and poets. Its pleasure to have you here. Many of you may know that this place was named after Langston Hughes. I want to ask you a very important let america be america again. Let america be the dream. He wrote that in the 1930s. A black man living in this country saying let america be america again and today we hear some who support donald trump make America Great again. I think Langston Hughes first of all i should say that such a provocative question. Its got my mind running and of course it like to thank you andy for facilitating and having a conversation with me today about stamped from the beginning. I would like to thank busboys and most of all you all for coming out to have dialogue with us about race in america. Back to the question or that gave me time to think about it. [laughter] i think the 1930s was a time particularly in the early 1930s in which america was experiencing the Great Depression which millions of americans were out of work particularly black people and in many ways you had many different types of people trying to imagine the type of place america could be and they were measuring that type of place they stomp dreams that america has long presented itself as. I think thats what Langston Hughes was speaking to. Black black americans have long been envisioning and dreaming for an america that was truly about freedom, an america that was truly about quality, an america that was truly about an america that lived up to what was professed to be the view. Thats what Langston Hughes was speaking to. I think what the current president was speaking to a somewhat different and that difference was in america for white and by white men and i say the title of stamped from the beginning was derived from Jefferson Davis the president of the confederacy who write before he talked about equality in the black to white racist things than from the beginning he talked about how the nation was founded for white men, by white men and over the course of American History there has been racial progress. There has been gender progress. There has been progress in many different ways but theres also been a progression of racism and other forms of bigotry. That progress for white men, that for them took them away from the america that they desired and america built on White Supremacy and i think thats the america the donald trump is trying to recreate. You speak about the idea that John Mcwhorter professor at Columbia University speaks about the idea that once a bomb at a collectively run a postracial america. Clearly that is not come to be true but speak about the state of race in America Today antitrump as compared to under obama. His trump better for his Race Relations or worse . And 99mile per hour softball. [laughter] i want to give you a moment to think about it prefaced with the understanding that what i mean by that just to be clear is that trump has opened up a lot of wounds that were covered up under obama. Those wounds needed to be opened the idea that by opening these wounds we actually address them. We ignored race and racism in this country are way too long. We kick the can of racism down the road hoping that somehow was going to go away and clearly thats not how conflict is resolved. We cant avoid it. We have to deal with it. His Trump Holding a mirror up to america and saying we need to look at this . I think so and to answer your question i think the beauty is probably not the best word but what is good is america has experienced obama and trump backtoback and what i mean by that is to me in many ways, and i think obama representative racial progress for america. But i would argue that donald trump represents aggression of racism. Historically americas racial history has been a dual history, a simultaneous racial progress and a progression of racism. Typically racist progress of the progression of racism has followed racial progress. In other words and black people broke down barriers when other groups broke down racist barriers typically what happened was those who benefited from those barriers figured out ways to create new evermore sophisticated barriers and then they created new and ever more sophisticated racist ideas blind us from the carriers to get us thinking the reason why inequality is persisting or growing is because they inferiority of black people. I think thats what certainly happening now. Donald trump has allowed people to see what they did not want to see during obamas presidency when they were so focused on his embodiment of racial progress. Now we are able to see trump embodied in the progression of racism and i think thats good for america. Especially from the perspective of people who are suffering under the foot of Racial Discrimination who are suffering under the flood of racist policies and for americans to finally see that foot. The book speaks about the definitive analysis of racist ideas. Can you give us examples and order some racist ideas and an america that we all as americans assume . To racist ideas that are very popular even within those communities of people who consider themselves to be progressives. That is this idea and the most dangerous racist ideas the idea of dangerous black people. Anybody know what im talking about . In other words the idea that southeast d. C. Is the most dangerous part of the city. Does anybody believe that . Has anybody thought that . How do we come to that idea . We have come to that idea based on crime data and crime data is typically based on arrests and incarceration rates. What that means is apparently the community that has higher levels of arrests and levels of incarceration have more crime than another communities what that means is people in this room every time we commit crimes we get arrested or certain neighborhoods and certain people are more suspected because of the color of their skin so therefore that leads to higher arrests and incarceration rates. There is no relationship between black men and Violent Crime. Thats why if you look at black communities black middle income neighborhoods do not have the same levels of Violent Crime of extremely poor black neighborhoods and that there was a direct relationship between and Violent Crime no matter the income level of the neighborhood there would be similar levels of Violent Crime but theres not. And when we look at across other racial groups we see a similar story whether white, latino or other. You have higher levels of Violent Crime of cross racial groups. For us to think of these neighborhoods is dangerous black neighborhoods when in fact we should be thinking of them as dangerous unemployed neighborhoods ordered dangerous impoverished neighborhoods but that would change the policy conversation. Then we wouldnt say the problem is blackonblack crime. The problem is family is pretty and said we would say the problem is jobs. Another popular racist idea is that black children are achieving at a lower level than white children. Thats what that basically says, the black children are intellectually inferior to white children, to asian children and how do people render this . Poor black children score lower on standardized tests. Therefore standardized test, we believe standardized test actually measure intelligence. But then when we actually study what standardized tests really measure we find standardized test primarily measure to things. If somebody can take a test well or there is a relationship between income level of someones parents and their score on a test so it shows us that somebody has money. We think that actually shows intelligence. The problem is these black children, the problem is their parents. The problem is they keep in many two of course take education more seriously. I could go on and on but those are examples of ways in which we use measures to render like people inferior and of course standardized tests were created by eugenicist him. Eugenics who use these programs with hundreds of thousands of black people in the south. You also speak about examples where in some instances they say black men are more violent actually. Only think of Violent Crime we dont include drunk driving in the category of Violent Crime then we start to think why do we consider drunk drivers to be violent criminals . They kill people and injured people. To boldly the people they injured killer people who are completely innocent and what i mean by completely innocent is when we look at some of these neighborhoods where there are high levels of Violent Crime these are people who are being subjected to homicides that are actually involved lets say in particular activities whether drug or gang at favortie but the people who are subjected to the wrath of drunk drivers or people who are trying to get home. We dont even understand that to be a Violent Crime. 1986 at the height of the socalled epidemic and there were more people who died that year from drunk drivers than they did from homicides and drug overdoses combined. When we look at the number of people who are subject violence of course you dont render those people to be criminals in some study showed the vast majority of drunk drivers in the country are white men. All of those communities with all those drunk drivers people dont understand their neighborhood is dangerous because people dont see why people is dangerous. To be dangerous is to be black. What prompted you to write the book . I find it really fascinating because a lot of times you have the same kind of i think yours is a very different fresh look at race and Race Relations. Is your intention here, what is the intention of the book . Im going to calm down. [laughter] this gives me the opportunity to calm down. I wish i had this beautiful sort of flowery story about the creation of this book but really it came about as a result of another project. A Research Project in which i was looking into the origin of lack studies in the 60s and i found black studies and calling for black studies were saying all the disciplines or races so we needed new discipline which they called lack studies. Then i started writing the history of the origin of lack studies and i wanted to chronicle the scientific racism that was pervasive in the academy and then i started reading up on the history of scientific racism and racist ideas were brought and i started finding many of these were saying racist ideas had become marginal in the 1940s. Have students in the 60s or black power more broadly stating that racism and racist ideas were pervasive. You have scholars and historians saying no, it became marginal by the 40 so clearly its the conundrum and what led me down the path of writing this book. And what i realized was the way we are defining a racist idea was actually the problem. These two groups were defining a racist idea differently. Students in the 60s particularly students who were inspired by black power who are pushing for black studies were calling assimilationist ideas racist ideas. Historic way scholars and historians have not classified assimilationist ideas as racist ideas. The book i differentiate between segregationist ideas and assimilationist ideas which are two kinds of racist ideas. Segregationist ideas are more well understood or known as racist ideas. These are ideas suggesting that lets say black people are by nature inferior. Black people are biologically inferior. And assimilationist ideas state that racial groups are equal but black people are inferior by culture. Lack people are not inferior by nature as segregationists would say. Black people are inferior by nature nurture. Black people are not permanently inferior as segregationists would say. Assimilationist would say we have the capacity to civilize and thats what we should be doing. Clearly the students the 60s who were inspired by black power growing their afrosat embracing the American Culture for them hearing their professors who were assimilationist who were calling themselves nonracist like every other racist in history, because you know everyone says they are not racist. Hes professors were black or white. Black or white, yes. Clearly when these people were suggesting that the key to solving the race problem is black people assimilate is the africanAmerican Culture of the black family was pathological. When they heard these things again they were inspired by black power and a few those ideas as racist and those were the ideas are primarily work dominating academia in the mid60s. These assimilationist ideas through the works of people like Daniel Patrick moynihan or or Nathan Glaser wrote a prominent book in 1963 with Daniel Patrick moynihan called the melting pot in the book he said black people dont have a culture that they can guard and protect. Or somebody like gun or mirror ball. He wrote a famous book in 1944 called the american dilemma which were largely in the civil rights movement. The book he classified africanAmerican Culture is pathological and that would be in the interest of black people to assimilate into the customs and culture that white people hold. These are the ideas these students pushed back against and these were the ideas that classified or i should say reclassified as racist ideas and show the way in which assimilationist and segregationists have long argued about how when why black people were inferior while antiracist were unknown. Hes divide the book by sections named after five major figures in American History starting with mathur and going to Thomas Jefferson William Lloyd harrison w. E. B. Dubois and angela davis. We welcome back to Thomas Jefferson in a moment but i wanted to ask you more specifically how did you come up with the five individuals and why them . First of all i wanted to make this long history of racist ideas as accessible as possible to the average raider. I didnt really write this book for the Academic Community although the Academic Community is reading the book and using the book. I wrote it for everyday people because all of this are affected by these ideas. We are affected by how race in america and in doing so i thought what is the best way to prevent this very long and complex narrative that would be engaging and so we realized lets tell those stories through the lives of a major character or in the case of five major characters each representing a different section in a different time period in American History. I wanted use a major character whose life bracketed key. Then america so Cotton Mather primarily was the major character during colonial america. Thomas jefferson was primarily from the development or the push for independence until the 1820s. On the eve of the Abolitionist Movement and William Lloyd garrison come the third character from the Abolitionist Movement in the 1830s until the end of reconstruction and then dubois from reconstruction until civil rights and then angela davis from civil rights to this day. I also wanted characters whose lives were adjusting. In the case of Cotton Mather, he imagined christians had white souls. He was encouraging white people to become christians so you can have a white soul too. Thomas jefferson of course everyone knows the way in which his story was so interesting and in many ways contradictory. William lloyd garrison. He was very important in creating this very important. Particularly within the Progressive Community that discrimination is making black people inferior. In his case it was slavery. Slavery wasnt just dehumanizing it was literally making black people into sub humans come into what he would call and that theory within the Progressive Community carries on through the faith. It indicates that black people are acting in that crazy way but its because they are in poverty. Its because there is discrimination. When in fact there is no data supporting that lack people actually are more lazy and people say they are as a result of discrimination. W. E. B. Dubois, tracked his double which i argue with double consciousness. In 1903, everybody is familiar with the concept but most of us havent read the actual essay, the talented ten has assimilated and represent the best of black people because they assimilated into the best of european culture. Our job as the talented ten to bring the rest of barbaric black america. Read the essay. That is our job. Over the course of his life he would reject the notion of the talented ten. He was talking about the guiding 100. By 1930 he would emphasize the notion of a nation within a nation and black people need to be associating with black people but early in his career he was uttering assimilationist ideas. Angela davis. Angela davis was the last major character. Her life story really shows the reader the way it is not important, it is important that to truly be in antiracist you have to be intersectional antiracist, she was able unlike many black people in history to not only understand the racial groups writ large meaning black people equal to white people she was not looking down on the black four. She was not saying we are superior to the black poor, she was not looking upon black people is superior to white men, she was not looking on black heterosexuals as superior to that. I ended up defining a racist idea as any idea that suggests a racial group is superior or inferior in any way. When i say racial group i specifically not just stating black people white people. Each and every one of us are part of many racialized groups. I am a black mail which is a racial group and there have been ideas created that specifically targeted and rendered black men to be inferior to other racial groups. Im a black heterosexual and the member of the black middleclass. There are many different racial groups, all of which, ideas have been created in discriminatory policies have been created to hold them back or advance them. You dont just think of the racial groups writ large but you as a black person, i think of myself as black men and black women are equal. Equal to the black little class. And show that, and to tell the story. A great story, what is going on, and throughout the country, you have written a little about charlottesville. The up session with robert e lee, why is it important to address the stages and symbols. I think the the symbols, taking down of these symbols should be the beginning of a struggle. These confederate monuments. Representing the any quality that is surrounding them in cities they are in so i am hoping those activists who organized and mobilized to take down these monuments will not stop when they come down. They move toward racist policies causing any quality that is there. I will also say we should think deeply about why many powerful forces in this country from the white house to governors houses to not far from where i used to live in gainesville who identified himself over the confederacy, and in the south most of these confederate monuments, all sorts of any quality, like there was in 1860. 4 million enslaved black people. Who is to blame for this any quality, poverty, these problems and during the time of the confederacy, confederate leaders are like northerners are to blame, the reason you are impoverished. They are the ones to blame. You should identify with us. We have something in which there was all this any quality and southern leaders stating we are not to blame even though we are in power, protesters are to blame. And also symbolizing the fact that these serving confederate leaders do not want to be blamed for the problems of that society. They want to be a champion like those confederate leaders were even though they were the cause of those problems. Walking through campus of uva, founded by Thomas Jefferson down the road, monticello, lived there, the fact damaging racist ideas. The orangutan theory, some horrific writing, seems to me the focus or this obsession with monuments is a distraction from the bigger picture. Steve bannon says let them go after the monuments. That is a great distraction. Monuments can become a new wedge issue, what do you speak to that . The irony of people marching through the university to get to the Robert E Lee Statue at the same time you are marching through Thomas Jeffersons basically. One of the ways to show this impact is to show the ways the confederacy and confederate leaders express segregationist ideas, horrifically segregationist ideas but those do not go away with the confederacy. They continue and persist and still exist today. In many ways what the confederacy represented ideologically and what they try to achieve from a policy standpoint on some level actually occurred in the United States under the us flag. That is what people in trying to separate the confederacy from america we should certainly separated but simultaneously recognize the way it is interlocking and many former confederate leaders particularly after reconstruction became us senators, congressmen, leaders, basically the history. When you have people hash tagging this is not us, that becomes problematic. For me, i am not going to say people should not focus at all on the statues, someone who is a product of Stonewall Jackson high school with that name attached, very difficult. You would have to change the entire state of virginia, there are more Stonewall Jackson memorial been anything you can possibly imagine. I recognize that is a personal sort of thing. We cannot and should not think about racial matters from a personal standpoint, that is the way we get ourselves in trouble. Where do you think this should continue. Should they persist along that vein . I tell this story in a coffee shop in a town called jackson in the Shenandoah Valley and my wife and i were there, wanted to have a coffee and this lady was serving coffee and was bringing coffee to us and i saw a Confederate Flag hanging on the corner and she turned around and brought the coffee. Can i ask you something . Why do you have a Confederate Flag . Because it is offensive to a lot of people and it is necessary to hang it here. I never met this woman before, she was very engaging. It is part of our heritage, im from the south, my peoples heritage. I feel i give people the benefit of the doubt and willing to let it be and engaged her in this conversation. Weeks later my wife and i drove by the place, the flag was gone. She may have sent it to the laundry. I took credit for it. I took credit for it. So this idea of extricating people from symbols without doing hard work that needs to happen under the surface seems like fraught with a lot of conflict that is about to happen. Is that avoidable . We have to recognize the ways similar are ideal similar to ideas. By people who have a particular sort of intention in mind. In the case of symbols or even ideas many of us have learned through this recent debate over these confederate monuments that most of these confederate monuments were built in the early 1900s or even in reaction to civil rights activism in the mid20th century. The intention was to symbolize White Supremacy and to basically renew the cornerstone, renew that cornerstone. I choose cornerstone deliberately. There is a famous cornerstone speech the Vice President of the confederacy gave, his name was alexander stevens, he has a statue in the capital. Alexander stevens challenged the american constitution which for him he stated he believed or considered slavery to be against the laws of nature. In this speech stevens says our government meaning the confederate government is founded on the opposite idea. Our foundations, our cornerstone rests on the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man and slavery for the superior race is natural and normal condition. The Vice President of the confederacy weeks after it was founded. But of course, i am sure many of the people who say they dont have a racist bone in her body but are waving these flags have not heard that speech, or try to say that doesnt represent the confederacy or doesnt present me. Ultimately what i wanted to show with this book. It shows itself with the symbols as well, people have purposefully built these monuments, purposefully produced these ideas to manipulate us into believing they are not the problem and their policies are not the problem, but black people are the problem. People are the problem, people are inferior and that is why black people are enslaved because they should be enslaved, black people are impoverished because they dont want to work, they created these ideas because the alternative is for us to look at racial inequality and say that is abnormal and why is this . For us to start looking for the discriminatory policies to create that any quality and for us to challenge those policies and those who are benefiting from discriminatory policies are no longer able to benefit. When we of the fundamental function of racist ideas it is the same fundamental function of these monuments, repressed with distance to Racial Discrimination, the fundamental purpose. For me when i see people resisting the monuments, anything that shows how they fail but at the same time that cant end with the monument itself and has to lead to challenging discrimination that actually seemed defendant by the symbol of the monument itself. One of the most important elements of the book that i took away you said racism is not a problem with ignorance and hate but a tool to justify exploitation which i found to be an important aspect of the book because a lot of times people think people that are racist are just ignorant or hateful but it is really a justification for supremacy and exploitation. Can you speak a little more about that . We have largely been taught the line of causation, the line starts with ignorance and hate. Ignorant and hateful people are the people who create and express racist ideas. And these people who are racist with these racist ideas, these are the people who have instituted and are defending racist policies like slavery, segregation or mass incarcerated it causes us, the line of causation begins with ignorance and hate, what should be the solution . We need to educate people. We need to root out the hate. That becomes our focus has Racial Justice activists and that is the focus of Racial Justice reformers, educate and persuade racist ideas away because they thought it was ignorance and hate and if we get rid of these racist ideas, then we will get rid of the policy, the discrimination. Researching from the beginning, i ended up distinguishing between the producers of racist ideas and the consumers. The producers and the consumers and i wanted to write a book about the producers of racist ideas, understand fundamentally why they are creating these ideas and i didnt assume they were ignorant and hateful. Some of them were involved with black people romantically. You know what i am talking about. And also. Basically trying to be you know. And we also know that many of the people i chronicle in stamped from the beginning are the most brilliant american minds. These people were brilliant. Basically i found once i studied and looked at the producers, not the consumer, the producers, it became obvious these people were producing racist ideas to justify existing racist policy. Typically those racist policies benefited them. You are making a bunch of money off of enslaved black people, you want to continue to make money off of enslaved black people so when abolitionists are resisting, what do you do . You create racist ideas to say black people should be enslaved. They are descendents of ham. We are civilizing them through slavery after the barbarism they experienced in africa. You circulate these ideas and people consume them and start believing them and that causes them to become ignorant and hateful. People consume them and become ignorant and hateful. When we think about i was trying to figure out a way to simplify the complexities of these racial questions. The fundamental question americans have been asking since the beginning of this country, why does an inequality, why does racial inequality exist . Whether it is slavery, segregation, all sorts of inequality that persists, why does it exist . There has been the response from antiracists who say racial groups are equal, any quality must be the result of Racial Discrimination. When you have any quality between two groups there are only two causes. Either the group on the lower end is inferior and the other group is superior or some sort of discriminatory policy. Anybody like the Washington Redskins . The giants, i dont know if you will let me get out. The redskins name is a racist name. The Washington Football Team. So lets say the giants defeated the Washington Football Team every year year after year and we were trying to explain, there are only two reasons. Either the giants are a superior team. Or the redskins suck. Or the giants are cheating. Those are the only causes when you have a consistent and persistent any quality between groups. If you know you are cheating and benefiting from the cheating what are you going to do . You are going to make people believe you are winning because you are superior. Then people wont even look for the cheating let alone resist the cheating and prevent you continuing to win. That is what i found with producers of racist ideas, they were benefiting from the cheating and producing these ideas to normalize racial inequality, defending discriminatory policies by resisters because it benefited them. In many ways the book is a hopeful treatise because it talks about the fact these racist ideas can be produced and consumed they can be dismantled. You also spoke in the book, especially in the case of angela davis, Pivotal Moment for her was the birmingham bombing. When you talk about Pivotal Moments that happen is there a need for Pivotal Moments before people start reassessing and realigning their thoughts about racist ideas . Are we at a Pivotal Moment right now . What are those moments . When do you see them . You need to have Pivotal Moments to move forward. Most people make dramatic changes in their lives as a result of Pivotal Moments which is an unfortunate thing. We all have friends and family members we wish would stop acting that way, stop thinking that way. Do we need a Pivotal Moment in this country to make that shift . I think we are in one of those Pivotal Moments. It is unfortunate that human beings need Pivotal Moments to look in the mirror, in order for them to change who they are and recognize it is possible to be a better person but that is certainly the case for many people. Pivotal moment for web du bois was the Great Depression. I dont want to give angela daviss other Pivotal Moment but i think one of the things i was hoping, to save people from having to experience those Pivotal Moments, realizing this is more simple and complex than we originally thought. It is simple because the races are equal. That is not saying every single black and white person or other racial groups are the same. That is not saying there are no black people who are lazy or violent or no black people who could be more intelligent. They are saying no one has ever proven and we have consistently disproven that there are more black lazy people than white lazy people. What happens when you are white and lazy because of White Privilege and discriminatory policies, you are still able to make and gain in ways that black people who are black and lazy cannot. These policies operate in our time, with the people, white and black, who are in that in between stage. If you are not exceptional, there is no black person who is exceptional. I cant think of another sort of phrase. People are going to render you black which means your inferior, im not going to hire a black inferior person. We dont have the capacity to make mistakes. When we make mistakes they are generalized, a representation of that is what black people do. When white people make mistakes that is what the individual does on that page, that will come back better tomorrow. I know exactly what you are talking about. When i talk about the racial group being equal, what i am saying is what makes the racial group equal is not the great people, is really the imperfection of black people, white people, other racial groups, that makes the racial groups equal and the reason they are equal is it makes them human. To be a human group is to the imperfect and the racial group is imperfect. Their collection of imperfect individuals, and we need to recognize that. I dont advocate black people to sort of show your best in front of white people, i dont advocate black respectability because it is difficult to do that. I advocate for black people, for people, society to allow people to be imperfect. When we get to that point, we allow people to be in perfect, when we give people the benefit of the doubt, we dont generalize people, that is the society i would like to live in. Very well said. What can white people do . I know this sorry to ask that question. I am in the lucky position that im neither white nor black. I am just sitting here watching. I am trying to figure out, a lot of people, i heard this in conversations, dialogue, it is hard to be white in America Today because it feels like people want to jump ahead and be allies and make things work and right the wrongs as black people are saying stay aside, i dont need you to be in the front. It is a very difficult interaction sometimes. You see it in some of the interactions on the street. What do you suggest for a white person who wants to be an antiracist, to be a person that is working toward a better america for everyone . Fundamentally speaking to every black person about every black person in america representing everybody. I think for white people to strive to be antiracist, what that means is the racial groups are equal, black people in other nonwhite groups do not need civilizing, they dont need people to hold their hands, they do not need leaders or messiahs. They need what all people need, allies who are going to challenge discriminatory policies and put their resources, whether financial or organizational towards that area. And i think what historically happened, i show this in the text, that so many white people have their assimilationist ideas were actually good for black people and removing the progressive needle. When they go to these black communities with the intention that i know you can be civilized, they get those segregationists in their family, dont know why you are going in the black community, they understood themselves as being good people because they are not like their family members or others saying all these people should be incarcerated or sent to another country so they understood their perspective on development and civilization and engaged in that work based on that perspective. I am trying to show that that is a racist perspective. Built on racist ideas. Those ideas are very pervasive in the white reformist community. The white reformist Community Goes into these communities, thinks the problem is these people need to be civilized, the inequality persists and who do they blame for that inequality . They dont look in the mirror, they blame black people. I came and gave my energy and tools to help people and things are still the same. It cant be me, it must be you and some of them become segregationists and these people cant be civilized. When in fact the black people were not the problem, your solutions were the problem. Do you have any favorite comedians or people breaking that cycle, breaking the mold, opening new areas of bringing people together, any favorites . We just talked to gregory, a powerful voice that spoke through the power, he will be missed, do you have any favorites . I have met many favorites. When you study racism, you go to comedy shows. The Dave Chapelle show. Chapelle is one of my favorites about white supremacists, very indicative of a point of the i try to make from the beginning that even black people are resisting and these are ideas, black people hold those ideas, black people who are not blind, these are things that black people as a community have to come to grips with. When you think of racist ideas, fundamentally the function of them being to suppress resistance to Racial Discrimination, those who hold these ideas say the problem is not Racial Discrimination, you need to focus our efforts on civilizing or incarcerating or enslaving black people, any black people saying that . Resisting Racial Discrimination, dont know why you are trying to do that, the problem is black people, dont know why you think theres a problem with black lives. The problem is black on black crime. I dont know why you are challenging these. We have black people who have been saying that to us. When they say any quality they see what is wrong, this is what they express and the very people, told the masses. You may have heard the sound of a baby earlier in the front, you want to introduce us to your newest addition to your family. My young daughter. [applause] and my beautiful wife. Tell me about your name. Your name has a meaning, please share that with me. The attendees, a kenyan language, my wife and i were deciding on the name issue and everyone knows the name issue, the progressive woman, i wont take your name, what we decided to do was change the name together so we together and unveiled it. How did that go . It went well. My father didnt throw me in the ocean. We open up for a conversation if anyone has any questions please raise your hand, a j will be Walking Around with the microphone. You will decide where to go. Do you think two black people by racist whites on the onset of this country, cultureless, tracing whiteness and therefore as a way disconnect from the humanity creating the way to get the relationship to grow and put upon victims what they were experiencing themselves. Didnt expect this from a white guy. What we call wolf. I would say i would not necessarily put it on you. One idea that comes to mind is the idea that emerged during the enslavement era of the hypersexual aggressive black woman. You have all of this intercourse going on largely who was the cause of that intercourse . It with either the case that white slaveholders were coming off violently and aggressively or it was the case that black women were aggressively coming onto these white men. The white men created the narrative that of course it wasnt us, black women were doing that and simultaneously created this trait of the hypersexual aggressive black woman who cannot be raped. During the colonial era there are no reports in colonial american newspapers of a black woman being raped. From the perspective of these white men and the perspective of their racist idea about black women, they debited hypersexual aggressive beings in that sense and allows them to exonerate their own behavior. I want to come back to the mass incarceration you mentioned in your speech. Many organizations on this issue, i see some people, ten years, starting to focus on that issue and bring it into the conversation. Nothing changed. Something is going to be morphed not only for black people but families as well. Going back to children, have the same problem. How could it be changed . Any people who want to make some change, issues to help people who help them to find a job, going back to the family but this is not the issue. How they can stop this. We should first recognize even in the community of people who wear and have been engaged in challenging mass incarceration, some if not most of these people are suffering, i would include myself in this mix. Or justify mass incarceration the idea of the dangerous black neighborhood with dangerous black people. One of the reasons why is we still believe part of the problem was black people. And that we should and needs to figure out ways to civilize black people. When i say we, i am looking at for instance the cdc congressional black caucus, to a certain extent obamas administration, to a certain extent saying both things. Many black members principally talking about the racist policies of mass incarceration, but others talking about we need less jails, and talking about both issues without realizing i was reinforcing the problem they were trying to end. As a community and i Say Community of americans we have to come to grips with the fact what is driving Violent Crime is not the inventory area of people, at the macro level, more effective as a policy initiative for us if we are going to focus on reducing Violent Crime, focus on bringing jobs. A few years back in chicago chicago decided to do the initiative in which they introduced a bunch of jobs in the community and what happens with the Violent Crime rate . We see these examples over and over again but people who are victims themselves, people personalize it as they personalize racial issues it is difficult for them to get past their own personhood and think about this big picture but i also think we are moving the needle, or were moving the needle before the current president took office on mass incarceration. That segues into what i wanted to talk about. I go to the jail once a week, you spoke about intersection analogy. And i went to say the people incarcerated have committed Violent Crimes. It is not violence driving the incarceration, being incarcerated in this country the city is 49 black, 95 black, when we talk about educating, i want you to speak to this when we think of responsibility and how we blame our own, sharing stories, from a, women and incarceration and one thing at the heart of it, is trauma. A professor at morgan state university, she talks about historical trauma in our community and the reading of black children. When i read these women stories and i know my own story, i go back because i have learned there is a prominent pipeline and i would like you to speak to the fact that we dont need to educate white people, we dont need to perform for white people, but we need to educate ourselves and being in this room is a privilege. I have educational privilege, we all have some sort of privilege, but what are we going to do . How are we as black people going to analyze it and Say Something theres endemic in our community, theres historical trauma, we are not blaming ourselves, stacy patton gets a lot of flak for her book but theres a lot of truth being a person coming from a violent home being in foster care and going back to a jail every week where i sit with these women and hear their stories. I would like you to speak to that. This is one of the more difficult conversations, because you are absolutely correct that black people have experienced trauma and we should of course as a community and the nation be willing to identify the trauma slavery brought on the black community, that poverty and violence and segregation and abuse of many kinds bring on. But at the same time, we should also not think that trauma is a 1way street. What i mean by that is people respond differently to trauma. There are people who come through traumatic situations and that sort of leaves down a difficult path in their life, a path that they will regret later and other people go through traumatic situations and go down a path they are happy they went down because that trauma encouraged and motivated them to go down that path. For lack of a better way to understand it, people experienced trauma, some people experienced trauma in a negative way, some people in a positive way. We have to recognize that. We have to individualize the effects of trauma. There are individuals who have suffered through trauma and are facing serious psychological and other kinds of difficulties in their life. We have to recognize the ways in which those difficulties have derived from their trauma but we cant generalize that individual or take the stories of those individuals who are like that to say black people in general have endemic lee negative qualities as a result of our history of trauma. Somebody whose work i follow, some of the other studies make the case that black people are lazy, black people are materialistic, all these negative qualities because of our history of trauma. When you ask for examples they provide anecdotes. This person and that individual and when i provide them another example, came out in a different way from from a we see we are going back and forth on anecdotes. We cant necessarily say there something wrong with black people because of trauma. There is something wrong with individuals, not only black but in other communities, people have suffered trauma and that is one of the difficulties of having discussions about this. It is widely believed in the black community black negativity is a result of from a and those ideas have never been proved. It is only been proven that individuals, i want us to recognize whenever we generalize, black people from a behavioral standpoint we have to have evidence to substantiate that. Surely there has got to be some element there. Poverty in itself is traumatic. When you have a group of people that are impoverished there is a collective trauma that comes out of that. Yes but at the same time, how are we assessing that there was a negative affected that traumatic experience . And what middle income people do is take their standards and measures of behavior of poor people from their standards and render poor people inferior and then say if they are progressive it result of their trauma they see students every day as a result of situations they have to face at home, nothing to do with blackness or their skin color but their Economic Conditions or the conditions they live under. Not to diminish what you are saying, i understand generalization but it goes back to what you said earlier. If we generalize that the reason there is violence in some parts of the city due to blackness, that is a problem. We say there is violence, more violence in more areas, that makes sense, has nothing to do with skin color. I want to piggyback to what the lady was saying. Taylor. I want to talk about what taylor was saying. Please continue. What i was hearing and heard on many occasions is not the idea that people who suffered trauma what i hear is black people have particularly suffered trauma and we have negative affect. When people say people have suffered through many forms of trauma and there are these affect i completely agree. I want to clarify. There are studies that show, i have the statistics, the institute for justice which is amazing, nobody has studied women who are incarcerated. In the last we 10 years while the number of men of color has decreased, the number of women incarcerated has more than quadrupled, 44 of women incarcerated in the United States are black. 86 of women who were incarcerated suffered sexual violence. That is trauma. 76 suffered intimate partner violence. 60 suffered as a child, violence. 44 of the women incarcerated in this country are black. We are locking up black women and women of color who are surviving trauma. It is not that having trauma makes you a bad person, it leaves to Mental Illness and all types of things and we are incarcerating people, particularly women for surviving. You cant ignore the statistics. I am not disagreeing with what you just said. The only thing i would push back on is the direct comment that trauma causes Mental Illness. All i was trying to say is people respond differently to trauma. Not every Single Person who experiences a traumatic situation respond the same way. That is all i was saying. The majority of people who are incarcerated have a Mental Illness. These are problems no one can deny. To the next one. Change to allow my brother i am also a fan. We are traumatized. Have you i have not. What is interesting in that particular writing is a pathology in the community in the same way we do talking about poor black folks and in a way are stamping themselves, doing it to themselves. Cant really have a conversation but interesting this particular group of scotch irish live under these particular conditions, that kind of thing, stamping themselves, which i find interesting. Have you read the book white trash . I think it would be great to read hillbillies and others in combination with white trash. Takes the same issues but looks at it from a different perspective because it shows the ways, there is a history of racist ideas that i chronicle. Racist ideas that would justify the reason why black people on the lower end of American Society in terms of any quality because black people are inferior. White trash sort of shows the ways in which they have justified poor people, particularly white 4 people as being on the lower end of the economic divide because they are white trash, they are inferior. Some of those ideas if not most of those ideas poor white people have consumed and started to believe among themselves the way black people consume ideas that render them inferior. An interesting sort of thing. One quick thing about white trash. One of the ways we can understand the concept of white trash is in combination with the concept of the extraordinary negro. Two sides of the same coin. What it says is lazy white person is not really white. They are white trash. The smart black person is not really black. Extraordinary. It allows the continuation of this notion of white over black, when we have all these examples showing lazy white people and smart black people. The concept of white trash and extraordinary negro allows their persistence. We have time for two more. Do you remember andy . He shocked the whole romance people went home shocked at the same time too. I will shock you. Two things, black blood, the other thing is one drop of black blood, you understand that concept . I think so. The other thing was a lot of the superiority of white folks comes from annihilation of their race. They are afraid. The most sophisticated ones are afraid. They are the ones who are planning, scheming to make sure whites are annihilated from the world because they are a minority, not the majority. Of course looking at this issue from a different perspective, for one thing, i will say historically, even in this time you have specific people creating construction of whiteness so getting white people to believe there isnt a tangible thing known as whiteness and causing them to save this thing you should value is withering away, no longer great. It is incumbent upon you to defend that thing that is withering away. That is to a certain extent focusing on the whole concept of make America Great again. The whole idea of these people who were immigrating to these nations were eliminating whiteness which should be valued but in order for people to fear that they are going to be lost they have to believe what they exist. The whole notion that whiteness exists, that there is biological whiteness that is pure, beautiful, and everything that has been beautiful, great and civilized people who are white have to believe that and have to believe that is going away. Study after study shows that doesnt exist, there is no such thing as whiteness from a biological standpoint, and they are 99 biologically the same. We have time for one more. I want to frame my question. I find your distinction between segregationist ideas and assimilationist ideas interesting. I would argue that these ideas, progressivism coming out of the form of another idea in the sense that instead the notion of black people can be civilized and mythic related into society, saying that society can be civilized, society, you could tinker with the notions of White Supremacy so black people can resist, the foundations of the nationstate is antiblack, colonial in nature and how did you describe that phenomena in i think obama is a good example like what you are referring to, correct me if i am wrong to sort of explain it, those people who have integrationist ideas, fundamentally classifying integrationist ideas as assimilationist ideas. So if that is what you are saying i would say of thing. What happens is we cant make everything about racist ideas. Certain things are about strategy. There are people who can be leave the racial groups are equal but what black people should be striving to do is integrate society and other black people say racial groups are equal but what black people should be seeking to do is separate or any type of border strategy but those strategies were freedom for the type of Society People want to live in is different from assimilationist ideas but i will say that all assimilationist are integrationists and what i mean by that is all assimilationist, black in particular, would say White Communities are superior, white schools are superior, that is where i send my child, white establishments are superior so that is where i want to be because whiteness is superior and that is what they are striving to be, but all i am saying is black people who cannot think that and simultaneously thinking it is better to have integrated society so that is a tricky thing. I dont want us to sort of think that i am saying the same thing. It is a little different. I just think as related to race that we should be focused even malcolm x, not about integration or separation but freedom, liberation. It is about equality, ending discriminatory policies and how to end discriminatory policies is what we should be focused on and when we eliminate those policies and create racial inequality, we can start having conversations, should we have integrated societies . Difference societies, due to being under the foot of discrimination that is what we should be focused on and that is what i try to focus my work on and get people to realize racist ideas taking them from that type of work. Makes perfect sense. I want to say thank you to cspan and a special thank you for the pleasure to have you here. Somebody with the american book festival, the National Book festival happening at the convention center, and jamie vance will be there too. If you want to see what is going on with that, thank you for being here. [applause] [inaudible conversations] tonight at 10 00 on afterwards, David Osborne on his book reinventing americas schools, creating a 21st century Education System interviewed by chester finn, senior fellow and my arguments in the book is places around the country that have embraced charters the most systematically are also the fastest improving cities in the country. I am not saying make every school, Public School a charter. If we look at the data and do what works for kids lets treat every Public School like a charter. We can call it something else, district school, renaissance school, pilot will, whatever. Lets give it the autonomy so people can make the decisions and create a school model that will work for the kids that they have to teach and lets hold them accountable and if they do a great job lets let them open another school and if they do a terrible job lets replace them with a stronger operator. Watch afterwards tonight at 10 00 eastern on cspan2s booktv. More about the literary scene. Up next we speak to Howard Mansfield about his book turn and jump how time and place fell apart that explains how the concept of time zones came about. Time first meant where the sun was in the sky, noon was when the sun was completely overhead in your town, in your place. Time is very local. Time is the course of the sun across the sky, the moon, the season. What happened is clocks come along. The first