Transcripts For CSPAN2 April Ryan Authors On Race In America 20180127

Good evening. And on this important day, this goes beyond a very special program. As you can see, the topic is important, it will run longer than usual but in every way it is the same as our other panels, there will be an opportunity for questions. If you can make it to a microphone that would be great because it is filled on cspan, and live streamed on our Facebook Page and it is helpful if people can hear the question is the question is asked. Lastly there will not be a signing afterward but we have copies of all our guestss books, they are very prolific, we dont have all of all of their books, but some of all of their books and help yourselves to those as well. We appreciate you being part of this discussion. We can think of no better way to honor the legacy of Martin Luther king junior especially on his National Holiday named for him then having this distinguished group of panelists to educate and lead us in a conversation about race in america. Before we get going lets explain for a minute the origin of this program. This is the fifth in a series of ongoing Panel Discussions called race in america. The first was in october 2016. In response to a series of distressing infrequent shootings of young black men at the hands of police officers, i speak on behalf of our staff in the thinking our great friend april ryan for being the brains behind these Panel Discussions. April suggested to me and my husband brad, there he is. Pmp could be a venue for discussions. And every subsequent Panel Including tonights and for each session she recruited speakers are among the most influential, the most provocative and respected on these critically important and urgent subjects. Tonights panel is no exception, each is a powerhouse in its own field, we are privileged to have them here and grateful for the generosity of time. When quick editorial comments. Is a coowner, not just the distressing events of the past few days remind us this conversation needs to happen on a daily if not hourly if not minute by minute basis in america. Needs to happen in every community and by having these conversations may be, i have to believe we will reclaim the values of tolerance, diversity, inclusion and respect that is currently under assault. After the 2016 election we felt more committed than ever that doing our part as an independent bookstore, to provide a platform for conversations like the one tonight, to be a safe space where people can engage in thoughtful, respectful dialogue about the challenges of the larger world. Never before have we felt that mission is important as it is now so we thank you for being part of the conversation tonight and moving forward. Now for our panel, starting to aprils left, youre right if youre in the audience, doctor Mary Frances Berry is one of the wisest speakers in our country about civil rights and social justice. [applause] she has explored each of these issues, as a scholar and educator, chancellor of the university of colorado at boulder, currently the geraldine professor of American Social thought, professor of history at the university of pennsylvania, done so as a lawyer, policymaker and advocate, chairman of the us mission on civil rights, advocating for her cause through four presidencies and receives the Nelson Mandela award fighting apartheid. As a writer and social commentator she is the author of dozens of books, more than a dozen books but who is counting . History teaches us to resist, forthcoming in margin beacon press, please come. We care about local here. And a graduate of howard university. Next up, we have someone local also. Next up, if you dont know who he is you have been in deep slumber for a long time. Virtually every aspect of american life, touched millions of men, women and children across the country, heres how he does it, through sermons, music, plays, movies, conferences, festivals and more. As Senior Pastor of the Potters House and global humanitarian organization, 30,000 Member Church located in dallas and the author of many books including most recently conditions on the ground up, he extends measures of love and compassion, humanity and deep grounding in faith. Also with us tonight, Wesley Lowery is next. I had you in the opposite order. Wesley lowery is a correspondent at the washington post, he has been the papers lead reporter covering black lives matter protest movement, his work has appeared in the boston globe, Los Angeles Times, wall street journal and sports illustrated, his first book was New York Times bestseller they cant kill us all, awarded the 2016 preiser autobiographical pros by the Los Angeles Times book practice it is also an onair contributor at cnn. Last but never least, jason riley jason riler is a senior fellow at the manhattan institute, commentator on fox news on politics, economics, immigration and race. And the most recent book is false black power, and assessment of Race Relations in the obama era. Of course we have, i will say we save the best for last because shes a regular around here. April ryan is the originator of this series and a treasured moderator. Her two books, the presidency in black and white, as many of you know she is Washington Bureau chief, White House Correspondent for american urban radio and cnn commentator, such a veteran White House Correspondent that this saturday she is going to mark her 21st your covering the white house. Last saturday she passed her 21st year and is into her 22nd year. [applause] the Current Administration has been her most challenging but she can answer that better than i can. Regardless of the challenge, it has been challenging for anyone covering the white house, april has won more respect, speaking truth to power and reminding those she covers as well as her Radio Audience that facts matter, evidence matters, character matters and truthfulness matters. Thank you for being here tonight, please join me in welcoming this wonderful panel of journalism. Thank you, lissa muscatine, thank you, brad, give a big thank you to politics and prose for this fifth installment in this race in america series, give them a big round of applause. The reason why i say that is because a lot of people dont have the vision or understanding to see that there is something percolating to the surface. Politics and prose i want to give a shout out to cspan who has been there with us as well. Dont be on your best behavior today. This will be a civil conversation. Civil conversation. We set on all sides of the spectrum, and i want to break twitter tonight on mlk day, i went you to hashtag race in america and if you hear something or see something you like take a picture, give a quote. And put it out there. Mlk day 28 team. I am so thankful to have the panel here. For a time such as this. I am sad today. It is friday. I had to ask a United States sitting president when he signed a proclamation about doctor king, if he was a racist. I am sad today about that but with the pattern that has been going on and the other issues that have been happening globally, this is the Perfect Place to be and for the conversations we have, not only is this the 50th anniversary year of Martin Luther king jr. Two or anniversaries. And anniversary for the Poor Peoples Campaign, and another anniversary, 50 years after the colonel commission report. This is a big year but i think back a couple years ago in barack obama saluting the 50th anniversary of blood he sunday, he took a sepia tone picture of that day and put it up against, today, still looked the same. The economics hasnt changed. Black boys and black girls go to school, still the same. A few weeks ago in december, including selma, alabama, and at the board, the black belt is about the richness of the soil, the richness of the spirit, black people, i look to the fact that selma put jones over the top in alabama. 50 years later, the spirit once changed, but what does that change look like in 2018 and what are the lessons to learn from the past as we move forward, sitting in the now moment. I want to start with Mary Frances Berry who i love sitting at the knee and listening to her wisdom and the stories she tells. She told me a story this weekend i want you to regale it to the crowd. When caretta scott king was alive they use to talk on mlk day and the question was, what was the question . Use your microphone, use your microphone, your microphone. It would be talk about two things. One, talk about what would martin do about whatever was going on . What would martin do . We would talk about it and what would martin say . We would talk about what martin would have said about whatever was going on and this was for years. In between Martin Luther king day depending on what was happening around the world, i ask myself, i came back from speaking in tampa for the Martin Luther king celebration and talked about what martin would do about all this going on and one of the stories, do you want me to tell the story . One time, was the lb gt groups that were wanting to Say Something in favor of the rights of people without regard to sexual orientation. Have said i shouldnt do it. Because thats not my issue, and thats not your issue. Coretta, p tonight do it. But she said dont do it. Now, we have to think about it, what would martin do . And we talked about it. And, of course, martin not only was he a race man and a class man, but he was a human rights man. And he believed in the rights of all people. And i said, thats how we have to think about it. And she said, yeah. She said, so martin would do it. [laughter] i dont care what they said. But she said, i tell you what, if you come down here to atlanta and come can out and stand with me, ill come out and do it. And she said, now, what would martin say . And we talked about that. But that was a story. There were other things over time, but i think one of the load stars lode stars, and i often think about it myself when i am in crisis over some issue of social justice, you know, when we were doing the Free South Africa Movement, we were going to jail every five minutes. We were saying, well, what would martin do, what would he say . And i think thats an appropriate lode star to think about on a day like this. But you also said one of the components, one would be to organize. Yes. One of things that he always would do about issues is to and he learned over time. Thats the other thing. I mean, he wasnt just born with so much wisdom that he didnt need to learn anything. And when he was chosen to be the leader by the people in montgomery in that church because he wasnt born as a leader with a little thing on his belly saying youre the leader he learned when they made mistakes. Like the albany movementing was a Terrible Movement was a terrible failure. There were some failures throughout this, and he would learn. He learned how to strategize, how to organize, how to conceptualize, how to pick targets and how to figure out what you were going to get out of some situation when you were trying to lead the people. Because, as he would tell us, an effective leader is not somebody to who tries to lead the people and you dont sit around and figure out what youre trying to do or what the end result ought to be, you ought to be organized. Its not enough even to be courageous and to be willing to sacrifice. You have to be smart and strategic about what youre doing. And so that, i think, is something we should all learn about what he did and how we go about this resistance that were engaged in at this hour. Leverage and resistance leverage, thats another thing, leverage. I sometimes think that and i said this to the folks in tampa to see what they thought. I said, you know, if i were dick turbine and i was in dick durbin and i was in the white house and the president said whatever he said, i dont know. Youve got two guys who like him who said he didnt and one guy who hates him who says he did and other people running around in circles. [laughter] whatever he said, however he said it, whatever, i have been in the white house and had people have said stuff that they didnt want me to say, and im not going to tell that story. [laughter] but i used it. Leverage. I always think about what martin said about using for the people, for the cause youre concerned with, you know . And i would say do you want me to go out and tell people that you did so and so, or you said so and so . Now, this issue that im trying to deal with that i want you to take care of [laughter] now, if i can get you to take care of that, then, you know, i might forget about what you just said or what you just did. [laughter] you know . If you will do daca for me and shut up [laughter] you know . I might go home. So thats the kind of leverage that i mean. So thats interesting. Bishop jakes, bishop to t. D. Jakes is here in the house. [cheers and applause] i used to watch when he used to go get ready, get ready, get ready, get ready. [laughter] but, you know, bishop jakes, dr. Berry brought in what happened this week. The week started out with the president saying, you know, i want a bill of love. And then it turned to something drastically different. Is this about love . Is this about heart . This whole situation, be it immigration, be it any kind of policy thats on the table, is it about love, or is it just about the numbers and what the economics look like . Well, to me, its first of all, thank you for allowing me to be on this platform. Im way out of my league. But since im here, i may as well Say Something. No, youre not. [laughter] it occurs to me that it is, in fact, about love. But love is hard to legislate. You cant pass an amendment that causes people to love. You can monitor, you can get a person not to say things, but you cant get them not to think them and not to mean them. And i think thats a futile pursuit for us as american people, to try to manage the hearts of people. Only god can do that. Sometimes i wonder if we can even manage our own feelings and emotions. I think that at the end of the day we will not rise and fall on the backs of what one or two people think or say whether it is appropriate or inappropriate. We will rise or fall because we have not corrected failed systems that eat the underbelly of our society. And when you look at those failed systems like the criminal Justice System, like the immigration system, like the Education System that causes underprivileged people and underserved people not to have fair opportunities while this story is titillating and aggravating and a lot of other adjectives that i wont use, i think it is a distraction from the deeper issue that we must get to. Its not about personalities, its about policies. Its about getting policies in place that will really bring about the kinds of change that will cause people to live a better life, that will really affect people who are underserved and dont have the proper opportunities. At the end of the day, we the people define what america is. And we have to take that right back. We live in a society that we have the advantage of all of this technology, and its created an atmosphere whereby we can get information at breakneck speed, and there are pros and cons to that system because, on the other hand, what we think about any issue is governed by who we watch or who we read. And because behind the scenes, behind the wellmeaning producers and journalists like yourself and others, there are profiteers who profit by our fighting. We are consequently fed information that keep us at odds with each other rather than finding common ground. If we could go back to the oldfashioned ways of actually talking to each other and not learning about each other through what we read about each other, we might be able to move the country closer to that love you talked about and closer to what martin would do and closer to what we want for our children and grandchildren and a world that really thinks beyond ratings and sensationalism and pitting one group of people against the other group of people as if were scoring points. Lately what i think were seeing in washington is almost like watching a football game. Its about scoring points rather than caring about people. And it is, in fact, that frustration that has caused people sometimes to make poor choices in who we allow to represent us in this country. And i think that has to change, and we have the power to change that, and that power belongs to every person who has a voice and who makes a vote and casts a ballot. Thank you, bishop jakes. [applause] wes, you are digging into the numbers, the facts, the issues when it surrounds race. Whats key on the table right now . Im listening to bishop jakes, and i watched you nod in agreement. Give us the facts, because there is so much misinformation. I mean, i remember last week i was on a show right after that had happened, and someone was talking about, oh, well, you know, the brown people, the brown immigrants dont bring something to the table, you know . They dont have great education. And we found from the center for American Progress whos done a report, you know, in 2012 and in 2018 that shows that black immigrants actually attain more degrees and higher degrees than any other immigrant group in the nation. So talk to us about how facts matter when it comes to these heart issues. Well, they do. And i wont and i wont suggest that i am the repository of all of the facts either but you got a lot of em. Ive got some of them. [laughter] i do think thats important. I think having conversations in the presence of real information as opposed to in a space where were just making assumptions about each other and about other groups of people, i think, is important. You know, this immigration conversation is indicative of whether there are fundamental ideological disagreements between both our Political Parties and large swaths of the nation. I think thats one of the things thats interesting for me as an observer and, i think, infuriating for many people. This feeling that things were otherwise taken for granted as givens, beliefs that were believed to be shared across the American Experience that, in fact, were more ideological contentious than people believed, right . So much of this immigration conversation has been specifically about what kind of nation are we in terms of who we welcome and who we want coming into our nation. Theres a segment of the American Population that believes we are a shining city on the hill and we should have an open door to the tired and the rundown and the refugee. And theres an ideology as seemingly clumsily expressed by the president and some people close to him that, no, what we want is a highly selective set of people who we are allowing in, and unless you are bringing something we dont otherwise have, why should we let you come to our shores . But, and because of that you can see kind of an opening for people to superimpose whether it be their stereotypes or their beliefs about certain groups of people on to that conversation, right . Again, not to litigate who was in the room and who was not and what version were going to believe, but the comments, you know, that my colleague has reported from that room, you know, suggests the president said, you know, or questioned why we would want refugees and immigrants coming from haiti, from the caribbean islands and from africa. Why would we want black immigrants coming in . Why wouldnt we want more immigrants coming from places like norway . As you noted when you look, you know, black immigrants are increasing percentage of the immigrants coming to the United States of america. One of the largest growing groups of folks who are coming over. While we often have a conversation about immigration as it relates specifically to the middle east and to our brothers and sisters in central and south america, black immigrants are the largest growing group of immigrants coming to the states. They also, after they arrive add you noted, attain Higher Education at rates that surpass, one, what us native americans achieve but, two, higher than any other immigrant group. Beyond that, the Labor Force Participation rates of black immigrants are higher than that of any other immigrant group. Black immigrants are the most likely immigrants to come to america, get a job, pay taxes, be working within our economic system, right . So this is a group of highly productive folks who are coming over, building communities, attaining wealth and contributing to society. Now, again, the politics on that cuts in a lot of different directions. On the one hand, youve got folks who might be inclined to believe that black immigrants would come over and superimpose any number of stereotypes, they must be not hard workers, coming here and not getting jobs. You also have folks who might suggest this is exactly the type of people we dont want. Wait, theyre coming over and getting jobs and working hard . No [laughter] those same statistics can be used in any number of ways depending on your id ideology, how you look at that. Its been an interesting moment because up until this moment in time theres been very little conversation in our political dialogue about black immigrants. So often we assume when we have these conversations were talking about immigration, legal, refugee or otherwise that were talking about, you know, latinos. And so this has been an interesting moment as it relates to that. I Say Something about immigration . I know jason hasnt had a chance to say anything yet. Go ahead. [laughter] on immigration and the stuff that my good friend, i hope to be friend wes, just said. All that is true, and i have been one of the most ardent advocates for both refugees and immigrants going out of my way. Ive been working on haitian refugee issues as long as i could and going there and back and forth and all the rest. And working on aftercab issues. African issues. In point of fact, politically while we might huddle here on the east coast, huddled out on the west coast in california, we might think that having given this factual description of the productivity and creativity and all the rest of it, thats the end of the story. Why politically doesnt that help us on the immigration issue a lot of times . And thats because some people who are in the country would say thats all well and good. I mean, out there in flyover country that i go to a lot. Flyover are those places you fly over when you go to california. [laughter] trumpland. Or. Yeah. They would say, well, thats all well and good, but what about me, you know . I dont have a job, or ive been laid off when im 55, and i dont, you know, theyll tell you that, the workers that i see in some of these places. Especially when im out campaigning for people. And they, what you have to do in policy terms and in terms of the kinds of values you express, this is my belief, you have to talk about ends when you discuss something if you want to win a campaign. You have to talk about, you know, this is great, what he just said, and we we want to continue this, what he just said. Now, on the other hand, i know you dont have a job. Now heres what im going to do for you. But to just leave the people out of the discussion when youre discussing immigration who are, in fact, suffering themselves, i see some people nodding. Arent going to get you those votes out there in flyover country because the people who are suffering, they want to hear what youve got to say about whats going to happen to them. So what we have to learn and its not something i find pleasant either because im, you know, im one of these literatety from the east coast, you know, the academic and so on. But i know that politically and ill just bring it home if the Democratic Party wants to get the support of the white working class, all them people that they used to have and the ones who are feeling deprived in all of these places, you have to talk about them while you talk about the benefits of it. Its even better if you talk about, you know, how many immigrants did you have in your family. Something, youve got to put some context. Do you see what i mean, folks . Youve got to put some context. Text without context is mere what . Free text. [laughter] as brother howard or thurman used to say. I just wanted to add that as sort of a coda politically on what were talking about. Well, thank you. And, jason, i wanted to piggyback off of that because you are you really look to issues that you dont want the government necessarily always in. The Democratic Party doesnt always have an answer. Its about the person, correct . Sure. Yes, yes. On the immigration front though, i think dr. Berry and wes did a very good job of laying out where different people are coming from. I think the president originally, hes been talking out of both sides of his mouth on this issue for a long time, but originally it was about illegal immigration. Thats what weve got to stop. And he had a lot of sympathy from a lot of people. We need to know whos coming into our country. Dangerous people could be smuggling drugs and smuggling weapons of mass destruction in. We need to know whos coming in and out of our country. Borders mean something. Now weve morphed into we have too many legal immigrants. [laughter] and theyre stealing jobs, and theyre guessing wages depressing wages, and we need to crack down on that. An immigrant coming here to take a job means one fewer job for you and me. That is that sort of zero sum mentality that some antiimmigrant folks bring to the discussion. And so i also think dr. Berrys right. When you live on the east coast, you live in very cosmopolitan area, you see people who dont look like you with different backgrounds all the time, this is not typical of a lot of america. And a lot of these immigrants from latin america, you know, the Fastest Growing immigrant populations are in states like arkansas and North Carolina and iowa. And while they may still only make up 5 or 6 of the population, if that, it may have doubled or tripled in the past ten years. And its new to them. And theyre still trying to work it out. And trump has been playing to these anxieties and fears. And i think unfortunately what hes done now though is really poison the well in terms of whats really motivating him. Was it ever really the illegal status . Was it ever really the economic issue . What was it really . And thats what i think people are questioning now. Even his allies on this issue. Who, for them it was one of those other things, but now, wait, i dont want to back someone whos really only talking about this. So when you have someone like this, i mean, hes the president of the United States, but we also have congress, but, you know, from what ive understood and, panel, tell me if im wrong and, audience, tell me if im wrong i believe its about the people. Now, when you hear these things, i mean, back in the day in the 50s and 60s, people would be leveraging and marching and doing something. Strategizing, organizing. But today im watching people on twitter, im watching people on twitter behind emojis. Im not reporting on too much because im not seeing that much out there. So when, when do we see the fact that its about the people more so and what they feel versus the president or congress . Because i saw something the day after inauguration that showed me that numbers and size matters. [laughter] sean spicer, god bless his heart, came to the podium with that illfitting suit screaming [laughter] about the numbers. And i think, am i right . It matters. What you have to do i think twitter is fine. I mean, i even tweet sometimes myself. [laughter] resistance tips, i call it whats your handle . I dont remember. [laughter] but they, but and i know a lot of students and students of mine get all their news off twitter. I dont know how much news you can get off but anyway [laughter] but social medias great because, as you will see in the book that im publishing, when we did all those movements and some of you were in some of them, we didnt have social media, you know . We had to hand out flyers and use mimeograph machines how many of you marched in the 50s and 60s . I want a show of hands. [applause] and we had to call people on the telephone and let the fbi monitor us on the telephone [laughter] have all those records of what we did and so on. But now, you know, you tweet, but some people still think that social media is a substitute for action, and it isnt. Its a way of communicating and a way of getting, gathering people together, but and if you want the media to show you, you have to show up. Thats right. You have to do something. And we forget that. And so whenever youre organizing or whatever youre doing, once you get your people together on the social media and all that, yall got to go somewhere and do something so that the media can cover you. They cant just cover that you did so many tweets. I mean, they can say that we all like the president , because every tweet is something spectacular. Right. Right, and thats because hes president. And the other thing is that you have of to disrupt the president is a disrupter, by the way. Thats what hes doing, hes disrupting our own lives. Even if you try to ignore him, you cant. But, in fact, when you are in a movement and when youre trying to make change and you should be doing something besides just trying to elect candidates. I mean, you should organize around the issues. Ive always organized around the issues, a policy i want to change or something i want to i want to get sanctions against south africa, i want to get jobs, Public Service jobs for people in x community, or i want to increase the education budget by x percentage, or i want ada passed or whatever it is i want. I have always organized around specific issues, and i have been persistent along with all of my people who are all of us together. And i tell you, if youve not done that, you ought to try it because this is no greater theres no greater high than you can get. Its better than marijuana or [laughter] cognac or whatever it is. [laughter] all right, now. All right, now. Being with brothers and sisters sleeping on the floor, going to jail and doing what martin did. When im in jail, i teach the people in the jail, you know . [laughter] i see, i see it. Getting high now just talking about it. [laughter] but you have to do something in order to be covered, okay . [applause] this is what im talking about. Wisdom on the stage, its just amazing. Bishop jakes, when dr. King organized, galvanized, only 4 of black churches supported him. Only 4 say it again, say yep loud. Yep. Yep. Only 4 of black churches supported him. That was 50, 60 years ago. Talk to me about the church. I know, i know, as it relates to social change. And social change, thats right. In 2018. You know, i sit in a very unique position. I was sitting here thinking to myself because i was raised in west virginia, so im one of those flyover states. I grew up in one of those states you flew over on your way to l. A. [laughter] i grew up in west virginia. I have, my mothers from alabama and mississippi, so i have a really deep and abiding understanding of why civil rights was important. She was raised with cover9 relate that scott coretta scott. I have a really good feel and a sense of who i am as it relates to ethnicity. But because im a faith leader, i also have a lot of friends who are rightwing conservative who run the television stations and the radio stations and write the books who have different ideas from my own and different ideas from my congregation. And i listen and a lot of people talking about a lot of things, and it occurs to me those flyover states, those rust belt states as they were really are complaining about the same things that people in the inner city are complaining about. One, people are not being heard. And out of that frustration, they need somebody to blame. And so its easy to say the reason im in trouble is because of this group or that group thats coming in when, in reality, that is not the problem. M and so we demonize individuals as opposed to issues. And its the issues that i think we really need to come together on in order to be able to solve, because both groups are saying there are no jobs, there are poor opportunity, theres an increase of drugs, crime, violence and something needs to change in america. Now, we totally disagree about what that is that needs to change, but we all know that something needs to change. And i find it quite ironic that many of the people who voted for president obama are the same people who voted for President Trump. I dont understand that, but [inaudible conversations] it was change. I think that is precisely what im getting at. President obamas democrat, President Trump was republican. I wont even point out all the obvious differences between the two leaders. We could be here all day. I could make a good sermon out of that. [laughter] be that as it may, there is one thing that both of them promised, and that was change. And i think that im concerned as we are here again at the crossroads of opportunity and being staggered and sometimes distracted by individuals. We had eight years of a democratic leadership with republicans screaming about health care and their disagreement about obamacare, and then when they got the wheel, did not have a plan to take over. It all and now we are here again complaining about trump, but im not sure that democrats are developing a plan for leadership. [applause] and what bothers me about it, it reminds me of a dog running down the street chasing a car never thinking i cant drive if i catch it. [laughter] yeah. What happens when i do get the wheel . Do i have a plan . Do i have a strategy [laughter] you know . You know . So the dog just chases the car. I mean, hes running as fast as he can never thinking, i cant drive. And im wondering today are we chasing a car without a strategy to drive . I think what america really wants to hear from anybody they dont even care what you call yourself, and thats obvious by the trends in voting. The Republican Party that we see today is not the Republican Party that we saw under president george bush. And we dont really have adequate words to describe us as people move from one state into the other and from one class into the other. You, the predictable words that we use to describe ideologies and concepts are no longer applicable. Many, many republicans dont recognize the Republican Party they find themselves in now. And same thing is true with democrats. So were at a quagmire here that i think is quite interesting. And i think what weve been talking about is spot on when we really start dealing with issues and policies as opposed to individuals and politics. I think that if we get down to the issues that, in fact, we have a country that has stopped manufacturing, stopped producing producing one because of technology and one because we have shipped a lot of the jobs away. If the jobs do come back, theyre not the jobs that left. And we have a class of people who could not ascend into the Upper Echelon of society by virtue of failing Education Systems, who fell into the quagmire who were not originally poor, but are first generation poor people. And shocked to find themselves with the same sociological ills that are going on in the inner city. The good part about it is, is if those same trends are true in the rust belt states that were seeing in the inner city, maybe we will not allow the blackness of the inner city to stop us from solving the problems so that people of all areas can have a better life. [applause] bishop, does the church play a role . Does the church wait, let me get that, then you can wait with, let me get that. I got it. The church does the church play a role . Yes, the church does play a role, but the church is not monolithic. This notion of the church suggests that yeah, what is that . What does that mean . You sing Amazing Grace what does that mean . I just love ghana, and i was at the slave castles where they were singing Amazing Grace as they were waiting for the slaves to depart. What does it mean when we say church . What does it mean, and what does that role mean in the 21st century . Now, every church is different. Our church has taken on we have not done any marches. What we have done are taking on criminal justice. What we have done is fought for reform, and what we have done is to take 10,000 formerly incarcerated inmates through an intensive Training Program to reduce the rate of recidivism and open up Job Opportunities so that they can have a better life wow, thats great. So that they can move forward, so that they can get things done. [applause] the other component i want to quickly say is i think the church can be strategic. I think the church, along with elected officials, is important. And thats an ageold push and pull weve been having a long time. But what we have left out of the conversation is companies, industries, ceos. And i think that that is a very needed leg of support that has to be included in this conversation. Because if we do not include them in the conversation, theyre the ones that do the hiring. They are the ones who do the hobbying, and they are the ones who really control the politicians. And we have to develop a [inaudible] that stops us from pointing from one to the other. The notion that is popular amongst the conservative people that the government shouldnt take care of the poor people, the church should, just doesnt add up. If you took all of the income of all of the churches and put it all together, we would all be bankrupt in a month trying to take care of the prescriptions and Health Care Needs and feeding and clothing people. It just doesnt work. And secondly, its not right, because why would you take my taxes and then not provide some services when i actually need them . [applause] you understand what im saying . So while the church works with 10 of a few peoples income and the government [inaudible] works with 40 of everybodys income, i dont think we ought to let them off the hook quite that easy. Im not lobbying for people to live off of the government. Please hear me good, i am not saying that. But this notion whereby we give the government a pass and say that the church is going to do it if you take a calculator and you put it to work, you will find out that will not work. We can play a part yeah, but the church we can do a part, we do do a part, but we cannot assume the weight of the level of poverty we have in this country and effectively solve the problem. We just it just doesnt add up with numbers. And its also true that the church, bishop, the church has a moral responsibility to do something aside from what the taxpayers religious people who are truly religious, whatever their religious faith happens to be, they know that they have a moral responsibility to be concerned about the least of these in our society. And that whatever the government does, doesnt do and we should pressure the government to use our tax money the way we want them to be used but i myself, i believe, i believe i have a moral responsibility to care for the least of these to the extent that i can. And i think that every church, to be a church and to be a religion, the major religions that i know about there is a concern and caring about doing what you can absolutely. And also inspiring people to behave, if youre a christian in a christlike manner, if youre to not a christian, in a godlike manner. Whatever religion you have, to behave in a way that expresses your empathy for the poor and your concern about them. So of course you couldnt take care humanity. Of all the poor people in the world i get what youre saying. Martin was a human rights man. Let me respond to that part of it, because my mind is not as big as yours, and i cant remember that long. [laughter] okay . I absolutely agree with you. I have absolutely no issue with it at all. But for the sake of clarity, what you defined as moral obligation, morality is based on what you are being taught. In some sectors morality seems to be around bedroom issues exclusively. [inaudible] and so consequently they think that theyre being moral, they think that theyre being moral to fight for the issues that they have been taught. In other circles they exclude those issues altogether and focus primarily on taking care of the poor, and thats how they define morality. This is why when you Start Talking about religious institutions and the freedom thereof, you have to do it to understand the fact, within the prism of the fact that were not morn listic. Monolithic. So when all faith leaders sit down together, we dont agree any better than congress. [laughter] i hate to tell you that. Thats very bad. And while there have always been voices who said that we should have a moral obligation to take care of the poor and everybody would say amen across the board. When it comes to actually really taking action and getting things done, that is not what every congregation hears on sunday morning. And what we are saying and it is obvious by the rightwing support that exists for this Current Administration that many, many institutions justify the ends regardless of the means. And thats why Martin Luther king, since this is his day, was kick9 occupant of the kicked out of the Baptist Convention and why the progressive pastors started the progressive Baptist Convention. Because they divided on the question of whether we have a moral obligation to be concerned about the rights of people that are discriminated against and poor people as our major focus. They kicked them out because they were activists on this question. Go back and read your history. With yeah. And they had to start the progressive Baptist Organization just on that issue. Okay. I was trying to give you your mic, im sorry. Oh. I want people to hear. When you Start Talking about progressives and national baptists, those are both black organizations. What we need is for this issue to leap beyond black churches and thats where oh, i agree. It has to be. If the church has a role to play, it cant, that role cant start by the color of skin. And the reason we are having this problem is that the church is still, in honor of dr. King, as divided at 11 00 as it was in 1960. So when you say the church, it fends on what room you say it depends on what room you say it in, what image erupts from it. Do you understand what im saying . Thats the facts. Thats just the way it is. All right, guys, are you enjoying this discussion . Are you hashtag . Keep on doing it. [applause] now i want to bring in wes and jason. Let them keep going. [laughter] no, but no, no, no. I mean, you have wes who both jason and wes understand the issues in the black community. But jason feels that the onus should not be on government to really deal with ills. The african lets just start with the Africanamerican Community. The Africanamerican Community still has the highest numbers of negatives in almost every category in this nation in 2018. Everything thats bad, we got more of. Yes. Everything thats great we got less of. [laughter] so where does the onus wes and jason, whichever one wants to go first, i want both of you to answer, wheres the onus for this . Some people fall through the cracks and just cant get out. Oh, sure, sure. I think the i draw my conclusion based on the governments poor track record. I mean, look at where we are since the Great Society programs, since this war on poverty started. How much improvement have we seen . What is the track record here . And whats working . Whats not working . [inaudible] we doubling down, are we just on the same strategies or do we need to try something new . We are honoring king today, and one of the things i always think about on this day is the progress that blacks are making notwithstanding the rampant open deadly racism that existed in society. Dr. Berry talked about the what would king do question. I think he would be completely unfazed by donald trump. [laughter] i do. I think he would say, you know, i had to deal with that, i had to deal with my bull connors, i had to deal with people with these attitudes. And, frankly, i think when i see trump more of a indifference at the base of what hes doing. More so than animosity. I see a man who has real, no real interest in uniting the country. I dont think he sees any plus in that for whatever hes trying to do. And so he is just completely indifferent and says these things out of indifference more than anything else. I dont know that theres a grand strategy there. So wait a minute if there is, i cant accept it. Im going to challenge you on that indifference piece, and im just going to and im not saying it is, im not saying its not. But the naacp, you say indifference, but thats track record of indifference d. Yes. Or things said that do not sit well with certain communities. The naacp says, and i want you all to write this down, the definition of a racist this is from the nations oldest Civil Rights Organization the definition of a racist is racial prejudice and power combined or the intersection of both. Think about it. When racial prejudice and power intersect. So finish. Sure. And thats why i get back to king and what he was able to accomplish and what blacks were accomplishing in the 40s, in the 50s. If you look at the metrics from black white differences in home ownership, in income, in poverty, in educational attainment, these were narrowing during this period of open and rampant racism in this country. His attitude seemed to be that, you know, the racism is going to be the constant. We cant let that stop us. We have to achieve what we need to achieve notwithstanding the racism. I once wrote a column a few years ago quoting king and something he said to a black congregation in st. Louis. This would have been in the late 50s, i believe. And he said something to the effect of and this gets a little bit into the morality of church and the thinking back then. He said something to this black congregation like we are 10 of the population in st. Louis but responsible for 58 of the crimes. We need to do something about that. We need to do something about our morality. We cant keep blaming the white man. There are problems in the white world, but there are problems in the black world too, you know . We have to change the way we think and feel about these subjects. And after i used the quote, some people write in to the wall street journal accusing me of making it up. And what struck me about this was two things. One, in this day and age of google, you can easily find the source of any quote [laughter] and this one happens to come from a 1961 profile of king in harpers magazine written by james baldwin, of all people. But the second thing that struck me is that we now have a generation of people who find it very hard to believe that civil rights leaders used to speak this way. And what king said was not uncommon for the period. Malcolm x could have said that. Thurgood marshall could have said that. People behind the scenes, Bayard Rustin could have said that, and they did say things like this quite regularly. But today it didnt sound right. Jason [inaudible] jason, what you just said, which is true, and i read your piece when you first did it, what you just said is not an answer to the question about what government does or what anybody else does. You can be concerned about crime in the community and you can talk about it and we all talk about it, but you can be concerned about crime, but that doesnt mean that you dont understand that there are structural discrimination no, no. What im talking about is [inaudible conversations] that you had a time when i think that king thought that there was a role for the government to play oh, okay. And equal treatment under the law and so forth, and that was what he was fighting for. But there was also a role for the community. For the community yeah, absolutely. We all know that. [inaudible conversations] the community has a they were a twofold effort. All right. We all believe that, dont woe . Yes, we do. All right. [laughter] yes, we do. I love dr. Berry. Go ahead. [laughter] wes, you know, wheres the onus . I mean, were having this discussion here, you know, theres still the highest numbers of negatives in every category for black america, and were trying to figure out who takes responsibility for it. Well, and i think that there are, you know, i think some of the difficulty in this conversation sometimes for me as a journalist, as a reporter, all right, primarily focused on accountability reporting there is, its relatively futile and also, in fact, relatively impossible for me to show up in a community and conclude exactly who in in this community i need to hold accountable and how do i go about doing that. I can go to a neighborhood in baltimore and interview a bunch of people and talk to a bunch of folks. The function, the function of the tool that i am equipped with i am best equipped to hold power, government, structure, organization accountable for what it is and is not doing, right . That doesnt erase a conversation happening in communities and also, frankly, i think we have to be clear that in most communities, these exact conversations are happening. Sure. That youre going to be hard pressed to find people who believe the black community has a role to play in this, who thinks more strongly than black people. [laughter] the in fact, i cannot give anyone who thinks my problems are more my fault than my father does, right . [laughter] and his mother and father being, playing that role for him, right . And those and i think sometimes that gets lost from this conversation. I think the black community is as hard on itself as anyone is. But i do think there is a question, and theres the question of what is the role of government. I do think its important to assess and hold to account Government Programs that have been put in place, ask real questions about their effectiveness and also to point out their failures when they have failed. I think that has to be partnered with a true analysis of to what extent have we fully in good faith attempted to solve only of these some of these problems or have not. If my pipes are leaking and the duct tape doesnt work, i dont say, well, i guess i cant fix the pipes. [laughter] i figure out then maybe i should call a plumber, right . You keep thinking about additional solutions. You dont then conclude, well, fixing the pipes isnt the way to do this, right . But i think that beyond that, you know, and i think kings interesting here because he gets evoked in a lot of different waitings. Hes very often e ways. Hes very often evoked in ways that i think can strip him of, in many ways, the the raw and radical beliefs that he held for his time and even for this moment. He believed the government needed to pay reparations to black america. Absolutely. Among his last clap if you want to. [applause] its only a few people clap. Thats interesting. Go ahead. You know, among his last campaigns was dealing with housing redlining in chicago, right . And so i think that we, you know, and these are conversations we are still having in terms of what is the governments role, one, to address these types of systemic just because black people could vote and they stopped and were no longer being lynched every day it was more of a rare occasion, it did not mean that werent other structural or [inaudible] my former colleague at the boston globe did a series earlier this year about race in boston. And one of the lines that stuck out to me or one of the findings that stuck out to me was that in the city of boston the net worth of the average white family is over 900,000. 200,000. The net worth of the average black family in the city of boston is 8. No. 8 . 8. Like 8. Like 7 then 8. Correct. [laughter] like if you have a 10 bill, take 2 away. The now, now do employment rates factor into that . Certainly. Does education factor into that . Certainly. But the thing about wealth is wealth is accumulated over time, right . Inequalities facing my grandparents then set my father and his siblings back a step in terms of a competition which then set we me back in terms of competition. And thats not to say there cant be things and the response to that cant be, well, but oprahs rich so, clearly, there arent any problems, right . [laughter] there will always be people who overcome and outpace the average within a group. But i think, so i think thats something weve got to focus on as well when you look at things like wealth accumulated over time, you see folks who are and, again, you cant divorce that from housing and real estate policy, that for generations of americans their equity and their net worth came from their houses, their homes. Thats right. And when you have and that is where it also, you know, i think sometimes in conversations about race we want to litigate peoples one, we can become a little legalistic about is this person technically a racist, and theres some futility in that conversation. But beyond that, i think we want to, sometimes we want to litigate or we want to set aside the way that individual attitudes of people have real life policy and reality impacts. The, one study thats really interesting lookeds at what individuals looks at what individuals believe a diverse neighborhood is. And black americans believe that if they live in a community where they make up 40 of the neighborhood, maybe 50 , that that can be relatively diverse, right . Black americans are used to operating in spaces where they are in some relative minority and are fine with that. White americans that, once their neighborhood becomes once there are 3 in 10 of the people in the neighborhood are black theyre gone. Theyve got to go. Theyre gone. So what you see, and this cuts across education, you see the resources that get sucked out of School Systems that as they begin to diversify and as neighborhoods begin to diversify, you see them sucked off the neighborhoods in terms of who is living in those neighborhoods. And that deprives people of the resources that come with these communities. When you have a community that begins to diversify and, again, beginning to diversify meaning two black people live on your block, not just one, and now your tax base is that because the White Americans with accumulated wealth, with net worth are moving a suburb further out or two suburbs further out. What youre seeing is black americans are being denied the collective and communal benefits of living in these neighborhoods the way that their white peers would have been previously. Wow. Let me just jump in for a second yes. Because i think that feeling and that attitude is really at the bottom of what were talking about when were talking about immigration. Because the reality is america is waxing brown. And i think that scares a lot of people to death. Theres no place left to move. So either we have to learn how to get along with people who are different than us and live in a world where we dont, where no particular group enjoys the privileges that comes from being the majority and we really have to have a shared democracy, or we have to fight to keep people out because too many brown and black people are moving into the neighborhood we call america. Yeah. And i think at the bottom of it all is a deep, hidden fear of the loss of control. Yeah. Well, thats always, but thats the history of the country. But we werent always waxing brown. No, but the fear the fear was there, yeah, i get it. Benjamin franklin was complaining about too many germans moving into pennsylvania in the 1750s. [laughter] well, let me say this and that is just something, and its interesting trumps choice of country was very interesting in what he wanted where he preferred people to come. Because if you go back to the debates of the early 1900s with the madisons and grants of the world who had divided the world into the nordic people which he considered the scandinavian countries and southern people or mediterranean people. So to him, you know, everyone from southern italy, yards were all spaniards were a different race of people. The irish were a different race of people. And when they came over to this country, you look at the political cartoons written, drawn back in the turn of the 20th century depicting irish people as looking like apes and so forth, this has been the history of america. And youre right, this latest, the latest group of immigrants to get it are typically the hispanics because theyre the biggest wave right now. Yeah. But theyre not different. Theyre just newer. But let me give you guys some facts. We are now seeing the majority of babies born are minority in this country. The shift is happening. Michael steele, former head of the Republican National committee, told me and this is his feeling. He said this administration has an issue with the browning of this nation. He said this immigration piece is trying to control the browning of the nation. Thats what im saying. Thats what Michael Steele said, the former head of the rnc. You can go ask him. Google it. [laughter] but remember Something Else, and Michael Steele should too well, wait a minute, i want you to hold that for a minute. This is our favorite part of the show. Oh, youre going to let come to the mic, and now you can talk. Hashtag race in america. Come to the mike. Civil discussion. And dont let me cut you off if you get out of, if we go in a, veer in another direction. Civil discussion on this peaceful mlk day 2018. Are you enjoying this . Yes. [applause] one of the great things about politics prose, the diverse crowd. And i just thank you all so much for sitting and listening and sharing. I want to hear when you have to say. Now, yes, dr. Berry. All i was going to say we should remember, and Michael Steele should remember, that the browning of america, whatever color americas going to because you get a majority in the country of people of color, that doesnt mean that they will have the power. Ask the south africans. [laughter] just remember that. Thats a very theres something about power. You see why we have this amazing panel up here today . And with our first question from a friend who comes to all of these sessions. Yes. [laughter] i have been to all of them and, again, thank you. And im going to behave, liss saw and brad lissa and brad so that they wont have to doctor up the youtube thing. But thank all of you. [laughter] thank all of you for editing. Ill put it that way, thats a nice way of saying. Dr. Berry, i want you to repeat about your book, because when we were last year here, you said you pretty much decided to never write another book, but you felt the need as we were talking to you and pleading with you to write about resistance. Is that what you are bringing out . I hope so. Right. I had planned to never write another book. Its too much trouble. Ive written too many books. [laughter] and i said i probably dont even have any ideas. And when i was here i inspired you . We did not you, the people. You too. It was my session. And i went away and thought about it. Then my editors called me up and said youve got to write a book about the history of resistance. Because you know what works and what doesnt, and it has to be the movements you have been in, which ive been in everything from the vietnam war, antivietnam. I was a reporter in vietnam one summer when i was in college. Lied my way into vietnam. But anyway [laughter] they, Free South Africa Movement which hasnt been written about in the way that it should be written about and all the protests against reagan and all that stuff. They said you gotta write about that. I said, im not writing about it. And then i asked all my friends, some of who were here, and everybody said, write it. I said i dont even know enough to write it. And i sat down and started writing, and it worked, and very good. Because you are an excellent teacher. You guys should come out, and well talk about it. History teaches us to resist next month here, politics prose. Thank you. I have one question [inaudible] i do. I must say this because i am, no, i am a christian, and i pray daily. And i also was a volunteer at resurrection city in the Poor Peoples Campaign 50 years ago, okay . And continue to do that kind of work. Race matters, words do matter. And i say this for all of the panel. And if one more individual i think im going to puke makes excuses for the president of the United States and what comes out of his mouth, i am sick of it, you know . The time has come to Say Something, to speak out about it and to do something about it. And when the leadership of the right, im talking about the president of Liberty University and you know who all of these people are, when they rise to defend him again and again and again, we know the history as you said of this country. If we go back to the end of slavery and reconstruction and jim crow, it all is repeating itself. We love the question. Yeah. Do we let that happen again, or do we stand, do we fight, do we resist, do we do something . I mean, all of us. Thank you. Are you asking me . Yes. Okay. [laughter] because we all are praying, you know in. Thank you. We all are praying, but beyond the praying. Thank you for the question. Thanks. Go on, bishop jakings. Yeah. I think when you disagree with something, you absolutely need to speak out. I think many times religious leaders live in a false reality, and if you dont make them aware that you disagree with their support going to that extreme, whether its extreme right or left, then people never challenge their own ideas. Unfortunately, we live in a society that allows us to live in a vacuum and a chosen blindness. So that a we only interact with people who think like us, act like us and dress like us. And it gives us the luxury of willful blindness on any issue. Social media does create a platform through which other people can have access to comment, but in short to answer your question, i think you absolutely should speak out when theres something you dont agree with. Thats what being an american is all about. The question then becomes does your speaking out change their position. And im doubtful because in those circles many, many conservative people hold their nose when it comes to donald trump. However, they are feeling as though that as long as they get the right appointment on the Supreme Court justice and as long as it moves their agenda along, then the ends justifies the means which is what it meant when i said that what i meant when i said that, okay . So there is not contention, its not that theres not disputing, and its not that theres not disagreement, but the justification both with very conservative religious people as well as amongst some ceos who were fighting for lower business taxes, it wasnt that they had agreed with his egregious remarks, but it was in fact as long as i yet what i want out of it, ill put out up with what i dont want. That seems to be the pervasive attitude that has caused america to enter into such a quagmire that were in right now. Were doing the very thing that we teach our children not to do, that you dont get up by any means necessary, that you do have a certain level of integrity and certain lines you do not cross even if you agree with certain people on certain issues. You call them out when you think theyre wrong. That silence is indicative of the fact that we have an increasing amount of people in this country who feel like as long as you get done what i want done, ill look the other way, because that other part doesnt affect me, finish. Thank you so much. And Frederick Douglass said power gives up nothing without resistance, without a fight, without demand. Thank you. Yes, next, please. Thank you. Im a come close. Can you hear me now . Yes. Trump and what is happening in washington because that is where we are but actions matter here. People at grassroots are kicking butt. Those two kids in alabama who went to counties the dnc hadnt heard of and 30 counties, those are the people that are going to win this. I would like you to respond, the role of governments policy in the past, but i dont see how we are going to get rid of trump without supporting people at the grassroots. That goes back to the onus issue. A lot of this is grassroots. The grassroots will take control. Also, that is the only time a Communications Director of the national aclu, the communications specialist. That i want to say about it is she is right. And local organizations out of the country instead of supporting national organizations. And give them health and support and props. They work all the time on issues, they wont go with candidates. They know about the state legislature and this or that. The grassroots folks, the Democratic Party is locked out, at the grassroots, the parties so decimated in all of those. And on policy. I was thinking about what jake was talking about. The democrats i have or the policy, i hadnt thought about that. When republicans came out with their tax bill i kept thinking where are the democrats tax bill . Where is that tax bill . They introduce a tax bill and get behind that or whatever it is and they didnt have one. It was to object to Different Things that were in the republican tax bill and save the tax is all right now, we dont have to change. You have to change it. People feel there should , when there are big policy things. They said go against whatever. In any kind of sport you have to have offense and defense. Cant just attack what somebody else is doing. Organize around issues, letting the grassroots flower, supporting people at the grassroots, not only on the political policy issues but on issues like criminal justice reform, helping poor women who are drug addicted, have children and have been in the criminal Justice System and coming out, all types of organizations around the country in towns and cities and new orleans and savannah, and arkansas and so on. Help them, the grassroots where the power is and where the opportunity is. I have a question to follow up on the action of the role the black community serves in the movement, i am from a very Baptist Community and arkansas and a lot of the problems i have with the administration, and a black jerk black church as well, to be passengers in the churches. We talk about that as the president constantly has opportunities to be judgeds and secretaries, talking about sexuality and not allowing the community the same representation in church. I wonder what the socially conservative values predicated on exclusion to some extent. What road can the black church serve to make sure we are not perpetuating those as well . [applause] there may be similarities but there is a distinct difference which i dont have to go to your church but i have to live in your country. When it comes to public policy, it has a different tenor to it. It has to protect our rights to disagree, have our own preferences, our own ideologies because we are americans and it has to be, it has to design itself in such a way to be inclusive of all people. When it comes to church and church today in the 21st century you can log online and get a license, and develop an ideology and call it a doctrine. There is no prevailing voice to control whether you teach or preach as a leader so whatever you agree the church needs to move forward on, you can start tomorrow and go the other way and have authority over him. I wouldnt necessarily say some communities to the southeast are exclusive from what happened outside the church but what teachers tell you in school as well. Is there any responsibility for the church to make sure people in the community conceal welcome even if not going to beach same church . I get your point and it varies from church to church. There will be different opinions based on theology. We have a lot of people, i want to give to every last one. Lets make the questions quick and succinct, no opinion, just give me your question. I dont want to be Sarah Huckabee sanders. I see you shaking your head, okay . Stop shaking your head, he is gone, god bless. I would like to know the panels thoughts on democratic socialism. I think doctor king was probably a socialist. Democratic socialism, who wants to take that . What doctor king said about it. Unregulated capitalism, was supposed to be unregulated capitalism, in the interest of the common good. And socialism, would also be bad. A combination of regulated capitalism and socialism. Im a black immigrant and here to represent what they said. I came with the case 15 years ago, in the city. On behalf of all the africans is we should stay vigilant and think about what was said. And the racial tension, in my opinion has become in money we trust. If you come from a rich country, we are here today, what you are able to do with your self. What do we do to reclaim the soul of america . In money we trust. I dont propose to know what was in the mind of the person making the statement. There is more involved in it in black and white. It is the money of attitude and respect, not respect people who dont. There is an economic component of the conversation that has got swallowed up by race, you are spot on in the fact that most wealthy people have a tendency to respect wealthy people. That conversation and the way it was phrased is a reflection of the disrespect and disregard for other forms of wealth that exist outside of money. One of the things after many trips back and forth to africa, i just came back from a tour with five countries, i have developed a deep appreciation for other types of wealth, culture and other things that exceed not just africa but around the world, and i do we are so consumed that we trust more in finances than anything else. I think it is, really goes down seriously to the core of how we raise our children. Values espoused across the pulpit the pulpit only reaches certain demographic, values, how you raise your children, what you teach them is important and that is how we change it every time, every mother, every father, teaching them what matters. We need to hear from you. 50 years after he died i am wondering what your hopes are, some important parts of this story and message you hope to see emphasized, where are the pitfalls about how the message is used that are important to avoid. There was an oped posted by a website on the lines, dont politicize mlk, his message is unity. Sometimes as a temptation because he has been claimed by everyone to mlk is less popular than donald trump, he was never involved in the campaign or series of protests that were popular. Of up to a popular vote, bus boycotts, no sit ins at the counters, what the administrator should want to happen. And because of Martin Luther king fought for were widely unpopular with the american populace and had to be earned with blood, sweat and tears. We like to believe in a cartoon character version of Martin Luther king that did not exist and was not who he was or what he was. The common attack on him at the time was he was a communist. When we look what he believed in terms of foreign policy, labor, Martin Luther king could be described as a maybe communist, labor organizer. Many of the people who now claim and coopt his legacy, name and words, this is the type of person they would be denouncing in contemporary politics. It is important to remember that. There are contemporary conversations we are having, dont have to squint your eyes to see where Martin Luther king might stand on these things, people who dress themselves in his name and likeness when they are in contradiction, you think about the firestorm around professional athletes protesting, and many of the same people are upset by that, posting quotes from Martin Luther king. You look at many of the people who are upset about disruptive protests, black lives matter, shutting down the highway in the city, raising their voice during a play, and people are upset by that and posting mlk quotes, clearly have not read a letter from birmingham jail, specifically for disruptive protests, the way we do this is we inconvenience even to paying attention, otherwise we would be waiting forever for you to listen to us. We think, this is not just on the political spectrum but a debate in the Democratic Party right now about the future of the Democratic Party, to what extent it should be courting people described as white moderates. The same letter from birmingham jail has choice words about the role of white moderates and whether they were in fact people specifically impeding the progress of White America even more so than those we like to think the writings of king were so longago and distant, very germane to our contemporary conversations but that is harder. It is harder to vote for an invasive ruler if you know and believe what doctor king thought about foreign conflict, harder to oppose your union when you know he was a labor organizer. We need to collectively look at what his actual policies and policy solutions were. If we are going to collectively once a year get together until fairytales about who he was. Thank you so much. [applause] i want to address a part of the question you didnt talk about, the gentleman who has the question, where would you go from here . The whole issue, there are many issues to be addressed at systemic racism as opposed to white sheets and burning crosses is the issue of debate. I grew up with the third bathroom and all of that is now gone. Invisible enemy threaten the future of our community that i would love to see addressed and one of them right at the height of it i cannot stress how important it is referring to criminal justice. People incarcerated with nonviolent crimes and pleabargaining and corruption that exists in the criminal Justice System helping to destroy families, is destroying families, leaving women to raise children alone and without fathers and more contemporary steps without mothers. Until we go back and fix some of the things considering some of the people who are incarcerated in jail are incarcerated for marijuana uses, crimes that the law has changed and the judge joined an area where if you put somebody in jail for it, our criminal Justice System hasnt caught up with the 21st century and our families are suffering for it and it is a new form of slavery. We need to address it and that is what i would like to see. Hashtag race in america. I want to thank you for having this. It has been very helpful. I have a concern im not sure can be answered but i would like you to think about. We are clearly aware the stock market is going crazy it seems and corporations are making lots of money, lots of profit and with that profit and money they tend to be influencing our government and our society in humongous ways. Often times with crimes and people being convicted they move in the wrong direction, not doing the wrong things. People we tend to hold accountable in the media are usually the ceo, the corporate leader. I would like us to think about the board of directors. It is the board of directors that once profits and to support these ceos to go after things, they give the directions but they stay behind the scenes and quietly doing them and they have responsibilities. Is there a way to look at the board of directors in significant boards, what do they do the change direction of the corporation rather than blame a ceo and fire him and move on. Activism. Activism. I think he wantss and answer. Everything people talked about in the last few questions can be influenced by activism. Whatever the church is doing or whatever you can have activism in the church. The church goes in the direction you want if it is not engaged in activism. If you want to change what the corporation does, the board of directors, to stop dealing with south africa. And closed down shell oil headquarters, closed it down, okay . There is activism around that too. And who is on the board, that is activism. They could be our allies and need to be made accountable and recognized. I want to quickly recognize i appreciate the god of abraham, isaac and jacob for bringing this event, allowing my husband and myself to be among everyone here and i want to thank politics and prose for having this. My uncle used to bring me here and share it with his children. It serves as an example hopefully in other communities, there are places to have dialogue and civil conversation around topics a really hot. Thank you for that. You mentioned the topic of race in america and what does it look like going forward. And if it were changed to the nationality in america, because race can limit or define, i identify myself as an israelite, part by way of the transatlantic slave trade. How can i be part of this conversation. The other question i want to ask about activism, it is beautiful. There is no greater high. We do volunteer work in the prison on a regular basis and working with women, teaching, parenting because the restructuring of family is going to make a difference as we repair the generational curse of the dysfunction and i want to ask you about a lot of questions. Can we leave it there . A lot of people, 20 minutes. One more. You mentioned trump and the issue with trump. Trump, i want to find out, we talked about trump. We need as being a strategy towards the surprise strategy of things he is doing for illegal immigration, illegal immigration and being a surprise. I know some of the pastors and christian organizations have pretty much, there was some support for trump at a point. I wanted you to give us an update where that might stand, not that you speak for all the if there is any insight you can give for the collaborative support. I am so thankful for politics and prose and the owners, i am sure we can incorporate may i Say Something . Dont say that. This program, where did she go . This is not about only black people coming to talk about the question of their own race and everyone here is of a particular race. It is about discussing the issue of race in america. Anybody can come and discuss the issue and race is an issue in america . It has race is americas original sin. Madison and jefferson both said that. It remains an unresolved problem. There are other problems too. We talked in these last five programs, a wide swath, i take that into consideration. I hear you when you say you are a black israelite. [inaudible] i appreciate that but i will say this to you. And this time, when people see you the first thing they see is color and then they see your gender. I know what you told me and you profess what you are. People dont see that. They see you as a black woman and that is the issue of race in america. I hear you. It is sad. You are not an individual, we are not who we are in the eyes of the people who see us. We are once you walk in front of some people you are black and then you are a woman and you are a double whammy. I am serious. Charlie chisholm, the first black woman to run for president of the United States in 1972, that is what she said. Should i do it . As best i can tell, by and large, primarily the Largest Group of white evangelicals seem to be very supportive of donald trump. That support is felt even though it is waning to a different degree. You can still see it and they make up a big part of his base. He does not go to church. He went for christmas. I am serious, he doesnt. The vast majority of africanamericans dont prescribe to that level of support. And he doesnt have a pet. By and large they dont. I am serious. I see him in church twice, it is not even a year yet. Stop, doctor barry, yes. If i might, the issue of race, the way it is treated is fundamentally a question of wealth, power, privilege and survival. Here is the problem. It is not just race that is an issue but a generational thing, talking how in the 40s and 50s the disparity between black and white families was not that great. In the 60s in 70s it was closer than it is now. One thing that changed is the way earnings work. People now or in less, if we adjust for productivity and inflation minimum wage would be 26 an hour instead of 7. 25. The current generation that is coming up in that dont have the resources to feel secure in their own survival to step out and protest at risk losing their jobs, spent time in prison knowing they wont get another one. Not just on the panel but those over 40 generally, how do we engage the rest of you . That really hurt. Before we get upset about the age thing. It is not being an elderly, that was the last point you can earn a wage that would allow you to survive. That went away in the 70s, 80s, after that point it became a very quickly diminishing prospect. So that at this point your chances of being able to stand on your own are reduced. What about the intergenerational scaffolding . Sometimes we learn things from those who have done things before but how do we reach out to those worried about the retirement to help those worried about being able i will go to rag. Defer to my elder. Thank you very much. Right, right. I think it is a complicated issue to bring the level of income up to the level that is really appropriate and the myth we have taught our children, my generation has taught our children what our parents taught us and erroneously lived to believe it is about a job when in fact the reason i wrote the book is because entrepreneursship to be the way to go at a possible answer. There are problems with that. You dont have to tell me that, read the book. Here are some things, i am serious. Im serious, i am serious about ownership. Im serious about the vision i see among millennials, the brains and talent base that exist, i know there are problems there. You have to start small and there are problems that make that a difficult process but ultimately, if you can survive the vicissitudes of entrepreneursship you cannot only control your destiny but the destiny of your children. It is the conversation that is underserved in our community and undermodeled in our community. We dont teach we taught our children [laughter] we taught our children to get a job, go to school, get a job, and everything would be all right. They went to school and they got a big bill. And they cannot get the kinds of jobs that really substantiates even the debt from getting their education. And it is a huge problem. I think that needs to be addressed. The other area where it needs to be addressed is where we have a growing population coming out of incarceration who will not get a job because people will not hire them. Often they are the same people who are telling them they ought to take care of your family are the same people who will not hire femme or change hire them or change the law so they can a right to vote. I know entrepreneurship is not the way for everybody, but when you look at it, if all of the jobs in america came back, be all of them came back, still 70 of the American Population is employed in small businesses. Im not saying that it is for everybody, but it is a conversation that is seldom heard in our community. Generally, we work for somebody. Even if we are the employees and we are the customers, we are seldom the owner. We have people selling us everything from hair Care Products to ribs and chitlins. [laughter] and something has to change in the psyche of our culture where we do at least consider entrepreneurship so that we can soar and so our visions can be realized and we can have a better chance. All right. Before i go to wes, you have some people sitting in here, what is a chitling . Oh, god, on cspan . Let it go, let it go. [laughter] if i may, before we get too far [laughter] a chitlin. Go ahead. Sir, we dont have time. Ive got to tut to cut you off. Wes, you going to respond . I think he covered it. Okay. Sir, and this lady in the brown is next. Were try to go fast. Shes got a whole i have a very quick question as a journalist, and this is really for you, dr. Ryan, and also for you, wesley. We know when cornish started, they said we wish to plead our own cause, too long have others spoken for us. So i want to address the issue of black press and whether or not we have some right organizations setting agendas at at the beginning of every presidency, but when it comes to the black press, it feels like we have failed to do that. And i feel like the problem is when i watch Major Networks and i work for a Major Networks, we now have talking heads and it feels like infomercials when were watching the news. But we dont have journalists, experienced journalists, especially people of color except for the few that they choose to come on. That way when we have conversations when the president says derogatory things against africa and haiti, we can have someone come on and address and say, no, take those words seriously, because there were countries who used immigration and brought in europeans to whiten their societies. And we dont use that information, and i dont see that, and it is it because the black press has not come together for an agenda, a collective agenda, or should we even do that in. I think the black press needs to get together. You know, we tell stories that other people dont know or they choose not to know. We have to be there. I mean, already days when, you know there are days when, you know, i can talk about anything, but when there are black issues, im a lot of times there. And the sad piece about it is i shed a lot of light in dark spaces. And i think each Community Needs to be in a newsroom, because a lot of times people just dont understand or dont want to understand. Right. So, therefore, i think, i mean, you know, mine is not a traditional path, okay . 50 years old. Ive been doing this for 21 years, and just this year they just said, oh, oh, where you been . Right. I been there. Ive been there right with you. Youve been there right yes. So sometimes, and thats what im saying. But wait a minute. I dont see her on tv like she should be. Exactly. And thats one of the reasons why shes here, you know . [applause] i mean, you know, shes an about vis. She is walking history. And the problem is i dont know what the thought process is of these networks, but, you know, shes on, you know, she used to be on a lot. And sometimes people change i dont know what it is, but i think what we have to do is just understand that we, we bring something to the table, and sometimes we have to knock the doors down because theyre not going to come looking for us. Thats just it. Thank you. Yeah. I think that theres a, so there are a few things here. You know, the first is that, you know, i think that theres this question of what is the role of the black press and is the black press essential in this moment and in in this moment that we are in currently, right . There is more press than ever before, more media outlets, more physical formats, cable news is still a relatively recent invention in terms of our history, much less the internet and all these things were looking at, and is there a role for a black press to specifically focus on stories from the black community, telling those stories and empowering those storytellers, right . The diversity crisis within journalism and within mainstream journalism, i think, underscores the need and the importance for a vibrant black press, right . There are still many mainstream newsrooms in which the black faces inside of them are few and far between, much less to say the asianamerican faces inside of them and the latino faces inside of them. I think that there needs to be journalism is still, journalism is currently largely a field for folks with some level of socioeconomic privilege. Its a field that in many cases requires some level of degree and also a requires you to enter a field where you can expect to basically never make any money. Now, many folks end up making money. [laughter] but you signed up with the, you know, the median salary for journalists about 42,000 a year. You signed up not expecting to make a bunch of money even if you ended up getting lucky, right . And that becomes a selfselecting group of people to begin with, those who have the means to do that. I do think we have to have a conversation about the status of the black press currently. I think very often i actually spend a lot of time thinking about how we are probably a decade or two away from losing a lot of our historic, historically black newspapers where in many cases you are one generation of a family dying before a community loses that. At the same time, i think we have to have a conversation about the vibrancy and the function and role of many of these organizations and the need for some of them to pivot and change and to reinvest resources into ways in which theres still vital, vibrant journalism happening, right . One thing there that i think is important to think about is there is a big generational shift, i think, between the conventional wisdom of a young black journalist coming into this field now versus even just one generation ago. My father was a journalist. That for the most, for the previous generation this was a real there was a real in many ways hesitance among black journalists to become race people, to cover issues of blackness. Not that there werent many and there are still not many who do, but would it be possible at a time when journalism was diversifying if you became the black person who writes about black people, would you ever get a job in the room . [laughter] whats interesting is i think this current generation in part because i think weve all been empowered to run our mouths whenever we want, however we want via social media is one that feels much more strongly about if you care about something, that is what you should pursue. I havent spent much time worried about, well, if i worry about black people, ill be able to write about white people. There are plenty of [laughter] but i do think that, but i do think that theres a conversation, you know, your question was kind of framed around this idea should there be a collective agenda. Agenda. Right. And, frankly, i think that and i think that for me at least personally as a black reporter working in a mainstream newsroom, my agenda is always one of accountability, and i think that an agenda of accountability will disproportionately affect those who are disproportionately disenfranchised by unaccountable systems. But beyond that i do think that we need to take the temperature of the black press as it exists and have some real honest can conversations about the extent to which it is capable in this moment of doing that. And i think then reinvesting some of our resources and our talents. Because i do think it is important to have, you know, these organizations and their voices being there. Thank you. Great, thanks. And i also understand that from Ken Strickland the Washington Bureau chief of nbc, he says there are a lot of blacks who are just not going into political journalism anymore. So its, the numbers are dwindling for blacks to be in political journalism. At the white house like myself. You know, we need our people. Now, heres what were going to do. Weve got five minutes at this wonderful time. I know im going to get you all in. I want you to just ask your questions, and then somebodys going to take it. I thank you, just ask the question. Ing thank you for standing so long. Not a problem. Not too much intro, but im a genxer, and im a news junkie, and im the person at work that everybody comes to when they have questions about whats going on in the world. And i have a millennial young lady that i work with, shes a mother of two, and i was ranting as usual about the fact that the russians have infiltrate our political system, and the congress is doing nothing about it. And she says to me, how do you know that they infiltrated our system . I kind of looked at her crosseyed, and i kind of told her, and i said how do you know thats true . Who said that . And i kind of started going into sourcing, and she says, well, how do you know theyre telling the truth . She starts telling me about somebody on youtube who said something. And what this led up to, and this is my question for my esteemed journalists on the panel, is what i see happening is that the millennial generation who do have all the social media, all the social media really is, is opinions. When you look at the news now, what you get are opinions. The president says something in a meeting, but now it becomes whose opinion, who really believes he said that. So now when, now nothing is a fact. And the people who need to be getting to the streets and to coalesce and really have a movement, they dont know what to believe. They dont know even where to source news. So my question to you is, is there anything that can be done or is being done to bring back the integrity of certain of facts . Of journalism being a place where you go to get facts and not just opinions . Okay, thank you. Yes, sir. Thank you for that question. Yes, sir. My statement and question was to t. D. Jakes. Do you see the parallels just in terms of in egypt when you have the children enslaved, you had a situation where they were in such cruel bondage and anguish of spirit that they could not hear that even though god sent moses to tell them things were going to get better because of their pain and suffering, they couldnt really hear from the creator when he was about to do something magnanimous . Do you see that or feel it . Something has to break and something has to give . You comparing that to are you comparing that to Todays Society right. Okay. Bishop jakes, hold on. Were going to go one more question, and im going to let you come back. Yes, maam. Shes our last question. Good evening. Thank you all for being here tonight and for all of your contributions. Two questions [laughter] two april ryan and bishop t. D. Jakes. April ryan, as an avid viewer of the news and seeing the press conferences, im kind of like really so fed up with Sarah Huckabee sanders and the way that she answers you alls questions is so disrespectful. [inaudible] [laughter] youre fed up . Is there any way that you can ask her to i am respectfully asking this question with, can you respect friday give me respectfully answer and not be insulting to me . Oh, i wasnt [inaudible conversations] [laughter] oh, oh. Yeah. [inaudible] i wasnt feeling guilty, i just didnt want any kind of, want anyone to feel kind of okay. Im taking up time. Okay, now next question. [laughter] so second question to you, bishop t. D. Jakes. Would you be interested in offering trump any counseling or advice, and if you were [laughter] what would be the three main points that you would share with him . Okay, thank you. Thank you, thank you. Im glad i got that straight. Now to my journalists, the question of how do we bring integrity back in the news, facts versus opinion. Yeah. I think the onus is going to be on news organizations and media organizations to start acting like it again. I think that someone once said that trump has the about abilito not only bring down his allies, but also his enemies. And the press in many cases and im not talking about opinion journalists. Im an opinion journalist. I get paid to give my opinion, to not play it straight. But my colleagues on the news side who are supposed to be playing it straight, i think to the womans question, its hard to tell anymore whether you are reading the news side or the opinion page. And if these news organizations want to, you know, regain that respect that they once had, thats going to be on them to clean up their act and start acting like the objective journalists that they claim to be. So i think that it is a challenge, and its unfortunate. I mean, that is a very sad commentary on whats happened to the Mainstream Media. All right. Bishop jakes, the parallels between the children of us reel in of israel in bondage in egypt. Well, you know, there are always parallels that can be taken out of the scriptures that are comparable to the times we live in today, there are certainly distinctions between the two. And i think the Brothers Point is has to presentation reached the oppression reached a level of breaking point. Im not really sure about that. Every time i think its at a breaking point, it goes further in some way or some regard. Every time i think ive heard the most shocking thing that you can ever hear, Something Else happens. But i dont think that we should ever lose sight of the fact in spite of the audacity of the times in which we live right now, i dont think that we should lose sight of the fact that we have gained ground, that in many ways things are better than they were in many regards. Im not saying that we should rest on that and stop there, but having lived at a time where the lynchings were real and where some of my relatives we never found because they ran away and we dont know whether theyre living or dead, we have made some progress. Is it enough . Absolutely not. Is there more to be done . Absolutely. So i dont know whether were at the Tipping Point. It might be better to think that every generation has a Tipping Point. And this might be the Tipping Point for this generation, i dont know. We have to wait and see. Also now are you a counselor, should you be or could you be for President Trump . [laughter] [inaudible conversations] and what three things would you tell him . [laughter] stop tweeting. [laughter] [applause] yeah, stop tweeting to get your voice out there. We have to do that, you dont. You can easily get your voice out there, and you can get your voice out there in the kinds of way that dispels misunderstandings and that sort of thing. Be the voice to the nation. The election is over, so lets with be the leader that the nation needs to move the country forward. And thirdly, when it comes to international policy, words do matter. You can incite even though they are debating about the Mental Health of the president , we dont know for sure about, and ill leave that out there in the air for whatever it may be. What we dont know for sure is the Mental Health of some of the other leaders around the world, and while you may do something intending to provoke an expected reaction, you might get a reaction that causes us to lose millions of people. But i want to go back and say this. Very seldom would i do it . I dont know, because im not sure that i could pierce the confusion and the drama that exists right now to really have a voice that can be heard. It is very difficult to get around a leader of that magnitude and not have splashed on you the drama and the inconsistencies and the photo ops that would suggest that you are supporting them as opposed to informing them. Yeah. And im going to give everyone a chance to say their goodbyes, but im going to answer your question. Really fast and succinct, the White House Correspondents association is the Advocacy Group for the White House Press corps. They are talking to her, the press secretary and the former press secretary they did. But when it comes to Sarah Huckabee and what is perceived of her being disrespectful to me, i will say this i think it was last week, Sarah Huckabee and i had we broke bread together. Neither one of us fixed the bread or baked the pie two doors down [laughter] it was an airingout session. Well see what happens, but i think the conversation continues. Its a reset. But, i dont know, well see. Depending on what day, you know . And she basically reflects the president. When you see her and her mood, that is the president of the United States. Thats what he wants her to do. Audience of one, but thats what he wants her to do. Hes watching. And his executive time and in the oval office, hes watching. [laughter] so, you know, it is what it is, you know . But i thank you for being concerned. And now you wanted to respond to the twitter real fast, and im going to ask each one of you no, i was just going to say the reason why trump cant stop using twitter, bishop, is because he cannot use the Mainstream Media because its connected to the question about the bias in the opinion getting into the news in the Mainstream Media. And when the Mainstream Media made clear from the first day he got elected that their duty there was a piece in the New York Times for those of you who read the times on the front page by i think its jim rutten berg or somebody like that in which he said the major task of the paper during this period had to be to go after trump and do everything about, you know, dissecting him. Made it clear. And so the Mainstream Media, which reflects the views of people like me and some of you in here, in fact, is so adamant about trump that if he just tried to use them as a place to talk and get his point across, his base would never hear him. And so he, hes using twitter as a way to bypass them just like other president s have used local media, you know, how they go to bypass. I guess what i meant was some of these policies are serious policies. Sure. And to be limited to such few characters to expression an issue express an issue is reprehensible. And because the leaders around world are reading them and having to take them seriously, it we have never had, we, you cannot my button is bigger than yours. Yeah, exactly. That kind of thing is really concerning. I have always wondered maybe its a strategy, in fact, to change the subject. Because ive seen that happen sometimes because it seems like he sends a tweet, and all the media jumps on it, and that becomes the summit for the next three days [inaudible] got you. Right, right. Heres what im going to say. I thank you all. We thank you all. [applause] for this installment of race in america. Thank you. The fifth installment. We have jason riley, wes lowery, bishop t. D. Jakes and dr. Frances berry. This was a great conversation on this day to remember a man who looked for first class citizenship for all. Ing thank you so much. We will be talking to you again about the next installment if politics prose would like thank you, guys. Thank you so much once again. [applause] im april ryan. See you later. Have a great day. [inaudible conversations] we do have books for sale at the register, so if you havent already purchased a copy of one of our panelists books, feel free to do so. [inaudible conversations] youre watching booktv on cspan2 with top nonfiction books and authors every weekend. Booktv, television for serious readers. And this weekend on booktvs after words program, Republican National Committee Spokesperson Kayleigh Mcenany reports on the grassroots populist movement in the United States. Shes interviewed by daily beast senior columnist matt lewis. Also this weekend we take a tour of Regnery Publishing where we speak with many of the people who are responsible for bringing their books from acquisition to publication. Roxanne dunbar ortiz provides a critical history of the Second Amendment and argues that people of color have been the victims of americas gun culture. Former mexican president vicente fox provides a critique of the trump administration. And Stephen Kotkin continues his multivolume biography of josef stalin with a focus on stalins leadership of the soviet union in the years leading up to world war ii. Thats just a handful of the programs airing this weekend on booktv on cspan2. For a complete schedule, visit booktv. Org. I went over the london several times when they had the hearings in the high court in london into the it was an inquiry into the murder in 2015. So i went over there and 2016 and attended the hearings and did some interviews. So ill just, just give you a little bit of quick background and why, what happened. It seems as though these two men were hired by the fsb to murder lit v. A. 9 11 coe, and one of them made friends with him and started coming to london and was trying to get consulting work with him. And apparently, he didnt really have any concern or he didnt know that the man was actually employed by the fsb. So in the meantime, litvanenko had pretty much devoted himself to writing scathing criticisms of vladimir putin. Boris bear shove sky, the oligarch that i mentioned earlier, had moved to london, and the two of them just had this campaign, and it was financed by [inaudible] because he was very wealthy. And they basically just publicized everything they could about the corruption and the authoritarianism and Everything Else about putins regime. So litvanenko was not very well liked, and in november of 2006, mr. Lugevoy and another gentleman came to london, and they brought with them polonium 210 which is a lethal radioactive substance. And actually we now know they tried to poison him two weeks earlier, and it didnt work. Litvanenko got sick but nothing happened. Well, this time in the pine bar of the Millenium Hotel in london they put polonium 210 in this teapot, and litvanenko came in and sat down with them, and he drank some of the tea. He got very ill. At first they thought it was food poisoning. It took him three weeks to die, and it was only on the last day, november 23rd, that they actually figured out what was the cause of death. It was not supposed to be discovered. Thats why polonium was chosen. Meanwhile, lugevoy and kostun, the two killers, fled. The British Government has tried to have them extradited, but that hasnt happened. And, in fact, one got the medal of honor from president putin, and he is now a member has been for several years a member of parliament. So thats just i think the interesting thing is, is that litvanenko was viewed as a traitor because he had worked for the fsb, and then he moved, he defected, and he wrote all these things. Sodly enough, i think so, oddly enough, i think a lot of the russians know that he was killed by these two gentlemen and that they were ordered by the fsb and mr. Putin to do it, but people kind of feel like litvanenko got what he deserved. Then i have other examples that i cant go into detail about right now. I would say that really probably one of the most devastating killings was that of Boris Nemtsov in february of 2015. If youll recall, he was walking with his girlfriend across a bridge very close to the kremlin, and people went by, somebody got out of a car and just shot him i think five or six times. Anyway, its very interesting that the killers, they arrested almost immediately the killers, but again its the same pattern. They dont find what we say in russian [speaking russian] and, in fact, nemtsovs family has now requested the russian government to extend the period of the statute of limitations because they still havent found the person who really ordered this. Well, many people think that it was, again, something that was ordered by vladimir or putin. Nemtsov was not only a handsome, charismatic, really brilliant politician, he also and he used to work, by the way, he used to be a minister in yeltsins government. And he knew putin personally. But he had started writing these devastating reports about the corruption, the massive corruption in mr. Putins regime. And right before he died he was finishing up when i say report, its a concern. [speaking russian] theyre kind of longer. Theyre almost like little books. He was writing about the russians in ukraine and showing that they, despite their denials, they were the Russian Military was in full force in eastern ukraine. So, again, nemtsov had been warned, but he said, you know, oh, putin would never kill me because i was a minister and this and that. Well, unfortunately, it happened. You can watch this and other programs online at booktv. Org. Good evening everyone and welcome to the latest installment of the coop author