Transcripts For CSPAN2 Jeanne Theoharis A More Beautiful And Terrible History 20180225

Founding editors of the intercept. And for those of you who have never been here. To get some of your essential news. As an amazing online news service. Hes an Investigative Reporter and work and the international bestselling book. The world as is a battlefield. And blackwater. He has reported from afghanistan iraq somalia yemen nigeria the list goes on and on. Scale served as the National Security correspondent for the nation. And democracy now. He was twice awarded the prestigious george polk award. He is a producer and writer of the Award Winning film dirty wars. His latest book the assassination complex is based on leak secret documents on the u. S. Global drone program. Another superstar who is here with us tonights distinguished professor of Political Science at Brooklyn College and the author of core coal author. The politics of race and education. Her wisely acclaimed biography one and 2014 naacp image award and the leticia woods brown woods brown a war. Her work has appeared in the New York Times. The nation. The intercepts the review. The chronicle of Higher Education and her newest book more beautiful and terrible history the uses and missed uses of the civil rights history came out just two weeks ago from beacon crest and it is the centerpiece of our conversation tonight. Just a word to say our speakers will talk to each other for 40 minutes or so and then we will take questions from the audience. And after that jean has kindly offered to sign copies of her new book. Which you will find on sale on our shop. I want to welcome jean and jeremy to the stage. I have to say im very impressed that all of you should appear tonight given that there is also an event with Michelle Alexander tonight in harlem. Its now out and all of those. Almost every nobody spoil it in the q a. We are here in this moment where we have so many over racist impositions of extraordinary power i think of Jeff Sessions who is the attorney general as of this moment and he of course is known for having according to his colleagues used the nword repeatedly and joked they say im not sure one jokes about that. More recently he went off of the prepared remarks that the Justice Department released when he was speaking in front of this National Sheriffs association and he inserted intentionally the idea of the anglo heritage attached to the history of Law Enforcement and people are saying you have to understand that this is something historical that he was referring to. We knew what he was doing. To me it is the same kind of issue. The first question i head for you is how much changes as a result of overt racists who dont pretend or spend much time trying to cover up that thats how they see this country. Versus the sort of soft her face of racism where it is uncool to say things out in public. Thank you. And just to echo what jeremy said. This audience is extraordinary. Its so nice. I live in brooklyn. I teach in brooklyn. Im so happy to be doing this. Thank you for coming out tonight. I think you to the Brooklyn Society for having us. Its really amazing. I guess i can answer that in two ways. I have a huge crisis of faith about the year ago. The book is very much taking on the blinders of liberalism. For people who have started to open the book. To the maintenance of Racial Injustice in the United States and the both north and south. In hollywood if we think about that. She was mean to her kids. I have a question lester. Do we need this book now and is this what i should be spending my time on. I was midway through it. But i have a lot more to go. But then it seems to me that part of what i feel like we focus on the overt face cleanses so much other practices and i felt that way in terms of what happened in charlottesville this year. Some people were like i would never like yell and spit and carry tiki torches as if that is the only way to stand in the way of a movement for justice the need for us that too much of how evil and injustice has been maintained is by people saying i am not that. How they maintain a segregated School System is that we are not that. They all say save were not the south. It seemed to me to be able to have an honest conversation about where we are. Where we need to go we need to take on trump and what is dumbfounding me overt but i think we also need to be weary that that and it gets a little bit able to use that to make themselves feel good or better or like we are fine over here. Even as we are opposing the rezoning here in new york city. Or as we are the surveillance of those students that might be necessary. I guess there is a danger in focusing so much on the horrified and we miss the polite and the mundane. It reminds me before your book came out. About the research in the work that you put into this. But in rereading the book ahead of this i couldnt help but think of the malcolm x and the description of the dixiecrats who werent really pretending to be anything other than what they were. And how he sort of would prefer dealing with them as an opponent because at least you know where they stand. We want her to be a desegregation. But we dont meet mean any of it. Do you see any parallels to that analysis of malcolm x and the current context with trump and his camp and then the kind of mainstream of the democratic partys leadership. When it comes to how racist policies are presented but also how they impact people. I think the question of urgency. And what issues merit urgency i think the corollary is Martin Luther king and that dutiful passage. Where he saying the greatest threat may not be the plan it might be the right moderate. They said i agree with your goals but not the message. I think we see a lot of that. We have a lot of people who say theyre on board the goals or the ideas of black lives matter but a lot of criticism of the tactics in the disruptions its too unfocused. Im lot of the criticism is that coming from trumpet supporters is coming from in the words of king the moderate or the liberal i think theres also a danger there because one of the places i start the book is the way the Civil Rights Movement is often invoked in that conversation. Be more like Martin Luther king. Youre too extreme. You are too disruptive. That crazy moment two years ago which we talked about before where the mayor of atlanta he is celebrating and they believe in free speech in atlanta. But explaining the Huge Police Presence at these demonstrations around in the protests against the police. Dr. King would never take the freeway. Beginning the ways that the movement is used to chastise black lives matter i think often by people who profess allegiance to its goal. In the fight against injustice i think we have to talk about that because i think there is a way that the invoking of the Civil Rights Movement feels like i would be with that kind of movement. But just these people are too reckless, too loud. I think when you look deeper into this. This is the same kinds of criticisms being waged not just against the panthers and malcolm xs. But against people like malcolm king. So i think we have to there is a huge need for looking at that. And i think its hard to know how to do that in the midst of what feels like just fires everywhere. I think its hard. I was recently watching because meet the press it played a clip of him on there and soft saying like look we have Martin Luther king on the show but if you watched the interview it was a hostile panel of white jowrnlgist just basically trying to discredit him or undermine him or portray him as a as a crazed extremist. Right. Right i think this is another aspect of the mist. Right, the media in our kind of imagination of the Civil Rights Movement is one of the heros. And theres a slice of it and civil rights leaders like john lewis give the media a ton of credit they say like the movement would have been a bird without wings without the medias role in the southern struggle. But i think thats blinded us to sort of all of the other ways that the media portrayed the Civil Rights Movement both in the south so you know long before 1955. Long after 1965 and the ways that the medias covering the struggle in its own backyard versus how it is covering for instance, birmingham by 1963. So one of the one of the thing i talk about in the book right is new york and since it just seemed like we should talk about new york tonight and after brown versus board of education black act activist while white ally see this as a challenge of new york city. New york city on the other hand loves the brown decision but does not necessarily think it applies to them they love a decision. And they think they say well, you know what i think we need, we need a committee to see if theres anything we need to do. So two people we associate with the southern struggle right here in new york and theyre u buffing about how this actually does apply to new york and so they put try to quiet them down and low and behold committee find that question with so these things need to change and board ignores that and parents protest and parents keep their kids out of school. And so theres a Long Movement kind of in the decade from 54 and 64 and they tried all sorts of things they tried getting into pta and held various kinds of sort of street protests. So they decided in february of 1964 to call for a oneday boycott of new york city schools. Nearly half a million stay out and New York Times says unreasonable and it is violent. But ten years after brown theres nothing unjuferred about asking new york city for a comprehensive plan for desegregation ten years after brown. Interestingly i think language of riants is revealing and it is revealing i think in useful because it is not talking about hurting property and not talking about hurting persons but the New York Times calls it violent because its meant to be disruptive. And even after this massive number of people stay out, they still think this is not the right way to go about it. Now meanwhile a month later, white parents are getting nervous this is a massive and the board of put its toe into kind of a very modest School Program of a couple dozen Elementary Schools paired so 15,000 white parents mostly white mothers march over the Brooklyn Bridge so 15,000 almost half a million. But the media is completely obsessed with these white mothers because a theyre using the tactic of the Civil Rights Movement to protest. And theyre protesting for their neighborhood schools and they dont want busing and were in the kind of the moment where Television News is kind of taking off and Television News is obsessed with this story. And so this story is playing as coif a back drop as the Civil Rights Act is being debated. And many of the northern and western sponsors of the Civil Rights Act realize that they need to make sure that the provisions that theyre putting into the Civil Rights Act particularly around desegregation dont come home so theres a loophole they insert so it shall not mean assigning students to sort of change racially imbalanced schools thats the way that tends to for Northern Schools so inserted in the Civil Rights Act in part because white parent are protesting and in part because media is obsessed with white participant protesting right, these congressmen that we tend to see as soft heros of the story in terms of the Civil Rights Act actually put in a back tore to protect their own schools. And i think you cant understand that without sort seeing both role as media and discrediting and sort of illegitimatizing black protest and overcovering white protest. Which again we can see today i mean these sorts of tendencies are not unfamiliar to us today. Well, of course, the current secretary of education betsy own Orlando Magic Basketball Team and betsys own or of the black water mercenary company. I dont know if a lot of you sort of her idea was lets prioritize schools and all functions around education and his was lets public warfare but this is all of the same family they were major trump donors, but betsy when she was named education secretary and i still find it unfathomable to imagine her getting confirmed by senators but it happened. Including some democrats which which whole other conversation. But she had never step foot in a Public School before becomeing the education secretary and on the other hand, has spent much of her public life railing against Public Schools and trying to take public moneys and redirect them to the private sector. The same trend youre talking about and same essential battle what those 15,000 white mothers remark for isnt it the same exact phenomenon that the play today with the discussion around prioritizing school and cynically naming Charter Schools after, you know all right exactly. Nelson mandela. Is it the same battle in your view or the same core racial and Economic Issues that were at play there . I think, i think theres some key similarities in the way they want to cloak so one of the big methodologies that has separated way we think about Northern Schools from southern schools right is this idea of busing. And and i think you know so somehow it was much more complicated and harder and more impossible in the north because because parents it wasnt that they were against segregation deseg are regages but against busing and they wanted them in schools and then going back to our media for a second it takes up it hook line and sinker it doesnt say theyre bussed already. They dont say your kids arent beginning to neighborhood schools already. So they kind of immunize that language and partly about the ways that hoy rezoning battles have gotten and how home loans were and continue to be given or not given and not just all well, i think live here they can go to school theres a reason why why these communities were the way that they were that wasnt just about surface but institutional racism as well that was contradicting to this. Right. Right. But similar than in now you dont see very much space being given to sort of black and latino organizing whether it is in the dumb Bow School District that got all of the attention or the Upper West Side right theres a lot of black and parent organizing but when they cover these restoning battles theres no, they dont feel lick they have to and this is similar to what i see looking at the ways that the media covered battles in new york city 50 years ago that theres a kind of undercovering of protest and organizing and doing things through the respectable channels right . Theres always this idea that like, people just get all crazy and they rise up and why dongt they go through the right channel and then its like theyre going through the right channels for year and i mean you couldnt even bother to you know write more than like two paragraphs on it. And so i think i think the privatization ways that privatization is cloaked in helping right so its most cynical is like we dont like how this is so the solution is Charter Schools and not only wrote this brilliant book called Cutting School from segregation looks at it historically and into today right so one of the cynical things that like aspect of the she points out in that book is how often the kind of desire for better equal, Excellent Schools gets used by people to then say okay were going to come to bring this model to require extra money or is going to require taking money into the private sphere but give you and then this constant like you know dangled possibility of equality and kind of knowledge that our president is so unequal is used to then make people rich. Yeah. To move from trying to extract some present day analysis from your historical scholarship, i want to start off as sort of deeper conversation about this book. With giving you an opportunity to tell people things they didnt know about the story of who Martin Luther king was what inspired him and but also the full spectrum of his views. Not just on questions of race but on questions of economics and militarism in connection between the racism and a par tight situation in the United States and what the u. S. Was abroad because i would imagine even those of us who think we know parts of this story, every time i listen to you and certainly in reading this i learn new things. And i its so valuable to have this kind of scholarship done because of how often king used by democrats, republicans, dodge ram. [laughter] i know theres complexes about how the king estate has been as as whole skanked louse thing but my god watching Martin Luther king in a dodge ram commercial with soldiers off to war and marines, it was really sickening. But talk about unknown or lesser told stories of king. I mean this is my theme tonight but i want to think about king here in new york. And i think that one of the things that i many of us talk about now in 67 and 68 right the radical king against vietnam and Poor People Campaign king, but i think one of the one of the thing im trying to do in the book is to say that king is here much earlier. And that king is speaking to northern liberals and calling out kind of northern liberalism from the early 60s. I think one with was methodologies of king is that he somehow discovers north after a while. Like all of this after king is surprised what could possibly have happened . We just signed voting right the act and then these people in watts are rising up. When you actually look at dr. Kings work and what dr. King is doing in early 60s one of the thing hes doing in early 60s is hes traveling around a lot hooking up with movement and people around country including in los angeles. And king comes to los angeles multiple tombs in the early 60s and it is not just to raise money for birmingham he actually comes right after he gets out of o jail in birmingham but what hes talking about hes talking about Police Brutality because he knows and people have been organizing in 1962 right ronald stokes secretary of the local nation of islam mosque is killed by police a number of other members of the nation are wounded. This causes a kind of broad united Front Movement in louisiana. Theyre talking about a pattern of Police Brutality theyre talking about need to fire chief parker these are not unknowns. Demands and king is talking about Police Brutality too in 1963. He comes back in 1964 in 1964 finally in 1963 in l. A. And so not just l. A. But in california, activists had worked and fought to get a fair housing bill to prevent discrimination in the sale and rental are of property and they funnelly manage to get that law passed the housing act of 1963. Almost immediately citizen white citizens and realtor kind of qeivetive politicians get a proposition on the ballot in 1964 to repeal that law and dr. King comes to l. A. Multiple times to sort of campaign against prop 14 and hes calling one of the most Significant Developments in like if this passes and devastating developments of the 20th century as many as you may know that November Californians overwhelmingly send Lyndon Johnson to the white house and they overwhelmingly approve prop 14. Three out of four white vote terse in california vote yes on prop 14. Vote yes on their right to discriminate in the sale and rental of their properties as king put it they voted for ghettos. So eight months later, when watts erupts, king is calling to count the surprise and the shock that many public officials, many sort of californians are professing saying ive traveled around north ive been welcomed on to your podium, and yet the minute that the talk turns to, that actions of southern black people are praised you praise us. But the minute we start to talk about local conditions, only the language is polite. The the resistance is firm and stubborn. And in that comment both you sort of calling to account these californian official who is didnt do anything for years these grievances were there for years and a movement there if years. Also in that comment, i i see this this when he says i sit on your on your diocese and you are in your regalia. And i recently discovered that Martin Luther king came and gave the commencement speech at city college in 1963. And one of my grad student to here is just found this but interestingly only 30 black people graduate from city college in 1963. So when king speaks to this audience of 15,000 people in harlem, it is basically an all white audience. And there you know the president of city college is very proud of himself for having invited and happens to come right after edgars is assassinated so theres a lot of talk about the south and how horrible it is. But when i hear king say i sit on your diocese and youre dressing on regal wra because hes in a gown you can imagine. Right, thed and 15 really graduating from city college so king is speaking about this hes thinking about this. Hes calling i mean as early as a 1960 calling for a liberalism thats as liberal right that not just liberal about the south but liberalling the north. So i think if theres one time and people will go away that king is calling to count northern liberals and i think weve erased that. Even those of us who and kings outrage against stream or kings Economic Justice that he is what hes talking about white moderate hes not just talking about southerners but his northern liberal allies. You know, one i guess misintreption that i long had until i read your book i always a was under the understanding that kings popularity ratings plummeted as a result of him starting to unite, race, class, and opposition to war. But thats totally not true or, i mean, mob theres some he gets more. Right more, but youve sort of painted a very different picture of that ark i think a lot of people particularly white lirls who are trying to read this history of king maybe looking for some meaning to their own identity are sort of want to put that that as the breaking point but according to your book it wasnt so explain what concern how was king actually covered in the New York Times . And what contradicted to low level of popularity that seem to be there but we dont even talk about today . First off, right, Civil Rights Movement as its happening not popular at the time thats not so day that lots of people didnt admire it lots of white people. Black people other people of color so there was certainly lots of people moved by it. But the majority of americans were not. So gallup poll in 1961 you know only about a quarter americans think this citizen and freedom ride are, you know, are appropriate a majority of americans think that the 1963 march on washington is wrong. Lest we see this as a problem of Southern Centers New York Times poll new yorkers in the year before voting act a majority of new yorkers dont approve of the Civil Rights Movement. So certainly kings popularity sort of by 66 three quarters of americans do not this is 66 even before public coming the potentially against vietnam. Three quarters of americans dont approve of his tactics. I mean, with i think you know gary young talk about this in terms of nelson mapgd la and until he makes a reality undenial and then people sort of change, they sort of, you know, air brush their own discomfort they air brush their own hatred. They air brush their own uncomfortableness, and i think we forget that one with of one of the key things that doctor king believed in was the importance of being of kind of making people uncomfortable right of bringing tension to the surface and people would constantly criticize saying he was causing problems and causing risk and he would say other and over and over and over no. This is here. We are just bringing it to the surface. It is like a boil to, obviously, heal it. But i think we forget that that aspect of it and how controversial it is even among people who agree with him. Just one more example. We can go back to 55 with montgomery bus look how it starts naacp keeps distance from it because they dont agree with tactics theyre too disruptive theyre too maybe messy. They will support sort of the legal challenge aspect it have. But they dont support the boycott. And theres also tension between the naacp and king during boycott, and i think i think oftentimes we sort of whatever that monday morning quarterbacking of sort of we know where its going so we assume that all good people were onboard at the jump right doesnt approve of them bringing to 1956. People, you know, its messy. Just to share with people you cited gary young and this quote jumped out to me that you start with White America came to embrace king in the same way that most White South Africans came to accept nelson mandela. Grudgingly and retrospectively selectively without grace but with with considerable guile by the time they realized that their dislike of him was spent and futile o he had created a world in which admiring him was in their own selfinterest because in short, they had no choice. Gary young is most beautiful writer ever. Right . I mean its such [applause] the words yeah. Yeah. Gary young born and raised in u. K. And coming here and then doing some of the best reporting contemporary reporting about race in this country. Not to mention i mean gary is an amazing reportser on everything he does. But such an incredible incisive analysis that he brings to the table and i wound per theres part of it that comes from entering from the outside because hes treated when you watch him interacting he there was a video recently where he interviewerred the Richard Spencer and if you see, Richard Spencer i think has no idea what to do with gary young. You know. And then the accent right . Gary young is like hes got a british accent and hes black what am i supposed to do with this and hes frightened like something is wrong here, and beyond fact that a black man who was educated talking to Richard Spencer something is very wrong and you know in that situation. The story of rosa parks i heard the applause for the rebellious lights and im sure a lot of people here have read that and are familiar with the history. What i found you know unbelievably fascinating about that story is how little of it ever trickled out into the way that she was sort of put on this pedestal for various peoples own political aims including by people wj the Civil Rights Movement. She had an extraordinary life. I mean, that you say to her given that you know, you coveredded this in your previous book, but i still think it is worth sketching out for people this incredible journey that she was on while she was here with us. In this world i mean she grows up in a family where her grandfather is a one of her First Political memories is staying out like her grandfather right after world war i a up with tick of white violence after world war i sort of seeking the black soldiers back in their place so her grandfather sits out at night with with a shotgun this is sixyearold rosa parks she sits with him to see hmm shoot, so she has a political spirit from the getgo she gets in trouble with her grandmother for sort of pushing a white boy so you know her grandmother is worried to be killed rosa parks said rather be lynch and then dont like it so where her political life really starts she meets and falls in love with with ray monday parks hes working on the scot borough case when she meets him 1931. Quickly for people dont know the case. I mean, really stupid just quickly describe nine young men are arrested for riding rails in 1931 when they discovered two white women in a neighboring train car that charge of rape and all sentenced to death so a local Movement Grows and alabama to protect and defend young men from being executed, and one of the local activists workingen that is is ramon parks the real act vits i ever met so it open os up this world for her. And in the beginning, hes the more public activist shes more of the behind the scenes by 1940s she wants to be more active she finds it galling that theyre asked to serve in world war ii and cant register to vote at him she wants to register to vote she joins the n aacp working on voting registration issue but working on issues that we would consider criminal justice issues. Two kinds of cases. One, like weve heard about recently with the oprah speech cases involving white white violation against plaque people and white and working on a number of those cases so case theyre working is scott burrow legal leveraging case where is black men are wrongfully accused and she works long and hard on is case of 16yearold by name of jeremiah having a relationship with a young white woman who gets found out. She cries rape hes ultimately executed by they try to prevent that for e years. Now recently rosa parks papers were open. A pofertion them at the library of congress and one of the things that really struck me about her papers is theres a small cash of personal writings that seem to come from the 1950s. Shes talking how hard it is to be a rebel and pressure not to desending how crazy she feels. How how mentally kind of destabilizing raceism is and theres real window both into look this long struggle before shell make it stand in 1955 and how much theyve been piloting and losing i mean basically they mostly lose. So even though every kindergarten u now learns that rosa parks was courageous most of what she does so courageous is that shes done things like this before. Other people have done things like this before and nothing to suggest that this is going to change anything. And theres a lot to suggest that she could get hurt or she could lose her job. And so, i mean, that kind of courage the courage of percent veers and being able to see an opportunity even though theres nothing to suggest that opportunity will do something. And then even after that, and even after theyre forced to leave montgomery eight months after that she gets fired boycott and husband loses his job. They mover to detroit where her brother is and spend the next 40 years fighting the racism of a gym north and call it northern promise land that wasnt and shell just keep fighting and shell talk about that personal hero. Shell she is both active in black Power Movement in detroit and aired the country. Also internationalist and Important Role in the vietnam and so in the 80s and early ccr she sits on a work tribunal about u. S. Involvement in central america. Eight days after 9 11 she danny glover group put out a state call on the United States you know no war. Work within the International Community no retaliation right shes shes a bad as right. But that that is been lost and i think part of why we lose it is also that we ask bad asses in one form shes shy. She is, you know we can talk about, i mean, i talk about her sort of a shy radical or a shy you know like a shes middle aged during the during black power. You know, people talk about how she come to israeli she would come to these talks and she would sit in the front row and she would nit. Right, or she would send thank you notes she told me this amazing story. He was in rn airings and became mayor of jackson and his son now is now mayor of jackson. He become lawyer this is great sorts of legal justice work and one of the things hes repghting members of the rna in brings case theyre being charged with conspiracy they drag in a whole bunch of radicals around conspiracy. Hi gets home one night and theres a thank you though the in the person says you know, thank you for your work for standing strong for your people and he says next day he goes and finds note he thinks rosa. Rosa it is like rosa parks in her 60s writing him a thank you note basically for doing this kind of you know steadfast legal justice work. So she is this assist mix of things i think we misit because we think it is gung to come only in one, one form. Right . And sometimes we misit because i think weve made a divide between, you know, civil rights in black power i think we miss it because we dont go back to people we think we know so i think part of what this book is also trying to do is kind of say theyve made park the way that rosa parks and have been honored have made them kind of unavailable for us today. And in some sense theyre honored but in other sense theyre made pricey and a passive kind of like peeking out in they become uninteresting almost. And so kind of return to these figures which in the book talks about all a sorts of other o people so its not just on king and park and i think there is a theres a utility in going back to these we think we know. Right this, this may sound like theres something deeper behind this question but i lirmtly mean it in the most simple way who is responsible for those narratives craft ared is it a snowballing how did that happen who would you identify as crafters of that or key moments when it happened . Yeah. So ting theyre kind of so one of the key moments they talk about in the book is sort of struggle for the king holiday. Right which is a 15year strug that will begins almost as soon as king is assassinated and introduces first bill people like in part many Civil Rights Activist press for it year and years reagan opposes it hes worried about too many holidays that are too costly. He cant rule out he might be a communist and say it is many times but interestingly 1983 hes facing kind of charges that hes not sensitive to racial issues theres been some and hes running for reelection and so he starts to see a utility in changing his position on this. And so theres, thats a crucial moment i think. Because when you when reagan signs the legislation, the way that he talks about king, the way that its about courageous individuals who freely sort of see an injustice and point about and then if we correct it so like United States i call it u. S. Is a selfcleaning oven were just constantly fixing ourselves. [laughter] and also this sort of idea that like in the rest of the world they couldnt do this but here writes to american exceptionallist so i think on the one hand we start it see political utility that were like now, you know of celebrating this Civil Rights Movement as way to put the struggle for rairl justice in the past. Now, part of that is in trying to press for the king holiday what you see supporters do as they start to universalize king. They start to talk about him in particular ways. I think so i think thats not. Thats part of what happens. Right its how, you know, theres so little history that make it is through that like to try to get that history through, we start to narrow kind of how were going to talk about these figures. Aalso the kind of what is seen s honorable so if how many people have gone to the king memorial and washington its its both so long overdue and theres something very moving about it because tons of people are there and tons of School Groups come but it is not you know, it doesnt do justice to dr. King in multiple ways. If youve seen it he towers above us. Right hes made this and made huge. The original sort of plans for the memorial had all to honor other o scraps but perhaps the worst thing is theres coif a semicircle where theres like 14 quotes in scribes not one of those quotes uses word race, racism welcome segregation right so we have a National Memorial from Martin Luther king that does not speak about race. [applause] and so so i think i think one of the things i heard is they, one of the quotes that was supposed to be there was the beginning of the march on washington speech where as many of you may know right that i have a dream stuff comes at end but the beginning of the march in washington speech king is talking about how america gave black people a bad check and theyre there to collect. Right thats a whole different situation than dreaming, right . Thats about [applause] material readdress. Apparently that was one of the quotes originally selected to go to be on that wall and that was deemed too controversial. And i think there are all sorts of things that go into this but i think one with of the most important is kind of the utility, National Utility that the Civil Rights Movement comes to take on in terms of making us feel good about ourselves making it sort of seem like becomes a way to kind of the celebrate american democracy. Right so if you look at the ways that when they dedicate the rosa parks statue and that hall right Mitch Mcconnell john boehner a great way to celebrate america. I mean, literally this becomes this celebration of america. It becomes this way to say look how special we are. But it also becomes way to say we did this. This was the problem and were done. Basically, done. And so i think that that strips and then i think and this is the hardest thing, i think some of us and i put myself here too when i was doing the research for e rosa parks bock and this research is what identify done over o past 15 years that encompasses a lot of research projects. Is the ways that i think even thoatdz of those of us who think we know need to kind of remember that theres this miseducation goes deep, and [applause] and how i got to the rosa Parks Research was was doing a public piece in my head im sure someone written a biography but i need to put in this piece some stuff about who she actually was. And then im like oh theres no actual footnote biography of rosa parks and then thats surprising to me. And then it takes me a couple of more years to decide that really i should do that because because it didnt seem that cool and i was most of my work up to that point was on the Civil Rights Movement in the north and then it seems like struggle in the north and people would look at me in years i would be like i think ill did a biography of rosa and oh, yes. Colleagues people in the you know because i think sometimes we think we know and julianne bond said this to me when he was working on the book i in the her so many times i thought i knew all there was to know about. I thought i knew what i needed to know about her so i think thats that humility that sense that theres so much we with dont know and theres so much that maybe we repeat that its not sort of the, you know, kind of a fuller more expansionive history. Were going to open up to all of you if you want to hop in but briefly before we do that, ive found it interesting in the whole discussion over this devin memo and a surveillance and fact that 24 7 on fox news is railing against the surveillance state in the United States but one of the i said when it is yeah are, exactly. Theyve discoveredded now a one case that they could find where a wealthy white man was subjectedded to that kind of surveillance. But they make statements like the for the first time now americans have evidence that the surveillance powers have been used to target american citizens. For the first time. [laughter] u have you heard of Martin Luther king or malcolm x or go back you know forever. Maybe a good note to end on before we start is the Broader Community discussion here. Given overu view of the kinds of tactics that were used against various sectors of the civil right the movement theres a bigger fix of Martin Luther king and we know that great bit about the i dont think we know even anywhere near to the full extent of it but we know a good bit about what j ed gar hoover was doing trying to tell hum to kill himself blackmailing him over the noble peace prize but the fbi an other entities an the targeting of the Civil Rights Movement. I mean i think there are kind of two aspects of the targeting the Civil Rights Movement important to look at. First is the kind of surveillance monitoring, targeting, developing and and you know by the if people havent read betty the burglary, which is about to breakin that activist who break in and in pennsylvania and kind of what they find and one of the things that they find is fbi by the late 60s is developing and requiring agents to develop informants in every you know black student association. Right, they are, like this krief constant monitoring people got all up in arms with sel play because it showed johnson in ka hoots and he doesnt like the Democrat Party challenge theyre going to bring a challenge at the Democratic Convention in 1964 saying that the Mississippi Democratic party exclude black people theyre trying to get seated. Johnson orders hoover to surveil the mississippi freedom democratic party. Theyre getting real time information theyre feed real time information to people like bill. This so so i think theres a couple of things what was the press secretary at time, with yeah theyre like yeah so its like i mean so i think it shall theres a couple of things that are important to see there. One, its not j. Edgar hoover is some renegade jerk i think it becomes personified in him and he does. Hes sort of obsessed with Martin Luther king. But its much broader than him. It has support if you look at the memo where they decide to quire tap and bug king which is signed after the march on washington. Because thats when it really scarce the Kennedy Robert kennedy signature on that. Right this is not a renegade operation. But the other o thing that i think is important to see is the way that the fbi also does not concern itself with violence against civil right activists. So they both are monitoring and targeting but theyre also standing aside when rile violence is happening so chronicling it. They notice so the memos around the month montgomery so king house gets bombed and leaders houses and churches gets bombed and theyre noting this is happening but they seem and they they know that the local police have no suspects and then it is like carry on. More recently in charlottesville you have this young man, Deandre Harris who was beaten almost to death and it turns out that the location she was beaten in a parking great with a white mob and kids and just recently it was the parking garage of the Charlottesville Police department where he was beaten and i feel like thats no. Yeah. So caught it on video and just thinking about what youre saying its like it happened in the garage of the police department. Right so i think sort of thinking about both of those right the kind of wholesale surveillance in targeting and that developing of informants wanting endless information apparently agents would have to like basically explain why they didnt have a informant working for them even if theyre working all white plates and i think to me that really resonates because because i think were seeing these parallels with the ways that most students and muslim group and organizations have being surveilled today. And i think we dont take the right lessons so i think so one of the things that just have drone me over the edge is so james comey now some people see as a hero [laughter] he is going to put monal utility next to dr. King. He can take over one of the old he decided that what should happen is fbi agents have to have a visit to the king memorial and then say each pick a favorite quote and they discuss amongst themselves. Because he wants people to think about how power can be abused and first its not at all clear to me how taking one of the quotes from the king memorial that all gets us to how power can be abused because i think the difficulty, the trickiness there is actually to sort of think about who youre surveilling todays and how that might be in abuse of power not how much you love dr. King and this statement he made about peace in 1955. Right because i think it actually works in exactly the on is opposite way you read this thing by king and you feel good you would have never surveilled drsmght king but people you are u surveilling it is urgent. Theyre extreme right the same kind of language against king they use now. But somehow now these are the real extremists these are the real demagogue. And so you know i think theres this again, this is another place where theres both supposedly this awareness of how we went astray and yet the ways that we grapple with beginning astray i think just leads us sort of a further distance between the taxes we use today and feeling bad about taxes we use 50 years ago. Of course now we have you know this discussion of the term that theyre using now that black identity extremist maybe someone was beginning to ask a question about that. This is an incredible book and one of the things i adore is you clearly wrote it for the norm and it is not written for sort of elite group of people but this book is totally accessible had is awesome coming from such a academic to write best that i can read. So well open, open it up now for precially questions if you have a comment try to make it brief if it is something yowpght gene to respond to. Well just go side to side. A mic is coming your way. Okay. So you just gave me an opening because you mentioned birth datetys book, and i would wonder if you could talk about some of what youre talking about about liberalism and criminalizing people more radical in terms of the stand point of Building Movement because the other o thing im struck by when we with talk about pro or the show that is represented to mccourt still in prison. Its that it had a plan to divide the black movement. So that the, quote, respectable unrespectable being panthers would be divided i think that had had an impact and i think thats what had i want to ask you about in terms was work that youve done and support of the muslim prisoners but also in terms of the fact that theres black Political Prisoners because the movement didnt support people who took more radical terms. Right. I think one of the things that a when i was doing research for them i was thinking about a lot is this kind of methodology that truth comes to light that somehow were just its bad they thinks would find out about them. Right . And i think one of the things about the 19 about the breakin had in media, pennsylvania. Is it didnt come to light until people actually did that. Nobody and if we talk about the violation and this was a humbling thing so hoover goes arpgd and he tries to shop this salacious information about king to lots of reporters and interestingly unlike probably today the reporters dont take it. But they also do not report that the fact that theyre shop around salacious information on Martin Luther king so there wasnt the possibility to sort of have tried to break open this story. In terms of the breakin in the media files, the activist that break into the office and copy files and send them to the Washington Post, New York Times and l. A. Times beautifully return this. Right, and then when the Washington Post courageously forges forth then the next day New York Times covers it. But i think, i think part of whats humbling about this history is truth doesnt naturally come to light. I think part of what is humbling about had history is really hard to do the right thing. Mostly people dont and it takes a lot of you know, fortitude and and so we prefer narratives where just gets wrapped up. Right theres look this problem has been and done i think then is complicated by the fact that there are people who are arrested and 68 or 72 who are still in prison. That is complicates that narrative of like were done with this era. And and i think one i should say i think one of the dangers coming up on the 50th anniversary of the king assassination is the way i hear were going to sort of stop it with that tragedy and make it seem like that was the end of the black freedom struggle and miss kind of the ways it continues on in all of the people who continued it on. Including scott king. Anyone on this side over here this gentleman here. [inaudible conversations] not anymore [applause] ill tell you later. [inaudible conversations] need more black people to speak up and brown people but part of the movement i know were going to need. Were going to need you so how can question get those to just be honest and speak out . Because i think a lot of black people fear speaking out and may lose their job or who knows. But i dont know if you some white people have that same fear. So how can we get that to happen because i forgot civil rights, go ahead, sir. [applause] would you like to look, i mean, one of the i appreciate your sentiment there. You know, i didnt go to college and sort of grew up in a unorthodox way, and you know early on in my adult life, i sort of came to the conclusion that if you are qhiet in this country, you are always going to spend your life in youre a person of conscience or you care as a recovering racist. And i think that some people may disagree with that characterization but i think most woke people you know arranged that are white if theyre not in touch with the privileges they are girch by nature of who they are, then theres a limit how far they can go with being an ally or being in solidarity or joining in that struggle and one of the most important things i think gene said tonight you know is is has to do with listening to the people who are on the frontlines. And what do they need to strengthen the position or to hold the line, and i think a lot of white people fail at doing that. Theyll come in and they say let me tell you how its done, and a i think that there are a lot of very Serious Problems historically many this country with the largely white antiwar moment. And ive been to meetings like people are like black people dont come to these meetings well whats your position on prisons in this country right now. Whats the fore profit prison or on Police Killings you cant expect somebody they dont come to you by you come to them and they say were not trying to say you need to be parts of our march against the war but you need to connect the dots yourself. So for me i always feel like, you know, as a white person many this society, when asked a question like that you have to start from a position of absolute humility about who you are in this society. And if you recognize that and you own it. Its the same way as battling against addiction it a substance when you when you sort of name it and you own it. Then it liberates you to say im willing to listen to anyone who is a person of struggle and figure out how i can plug into it. [applause] [applause] i have a question. Oh, sorry. Yeah. Hi name is clinton dyer im brooklyn born and raised. I would like to discuss a topic that really hits home. The similarities between ethnic cleansing and genderification happening in brooklyn. So i think one of the places to begin that is to kind of take us kind of again, im historian so i always want to take us back to history but i think sometimes seeing that this has a much longer history of how kind of the politics of space in this city have worked right and a who has profited from that. And so i think we cant have a conversation about genderification without having a conversation about this kind of long history of housing segregation. And of using right one of the ways that segregation in places like new york was excused is this, was with kind of culture of poverty kinds of explanations that the reason that these neighborhoods are not good, are not being invested in is because people in neighborhoods dont know how to keep those neighborhoods up and people in those neighborhoods dont care about education and so thats why their kids are not doing well in school. And those explanations reign supreme sometimes continue to reign supreme and so then when those neighborhoods then become appealing, then become proximate to places that people were become you know low and behold are proximate to the subway that that if assumption is that certain kind of Cultural Values are superior and certain kind of soul churl values need to be improved right i thinks thats where to me im not showing use of a ethnic cleansing but i think i would talk about quite a few this way that racism is cloaked in this kind of cultural poverty idea where then people feel justified like im uplifting this naixd im bringing and then coffee shoughs follow me. And not taking responsibility both for the ways that people profit both off segregation off genderification, and the kind of very material sort of benefits that, that many people in this city have gained from this system of segregation that then has produced this like new reality of genderification. There was a piece recently or not so recently maybe a year or two ago of New York Times on the issue that youre raising but totally missing the point it was sort of like wheres the next hot place for two developers and a i was struck by the quote of one of the kind of vulture thats coming in saying East New York is already done. Like meaning that theyve already gone door to or door convinced poem to sell very low and theyre theyre on to the next neighborhood. And im from the mids we from mil u whoa key e if not the most, one of the most segregated cities in the country and it has the most incarcerated year of code 53206 and in chicago you had you know the erection of the huge housing projects that they were named like idab wells and greene, and Robert Taylor holmes. There was actually a plan put in place that was that was aimed at these buildings that would go straight up into the sky rather than spreading across land. Also linked to a great book about targeting of black tbhangs way that black banks were created but in this city i think there are tremendous amount of white people that are so unbleeivably ignorant of what theyre doing when they come into certain neighborhoodses that it causes this tension that you can cut with a knife in the air. And part is on the way that local elected officials handle these issues but i think part has to be if youre going move into a neighborhood you have to ask what am i bringing into this neighborhood it doesnt mean what do i think but are you going to be a part of the community or are you there as a settler . Who is planting flag and thats a deeper conversation that we should have but for now i think we can take maybe one more question with or comment. And well let gene wrap it up there. Is there anyone that didnt get to Say Something somebody already has a mic i couldnt see you behind the pole. Go ahead, sir. So i always feel like it always starts from the top what is your perspective to put that in the oppressive state . And with those jim crow laws. To specific delineate with separate bibles in the courtroom or penitentiaries but i would include also is School Zoning they dont come from god but political officials the way that they are look at School Zoning lines are drawn where School Officials are readjusting those lines to maintain the racial makeup of the schools as they were. So i would just ask to think about the jim crow laws not just in terms of the south but also new york city. In those who is in the subcommittee is focusing on the zoning issues these are official state decisions and to understand those maybe not exactly the same but similar with the southern jim crow laws to follow under the mandate so as you see those School Systems like boston and los angeles say the same thing. And boston is doing the same. To maintain segregated schools. To maintain segregated schools. The way we talk typically about jim crow and with those laws in the north. We will sign books that i promised at the beginning i would give you an opportunity to talk about struggling through your students but you are one of three or four professors i have met cliff taken such an incredible position in defense of their students when the target is upon the mid i have endless respect for that because unfortunately it is rare but above for you to share a brief bit of the battle against islam a phobia and how you see them as they are under attack. So we talk about how difficult it is with those blinders that we have with the ways or the frames we get to see the thing. So ten years ago a student of mine was arrested on terrorism charges and charged in the federal system and like all good progressives i thought i was paying attention and following the evils of guantanamo and have come to believe i understood the way it was working with these extralegal offshore sites to do bad things. But not paying attention to the criminal justice system. But when he was arrested what happened to me was have to see again echoing the point how all of us have to humble ourselves to what we dont know in those assumptions that we make that dont actually reflect what is happening. It was scary it was on headlines and it seems scary. But then you look deeper from what i study in the Civil Rights Movement in the 50s and 60s and 70s in terms of criminalization of people speaking out and in terms of the fear of ideas and radical ideas so he was surveilled in Brooklyn College and hell and all very outside mainstream ideas extremely critical of the United States and call United States a terrorist organization so this made me realize how much more i needed to know domestically and through the federal system with a terrorism cases being held domestically and to not coming through guantanamo but what it meant to speak out on something that was so scary almost nobody was writing about it at all i remember the first time and it was so scary. You feel crazy so part of the reasoning the reading of rosa parks she keeps talking about feeling insane like crazy and alone and that sort of feeling how do i know this is really an injustice . So i wrote about it and more people came to see this injustice and i have done a lot of work around what is happening in the federal system through these prosecutions and my students that i have been doing a lot of work with surveillance of the nypd with partnership of the cia and spying on businesses and students but it was like they were the good guys they spent all this time to bring the story to light but this is the narrative that the city is that they are exposed and mayor diblasio runs and then we are done but then we discovered last year that the nypd had invented an undercover officer through 2015 to spy on predominantly the woman students but also political students. At Brooklyn College. But because there is an adf they broke that story and brought it to light with reform and we got mayor diblasio it was extremely hard for the people to Pay Attention and take it seriously. And seriously the harms of that. And my students very much felt they were not listen to and so this is my pitch for the intercept they asked me to ride a piece of the harm of the surveillance on them which i did. The intercept published many did not want to but thankfully they did i heard from lots of people around the country what it meant to see documented in the National News source from the young people and how crazy it makes you feel i dont know how to end because i guess maybe talking about the title that is taken from a james baldwin. Noted she left herself completely out of that story. The first time i met her she came up to me didnt even introduce yourself and grabbed me to talk to her students because all she cared about was this big reception about the fate of her students coming there knowing there would be these lawyers that this is a tireless advocate for her students. [applause] so to and on a happier note part of why i chose this title to talk to teachers that American History is longer and more than anything anybody has said about it. Part of why i call that a more beautiful and terrible history because on one hand it is more sobering and more terrible and makes us face much more uncomfortable questions. But i also think it is more beautiful, more in terms of where we go from here to offer a more the courage is even more so on the shooting. When i longed astonishing. Rosa parks only gets better this is even more impressive. So i guess that is where i want to end where i got myself out of the culdesac now we have this criticism and then to realize in terms of where we go from here. Give it up the 17. [applause] thank you so much we hope to see you again soon. [inaudible conversations] tell us how this works in the brain. You can think that while it is true humans are endowed to have hair, any Human Capacity during development but it seems to be partly related to genetic problems in part that results in people having no capacity to care for anybody but themselves but yet is okay on occurs in 2 of the population but those who are psychopathic it is the opposite of those who are altruistic. So people that are psychopathic there are smarter than and also less active. Your title is about the sheer factor on the fear factor so how do you recognize fear . So psychopathy that has been observed from the beginning those tend to have a certain type of personality are susceptible to punishment they dont respond to being threatened for those that are psychopathic tend to offend and reoffend because if you fear getting punished he will not do that but that doesnt seem to be the case that they have that response so for a long time it was suspected something could be wrong in the amygdala because it is essential to develop a normal fear response. There is also to be recognized how does that play out . For someone who cannot but fear but those that have psychopathic acts . This is some of the most interesting research. What i think they have discovered is that when you see or hear or think about someone experiencing fear in order to understand those emotions, you have to recreate that emotional state in your own brain and the amygdala is essential so if you dont have a strong amygdala response if you see or hear somebody else who is afraid you cannot recreate that emotion and fundamentally you cannot understand what the other person is feeling or empathize. So the brakes that would stop another person from hurting that person are not there. Exactly. If we saw somebody was frightened the ability to simulate could not stop us if you dont have the ability to do that washington journal continues. Host howard kurtz is the media host for the Fox News Channel and the latest howard kurtz and author of media madness donald trump, the press, and the war over the truth. Good morning could you connect the dots . There is a scorecard for warfare going on between all sides and talking even the Clinton White house there was a natural adversarial tension that we have never seen anything like this or such unrelentingly negative coverage often very personal in nature as we see with this president or