Who though they were being told it would improve at the time. In your book you talk about, ronald mason. Who was he and buys it no go. I think the issue there was whats the kind of these institutions. Since the Civil Rights Act. And a lot more education in the country. Integration. Because blacks didnt have in the first half of the 20th century, they are not the bus to the extent. But they have more options nowadays. So it was troubling, how to stay viable both economically in terms of Higher Education. And this has been resisted by some who want the schools to remain retain their independence. Its often for nostalgic reasons. For someone whos pushing for this plan, we got a lot of pushback. I think if they are producing good results, yes. They should stay in existence. The problem is that a lot of them are not there and theyre being keptafloat primarily for federal dollars. My point is if a school is for filling his promises then, it doesnt matter if its an all black or white school. Where i think the value is of late in recent decades is in the. Educating kids in ste. The parlance of blocks that go. I still think they do very server critical purpose in Higher Education. This is the cover story of the washington post. Gene robinson americas your reaction to that . I think theres a tendency to view black history in america as a history of. There are various reasons why various groups want to keep that narrative alive. But in the end, i think black history is about yes, racism still exists. Nor do i expect to see america think wished of racism in my lifetime. But, i do think black history is more than that. For me, the more relevant question is what can be done in the face of whatever racism still exists. And i think that is the relevant story of today. That is the message to give young people today. My fear is that by perpetuating this notion that its all about victimization. Its all about racism. Its sending the wrong message i sent to the next generation. Why try if people are teachers are racist. Employers are racist will they if theyre leaving the door with that for the message, i dont think it helps a child. Ive been called names, followed around department stores. Pulled over by police. You write about that tell. Where were you . I was doing an internship in the early 90s. And i was a double ai was on the sports desk. We had to work until the baseball games on the west coast were over. And i was driving to and from my uncles house where i was staying. And i had my car which had new york plates because i was from new york. And i was driving home one evening after work. Probably early the next morning. And i hear sirens blaring and the police pulled me over. Pull me out of the car at gunpoint and pushing me around. I said the space that i fit the description of someone they were after. What were you thinking . I was terrified. I remember getting back into the car after i left because they were gone as soon as they came after the release i wasnt the correct person. Just getting back in my car, shaking. I had a standard and i couldnt get it out of here. My hand was shaking so vigorously. It was terrifying. Making national headlines, three black men, 16 years old at the time. Convicted of murder state did not commit but they were just released. What does that tell you about americas criminal Justice System . That it is not perfect. Knowno go [indiscernible] we dont talk about the racial makeup in this country and i dont think you can have questions. As imperfect as the criminal system is. I still think there are behavioral differences that lead to some being overrepresented and some underrepresented. So that was a look back [indiscernible]. I wanted to say for programs that were put in place. I wanted to look back and see whats worked, what hasnt worked and why. I had a little bit of this the book is essentially about the track record of using political power which has been the strategy. The issue was if we could integrate, everything is will take care of itself. We just need to get things in place. The civil rights had quite the perspective. In the early 1980s. Los angeles, philadelphia, washington d. C. That had black mayors. We had black Police Chiefs and fire commissioners. But if you look at the track record of these black run cities. Under these black regimes, you have even more impoverished. I dont think the track record is a good one. A groups work ethic, if they think the government is going to you cant replace a father in thethe homebrewed and have a system in place that says to a woman from if you have additional child, we will send you the money. Imagine the perverse incentive for in place. And thats what we saw going on. Thats what we saw with bill clintons welfare reforms in the 1990s. But not entirely. We are in new york and our guest is jason riley. His column is available at the wall street journal. For those of you in the mountain pacific time zones. You can find us on book tv on twitter. That book was written in the 2000s and it was about immigration. I was working at the wall street journal at the time. I got a new position and asked me if i wanted to take over this piece. It kind of fell into my lap. Im not an immigrant or the child of an immigrant. I did enjoy immigrant history. Some of the arguments you realize as you write about it are old and its been around for so long. So that book really came out of editorials at that time. Its sort of, i sort of expand on a lot of the editorial pages. Over the decades. Sometimes conservatives in particular. The foot of immigration view on the right you always have protectionist strain on the right. But that was never the dominan. Reagan was extremely proimmigrant. George w. Bush and his father were both proimmigrant. Even the republican nominees that lost like mccain or romney were far more proimmigrant than you had in donald trump. So this is not a new development on the right. Although there is this faction, more antiimmigrant faction on the right but its never been the predominant one. Should the rules be different for an immigrant versus citizens . There two different groups. Will tell you that someone was forced out of their country. Someone like that will behave differently rather someone who came willingly to start a new life. When i am writing about in that book that is the case i make is that we would be better to put in place or other types of programs that allow the laws to determine the level. Right now its being made by public policymakers who are trying to think hard about the United States economy point take a little from here and from there. And that just doesnt work. Its soviet style planning thats left us with a vacuum of fraud. 12 Million Immigrants fit hundreds of dead bodies in the arizona desert. If we would do better, that would allow us to regulate. The current book youre working on is what . Im currently working on based on the hoover institution. Whose books i am writing when i discovered them in college. Its a project im looking forward to. How would you define your ideology. Can you put it in a box . I guess i define myself as a free market conservative. Someone who believes Smaller Government is the way to go. And someone that believes in individual freedom. In please stop helping us, you write the Civil Rights Movement became an industry. By whom . Its become an industry for everyone from individuals like al sharpton, Jesse Jackson whose entire organization like the naacp. The they have effectively monetized black discrimination. And they have done it for different reasons. If youre a Civil Rights Organization like the naacp, it is not in your interest to a college that things have improved for black people. And what youre trying to do, that the civil rights battle has been fought and won and you are trying to stay relevant. If youre in an organization like black lives matter but you want to raise money. Whether or not they are actually relevant you will play that out because its in your interest to do so. We were talking about the victimization earlier. And that is something democrats and black Democrats Use to get reelected. The different groups i think have different incentives here. But it has very much become an industry. An industry that has no vested interest in realistic [indiscernible] right. Again. That doesnt serve their purpose. They want to stay relevant or they want to raise money or get elected. So they want to keep race and racial victimization front and center in the national debate. Would use where do you do most of your thinking and writing . At home. I have a home office. It took a little getting used to but i commuted in an office for more than two decades. At the wall street journal so it took a little adjustment. I find it more productive to start right away. Our guest is jason riley. Well take your calls in just a moment. Lets talk about your father. You write about him in the book with your parents separated when you were a child. He made a big difference. He was an excellent role model. Not only my father. My mother is very religious. And we attended church three times a week. And the congregation was full of black men who took care of their families. Spoke a certain way, behave this way. I was very fortunate. I grew up around very solid male role models. And i think it made a big difference. They are part of the problem that many blacks, particularly was not having. The lack of role models in the community or even in the home. Given the rates of single parenting in poor black communities. Its a problem. Born and raised in buffalo . Yes. Welcome to booktv. Hello. Good afternoon. I want to ask how republicans, especially black republicans, why dont they educate as far as politically . [indiscernible] voter suppression. [indiscernible] you should have me on your Radio Program discussing this. What im asking you to do, when i ran for the house in florida. I was a republican. I was called a racist. Jackie robinson was my hero. I honor doctor Martin Luther king. And i was called racist. Its terrible. I asked him what democrat in the south. Thats what you should be teaching them. Thank you for the call. We will get a response. I would agree with the caller that there is a lot of black history that doesnt get a lot of attention. Civil rights organizations and black politicians. Because again, it doesnt serve their interests. Their personal interest. What was going on in the black community between the end of slavery and the beginning of the modern day Civil Rights Movement. There was quite a bit of progress being made and this was remarkable. Given it was happening at a time of widespread racism in this country. That was open. After the goal. This is the days of jim crow. The rate at which they were educating themselves. The race at which they were joining the middleclass professions. Tremendous progress that actually flowed after the civil rights legislation of the 1960s passed. We saw many of these trends either slow down or even reverse course. It doesnt get a lot of attention from the Civil Rights Activists today. Because it doesnt serve their narrative. You write in please stop helping us that poor blacks perform better in the absence of government. Why . Well, we have a lot of that we can look back on and see if in fact these programs were effective. In 1996, the university of california ended will be so after that band went into place with a number of black graduates increase by more than 50 percent. The number of hispanic graduates increased by more than 50 percent. So a program to have been put in place to helpincrease and expand the ranks have been practiced , been resulting in fewer black lawyers or architects or social workers in the absence of the policy. I again, we dont have to guess here. We dont have to speculate. We can simply look at the past record of these programs that weve had in place over the years. Rob in new york city. Welcome to the conversation. Good afternoon mr. Riley. Im a big fan of yours. I am a black american. I agree with everything you say. But it really doesnt make a difference. You have the mentality of being comfortable being a victim. Its not going to change. The Democratic Party knows this. This will be their favorite word. Racist. Too many black folks will be attracted to that. Feeding their emotions. Thats what the Democratic Party is banking on. I heard someone once a fax dont give a damn about your feelings. My family, no matter what. Im telling you now, this doesnt make a difference. Youve been told you have a national problem. Its never going to change. The Democratic Party is waiting for the big race win. Thats what they are banking on. Police shootings, Something Like that. Then black folks will leave their feelings and emotions up and they will take them for granted. I didnt vote for trial. Im voting for him now because, what have you got to lose . Look at the facts of unemployment. We are better off. It doesnt make a difference. Its just never going to change. The black added to just will never change. Thanks for the call. You are smiling. I appreciate the call. And i think he makes good points about the strategy of the democrats. And hes right. The democrats have been very at pushing their victim mentality. And so it is very difficult to change minds out there. But im more optimistic than the caller, i will say. But he does make excellent points. From the book please stop helping us, you write this. Insists immigrants are coming here not to take advantage of welfare programs, why then are they flocking to states that are so skimpy with benefits to the poor . Thats a question i often asked my friends on the right who see immigration as a problem. The idea that immigrants are coming here to go on welfare and not work is just not borne out by the facts. On many fronts. But we can look at the situation we have today. You have, picture number. 10, 12, 15 Million People in the country illegally. Unemployment rates at a six year low. The wall street journal reported recently theres Something Like. 2 million more Jobs Available than there are people looking to work. We have a labor shortage. Notwithstanding the fact we have 15 Million People here illegally. So again, the other argument is they will put on wages but i cant tell you how often ive been told, you should be especially wary of these folks. Because theyre going after jobs that are held by a lot of blacks. Again, what does that say with black unemployment and we are at generational lows. Which is like for people at the low end of the pay scale, faster than theyve been rising for management. Immigrants coming here and stealing jobs. Affecting wages. Wheres the evidence . You write about Jesse Jackson. 50 years ago, he was fighting jim crow laws and today hes fighting for his own relevance. Absolutely. I think the civil rights battle has been fought and won. You see now amongst civil rights leaders. Even among the activist groups. What they are pushing for, where they want emphasis. In terms of the black community is so at odds with reality that its hard to know where to begin. One of the previous callers mentioned the way the left plays a Police Shootings. Any Police Shooting is tragic. But, is it the problem today that these activists have made it out to be . We are in the york which is one of the few places that has detailed records of Police Shootings going back to the early 1930s. In 1971, police in new york [indiscernible]. The most recent stats from a couple years ago shows around a dozen. Thats a 90 percent reduction in Police Shootings. And in Police Shooting fatalities over the past decades. So we have an activist movement out there that bank on there being some sort of epidemic of Police Shootings. The facts simply do not bear that out. You can look at other large studies. Police shootings may make up 12 percent of all shootings going on. If there are bad cops, let them out. If they hold a position of authority, but the idea that thats what we should be emphasizing. The two percent of shooting instead of people responsible for 98 percent of shootings is ridiculous. Lets talk about the crime rate and blacks in jail. You write about, these are your words, blacks are responsible for an astonishingly disproportionate number of crimes for the past halfcentury. Yes. Blacks are responsible for more than half of all murders in this country. Despite only making up 13 percent of the populace. The black Violent Crime rate is 710 times higher than the white Violent Crime rate in the country. Thats something we need to be honest about. We want to have about the racial makeup but we dont want to talk about the racial makeup of who commits crimes. We pretend these have absolutely nothing to do with one another. Its ridiculous. They office to have something to do with one another. If we want to reduce the number of people in the criminal Justice System and the number of blocks, we have to deal with the black crime rate. But that entails having an honest conversation. But we dont have that. What percentage in your mind are africanamericans . In poverty. Black poverty rates are higher than white poverty rates. Among married blocks, poverty rates are in the single digits. And has been for 25 years been the idea that racism is driving the poverty rate is at odds with the facts. No one is going to not discriminate against you if youre black and married. They will not make any distinctions. So we have to look at the totality from the situation. Is poverty a function of racism . Is poverty primarily a function of [indiscernible]. If its the latter, but again, these are not discussed. We jump right to a Racial Disparity resulting from racism, for stop. We dont discuss other factors that could be driving these. To have the conversation, you dont need to deny that racism exists in america, the question as to what extent is racism responsible for these outcomes . To your point, it cycles, the poverty rate with crime. It has a lot to do with that. Keep those families intact. What was your own personal experience going back to your father that separated from them at an early age. My father never lived more than a couple miles away from us. My sisters and i spent holidays and weekends with him and usually a couple days a week at his house. Doing homework after school. So he was very involved. In my life. The problem is that, thats not typical. Thats atypical. And thats the problem. I mean, you go back to as recently as the 60s. Two out of three blankets being raised by a mother and a father. And that statistic alone are a long way of the gangrelated violence, why these kids are shooting each other. Theres a lack of male role models. Your father has since passed away. Noel. [indiscernible]. [laughter] i didnt think my father enough when he was alive. Michael in florida, thank you for waiting. Im just listening and i have so many questions for this gentleman. Number one, how to utilize the statistics to support his position while statistics for example when he cited, black families if they are married. Their kids are in a better position. When 73 percent of all marriages end up in divorce. Or when he cites that for example, by his analogy, if there were 900 grapes of women in the city and now there are 10 rapes, are we now not supposed to emphasize how important it is that you shouldnt rape women . You talk about people using the Civil Rights Movement to their advantage. I would guess that you have been in a situation, despite your educational career and professional career that you are either the first or the only black in your area of employment or wherever you were. At the wall street journal, they are very happy to have an educated black man like yourself to talk about theories that are generally not supported by black people you have done probably the same thing in your professional life that you are accusing democrats of doing. Now let me make my final point. You talk about a system. The g. I. Bill. Affirmative action for white soldiers. Because black people werent allowed to be in the army. Was also affirmative action. All you had to do was be a white male and you could sign up and go to any college that the government would pay for the and that after the economy started to boom come all of the businesses left the urban areas. They rate the cities. All the people moved to the suburbs. The banks refused to give blacks ons. Gave white loans. They refuse to hire blocks. And then gridlocked the districts where the blacks were to support the backing of the federal government. Thank you for the call. A couple points, in terms of my personal background. I havent accomplished anything in life that other black people havent before me. That includes the wall street journal. I was recruited by a black gentleman that had been an editor for a number of years. In terms of the g. I. Bill, i dont know if he has his facts straight there but there are blacks with attended college in the 50s and 60s. The gentleman im writing about is one of them who attended college on the g. I. Bill. And hes quite thankful for the g. I. Bill. He also mentioned something about deindustrialization. As been a problem in the inner cities. These committees have disintegrated. Getting the order wrong here. The factories left after these societies had fallen into disrepair. The riots of the 1960s happened first. Then the Companies Left these areas. So you have to get the order right. Sometimes people dont. We are taking your text messages. A lot coming in including this from a viewer saying, Police Shootings are down because of protest and demonstration. Again, thats not what the record shows. I mentioned new york city earlier. 1971, i believe there were 314 Police Shootings. By 1991, that had fallen by more than half. To about 100. And then 20 years later its into the teens. So this has been a longstanding trend. That predates these protests in the last year. Police, the use of force has been declining steadily. Particularly among there was a study e red from an economist at harvard. And he examines a number of Police Shootings around the country. He had expected to find buyers but he found no bias. He found black and hispanic suspects were less likely to be shot at by police. This is not i believe a function of these protests. What the protests have done or what they risk doing is forcing police to scale back in their cars and not patrol on foot to take their time on 911 calls. If you have the politicians and activists breathing down there next. My fear is that the people who will be harmed the most by this are lawabiding black people. Who of course are the majority of the black community. They are the ones will be harmed. The criminals prayed on them first and foremost. Theyre not hitting into white suburbs to rob holmes. The rubbing their neighbors. Robbing. Youre hurting the black core the most. That is what i fear these activist are doing by making policing the problem when the problem is criminality. Mr. Riley, how much criticism do you get from friends for being on fox news . Rex. [laughter] i have friends of all political affiliations. But when people see your on tv, theyre more likely to tell you how you look at how you sounded. Joining us in jersey city. Good afternoon. Thank you very much. Mr. Riley, i will start off by saying happy holidays to you. Rest in peace to your father. There was a personal story you shared there. I dont have a problem with your view about how the democrats are the blacks. As far as politics and government go, [indiscernible]. I am black. I believe in Bernie Sanders. Thats me telling you as a black male. I am very dissatisfied with the Democratic Party. They are not doing enough. We dont have really any trade schools. Why dont we have public trade schools that teach public high schools,welding , electricians. We are not doing the Democratic Party is not doing enough but taking money out of our system. [indiscernible] thats me giving you a couple reasons, examples of this transaction with the Democratic Party. But youre not encouraging us to vote for the Republican Party, are you . They dont spend any dollars mr. Riley on our communities. Its beneath the Republican Party. Maybe they dont turn their back toward or against us, but they dont even look at us. Which one of them that like i said, Bernie Sanders is the way forward. Your views are very toxic. You are black and we all have the right to suggest our way forward. But the gop is not the answer. The fact that, i will respond on two levels. The caller is like i think when he talks about the lack of interest that republicans have shown the black vote. You can speculate as to why that is good weather is racism or whats driving it. They dont need this vote to win. In politics, its about numbers. And time spent going after a situate so you dont have a chance of getting is not time well spent. So that could be one explanation right there. More recently, paul ryan did try to push for it. You had stephen goldsmith, another politician that did this. Even when he ran for reelection, he did quite well among blacks. Because he went into camden and trenton. The problem with all the people we just named as they are the exceptions are not the full. You dont see republican candidates and black neighborhood barbershops. You dont see them advertising on black radio or black television programs. What its allowed is for the Democratic Candidates to paint them as complete monsters with no pushback. I do think that republicans ought to do a better job of courting this vote and i dont blame blacks to have the attitude now that i will vote democrat or stay home. In the wall street journal, euro black voters you wrote [indiscernible]. If you had asked me about cory booker and Kamala Harris five years ago, i would have had positive things to say about them. Both of them are democrats, both of them are liberal. But we can start with cory booker. He was a very educational, reform minded mayor. Before he became a senator. He believe in School Choice. Charter schools. He was also very hard on crime. He came down, he hired a Proactive Police commissioner. I was going to model what she was going to do on what giuliani and bloomberg had done in new york. Kamala harris as a prosecutor. You see youtube videos of her saying things like, there may be racism but thats not the reason i [indiscernible]. She was a very openminded prosecutor to protect lawabiding black people that were the targets. Theyve abandoned that. By and large, they decided they needed to be more progressive to run for president. Thats where the party was so they had to put aside sensible talk. Thats my problem with where they are today versus where they were before. The caller mentioned Bernie Sanders. I, my problem with Bernie Sanders, is socialism. Which amounts to Wealth Redistribution as a way of helping the poor. Helping the black poor in particular. Again, we talk about that redistricting wealth to help poor people and solve poverty. We would have felt a long time ago. What these folks need is to learn about wealth creation. The progressives are too focused on redistribution as a solution and its not. Its not going to be the solution. And bernie is all in. And thats essentially my problem with his you write about former mayor Michael Bloomberg. He apologize about stop and frisk. You defended it by saying [indiscernible] is that a Fair Assessment . Rex i have a problem with Michael Bloomberg but one of the things i liked about Michael Bloomberg was his stance on policing. He didnt have the backing of the police. He let them know that. Rudy giuliani put a lot more cops on the streets in these communities. By the way, people like to talk about the tensions between the police and black community. [indiscernible] mayors like bloomberg and giuliani were responding to those calls. And i appreciated that. The start and frisk policy that bloomberg is walking back and apologizing for, i would argue is. If you go back to the early 90s, we were looking at 2300 homicides a year in the early 90s. 70 percent were black people being murdered. If you fastforward to last year, down to a couple hundred. If we had maintained the rate of homicide in the early 1990s, for the next quarter century. Do you know how many more that more like people we would have today . I was appalled he was apologizing for a policy that i would argue saved predominantly black lives and kept them at out of prison as well. Thats where the party is now. If you want to run in this party, you have to talk about policing as the problem and not criminality. We are having our in depth conversation with jason riley. Who is your role model . My role model was my father. First and foremost. And no one has really replaced him since then. There are people that have influenced me throughout my career. And among those folks i would name shelby steele. Walter williams. These are people i was reading back in college. And the greed with a lot agreed with a lot of what they wrote. [indiscernible]. [laughter] thats a good question. I havent had a lot of jobs out of college. I got into journalism. Id read something in the paper and editor said why dont you join the staff . And thats what got me interested. And i did, after i did the internship with usa today in washington. I knew i wanted to be a journalist. Six months after college i found myself at the wall street journal. And i stayed more than two decades and continued to write for that paper. Out of bed in the morning whether a more current column or a book. Or prepare for interviews on cspan. So im still very much enjoying it. I do hit her up with ideas in terms of what to write about joining us from detroit michigan your next with jason riley. How are you doing today . [inaudible] a little while back you said something about i think the ab says to black folks during jan crow. Under jim crow. I was wondering if you could provide any references or any comments abhello . [inaudible] what i was talking about was, for instance, between 1940 and 1960 the black poverty rate in america fell by 40 percentage points. You talking 40 decline for Civil Rights Act of 64, the Voting Rights act of 1965. In the decade of the 60s alone black Household Incomes doubled in this country. Thats prior to the era of affirmative action that often receives credit for increasing black income. If you look at the period between 1930 and 1970 you had the number of his blacks entering still profession, social workers, teachers, lawyers, doctors, number of black entering these middleclass professions quadrupled during this period. So, the point here is what was going on in the rest of the country during this period. I would argue that the folks that were making those gains were experiencing a great deal more racism in American Society then what we have today. Yet it was not able to stop them. The question then began, what did stop . What happened . Why did we see a slowdown in these gains are reversal in some cases and in what was happening. I would argue as i did in please stop helping us that the Government Intervention policies or expansions of the Great Society programs is one thing that got in the way. We started to see the nddisintegration of that black family and we started to see all kinds of other kgovernment efforts to help that interfered with the selfdevelopment that was taking place in this country and we saw this political shift in the civil rrights arena. We saw the shift from focus of the development in the Human Capital that we saw in the king era to a focus on electing black officials. That became the primary focus and i think that too proved problematic in the long run. We are taking your emails as well at abhe talked about doctor Martin Luther king would he be happy with where we are today 50 years after his assassin . I dont think he would be satisfied. Would he save me made progress . Of course we made progress we have a black president. Twice elected black president , as well as senators, mayors and governors. On a certain level, certainly he would be proud of the progress but in terms of the black core. There is still quite a bit of work to do there. Among the black poor in this country. A situation that has in some ways asregressed since the days of king. And its really sad. But that is where we are and i think thats what he would be most disappointed. This is an email from pat from new jersey asking does the Voting Rights act required for majority minority districts need to be kept in place . I dont think so. I think that people have been willing to cross racial lines to vote for quite some time. But the other problem with keeping it in place as it fuels polarization. You get candidates that dont need to make any appeals outside of the racial or ethnic group. I think that only fuels polarization. And probably nlnlhurts candidat who aspire to run statewide at some point. With the Congressional District you are running in that one area but if you want to be a senator if you want to be a governor and you spent all your time only making these very narrow appeals to Certain Group and then run statewide, thats a much more difficult leak to make. I think it puts in place perverse incentives and it ignores the fact that we have come a long way in terms of the willingness of whites to look a vote for black candidates. This is celine with a civil question, whos responsible for racism in our country and why . I dont think any one individual is responsible for racism. Racism predates america. As part of the human condition i would argue. Its not about one group being responsible for perpetuating it. Or one group being able to end it. It predates all of us and i believe it will still be here when im long gone. I think its part of the tragedy of human nature. Will go to ashland virginia and hugh, you are next. Welcome to booktv. Thank you so much. I really appreciate mr. Riley stating the facts. I just want to check the statement everyone is entitled to his own opinion but not his own facts. The callers that like to bash them are always doing is stating facts should really ponder that. Im a whistleblower, i was written up in the front page wall wall street journal in 1983 which triggered an investigation that eventually led to the resignation of jim wright from speaker of the house. Thats all done on factual the article was offered by jonathan quigley, i dont know if hes aware of who he was but a i dont know him. To bring to it solutions thats what we should be focused on. The people of the greatest asset of any country lets get it together and stop the racial baloney. We have sindigenous people a concentration camp reservations that need our help too. It all helps with stopping arguments and bringing forth solutions. Thank you. Thank you for the call. Edit here a question in there but i think him for the call as well. From the book let them in here right about an individual by the name of john hinton, who is he . John tanton was, he died recently, an eye doctor from michigan. Who also was a political activist. He started out as an environmental activist. Cases like the cr club he then moved into reproductive rights, maybe one of the first if not the first planned parenthood in michigan. Was unsatisfied with abthis was part of his environmentalism worked in tandem with his concern about population growth in the u. S. He was concerned there was too many people and this was detrimental to nature to the ecology to the earth. Which explains his interest in abortion. It also explains his interest in immigration ultimately. That america was becoming overpopulated with immigrants. He started any number of organizations to fight for lower levels of immigration. The expanded quite rapidly and some of them have become pretty popular. Fair is one of them, its the federation areform. Center for Immigration Studies is another one. The reason i wrote about it in the book is because Many Republican restriction nests have made common cause with these patent organizations over the years and even though on many, but for different reasons. You have people who got in bed together even though they came from very different places ideologically they joined in forces to reduce immigration. What i was trying to explain is the history of some of these groups in the book. I think there are Many Republicans who didnt realize who they were in bed with. Lets talk about the Republican Party because in the first two years of the Top Administration donald trump is a candidate, used immigration as a key issue in his campaign he brought it up again in 2018 when they ultimately lost control of the house of representatives but they had the white house, the house, and the senate, for two years a chance to get something on immigration on an issue that republicans ran on, what happened . I think he ran into the same problem that obama ran into when he controlled or his party controlled all three branches for his first two years in office. Its a complicated issue. Even within the party within each party there arare differen factions with different beliefs on immigration. Clearly most republicans are not with the president when it comes to some of the more extreme views. More recently weve had the dreamer issue, kids or people who were brought here to the country illegally as children. And what to do about them and obama had passed something to executive action, trump wanted to undo it. A majority of republicans not just americans but majority republicans, large majority republicans want to give amnesty to the dreamers and not deport them. There you have an issue where trump is at odds with members of his own party. A lot of members of his party arent on board with expanding the border wall. To the extent that trump wants to do it. So its a complicated issue and its hard to get even all of one party to act an agreement on something let alone something bipartisan. You took a president ial task on the issue. On a number of issues. I was not a trump supporter mostly on grounds of his temperament and whether he was fit for the job but also on some policy issues and one was immigration another was trade. Those are two issues i disagreed with him on. On other issues i have agreed with him and have written approvingly. I like his education policies i like his choice for education secretary, betsy devos, a big supporter of School Choice vouchers big supporter of Charter Schools and tax credits and all the rest and she spent her professional life supporting those causes. Like the fact that trump appointed her and has been vocally supportive of education choice. When people talk about where i see this country going or where i see black america had a Going Forward i think its only to be coming down to getting a decent education for kids in these poor communities. Its going to be at the root of everything. I have no faith that the traditional Public Schools in this country can do that because i dont believe that they are acting primarily in the interest of the children these days. I think they are acting primarily in the interest of the adults that Public Education has become a jobs Program First and foremost. Not an education program. I think the best way to fix that is to give it competition. Whether its alternative public systems like public Charter Schools or vouchers that allow people to take the kids out of schools and send them to private schools or parochial schools but i think the Public Education system needs some competition. For me trump has been a mixed bag. I dont criticize him i dont reflexively praise him. If he does something i like i will Say Something nice about him if he does something adult like i will a we welcome listeners on cspan radio, you can listen to this and other programs on the free cspan radio app. Our next collar is from caliente california, jim, youre next. Good afternoon. Thank you very much for taking my call. Mr. Riley, where i live there is a lot of white poverty. Primarily overwhelmingly white. A lot of people in this area in kern county in general are descendents of the okies, the immigration from the dustbowl area in the 1930s. There seems to me as i look at it a lot of systemic poverty its been here for generations. Is there a fundamental difference between what i see in certain communities and black property versus white poverty . I also have seen examples of the police, sheriffs, basically its not so much color, its poverty. Thats why people are discriminated against to a very large extent. I think at least where i live. So what do you see as a different similarities, any fundamentals here . Thank you. Jim, thank you. I dont see fundamentally a lot of difference. I think the same Human Capital will lift blacks and whites alike out of poverty. Offers more recently like jd vance have written very movingly about the situation in white america. I think its received less attention because the white poor are a smaller percentage of whites. Then the black poor are blacks. But on a fundamental level i dont see any difference in how you go about helping these groups or what they need to do to change their situation. In the book please stop helping us you write the following, one reason returns on black Political Investments have been so meager is that politicians often act in ways that benefit themselves but do not represent the concerns of most blacks. And thats not unique to black politicians. But it seems like a generalization. Perhaps. But i would argue there are enough examples to make it relatively accurate generalization. Politicians act in the interest of getting reelected. No matter what color they are. I will give you an example, president obama comes into office and blacks have overwhelmingly voted to put him there one issue that pulls very well in the black community and long has is School Choice. Both Charter Schools and voucher programs have pulled very well among blacks. Far ahead of where they pulled among whites and other groups. One of the first things obama tries to do as president is shut down the dc voucher program. Which is disproportionately helping blacks. Why would he do this . Why would the first black president take an issue thats overwhelmingly popular among blacks and try and shut down the dc voucher him. P . Now he is president. Part of the reason hes president is that the teachers unions help make an president. They dont like School Vouchers because many of the schools where the vouchers are used are not unionize. They want these kids in traditional Public Schools not voucher programs. How obama has to make a decision, to act in the interest of the special interest that helped elect me or my fellow blacks . He made his choice and i think other politicians have made faced with the same dilemma have made a similar choice. Thats what i mean about looking to politicians to address some of these basic needs and the black community. The politicians have their own political interest to be preoccupied with in the not always going to align with the interest of the black poor in the case of black politicians. Our next collar is from starfield connecticut. Good afternoon, welcome to the conversation. Thank you for taking my call. I was wondering would you say there is a silent majority within the black middle class, if you think so, how would you describe it . There is an interesting book, an excellent book written by a political scientist at cuny, the university of new york called black silent majority. He makes the argument that the black political elites have not always acted in the interest of the black poor or even the majority of blacks. I think he makes a pretty strong argument. If you take Something Like crime polls will tell you, when pollsters ask people in the black Community Whether the criminal Justice System is too easy on criminals are too hard on them the black general public tells pollsters that the criminal Justice System goes too easy on criminals. Thats not what youre going to hear coming out of the mouth of black politicians or black civil Rights Groups are black activists but thats what your average black person on the street is going to tell you. I just mentioned the example of education where the interest of black elites differ from the interest of average blacks and echoes all the way back to the days of buffett when the naacp supported it the most blacks did not. There is a long history here of what will advance someones political career versus what the black community actually wants. And what a lot of people on the black left are counting on, this goes back to something in earlier color mentioned is that blacks will vote democrat or stay home. But they do not fear that this black constituent will go vote for republican. That is one thing they can count on not happening. That is an example of when its often said that the democrats take the black vote for granted, thats what they are talking about there. One way to fix that would be for the republicans to make a play for this vote in that way blacks could use our two party system the way other groups in america use the two party system to get what they want. But right now you dont see a lot of that happening in black america. Have you look at the divorce rate among black men versus poor white men and is same, similar, disproportionately different . Do you know where we were maybe in 1960s and where we are today . I dont know those numbers off the top of my head. If i had to guess i just dont know the numbers. I dont want to speculate on that but acu i asked the question because to go back to your earlier point that the roots of poverty are those who grew up in singleparent homes. I often wonder why the women get the children and not the man. Is that just part of society . You are smiling a little bit. I think thats the sociologist and others that have looked at this say that its in the welfare in the best interest of the child. That would be my guess. But yes family breakdown when you control for family breakdown you often get very different results. I will give you an example i came across recently. A study done by a political scientist at the university of virginia that was looking at School Suspension rates broken down by race among kids and he found that when you controlled for broken families whites were actually suspended at higher rates than blacks. Its a very interesting finding because this is one issue where liberal activists have looked at Racial Disparities in outcome, this one being so a School Suspensions and automatically linked it to racism. From the book please stop helping us, let me put numbers on the table that you cite, washington time study 2012 citing census data that among blacks nearly 5 million tchildren, 54 percent, live wi only their mother, just 12 percent of poor black households have two parents present compared to 41 percent of poor hispanic households with two parents and their families. Yes. It gets back to, attitudes towards marriage, attitudes toward childbearing. This is all post Great Society in terms of trends. This is not what we were seeing prior to that. It matters, the Nuclear Family matters and its become almost taboo to say that out loud that this matters. And when you have a child incoming from an intact family, all kinds of life outcomes and proof of that child. The chances of them getting involved with the criminal Justice System, the chances of becoming teenage parents, the chances of them graduating from school, all increase, going the right direction. Yet we dont often have honest discussions about the importance of the Nuclear Family. For go to norwalk connecticut, maurice, your next with jason riley. Go ahead please. Good morning, good afternoon, thank you so much for this dialogue you guys are having. This is right up my alley. I am an africanamerican, i will be 40 very soon. I was a sociology student back in 1998. I grew up myself in the criminal Justice System. I have so much on my mind right now out to share with you, be patient with me let me get this out. I have christian values i have christian views and i was raised to believe and respect authority. In the bible it says that god put them in a place for a reason and they are appointed by god. So we are supposed to respect them. I voted for obama, i became interested in politics for the first time after i cleaned up my record, got off probation, parole from started reintegrating back into society, working, just getting back to my beginnings of what i wanted to do when i was a kid, those dreams and visions before i got thrown off and distracted. By everything that black men face out here as young black teenagers, education was really big. The one thing that really sustain me going up to the Justice System and through gangs and everything that the plight of the black man is my education. My mom was an educator and im not from norwalk connecticut, s norwalk california, among them west coast. I just wanted to make that correction. My mom wasnt educator for the Long Beach Unified School district. Shes very well known. She was very strict and she always came home and instill that in me was my education. My dad worked for Mcdonnell Douglas and the Aircraft Aerospace industry in the 60s or whatnot when they were rolling out the md11. I saw that work ethic from my father as a black man. But when i went to school i had my own struggles at school my teachers it was really hard to get the attention i needed in school so i had to figure it out on my own i was kind of a class clown i would always want to be seen and heard and do things for attention because thats all i really needed, it was very creative, artistic and im also an aspiring journalist myself. To fast forward to today and wanted to say that the black community is very beautiful and we can contribute very much to society. We have come so far. Ive heard it all. Ive seen it all as far as our past and everything with our ancestors did to pave the way for where we are today. Its a beautiful thing when we contribute to society and i see poverty i see crime, but education like you gentlemen mentioned earlier is very key and teachers need to pay more attention to the black students. And like the gentleman said earlier, trump is a mixed bag. Seen him tackle and confront many viable issues in the black community, the white, asian, mexican, every Community Every issue that past, president s didnt get a chance to get to. Ve ive seen him confront that. Ive always been the underdog in the black community has always been the underdog ourselves. I believe in trump. I like what hes doing and i give him his props and pat on the back for staying strong through all the adversity with impeachment inquiries and imeverything. My question n is to the gentlem on here, from your perspective as an intellectual black man i really admire and respect the way you speak and articulate your, i admire that, we dont get to see that much of that here. I just want to know from your perspective as a black man as a black vote for the black community, do you honestly believe that donald trump has our best interest at heart and do you think that we should as a black race abim a democrat, i voted democrat. Okay im gonna jump income you put a lot on the table to give them a chance to respond. Thank you for sharing your story and joining in on the conversation. How you answer that . We i think donald trump has Donald Trumps interest in mind. Frankly. I think donald trump always has indonald trump best interest in mind. The question is whether that matters in terms of black progress in this country. Can the president who doesnt necessarily have the interest of blacks or is in different facilitate black upward mobility to his policies . I think there is no doubt that is true. And i would point to the advances that blacks had have made under previous administrations. When the person in the white house was indifferent to what was going on in black america. We saw the gains that i but ab earlier in the first half of the 20th century so blacks can prosper under donald trump, i have no doubt about that but it doesnt necessarily mean that its because he has their best interest in mind. Final question, what did you hear from maurice . What was your take away from his story . Im glad he seems to have turned his like ron, thats heartening. You seem to think that education had a lot to do with it that he didnt take it seriously as he should have when he was younger and now he understands how important it is. I would agree with that. Thats why its so painful to listen to black Civil Rights Organizations and some of these politicians running for president turned their back on Charter Schools. Which have just a tremendous record of success particularly in hoping low income poor innercity blacks, we have example after example after example of kids in schools that are 90 plus black all the free and reduced lunch in terms of income testing, hitting it out of the park, outscoring kids in the lowliest white suburbs and the idea that we would not be replicating these education models is up completely absurd to me. Here you have a Bernie Sanders and u naacp and Elizabeth Warre saying they want a moratorium on Charter Schools that are producing these kinds of results in the black intercity. Innercity. This guy is a testament to how important education is. It certainly was in my case. The idea that, there is a connection in these inner cities between the high dropout rates and the poor test scores and all the other social ills going on in these places and in these communities. There is a connection. Our jails and prisons are not full of college graduates. Or Even High School graduates. It pains me when i watch people attack School Reform the way i hear some of these attacks. The next caller, washington state, norm, youve been patient. Go ahead please. Gentlemen, good day to you. A lot of us remember the quote lincoln talked about leaders appealing to the angels of our Higher Nature and it seems that the current occupant address 1600 pennsylvania avenue, right away coming down the escalator he talked a lot immigrants coming across the southern border as being murderers and rapists. Then there was a judge who was hearing his case i think of the phony university and arizona. Being hispanic and therefore would not be fair to him. In the example of blatant racism. Its obvious that who some politicians perhaps including the president are not appealing to the angels of our Higher Nature on the issue of immigration among other things. So the question of what do my mind was, hes got all these evangelical socalled 81 percent i believe, that support him and im wondering, theyve got to know the statements of jesus, the sermon on the mount. Where its just the opposite of a christian viewpoint so im wondering, jason, what is your opinion on that about how people claim to be christian can back a political leader that so blatantly racist, thats my question. I think in evangelical would turn around and point to a reverend Jesse Jackson, reverend al sharpton and say how can someone who claimed to be christian support of motion, which both of them do. Both sides play this game. Obviously whats going on is that they are voting on other issues. If you ask people on the evangelical community why they support this president , despite all of his baggage that comes along with that, they will talk about his prolife stance, they will talk about the judges he has appointed and they will say those are the witness steps ive used and im going to let Everything Else go because i decided this is whats most important to me and all voters do that. You are not going to get the candidate that likes everything you like to the degree you like it and youre going to have to pick and choose your issues and boat on those. Sent us a text message, 2027488000 three, this is from chuck in Highland Hills ohio. Makes reference to a recent ab not so recent 60 minute interview mike wallace interviewed Morgan Freeman in which what can stop racism. Morgan freeman said stop talking about it. [laughter] whats your reaction to that . I agree with that to some extent. Its to this extent. For the civil rights industry that i mentioned earlier the manatt bracket, keeping race front and center is good for business and it means that it gets dragged into discussions where it doesnt really belong. Nor is at best a side issue. Maybe thats what Morgan Freeman was getting at that him everything isnt about race and racism and yet that seems to be the direction we are tilting in too often these days. Anthony in york pennsylvania, welcome to the conversation. Hello. Go ahead. Ive seen mr. Riley several times on meet the question. I can tell hes a conservative, and held positions he has not held in terms of government. It was part of affirmative action in terms of black professional life and knows quite well the statistics hes given has he said earlier in the interview pertaining to the amount of blacks enter the professions and professional schools and aschools increased tremendously from the late 60s into now. That has not been expanded much into the previous period in the early 50s and 60s. They made progress but nothing compared to the affirmativeaction awhatever statistics hes quoting come from conservative racist groups. As it relates to black politicians, and one of them, a a [inaudible] [indiscernable] many of the teachers unions dont support. [inaudible] i respect some of his conservative views. In reference to affirmative action and increasing black professional life and ahes totally wrong. Ive seen all of that, that is not true. Thank you very much. Anthony in pennsylvania, your response. Ou like i said before, the track record of affirmative action is not something we need to speculate about. I mentioned the situation at the university of california system in terms of what happened after racial preferences ended but he could point to florida and texas and see the same results. abalso past similar policies in place. In terms of the data on what was going on in the first half of the 20th century, thats a census data, thats government data, thats not coming from any conservative organization. Thats looking at data thats widely available to anyone who cares to look. Its not very well known. I understand why its not very well known but that doesnt mean its not true. The rate at which blacks were increasing their levels of education the rate at which blacks were eentering middle class professions the rate at which blacks were leaving poverty all of those rates were far higher in the period prior to the 1960s the decades immediately following the 1960s. Before affirmative action policies were put in place. But in terms of Higher Education we have particularly strong data to show whats going on here. Harvard was recently taken to task by a group of asian students who sued because they said that harvard was putting in place quotas on who could enter the school. We have tons of data on the racism of abaffirmative action is harmful in another way as well. You can talk about the equal protection clause and whether its reverse discrimination. You can talk about whether it just makes aksense to be pickin and choosing favored groups and increasingly plural society. Or you can say does it work k9 does it work as intended . Have we experienced what the proponents said we would experience if we put these policies in place . There was a study done at mit some years ago about blacks whod been admitted to that School Highly selective schools. Blacks been admitted to mit had scored in the top 10 on the math portion of the sat you are talking about some very smart black kids. More of them were dropping out or switching to easier majors. You take an extremely smart black kids and set them up to fail. Kids would be hitting it out of the park at a less selective m institutions were struggling at mit because mit wanted to make its freshman class look like america, regardless of whether or not those kids would actually graduate. Affirmative action has had these harmful harmful byproducts that nobody foresaw or very few people foresaw at the outset. And some did, which is interesting reading to go back and look at some of those articles but by and large its been accepted as this universal good its increase the ranks off the black middle class and made blacks better off but thats just not simply the track record. To that point, one person you write a lot about is Daniel Patrick moynihan who before he became u. S. Senator from new york worked in the nixon and before that johnson administration. What is his legacy . One of his legacies he wore several different hats and later became senator. As the socalled moynihan report that he released in the ut1960s about the black family. And the trends that he saw in their situation. He was looking at increases and followers homes and he said this will not bode well in terms of Going Forward for these communities. Lower workforce participation and so forth he came under tremendous amount of attack for his conclusions. Many of which by the way were based on the work of black sociologists in the 1940s like eve franklin frazier. It was the consensus view among people who looked at this material but he became the face of it. And he was attacked, he was attacked as a racist and attacked a similar blaming the victim. You have to remember at the time this is the dawn of trying to pass the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights act and he was getting in the away with this matter. What ended up happening is the way he was treated did not go unnoticed by sociologists, political scientists, anyone else who wanted to look into this situation. They were scared off for many years. It didnt make professional sense to go digging around here. Lest you wind up like moynihan did and pillar rate and called a racist and Everything Else. It was a long period of relative neglect in this area of what was going on socioeconomically among blacks in this area. More recently you had some sociologists that have decided to look into it and i mean more recent decades people like Julius Wilson and Orlando Patterson have looked at this and said, we have to talk about this culture stuff. Its the elephant in the room. We cant talk about all these disparities going on. All these Racial Disparities we see going on in American Society today without talking about culture. Its ridiculous to even try doing this. Yes it plays a role in these are comes in we need to talk about it. But for decades many sociologists pretty much steered clear of this area and i think it was to the detriment of the people that needed the most help. The book is out, it jason riley, including the following, please stop helping us, how liberals make it harders for blacks to succeed. Also let them in, the case for open borders and false black power. Jim is next in martinez california, go ahead please. Hello jason. I want to follow up on a comment you made a little bit n earlier my understanding regarding the dreamers was that President Trump did in fact allow about 800,000 to become permanent residents or citizens but he tied it to also them building the wall to prevent uncontrolled border crossings. He didnt just cancel out president obamas executive order but he actually was trying to make it even more so but also make it a law that through congress would be more permanent and not temporary. Im just wondering how you reflect if you can speak a little easier on President Trump because thats the way i see it and i am a new citizen here. That means i came and got educated here in college and i got naturalized. To me as an immigrant i dont see this uncontrolled border crossings million a year, million here, its actually sort of affecting the culture so i thought if allowing dreamers to stay didnt seem unreasonable. So why is that not a good thing . Thank you. Jim, thank you. Yes, the president was trying to tie the fate of the dreamers to funding for his wall the democrats consider this a poison because they were not going to compromise on funding the wall and the president knew that they were going to budge on that issue or he should have known they were going to budge on that issue. So whether or not it was a good faith proposal, who knows. But that was what he was attempting to do. The problem is that President Trump could do this as a standalone measure if you wanted to. I think he would have enough democratic support to get this done. I think it would help him politically as well given that there such bipartisan support for doing something about the dreamers. And taking them out of this limbo. The president brings an interesting mindset the topic of immigration. Which is why i was explaining the statistics in terms of economic outcomes in america, notwithstanding the fact that we have so many people here illegally. The president sees this as a zerosum game largely an immigrant coming here to take a job means one fewer job for you and me. Which is as most economists will tell you is not how our labor markets work in this country but thats the mindset that President Trump brings to issue. The caller also mentioned the weather immigrants are having too much or too large of an impact on our culture. Which of the timehonored concern weve had in this country every new wave of immigrant gets the same reaction but it even predates america. Benjamin franklin was complaining about too many germans coming to pennsylvania in the mid1700s. He said they will never learn our language. There can a germ of fios before we amplify them. This is an old concern and german immigration the germans were coming at a much higher rate than the mexicans and much smaller country then the mexicans would be years later. In the same would be true of the irish and many other groups. This is a time honored concern and its one of the reasons neits very difficult to get things done hot immigration in this country. You couple that with what you had in the obama years which was slow Economic Growth he inherited this recession from george w. Bush that he was dealing with for most of his presidency and you have a very toxic blend of lets scapegoat immigrants for the economic problems that we have today but yet now that we come out of that recession now that weve seen the growth now that weve seen the increase in wages and so forth, without a wall and without the deportation of all these people here illegally and makes you wonder whether they were in fact the problem to begin uwith. But if you bring the mindset that trump does into this, coupled with the fact that he thinks it was a winning issue for him, whether or not its true, whether or not it makes economic sense, rally after rally, railing against illegal immigration he thinks really gems up his base and helps them at the polls. I dont expect him to change his tune no matter how many facts are put before him. A text message from paul in north jersey saying what will it take for democrats enslaved for black democrats enslaved in the plantation stop upward mobility to move to the one percent. In other words, to get to the wealthy . What will it take for black democrats to lead the plantation. If republicans want blacks to stop voting on such high percentages for democrats they need to go make a play for this vote. To date two few make that effort. For whatever reason you are still thinking of republican outlier when you venture into an innercity and actively go after the black vote. Thats got to change. If you expect black voting patterns to change. To go to panola california couple richard, you are next. Minor more like comments. I can understand why the afroamericans made progress from after 1945 because the programs of fdr in the 30s and the industrialization of the country everybody approved but if you look back, i wanted his opinion on republican ideology versus democrats ideology in regards to all kinds of rights. Not just civil rights or afroamerican rights or black rights but womens rights, workers rights, union rights, gender rights sexual rights, all the way around. With lbj that really got a bunch of old white guys to vote for the civil rights laws you got to remember, thats what happened. At that point when the south saw that the Democratic Party was going toward civil rights they all went republican because they were segregationist. I guess my idea if you look at whos been supporting rights for everybody including afroamericans come its been the Democratic Party all along. The publicans almost resigned themselves are just trying to buy for the white vote at no matter what cost it does to other people. I dont know if peripheral economic whatever trump has done, which i dont really see it, im not improved economically and i dont think that many other people in the middle class have. Im going to jump in because we are short on time. You begin your book please stop helping us by remembering wawhat Lyndon Johnson spoke to the class of 1965 at Howard University in washington dc. Yes. It was an argument for affirmative action. For preferences. That he made in that speech. He says you cant simply give people equal rights, you have to give them special rights. Because of what blacks had gone through in the past and thats what he attempted to do. And we add 50 years of trying to get special Rights Groups and you look at these Racial Disparities that persist and you have to wonder if these efforts have been counterproductive. I want to correct something the previous caller made about everyone did better in the postwar period and postnew deal. Hes right. Most people did do better but not at the same rate. Black income and black education levels rose not only in absolute terms but also relative to white incomes and white education levels and so forth. Blacks were closing the gap. They were just making gains in absolute terms. Thats an important distinction. When the economy was doing well and the postwar eperiod, all boats did rise but some rose higher than others. In blacks or made significant progress in catching up. Linda camille get the last word on this conversation joining us from germantown maryland, go ahead please. Thank you for taking my call. I agree with mr. Riley, we were just talking about the gains that blacks made during the 50s, the postworld war ii period. I grew up in baltimore in a place called cherry hill. The only Plan Community for blacks that the federal government built and i wrote a book about it called cherry hill, raising successful black children in jim crow baltimore. Mr. Riley states that he feels that the johnson athe johnson programs killed our progress but i want him to comment on how did benign neglect and the reagan budget cuts affect our progress . Linda, thank you. Im having some trouble with the audio. She said what slow the progress . Benign progress. Benign neglect on the part of abi dont think was benign neglect. I dont think the Great Society programs can be called did benign neglect. These were huge government expansions. We spent trillions of dollars since the 1960s on antipoverty programs. Literally trillions of dollars. The war on poverty, housing programs and so forth. I think hewhat it shows is are the limits of government a theres only so much that the government can do. We also know what it can do. If you take away good policing, if you take away good schools, if you take away stable homes, theres nothing the government can do to replace those things. Let me take the other side of your title, how can blacks succeed today . I think two things need to ashappen, we need to have hones conversations about the problems we face. We need to talk about black crime rates, for example. We are talking about black incarceration n rates. Basic things like that need to take place. Secondly, what i want from the government is simply to stop doing things we know dont work. Affirmative action in terms of Higher Education is not working based on the track record of affirmative action. These antipoverty programs that disincentivize work mean that a group will not develop the work ethic they need to get out of poverty and to stay out of poverty. Dont keep kids trapped in schools that are failing them. Let them attend schools where we know a model has been successful in teaching kids from most difficult backgrounds. Let those models proliferate. Dont put a moratorium on them. Its more of what the government should stop doing then what it should start doing but in terms of the commentary to end the intellectuals and the academics and the rest, lets just have some honest conversations about whats actually happening out there causes and e the what are not the causes. We have and a half minute left, two final questions, what are you reading now . What do you favorite books . I like biographies. The biography by ron paterno of John D Rockefeller comes to mind. Titan was a book i really enjoyed. Because it beshowed not only ho wealthy rockefeller became but how much he improved American Society in the process. Whether building black schools like spelman or making things like kerosene sheet so that everyone could enjoy them not just the rich and he didnt thave to stop working when the sun went down at night. Little things like that. I really enjoyed the History Lesson that i got out of that. In addition to learning a lot about rockefeller himself. A lot of the books im reading nowadays are for the research for my intellectual biography of tom soul. Thats taking up a lot of my time but the rockefeller book comes to mind. Im also reading a book called the warmth of other sons by isabel a. Booktv continues now on cspan2. Television for serious readers. I get to say a few things about Rachel Maddow. For those who dont know, the last time she joined us was in 2012 to talk about her bestseller, drift. Rachel is the host of an awardwinning Rachel Maddow show on msnbc. [applause] there are fancier. For those who dont know, three emmy awards including outstanding analysis and lives outstanding interview. She herself has received six emmy nominations