Transcripts For CSPAN2 In Depth Jason Riley 20240713

Host jason riley author, columnist, contributor to the wall street journal and manhattan institute. Among your books please stop helping us. I want to begin where your book concludes because they see the following liberalism convinces blacks to see themselves first and foremosts as victims. Guest i believe that is a big part of a political strate strategy. Theyve been at it for some time and unfortunately they have had a lot of success painting and as victims and then the followup is we have a Government Program or solution to help you overcome your victim so i think it is a political strategy. Guest thereve been books on Lyndon Johnson. Is it a failure or a success . Guest if you look at the programs and the goal the object is overstated at the time you would have to say that its largely a failure to to the extent we are told another debate i think that we of course move beyond a separate but equal but in your book you talkta abot the black colleges and pasted it could case of ronald mason. Who was he . Guest the issue is what has become of these in capuchin since the civilit rights act and the problem that these institutions have is because black students have options they didnt want in the first half of stthe 20th century they are exercising those options and they are not attending the historical black colleges to the extent that they once did a survey are struggling with how to stay viable both economically and what they can contribute. This has been resisted by some who want the schools to maintain their independence and i can understand that but its often for nostalgic reasons rather than practical and he got a lot of pushback. Guest are the schools relevant or should they merge . Through the federal dollars to and my point is then it should close and it doesnt matter if it is an allblack school were traditional white school if it isnt meeting its objectives it should close. Where i think the value added in schools has been of late in recent decades is in the stem fields where they did an excellent job educating kids math and science and engineering and so forth and you see a preponderance of those that come into the field come out of these schools so they do so very vital purpose in Higher Education budget isnt to say all of them are performing at the same level level. Host this is the cover story visualizing the racism and one of the headlines from Jean Robertson calling americas longest war. Your reaction to that . Guest i think there is a tendency to view black history with large as a history of what whites have done to blacks and there are various reasons why the groups want to keep the narrativeto alive. Yes racism still exists and i dont know anyone that would argue otherwise. I do think it is more than that and its a relevant question is what it can be done in the face of whatever racism still exists where what was done in the past in the face of racism, and i think that is the relevant story to tell us today and the message to give to the young people today my fear is by perpetuating the notion its to the next generation. You said a kid outdoor and that is the message i dont think that you are hoping that a child. Host have you felt the sting of racism . Guest certainly. Ive experienced racism, ive been called names, followed accounts department stores, pulled over by police for no reason. I was doing an internship and i was on the sports desk. Its usually quite late that night and. I had my car which had new york plates although i was driving in driving home when a thing after work probably early the next morning sometime after midnight and i hear sirens blaring andnd the police pull me over and ordered me out of the car at gunpoint and face away from the car and all the rest is that i fit the description of someone that they were after outofstate plates and my car model. Host what were you thinking . Guest i was terrified. I remember getting back into the car after i left because they seemed to be gone as quickly as they can when they realized i wasnt the right person just sitting in my car shaking i remembered i had a standard and they couldnt get it out of gear my hand was shaking so vigorously that it was terrifying. Host a story making headlines three black men 36 years ago convicted of a murder they did not commit and they were just released from jail. What does that tell you about americas criminal Justice System . Guest that it is not perfect and i think that they yu would be hardpressed to find a black person of my age who hasnt experienced the things ive experienced. I think the criminal Justice System is an improvement today over what it used to be and what my father and grandfather experienced in this country, but its still not perfect. I would caution against taking these examples into saying they are typical versus exceptions or aberrations were saying the reason so many are involved in the criminal Justice System is because it is a racist system per se. I dont see a lot of evidence for that and i think often times we have discussions about the racial makeup in prisons and jails but a lot of people who perpetrate crimes. I dont think you can really have one discussion without c te other. So as imperfect as the criminal Justice System is, has been and will continue to be, i still think that there are behavioral differences among the groups that lead to some being overrepresented in the system and others are underrepresented. Host lets talk about the titles of three of her books. Guest that was a look back at the Great Society programs under Lyndon Johnson and expanded under nixon and others. I wanted to see what are the track records of these are the programs that are put in place to help. Welfare programs, housing programs and extensions of minimum wage and so forth. I wanted to look back and say what has worked, what hasnt worked and why, and i was attempting to do that with this book. Host your other books also with power. Guest i had a little bit of this and please stop helping us. It is essentially about the track record of using political power to advance the group economically which essentially has been the strategy since the time of king. If we can integrate Political Institutions Everything Else will take care of itself we just need to get our own people in place and there was quite a bit of success doing that if you look by the early 1980s he had major block cities in the u. S. Consulate los angeles, philadelphia, washington, d. C. And so forth. In addition to that you had with police chiefs. If you look at the track record of the poor and the black and a lookout washington and Marion Barrys washington, d. C. Or new jersey in the 1990s were detroit in the 1970s under these regimes you have to poor becoming even more impoverished so i dont think the track record there is a very good one. We have seen black regression under white mayors and congressmen. Its to say that this connection was essential between the black political cover and black economic progress simply isnt proving to be as strong as some people hoped it would be. Host generally speaking, have these programs helped or hurt backs guest they heard in a way hy that i described that there are is a selfdevelopment that has o occur. It isnt something that lends itself to the political solution. These are cultural changes that need to take place. Its the attitudes and behaviors and habits. To the extent the Government Program interferes with that i think it is doing more harm than good and what a load of the programs did is to interfere. The work ethic isnt going to improve if they think that the government is going to take care of them. You cant replace a father in the home with a government check and if you have a system in place that says to a woman if you have an additional child we will send more money. If we see that father around were going to stop sending you that money. You can imagine the sort of progress incentives that are put in place under programs like that and thats what we saw going on. I think that we practiced some of this with the welfare reform in the 1990s but not entirely. Host jason riley in addition to the new both regular contributor his columns are available in the wall street journal and as always we welcome your phone call calls ts 202 7488200 in the eastern or central time zone in 202 7488201 for those in the mountain and pacific. Be sure to follow booktv on twitter. Jason riley let them in, the case for open borders. Guest about immigration, i was working at the wall street journal atwo the time and the persons that i have been covering up the new position and asked if i wanted to take over anda on that is how it fell inty lap. I didnt have a dog in the fig fight. They studied history if only some of the arguments as you write about it are so old and have been around for so long team out of my writing editorial into intake expand on what overe decade and it is a very pro immigration editorial page which sometimes upsets conservatives in particular but its interesting what happened in that debate because the view on the right is different from what it used to be. You always had a sort of isolationist protectionist strain on the right going back to pat buchanan in the 1990s but there was never the dominant view. Ronald reagan was extremely pro immigrant putting in place amnesty in fact. George w. Bush and his father werepr both pro immigrant and even a republican nominees have lost like mccain or romney were still far more pro immigrant and you had in Donald Trumps this is a new development on the right although theres always been this faction its never been the dominant one. Host are the rules different for an immigranter versus a refugee . Guest they have been considered two different groups. The people that have studied this will generally tell you that someone was forced out of their country that would rather be back home in the coming to the u. S. Is going to behave differently from someone who willingly leave their country to start a new life in a new place. What im writing about or primarily economic immigrants and the case that i make is we would do better to put in place guestworker programs or other types of programs that allow blood supply and demand to determine the level of immigration. Right now it is made by politicians of Public Policy makers who are trying to think hard about the economy to take a look at it from here and a little bit from there and we will sell this demand an demandt but it just doesnt work. It is a Central Planning that is left us with documents, fraud, 12 million plus Illegal Immigrants in the country, hundreds of dead bodies in the arizona desert. I think we woulde do better to put in place Market Mechanisms that would allow us to regulate the flow. Im working on a biography based at the Hoover Institution and someone ive known a little bit over the years whose books and writings had a huge impact on me when i discovered them in college so its a project i am looking forwardrd to. Can you put it in a box or is it more than adequate . Guest i define myself as a freemarket conservative, someone that believes that Smaller Government is the way to go int if someone that believesn individual freedom. Host the Civil Rights Movement in your words has become an industry by whom . Guest its become an everyone from individuals like your own sharpton, Jesse Jackson to an entire organizationwh like the naacp is. Theyd effectively monetized black victimization into different groups have done it for a different reason. It is not in your interest to acknowledge and what you are trying to do, the battle that has been if you are an organization like the clicks matter,ma like black lives matter, you want to play off certain aspects of what is going on out there. Whether or not they are actually relevant, you are going to play that out because it is in your interest to do so. We were talking about the narrative and thats something democrats used to get elected so different groups have different incentives. They have become an industry. In they have no interest in the assessments of black pathology. Guest that doesnt serve their purpose. They want to stay relevant or raise money or get elected so they will keep the victimization front and center in the National Debate whether or not it is opened. Host where do you do most of your thinking and writing . Guest at home i have a home office. Guest host and you find yourself disciplined enough to do that . Guest it took a little adjustment but its more. Host jason riley on cspan2 book tv in depth. In depth. We wilpeople get two calls in ja moment. You write about your father and your parents separated when you were young but your father is in your life as a child. Guest it made a big difference. He was an excellent role model not only my father but i grew up my mother was very religious and we attended church two or three times a week and the congregation was full of black men who took care of their families, dressed a certain way and spoke a certain way and behave a certain way so i was very fortunate and i grew up around a lot of solid male role models. Part of the problems they dont have the stability they give the high legitimacy rate. Host born and raised in buffalo . Welcome to booktv. Coco y. Dont they educate those that failed history why dont they educate those of history that you hear democrats talk about Voter Suppression is since roe v. Wade in 1973 and could have been 70 or 80 million or 60 million but we dont have power to the blacks. You could have me on your program discussing this. When i ran for the house in florida as a republican, i was called a racist and when jackie robinson, who is my hero, we were called racist especially me. I asked what democrat opened up the schools in the south. It appears the democratic governors wallace, and i could go on and that is what you should be teaching them. Host thank you for the call and we will get a response. Caller there is a lot of black history that doesnt get a lot of attention from civil rights organizations and plucked for petitions particularly liberal politicians because it doesnt serve their personal interest. A lot of it has to do with what was going on in the black community and between the end of slavery and the beginning of the modernday Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s and 60s. There was quite a bit of progress being made given that it was happening with widespread racism in this country di it was open and legal. If you look at the rate that they were educating themselves both absolute terms and relative which they were joining the joddmiddleclass professions ine period of tremendous progress that actually flew after the legislation of the 1960s and the decades that followed. Of course it doesnt serve their narrative. Host this goes back to something you said they performed better in the absence of government in schemes like affirmative action. Guest we have a lot of experiments that have been if we can go back on it. It ended to be affirmative action and admissions policies throughout the entire system and what we saw after that then went in to place is the number of graduates from the university of california system increased by more than 50 , again by more than 50 . So a program that had been put in place with racial preferences to increase,rc expand the black middle class had in practice than resulting in fewer lawyers or architects or social workers then we would have had the absence of the policy so again, we dont have to guess or speculate. We can simply look at the track record of the programs that weve had in place and whether or not theyve been effective. Host welcome to the conversation. Coco good afternoon. Im a good fan of yours and remember readingm in the new york post. I am a black american. I agree with everything you say but r it doesnt make a differ difference. It isnt going to change and the Democratic Party does. Its about feelings and emotions and that is what the Democratic Party is banking on. And then to keep those feelings and emotions at. And said what if you got to lose. Look at the facts of unemployment and it really doesnt make a difference. I appreciate the call and he makes a lot of points about the strategy ofin democrats. And he is right for go its a tough road to hoe. Democrats have been very very effective at pushing mentality ambushing Government Programs as a solution. So it is very difficult to change minds. I am more optimistic on the caller but he does make excellent points. That immigrants are coming here not to take advantage of our social Welfare Program then why are they going to stays that are so skimpy for benefits for the poor quick. And often a question askedmy my friends on the right who see immigration as a problem of them going on the dole, the idea and on the fax. Look at the situation we have today. I dont know pick your number ten or 12 or 15 Million People illegally at an employment is a 50 year low. The wall street journal reported s recently one. 2 million more jobs than people looking for work. We have a labor shortage in this country. And then to put downward pressure on wages. That we should be especially wary. Going after jobs that are held by a lot of blacks and the situation today is black unemployment we are at generationalha lows and wages have been rising faster than management. So they are coming here and stealing jobs that wheres the evidence corrects. You basically say 50 years ago he was fighting jim crow laws. Absolutely i think that was fought and won. Even among the activist groups, what they are pushing for or where they want the emphasis placed in terms of the problems that ale the black community its hard to know where to begin one of the previous callers mentioned the Police Shootings which is tragic. Any shooting is tragic by police or anyone else. But is that the problem today that they made it out to be quicks we are here in new york one of the few places that keep detailed records of lee shootings through the early seventies. 1871 police in new york the most recent statistics from a couple years ago show it is down. Of the Police Shootings in this country new york is not an outlier where Police Shootings can make up one or 2 percent of all shootings going on in the country. If someone breaks the law and they hold Authority Like a Police Officer they should have a penalty but the idea that 2 percentph of the shootings versus the 98 percent is ridiculous. Talk about the crime rate for blacks in jail. We must begin withsh the fact that for the astonishingly disproportionate number of crimes over the past halfcentury over the past halfcentury. We are responsible for more than half of all others over 12 or 13 percent of the population. It is seven or ten times higher than the white Violent Crime rate and that is something we need to talk about. We want to have the racial makeup of the prison system but we dont want to talk about the racial makeup for those who commit crimes. And that they have absolutely nothing to do with one another. And if we want to reduce the number of people than the criminal justiceth system, we have to do something about the black crime rate and having an honest conversationcr. But if you look at the poverty rate what percentage in your mind are africanamerican and poverty quick. Black poverty rates are three times higher than whites. But among married blacks poverty rates are in the Single Digits and have been 25 years. So the idea again that racism is driving the poverty rate versus family formation again is at odds with the facts. But no one is not going to discriminate against you if you are black because you are married. They are not going to make distinctions. Is racism. So look at the totality of the issituation. Is poverty an function of racism cracks is it primarily family formation cracks and if it is the latter then why are blacks not marrying. Because of the poverty issue cracks these are not discussions we typically have we jump right to Racial Disparity resulting from racism. Well look at the factors that drive the outcomes other than racism. Into the conversation you dont need to deny racism exists but the question is to what extent is it responsible for the outcomes that we see quick. So family formation the poverty rate. It has a lot to do with that. And the Government Programs does incentivize people to have these families to keep the providence, that has not helped. What was your own personal experience cracks your father who separated from your mom at an early age . My father never lived more than a couple miles away from us. My sisters and i spent holidays and weekends and usually a couple of days a week at his house doing homework after school. He was very involved in my life. The problem is thatl. Thats not typical. That is atypical and thats the problem. Go back as recently as the sixties two out of three black kids raised by a mother and aee father now more than 70 percent are not. That statistic alone goes a long way to explain youth and gang related violence in the criminal justice why they are shooting each other and joiningsh gangs because it is the lack of male role models for these kids in these situations. Your father is passed away but did you think him quick. Im sure i do not think him enough when he was alive. [laughter] but yes i think both my parents knew how much they meant to me. Thank you for waiting you e on book tv. Caller i have so many questions for this gentleman. Number one do you have the statistics to support your position but for example when he just cited black families if they are married the kids are in a better position at a time when 60 or 70 percent of marriages all end up in divorce. So when he cites his analogy if there were those in the sixties so now we emphasize about women. You talk about people using the Civil Rights Movement. I would guess you have been in a situation in your career you are the first or only black in your area of employment were everywhere. So at the wall street journal they are very happy to have an educated black like yourself that generally are not supportive of black people so you have done probably the same thing in your position your professionalot life as you are accusing Jesse Jackson and others. I will make my final point. The g. I. Bill was a affirmativeaction because they were not allowed to be in the war. All you had to be was a white meal and then you could go to any college you wanted to. After the economy starts to boom they all left the urban areas all the people move to the suburbs and the banks are sanctioned by the government gave white loans they refuse to hire blacks and redline the district with the support of the federal governmentck spent there is a lot on the table and a lot to respond to. So in terms of my personal background i havent accomplished many that others have not accomplished before me and with the wall street journal by a black gentleman who was Senior Editor there for a number of years and cannot disagree with you more about my politics at the time. [laughter] but in terms of the g. I. Bill im not sure there are. There are blacks who attended college on the g. I. Bill. And so blacks could take advantage and was quite thankful to allow them to do that. And the problems in the inner cities. And he is getting the order wrong. That the societies had already fallen into disrepair but the riots of the sixties happened first then that left in these areas. So get the order right when you talk about that and sometimes they dont. We are also taking your text messages. Police shootings are down because of protests and demonstrations. Again that is not what the record shows. W in 1971 there were shootings and by 1991 it had fallen by half about 100. And 20 years later again into the teens. It is long standing trend. This is not something new. Particularly among minorities. And to examine and big cities around the country. And that they were less likely so this is not a function of the protest but what that has done or what they risk doing is forcing police to scale back in to take their time with these 9 11 calls of a have this target on the back with the activists breathing down theirli neck so my fear is that the people who are harmed the most are lawabiding blacks for go they will be harmed because the criminals prey on them first and foremost. Talk about heading into the lily white suburbs. Then to do less effective policing you are hurting the black poor. By policing the problem. What about friends and colleagues when they see you on fox news quick. It depends which friends and colleagues. I have friends of all political persuasions that people see you on tv theyre more likely to tell you how you look and how you sound. [laughter] jersey city new jersey. Caller thank you very much. Happy holidays. That was in a store you shared with your father. I dont have a problem with your view how they are like a harmful party but for black people specifically in so he challenges the Democratic Party im black mail i am very dissatisfied with the Democratic Party. And why we have no trade schools. Those that teach like public high schools we are not doing enough in education the Democratic Party to get big money and then for our primaries are all the way in june for the president ial election. So thats just me giving you a couple of reasons of dissatisfaction with the Democratic Party. Thats fine but you are not encouraging us to vote and if you are i dont like that. [laughter] but they dont spend any dollars mr. Riley in our community is beneath the Republican Party that maybe they dont turn their backs but they dont even look at us. So who speaks to us . I believe you and sister candace and then to suggest our way forward. And the gop is not the answer. So i will separate Bernie Sanders for a second. The caller is right when he talks about the lack of interest republicans are shown with the black vote. You can speculate what that is but on a practical level they dont need the vote to win and politics is about numbers and time spent going after the constituency is time not spent. So that could be one explanation right there. And jack kemp and paul ryan. And they are not the only examples. Even Chris Christie when he ran for reelection did quite well because he went into camden and trenton and asked for their vote. But they still remain the exception and not the rule. Well see republican candidates in the Grocery Store at the Community Center or on Television Programs its allowed for the democratic candidate to be a complete monster with no pushback. So i do think republicans ought to do a better job and i certainly dont blame blacks who have the attitude now vote democrat or i will stay home. You wrote black voters have shown little interest if either candidate cory booker or kamala harris. If you had asked me about them five years ago i would have had very positive to say about both cory booker and kamala harris. Both are democrats and both are liberals but we can start with cory booker with a very education and reform minded man before he became a senator he believed in School Choice and Charter Schools and also tough on crime and came in with a very proactive commissioner for what giuliani and bloomberg had done in the city of new york. Kamala harris was a prosecutor you can look up the youtube videos that yes there may be racism in the criminals Justice System and she was a toughminded prosecutor when it came to protecting the rights of those poor black people in those communities that were targets of many of these criminals. They have abandoned that booker has walked back a little bit recently but by a large for them to become more progressive to run for president. So that is my problem where they are today versus where they were before. Previously mentioning Bernie Sanders my problem is socialist which amounts to that is a way to the poor. The Great Society programs we would have solved it a long time ago. It doesnt they need to learn about wealth creation. And thats a key focus on Wealth Redistribution and that will not be the solution on the Wealth Redistribution and that is my problem with the program. Mayor bloomberg apologized you talked about criminals being treated as victim and the Police Officers as the criminal. Yes. Was his police state to have the backing of the police and let them know that. Did with the predecessor Rudy Giuliani and by the way,. [laughter] talk about the tension between the police and by community because thats where the 9 11 calls originate from those that were responding to those calls and i appreciate that. Bet the policy that bloomberg was walking back on apologizing that if you go back to the early nineties in new york city 2300 homicides per year you fast forward to last year if we had maintained the rate of homicide for the next quarter century do you know how many more were dead black people we would have . I was appalled that bloomberg would apologize but also omkeeping black people out of prison. So then you have to talk about policing is the problem. Wee are in the second hour with the columnist jason riley. Who is your role model quick. My father first and foremost. And nobody has really replaced him there are people that have influenced him on throughout the course of my career Walter Williams and people i started reading back in college and agreed with a lot of what they wrote. Are you envisioned what you thought you would be from being in buffalo and suffering to those winters . [laughter] thats a good question. I got interested in journalism after joining the school paper. I read something and went down to complain and the editor said joined the staff and write about this whenever you want. Thats what got me interested. So after i completed the internship at usa today in washington i really wanted to be a journalist and six months after colleges one after college i was at the wall street journal and stay there two decades and continued to write for the paper i still look forward to getting out of bed every morning and Getting Started or to prepare for interviews on cspan so i very much enjoy a. Who was the toughest editor . [laughter] i do hit up for ideas sometimes. Detroit michigan your next with jason riley. Caller hello. My first question a little while back you said about black folks under jim crow. Could you provide any references or comments . Because i was always under the impression. What i was talking about was between 1940 and 1960 black poverty rates in america fell by 40 Percentage Points p in this country talking a 40 percent decline for the ctVoting Rights act of 1965 in the decade of the sixties alone Household Incomes doubled in this country thats prior to affirmative action. That receives a credit for the black income if you look athe the. 1930 and 1970 the number of professions teachers and lawyers and doctors quadruple during this period. The point is what is going on in thehe country during this period. I would argue the folks making the gains were experiencing a great deal more racism in society than what we have today but yet it could not stop them. So what happened . Why did we see a slowdown in what was happening . That the government interventionist palette policies of the Great Society programs to see the disintegration of the black familyte and other government efforts with the selfdevelopment that was taking place and political shift in the civil rights arena from a focus on the development of that human f capital to the black officials and that was the primary focus and that proved problematic in the long run. We have your emails sent to cspan would he be satisfied of our we are today after Martin Luther kings assassination . Nope i dont thank you would be satisfied. Of course we have made progress o. We had a black president. He couldnt imagine that. [laughter] and senators and congressmen and mayors so on a certain level certainly but in terms of black poor, there is still quite a bit of work to do there among the black among the country a situation that in some ways has regressed and it is really sad i think but that is where we are. And that is where he would be most disappointed spirit is the Voting Rights act for majority minority districts. I dont think so. People have been willing to cross racial lines for some time but it fuels polarization because the candidates that dont need to make appeals and that only fuels polarization and only hurts candidates that aspire. Course if youre just running in that one area but if you want to be governor and only make an appeal to a Certain Group and then went to run statewide thats a more difficult leap to make and that we have come a long way spirit this is from of you were in los angeles. Who is responsible for racism in our country and why . I dont think any one forvidual is responsible racism. That predates america part of the human condition. It is not about one group being responsible to perpetuate it or able to end it. You are on book tv. Caller thank you so much. So i just want to check the statement everyone is entitled to his own opinion but not his own facts. So the callers that like to bash him when all he is doing is stating facts. I am a whistleblower i was written up on the for frontpage wall street wall street journal article in 1983 which triggered an investigation that led to the resignation from the speaker of the house in shame. That is based on factual information. The article this authored of jonathan. I dont know if you know who he was to bring to a solution that is what we should be focusedd on brick of the people of the greatest asset of any country. Lets get it together and stop the racial baloney. We have people in concentration camps that need our help and that all starts with stopping arguments and bringing solutions thank you. I didnt hear a question in their but they give for the cal call. Host you write about one individual named john hampton. Who is he quick. He h died recently, he was an eye doctor from michigan who also was a political activist. He started out as an environmental activist of the sierra club and was one of the first planned parenthood in michigan. And was unsatisfied to work in tandem with his concern the population growth and too many people that is detrimental to nature and then explains the interest in abortion but also an immigration ultimately that america is becoming overpopulated with immigrants. So he started any number of organizations to fight for lower levels. And they expanded quite rapidlyom in some have become pretty popular. And the center for Immigration Studies is another. Wrote about in the book because Many Republican restriction is have a common cause with these organizations and for different reasons. Even though they come from different places to join forces to reduce immigration. What i tried to explain is the history because there were Many Republicans who didnt realize who they were. Host talk about the Republican Party because donald trump is a candidate using immigration as a key issue in his campaign and brought it up again in 2018 when they lost control of the house but they had the house in the white house and the senate over two years and cannot get something on an issue republicans ran on. What happened quick. He ran into the same problem that obama ran into when he controlled all branches for his first two years in office. It is a complicated issue. Even within each party there are different factions with different beliefs on immigration. Most republicans are not with the president when it comes to his more extreme views. Recently we had the dreamer issue for those who were brought here as children and hiwhat to do about them and obama pass something through executive action and he wanted to undo that but a majority of republicans want to give amnesty to the dreamers. So there is an issue trump is at odds with members of his ownn party. Lot of members of his party are not on board with expanding the border wall to the extent trump wants to do it. That is the reason. It iss a complicated issue and its hard to get all of one party to act an agreement let alone bipartisan to make you took the president to task on that issue. I was not a trump supporter mostly on grounds of temperament if he was fit for the job but also the policy issues one was trade in those were the issues they disagreed on. I like is education policies betsy divorce am a big supporter of vouchers in School Choice and Charter Schools she has spent her professional life and i like that trump appointed her when people talk about where i see black america headed forward it will come down for education and the poor communities i have no faith that traditional Public Schools can do that because i dont believe they are acting primarily in the interest of the children i think theyre acting primarily in the interest of the adults of Public Education first and foremost. And the best way to fix that is competition whether alternative public systems like Charter Schools or vouchers to allow people to take their kids out of school but the Public Education system needs some competition. So trump has been a mixed bag. I will Say Something nice about them if its something i like or if i dont. You can listen to thiss and other programs on the cspan radio at. Loan app. Caller thank you for taking my call. To be i overwhelmingly white those in general are descendents of the immigration. Is there a fundamental difference . And also i have seen examples of the police, the sheriff , not so much color, it is poverty. That is why people are discriminated against to a very large extent. So what do you see as a difference similarities or any fundamentals . I dont see fundamentally a lot of difference. The same Human Capital with blacks and whites alike lifted out of poverty. Those like jd vance have written very movingly about the situation in White America it has received less attention because the white poor are smaller percentage but at a fundamental level there is no difference what these groups need to do to change their situation. One reason the return is so meager they act in ways that benefit that is not the concern of most blacks. But that seems like a generalization. Perhaps. But i would argue to make that a relatively accurate generalization. Politicians act in the interest of getting reelected. No matter what color they are. President obama comes into office and blacks have overwhelmingly voted to put him there and one is School Choice. Both Charter Schools and voucher programs have pulled very well when pulled among whites. One of the first things obama does is shut down the dc voucher program. Why did he do this . He is thehi first black president taken issue what is popular among the blacks . Because now he is president. Part of the reason is a special interest group. They dont like School Vouchers because many of the schools are notot unionized. So obama has to make a decision do i t act in the special interest that helped to elect me or the fellow blacks and he made his choice. Ande politicians are in that same dilemma. And then looking to politicians and the black community they have their own political interests to be preoccupied and they will not always allied with the interest of the black poor. The next caller is from connecticut good afternoon. Caller thanks for taking my call. Word you say there is a silent majority within the black middle class and if you think so . There is an excellent book written by a political scientist at the university of new york called the black silent majority. He makes the argument that the black political elites have not always acted in the interest of the black poor. Even the majority of blacks and makes a pretty strong argument. That pulls will tell you with the criminal Justice System is too easy or too hard the black general public says it is too criminals thats coming out of the mouth black politicians but that is what your average black person on the street will tell you. And where the interest black elites differ from those of average black that goes back when the naacp supported it and others did not. There is a long history what will advance a political career hk versus the black community once theres a lot of people on the black left that they are counting on that blacks will vote democrat or stay home. They do not fear the black constituent will vote republicanan and that is one thing they can count on not happening. Which often said they take the black vote for granted that is what they are talking about. One way to fix that would be republicans to make a play for this vote and that way they could use the twoparty system the way others do to get what they want but right now you dont see that happening and black america. Look at the divorce rate with black men or poor white men. Is at the same or similar or disproportionately different compared to the sixties and today . I dont know the numbers off of my head. If i had to way guess, i dont know. I dont want to speculate on that. I asked the question for those that grew up in single parent homes is that just part of society. The sociology to say thats in the best interest of the child. But that would be my guess. But the family breakdown when you control that you get very different results there was a study done by a political scientist in virginia looking at School Suspension rates broken down by race and he found when you controlled for broken families whites were suspended at higher rates than blacks that is a very interesting finding because this is one issue where liberal activists have looked at Racial Disparities and outcomes with School Suspensions and automatically attributed to racism so somebody looks at it to say the home environment. So did you recite a washington time study bad among blacks those that live with 12 percent compared to 41 percent of four hispanic and the attitudes toward marriage or childrearing and again its all post society in terms of trends and what we are seeing prior to that. That is the Nuclear Family omatters and to say that out loud. When you have the child coming from the impacted family the chances of them getting involved with the criminal Justice System to become teenage parent parents, graduating from school just go in the right direction. But yet we dont have honest discussions of the importance of the Nuclear Family. You are next with jason riley go ahead. Caller thank you for the dialogue you are having. This is right up my alley. Ivan africanamerican i was a student in 1988. I found myself in the criminal Justice System. I have so much on my mind i want to share with use of be patient with me. Have christian values and views and i was raised to believe to respect authority and god put us in the place for a reason and to be appointed by god. I voted for obama became interested in politics after i got off on parole that i was distracted by everything that black men face out here or black teenagers. But one thing that sustained me growing up to the justice this one system through the plight of the black man was education. My mom was an educator and is very very well known and was very strict and instilled that in me my dad worked for nmcdonnell douglas in the sixtie sixties. So i saw that work ethic from my father as a black man but when i went to school i had my own struggles it was hard to that attention so i had to figure it out on my own i was class clown and always want to be seen and heard and im also an aspiring journalist. So to fast forward to today the black community is very beautiful we have come so far i have heard it all and seen it all and what our ancestors did to get to where we are today perk was just a beautiful thing when we contribute to society but it is very key and trump is a mixed bag every community or issue that didnt have a chance to get to two i didnt get a chance to confront that ive always been the underdog. I believe in trump and i like what he is doing. He needs to have a pat on the back for staying strong through all of the adversity and impeachment inquiries. So my question is from your perspective as an intellectual black man with my respect the way you speak and how articulate you are, i admire that. You dont get to see that much around here. I want to know from your perspective as the black man and the black vote from the black community, do you honestly believe that donald trump has our best interest at heart quicksand do you think as a black race, i am a democrat. You put a lot on the table thank you for sharing your story and joining the conversation. Has had trumps best interest in mind. The question is whether that matters in terms of black progress in this country. Can a president , who doesnt necessarily have the interest of blacks, or is in different, facilitate . I think theres no doubt that is true. I would point to advances of black people have made under previous administrations. When the person in the white house was indifferent to what was going on in black america, games that i had earlier in the first half of the 20th century. Blacks can prosper donald trump, i have no doubt about that but it doesnt necessarily mean its because he has their best interest. What did you hear from her race . What you take away from his story . Im glad he seems to have turned his life around. He seems to think that education has a lot to do with it. He didnt take it as seriously as he should have when he was younger and now he understands how important it is. I would agree with that. It painful to listen to black civil rights organizations some of these politicians running for president , turned their back on Charter Schools. Which has a tremendous record of success, particularly in helping w income, poor innercity box. We have example after example after example of kids in schools that are 90 plus black, all free and reduced lunch in terms of income, testing, hitting it out of the park. I was scoring kids in the suburbs. The idea we would not be replicating these education models is completely absurd to me. You have a burning sanders and naacp and Elizabeth Warren saying they want a a moratorium on Charter Schools for these kinds of results in the black innercity. This guy i think 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 poor test scores and all the other social elements going on in these communities, there is a connection. Our jails and prisons are not full of College Graduate or Even High School graduates so it pains me when i watch people attack School Reform the way i hear some of them. Good afternoon. He talked about leaders and the angels of our Higher Nature. It seems that the current occupants right away coming down an escalator, he talked about the difference coming across the southern border of being murders and rapists and there was a judge in his case, at the university in arizona, being hispanic. Therefore, would it be fair to him ask the example of racism. So its obvious that some politicians, perhaps including the president are not appealing to our Higher Nature on the issue of immigration among other things but the question is, is evangelical, 81 i believe that support him. Wondering how, of course they have to know the statements of jesus serving on the mountain, where its the opposite of the christian viewpoint. Jason, have you ever, whats your opinion on the on how people claim to be christians or political leader that so blatantly racist . Thats my question. I think an evangelical would turn around and. Back to a reverend and say ive known christians for abortion. So both sides play the game. Whats going on is that they are voting on other issues and if you ask people in an evangelical community why they support this president despite all of the baggage that comes along with that, theyll talk about the judges hes appointed and theyll say those are the tests i have used and i will let Everything Else go because i decided this is what is most important to me and all voters do that. Went to get a candidate that likes everything you like and agrees. This is from chuck in ohio. Recent interview with Morgan Friedman saying stop racism and his response was, Morgan Friedman said stop talking about it. Last month whats your reaction . I agree with that to some extent. To the extent that again, for the civil rights industry that i mentioned earlier, keeping place front and center is good for business. It means it gets, it doesnt really belong. Its at test, a side issue. Maybe thats what Morgan Friedman was getting at. But everything isnt about race and racism. Yet, that seems to be the direction we are getting too often in. Hello. Ive seen this several times in the last few years, in terms of black professional life, he knows quite well that hes given pertaining to the blacks who have entered the professional supposed, increased tremendously from the late 60s into now. That has not been expanded as much during the previous years. They made progress but they come from conservative racist groups. As it relates to the black policy, im one of them. Many do and that statement he made, hes conservative. Any of the teachers unions dont support that because they have the same kind of standard in Public Schools. I respect some of his conservative views and i agreed with him but its increasing black professional lives. He knows thats not true. Thank you. Anthony, your response. I said before, the track record of affirmative action is not something we need to speculate about. I mentioned a situation california system in terms of what happened after it ended, you could point to florida and seek the same result. Its also a similar policy put in place. In terms of the data on what was going on in the first half of the 20th century, the government data. Thats not something from any conservative organization, its widely available. Anyone who cares to look. Its not very well known and i understand why its not very well known but its not why its not true. The rate at which blacks were entering middleclass professions, and leading poverty. All of those rates were far higher in the period prior to the 1950s and the decades immediately following the 60s. Before the 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 by a group of asian students who were sued because they said harvard was putting in place quotas. On who could enter the school. So we have tons of data on the race of people, but heres they entered and so forth. Affirmative action is harmful in another way as well. You can talk about the equal protection clause and discrimination, you can talk about whether it just makes sense to pick and choose favorite groups in a plural society. Or you can say it doesnt work. Doesnt work as intended . Have we experienced what the proponent said we would experience if we put these policies in place . There was a study done at mit from two years ago about blacks who had been admitted to that school. Highly selective schools. Blacks had been admitted to mit and in the top 10 on the map portion in the country. Youre talking about very smart black kids. They were in the bottom 10 among their peers. As a result, more or dropping out or switching to easier majors and so forth. You taken an extremely smart black kid and set them up to fail. Kids who would be heading out of the park, they are struggling at mit because mit wanted to make it freshman class look like america. Regardless of what they would actually graduate. Affirmative action has had these harmful byproducts that nobody foresaw or very few people foresaw some did, which is interesting reading to look at those articles but by and large, its been accepted as a universal threat. It increased the ranks of the black middle class and if they are better off but just not simply track record. One person who write about is daniel patrick, before he began the senator for new york, worked for vincent and before that, the johnson. Whats his legacy . One of his legacies, he worked several different hats. Report he released in the 1960s about black family. The trends he saw in their situation and he was looking at increases and homes. He said this will not go well in terms of Going Forward for these communities. Work participation and so forth. He came under a tremendous amount of attack for his conclusion. It was based on the work of black sociologist in the 40s. He was the contestants view among people in this material but he became the face of it. He was attacked as a racist as someone who was blaming the victim. You have to remember at the time this was the don of the civil rights and Voting Rights act and he was getting away in the way of this. What ended up happening was the way he was treated did not go unnoticed by sociologists, scientists, anyone else who wanted to look into this situation. It was off for many years. It didnt make professional sense around here. Windup being called a racist and everything. There was a long. Of black in this area, what was going on social economically among blacks in this area. More recently, you had sociologists that decided to look into it and the more recent decades. Then patterson looked at this they said we have to talk about this stuff. Its the elephant in the room. We cant talk about all of these disparities going on, all these Racial Disparities we see going on in American Society. He was talking about culture. Its ridiculous to even try doing this. Yes, it plays a role in outcomes and we need to talk about it. For decades, many social lossless stay clear of this. The people who need the most help. Please stop helping us, liberals make it harder for blacks to succeed and let them come up the case for open borders and false black power. Jim is next. Go ahead. Hello, jason. I want to follow up on comments you made earlier. My understanding regarding the dreamers was that President Trump did allow 800,000 to become permanent residents or citizens but he tied it to building a law to prevent uncontrolled border crossings. He didnt just cancel out president obama executive order. He actually was trying to make it even more but also make it a law that would make it more permanent and not temporary. Im wondering how you can speak a little easier on President Trump. Thats how i see it and i may new citizen here. I came and got educated here in college and i got naturalized. To me, i dont see this, feeling a year. Its actually sort of affecting the culture. I thought i would tie it to dreamers, it doesnt seem unreasonable. Thank you. The president was trying to tie the fate of the dreamers to funding for his wall. The democrats, they are not going to compromise on the wall and the president knew they werent going to budge on the issue or he should have known they were going to budge on the issue. Whether or not it was a good proposal, who knows. But thats what he was attempting to do. The problem is that they could do this as i stand alone. I think you have enough democratic support to get this done. I think it would help him politically as well, given that there is such bipartisan support for doing something about the dreamers. Taking them out of this limbo. The president , an interesting mindset to the topic of immigration, which is why i was explaining in terms of economic outcome in america, notwithstanding the fact that we have so many people here illegally. The president sees this as a game essentially. An immigrant im here to take a job, most will tell you they work in this country but thats the mindset that President Trump brings to this issue. The call also mentioned whether immigrants are having too large of an impact on our culture just a time honored concerns weve had in this country. Every new wave of immigrant gets the same reaction. It predates to america. Benjamin franklin was complaining about too many germans coming to pennsylvania in the mid 1700s. He said theyll never learn our language, they will take us before we get them. This is an old concern. German immigration, germans were coming in at a much higher rate than mexicans and a much smaller country than they would be much later. So this is our time on our concern and its one of the reasons its very difficult to get things done on immigration in this country. You couple that with what you had in the obama your switches slow economic growth. He inherited the recession from george w. Bush and he was the only one for most of his presidency. You have a very toxic when the there, immigrants and economic problems that we have today. Not that we have come out of a recession and seen the growth, now that we see increases in wages and so forth without a wall without deportation, it makes you wonder whether they were in fact the problem to begin with. If you bring the mindset that trumped us into this with the fact that he thinks it was a winning issue for him, whether or not its true and whether or not it makes sense. Thanks lily it helps him at the polls. I dont expect him to change his tune no matter how many are for him. A text message saying for black democrats in the plantation, upward mobility to move to the 1 . To get to the wealthy. What will it take for black democrats to leave the plantation . Republicans want to want blacks to stop voting in such high percentages they need to make a place for this boat. Today, too few make that effort. For whatever reason, if your some of our public outlier, thats got to change. If you expect black voting problems patterns to change. Mine is more of our comments. I can understand why the afroamericans made progress after 1945 because the programs of fdr in the 30s and industrialization of the country, everybody improved. If you look back at the opinion on republican ideology versus democrats ideology in regards to all kinds of rights, not just civil rights for africanamerican rights or black rights but womens rights, workers rights, unions rights, gender rights and sexual rights all the way around. Both lbj, its a bunch of old white guys to vote for the civil rights laws. Thats what happened. At that time, when the south the Democratic Party was going toward civil rights, they all went republican because they were segregationists. If you look at whos been supporting, its the Democratic Party all along. Republicans almost resigned themselves of trying to have a white vote, no matter what it does to other people. I dont know peripheral economic, whatever trump has done, which i dont really see it. I dont think that many other people are. You begin your book, help us remember the class of 1965 in washington d. C. She says you cant simply give people equal rights. You have to give a special price because of what blacks do in the past and thats why he attempted to do. Then we have 50 years trying to give special rights. I do want to correct something the caller made about everyone did better in the post war experience and new deal. Hes right. Black incomes and black education rose not only in absolute terms but also relative to white income and white education levels and so forth. In other words, blacks were closing the gap. They werent just making gains in absolute terms. Thats an important distinction. So when the economy was doing well in the postwar period, they did rise but some rose higher than others and blacks were a significant progress in catching up. Again, these trends would later slow down or sometimes reverse course. The last word on this conversation, go ahead. Thank you for taking my call. I agree with mr. Riley, we were talking about the gains that blacks made. I grew up in baltimore in a place called cherry hill. The only Plant Community for blacks at the federal government felt. I wrote a book about it called cherry hill raising successful black children in altamont. Mr. Riley states that he feels the johnsons with the Johnson Program killed that progress but i want him to come comments on how the reagan budget cuts affect our progress. Thank you. She said what . Benign progress. Benign neglect. I dont think it was benign neglect. I dont think they can be called benign. These were huge government expansions. We spent trillions of dollars on antipoverty programs. The war on poverty, housing programs and so forth. I think what it shows is the limit. Its only so much but the government can do. We also know what it cant do. If you take away good policing, if you take away good schools and stable homes, this is nothing the government can do to replace. How can blacks defeat today . We need to pass honest conversation about the problem we face. We need to talk about black rights for example, black incarceration rates. Basic things like that need to take place. Honest conversations about what the studies say and intact families safe. Outcomes later in life and so forth. Second, what i want from the government is to stop doing things we know dont work. Affirmative action, Higher Education is not working based on the track record of affirmative action. Antipoverty programs that does incentivize work. They will not develop the work ethic they need to get out of poverty and stay out of poverty. Ill keep they keep its trapped in schools, they know a model has been successful in teaching kids in the most difficult backrest. Let those models proliferate. Its more about what the government should stop doing than what it should start doing but in terms of the commentary and intellectuals and academics and the rest, lets have honest conversation about what is actually happening out there and whether the causes are or not. What are your favorite books . Rockefeller comes to mind. Because it showed not only how wealthy he became but how much he improved American Society in the process. Whether it was building black schools or making things cheap so everyone can enjoy them, not just the rich and you didnt have to stop working when the sun went down at night. I enjoyed the History Lesson i got out of that. In addition to learning a lot about rockefeller. A lot of the books im reading now are in the research of my intellectual biography it