Disassemble the way they benefit from whiteness and what she calls good ancestors. People who leave a legacy of liberation and others to follow. Shes a writer, speaker and podcast offer, she earned her bachelor of law degree from Lancaster University in the kingdom. Her husband and two children. We are excited to talk with her tonight. We also are excited to announce this new book has already released on the number one bestseller list. [cheering] number 88 on usa today. With that, layla, welcome. Thank you so much. Happy to be here. Are you on . Here it comes. There we go. Can you hear me . No. Sorry about that. That has never happened before. [laughter] i want to ask a question and hand the mic over to layla so she can hear your. Why do start with a fascinating book, a great exploration of a topic that we are all interested to talk about work tonight but in this book, youre asking white people, particularly quite people in the u. S. Like me to confront racism, you say outright this can be an uncomfortable process. Talk about what motivated you specifically to tackle this. Its so interesting, ive been asked this so many times now. If i have known before embarking on this journey, if i had known what was going to be ahead of time, i might not have chosen it. The work i was doing before i was a life and business coach, i wasnt doing any thing controversial, anything that would make people uncomfortable, if anything, i was saying come on, ill take care of you and help you grow your business. But when the charlottesville, the rally happened in charlottesville, as attorney moment for me because i remember seeing the images of the men marching in the streets, we can all remember the racial slurs and everything, it was like a light just clicked over for me that i had things that had been growing up inside of me for many months about things i was observing and for Life Coaching space, spirituality, personal growth space that i could see was white the premises, people who looked like me were the minority, people who look like people in this room for the majority and i wanted you dont wife. My . Is it because people like me didnt do this kind of work. Week being excluded from being seen as incredible people . I wrote a letter called i need to talk to spiritual white women about right to privacy and i was addressing things that would blow up within me and asking people in that space to look at you say you want to change the world, heal the world, you say you are about love and life, you say you dont see color but racism is running rampant in this space and we need to have a conversation about her. I got through that journey through this letter that went very viral. Fast forward a year later, one night im thinking about what have we learned in that time since we started having this public conversation . I grabbed my phone and said what have you learned about whites pharmacy . I thought well, what is whites pharmacy . What that i experience of it . I started listing out dozens of these things, white silence from a cultural procreation white majority, dozens of these prompts and i quickly realized it wasnt a single post was going to share with my community but rather a journey. So i created this journey. Posted on instagram that night and we begin tomorrow my 28 day journey to explore White Supremacy, sounds fun. [laughter] sounds fun, right . Really thought not many people are going to want to go on this journey because it doesnt sound fun, sounds uncomfortable and hard and i woke up the next day there were so many people who said im scared that im in. We started that challenge and i had 19000 instagram followers by the end of that 28 days, it had more than doubled. People came in every day to do this work. Its been an incredible journey because it came from a place of the angry grief from charlottesville and but are seen and the curiosity of what they have learned. So you started on social media, as you described. If you like its a very millennial way. [laughter] what made you convert that into a book . Is there anybody in this room to take a instagram challenge . It was an incredible experience. It was, for the first time, people having very public conversations around their own unconscious races thoughts and beliefs. Ive never seen it done before in that way, it was behind a payroll or in a private setting, nobody could come on my page and read what was being said. I knew from day one that this is a very special thing was happening and i had to Pay Attention and i knew by the end it had to become a book. Because they were people watching the challenge were too scared to join in and i knew they wanted to do the work but they were afraid and because of the transformations, i knew it had to go beyond a challenge which i knew i would never run again. [laughter] never doing that again. It was so incredible that i had to go beyond that live experience so i decided to turn it into a workbook and the great thing about doing that, i was no longer constrained to instagram, i could write at length. I had learned something, i didnt realize how hard it would be. For me and the people i was asking to go on this journey. What i did with the book was, let me just prepare you for what you are about to experience and let me equip you for journey thats going to be very uncomfortable. So we included extra things in the pdf workbook. Having him through this, the intro pages help get you to the notion that its not quite work, its not something you can do without a real heavy amount of effort because its going to ask you some really hard questions. The exercises that come in the workbook, obviously when you did them online, you did them in a particular order. You had to think about his day one, day two and youre asking different and more challenging questions. [laughter] somebody says im good, im good. Then they start seeing themselves with the complicity into these issues. How did you decide when you are doing it the first time from was the right order and did it change when you put it into a print book . Or did it modify . The night i received the download of what the challenge would be, i wrote dozens of these things down and when you started day one, which was just the next day and i woke up and thought zero no, i was going to do this thing and now i actually have to do it. From day one, i was like let me just choose the easiest one which is White Privilege, i know some have heard of this term sorta starting points. Then i saw the way people were engaged on the post, i was like no, you have to make it make sense. The thing that comes next have to build on what just happened because at first, like you said, it was the night before and spent the next day. My plan had been too just check them in the order i received them in. But it didnt make sense to do that if it was going to be that journey. So i was very intentional each day about what was going to come next. That same order and prompts have remained the same from the challenge from the pdf workbook to the hardcover workbook. You are definitely composing that order as it was happening. Absolutely. And one of the main things was not to do week two, the day eight to 15, thats a hard week. Thats the week we look at racist stereotypes, antiblack, cultural appropriation, things most people who do not want to be associated with racism dont want to admit to it. If i had started that in week one, most people would have shut down. Because consciously, the way many people see themselves is, i am not racist because i know who racist are and they are the bad people, they are the one who marched in charlottesville, im not one of those people so i cant even hear this. Thought when i called the basis. It allows you to understand that White Supremacy is not strange thing that only some people do, it is actually this whole system and belief that all of us have been convinced conditioned to see. Week two, you are more open to the idea that maybe i do have antiblack thoughts because i had all these other things that seemed to resonate the things that i know ive done. On that same line you are talking about how people for speaking and helping guide which challenge you are putting to the max and starting to order things from the other think you mentioned in the book is obviously the difference between the book and the challenge, it wasnt just your voice out there. As you are posting these things, people were responding online and then some people who might have been working through the issues as a white person trying to adjust or confront or deal with it, there were other people chiming in. They were adding to the conversation. How did that influence when you went to create the workbook . The Biggest Surprise to me was that out of nowhere, what i knew and didnt know showed up to help facilitate the work. Voluntarily. We didnt have to do that and my instinct was to say dont look at this, its not nice but they showed up and they helped me facilitate the work. They collectively have been so integral to me, two of my closest friends here who are black women, its that sisterhood and working together thats so integral. When i went from the challenge to the workbook, now i was alone. It was just me. The support they get and the challenge helped me push more as well. There are some places in there that would like no, that bs, go deeper. It helps a lot. To some extent, a book that normally you are writing but a communal support had an influence on it. A very different type. In supporting because nobody does anything alone. Nobody does anything alone. We get to see the legacy, the body of work incredible rights, everything to me. The work they did has informed the work i do. A big part of the book is this notion of journaling, youre asking people to write, engage with these questions and write their responses. My question becomes, why is this more important for them to write their responses than to just have a conversation with someone around these questions or think about it . Why do you want journaling to happen . I have two answers to that question. The first one is when i first started having conversations about race and i wrote that open matter, it was like a straight buckle everyday on social media, trying to convince white women, this is real. You do do this. It was exhausting. Very exhausting. I found when i asked him it flipped things. Made things easier on me and them more open to having the conversation. So that is one part of this. The other part is when we are just thinking about it, think about it and keep things at an intellectual level where you are processing it here but youre not processing it inside so when we talk about racism, its not an intellectual study. Its peoples lives. That has to be matched and embodied experience of trying to understand your own unconscious thoughts and beliefs. They dont see color, they actually harm people of color. Its important to use your whole body to put pen to paper to write out and bring to the surface things that when you just consciously think about them are not there immediately. I agree fully in the power of writing to see things happen and change. In the introduction of the book, we talk about the need to be a good ancestor, can you tell us what that means . Good answers i think saved my life and helped me to be able to sit here and have this conversation with you now in a way im able to have it. When i talked about when i first started doing this work and how hard it was, i went from being somebody who, i guess i was a life coach, i was very optimistic, hopeful, very positive when i wrote that letter and began to experience the very nice women who were in my community suddenly has this reaction of what they call right fragility which is that many white people are not used to having conflicts conversations about race. When is brought up, they have a sometimes violent reaction to it. Defensiveness. They get angry, getting up and walking away, saying things that are never said, they couldnt imagine that would come out of their house. So i want something whose very negative, pessimistic because i couldnt see if this work has been done for the amount of time its been done in the quality for people of color, its been going on for so long and i could read things written and read it and thought she would have written it today. I needed something bigger than what i was seeing to allow me to continue on the journey because i couldnt do it from a place of resentment and hopelessness. This idea of being a good ancestor went beyond me. It became about my children and the people who will come after im gone. So i used that, i have it on the cover, i hope the podcast answers questions because i needed it but whats been really interesting as so many people have resonated with it for themselves and i think the people who have White Privilege in particular, what inspires what it activates within is this idea that i didnt create White Supremacy but i absolutely benefit from it. White people who came before us didnt fix it, didnt dismantle or change it. Perhaps i can do what i can do right now in this lifetime to create a different future for those who come after me. Selfishly, it was for me but it has helped so many people. And you tell me or us, some of those you feel the kind of legacy you want to leave . Thats easy for me. [laughter] the people we all know, the first people are my parents. Their living ancestors today. When i got the news of new york times, just as we were arriving here, i called my husband and fend my mom. Its 2 00 a. M. But i woke them up and told them because everything they poured into me makes me who i am today. Everything. Spirituality, ability to write and speak about everything i get them. They are first. Margaret over there writing and i opened the book and close it with her words. Black feminist women who did this liberation work. In different ways, she was a sciencefiction writer but i spent i think i spent time reading through her entire collection interview read the parable, the character in that book is what inspired me to want to be a good ancestor and she documents everything, this character. It reminds me how important words are, the power of words because they live beyond us. Thats good. So you mentioned theres a months work of content in this book and really, its more because you discussed the idea of people being able to walk through it and 28 days they can easily go back to it. You want them to step through it in the order in which it is the first time. So we can go over all concepts tonight, we all want you to buy the book and do it yourself. [laughter] do the work, as you mentioned, its important for people to do the work if they want to engage. I want to ask you about three. As i read through it, these are ones that hit me, i want see yourself in them. Yes. I want to know how you defined them and how you want someone like myself to respond to these. The first one is white silence. So zoom out a little bit, the aim of this book is for people to understand that White Supremacy conditions and has infiltrated all of us. What racism is, isnt just what we can all. To and say that person is being racist but its unconscious thoughts and beliefs of behavior would you take as normal or its not that bad and understand that no, those things actually perpetuate white the primacy and or maintain it in place. By their non action. So white silence is one of those things. Being silent when you see something racist happening, and again, im not just talking about seeing someone call someone a late racial slur pressing somebody being mistreated, racially addressed in normal situations and just thinking, is it worth it to say anything . Is it my place to say anything . Does anybody notice if i say anything . Than choosing to stay silence, it actively keeps it in place. Its not a neutral behavior to be silent in the face of racism. So i was saying earlier, you didnt create it, you didnt create White Supremacy, nobody alive here created it but you maintain it and its one of the way you maintain it. Scrolling through facebook and you see something from someone you knew in high school or see something from a Family Member and you ask the question, am i going to confront this on social media . You talk yourself into silence. You talk yourself into not saying anything. Making a case, is it worth it . Then moving on. Did anybody actually get harmed . Moving on. For the fact that . Maybe they didnt mean it that way. Theres different ways to talk about white silence. Powers one, he also talked about the concept of white centering. White supremacy, lets define what it means, White Supremacy comes from the root seed of belief that people who are white are superior. Two people of other races and therefore deserve to dominate over those people. If we just look back on history, weve seen that cycle and genocide, enslavement, different ways shown up in violent ways and people can say that happened before but its not happening anymore. White centering is very subtle. When i talked of the beginning about why was it that in a space that i was in Life Coaching, that industry, people who look like me, right centering played a huge part in that. This is this idea that, remember a conversation i had once, i had been podcasting for a while and they made an intentional effort to mimic interview people of color, black women. A question i got once from a white woman was, is this podcast for me . Was mainly for people of color and it said it was interesting because does that mean i need to ask with majority white guests, do i have to ask is it for me . Right centering is this idea that something is prevented by white people to white people, it acquires universally levered through people of color, its only for those people. Another example i was giving recently at a book event, im watching this story but also watching was going on racially. Im not just looking for do they have a certain number of people of color . But how close are those people of color to the role of the protagonist . Said something ive noticed thats really interesting is, if in a story, it doesnt matter if its a romantic story or not, if in a story, one of the partners is a person of color, the other person will not be a person of color unless its seen as a black movie. Right . Unless its seen as a black moving in the audience is black people but most of the time from both romantic partners are white in fact supposed to be a universal story of love we can all relate to. [laughter] so thats what white centering can look like in very subtle ways that doesnt allow people of color to be the center of the story, theres always an assigned character, there always marginalized. Then the other one i thought was rather powerful was your conversation about white saviors and. Was on a plane recently and the man sitting next to me, we were tearing because nobody had come to sit in the middle. [laughter] so we were like yes so we were like what we do . He said, we were assigned to hear and he said this is my short flight, going on a longer flight to africa. In my mind, unlike africa is a continent, not a country. I said where you going to africa . He said can you. I said where you going and can you . When you going to do this . He said on the coo of this food program nonprofit and we provide meals and we do it in the u. S. And have five programs here and we have one there. So im like, my spidey senses are out because i want to know whats going on. Im asking and investigating and asking all of these questions. The basis of the company was also very much faithbased so it was sort of like a Christian Program but i was like im not going to go deeper in this because we just met. [laughter] was funny after that he asked what i do and i said let me show you my book. [laughter] he took a picture of it and everything. Its this idea, this story is this idea that white people can have people from our inherent space of wretchedness, i guess, and lower worth and back can look like missionary projects to black and brown countries but it can also look like trying to speak for black women when she can speak for herself. It can be very very subtle. If we were to back to where this comes from, its that same belief that white people are superior to people of other colors. So what it does, theres this belief that i know better for them whats best for them. Because i am white and colonization and the idea behind that was to go and save black and brown people. The advancement of American Indian art, and exhibition upstairs about boarding schools that made childrens books and they were put in these schools. Throughout the exhibition, words were used at the time of this policy and it was takes the indian out of the man. Take away his culture. We know whats better for them than they do. So those are all, as you go through the book in these different things, each of these has a different amount of weight for individuals. Now, i picked three. Is there anything you think people need to know in another part that i didnt touch on . Theres one many people who thought, one that feels like a slap in the face his exceptionalism. I think let us basics. [laughter] what white sectionalism is, this idea ive read all the books, done all the programs, portal documentaries, posted all the articles on social media, i am one of the good ones. I already know this, so i dont need to grow that deeply, if i wasnt one of the good ones, i wouldnt have picked up this book in the first place. So its this conversation about im already, i dont need to go that deep and that exceptionalism and its a call out. Be careful of getting into a space of thinking you are one of the good ones because that leads to a sense of, you become more harmful to people of color, when somebody is outright with her racism, i just know to stay away from them. But if somebody is like im one of the good ones, you can be safe with me and they havent examined whats actually going on underneath and they cause harm in a way they didnt realize, that is more painful to experience. Its more painful because you werent expecting it. They created a sense that they are safe with you and its something to experience that they are racism and they Say Something like ive experienced that as well so maybe isnt racism, maybe its Something Else and you realize they didnt seal, they didnt understand. Im going to mention, i have a couple more questions on what to ask. If you have a question you want to write down, passing over after i asked a couple more, we will jump into those questions. You know heritage, african, arab, british, muslim and you live in the middle east now so what kind of perspective do these identities experience here . Its interesting. This process of doing this work externally has helped me so much in owning all this land. I grew up in wales, think of the it is gone now. [laughter] i grew up as a black muslim girl in a predominantly white space going to predominantly catholic schools. From the very beginning, my mom has a recording of me when i was about three years old and i was listening to it recently, in the background singing welcome, baby jesus and my mom said i used to sing all the time. Theres a nursery rhyme and i used to sing all the time. Ive always been aware because i would go to school they would play how we do it at school, our father who art in heaven and outcome home and we would pray in an entirely different way. So it was hard because i dont other person to share the experience with. The stories i made up in my mind about all of that was, i dont fit in. Who i am isnt acceptable. And who i am is something i should be ashamed of. Because it isnt the mainstream. During this work, helping others to do this work has meant i have to do my work in owning all of who i am in learning to love all of who i am so what i think i bring to this conversation is, i am able to go between two big perspectives, a western consciousness and nonwestern consciousness. I can zoom in, i grew up and understand how you think and i can zoom out and say but that is not the whole picture. So why thats important is in the united states, the american way and having this conversation is important to remember that White Supremacy isnt just an american thing, its a global phenomenon. Touched so much of the world through different ways, it shows up differently in Different Countries and different spaces and places products all and i think having those different perspectives of growing up in the uk, lived there for a portion of my life as a country touched by the colonization of great britain, its the reason they moved to the uk because they were colonized by the british. White people come here, they are treated as superior to people who are racist. Im trying to do is not take a political stand, not take a country specific stance and help people understand this is the think many of us are conditioned into and its about changing from the inside out. The last question ill ask, where some important to you in the process of forming your thoughts on this and putting this together . Who are writers who have influenced you . The same as the answers before, audrey ford, was at the Chicago Public library yesterday when i was in the green room from other images of other writers who have influenced me and ill give a shout out to my friend, lisa because she does unconscious unbiased work and she uses a process of selective journaling to help people get into the car. Amazing, brilliant people who have passed transition and people who exist today who have seen incredible work and all of it in print. So as im waiting for people to ask a question, im going to ask one more along back, you mentioned butler in the differences there, the essayist and a Science Fiction writer, which do you think has more impact on making people think . I cant talk for other people but i can talk for me. For me, i need all of it. I need it all. I need the poet and christians, i need them all because im a human being, i process things many different kinds of ways and i need knowledge but i also need heart. Fiction and nonfiction and poetry impacts us in different ways where it fills up this very nuanced and textured way of understanding what White Supremacy is which is not just pun intended black and white, its not just racist or not racist. How does racism and White Supremacy impact in different ways, everything. I need all of it. Going to ask a couple questions that came from the audience, going to grab a few more. Its surprising, this one because i am one. Surprising or is it surprising that there are fear men in this room . Whats interesting in the personal Development Space because we are women, two and i think women tend to lean toward introspection and self reflection in a different way. [laughter] i think everybody agrees. Thats not meant as an insult. Reflected in what we see in those spaces. Is a second question here which is the more resistant to acknowledging competency from men versus women. Within White Supremacy, the world has been made for a specific type of person. That person is white male, missed gendered heterosexual. Whos supposed to ultimately benefit and the more you deviate from that, the more you experience. When you benefit so much from something, why do the work when you have to lose those benefits . Nobody likes being uncomfortable, or losing something they like having so thats where the resistance, i think comes from. This is a question from someone in the room who has a white teacher, teaching in a school, i think they are saying primarily africanamerican students, is there a way to avoid white saviors him . I think the very first place to start is to do work like this. Regardless of its my work with somebody else but really examining, what might bring into space . What might bring into that space that im not even aware of . How my viewing these children in ways that is harmful to them . That im not aware of. Consciously they are good peop people, we keep that definition of good real simple. [laughter] right . We dont want to look at the other part of our self. Its a human tendency. When you going to spaces like that in your coming in with White Privilege and unexamined unconscious exists thought and belief, not know the ways you can be doing harm. Its been a long time, ive been too many cities. As in a certain city and a security person who was with me as a black man and when we finished the talk, we were driving back to the hotel and i said did you enjoy the top . He said i did. When you are talking, i remembered so many things that happened and i remember being at school constantly being told the disadvantage, you are a disadvantage. I couldnt take it anymore so i dropped out of school. I dropped out of school. So i dont know what the intention of those people who kept telling him that was but the impact was that it caused his life to go an entirely different direction that he might have subconsciously wanted. Its important to examine what you bring into space . Increase white supremacist ideologically in classrooms, ideologies present by people who use language and antiracist work. Henry change strategies for this . With increased ideologies present in classrooms but im sorry, if i have misunderstood her question my eyesight isnt what it should be. What, if anything, did you learn or were most despised to discover in the initial instagram challenge . I would say how sneaky it can be. And what it can really look like in practice that people want just by being prompted to examine were able to uncover within themselves. When day we did, what have you learned about you and black women . That was the hardest for obvious reasons and one day of the challenge was to cry because it was that hard. I remember one of the things written was a white woman said i went to the doctors and was surprised when the doctor came out and it was a black woman. They werent expecting it because in their mind, black women are not that smart, i guess, are not able to occupy back kind of space in it was only because weve been doing the work for a number of days now that she was able to recall that memory because she said i was my first thought infant i immediately knew that was wrong and replaced it with a second thought, which was i dont see color. [laughter] so is interesting in observing how sneaky it is. You recognize its not right, it matches up with the person i think i am. So that was there. Then the question, the race and misogyny. Black women. [laughter] its the day we look at that intersection of experiencing sexism and antiblack at the same time. Women of color, especially black women who are not descended in heterosexual always faced the most oppression. And i encourage people when they look at these, when you think about a woman, just think of a woman whose straight and sister gendered. He brought us as well and how does it modify how you treat them . This question which i entered from the book but im still going to ask [laughter] is a book meant to be a solitary journey . If so, how can the board up through conversation . You want to talk about that . Initially did the challenge, it was a solitary reflection journey. When we finished the challenge and i announced i was going to write a book, i got request about i want to do this work with my family, or to take this to work, can you include instruction on how to do that . So i did just that and a hardcover book, and appendix in it that how to do a white supreme is a book circle using this way. Its a book written by tina baldwin, they gave me permission to include this, an excerpt they include in the book. What it does is the tagline is leader in every chair. One of the most important things for me in a process was not to recreate white the premises paradigm, hierarchies and that can happen with a leader whos more rogue and can tell others what to do. I didnt want to do that, i wanted people to understand this is lifelong work, youll uncover more and more as you on this journey so have a circle process where everyone is responsible for doing the work. Nobody is more ahead than another and everybody is responsible for making sure we are all on the journey. So i include sense of an extensive appendix in that group. Theres a lot of value in that as well. Doing individually is also great and some people just have to sit better by themselves but the value of doing it in a group, they go to the process, clock out at day three and realize what it did and you get to see that you are not the only one who has these are just thoughts and beliefs. Other people do, too, people you respect and people who you like. It doesnt stay as a personal thing you feel shame about. You feel like its only me and im such a bad person for believing this, he starts think the people in your life also feel that way so it becomes, it goes from a personal thing to a collective thing. Another question, which i know you are addressed in the book but its something, how the work may change with the non white audience who have White Privilege, example, you talk about that. Early on in the book i define who the work is for. Dont they at white people, i say its for people with White Privilege. Its very wealthy and it easy if i could have written throughout, white people, white people thought i keep saying people with White Privilege because you can be a person of color or biracial and pass as white or seen as white or can be mistaken for white if they dont know more about you. I include to that, the process for those people is very different thousand those who are just white. Its complicated. I did an event in washington d. C. , i remember. Washington d. C. And i talked about this and after the talk, a Palestinian Woman came to talk to me afterward and she said im glad you said that because myself and my family have been pretty much doing that, passing as white. We can get away with it, then we will do it. Thats easier than having to deal with being seen as palestinian but what it meant is we have to sacrifice parts of ourselves, we had to subdue part of our culture and heritage in order to fit into this whiteness. For people who fit into that, who have White Privilege but are not white, its complex and its not because you have to look at how have i had unconscious racist thoughts and belief and harm other peoples color . How if i been however i been on the receiving end of racism . And cannot address it . Allowed it to happen in order to continue to receive White Privilege. We had an author here yesterday, an american author, young adult author and he told the story of his, a young man would and acting that he did early on in his career and being told by casting agent, you should change your name, you should pass as white because he could. And how painful that was so it is something definitely out there and a trace people sometimes make. We make they feel like they have to make. Because it will be easier for them if they are told that and they should revise who they are. Another question is your thought on navigating the line if there is one and using privilege for good or dismantling. Im old. [laughter] how do i know if im using my privilege or being a white savior . Sorry to break it to you, there is no checklist, no perfect way to do anything, especially in this work. Sometimes he will get it wrong. You will absolutely get it wrong. Whats important is to keep developing skill which is what teaches you, quizzical selfexamination. The more aware you are of your unconscious racist thoughts and beliefs, the left arm will do. The more aware, the less harm he will do. So if you or someone going through this work and you stop to realize i have a long history and passing of trying to save people of color, its probably a tendency for me so i should probably question when i do that. The other part is, instead of flipping in to save the day, ask questions. Ask question. Ask if you needed and how . Asked the people of color for whom you are trying to be in fellowship with or ask them what they need, we know what we need like i said earlier, i dont need somebody to speak for me, i know how to speak but i might need you too, when im being racial, i might say, can you talk to them . You know, if i ask you, saving me because i asked you but if you just step in, and your saving me because maybe i was fine. This is a good one. How would this conversation be different if you were being interviewed by a black woman . [laughter] whats really funny, i was speaking to somebody yesterday and i said is going to be my first interview with a white man. [laughter] nearly every interview ive done has been for the black woman. It absolutely changes things but it doesnt change me. It doesnt change me. Might change the dynamic change. Part of my personal antiracism has been to learn how to not offend myself like space. So i say to myself as a black woman and i trust you can handle it. [laughter] i was handed this one, and i have one more. Great question, by the way. Is a recovering wellmeaning white woman. [laughter] who has recognized harm. What are your thoughts on reaching out, sending a letter to make amends to black people who you may have harmed . [laughter] my gut says no but i believe in the power of taking ability or accountability. Must are my best friend who harms me right in the book, best friend was quite interested do this and i chose to enter the country because you can show up for me must your a bad person in my life, i dont need a letter from you. Had a personal relationship, i would appreciate if you reach out to me but if you realize im laughing because i get asked all the time about utilize this thing i did was racist, do you think i should no, they dont remember. And okay it is just going to annoy them if you bring it up again. Really, who are you doing it for . I only thought there. [laughter] im going to ask you one for which i thought was a good one basically, throughout this uncomfortable process and what youve done with this and what you work through all this, what still gives you hope . Children. My children because thats who i do this for. I do it for little girls in my children who deserve to live in the world of dignity matter where in the world they step foot. They are the ones who give me help because they are beautiful, amazing, they are everything. They are the ones who give me help. Thats great. Thank you and i would like to ask you all to thank her. [applause] we all had a wonderful time. As i mentioned, books for sale, if you havent gotten it already, make sure to get a co copy. They are already signed. Thank you all for coming. [applause] and out of our conversations. Tonight on tv and primetime from john r our brains are like to focus on that rather than news reports Kenneth Walsh looks at how different president s handled crises. Historian adam recalls the early 20th Century Russian immigrant growth pastor stokes, a Founding Member of americas communist party, abc news chief White House CorrespondentJonathan Carl the behindthescenes trump administration. We look at books about the u. S. Economy that all starts at 7 00 p. M. Eastern. Find more information on your Program Guide for on pineapple booktv. Org. The coronavirus continues to impact the country, is a look at what the Publishing Industry is doing to address the pandemic. Upcoming books festivals and conferences have been canceled with book fairs in san antonio cannot reschedule. The association announced the cancellation of their annual conference this june in jakarta. Los Angeles Times festival book originally set to take place in april, decided to hold their 25th annual festival in october. North americas largest Publishing Industry convention, also decided to push back the schedule dates to july. Watch over archived programsany. [background sounds]. Please welcome tim harford. [applause]. Thank y