Thats a word for the in crowd to show their part of thesmart crowd. Brother robbie and i we dont believe in smartness in this isolation, we believe that wisdom in its deepest level and the smartness is tied to richness with no acumen to donald trump who believes hes the smartest and richest in the room, its a sign of his spiritualvacuum he and emptiness that hes a symptom of a society that has idolized smartness and richness. We wont even talk about obama, obama dropped 172,000 bombs his last year, he got the Nobel Peace Prize ties twice as many drone strikes. He got 506 he won the Nobel Peace Prize so what happens is this practical hide what your substance is when it comes to morality and spirituality. This is what breaks through ideology, not just rightwing leftwing cynicism. This substance is always deeper than any political ideology so what im trying to say in this introduction is we are in catastrophic times. Ideological catastrophe, nuclear catastrophe, war catastrophe of the file and the slickest and the smartest. Grotesque wealth inequality. They have equivalent to the bottom 360 million, three brothers have wealth equivalent to 50 percent of our fellow citizens. This is grotesque. This looks like louis xiv times and so forth so now of course weve got welltodo off, heighteningthe benefits for the poor and you say wait a minute , what you do to the least ofthese you do unto us. The orphaned, the widowed, the fatherless, the poor, the immigrant, the muslims, the indigenous people, gay and lesbian and so on. Thats a moral and spiritual interpretation so the book is about where we are 25 years after. I wrote the book in 1993 and times are bleaker spiritually and morally. I agree with the basic thrust of it. Cornell and i disagree about things like markets whether inequality is a bad thing. I think our problem is not the market economy. I believe in the market economy. The economy has lifted millions of people out of poverty. My critique is we have traded in a true market economy economy for crony capitalism where big and powerful firms can usegovernment, can use Big Government to regulate competitors off the field. Big firms can afford the price of regulation and sometimes they note small and upstartcompetitors cannot. When it comes to economic equality i do not mind inequality and i think in any system there will be economic inequality. I have as a goal equality in dignity, the quality of the declaration of independence where it says all men are created equal but ive chosen the career of an academic. I know thats not a particularly high paying career. I could have gone to law school, i could have gone to Business School and made a lot more money. Lawyers work for people who make more money than me. So i dont have any problem with, as long as its fair , i dont have any problem with people having a lot more money than other people. My worry is not for economic equality. My worry is for opportunity. My big worry is we are losing to a considerable extent or have lost the prospects for upward mobility for half of our fellow citizens. I grew up in central appalachia. I remain close to people there, my info entire family is back there. All of my family, my high school friends, so many of my friends and relatives are there. This was donald trump country. Why . Because they are feeling the effects of being neglected. Of being left behind economically, culturally. They feel without bigotry or prejudice but certainly on the basis of their own experience as if there is a cultural elite. Oh wealthy, powerful cultural elite that has only its own interests in mind. Not the interests of working people in places like central appalachia and have nothing but contempt for the values of people in central appalachia. These were trump voters so im not one of these guys who condemns trump voters. Im not a fan of donald trump, i wasnt in the beginning and ill give credit for some good things that hes done but ill criticizing him for bad things hes done but its a mistake to imagine that those supporters of donald trump are just racist and bigots and horrible people. They have legitimate grievances which no one in either party, the establishment of either party responded to and ill trump reached out to them. Whether they were wise to look to him as their tributes, thats debatable, i have debated that with my relatives in West Virginia but he noticed those people were forgotten, were left behind, were looked down upon and held in contempt and he benefited. Cornell west, do youagree with what hes saying about the trump voters . The trump voters are a diverse lot. Weve got a slice of them who are in fact zeno phobic and misogynist and homophobic but that doesnt exhaust the whole group. Theres a racist slice of trump voters. These arrows that you see sticking out of me come from the altar right. But theres also a slice of trump voters who had voted for bernie and voted for obama so youve got to keep track of that diversity. You never want to downplay the role of the viciouslegacy of White Supremacy in the country. Precisely because its so vicious you cant allow it to be only you see. We get this other cultures and black intellectuals these days where all you can see is White Supremacy. Supremacy is always linked to somethingelse. Its linked to predatory capitalism and links to jim crow, it looks to patriarchy and hold you, its also a every class, you blackandwhite soldiers come together to philippines cockroaches so you got an empire. You have to be very honest in telling the truth so brother rob and i say lets tell the truth of who they are. They are a diverse lot, many of themwere suffering under neoliberal policies. Under barack obama top one percent 95 percent of the Income Growth and i find that to be morally protest. Im not wholesale inequality i want floor. Ill focus on poverty. We agree with that. Im not deeply concerned about trying to ensure that poverty is. Hes been trying to do that in conservative circles and im trying to do it with. I have no major concern about poor people tied to wall street and tied to upward mobility for the professional middle classes. When it comes to working people who are poor, poor people not working at all they have little to say other than some movement on healthcare and thats a marketdriven Healthcare Program coming out of the Heritage Foundation established by mitt romney, a mormon brother, diluted but hes not known for beingon the cutting edge of fighting against poverty but he somebody who in Therepublican Party did decent things and got healthcare, thats where that Program Comes from. Let us try to tell the truth. In both of our parties. Deeply narrow when it comes to these issues of poverty. Jack kemp and the others putting pressure on the republican party, the legacy of Martin Luther kingputting pressure on the democratic party. We conclude our look at race in america with ken solomon and maria rankin who discussed how to combatWhite Supremacy during their talk in april 2019. The reality is that the election of the 45th president brought White Supremacy out of the shadow. And that means while thats bad in that they are clearly emboldened in a lot of ways it also made more people step up to find their way to fight and the hope is this book helps more people to figure out how to identify the ways they are fighting but sometimes the day after the election we went to bed with our active resistance, that is how we thought but the hope is will identify the ways they are already fighting and also look to see what else they can do. Just to add on, i think one thing that we want to come out of this bookis that we want to end the taboo of saying White Supremacy. A lot of people say racial, racist. Racially tinged, racially charged. Thats just racist and also that white supremacist. But us because we work at a Racial Justice news site we see these worlds all the time. We hear activists use these words all the time and we have a working definition but i think for many people who dont do this kind of work it can sound shocking but its really the reason why we say White Supremacy rather than racism is because we want to talk about the systemic under regarding summer system and talk about it as a particular system that can be vanquished. If its just racist a lot of times racism is considered to be interpersonal so people will say i listened to my heart, but White Supremacy is a particular system and you can break it down and you can work and resisted. And it might not be the whole thing. One of the things you mentioned love, you mentioned laughter and you had a quote in here that said laughter is one of the most important tools of war and another that said loving yourself is a revolutionary. And you talk about that . A lot of things you dont think of laughter and love when you think about White Supremacy. First of all, i laugh funny. Thats awesome. Laughter is really important. Number one, to be human we do need laughter. Even in the worst possible situation, you need to actually enjoy something. I dont believe we would have survived as a people if we didnt have a sense of humor so theres a particular part in the book that we talk about in the humor chapter which is called laughter from crime and its from brother jordan anderson, written after the civil war and in that letter he talks about how his old master invited him back to the plantation to come and work there and so he wrote that and he was like your master, thank you forthe invitation. Appreciate you. So you shot me twice, thats okay. We will consider coming back if you consider giving us what weve earned already and then giving us the interest that has accrued so then he talks about clearly hes talking about reparations and hes talking about paying for labor and then he goes back to politely, this dangerous humor where he says my wife mandy, shes concerned about some things. So its the most passive aggressive, one of the most hilarious pieces of history ive seen so i love brother jordan anderson. Speaking of our humor chapter 1 of our contributors is here. Russ green, it gives people a way. [applause] you knew that was coming, didnt you . Say a few words. We have an entire chapter about love and one of the whole point of this book is that we think so often when people think about resistance is a think about organizing and going on the ticket lines and theres so much that goes into it and i dont know about all of you all that there have been days when i was younger when finding love for myself was submerging that system but that system seeks to tell me that as a woman and a black person that i am ugly. I am unlovable. I will never find a partner. All these things we hear in media all the time. I was talking to an editor that wanted her to startdoing stories about why black women dont get married. About why we dont reach across the aisle and why we need to thrive under whites and white styles mean i am not enough all the time so these path essays in there that talk about finding the beautyin themselves and how that looks like loving yourself. How to love our children motivates us and how it makes us intentional in the way that we raise them so they know that they are lovable, we get to them before the system tells them they are not. We hear a lot about being woke and wokeness and can you talk about that and what it looks like with younger people in terms of their activism. I think the wokeness phenomenon is both interesting and i think it is fantastic. I feel like cause of a lot of the work that has been done from the 1960s, theres a lot of social justice. Theres a lot of discussion for young people this generation and the white people of this generation are a lot more active. There was sort of a down period for a particular kind of activism and that was when i was a teenager. Im 44 so to turn around and see younger people calling out the issues we were trying to talk about some time ago and to also have the tools to widely disseminate their messages and widely recruit folks, i think thats really important and i also think again that there was this low and there would be like to people who would talk about Police Violence all the time. Now you have 1000 people who talk about Police Violence and i think thats really important. So the end of the chapter that is about children and people who advocate for them which is called im one of your littlefriends. We profile several people who have found ways to be activists and i think what struck us wastheir willingness to jump straight to solutions. We had one little boys name is keith and he read a statistic that said boys of his age often operating books and he was like im going to do something about that so he started a book club for four young boys and not only was it just about bringing them to read but it was about bringing them together to read books where they saw themselves. One of the things he says in his profile is that hes like most of the stuff we see is not fiction and its cool to read about and lk and malcolm x but i just want to read a book about somebody like lou, andeightyearold who likes to play football with his friends in the backyard. Trying not to get cooties at school. He just wanted to be able to see himself and i read that he saw a problem, and he was like i got that and that was his way of being an activist and it didnt just take the forms that we always think of but it is a very real form. Thats what i thought was one of the strengths of the book was that and you had so many different examples and there were everyday ways people can get involved and you think of a lot of and how he encouraged everyday people to do something to lead from where you are and the importance of how small acts can make a difference in the long run and not necessarily waiting for a charismatic leader to show the way. There was one interesting part where you were talking about double dutch. And you use that as a metaphor for dealing with whitesupremacy. So this double dutch metaphor was in the final chapter, they will all be free and the idea of it is that double dutch can be revelatory if you think about the elements of it so for instance you have to work with other people to do double dutch. Number two, the people have to worry about their safety because the ones turning shouldnt slap you in the face and number three if you cant jump theres a thing or there used to be a thing where somebody said you could be the baby doll and if you didnt have too much pride like i did, you would be able to get a pass on some of your poor jumping because you were the baby doll. Another big thing about double dutch is if you messup , then three other peoples turn or its for other peoples turn and you come right backaround. Its sort of like a clean slate so this idea of double dutch, its an idea but it was also supposed to be too because im a black girl from West Philadelphia and i cant jump double dutch so theres a little bit of shame in this. I cannot jump double dutch. Kind of like us 12 step program. It is but double dutch is such an essential part of culture when i was growing up and the last part is double dutch is about vitality. Ive walked down the street in brooklyn and seen women in suits with no shoes on jumping double dutch with girls and theres something there where its like a reassurance and its also an art so thats why i put that under the freedom dream metaphor. One more question before we open it up because this is a wonderful opportunity for us to engage with each other and for everyone to weigh in on this topic but one of the questions i wanted to ask you is what white people can do about White Supremacy and what allof us can do about White Supremacy. So the first thing i think that you have to do is realize that infighting White Supremacy you are not helping us. You are helping us all. It does not make you an ally to fight White Supremacy because its a system we all labor under, that we all perpetuate andsome have privilege in butfirst you have to remember that. The second thing is dont ask black or other people of color to do emotional or other labor for you. There are lots of books in this tradition will approach this topic from different ways and different angles and google is your homey. You can always ask and stuff ratherthan asking a black woman to do that for you. Another thing is to be courageous. So very often we hear people say that they didnt want to have that conversation because they didnt want to ruin thanksgiving dinner. I am here to tell you that if ruining thanksgiving dinner is the only thing you have to worry about you have so much privilege because were walking were worried about walking outside and getting shot. We courageous not just in talking to your people but talking to yourself looking at the ways that you perpetuate the system and i think the last thing is theres an Organization Called surge , showing up for Racial Justice and its white people gathering white people. It is for them, buy them and its about working towards Racial Justice together and thats where you should go. One last thing is stop teaching children colorblindness. People think that it is antiracist so youre fighting white supremacist him by saying we are all the same inside or i dont see color or also another variety, it doesnt matter if youre black, white, green or purple. Theres never a green and never a purple but its this idea of trying to flatten and also to avoid the conversation but convinced children thats the best way that they can function and not be racist. Because ultimately its an erasure. When you say you dont see color youre saying you dont see anybody that doesnt look like you. Thats not a good thing. That doesnt make us feel good and thats not fighting White Supremacy. I went to an all white Girls Prep School from 3rd to 8th and i remember that my classmates did not ever want to say even the word black so they were like three black girls in our class and probably 28 or so and if they wanted to describe you they be like the girl with the hair this way. Whos that . We were in uniform. The girl with the uniform. Okay, you mean theblack girl. And im sort of like thats what colorblindness does to you. It actually creates a taboo. It makes it wrong to articulate something thats perfectly beautiful which is black. Watch all of the programs youve seen here and many other author discussions about race in America Online at booktv. Org. Access our archives by using the searchbox at the top of the page and search race and books. Here are some of the current bestselling audiobooks according to audible, topping the list to memoirs. First becoming byformer first lady bishop michelle obama, bestselling book of 2018 followed by glenn and oils untamed. After that david goggin shares his thoughts on selfdiscipline in cant hurt me and then in talking to strangers new yorker staff writer Malcolm Gladwell examines how we misread strangers words and actions. And wrapping up our look at some of the bestselling nonfiction audiobooks according to audible his former navy seal and republican congressman of texas Dan Crenshaws thoughts about overcoming adversity in his book 42. Some authors have appeared on book tv and you can watch them online at booktv. Org. The president from public affairs, available in paperback and ebook presents biographies of every president organized by their ranking by noted historians from best to worst. And features perspectives into the lives of our nations chief executives and leadership styles. Visit our website, cspan. Org the president to learn more about historian features and order your copy today wherever books and ebooks are sold. Tonight at 9 pm eastern tv ameritrade founder joe ricketts talks about his book the harder you work the luckier you get. Watch afterwords on book tv on cspan2. Recently New York Times columnist outfit argued that american politics and economics have become stagnant. Heres a portion of his talk. After the last few generations its become a lot harder to effectively govern western countries and to effectively reform or transform or build new or unbilled Government Programs and so an age when it was like to program and have a Dramatic Program of reform from Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson really down through Ronald Reagan is given weight and age when president s are lucky they one major piece of regulation across their presidency succeed as obama did with obamacare and they pay a political price for their presidency. And overall politics is dominated by various stalemates, by polarized parties competing with each other without building clear majorities. With in the United States of congressional abdication and an increasing form of government that consists of basically negotiation between the executive branch and Judicial Branch which is how i think a lot of american policy now gets made but i think theres a version of this , a somewhat different version in europe where you have the institution of the European Union which advanced to a point where its an effect too big to fail. It has all kinds of problems but no one accepts wild and crazy english are willing to take the step of leaving, even the sort of fearsome populist nationalists of Eastern Europe dont actually plan to leave the eumeanwhile its inefficient. It creates all kinds of economic problems but it can neither move forward or back. It cant shrink back towards a more sensible arrangement and it cant moveforward towards the superstate that many of its architects and vision so it to sort of has this stalemate. So thats what im describing as sclerosis and as i said i think thats the easy one. Thats the one that people not along too. The others are a little bit more debatable. So stagnation, economic stagnation is not as sort of thoroughgoing a reality as sclerosis. You do have periods of economicgrowth. Youve managed a respectable pace of growth basically since the Great Recession in 2008 but overall you do see a pattern of real deceleration, lower growth rates compared to what was the norm prior to the 1970s and you have those growth rates achieved basically through a kind of perpetual borrowing. Where you can get to two percent growth with massive deficits whereas in the 1950s you could have 4 and a half percent growth with what then were sometimes complained about as massive deficits but works really deficits at all so in effect, i think those deficits may be more sustainable than some conservatives think but they are sustainable as in effect if a rich society paying itself to maintain a form of progress at its own fundamentals dont really justify. To watch the rest of this Program Visit our website, booktv. Org. Search for the title of his book, the decadent society using the search box at the top of the page. My name is ryan ryan hass. It is my honor and pleasure to welcome an audience from across the United States and around the world to this live webcast conversation between jung pak and sue terry to roll out her new book. Her book titled becoming kim jong un, a former it