November 2018 from Princeton University doctor. The author of several books including the history of a black National Anthem and breathe a will written as a letter to her son. Here is a portion. And all white people as individuals as opposed to whiteness as the identity. And going to the second paragraph what if we took this identity apart . To have that different history or our body and with that different relationship and to have as a consequence and with that relationship and sue say how the individual can be. Someone who was raised by a white man so if you take people like bob zellner that i think are some of the most precious people in the world and its important to me to not have a formulation from my sense of the struggle. Thats what im thinking. Before we move on to your other books, mothering black boys in america is a special calling. Yes. My mother said to me in a number of different ways. And secondly and then not necessarily helpful about the challenges the black boys face in this world whether mass incarceration or graduation or college attendance. I think about it differently. They are all true but the spontaneity of my children who are identified as black boys that in a way that doesnt delimit their imagination and sense of possibility allowing them to understand the facts of racial inequality that keeps them from thinking they are superior to people because they are relatively privilege. And also to keep them away for patriarchy. And in this society so thats elusive for black men to attain. That it was irrespective what walk of life they come from. So with that special calling what it means to be a man across the board often times things that are not so good but often times in the should counter both of those things. And that is a much greater capacity. In the last 19 minutes everything you talk about these are the types of things that are in part at princeton. Not really. In some ways this is a departure for me. I taught the work in a tend to reach much more assertive as opposed to that emotional register so its important to bring to that through own justice you know its just just as passionate. I do get in a phd and jd from harvard at the same time . [laughter] when i graduated from college at 21 years old i was just completely in love with life and ideas and i didnt want to choose and i wanted to do everything is that i will go graduate and law school that i did two years and took my orals in my first year of law school. It was a frenzied pace but it was beautiful and amazing for me and i learned so much i was being nurtured by the generations of people that came before me to help me understand the world spirit to play a little bit of music in a little bit of video from 1999. Of course that is just the norm in from the congressional Gold Medal Ceremony in 1989. What is that song . Lift every voice. That was known it with a black National Anthem from the 1970s and it is a song that i describe as black americans precious song. And with that clip of rosa parks and jesse norman who has recently departed is very moving. You wrote a biography of the song maybe we forever stand the author and the composer were brothers. In Jacksonville Florida and of course back in the day a call to race man people who saw every achievement that they have to be serviced and then to become the first secretary general of the naacp the first black man to make it to the bar in florida with the signature accomplishments. The first generation born in the 18 seventies . Yes. They have and then enslave with bahamian and they were enslaved in virginia but yes , they were of that generation that emerged from slavery with all the hopes and dreams and aspirations that were so quickly dashed at the end of reconstruction. Host what was the reception in 1900 when written . Extraordinary they caught on like wildfire it was almost immediately embraced let the intima black america. And then to have a National Anthem at this moment people were referring to it as an anthem that the johnson brothers are both educated at the time of the composition and they left florida to work on ten can alea songwriters because there was a terrible fire in the city so as the song caught on it caught on across the schoolchildren and then to be printed on the back of hymnals. They did not describe it as that. Host if we continue playing that video then we would have seen then president clinton. That is one of his distinctions he may be the only president that new all three versus. Host from your book may we forever stand hiphop under the farewell to the black National Anthem. So one of the things there is something that happens which is a nation black social and political life to do that association. And then to be conducted to the industrialization. So i quote they said may he rest in peace but black people are the moral conscience of the nation and hiphop is the refusal of that position. Is bold, not formal, and then to perform those politics. That is a commonplace of american culture. That is a public presence to africanamericans so that departure was significant so the song keeps coming back it seems like it with peter out completely even though the institutions and communities in which it was from dont exist the same way on about community. Host can you draw a direct line from Langston Hughes to Biggie Smalls . Absolutely. But that beauty of vernacular language and crafted it with the decisions to tell stories that were appointed, had political content and resonated deeply and engage with there are different political subjects like one is overtly an activist and organizer about the relationship to black language is the diaspora and to understand that as a foundation. Absolutely directly connected part of what had i talk about in the book is the process by which to become the most popular form of music in the country and the audience that expanded beyond the initial core audience that produced hiphop but but there was from the very beginning of what postindustrial life in the United States was like and all of its complexity. It is the expiration of the. They use the term mce . It is the word for wrapper rapper more organic to hiphop it comes from master of ceremonies but this idea of the relationship between the rapper and producer and dj was important. It is definitely a title. The mc is the rapper and in turn away of hiphop describing the row one the role. So not just a reflection of a moment in history your a certain condition but then it became important with that literary analysis. From your book profits of the third one heard the opposition to whiteness that blackness is demonized has become part of the art forms consciousness. And i should say hiphop has changed a great deal there are some aspects that i describe in meaningful ways. But there is a very overt play where tupac embraced that idea. Of the criminalization. Because they started to stereotype by people. And then to engage that satirically. And with that social reality. Lets talk about your books. New york you are on book tv. Caller. I have been siding racism my whole life im part of that. The world is very complex situation i dont support black nationalism its as bad as White Nationalism and it exceeds fascism to the trump base. There is good and bad in all groups but black people are just people they are not inferior or superior. I cant understand why ms. Perry is supporting black nationalism. Im not a black nationalist. That takes on many different faces there are certainly conservative brands but politically are aligned in many ways. With political conservativism then advocates the diversion like the black Panther Party a revolutionary socialism with the third world politics, anticolonialism , that they identify with call the nineties people across the worl world. So i should say that the single term doesnt mean much without the larger context but i will say that i dont think or disagree with the collar that they are equivalent because certainly people are trying to find a way to have a sense of control that they live in with a long history of colonialism and enslavement. Do enslavement and abomination but that is not a designation i would subscribe to. You say far left . I identify as democracy and a socialist because we believe against economic exploitation and everybody should have access to Safe Environments and clean water, a living wage, healthcar wage, healthcare, i believe across the country we shouldnt have people who are poor or living on the street. I dont think the narrative of the consequences of economic vulnerability are just consequences. I dont think thats a decent way to organize society i dont think people are poor because they are deficient but they are poor because they are exploited with the lack of opportunity. That is what i believe so as much as i write about ways it is never separate from the larger question of the distribution as the example of how a society has been organized to have opportunity and unjustly my objective is not for black people but you have to have that democracy which is only possible with a decent quality of life for people in society. You suggest that Justice Kavanaugh should read your newest book spark of life . Is probably one of the most balanced looks at abortion rights and womens reproductive rights that i have found. I worked really hard to make it balanced and it would allow him to see other peoples points of view and protect roe v wade a little longer. So the book is about a shooting at a reproductive clinic in mississippi one of the states that only has one clinic left because those that have shifted away from reproductive rights since 2012 the gunman comes in with a grudge and start shooting and then takes the rest hostage. So one of the people he takes hostages a 15 yearold daughter of the Hostage Negotiator and the people in the clinic are a wide range of people who believe very Different Things about reproductive rights and those that are prolife and to be evenly and accurately represented. How do you storyboard a complex story like that quick. Thats a particularly rough question because theres another little twist that makes a different it is told in reverse. And that is the standoff between Hostage Negotiator then every chapter goes back into time with very Diverse People at that particular moment and that was much harder than i anticipated it being. I wound up writing a 48 page outline because i had to write it chronologically in reverse and had never written an outline like that mostar three pages long, a synopsis i know the plot and the twist i want to leave a paper trail but it was so much going on and so complex i needed to map it out and the real magic is not in the outlining but in the editing. What he edited the book i took posted flags and marked up the book by character. Than he edited in reverse ten different times following each characters thread to make sure each story was coherent and then and tired on edited entirely going forward. How much time in jackson mississippi . A week between jackson and alabama as an africanamerican Abortion Provider who also identifies as a devout christian who said he performs abortions not in spite of his religion but because of it he heard a sermon at church. And then to go back and get trained with the most underserved areas. What about your 2526 bestselling books and then you know what the cover looks like now . They show me a covered what do you think i tell them if i like it or if i dont that was not the original cover. It look like small great things but i didnt want people to confuse the two. So the art director came back and i said that caught my eye and they loved it. Host. I think of the color chips the pantone that the artist use. If you look at the cover there is spots were color is missing something is not quite right. There is an absence small great things is about racism in america and that was such a beautiful illustration of what i was trying to talk about. Host are you kennedy . Any white person is kennedy. That book is based off of a reallife incident in flint michigan an africanamerican nurse in the labor delivery ward helped the baby in the aftermath the babys father said we he didnt want anyone it looks like her to touch their kid and in their infinite wisdom they put a poster in the babies file that africanamerican is not allowed to touch the baby they soon i hope she got a great payout but what if i pushed that a little and what if something went wrong and as a result she was brought up on charges and then defended by a white public defender never considered ourselves to be a recess so i tell the story in her voice and the voice of the white public defender so small great things is meant to say open your eyes a little wider so its a lot harder for white people to point to themselves and say the same thing. And if you are white in america you hold all the power and its easier for us that if you are a person of color its difficult for white people to acknowledge racism and there are benefits that you have to be born like this that is on something for white people to learn and to think ultimately thats why i wrote the book. You have written 26 books is everyone a bestseller . Not by any means. I was slow provided have that overnight moment. Jeff 3500 copies but people that read my books told their friends to read this and then it grew very organically it wasnt until after my sisters keeper definitely that got onto the bestseller list. So how how was it optioned for the movie quick. It took a while. So the movie quick. You have not seen the movie. Dont. [laughter] when the book was option they said the only thing that is important as they keep the ending. It does have a monstrous twist and ultimately i know that sold the book people that i cant tell you what happens just read it so we can talk about it. Actually the producer that is how they had gotten it. And then they asked me if i would talk to him and they said yes they said the ending is really important to me and he said i will not change the ending and if anyone does i will tell you why and i will tell you myself. I said okay so then i worked with him for your to half he would call and ask questions about characters, i saw a script that look like the book then i got an email from a fan working at a casting agency and did you know they change the ending of the movie . I called make at home he would not take my call. I went to the movies that he threw me off. It to the head of New Line Cinema and said you will lose money on this because i have eager and ardent fans who are rock stars and they will not want to see this movie they said we know we are doing. He made the notebook and sure enough they lost money on the film my fans are very upset. And that many that speaks of hollywood so now as a result actually have have more Creative Control of future products. Host you have Creative Control once you option not . Fence dont realize this but if you do have Creative Control thats the anomaly because they will say you want Creative Control we dont need that then we will go to another author. Its like giving a baby up for an adoption to make the educated choice youre not allowed to call every day and say did you feed her breakfast. Small gratings has been option. Yes. I hope he will have a little bit more. It is early days yet but am plan entertainment optioned and i cannot think of better casting and im delighted so far. Incredibly talented actress. Before we get into the other books and we will that she has written before we get into the first call has your books got more topical over the years . I try to look at the trajectory of my career and i actually think it spans where my brain is at any given time my first book was about mothers and daughters i was closer in age to my daughter that the mother. But then i pay for my first book was published and how incredibly important it is because then i get into marriage and relationships and then i had all my kids and the widespread band of years all books all the terrifying things that can happen to your kids from sexual abuse kidnapping, suicide, all these things and then they got to a point where they were selfsufficient and then i took a step back to look at bigger issues that make me set up at night and worry like the nature of good and evil. And then reproductive rights. And in my sisters keeper as the mother of the child. My sisters keeper grid of ten different places the Second Glance was about the eugenics project in america which very few people know about that in several states we modeled the program ever used someone of these throwaway facts is the it was in cold harbor new york with the human genome project that was almost too close for comfort and i happen to read and with modern eugenics and that is a story of the nashville in colorado to create a donor sibling to help their daughter molly who was supposed to die by age two hanging by a thread at age three they designed a sibling for her to provide a stem cell transplant through umbilical cord blood and went into remission and always great. That was a whole different topic and i started to think about that so when i met them they were five and eight. So what word happened to a donor sibling in the teenagers . Who have my xmi here just because of my sister . Do i have words of my own and then that grew into my sisters keeper but at the same time i was the period of a child who had multiple surgeries one is a benign tumor that grows inside your ear toward the brain it will kill you traditionally you take scrape out the tumor in the ear canal and the the child death. We chose a different approach that requires more surgery but preserve hearing. It was both ears less than nine kids in america who had that at the time and we made the right choice profoundly deaf in his left ear and some hearing in the right went on to become a very talented singer and musical theater and a Great Success theory. And then to keep the family balanced and then and sometimes those circumstances arrive and then to be there for all children and thats why i wrote that point of view for sarah and my sisters keeper. Weve all got the scripts down pat im the lost cause you are the peacemakers. A lot of familial relationships. That make sense. I was watching my own kids grow up to forage a family. I find it fascinating a many levels from medical school and Nursing School and it is something to consider to think that they can make the best decisions for their children medically and those of competing medical interest when it comes to medical ethics thought a patient was happening with those Ethics Committee and then finally it can be a weird and slippery slope to choose an embryo that has matching proteins to help cure cancer is very different than choosing a child that has brown hair or female so how do we monitor that and keep it from spiraling out of control . Its one of these examples where science outstripped morality and ethics and then we get to a point of how that happens. How do you describe your were two other people . Some of it is very futuristic with the politics and surveillance and censorship what technology to be more free. Its hard to translate those fees into a Science Fiction format . So the next question everyone asks how do you write Science Fiction of the rapid change arent you worried you will be left behind and then i feel the 21st century if you dont have all these novels ideas per day youre not really trying. You say all Science Fiction writers are writing metaphorically the future and comment on the now. And then to do this diagnostic thing he go to the doctor and you have a sore throat she will swab the back and put on a petri just one dish she hasnt been able to do that to make a faithful replica. Where only one facet was the most important. And then to have that toy world into surface those latent properties and those Emotional Properties before 1948 we have a way to talk about mass surveillance and George Orwell gives us the narrative framework for talking about the emotional impact now it is orwellian in some ways as i have this great idea to spy on everything and then its like the sermon on the mount then you can explain why thats creepy and then to talk about this concrete thing and a fancy themselves oracles in think the future casting to look at the variables that was a big one for this they call it a timeline because i have the timelines of the future and make any fortune taylor it is harder for your call but dante when he talked about what the fortunetellers would have happened he would turn their heads around 180 degrees and then in molten feces and have them wade through and that to give an easy break. Because the fortuneteller and that is despair. The morning we are even here. I like to think of the future because of what we do in Science Fiction writers we can intervene in the future which is so much more interesting. How do you use your characters to do the intervention . Its very abstract with super concrete consequences. By writing stories that put it on these abstract ideas like strong cryptography that you can take these that are literally non figurative abstract mathematics and making him into emotional stories to become undeniable. How many books have you written . I dont know the number. Is in the twenties because there is an essay collection and short story its around 25. You talk about surveillance and privacy and then you find yourself revisiting this concept in characters that you put out . Anyone who tries to communicate has this platonic irreversible thing in their head and they want to put into your head and they try to reproduce it and an act of telepathy so i write words and a story and an essay and then i get feedback where people heard when i said and from that feedback a more refined idea how i could put it into other peoples heads so they circle the idea through their whole career like walking mortar fire toward the target