Transcripts For CSPAN2 Books About Race In America 20240713

[laughter] see you know what that means, ive received the walkout, the storm the stage strategy, and at Claremont Mckenna in southern california, the blockade that prevented anyone from actually attending my talk. Socalled students of color at nearby Pomona College announced i w i was ignoring systems of domination that produce lethal conditions under which oppressed people are forced to live. So to actually have an audience still in its seats and apparently willing to listen is an unusual experience that may take me a while to get accustomed to. Now, weve been hearing a lot of late about the crisis of free speech on College Campuses, but not much about its root cause. The narcissistic victimology that is rapidly spreading from academia to the rest of culture. In a word, the American University is in the grips of a mass hysteria. Students actually believe that they are victims of oppression at risk of their lives from racism and sexism. The degree of caterwailing is hard to overstate. At brown students occupy the office and having to go to class when they were so focused at staying alive at brown. At yale, a mob of minority students surrounded a highly respected socialologist and cursed and screamed at him for three hours because his wife sent an email suggesting that students could choose their own halloween costumes, free from the mintrations. And among the shouts of shut the f up, im censoring that, that were directed at the mild mannered left wing professor was the cry of, were dying, from one of the ranters, referring to the allegedly endangered status of yales minority students. But my favorite moment in this parade of narcissism came from princeton. In 2015 princetons black students chanted, were sick and tired of being sick and tired. Now, this phrase was first used by fannie lou hammer, a civil rights activist who was beaten in the 1950s for trying to vote. Fannie lou hammer had grounds aplenty for being sick and tired of being sick and tired. But any princeton student, i dont care if hes green, purple or orange, who thinks of himself as oppressed is in the grip of a terrible dilution that will encumber him for the rest of his life. Well, perhaps youre thinking, at least the adults on campus are trying to give students a firmer grip on reality. To the contrary, the adults actively encourage the hysteria. A massive bureaucracy is cultivating in students ever arcane species of selfinvolvement and preposterous forms of selfpity. You want to know the reason for the astronomical tuition, look no further than the bloat. Students act out of cycles of oppression over deanlets, vice provosts of Equity Inclusion who use this to expand their dominion. Many campuses have bias Response Teams modeled presumably on active shooter Response Teams on the assumption that discrimination is so rampant and lethal that a Rapid Defense force is needed. Freshmen orientations and dorm sessions invariably feature seminars in toxic masculinity and white privilege. Students are taught theyre oppressed or not the opressors. The only way that you can escape being an oppressor is by becoming a quote, ally. Allies are something usually associated with war. And indeed, the reigning thinking are female students and students of color are literally in a war zone on College Campuses and need allies from the Opposing Side to survive. Am i exaggerating . I am not. Uc berkeleys division of equity and inclusion hung banners throughout campus reminding students of the universitys paramount mission, assigning guilt and innocence in the ruthlessly competitive totem pole of victim hood. One banner featured a female black students and ahill male student allegedly pleading, allow people other than yourself to exist. A message directed to berkeleys white students and faculty. This is not hyperbole, they mean it literally. College president s are the worst offenders in encouraging this dilutional victimology. After the threeother expletive tirade against the yale socialologist, actually thanked the borist thugs for making him proud of his student body. Yale subsequently conifered a Racial Justice prize on two of the most aggressive participants. The dean of the Harvard Medical School recently removed the portraits of its greatest physician scientists from the Entrance Hall to the school. You can guess the reason. They were all male. And thus, looking on them would make harvards wilting medical students feel uncomfortable and unsafe. We can only wish these budding doctors luck in the operating room. Narcissistic identity politics has destroyed the serious pursuit of knowledge throughout the humanities and most of the social sdaciences. Students are being given a license for ignorance. All they need to be told about a book is the mel anyone content and gonads of the author to determine whether its repugnant and not worth leading. Shakespeare, plato, and others, students have not the slightest clue about athens, the renaissance or the enlightenment. A columbia undergraduate groused with columbias beleaguered core curriculum, who is this mozart . This heiden . These superior white men . The core, she said, quotes, upholds the premises of White Supremacy and racism. No professor has ever defended our intellectual patrimony without some puling qualification about respecting diversity. Academic identity politics are now rapidly spreading throughout the culture at large. Every nonacademic institution not matter how previously meritocratic, the stem fields. Exhibit a, the cultures descent is the firing of james demore from google in august of 2017. Demore had written a carefully reasoned factbased memo suggesting the average career preferences of males and females may explain why theres not 50 50 gender parity at google and other firms. The language that google used in firing mr. Demore was a direct import from academic victimology. Googles were employees, quote, hurting, he said because demore had dared to challenge the reigning feminine orthodoxy. What followed his firing was scarier. A Regional Branch of the National Labor Relations Board upheld googles action on the same grounds. Mr. Demores memo had made googles employees feel, quote, unsafe at work, according to the nlrb associate general counsel. The memo thus constituted, quote, discrimination and sexual harassment. Consider for a moment what this nlrb ruling means for science. Any evolutionary biologist, psychologist or economist who studies the different risk preferences, and appetite for Competition Among males and females is now at risk of his job. These branches of science could shut down completely, no matter that their findings are true. The thinking that got mr. Demore fired is now the dominant characteristic of our time. It holds that the absence of exact proportional representation of various racial, ethic and sexual groups in any institution is by definition a result of discrimination. To suggest the different groups have different capacities, cultures, skills, and behaviors that explain the lack of proportional representation is not just taboo, it will get you fired. Fired. That was author Heather Mcdonald from to 18. Next as we continue our look at books with racism in america. She exams will it working in entertainment, academia and corporate america. What im not optimistic about is White Americas ability to see past the fiction of africanamericans, of latinx people, of the centuries old demeaning images of people and how that has as much to do with the lack of diversity. Absolutely. Our education system, whats on museum walls, whats in our litter tour. Were in a toxic culture where people of color are concerned, and so, in a lot of ways these diversity initiatives, its like putting lipstick on a pig. Its like youre trying to address something without really addressing the cancer of the culture. You know, were putting, as you say, its a bandaid on a gunshot wound, on a cancer, that you know, we have not even begun to really, really deal with because i know ive been on the faculty at nyu for going on 26 years. I have not seen curricular changes, the way that one would expect. In the 1960s, thats what all of those, you know, College Protests were about, you know, the fax difficult of color, the lack of so that White America could understand its complicity and the continuing inequality and the continuing racial injustice, and until that happens, thats why im not im optimistic that it can be done. Im less optimistic whether theres a will to do it. And the other amazing part of this book that is a little bit separate from the industry is really about these three fields. Academia, journalism and entertainment and what came across to me so strongly that i emailed her at like 11 00, a few nights ago, these are the fields that are representing the world and i thought about the Metoo Movement where what we saw in the last couple of years, the men who were being accused, some of the men, a lot of the men, were in journalism, they were political journalists, telling the story of Hillary Clinton in 2016, charlie rose, and matt lauer and mark halprin, you know, Harvey Weinstein actually gave money to Hillary Clinton so it doesnt follow, but these men are telling us our stories. Right. And the same is true and much worse for people of color because academia, journalism and entertainment have just pushed this. Narrative. Narrative. Its a narrative, right. You know, much of my, would, as you know, because you know me, is concerned with portrayals. Right. Because i think that portrayals, you can draw a Straight Line from these demeani demeaning portrayals to a Trayvon Martin being killed, to the Police Pulling over someone and they end up dead, you know, just innocent people. Last week someone in their home, you know. People in their homes, yeah. People in their homes. So these people think of it oh, its just a show, its just a movie, its just a book. Its like, no, it has real life consequences for a whole race of people, and so, all of my work somehow kind of confronts the implications of media portrayals, portrayals of literature, because they take they have real life devastating consequences of people of color. Right, and theyre lasting. I mean, you know, weve paid attention in the last few years, but i think we should pay more attention to how the slave trade built major universities, especially the ivy league, but not just the ivy league and theres starting to be more attention paid and thats great, but when you think about it, its just like, i dont mean to sound like a naive white person, but you know, the more i think about it, its like that is part of whats going on and you also have all of these academics going back into the 19th and 20th, early 20th not just early, charles murray, you know, almost to the present, but these people embedded in academia who were just about the peddling of white scholarship. Theyll look at a book and look at scholars of color who want to look at that past and connect the dots to where we are and its like move on. What does that have to do with anything. Its like, are you kidding me . Right. It has everything to do with it. It does. When have we disrupted, even the narratives . When have University President s gone before their student faculty body and said, we have been complicit for centuries, the way weve told the story of america, the way weve told the stories of africanamericans. The way weve told the stories of native americans. Who is doing that . Almost no one. I mean, so like it has to start, you know, Everyone Wants this simple solution to this problem. Theres no quick fix. Its what cyrus murray says, they all want driveby diversity, right . They want Something Like really quick. I did an interview early today on bloomberg and its like, maybe five minutes and its like quick, quick, quick, tell us. How do we do it, just write a down. Yeah, yeah. Its not that simple. I mean, now, the American Experience is multilayered, complicated, you know, and people want to look at someone like me and say, well, you made it. Whats your problem . Right. Right. My problem is that i know that many other people who look like me dont get the opportunity. People much brighter, people, you know, better writers, better scholars, better, who didnt get to have the kind of opportunity that ive had and so it hasnt ended. You know, people thought, oh, were postrace, remember . Remember . Oh, yeah. We were just postrace, like two and a half years ago, right . And we were everybody told the times that were postrace, cbs news, probably cnn. [laughter] we were postrace. And now, its like, ooh, ooh, were not post no one is saying that anymore. No, no, were not. Yeah, but we never were. No. And so, like so for every achievement, you know, we want to celebrate and we want to like stick the flag in the ground and say, victory. We won. We won the Civil Rights Movement, its over, you know . We elected barack obama, its over. Its like, no, you know . We had reconstruction, then we had the ku klux klan and we had the black coats and Civil Rights Movement and reagan and the backlash to that. And then we have been in these cycles, you know, forever. Is it two steps forward one step back. Or one step forward and two steps back. I go back and forth on by bad days, just one step. Right. How much do you feel like electing barack obama brought Us Donald Trump . Oh, i feel very strongly that were living in a backlash to barack obama just as we did the backlash to reconstruction. You know, seeing those black governors and senators and congressmen, like people werent having that and thats where you had, you know, the epidemic of mentions and black coats and now were living through something similar to that again and, you know, its america. And youre watching book tv on cspan2 with a look about race in america. Now, here is wall street journal columnist jason riley from our monthly Author Interview program in depth. In december 2019 with his views on the subject. I think there is a tendency to view black history rit large to Clean America as a history of what whites have done to blacks. And i and there are various reasons why various groups want to keep that narrative alive, but in the end i think that black history is about more than that. Yes, racism still exists, i dont know any reasonable person who would argue otherwise and nor do i expect to see america vanquished of racism in my lifetime. I do think that black history is more of that. To me the question, the more relevant question is, what can be done in the face of whatever racism still exists . What was done in the past by blacks in the face of racism . And i think that that is the relevant story to tell today and thats the message to give to young people today. And my fear is that by perpetuating this notion that its all about victimizization, that its all about racism. Youre sending the wrong message to the next generation. Why try in school if the tests are racist and you send a kid out the door with that sort of message, i dont think youre helping that child. Have you felt the sting of racism . Oh, certainly. Ive experienced racism. Ive been called names. Ive been followed around department stores. Ive been pulled over by police for no reason that i could understand. And you write about that in detail in washington d. C. What happened and where were you . Oh, i was doing an internship back in the early 90s in washington d. C. , and i was interning at usa today and staying with a relative in the area, and i was a i was on the sports desk. So we had to we didnt leave work until the baseball games on the west coast were over so it was usually quite late at night back east by then, and i was driving to and from my uncles house where i was staying, and the usa today headquarters, and i had my car, which had new york plates because i was from new york although i was driving in d. C. And i was driving home one evening after work. It was probably early the next morning, probably sometimes after midnight and i heard these sirens blaring and the police pulled me over and ordered me out of the car at gun point and pushed me to the ground faced away from the car and all that and said i fit the description of someone they were after with out of state plates and my car model. What were you thinking . I was terrified. I remember getting back into the car after i left because they were just they seemed to be gone as quickly as they came after they realized that wasnt the right person and then just sitting at in my car shaking. I remember i had a standard and couldnt get it out of gear, my hand was shaking so vigorously, but it was terrifying. A story in washington d. C. Making national headlines, three black men, 16 years old at the time. 36 years ago, convicted of a murder they did not commit. They were just released from jail. What does that tell you about americas criminal Justice System . Thats not perfect. And i think you will find youd be hardpressed to find a black person of my age who hasnt experienced the things that ive experienced. I think the criminal Justice System is certainly an improvement today over what it used to be, over what my grandfather or father experienced in this country, its still not perfect. I would caution against taking these examples and saying they are typical versus exceptions or abberations, or saying that the reason so many blacks are involved with the criminal Justice System is because its a racist system per se. I dont see a lot of evidence for that and i think often times we have discussions abo about, say, the racial makeup of prisons and jails, but we dont talk about the racial makeup of people who perpetrate crimes in this country and i dont think you can really have one discussion without the other. So, as imperfect as the criminal Justice System, has been and continues to be, i still think that there are behavioral differences among groups that lead to some being over represented in that system and others being underrepresented. Lets talk about the titles of three of your books. The first one please stop helping us, whats the message . That was really a look back at the Great Society programs put in place under Lyndon Johnson expanded under nixon and others. And i wanted to say what is the track record. These were programs put in place to help the black poor in particular. Welfare programs, housing programs, expansions of minimum wage laws and so forth and i want today look back and say, okay, what has worked . What hasnt worked and why . And thats what i was attempting to do with that book. Your second book false black power question mark. That was a book about and i had a little bit on this in please stop helping us, but the false black power, essentially the strategy of the Civil Rights Movement since the time of king, that the issue there was if we can integrate political institutions, the economics, Everything Else will take care of itself. We just need to get our own people in place and the Civil Rights Movement had quite a bit of success in doing that. About if you look back by the early 1980s you had major black cities in the u. S. Los angeles, your philadelphias, your washington d. C. s and so forth that had black mayors. In addition to that, he had black Police Chiefs and fire commissioners and School Superintendents and so forth. If you look at the track record of the poor in these blackrun cities, if you look at washington, Marion Barrys washington d. C. In the 1980s, or sharps in 1990s on coleman youngs detroit in 1970s. Under these black regimes you had the poor becoming even more improverished on their watch so i dont think that the track record there is a very good one. Now, that is not to say that the blacks should disengage in the political process because weve seen regression, black regression under white mayors and white congressmen and white Police Chiefs and so forth. Its to say that this connection we were told was essential between black political power and black economic progress simply is not proven to be as strong as some people hoped it would be. A sort of selfdevelopment that has to occur. Its not something that lends itself to political solutions. These are cultural changes that need to take place. Condoms refer to as human capital, certain attitudes and behavior and habits that need the development in order to arise in america. Its its what weve seen happen to other groups in this country. And to the extent a Government Program interferes with that necessary selfdevelopment i think its a doing more harm than good and what a lot of the Great Society programs did was to interfere with that selfdevelopment. A groups work ethic is not going to improve if they think the government is going to take care of them. You cant replace a father in the home with a government check. If you have a system in place that says to a woman, you know, if you have an additional child we will send you more money. If we see the father of the child around her house were going to stop sending you that money. You can imagine the perverse incentives were put in place under programs like that and thats it was hard going on. We corrected some of this with the bill clinton welfare reform in the 1990s, but not entirely. I still think theres a bit of a legacy affect. And that was author and columnist jason riley it up next in our look at authors discussing race in america is civil rights attorney ben crump. His doctor must use boston book festival focuses on race and the criminal Justice System. It was ben franklin who said democracy is like tools and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. You dont have to be a Rocket Scientist to know how that vote is going to go. But he said liberty, liberty is making sure that lamb is well armed to protest that vote. With open season i endeavored to help the young lambs and communities of color be able to protest, to vote, to give them the information and armed them with intellect and diplomacy to be able to protest the school to prison pipeline, to be able to protest the racist jim crow laws like standard ground, to be able to protest Voter Suppression stand your ground. To protest bimodal racism that would find that children in South Central los angeles have a third of the capacity of children growing up in santa monica, california. Makes it easier for people to protest the Prison Industrial Complex where minorities, you go to prison, oftentimes people go to prison of the concerned about losing their constitutional rights, where minorities especially women of color, you also have to worry about losing your reproductive rights. Just as late as 2014 in the state of california, it was unearthed that were black women and Hispanic Women being coerced into force sterilizations, and it was all done legally. And just as late as 2017, you had not the judge but judges who were handing out sentences to black men literally saying we will reduce your sentence by ten years on a 12 year sentence if you would agree to be sterilized. I mean, this is genocide literally and figuratively that were talking. And so its those things where you see the lowest self the laws are supposed to protect this being for instrument that theyre using to kill us. The second thing that really inspired me to write this book, and many of them, but these are the three that stand out. In aftermath of the killing of Michael Brown in ferguson, missouri, when the young people refused to remain silent, they refused to let them sweep his death under the rug because many people saw with her own eyes that he put his hands up. And the police still shot him anyway. And these young people were having the daily protests. And i remember specifically the National Guard being out there. This young brother who had no fear. They had their assault rifles pointed at him, and he walked straight up to them, almost with his nose judging the tip of the assault rifle, and he told them, go ahead and kill me now while all these cameras are watching. You all are going to kill us anyway. You all, its important to let the world see how you are killing us, so kill me now with the cameras. And that was riveting to me. It stayed in my mind so much. I went to bed thinking about what that young brother was saying, and it was true. It is important that the world sees how they are killing us, and not just how their killing us in these High Profile Police shooting cases, but more poignantly, how their killing us in courtrooms all over america every day. And you dont have to take my words for. Just go sit in the back of the courtroom and watch how they are administering justice. You see white kids come in and they have very similar fact patterns. The little black and brown kids begin to see the white kids on the wrist and they are taken out of the courtroom and allowed to live out the rest of the lies and fulfill the destinies that god has for them and to achieve the american dream. But yet these little black and brown children oftentimes are taken to the corner of the courtroom, they are fingerprinted and their handcuffed and they are convicted of a trumped up felony conviction. And once you have that felony conviction, it is lifechanging. Especially if you are a poor person of color in america. You know, and you have to wear that like a cross on your back for the rest of your entire life. And Everybody Knows about where you cant vote, you cant serve on a jury, you can serve in the military. But those are just the tip of the iceberg where you have a felony conviction. I mean, everything that you could try to do to make a legitimate living, now that you have the convicted felon, its taken away from you. If youre trying to go to college, they wont let you get the pell grant or federal loans with his convicted felony conviction. If youre trying to get a legitimate job, if youve got a felony conviction, you can get a certification. You can get its revocation to be a teacher. You can get a certification to be a nurse. You can get a certification to be a brick mason in many states. Sisters who want to be beauticians, if they had that felony conviction they cant get a certification to do that. If you are a Real Estate Agent you cant get certification. And it goes on and on. In fact, i found out in the city of atlanta, youve got to be, anybody even women were performed in strict clubs come if your convicted felon he cant get a justification to do that. Its a must as if they are pushing back into a life of crime because every month yet to pay these probation vines, you have to pay this mandatory drug testing fees. Its just a vicious cycle once you in that system. And Motion People who take that felony conviction, vision peoe of color a saying if i go to court im looking at this jury of anything but my peers, and they are telling me i can get five to 15 years work so they say you take his felony conviction and you just get two years of probation and you say i dodged the bullet. But they have no idea what they have just done when they have pled to that felony conviction. In fact, in many states i have learned if you are convicted felon and you spent any time in prison, you cant even get life insurance. Its like you are the walking dead. They just havent given you the death certificate yet here and so what we try to do is rail against this a racist, discriminatory criminal Justice System and say that even though theyre trying to defined as having no redeemable qualities to society, we still believe in you. We still think that you are the best that we can offer for our community. We still know god has a plan for your life. Because understand in states like florida and tennessee, one out of every five black men are convicted felons, and the statistics are very similar across the country, and experts suggest if this trend continues in the next 25 years, it will be one out of every three black man in america who are convicted felons. Last thing i will say is this, because i know we have a lot of questions to get you, is open season legalized genocide of colored people in many ways is an extension of what the great paul robison did in 1951, and at the time he was the most famous africanamerican in the world, along with wv do boys and, who was the first w. E. B. Du bois, the first African American to graduate from harvard with a phd and one of the founders of the naacp, and other black leaders, they went to the United Nations convention in paris, france, and this is in the aftermath of world war ii with all the wartorn countries are filing petitions of atrocities and abuse that their suffering under the Genocide Convention and definition, where these black leaders charged can we charge genocide against the government for the killing of negro people in america. And they based this on the daily killings, lynchings and raping of black people in the 1940s. And they have had case after c, and they said we are using your definition, United Nations, the acts with intent to destroy in whole or in part a group based on National Ethnic racial or religious identity. That is what theyre doing to us in america. And then, in conclusion, they said the United States government is either complicit with responsible for creating a genocidal situation to negro people. And so when you think about the fact that black men only make up at most 7 of the population in america, but yet we make up almost 50 of the population represented on death row, it is creating a genocidal situation. When you think about in Nursery School, in kindergarten, usually a black children are being suspended and expelled almost seven to one. Why, what could a child due to be expelled from kindergarten . But it is so ironic that those percentages of what they are doing to the Nursery School and kindergartners are consistent with the statistics of the incarceration of black and brown people in the penal system in america. So we hope to hold america, america stays to this book. So america, we can do better. America, we have to follow the lessons of Martin Luther king who said its hypocritical for you to be the moral standardbearer in the world and see injustice of evil and look the other way. Being neutral in the face of injustice in and of itself is injustice. And i conclude by just offering the point that hypocrisy is everywhere. When you think about the number of black and brown people languishing in prisons for selling marijuana, you know, i just finished the criminal phase were amber geiger, the white policewoman was convicted of killing this black man in his own apartment eating ice cream on his couch in which he only got ten years in prison. And i think about all those people who didnt kill anybody who was just selling weed trying to make money so they could pay their bills. Now that the United States government has in many instances legalize marijuana, a are now selling weed, making money to pay their bills. But when we did that where in prison. So in this book we made the case that america, you are not allowed to make profit off of selling marijuana until you let all the black and brown people and other people sitting in prison for selling marijuana out of [applause] because that is what we mean when we talk about People Justice under the law. Because we all are american citizens, and we all are entitled to expect america to not just recite the preamble to the declaration of independence, to act like they believe it. The programs you been watching can be viewed in their entirety on our website, booktv. Org. Next as we continue with our look at other programs about race in america, Vernon Robinson discusses blacks and the Republican Party. He appeared on cspans washington journal this past march. The gop occupied the moral high ground for 71 years and then incredibly Herbert Hoover through that away. He decided he wanted to a liberal white vulcan part in the south east out meeting with black individuals, recycling the white house and franklin cites him as the pivotal guy who started the exodus from the Republican Party for black americans. However, he had some help, and that was at the same time six main other individuals left the south. They were nonvoters in north, the midwest and west, and the fdr folk said hey, we these invention the south know the Democratic Party and the south as a part of slavery, segregation, jim crow laws, the klan, et cetera launched a Public Relations campaign. So fdr and his wife were doing this whole thing republic you do, meeting with like this, making sure prominent black papers in the time. Eleanor was hosting either the wifes opponent black women. Yet would not sure exactly in 32, but gallup started pulling and 35 and he got 76 of the black vote in 36. However, black individuals did not self identify as majority democrat until 48 with truman. Essentially, a short version of the book is republicans dropped the ball, prince of movement dropped the ball. Where not enforcing the 15th amendment, not supporting the civil rights act. And so, in other words, bill buckley is more concerned about polish Shipyard Workers than he was my mother and grandmother voting in elections in louisiana in the 40s to the 60. You write the following code, if donald trump wins 20 or even 30 of the black vote he will continue a major step towards reestablishing the nearly Unbreakable Alliance like americans had with the Republican Party. For more than some use of the cessation of a rambling. However, to do so in the end since 1964. So my question, how do you get there . First of all, republicans need to admit that the high ground, they lost it, as a precursor to talking about regaining the moral high ground on a range of issues including lights, School Choice, jobs, light, wages going up, the economy, securing the border, defending the Second Amendment and criminal justice reform. The second thing that has to happen we will broadcast messages directly to black voters. The Trump Campaign has committed to doing so i believe, i have talked to them, and finally the big question is what will the Republican Party do . Republican party hasnt asked for the business in 70 years and has great fact were democrats could say anything about republicans, and do. That isolation is essentially destroyed the brand which is why we say we can turn fdrs strategy on head person, not that the gop in order to get the 20 . Last month the president talked about one of the most in the 2016 campaign in which he told African American voters what if you got to lose . He was criticized what he photos right thing to do. The president told reporters he thought that was one of those significant moments in in the 6 campaign. Would you agree . I think its a significant moment in American History, or at least this part of American History because the gop has asked black voters for their support. The president was actively campaigning for black support with that statement, and with the digital ads and certainly spending 10 million during the super bowl touting his record on come with criminal justice reform. I believe theres now one of the women that he pardoned is now running for congress in john lewis his seat in georgia. This is from the Washington Post back in january. The headline black americans deeply pessimistic about the country under trump. Let me show you what the post is reporting. President trump made a start appeal to black americans during the 2016 election when asked what if you got to lose . Three years later black americans have read the verdict on his presidency with a deeply pessimistic assessment of the place under by overwhelming majority as racist. The findings come from a washington principle of African Americans nationwide which reveals fears of what their children will have a fair shot to succeed and doubly so when americans dont fully appreciate the discoloration of black americans feel, presley optimist about the allies like a mix today offer a bleaker view about the community as a whole. They also expressed permission to limit the president to a single term in office. Well, theres so many things here. Im surprised Washington Post hasnt run a headline [inaudible] most effective. There are number of polls that show that the president is in striking range of that 20 necessary to win in the swing states. I was a School Choice lawyer but i was always questioning whether School Choice and Educational Opportunity whatever translate in support of the polls because essentially republicans were expanding Political Capital and the principal beneficiary were democrats, et cetera, et cetera. That call was answered in florida where 18 of africanamerican women, 100,000, three times, voted not by race for the black candidate or not my party for the democrat candidate, but voted for desantis and elected into the governorship in florida. There was a poll six he could go that said black voters overwhelmingly support the democrat trump with only 15 . 15 can win the entire south. Maybe even virginia. Theres a question, and again most polls do not have a big enough in other words, the margin of black voters is larger than the entire population. Said 31 of black males would support the present against a generic democrat. A number of other polls talk about job approval or something other than voter intention, and the poll as the voter intention question. There are number of other polls that have 49 of africanamericans approving of the president s economic job performance. A poll has the majority of africanamericans saying that they believe it would be better off at the end of the Trump Administration and it were at the end of the Obama Administration. And across the board, in metric you want to talk about, for instance, at this point in the Obama Administration black unemployment was three times higher than it is today. I believe at least 20 of black votes will not buy into this ridiculous narrative where folks say trump is a racist. But for 69 years of his life he was sharpton, jackson, givg awards. In one case the same award for courage on civil rights and Muhammad Muhammad ali on the same day. Seeking either believe that he magically became a racist when he turned 70, a fears racist or just the Top Air Force officer in the United States air force for the first time, or you can believe that he ran against Hillary Clinton and peter which is what a blessing hes a racist racist now and democrats are. Youre watching tv on cspan2. Television for serious readers. We look at programs that deal with the issue of race in america next is American University professor ibram kendi and bioethicist harriet washington. They. The texas book festival in october of 2019. I have historically tried to avoid the term racism and racist. Thats because people in this country interpretively fixed headset shown many white people you in one way and blacks defined differently. I had to reverse that when it released the book because i have came to understand that the term was actually you to understand whats transpiring. Unfortunately language has been used to shroud reality of racism and when it comes to this we often read in newspapers and medical reports and elsewhere about to economic factors and poverty factors and lack of education and all these things make people more vulnerable we are told by metal toxicity. Thats not true. Its race. Poverty is a risk factor but race is a much stronger risk factor. This example i can think think of is the fact studies that shown africanamericans with incomes of 50,000 figure, the middle class, are more exposed to toxins and white with an income of only 10,000 a year. A clear indication would talk to not economics, were talking about race. We have to be frank and open in discussing these things, otherwise they will continue to smolder under the surface, the biopower with the dugout and it will impede munication and keep us from crafting effective solutions. I think a large part of a book was sort of interrogating common terms that we use to describe the way race and racism operates in this country. An thing you like what i even begin . The two terms that he think many Racial Justice reformers and activists have used in the last 80 years have been sort of distinction between what people call covert and overt racism. Has anybody heard that . And so the more i sort of odd about that sort of construct of covert racism, people made the case that over the last 50 years racism has become more covert. Anybody heard that . And what i sort of made the case about is in my book, is that thats basically not true. Whats actually happening is we been using 1960s glasses to understand racism in the 21st century. So then we wonder why we cant see it or even imagine that it is covert. We also imagine that a policy is racist if the policymaker is to exclude a particular racial group. As opposed to the racial outcome. So we would finally to find a policy based on racist on its outcome, then we could usually see racist policies. If we were to recognize that we were saying racial inequity injustice can we are seeing racism, including racism would be extremely overt. So actually dont use those terms covert and overt because to me racism is very overt if you know how to see it. This is a followup to that. Im wondering is a one term that you care people use a lot that you would wish everything hurt your like, oh, you could banish like one term of one phrase about racism from peoples peops vocabulary, what we could be . Not racist. [laughing] [applause] the phrase, im not racist, but. You are about to the most racist thing ever. All right. One of things thats interesting a a think about both of these books and i think something all of you will enjoy reading them is the ways in which both of these authors balance this great analysis of languages and terms and racist policies, and just the personal experience of it. In matters have each individual is experiencing this kind of discrimination and also shows the generational affects of this kind of discrimination. Im wondering if both of you can speak about using the typical genre of the particular genre and talking about racism. Harriet, you often talk about or offer anecdotes from communities that expense environment to racism your book is a memoir out of your selfdiscovery in thinking about these different ideas. What is important to include this personal or individual stories when talking about such a structural issue . Talking about race is always difficult in part because for the shoe reaction. For white people many people feel shame at anything that might imply racism not only on their part but thats about to become over when you want to commit it with people. I find it helps sometimes to help people by having them share experience ive had that is ratcheted up my of racism. Something that is surprised me a desk in front of and hope to bring everyone along with me on that journey. Black people to find a validating i hope and understand what are talking about, and white i hope well see it for what it is in a way more clear that i just pointed my finger and said your racist. So when i explained that when a group on army bases abroad, and in new york, i was, all of my friends played outside and with different experiences in harlan when a cousin, were all living in a building and a good and you had asthma. Why do you have asthma . I know i give but when i got older i realize that building across the street was from a bus depot. Pre1970 was belching everything. And causing asthma. So then when it put at that nine out of ten bus depots in your city at the time look in harlan people can see clearly where we have a racist retribution. More effective than, an accusatory tone i think. Thats my hope. Well, i should say i do not want to use personal narratives. Im very private. My family is very private. Some of them are here. I feel like like a texan. Ive so many family members in texas, and also its very difficult to write about yourself, least it is for me. What i realized very early on in sort of conceiving of this book that what distinguished at its most fundamental sort of way the racist from soldiers striving to be antiracist is essentially the construct of denial and concession, that the heartbeat racism has always been denial and the heartbeat of antiracism has always been concession. In other words, someone whos racist is charged with saying or doing something thats racist, their response is im the least racist person youve ever envy. Im the least racist person youve ever encountered. Actually all the racist person anywhere in the world. [laughing] thats what after i just said that lack baltimore is this rat and rodent infested [applause] and so that denial is essential. Just as your people who did i their policy races can you people deny the right is a racist, people who that there racist. But whats fundamental to be antiracist is knowing that we are born and raised in the society and trained and nurtured to be racist. And recognizing that and thereby admitting the time in which we actually said there something wrong with this particular racial group, who are not part of a struggle against racist policy and power. So for me i felt like i had to model that. I felt like it the right of confessional. I felt like id been both times which is to do something wrong with black people in order for other people to open up to be willing to say the same thing here. We are two author programs remain in our look at books about race in america. First, princeton University Professor Robert George and harvard University Professor cornel west appeared on a monthly Author Interview program in depth in december 2017. Cornel west you write we live in one of the darkest moments in American History, a bleak time a spiritual blackout and imperial meltdown. Yeah, in my spiritual blackout diming the relative eclipse of integrity, honesty and decency. I mean that we have normalize mendacity which is to say weve made lies a normal way of life and would naturalize criminality which is to say we make crimes look as if they are natural. It could be drone strikes. It could be wall street elites engage in predatory lending or market manipulation. None of them go to jail. It could be so many different ways in which peoples communities violated here what we need is i call for prophetic fight back because in a moment of spiritual blackout its not just a political issue. Its a moral and a spiritual issue as well. Its only by example. We need young people to say look, the conservative brother, progressive brother, still have love, so that respect, willing to fight, and to disagree, not in the abstract, by example. They want to see, they just dont want to hear them. Why . Because right now the dominant is so suppressed, the neoliberal soul craft, smartness, smartest, smartest. I can times a year to you hear the word of television obvious, obvious on this. This is obvious. Obviously this, obviously that. Thats a word for the incredulous show that their part of the smart crowd. We use is a we believe in smartness and this isolation. We believe in wisdom at a decent level. Smartness is tied to richness. Its no accident donald trump is a smartest in the room and the richness in the room. Hes a sign and send of society that is idolized smartness and richness. We want to talk about bombs. Barack obama dropped 26,000 bombs his last year. He got the nobel peace prize. Five times as many drone strikes. He had 506 but he wins the nobel peace prize. What happens is the fishing can height and conceal when it comes to rally and spirituality. Its not just the right wing, leslie, city. In spiritual substance is always deeper than any political ideologies. So what im to say in this introduction is we are in a catastrophic time, nuclear catastrophe, world catastrophe, just survival of the slickest and the smartest. Theres also economic catastrophe. The top three individuals in america to the bottom 150 million, three brothers have equivalent to 50 of our fellow citizens. This is grotesque. This looks like the blue the 14th times, and so forth louis xiv. Now we have tax bill now, welltodo, off, tightening the benefits for the poor. Wait a minute, what did you do to the least of these you do unto us. The orphan, the widow, the fatherless, the motherless, the poor, the immigrant, a muslim, the jew, the black, indigenous people, the gay and lesbians and so on and so forth. Thats a moral and spiritual orientation. So this book is about a 25 years after, i bought the book and 93 and times are bleaker. Spiritual i agree with the basic thrust of it. We disagree about things like markets, inequality in itself is the economic i remember, i believe in the market economy. The market economy is lifted millions out of poverty. My critique is that we weve td in a true market economy for a kind of corny capitalism where they can powerful firms can use big governments to regulate competitors off the field. Big firms can afford the price of regulation. And sometimes welcome it because they know the small upstart competitors cannot welcome it. When it comes economic equality i did not might and i think any justice, they can be economic inequality. I dont have as a goal economic or inequality. I have physical equality and dignity, they called of the declaration of independence whizzes on the north could equal. They are all of equal worth but i chose a grid as an academic. I know thats not a high paying particularly wellpaying field. I couldve gone to law school. I would make a lot more money. I could go to Business School and made a lot more money than that because generally i always work for people to make more money than me. I dont have anything to lose. I dont have any problem as long as it is there. My only problem is people having a lot more money than people. My worry is not for equality of economic equality. My worry is for opportunity. We are losing and have two considerable consent lost the prospects of upward mobility for half of our fellow american citizens. I remain close to people, my family is back to come my brothers are there. All of my family, my high school friends, some of my friends and relatives are there. This was a donald trump country. Why . Because they are feeling the effects of being neglected, of being left behind, economically, culturally. They feel bigotry and prejudice but served on the basis of their own experience, if there is a cultural elite, a wealthy, powerful cultural elite that is only its own interest in mind, not the interest of working people in places like central appalachia, and nothing but contempt for the valleys of people in central appalachia, those were trump voters. Im not one of these guys who condemns trump voters. Im not a fan of donald trump. Ill give him some credit for some good things hes done but are still criticize them for bad things hes done but a think its a mistake to imagine that those supporters of donald trump are just racists and bigots and horrible people. They have legitimate grievances which no one in either party, establishment of Neither Party responded to. And donald trump reached out to them. Whether they were wise to look to him, thats another thing we can debate. Ive debated that with my relatives and friends in west virginia. He noticed that those people were forgotten, it were left behind, a worried look down, they were held in contempt. He benefited. Cornel west, do you agree with what hes saying about the trump voters . Trump voters, they are diverse lot. Hes got a slice of them who are, in fact, xenophobic and racist and sexist misogynistic and homophobic, but that doesnt exhaust the whole group. There is a racist slice of trump voters. You acknowledge that. They come from the altright. But theres also slice of trump voters who voted for burn it and let voted for obama. You have to keep track of that diversity. You never want to downplay the role of the vicious legacy of what supremacy in the country. Theres no doubt about that. Precisely because its a vicious you cant allow it to be the only thing you see. You get this out of other cultures, of the young black and lexus these is why you can see his wifes up and see the whites of her music is always linked to something else. Linked to predatory capitalism, its linked to sleep you can link to jim crow, link to patriarchy, linked homophobia, link to trends over, also linked to the empire. You can have black and whites lets come together and go to the philippines after the philippines like the cockroache cockroaches. You have an empire now. You have to be very honest in telling the truth, so whether we say look, is still the truth of who they are. They are a heterogeneous lot. Many of them were suffering under neoliberal policies. Under barack obama, the top 1 got 95 of the income growth. I find that to be morally grotesque. I dont agree for also economic equality, but i want to focus on poverty. I want to focus on were saying the same thing. [talking over each other] poverty is a tactic hes been trying to do it in the conservative circles. I try to do with barack obama and others. The Democratic Party has an immediate concern about four people. Tied to wall street and tied to upward mobility to the professional metaclasses. When it comes to poor people not working, they that very 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. Mitt romney, you know, mormon brother, solution but hes not known for being on the cutting edge of fighting against poverty. But hes somebody who is in the Republican Party gets very decent things in regard to health care. Thats with Health Care Program comes from the want to be honest about that. Let us try to tell the truth on both of our parties. Deeply narrative nair when he o these issues of poverty, jack kemp any and others putting pre on the Republican Party legacy of Martin Luther king putting pressure on the Democratic Party. And we conclude a look at books about race in america akiba solomon and yanick rice lamb. The variety of election of the 45th president that White Supremacy out of the shadows. That means that all while that is bad and clearly emboldened a lot of ways, it also let people stand up to fine the way to fight. The hope is this book helps more people figure out once identify ways to fighting because they define like after election thats just how we fought. But the hope is that people identify the way to already fighting and also look to see what else they can do. I mean, just to add on, i think one thing we want to come out of this book is that we want to in the taboo of saying White Supremacy. A lot of people say racial, racist, racially charged. Thats just racists. And also thats White Supremacy. For us because we wrote this, we see these words all the time. We have a working definition but i think for many people who dont do this kind of work, it can sound shocking. Its very why we chose weitzman is a rather racist because we really want to talk about the systemic undergirding of a system and will talk what it as a particular system that can be vanquished work if its just racist, a lot of times racism is considered to be interpersonal. People will say i listen to his heart and he wasnt a racist. Okay, thanks. But White Supremacy is a particular system and you can make a bad and you can work and resist it. Not be the whole thing. One of the things in the book you mentioned love, you mentioned laughter and you had a part in your recent laughter is one of the most important tools of war another what is of yourself as a revolution act. Can you talk about that puts a lot of times we dont think of laughter and love when you think of White Supremacy. Do you want to take laughter and i will take love . Sure. [laughing] first of all, sorry. Its really important, becaus, number one, to be human you do need joy. You do need laughter. You need remedy. Even in the worst possible situation you need to actually enjoy something. I know i dont believe we wouldve survived as the people if we didnt have some sense of humor. Theres a particular part in the book that we talk about called keep them crying. Its from brother jordan anderson, from the civil war. In that letter he talks about how his master invited him back to the plantation to come and work there. He wrote back and he said, dear master, think of invitation. You shot me twice, thats okay. We will consider coming back if you consider giving us what weve heard already and then the interest that has accrued. So then he talks about restorations and is talking about paying for some and he goes back to politeness, polite dangerous humor. He says my wife mandy, shes concerned about some things, so this is the most passive aggressive and hilarious piece of history that ive seen. I loved the brother, brother jordan anderson. Speaking of our humors chapter, one of our computers contributors is here. [applause] we have an entire chapter about love, and one of the whole point of this book is that people think about resistance is they think about organizing and making signs and being on the picket lines, but theres so much more that goes into it. I dont know about you all but there are then days when i was younger when finding love for myself was thaad system seems to tell me that as a woman, and as a black person, that i am ugly, that i unlovable, that i will never find a partner. All of these things that we seem to meet all the time. I was talking to an editor that her editor wanted to do a series that whiteblack women dont get married, about why we cant fly, why we need to drive. I am not a mess all the time. We hear talk about fighting the beauty in yourself and at that looks like. We talk about how our love for our children makes this intentional [inaudible] they know the unlovable and the book tells him that they are not. We hear a lot about being woken in wokeness. Can you talk a little about that as well what it looks like with younger people in terms of their activism . I think the phenomenon is most interesting, and i think it is fantastic. I feel like because of lot of the work that has been done from the 1960s on, there were a lot of social justice, a lot of rights of passage, a lot of discussion for young people of this generation. And it seems like people of this generation are a lot more active. They are there was a down period for a particular kind of activism and i was when i was a teenager. I am a 44. So too can rent nc gender people actually calling out the issues that we were trying to talk about some time ago and also have the tools to widely disseminate their messages and widely recruited them, i think thats really, really important. I also think again, there may be to make people who talk about violence all the time. Now you have a thousand people who talk about really important. So in the chapter that is about children come about people who advocate for them, the profile of people who have found those to be activists and really the willingness to create solutions. When we have one little boy he read a statistic that said boys of his age often stop reading books. He was like, im going to do something about it. He started a book club with young boys. It was not bringing them together to read books where the saw themselves reflected. One of them says in his profile, most of the stuff they see as nonfiction. Its about mlk, i did want to read a book about somebody like me, you know, somebody who likes to play ball, try not to be [inaudible] he just wanted to be able to see himself. I love that he saw a problem, and that was his way of being an advocate. It is a real form of resistance. Thats what i thought was one of the real strength of the book adjustably different examples, and while there are series is in their there were different everyday ways of people get involved. It may be think of elevator and has always encouraged everyday people to do something angelita murray are and import houseful asked to make a a difference in the long run and not necessarily waiting for a charismatic leader to show the way. There was one interesting part you were talking about bubble gets. Use as a metaphor for dinner with White Supremacy. Yeah, i mean, so that metaphor was in the final chapter, something we will all see. The idea of it is that it can be liberatory. 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 i tried to learn about your safety because the ones turning shouldnt stick you in the face. Number three, if you cant jump theres somebody said you can do the baby doll. If you didnt have too much pride about that word, you would get a pass because you are the baby doll. And then if they feel about double dutch and you mess up, then three of the peoples turn or from other people straight and you come right back around. Its sort of like a clean slate. This idea of double dutch i mean, supposed to be im a black girl from West Philadelphia and i cant jump. I cant jump double dutch. Theres a a little bit of shamn that. [laughing] is that like a 12 step program . It is, it is. Double dutch is a central part of culture when i i was growing up. And so, in 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 reinsurance. And as also, it isnt hard. So thats why i put that in the freedom dream metaphor. I have one more question before we open it up because this that the wonderful opportunity for us to engage with each other and for everyone to kind of went in on this topic. One of the question of whether to ask you is what white people can do about White Supremacy and what all of us can do about White Supremacy. All right. The first thing i think which have to do is realize that in fighting White Supremacy you are not helping us. You are helping us all. It does not make me an ally to fight whites of them see because its a system we all labor under but we all perpetuate and some have privilege in. We have to remember that. The second thing is to ask black or other people of color to do emotional or other labor for you. There are books like ours there are lots of books to approach this topic from different ways at different angles. Rather than ask a black woman to do that for you, so thats key. Another thing is to be courageous. So very often we hear people say on twitter and they did want to have that conversation but he yu didnt want to ruin thanksgiving dinner. Im here to tell you that the only thing that you to worry about, then we are so much better. Were worried about going outside and getting shot. Talking to simply get the ways you can the privilege you take from it. I think the last thing is theres an innovation called a surge that showing interracial jesse. White people gathering with white people. It is for them, buy them all about working toward relationship together. Thats where you should go. One last thing is stop teaching children colorblindness. People think that it is antiracist commune, white supremacist say we are all the same inside. You know, i dont see color. Often another variety, it doesnt matter if youre black, white, green or purple. Im like, theres never green or purple. Trying to flatten trying to flatten and also to avoid the conversation that convinced children that thats the best way that they can function and not be racist. When you say you dont see color, but you say you dont see anyone who looks like you. Thats not a good thing. That doesnt make us feel good. So theres one less thing i want to say, like girls prep school. I remember my classmates did not ever want to say even the word black. And many other discussions about race in america on booktv. Org. And search race ebooks. Tonight on booktv political leaders being in at 8 00 pm eastern. Political correspondent volleyball discusses the career of House Speaker nancy pelosi followed by discussion of what donald trump and Winston Churchill have in common in the character and motivations of north koreas kim jongil in. The president s from Public Affairs available now in paperback and ebook, presents biographies organized by their ranking by noted historians from best to worst and features no perspectives into the lives of our nations chief executive that leadership style. Visit our website, cspan. Org thepresident s to learn more about each president and historian featured, order your copy today wherever books and ebooks are sold. Now on booktv highlighting programs from our archives with historian david mccullough. Over the past 20 years he has appeared on booktv 50 times. All the programs youre about to see can be viewed in their entirety by visiting our website, booktv. Org and using the search function at the top of the page. First, in 1992