Transcripts For CSPAN2 Books About Race In America 20240712

Mcdonnell, she argues that identity politics is challenging diverse thinking at the collegiate level, this is from 2018. This is a different experience ive been speaking on colleges campuses recently. , you know what that means, i received a walk out the storm this age strategy in southern california, the blockade that prevented anyone from actually attending my talk, socalled students of color, nearby at Pomona College announced that i was a quote fascist white supremacist trans lobe, queer folk classes and ignorant of interlocking systems of domination that produced the lethal condition of which oppressed people are forced to live. So to actually have an audience, is an unusual experience that may take me a while to get accustomed to. Now we have been hearing a lot about the crisis of free speech on College Campuses, but not much about the root cause. The narcissistic victim ologies 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 with racism and sexism. The degree of model and caterwauling is impossible to overstate. At brown, students of color occupy the president s office and complained about having to meet such academic expectations as attending class when they were so focused on staying alive at brown. At yale university, a love of minority students surrounded a highly respected sociologist and cursed and screamed at him for three hours because his wife had sent an email suggesting that students could choose their own Halloween Costume free from the ministrations of yale diversity there were under broadcast center. Among the shouts of shut the f up, i am censoring that and you are disgusting that were directed at this mildmannered leftwing professor was a cry of we are dying, from one of the ranters referring to the allegedly endangered status of yields minority students, but my favorite moment in this parade of narcissism came from princeton. In 2015 princetons black students chanted we are sick and tired of being sick and tired. Now, this phrase was first used by fannie lou hamer, Civil Rights Activist who was beaten in the 1950s for trying to vote. Fannie had grounds aplenty for being sick and tired of being sick and tired. But any princeton student, i dont care if he is green, purple or orange who thinks of himself as oppressed is in the grip of a terrible delusion 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, massive diversity bureaucracy is devoted to cultivating and students evermore species of selfinvolvement and evermore preposterous forms of selfpity. Do you want to know the reason for astronomical tuition, look no further with the beer bureaucratic bloat, students act out psychodrama of oppression before an appreciative audience of diversity, vice of Equity Diversity and inclusion, who use the occasion to expand their dominion. Many campuses have created bias Response Teams, models presumably on active shooter Response Teams on the assumption that is so rampant and lethal that a Rapid Defense force is needed. Freshman orientations and dorm sessions feature seminars and toxic masculinity and white privilege. Students are taught that they are the oppressed or the oppressors. If you are not female, black, hispanic, gay or any of the 116 and still metastasizing categories of gender, the only way that you can escape being an oppressor is by becoming an al ally, allies are something that are usually associated with war and indeed the 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 Berkeley Division of equity and inclusion hung banners throughout campus reminding students of the unit i universitys paramount mission assigning guilt and innocence and the ruthless competitive totem pole of victimhood. One banner featured a female black student in a hispanic male student allegedly pleading allow people other than yourself to exist, message to berkeleys white students and faculty. This is not her probably, College President s are the worst offenders and encouraging the delusional victim all is a, after the three hour expletive high rate against the yale sociologist, yells president s peter actually thanked the thugs for making him proud of his student body. Yale subsequently justice prize on two of the most aggressive participants. The dean of the Harvard Medical School recently removed the portrait of its greatest physician scientist 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 lock in the operating room. Narcissistic identity politics has destroyed the serious pursuit of knowledge throughout the humanities and most of the social sciences. Students are being given a license for ignorance, all they need to be told about a book is the content and gonads of its author. To know whether they can dismiss this content as thoroughly repugnant and not worth reading. Shakespeare, milton, plato and locke have all been variously demonstrated by students who have not the slightest clue about athens, the renaissance or the enlightenment. A columbia undergraduate browsed about columbias core curriculum, who is this mozart, this hiding, the superior white men, it upholds the premises of White Supremacy and racism. No professor has ever defended her intellectual patrimony against such shameful outbreaks in a static know nothing is him without adding qualifications about respecting diversity. Academic identity politics are now rapidly spreading throughout the culture at large, every nonacademic institution no matter how previously meritocratic is now vulnerable. That is above all the stem fields. Exhibit a in our cultures dissent in an identity driven mediocrity is the firing of computer engineers james to more from google in august 2017. The morehead written a carefully reason factbased memo suggesting that the average career preferences of males and females may explain why theres not a 50 50 gender parity at google and other tech firms, the language that google ceo used in firing is to do more was a direct import from Academic Bank enter victim knowledge. Googles employees were hurting he said, he said to morehead dared to challenge the feminist orthodoxy. A Regional Branch of the National Labor board upheld googles actions on the same drenched victims ground, mr. Damores memo had made googles employees deal unsafe at work, according to the nlrb associate general counsel. The memo does constitute 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 at his job, these branches of science could shut down completely, no matter that their findings are true. The thinking that got mr. Deboer fired is now the dominant characteristic of our time. It holds the absence of exact proportional representation of various racial ethnic 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. That was author Heather Mac Donald from 2018, as we continue our look about books about race in america as journalism professor Pamela Newkirk and her presentation she examines whether diversity programs are working in the areas of entertainment, academia and corporate america. What im not optimistic about is White Americas ability to see past the friction of african american, lot next people, the centuriesold demeaning images of people and how that has as much to do with the lack of diversity, and how education systems, what is on museum wal walls, whats in the literature, we are in a toxic culture where people of color are concerned and in a lot of ways, these diversity initiatives is like putting lipstick on a pig, youre trying to address something without addressing the cancer of the culture. Were putting a bandaid upon a gunshot wound on a cancer, that we not have even begun to really, really deal with. Because i know ive been on the faculty at nyu going on 26 years, i am not seeing curricular changes the way that one would expect, in the 1960s, thats what all of those College Protests were about, the faculty of color, the lack of curriculum that addressed the history of race in this country, then presented a more realistic take of america so that White America could understand its complicity in the continuing inequality in the continuing Racial Injustice and until that happens, i am optimistic it can be done and im less optimistic on whether the will to do it. The other amazing part of this book that is over little bit separate from the industry is really about the three fields, academia, journalism and entertainment and what came across to me so strongly that i emailed her at 11 00 oclock a few nights ago, its like these are the fields that are representing the world, and i thought about the me too movement where what we saw in the last couple of years, the men who were being accused or some of the men, a lot of the men were in journalism, they were political journalists, they were telling a story of Hillary Clinton in 2016, charlie rose and matt lauer, Harvey Weinstein actually gave money to Hillary Clinton so it does not follow but these men are telling us our stories and the same is true in much worse for people of color because academia, journalism and entertainment has pushed this narrative. It is a narrative, much of my work, you would know because you know me is concerned with portrayals, i think portrayals, you can draw a Straight Line from these demeaning portrayals to Trayvon Martin to the Police Pulling over someone and they end up dead, just innocent people, last week someone in their home, people in their homes, people think of it as its just a show, just a movie, just the book, no, has reallife consequences for a whole race of people. So all of my work somehow kind of confronts the implications of media portrayals, portrayals and literature, because they have reallife devastating consequences for people of col color. We paid attention in the last few years, but i think we should pay more attention to how the trade builds major universities especially the ivy league but not the ivy league, theres been more attention paid and that is great but when you think about it, i dont mean to sound i naive white person but the more i think about it, it is like that is part of whats going on and you also have all these academics going back into the 19th and 20th, early 20th, not just early, charles murray, almost to the present but these people embedded in academia who were just about the peddling of White Supremacy and scholarship. Then the look at a book like this or look at scholars of color who want to look at the past and connect the dots to where we are. Its like moveon, what does that have to do with anything, are you kidding me. It has everything to do with it. When have we disrupted even the narrative, when have University President s gone before their student, faculty body and said we have been complicit for centuries. The way we have told the story of america, the way we have told the story of africanamericans, the way we have told the story of native americans, who is doing that. Almost no one. It has to start, Everyone Wants a simple solution to this problem, there is no quick fix, its what cyrus murray says, all want driveby diversity, they want something really quick, i didnt interview early today on bloomberg and his leg may be five minutes. How do we do it, write it down. It is not that simple, the American Experience is multilayered, complicated and people want to look at someone like me and say youve made it, what your problem. My problem is that i know that many other people look like we dont get the opportunity, people much brighter, People Better writers, better scholars, who did not get to have the kind of opportunity that i have had and so it has not ended, people thought post race remember. We were just post race, till like two and half years ago. Everybody thought the times, cbs news, probably cnn, we were post race, now its like who, no one is saying that anymore. But we never were, for every achievement, we want to celebrate and we want to stick the flag in the ground and say victory, we won, we won the Civil Rights Movement, it is over, we elected barack obama over, its like no, we had reconstruction, then we have the ku klux klan in the back black codes, then we have the Civil Rights Movement and reagan and all about, we have been for ever will, one stuck on go back and forth. How much do you feel like barack obama brought us donald trump. I feel very strongly backlash to barack obama and just as we did as a backlash to reconstruction in the black governors and senators and congressmen, people were not having, that is where you have the epidemic as you mentioned in black codes, no real living through something similar to that in north america. You are watching the tv on cspan2 with a look of books on race in america. Now here is wall street journal columnist jason reilly from the monthly Interview Program in depth, and december 2019 with his views on the subject. I think there is a tendency to view black history at large typically in america as a history of what whites have done to black, the. Reporter s reasons for various groups that want to keep the narrative alive but in the end i think black history is about more than that, yes racism still exist, i dont know any reasonable person who would argue otherwise in ordway expect to see america vanquished of racism in my lifetime. But i do think the black history is more than that, the question, the more relevant question is what can be done in the face of whatever racism still exist, what was done in the past is in the face of racism, i think that is a relevant story to tell today, that is the message to give to young people today in my fear is that perpetuating this notion its all about victimization and all about racism, youre sending the wrong message to the next generation. Why train school and if the police are out to get you and employers are racist, you syndicate out the door without message, i dont think youre helping much. Have you felt the sting of racism. Certainly, i experienced racism, ive been called names, followed around department stores, i been pulled over by police for no reason that i could understand. You learned about that in detail in washington, d. C. , what happened and where were you. I was doing earne internshipe early 90s in washington, d. C. , i was interning at usaid today and staying with a relative in the area and i was on the sports desk, so we did not leave work in the baseball games on the west coast were over, it was late at night and i was driving to and from my uncles house where i was staying in 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 afterward, it was probably early the next morning sometime after midnight and i hear the sirens blaring and the police pulled me over and one had me out of the car gunpoint and pushed me to the ground in the face away from the car and the rest and i look the description of someone they were after with outofstate plates. What were you thinking. I was terrified, i remember getting back into the car after i left because they seem to be gone as quickly as they came after i realized that was not the right person and just sitting in my car shaking, i remember i had a standard and they could not get it out of gear, my hand was shaking so vigorously, it was terrifying. In washington, d. C. Making headlines three black men 16 years old, 36 years ago and victim of a murder they did not commit, they were just released from jail, what does that tell you about americas criminal Justice System. It is not perfect and i think youd be hardpressed to find a black person of my age who has not experienced the things that ive experienced, i think the criminal Justice System is an improvement today over what used to be in my father and grandfather experienced in this country, but it is still not perfect, i would caution against taking his examples and saying they are typical versus exceptions are aberrations or saying the reason so many blacks are involved in the committal Justice System is because the teresa system per se, i dont see a lot of evidence for that and i think often times we have discussions about the racial makeup of prisons and jails, but we dont talk about the racial makeup of people who perpetrate crime in the country and i dont think you can have one discussion without the other, as imperfect as the criminal Justice System is and has been and continues to be, i still think that there are behavioral differences among groups that lead to some been overrepresented in that system and underrepresented. I have the titles of three of your books, the first one, please stop helping us, what is the message . That was a look back at the Great Society program 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 them placed to help the black, poor in particular, welfare programs, housing programs, expansions of minimumwage laws and so forth, i wanted to look back and say would this work, what hasnt worked and why, i was attempting to do that without book. Your other book, second book falls of black power . That was a book i had a little on this and please stop helping us but it is essentially about the track record of using political power to advance a group economically which is essentially been the strategy of the Civil Rights Movement since the time of king, the issue there, if we can integrate political institutions, the economics and Everything Else will take care of itself, we just need to get our own people in place in the Civil Rights Movement had quite a bit of success in doing that if you look back by the early 1980s, you had major black cities in the u. S. , los angeles and philadelphias, washington, d. C. And so forth that had black mayors, in addition to that, he had black police chief and fire commissioners School Superintendent and so forth, if you look at the track record of the port in the black run cities and if you look at washington, d. C. In the 1980s and the sharp change of new york and new jersey or palm in youngs detroit in the 1970s, under these black regimes, you you had the poor becoming even more impoverished on their watch, i dont think the track record is a very good one, that is not to say that black should disengage in the political process because we have seen regression, block regression under white mayors and white congressmen white police chief and so forth, is to say that this connection between black political power in black economic progress is not proven to be as strong as some people hoped it would be. Generally speaking have these Government Programs helped or hurt african americans. I think by and large they have hurt, they have hurt the way i explained, what the underprivileged need of any race or ethnicity is a selfdevelopment that has to occur, it is not something that lends itself to political solutions, these are cultural changes that need to take place, economist referred to as human capital, attitudes and behaviors and habits that need to develop in order to rise and its what we see happening to other groups in this country, to the extent a Government Program interferes with the necessary selfdevelopment, i think its doing more harm than good and one of the lot of the Great Society programs to interfere with the selfdevelopment, a person or groups worth ethic is not going to improve if they think that the government is going to take care of them. You cannot replace a father in the home with a government check, feel the system in place that says to a woman, you know if you have an additional child, we will send you more money, we see the father of that child around your house we will stop sending you the money you can imagine the prefers incentives put in place a program like that, thats what we saw going on, i think we corrected some of this with bill clinton welfare reform in the 1990s, but not entirely, there is a legacy. That was author and columnist jason reilly, up next in a look at authors discussing race in america is civil rights attorney ben crump, his stop from boston book festival focus on race in the criminal Justice System. It was ben franklin who said democracy is like tools in a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. You dont have to be a Rocket Scientist to not know how the boat is going to go, but he says liberty is making sure that that lamb is well armed to protest the boat so with open season i endeavor to have the young lamb and community of color be able to protest to vote to give them the information and arm them with intellect and diplomacy to be able to protest the school to prison pipeline, to protest their racist jim crow laws like stand your ground, to be able to protest voter suppression, be well armed to protest environmental racism that would find the children in South Central los angeles have a third of the lung capacity of children growing up in santa monica, california. And make sure these young people are well armed to protest the Industrial Complex were minorities who go to prison, often times people go to prison and theyre concerned about living losing their constitutional rights, well we are minority and especially women of color, you also have to worry about losing your reproductive rights, just the latest 2014 in the state of california, it was on earth that there were black women and Hispanic Women being cohearst into forced sterilization, it was all done legally, and just as late as 2017, you had not a judge but judges who were handing out sentences to black man saying we will reduce your sentence by ten years on a 12 year sentence if you would agree to be sterilized. This is literally and figuratively that we are talking and so is those things where you see the law itself that is supposed to protect us be in the very estimate that theyre using to kill us, the second thing that really inspired me too write this book and there were many of them but these are the three that stand out, and the aftermath of the killing of Michael Brown in ferguson missouri when they refused to remain silent, they refused to sweep his death under the rug because many people in the community, some with their own eyes that he put his hands up in the police still shot him anyway. And these young people were having the daily protest and i remember specifically the National Guard being out there and his young brother who had no fear, they had their Assault Rifles pointed at him center mass and he walked straight up to them, almost with his nose touching 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, it is important to let the world see how you are killing us, so kill me now with the cameras, that was relevant into me and stated my mind so much, i went to bed thinking about what that young brother was saying, it was true, it is important that the world sees how they are killing us and not just how they are killing us and 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 bill crowes word for it, sit in the back of a courtroom and watch how their ministering justice, you see white kids common and they have very similar fact patterns the little black and brown kids, but you see the white kids get a slap on the wrist and then escorted out of the courtroom and allowed to live out the rest of their lives and they feel the destinies that god had for them and achieve the American Dream but yet these little black and brown children often times are taken to the corner of the courtroom, they are fingerprinted and handcuffed and they are convicted of our trumped up felony conviction. And once you have that felony conviction, it is life changing, especially if you are a poor person of color in america and you have to wear that felony conviction like a cross on your back for the rest of your entire life and Everybody Knows about where you cannot vote, you cant serve on a jury, you cant serve on the military, but those are just the tip of the iceberg when you have a felony conviction i mean everything that you can try to do to make a legitimate living now that you have that convicted felon is taken away from you, if youre trying to go to college, they wont let you get the pell grant or federal rural loans from the conviction and if youre trying to get a legitimate job that felony conviction and you cant get a certification to be a teacher, you can get a certification to be a nurse, you cant get a certification to be a brick mason, and the sisters who want to be beauticians and if they have the felony conviction, they cannot get a certification to do that, if youre a Real Estate Agent you cannot get certification and it goes on and on, in fact i found out in the city of atlanta, anybody would feel like they had to do this but even women who are performing in strip clubs, if youre convicted felon you cannot get a certification to do that, its almost as if theyre pushing you back into a life of crime because every month you have to pay probation fines, you have to pay mandatory drug testing fees, it is a vicious cycle once youre in the system and most young people who take the felony conviction, these young people of color are saying if i go to court, im looking at anything but my peers and theyre telling me that i can get 5 15 years and they say you take this felony conviction and you 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 played into the felony conviction. In fact in many states i have learned that if you are convicted felon and you spend any time in prison, you cannot even get life insurance. It is like your the walking dead, they just havent given you the death certificate yet, so what we try to do, rail against the racist discriminatory criminal Justice System and say even though theyre trying to define you of having no redeemable qualities to society, we still believe in you, we still think you are the best and we could know that god has a plan for your life because understand, it states like florida and tennessee, one out of every five black man are convicted felon and these statistics are very similar in many of the states across the country and experts suggest if this continues in the next 25 years, it will be one out of every three black men in america who are convicted felons, and the last thing i would say is this, we have a lot of questions to get to, open and legalized the colored people in many ways is an extension of what the great robison did in 1951 and at the time he was the most famous africanamerican in the world along with wdb the voice and he was the first africanamerican to graduate from harvard that went to phd with one of the founders of the naacp and other black leaders went to the United Nations convention in paris, france and this is in the aftermath of world war ii and the abuse that they are suffering, with the black leaders charged, we charged genocide against the government for the killing of negro people in america, they base this on the daily killings legend and of black people in the 1940s, they had case after case, they said were using your definition United Nations and the ask with intent to destroy in whole or in part a group taste on and religious identity, that is what theyre doing to us in america in the 96 government is either complicit with or responsible for to negro people. When you think about the fact that black man 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, its created a genocide a situation, when you think about Nursery School, kindergarten, you see that black children have been suspended and expelled almost 7 1 and their white children and i scratch my head to this day, what could a child due to be expelled from kiddie garden, but it is so ironic that those percentages of what they do in the Nursery School with the statistics of the incarceration of black and brown people in the panel system in america. So we hope to hold a mirror to americas face with this book and say in america we have to follow the lessons of Martin Luther kings say it is hypocritical for you to be more standard in the world and seek injustice and the evil look the other way, then neutral in the face of injustice and its of itself is injustice. And i conclude by the point the hypocrisy is everywhere, when you think about the number of black and brown people, language and imprisoned for sending marijuana, i just finished the case and the criminal phase where amber guyger, the white policewoman was convicted of killing an unarmed black man in his own apartment eating ice cream on his couch, she only got ten years in prison and i think about all those people who did not kill anybody, who was just selling weed trying to make money so they can pay their bills and now that the United States government has in many instances legalized marijuana they are selling weed, making money to pay their bills, when we did that we are in prison, so in this book we made the case that america, you are not allowed to make profit officer selling marijuana until you let all the black and brown people and other people sitting in prison for selling marijuana out of prison. Because that is what we mean when we talk about equal justice under the law because we all are american citizens and were entitled to expect america not just recite the preamble to the declaration of independence but to act like they believe it. Although the programs that you been watching can be viewed in their entirety on their website, booktv. Org. Next as we continue with our look at author programs about race in america, Vernon Robinson discusses blocks in the Republican Party, he appeared on cspan washington journal this past march. The gop occupied the moral high ground for 71 years and then incredibly heard Herbert Hoover through thataway and decided he wanted to write the Republican Party in the south and stop me with black individuals and resegregated the white house and franklin sites him as a pivotal guy who started it from the Republican Party for black americans, however, he had some help, that was at the same time my parents and 6 million other individuals left the south and they were now voters in the north, midwest and west and the fdr folks said hey, we cannot sell the Democratic Party, these individuals from the south know the Democratic Party is the party of slavery, segregation, jim crow law, the clan, et cetera, they watched a Public Relations campaign, fdr and his wife were doing the same things republicans used to do meeting with black leaders, making sure it was in the dominant black papers in the time and eleanor was hosting the wives of prominent black men are prominent black women in their own right, he got to thirtysomething, were not sure exactly and 32 but he started pulling out 35 and he got to 76 of the black vote and 36, however, black individuals did not self identify as a majority democrat until 48 with truman. Essentially the short version of the book, republicans dropped the ball, the conservative movement dropped the ball when not enforcing the Civil Rights Act with the 15th amendment and not supporting the Civil Rights Act, and other words bill buckley was more concerned about Shipyard Workers with voting and free elections with my mother and grandmother and free elections in louisiana in the 40s, 50s and 60s. And in the book you read the following quote, if donald trump wins 20 or 30 of the black vote, he will take a major step towards reestablishing the nearly Unbreakable Alliance black americans have with Republican Party and for more than 70 years after the assassination of abraham lincoln, however, to do so we must in the division that has existed between republicans of black americans since 1964. So my question, how do you get there. First of all republicans need to admit that having once had the moral high ground and lost it as a precursor to talking about regaining the moral high ground on a range of issues including a wife, School Choice, jobs, wealth creation, wages going up, the performance on the economy, securing the border, defending the Second Amendment and criminal justice reform, the second thing that has to happen, theyre going to do their job, theres three of them that will broadcast those to black voters in the Trump Campaign is committed to doing so i believe, i will talk to them and finally the big question is what will the Republican Party do, the Republican Party had asked for the business and 70 years and is created a vacuum where democrats can say anything about republicans that isolation has destroyed the brand which is why we say the president can turn fdr strategy on its head so himself personally and not the gop in order to get the 20 . In the meeting with the network anchors, the president talked about one of the moments in the 2016 campaign in which he told africanamerican voters, what you got to lose and he was criticized by his Campaign Staffers but the right thing to do and the president told the reporters he thought it was a most significant moment in the 2016 campaign, would you agree . I think it was a significant moment or at least this part of American History because the gop has not asked black voters for their support, the president was actively campaigning for black support with that statement and with the digital as he was running and certainly spending 10 million during the super bowl touting his record with criminal justice reform, i believe there is now one of the women that he pardoned is now running for congress in john lewis 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, President Trump made a stark appeal the black americans during the 2016 election when he asked what do you got to lose, three years later black americans have rendered on his presidency with a deeply pessimistic assessment of their place in the u. S. Under a leader by an overwhelming majority as races, the findings come from a Washington Post poll of africanamericans nationwide which reveals fears about whether their children have a fair shot to succeed in the belief that White Americans do not fully appreciate the discrimination the black people experience, personally optimistic about their own lives, black americans today offer a review about the community as a whole, they also expressed determination with a single term in office. There are so many things, im surprised the russian protest run a headline and it runs wild, minorities and women most affected. There are a number of polls that show that the president is in striking range of the 20 necessary to women in the swing states, i was a School Choice warrior but i was always questioning whether School Choice and Educational Opportunity would ever translate in support of the polls because essentially the republicans were explaining Political Capital in the principal beneficiary were democrats, their children, et cetera et cetera. That was answered in florida. Were 18 of africanamerican women, 100,000, three times ron desantis voted not by race for the black candidate or not by party for the democratic candidate but voted for dee santos and elected him on the School Choice to the governorship importer. There was a pool six weeks ago and said black voters overwhelmingly support the democrat and trump was only 15 in year in the entire south, maybe even in virginia, that is a question number but the death star number in that poll and again, most polls do not have a big enough sample size and otherwise the marginal area of black voters is larger than the entire population, they said that 31 of black males would support the president against the generic democrat, a number of other polls talk about job approval or something other than voter intention and as they asked the question. Theres another of other polls that have 49 of africanamericans approving the president s economic job performance. There are polls that have the majority of africanamericans saying that they believe they will be better off at the end of the Trump Administration than they were at the end of the obama administration. Across the board of any metric you want to talk about, for instance at this point in the obama administration, it was three times higher than it is today i believe at least 20 of black folks will not with this ridiculous narrative and folks say trump is a racist, but for 69 years of his life he was embedded by the civil rights establishment, sharpen, jackson, giving them awards, in one case the same award for courage on civil rights as rosa parks and muhammad ali on the same day, you can either believe that he magically became a racist when he was 70, or he appointed a porn star to be the chief of staff the Top Air Force officer, and the United States air force for the first time, or you can believe that he must of run against Hillary Clinton and beat her and why everyone is saying hes races were the democrats are. You are watching book tv on cspan2, television for serious readers. We are looking at programs that deal with the issue of race in america, next is American University professor abram candy and bioethicist harriet washington, they appeared at the texas book festival in october of 2019. I have historically tried to avoid the term racism and racist, that is because people in this country interpreted very differently, studies have shown that many white people view in many weight and blacks define it differently, with peace communication, i had to reverse that and i came to understand that the term was key to understand what is transpiring, unfortunately language has the reality of racism, when it comes with toxicity, we often have medically import elsewhere about socioeconomic factors and property factors and lack of education and all these things make people more vulnerable to environmental toxicity, that is not true, it is race, it is certainly a risk factor but races much stronger race factor in the best example i can think of is the fact that studies have shown that africanamericans with income of 57000 a year are more exposed toxins than whites with nobody with only 10000 a year, a clear indication, were talking about race, we have to be frank and open in discussing these things and otherwise they will continue to smolder at the surface, they will be a shield for the biopower and they will impede with the solution. Is a large part of my book is interrogating common terms that we use to describe the way race and racism operates in the country so im thinking where are we to begin, probably to terms that many Racial Justice reformers and activists have used in the last 50 years have been distinguishing with what people call covid and overt racism, has anybody heard that . And so the more i thought about that constructive covid racism and people have made the case that over the last 50 years racism has become more covid, has anybody heard that one day make the case about my book that we have been using 1960s glasses to understand racism in the 21st century we imagine that a policy is racist in the policymakers hands to exclude a particular racial group as opposed to defining a policy as racist based on its outcome. Racism would be extremely over, they dont use the terms overt and covert because for me, racism is over if you know how to see it. Im just wondering, is there one term you hear people use a lot you wish every time you hear it you are like, if you could say one term or phrase about racism from peoples vocabulary, what would it be . Not racist. [laughter] whenever i hear that, its the most racist thing ever. [laughter] one of the things thats interesting, and something all of you enjoy reading, the way in which these have this great analysis of language and policies and just the personal experience of it. It matters how each individual is experiencing discrimination and it shows the effects of it. Im wondering if you could speak about using this typical genre and talking about racism. Offer anecdotes from communities that have experienced racism, its a memoir of your selfdiscovery why is it important to talk about these individual stories . Talking about race is always difficult because of reactions. For white people, many feel shamed. Thats a hurdle to come over we want to communicate. It helps sometimes by having them share experience ive had in racism. I hope bringing everyone along the journey. Its validating and i hope you understand what im talking about and i hope they will see it for what it is. So when i explain that, when i grow up on army bases in new york, i played outside. We had different experiences in harlem where my cousin were living in the building and almost everyone i knew there had asthma. I had no idea why we had that but when i got older, i realized the building was across the street from something, nine out of ten were located in harlem, people could see clearly then. More effective, i think. I did not really want to have a personal narrative, i am very private, my family is very private. I have so many family members in texas and also its very difficult to write about yourself, at least it is for me. It would distinguish at its most fundamental way from someone whos striving to be antiracist is essentially the construct of denial. The heartbeat of racism has always been denial and the heartbeat of antiracism has always been confession. When someone who is racist, doing something thats racist, their response is im the least racist person youve ever encountered. [laughter] im the least racist person in the world. [laughter] thats right after i said they were voted in [applause] it is essential. People deny the ideas and people deny they are racist but what is fundamental to being antiracist is knowing we were born and raised in this society and trained to be racist. Recognizing that and thereby admitting and confessing the time in which we have said theres something wrong with that in which we did not, we were not part of the struggle against racist policies and power so to me, i felt like i have to model that. I have to admit times in which theres something wrong with black people for others to open up to be willing to say the same thing. We have two more remaining. First Princeton University professor, Robert George and cornell appeared on our author Interview Program in depth. He write we live in one of the darkest moments in American History, bleak time of spiritual blackout and help them. The integrity, honesty and integrity. We have normalized it which is to say weve made this the normal way of life and naturalized criminality. Weve made crimes look as if they are natural. It can be wall street elites engaged in market manipulation, none of them go to jail. It can be so many different ways in which humanity violates it. We need the prophetic fight back. In the moment of spiritual blackout is not just a political issue, its a moral and spiritual issue as well and its only by example, we need young people to say you can still have love and respect, willing to fight and disagree, not abstract by example. They want to see it, not just hear them because right now, the american empire, it is smart. How many times you hear the word obvious . Obviously this, obviously that. Thats a word to show the crowd they are the smart crowd. We dont believe in smartness in isolation, we believe in wisdom. Smartness is kind of the richness. Donald trump believes hes the smartest and richest in the room. Hes a sign and symptom of a society thats idolized smartness and richness. We want to talk about bombs, without the nobel peace prize. What happens is a spectacle and hide and conceal what your substance is when it becomes morality and spirituality. It is any political ideology. So what im trying to say in this introduction is we are in catastrophic times. Moral catastrophe of this survival of the slickest and smartest but then theres economic catastrophe. Three individuals in america have been the bottom 160 million. It is equivalent to 50 fellow citizens. This is grotesque. It looks like louis the 14th times. Benefits for the poor, the least of these he do unto us. The orphan, the motherless, the poor, the immigrant, the muslim, the jew, indigenous people. That is spiritual orientation. Times are bleaker. We disagree about things like markets and whether inequality is a bad thing. I think our problem is not the market economy, i believe in the market economy. My critique is that we have traded in a two market economy for capital where big and powerful firms can use that to regulate competitors off the field. Big firms can afford the price of regulation and sometimes welcome it because small competitors cannot welcome it. When it comes to economic equality, i dont mind it. It will be economic inequality. I dont have as a goal, i have as a goal equality and dignity, the declaration of independence when it says all men are created equal but ive chosen careers and academic, i know its not a highpaying field, i could have gone to law school and made more money. I could have made more. So i dont have any problem as long as its fair, i dont have a problem with people having a lot more money than other people, my worry is it for economic equality, my worry is opportunity. We are losing and have lost the prospects of upward mobility. I grew up in west virginia, my entire family is there. My high school friends, friends and relatives are there. This was donald trump. Why . Because they are feeling the effects of being neglected, being left behind. Economically, culturally, they feel without big tory prejudice but certainly on the basis of their own experience as if there is a cultural elite, a wealthy, powerful elite that has only its own interest in mind. But the interest of working people and who have nothing but contempt for the values of people there, those were trump voters. Not one of these guys who condemns trump voters. Im not a fan of donald trump, i wasnt from the beginning. I give him credit for some of the good things but i think it is a mistake to imagine those supporters of donald trump, racist and bigoted and horrible people, they have legitimate grievances which no one in either party responded to. Donald trump reached out to them. Whether they were wise and look to them in tribute, that is something to be debated. He noticed those people were forgotten and left behind and looked down on. It is there economy that he benefited. You agree with what he saying about trump voters . They are racist and sexist and homophobic but that exhausts the whole group. They come from the upper right. There is also trump voters who voted for bernie and have voted for obama. Youve got to keep track of that diversity. You never want to downplay the role of the vicious legacy in the country. Theres no doubt but precisely because its so vicious you cant allow it to be the only thing you see. Where all you can see is White Supremacy. Its always linked to something else, predatory capitalism, slavery, patriarchy and homophobia. You can have black and white soldiers come together and go to the philippines and treat them they are cockroaches in the native america because youve got an empire there. You have to be honest in telling the truth. Look at trump voters, lets tell the truth of who they are. They are heterogeneous. Many were suffering on the policies under barack obama, top 1 , 95 of income growth. I find it to be grotesque. I dont agree with social economic equality but i want to focus on that. Im not worried about that. Poverty is attacked. Try to do it with barack obama and the others. They have no major concern about poor people type two wall street and our mobility for the middle class or if it comes to poor people not working, they had little to say other than movement on healthcare. Established by the mitt Romney Mormon douglas salute but hes not known for being on the cutting edge against poverty but hes somebody who did decent things about the healthcare. Thats where the Healthcare Program comes from. Let is try to tell you the truth on both parties, deeply narrow when it comes to these issues of poverty. They are putting pressure on the Republican Party. Legacy of marking putting pressure on the Democratic Party. We conclude our look at race in america with coat editors who discussed how to combat White Supremacy in april 2019. The reality is the 45th president brought White Supremacy out. While they are emboldened in a loss of ways, it made people step up to find their ways to fight the hope is this book has more people figuring out ways they are already fighting but also the day after the election, that was how we thought. The hope is that people will identify the ways they are already fighting and also look to see what else they can do. Just to add on, one thing we want to come out of this is we want to end the taboo, racial racially charged and also that is White Supremacy so we see this all the time and we have a working definition but i feel for people who dont do this kind of work, it is shocking but its why we have racism because we want to talk about this systemic system and you talk about it as a particular system that can be vanquished. A lot of times racism is interpersonal, people will say he wasnt racist. White supremacy is a particular system and you can break it down and work and visit this and its not the whole thing. One of the things in the book much in love, laughter and you have one of the most important tools of war and another one said loving yourself is a revolutionary act. Can you talk about that . A lot of times we dont think of laughter and love when you think White Supremacy. [laughter] whats really important because number one, to be human, new knee joy and laughter. Even in the worst situation, you need to enjoy something. I dont believe we would survive as a people if we didnt have a sense of humor. As a particular part in the book we talk about edits from a brother, Jordan Anderson written after the civil war and in the letter, he talks about how his master invited him back to the plantation to come and work there so he wrote back and was like thank you for the invitation, you shot me twice, thats okay. We will consider coming back if you consider doing us what weve learned already and give us the interest is approved. Hes talking about reparations and paying for labor and then he goes back to this polite humor and he says my wife is concerned about some things, the most passive aggressive hilarious pieces of history that ive seen. So i love brother Jordan Anderson. One of our contributors is here. [cheering] [applause] [laughter] one of the whole. Of this book is people think about resistance, they think about organizing and making signs and being on the picket line but theres a lot more that goes into it. I dont know about all of you, but there were times when finding less of myself was me supporting that system. I am unlovable, i will never find all of these things, i was talking to my editor that said her editor wanted her to start doing stories about why they dont get married, why we cant drive if we dont reach across the aisle and why we thrive under this. They say i am not enough all the time so there are essays that talk about how that looks like loving yourself. Our children motivate this and how it makes us intentional so they know they are lovable, we get to them before the system gets to them and tells them they are not. We hear about being woke, can you talk about that as well as what it looks like with younger people in terms of their activism . I think that phenomenon is interesting and fantastic. I feel because of lot of the work thats been done from the 1960s, theres a lot of social justice, a lot of discussion for young people, this generation and it seems like people of this generation are more active. There was a down. For a particular kind of activism when i was a teen. I am 44 so the turnaround and see younger people calling out the issues were trying to talk about some time ago and have the tools to widely disseminate messages and recruit them, i think that is really important. I also think there are two people talk about this all the time. You have 1000 people who talk about Police Violence and thats when important. In the chapter about your friend, several found ways to be activists and what struck us was their willingness to come up with solutions. One of them wrote a statistic the boys his age often stop reading books and he was like i dont want that, im going to do something about that. So he started a book club for young boys and not only was it bring them to read also bring them together to read books where they saw themselves reflected. One thing he said, most of the stuff you see is nonfiction, its cool to read about mlk, i just want to read about someone who likes to play football in the backyard, just he wanted to see himself. I love that he solved problems. That was his way of being an activist. It is very much of a. You have so many different examples and while there was seriousness, there were different everyday ways people could get involved in you think of ella baker and how she encouraged people to do something every day. Small acts can make a difference and not waiting for a leader to show the way. Theres an interesting part where you talk about double dutch. [laughter] used as a metaphor for dealing with whites of permissive. That metaphor was the final chapter and the idea is that it can be liberatory if you think about the elements. For instance, you have to work with other people to do that. Number two, people had to worry about your safety because they could smack you in the face. Number three, they used to be a thing or somebody said you could be the doll and if you didnt have too much pride like i did, you could get a pass because you were the doll. The other thing, if you mess up, its three or four other peoples turned and when you come back around, its like a clean slate. The idea of double dutch, im a black girl from West Philadelphia and i cant double dutch so theres like a bit of shame there. [laughter] is not like a 12 step program . It is but double dutch is a part of culture when i was growing up so the last part, double dutch is about vitality. I would walk down the street in brooklyn and see women with no shoes jumping double dutch with girls and theres something there where there is a reassurance and its also an art so thats why i put that in with that metaphor. One more question, this is a wonderful opportunity to engage with each other and for everyone to weigh in on this but one question i wanted to ask what white people can do about White Supremacy and what we can all do about rights of pharmacy. First thing you have to do is realize fighting White Supremacy, youre not helping us, youre helping us all. It doesnt make you an ally because the system we labor under, we all perpetuate and some have privilege in. Dont ask people of color to do emotional or other labor for your. There are lots of books who approach this topics in different ways and different angles. Google is their home. [laughter] you can ask them to do that for you. Another thing is to be courageous. Often people say they didnt want to have that conversation are ruining thanksgiving dinner. Is the only thing you have to worry about, they are worried about walking outside and getting shot. Be courageous. Not just to get people but talking to yourself and the ways you perpetuate the system and the privileges you take from it. The last thing, is an Organization Called surge, its white people for white people. Its all about working toward Racial Justice together. Thats where you should go. One last thing stop teaching children colorblindness. People think its antiracist, your fighting White Supremacy saying we are all the same inside. I dont see color or another variety is it doesnt matter if youre black, white, green or purple, theres never green or purple. Its an idea of trying to flatten and bring the conversation and commenced children but its the best way they can function is not be racist. You say you dont see color than the means you dont see people like not like you. I went to a prep school third through eighth and i remember my classmates didnt want to even say the word black. There were three black girls in our class, 28 or so they want to do describe grow your help here this way. Grow with the uniform, im just like thats what colorblindness does, it creates a taboo and makes it wrong to articulate something thats perfectly beautiful. You can watch all the programs youve seen here and many other author discussions about race in America Online booktv. Org. Access our archives by using the search box at the top of the page and search race and books. You are watching cspan2, unfiltered view of government created by americas Cable Television company as a Public Service and brought to you by your television provider. Tonight and the communicators, shirley bloomfield, ceo, the broadbent association expanding broadband into rural areas and the challenges small providers faced with the coronavirus pandemic. Its kicked into action immediately if not only by continuing to operate safely but they also spent time thinking about how i get to kids who dont have conductivity online . They got calls from providers, from customers will not get customers who realize they need conductivity for higher speed. Then there are communities that were economically impacted by covid and they have to work through how you connect people and youre not going to get paid for it right away. Tonight 8 00 p. M. Eastern on the communicators on cspan2. We are featuring book tv programs as a preview of whats available every weekend on cspan2. Tonight starting at 8 30 p. M. Eastern, representative omar on her journey as a refugee to becoming part of the first woman elected to the u. S. In congress. And father heather details her experience with local politics in her hometown in alaska. Senator martha, First Female Fighter Pilot to fly in combat, she reflects on her military career and shows her guiding principles. 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