Tonights event, discussing the latest book [inaudible] the future of america, in conversation. Tonights event is part of our ongoing Virtual Event series. Were so fortunate to be able to continue to bring authors during these difficult times. Every week we will be hosting events via zoom. Just like always, our Event Schedule will appear on our website, or you can also sign up for our email newsletter. This event will conclude with some time for your questions. If you would like to ask the speaker something, locate the q a button, wherever it may be on your display, so you can several mitt your questions. Where you can submit your questions. We will go through as many as time allows. We have included a link to our website where you can purchase a copy of the more perfect union. If you already have a book or would like to contribute in a different way, we have also included a chat a link to us. We appreciate any support you are able to extend to us at this time. Lastly, as you know, technical glitches may come up. We apologize in advance for that. If anything technical does occur, we will do our best to resolve any issues as quickly as possible. Im so pleased to introduce tonights speaker. Calvin baker is a novelist, journalist and essayist, author of four novels, including one was a finalist for a legacy award. He currently teaches at columbia universitys graduate school of the arts and has previously taughted at Yale University and [inaudible]. His nonfiction work has been featured in a variety of publications including New York Times magazine and elsewhere. Katie odonnell is a Senior Editor where she has worked with authors including [inaudible], New York Times bestselling author [inaudible] and many others. She began her publishing career at the [inaudible]. Tonight we will be discussing calvins latest book a more perfect reunion, a captivating portrait of the United States which challenges one of its [inaudible]. From the Civil Rights Movement to our present moment nationwide [inaudible]. Progress that americans have been made [inaudible]. The result is a book thats as elegantly crafted as it is timely and responsive. Its been called a rich meditative account. Were so honored to have you here tonight. Without further adieu, i want to send it over to calvin and katie. Thank you so much. Calvin, how are you doing tonight . Im well. How are you, katie . Thank you for doing this with me. Of course, of course. This is going to be great fun. Im excited to have this conversation. [inaudible]. We started working on this in 2017 . Yeah. Shes been just invaluable in the process of making it. Its been a joy. So we wanted to start with some kind of First Principles or some assumptions that we think we can make in this space because i think, you know, we have been were in this moment where were having another conversation, another National Reckoning in talking about race in america, but weve been doing that as we know for a long long time. Why dont we start lets start in the middle or lets start and make some things clear. One of the things i wanted to say is that we dont have to talk about or explain that we believe in the humanity of black americans, black people, all people of color in the u. S. We believe and we know about how Structural Racism works in this country. Theres probably some other things that you want to add to that list, calvin. We think that we know because it is the field that form us so were aware of this idea of systemic racism. I want to begin this book for people who are intelligent and dont need to be told the things that you just said, that racism is bad, but who think deeply and have some prior knowledge about race, about history, about American Culture and to avoid the repetition because the field of enlightenment is one that begins with the revolution itself, in the years leading up to the continental congress, people realized they had a race problem, and we realized that weve had a race problem again and again and again, and we are realizing it anew, and the things that were saying have all been said before, and i began the book assuming that these things that we know these things, that they are on the record, but you can go back. You can read douglas. You can read baldwin. You can read wright and so forth. And that are most things about race, but the question, how do we move forward is a more active question, and i think some of the other conversations that we want to avoid. Right. Why integration, and why that word . We talk a lot about diversity. We talk about inclusion. We talk about representation. We even talk about desegregation, but you are very clear about talking about integration, that that is our goal and you define it in a particular way. Talk to me about that. So it was an intuition, as someone who long studied africanamerican history, i intuit that integration was the real goal, and because race makes no sense, because race was a construction, so what is it . What is it that the Civil Rights Movement is really about . Integration. You go back through the record and you see thats where malcolm ends up. Thats where martin ends up. Thats where douglas ends up. In the 19th century, its been said there are two ways for these people to go, must wholly part or wholly integrate. Thats it. Then styling further and further back, theres a lawyer from a boston lawyer from the 1600s who points out and as a lot of the revolutionary thinkers that point out, we can end slavery, but how do we integrate these people . And thats where everyone was stuck. Thats where the abolitionists were stuck, because you could be one and still harbor racial feelings, negative racial stereotypes against africanamericans. You can be a liberal and still build a life for yourself that segregates you. And for me, integration was not assimilation. Right . Because that reduces or flattens the black self. Not diversity, because you can hide a lot of things in diversity. You sort of put we are in the world, people together and you say now we have diversity. It is integration. By integration i mean making available and accessible all the tools and opportunities of American Society to all its citizens. And that is what the country historically shied away from when it comes to africanamericans. When we talk about things like the new deal or the gi bill, its always but not for them, and even now, in the National Conversation people saying im willing to sacrifice for make things better for black people. We dont think of it as giving up when we talk about anyone else. When we talk of european immigrants coming here, we say there is enough for everyone. Thats what we do. We create opportunity. But when it comes to africanamericans, it is always this assumption that somehow zero sum game, that its somehow a competition. And i wanted to push past that because there are all these psychological barriers in the american mind, in the mind of all those who have been who have been colonized or who have colonized, where it comes to race. How do you move past that . Well, you have to go to the material conditions, the cultural conditions, the interlocking structures where race is that create race, and hard sights of law and economics, the soft sights, cultural and education, but the narratives that we learn and the things that we hear in private, and then our interpersonal and intrapersonal relationships, how i think about you, how you think about me, how i think about myself, how you think of yourself. [inaudible]. When we talk about things like diversity, when we talk about frames like post racial or color blind, you find that people want to move beyond it. 90 of the country supports principles of racism, but when you come down to those mechanisms that we know create greater opportunity for africanamericans, people stop. Why do they stop . I mean, this is weve been this book shows, the first half of it really delves into the history of this country and the moments at which we have stopped, and part of it i think is that we race so defines america. Its always so defined america, that we have a hard time imagining what this country is without it. So talk a little bit about that. Why do we why do we keep getting stuck . I want to correct that slightly, and in the beginning, if one goes back to one goes back to victorian england im sorry you dont have these structures of race; right . In shakespeare, there are shades of skin color. There are gradients of hair texture, but its not race in the way that we recognize it, and race is a thing that is constructed. Its constructed hand in glove with the slave state. As Frederick Douglas said anything made can be unmade. And so when you ask the question of why do we stop, youre talking why dont we unmake this . There are two essential mechanisms id argue. One of them is a real resistance on the part of american conservatives. This begins in the revolutionary period. Theres very little, and it continues through the civil war and then snaps back, and theres nothing being said in this current moment on the right that has not been said before. They are not great original thinkers. They simply use the new tools, and they pass these from generation to generation. Its true on the left as well in a different way. And because race becomes Something Like i mean i call it a belief system, Something Like a religion. Its the thing that shapes us, and in some cases, its very consciously used to create an american melting pot. We have all these people, these new immigrant groups as we did at the turn of the 20th century, coming over from europe, how do you make one people of them . And so and talking about david nassaus book, and one of the things you see happening is you give them a narrative of whiteness. How do you create a narrative of whiteness . You create these spaces, if you know the price of admission, you can go to a ballgame, gouk to a theater. You can go to a theater. The ballpark is segregated. There are no black layers there. This extends to advertisement. This is culture itself is creating it. It is giving you this narrative of races, degrading africanamericans. Whiteness as a construct exists in opposition to that which it is not. It is not black. It is not brown. It is not yellow. So going directly to the question, thats hard to let go of. If thats the narrative that shaped you, it is hard to let go of because even in ways we say, im not a racist. Someone committed some heinous crime. Lets say shot an africanamerican. Im not a racist. Two sheriffs in North Carolina talking about the need for basically a final solution, and then they say but were not racist. Right. And on the left, we say well as long as im not that, then im not racist. But you see we have these narratives of race that are constantly reinforced; right . They are reinforced every time you open a newspaper, go to the cinema. They are also told in private. And so we have a performance of race that we do in public for the benefit, right, because it is socially unacceptable to be racist. However, we have another conversation, we have other conversations in private. And you say things that i use the david chase example here when he says to his credit, he admits it, but its also completely unaware, oh, well i grew up in a family, they werent what you call white chic racist, but it was just a sense of that, you know, they want to take what you have, or theyre this, theyre that, theyre this, and everyone has grown up with that. Yeah. So i guess the question is how do we get out of this way that we have defined ourselves, you know . Weve grown up with this. We cant imagine a world beyond it. So we keep having the same conversations over and over again. How do we have a different conversation . I think you have to focus on outcomes, and one of the things that i mean one of the things i was thinking about as i was writing the book walking through new york city and looking at all these spaces that we would say are integrated, and then going a bit deeper and saying actually this is really simply a performance. Were adjacent to one another. Asking the question of every space in which we participate, how integrated is this space truly, and by that i mean to what extent a, is it representative of the peoples of this country . B, to what degree those people are free to be themselves . And to what degree do i am i looking through racial frames . But also thats an esoteric question, but you go into a restaurant, it is like why are there only one kind of group only one kind of person in this restaurant. Right. You go into an office and you look at the employee pool. You look at the distribution of those in position of power. It is like you see all of those are racially segregated spaces. And the way to move beyond that in fact to desegregate all of these spaces, thats where people stop because it means going back right . It becomes an interlocking system. I am im the manager of a company. Id like to increase my pool of africanamerican employees, but they are not coming from the university yaos i recruit from. But theyre not coming from the universities i recruit from. Well, you know, they dont have the test scores, or theyre not coming from the high schools that we recruit from, so you push it back. And you go to the high schools, and you say well, in the case of new york city, they didnt pass admissions tests to get into the most selective schools, the problem is in the middle schools. The problem is always somewhere else. In fact, it is at all these places. Right. I want to talk a little bit about how long you have been thinking about this book. You know, you were just saying you walk through the city and you think that new york city, where we both live, is a melting pot, is an integrated city, but it is anything but and that, you know, you move through spaces and that word adjacent really sticks out to me. And i know that in your fiction, youve been working through some of these questions for a long time and trying to understand what a free consciousness really means. But why this book . And how did you start feeling like this is the book i need to write . Okay. I will tell the story. In my fiction and this has been a 20yearlong project, and ive been writing about what it means to live in a multicultural Pluralist Society slash world and also what it means to inhabit a black consciousness that isnt performing itself for [inaudible] but isnt selfconscious. Meaning awareness of himself, agency of himself. What does it mean to have a fictional world in which one does . As talking to a brilliant friend who knows a lot about books, and he said to me one day, calvin, youre too far ahead of people. These are youre answering questions that problems people dont know they have. And i sat with that, and i was like whats the disconnect . And its oh, i get it. And also this frustration that i want to talk about a whole society, a whole self in my fiction, and i want to talk about the relationships and connections between america and the rest of the world. I wanted to talk right . The idea its always been a multiracial space, always, and theres always been a black presence. I cant get there until i move past race. Look at the conversation that we were having about race and just the real frustration as someone who grew up reading baldwin, grew up reading who has done a lot of research and history, that were repeating yourselves now. Right. And we may not be seeing it as well the second time, the third time, as we did in the first instance, and so were beginning to have derivative conversations, and not only that, those conversations themselves are being captured and being captured economically, so what do i mean by that . I mean it is a performance. It becomes a performance. We have talked about this a little bit. They are necessary performances in some cases. They help people. They are cathartic. You know, baldwin makes this critique in either late 1940s or early 50s, about protests, and how protests flattens the self. It is devoid of life because all youre doing is reacting against, and the self is so much more than that. I wanted to make a book that spoke to the whole self, those as much heart as mine, as much mind as consciousness, and to do that, like what does that mean . What does it mean to talk about these problems in a whole way . And i came across the quote from freud in civilizations and lets pretend that rome isnt a fiscal entity but [inaudible] one who comes into existence will ever cease to exist, meaning that were these layers of our theology. You go to your therapist, you talk about your childhood, you talk about your dreams, and like in a nation, all these things exist, right . And race is inflecting all these points. It is like okay, if im protesting against police shootings, im not talking about a whole self. Im not talking about a whole society because everything is policed. How do you move past not simply that harm to the body, but that harm to the spirit, that harm that happens every day in major and minor ways . Well, you see the only answer to that is integration. And it took a lot of digging, right . I intuited it, as a lot of people intuit it. You go back and read everything. You dig through the history, and you go through the culture, and you break down a lot of the silos a lot of the academic silos, a, so if i know history, i dont necessarily know literature, i dont necessarily know sociology, but also we compartmentalize our conversation about race. Now were going to talk about the race problem. After this were going to go watch football. Right, right. Were not going to talk about music. Were not going to talk about pop culture. Right, were not going to talk about public commons, the way our cities, towns are organized. We wont talk about these things. Were just going to talk about this abstraction called the race problem. Well learn a language. Well perform it. And hope that it takes us to where we need to go, and it never does. Right. So in investigating this, in the book, you made some really made some choices. You told us the story of someone like Ben Montgomery who i in spite of having read some not enough history but you know worked on history in this space did not know this story. I wonder if you could talk about his story and what it represents. I love the story of Ben Montgomery. One of the first blacktowns in the country black towns in the country, it comes into existence right after the civil war, and its founder is a man named Ben Montgomery who was born in a county in virginia, is sold down the river, is purchased by a lawyer named davis who is Jefferson Davis brother, like the president of the confederacy, montgomery runs the plantation. He turns it from a backwoods operation to i think it was the fifth or third most profitable plantation in the state, with a lot of profitable plantations, during the war. Hes running Jefferson Daviss plantation as well. During the war, he is both Davis Brothers money. Eventually he buys the plantation out for i think it was 8 million in current dollars in cash. And then after, during reconstruction, he loses possession of it, a challenge from the very large davis clan, and he moves the town he moves the town north to a place called [inaudible]. Davis was fascinating to me because to thrive under these conditions, the relationships that he has with these people is what the people being the davises is nearly equal. I mean, hes still a slave, but they hes respected. Jefferson davis tried to have a patent issued for one of montgomerys inventions, and you say oh this is exceptionalism. This is something that we know whereby and its something throughout the history of race and i talk about that as a way of showing that you can have a completely racial state and davis thought or davis was a utopian. He considered himself a benevolent master. He considered himself an enlightened mississippian, for his day, for his place in time, arguably he was. As we consider ourselves enlightened, what it means to be i wanted to use that to illustrate two things. The first is what it means to be enlightened is always so subjective and so socially circumscribed that i can think im enlightened and still be part of something abysmal and abject. Thats always something right, whenever we look back at history, we think hey, im more enlightened. I dont make those mistakes. But you see we all make similar mistakes that we dont examine because it begins to threatens the ego. The second point was this notion of exceptionalism, and when we hold up africanamerican celebrities, when we hold up africanamerican politicians, and you say if you do these things, you can have these outcomes, these are Extraordinary People. Why cant everyone have a decent shot at an outcome . Thats one of the things i mean by integration because part of our theater of race is holding up the exceptional, praising the exceptional, and you know, thats necessary. Those are special people. We should celebrate special people, but what about everyone else . Yeah. And it is what we did with obama, and it is also, you know, you spoke earlier about the need to move past race, which is very different from the post racial america that we were all living in allegedly, during obamas presidency. Talk to me about the difference between those two. Post racial is kind of funny for me because living at the time, and ive written about this, in an essay for harpers but you see all these people go and they cast a ballot, and they say well, now were post racial. And its twin to the notion of color blind, that it exists on the right, and it is almost as though if we do this one thing or if we play make believe hard enough, then this problem goes away. I can cast a ballot, and suddenly we are in a post racial state, and the 30 of africanamericans who live in poverty dont matter. Okay, whats the narrative for those people if we are post racial . Were talking about people like barack and michelle, Extraordinary People who have had extraordinary opportunities who have made much of them. Everyone doesnt get those opportunities. Everyone isnt that brilliant, that disciplined, that willful, and theyre just ordinary people. What about the guys hanging out on the stoop when you go to work in the morning . Shouldnt they have an opportunity . So post racialism says i dont have to do the work. We dont have to do the work. And one of the things one of the places this book is very much about america but there are two global phenomena i wanted to highlight, and one of them is nationalism, right . You see like these notions of ethno nationalism, by in large european, they exist all around the world, but these are old notions for a world in which people arent moving to the degrees and extent that people in this world and certainly this country are. And so youre given you make a nation by telling people that they are german, and this is the german flag, and you should love it, and this is the american flag, and you should love it, and if you do these things, then you belong, and everyone else doesnt belong, versus, a country in which it is much more complexed and nuanced, and we participate in we participate in all of these sort of shared or overlapping spaces. We have all of these overlapping selves, and when i talk about integration, i think i want it to mean in many ways the public spheres of our lives. How do we participate in the opportunities of the country as citizens, as equal citizens . What you do in private and this is also why i shy away or have little patience for some of the language of race because it becomes more and more esoteric. It becomes like a National Therapy session which admittedly might be needed, but lets focus on the outcome. Lets focus on the things that we can see, feel, touch because thats where the problems are. So we will probably move to questions soon, so i encourage people to get their questions in, the q a button at the bottom. I have a question for you, kate. Go for it. You saw this book two and a half years ago. You saw the proposal. It was 50 pages that werent as well developed as the book. You said i have a feeling about this. What was that feeling . What did you see . You have worked a lot with materials, with political and sociological materials before, so what drew you to this . Im always curious. Thats a good question. So i think it was that i had not i had not heard an argument for integration before, in the way that you articulated in the proposal, that you were very clear about that being the goal and that being the only pathway to a full democracy, which we have never had in this country. And i think it was partly the link between integrated integration as the goal and democracy that really struck me, and then i think it was partly talking to you, and i remember our first phone call we talked about fred hampton, and i think, you know, part i always think about my great grand father who was a sicilian immigrant to brooklyn, loved carmichael and hampton, and the idea that this little old italian man just loved these two revolutionaries and thinkers and you and i could talk about that and fred hampton would mean something to us. Fred hampton meant so much to you growing up in chicago and also represented so much about integration and the potential of it. So i think that probably was the thing that really that made me that convinced me. Thats your favorite chapter, isnt it . Totally is, yep. We should take some questions. Its time for questions. Hi, im back. Great. Looks like we have two questions as of right now. Im going to start with this one from debra, who asked what are your thoughts about reparations as a strategy to begin to decrease wealth disparity . I think reparations are one lever of a more complete solution and certainly and the way the question is framed, i think it is right the only thing that it addresses is wealth. You can write someone a check and leave them alone, and they are still not integrated into the citizenry of the country. The Civil Rights Movement, the late Civil Rights Movement, when people really started pushing for integration understood that it was in itself a kind of reparations, so they are not mutually exclusive. I would take both. Great. Thank you. Here is a question specifically about the thesis of your book and like your argument in general. [inaudible]. Is this a misread . [inaudible]. Theres a range of arguments currently being aired, but i would argue that they tend to be reactive, and theyre responding to an immediate harm. Theyre responding to a dog whistle, to a siren, to a state of oppression. Integration is active. Thats the question, what must we do to complete this democracy . And theres a deeper question in this book, and its more global question, if we bear in mind that the u. S. Is one part of form of colonial system that encompassed the entire world or much of the world and things function here as they do throughout much of the former british empire, as they did in india, as they did in nigeria, as they did in south africa, and none of those places have yet been made whole or as they did in jamaica or barbados. It is a question can we heal from such a deep wound to ourselves, to our country, to our world . And i argue that integration in the american case is the thing that fulfills you see the world looks to us for leadership on these questions, or it did, the discourse about race in europe, in much of latin america, its patterned after the discourse here. People are happy when obama won. That spoke a world of greater freedom. People were protesting around the world with the black lives Matter Movement. [inaudible] everywhere. I argue that the challenge for us as americans in this country, is to get out of the active stance, to stop i dont want to say ignore, because you have to deal with them but stop [inaudible] by everything that the right does to push buttons. They do it exactly to push buttons. They do it lethally, and it keeps us in a reactive stance, it lets them control the conversation. The if we say the goal the conversation is the completion of democracy, well, see, now we have a vision. Now we have a place to go. Now we understand; right . King says i have been to the mountaintop. Well, thats how you get there. Related to that point and relates to all the points as well as a lot of the questions were getting which are revolving around like what would that look like or what do you imagine . This is related to current movement, current protests about moving away from the language that we have been able to propagate from the black lives Matter Movement and what will integration look like in the future . So two answers to that. And again, this is a quote from king that i love, and its he gives a fantastic interview. One of the few interviews that you will find, and ten months before the assassination. Someone asks him that question, and he says theres not a man, woman, child in this country who does not know what he or she can do to further Racial Justice in america. Thats a. B, we have a notion of what integration looks like. We perform a theory of it under the name of diversity in which you 87 of us have friends of another race. We know what that looks like. We work with people. We talk to people. But you see it is very shallow interaction. And it doesnt extend to everyone as it must in a full democracy, in a fully integrated society. So what it looks like is bringing everyone in to the fold of american opportunity. After that, free people will do what free people will. Also related that, quite a few questions are coming in about affirmative action, which i know you sort of talked about as like one of the [inaudible]. Theres questions about how do we move from affirmative action, promotion of diversity in our communities to your concept of integration and [inaudible] . I would say diversity is a practical step im sorry, affirmative action. Affirmative action worked. Affirmative action created a large africanamerican middle class for the first time in this nations history, and it was resistance to affirmative action that stopped the expansion of that middle class and began to move it backwards. And so i guess the question would be is why move away from those things that worked . If you go back to the Civil Rights Act of 64, they address the area of housing, of employment, of education, and of voting. Right . All these and they had solutions for all these things, and they worked. And because they worked, they were attacked. The minute johnson leaves office, nixon comes in and he says how do i roll this back; right . So you start you start slow walk things at the agency level. You start this resistance to bussing, which worked. You create a backlash against affirmative action, which works. You start of agitating to repeal the Voting Rights act, which worked. And that became policy under reagan. If you look at the things that are attacked by the right, they are those things that worked. The gutting of the Voting Rights act has been central to the roberts court. Resistance to any kind of affirmative action in education has been i mean, its been a central obsession, i would argue, of the right, since the beginning. [inaudible]. To this day you cant use federal funds to bus students. And so if you look at neighborhood segregation, because we have segregated neighborhoods, we have segregated schools. So on and so forth. So much flows from there. So i think affirmative action is fine because i want to extend that a little because white people have affirmative action. Because the gi bill was affirmative action. Because the new deal was affirmative action. These are things your massive Government Programs created to create a middle class of so many immigrants. Right . Were going to give you help going to college. Were going to make education available to everyone, higher education. Were going to give you a loan to purchase a house and thereby build wealth. Black people were written out of all of these things. There in lies the wealth gap. On the topic of the wealth gap, we have a question who asks it strikes me by the only means to accomplish the goals of integration is starts with the ending of funding education via property taxes, given the historical denial of accrual of wealth relative to black people, do you agree with that assertion, and if so, can you identify a road to getting there . And i dont know enough about education as a field to certainly, i mean, it is intuitive that the disparities of funding play a real role, but in new york there have been attempts to equalize funding, but you still have unequal outcomes. The problem is you have created ghetto schools. You have created special schools for black and brown people in which they are undereducated; right . In which they have been segregated. And so if you integrate the schools, funding would probably take care of itself because you see everyone would start to argue for resources for their children, those with access to those with means, those with access to [inaudible] who advocate for their children. Great, thank you. Theres a question who is asking what are your thoughts or feelings on the process of truth and reconciliation in order achieve integration, dig deeper as a nation to develop a collective consciousness . I think thats a beautiful goal. I think thats a very subtle goal. I think if you look at places where truth and reconciliation happened, its cathartic. But the real work, the harder work is i have told the truth. Im reconciled to my feelings. I have forgiven you. You have forgiven me. Now can we integrate the schools . How can we restore the voting rightings act . Rights act . Now can we make Employment Opportunities more widely available for people . Thats where the right . Theres a resistance of the fear of resistance is 30 of people who would say the confederacy was right and things along that spectrum, but i want to talk to the people who accept that those things are wrong, right, who feel a certain truth, are intellectually or emotionally reconciled to something, but nonetheless captured by the systems of segregation and these systems of race. How do we stop talking because and as a writer, i understand how rhetoric can be used to clarify, how rhetoric can be used to obscure, how rhetoric can be a substitute for action, and how rhetoric can activate action. I want this book to activate action. What are the spaces im participating in . How do i change them . These happen at large governmental levels. They happen at small neighborhood levels. They happen at the work level. They happen at the school level. They happen in how you spend your leisure time. Its all around us. It is all around us. Weve gotten a couple questions that sort of identify just that, the macro versus the micro, the Public Policy versus private integration. So someone was just looking to talk about how do you introduce integration politically into different policies . On the topic of private integration, is it something that comes down to ultimately conversations [inaudible] . I think it is a couple of things. One is i want this idea to become part of the political conversation and part of the cultural conversation as well; right . So first we have to say this is our goal. We wish to integrate. We wish to complete this democracy, by bringing everyone in this country into this democracy. Lets begin with that. Right . And then you go down the line, how do i do it in this space . How do i do it in this space . How do i do it in this space . There are things that are very easily achievable. There are things that will take a couple generations to achieve, but it has to be the goal, and other generations have moved that forward. How did the Civil Rights Movement do this . Right . They focus not op they focus not on one thing. They focus on the whole thing; right . Voting rights, education, employment what did i forget katy . Housing. And housing, thank you, residential segregation, one of the things i talk about in the book is the ways that suburban right, part of the republican strategy isnt just we always talk about the strategy, it is also suburban strategy, people who will vote with republicans but dont want it to be they want it to be soft pedalled. You grew up in the suburbs as a great Many Americans have, and you are [inaudible] in those things without knowing them. When i talk about gentrification, oh, we are recreating segregation in reverse. Its gone from populations come from a segregated suburb and begins to resegregate a city, an urban area. Theres a language of it. The one who wrote the blueprint of it, uses language of colonization when he first issued the call for people to quote move east. And quote revitalize new york. Right . It was segregated revitalizat n revitalization. All these things get moved forward. Weve had the language the language of integration, if we focus on the whole system, if we stop compartmentalizing and say its the whole thing, were going to change the whole thing, whats our plan for education . Whats our plan for housing . Whats our plan for employment . Thats got to be a central plank in the policy and the stated goals of the left in this country. Great, thank you. I think we have time for one more question. Im going to ask this one, so you have experience teaching in germany. Do you see any lessons [inaudible] . I should be careful with this because there are crosscultural arguments with my german friends about oh the differences, sort of comparing football and baseball. One of the things that seems to have worked was people are taught what the country did in world war ii was bad in a way that if you grow up in american south, you are not. So if you if you have a textbook from texas, if you have a textbook from south carolina, youre reading about a whole different american history, and as long as this countrys engaged in personal truths, selective truths, which are all denial, right, it is a form of denial, it is a form of lying, that makes it harder, but you see 30 of people are going to continue to engage in that. The rest of us have to say these are the facts. This is the truth. We will not hide from it. We will not deny it. It is our history. It is the edifice on which we stand, and we want to change that because we are people of free will and magnificent agency. We can change that. I think that is a Perfect Place to end this evenings event. I want to thank you both so much for joining us and having this amazing conversation. And again i want to take a moment to thank both of you and all of you in the audience for spending your evening with us. We sincerely appreciate your support now and always. Please make sure to check out the more perfect reunion on the link in this chat or visit our website directly. Thanks again for your time, support, and spending your evening with us. Have a great night, everyone. Thank you very much. Thanks, everyone. Thank you. Weeknights this month, we are featuring book tv programs as a preview of whats available every weekend on cspan 2. Tonight beginning at 8 00 eastern, we will look at writing and publishing. First, english professor Donna Harrington luker looks at the concept of Summer Reading that was popularized in the 19th century. Then laura miller, pris sill payton Priscilla Payton and brandon tenseley talk about the future of books and Book Publishing in an era of technological change. And later we discuss the importance of documenting every day life during times of crisis. Enjoy book tv on cspan 2. Weeknights this month we are featuring book tv programs as preview of whats available every weekend on cspan 2. Wednesday beginning at 8 00 eastern, several programs with the late author and columnist william f. Buckley jr. Hilary clintons book it takes a village is featured thursday in a lineup of books written by former first ladies. And finishing out the week friday, books authored by american president s including jimmy carter. The contenders about the men who ran for presidency and lost but changed political history. Tonight governor of illinois and later u. S. Ambassador to the united nations, the contenders this week at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan. Book tv on cspan 2, this Labor Day Weekend, watch top nonfiction books and authors. Sunday at noon eastern, on in depth, a twohour live conversation with author and faith and Freedom Coalition founder ralph reed. Then at 9 00 p. M. Eastern on afterwords, Breitbart NewsSenior Editoratlarge on his book red november and his thoughts on the 2020 democratic primaries and election. Hes interviewed by editoratlarge matt welch. And on monday, labor day, at 6 15 p. M. Eastern, judy gold with her book yes, i can say that. Then at 7 00, melissa corn and jennifer levitts on the College Admissions scandal with their book unacceptable. At 8 30, wes moore with his five days. And 10 30 p. M. , a retired admiral on his book sailing true north. Watch book tv this Labor Day Weekend on cspan 2 and be sure to watch the all virtual 2020 National Book festival, live saturday, september 26th on book tv. You are watching book tv on cspan 2, every weekend, with the latest nonfiction books and authors. Cspan 2, created by americas Cable Television company as a Public Service and brought to you today by your television provider. And welcome to book tv and in depth. This is our Monthly Program with one author, talking about his or her books, and were pleased this month to be joined by wes moore, who is the author of three books, plus a Childrens Book and a novel. His first book