Professor ibram kendi how are you . I am well. How are you doing . Host have you moved to boston yet. Guest i have. Host good luck with that. [laughter] host how are you . Guest i am doing well. I am okay in columbus ohio. Host its good to hear thank you both so much for joining us for this conversation. Im excited to speak with both of you. Whenever i talk with both people together i look for points of connection and looking at the two of you are realize that both of you are in your thirties. Both of your mothers are named carol. [laughter] both of you talk a lot in your book about the role of personal transformation and that understanding you have achieved about yourself. You want to start by asking you if you feel understanding yourself is the first step to conquer all the isms of our society . I will start with you saeed jones. Guest yes. It is not static but ever evolving but to my own personal experience, my early years as a teenager in the suburbs of north texas, the years i was beginning to understand one of the only black kids in my advanced english classes. Or to understand to be gay and attracted to men and everyone around me to develop that selfawareness was developing my understanding of ym in america. Now all these decades later has moved out of a deeper understanding of who i am. So getting to know and examine our identities and ourselves how we connect to one another. Host what about you professor ibram kendi . In your book how to be in antiracist the opening passages you talk about the classic Martin Luther king day contest. I know that contest. My nephew competed in the same auditorium. All i remember he just wanted to go to the buffet afterwords and we had an argument if we go there or someplace else but that is a painful chapter that you gave the speech and then in subsequent years you call it your nightmare everything you are saying was a reflection of black selfhatred and thats a powerful thing to think about that because you are so classically trained as a historian as you search for a new path forward do you think that as your search of self . I do how the world understands identity and we completely agree ones own ideas. So as a black teenager i was constantly fed ideas in the nineties and Northern Virginia that there is something wrong with young black teens and people more broadly. And i started to believe there is something wrong with black people. Either something wrong with black people or something wrong with society. It was black people or our policies. I thought it was something wrong with black people. And the rest of my life was seeking to overcome those ideas. Nothing wrong with black people and everything wrong with racism. The more i gained a selfawareness of my ideas i could shut myself of those ideas to adopt those ideas that reflected reality. Host i know you are both in your thirties. I thought to mention that as we are speaking in this moment we are saying goodbye to the great icons of our century, john lewi lewis, a civil rights leader being laid to rest in this moment as we are speaking now but neither of you would have this experience of segregation as it was by the john lewis er era, but at this moment does that feel different to you . It is a different generation. Does it feel like a Pivotal Moment in our countries history . Saeed jones it will start with you because you are younger by a couple of years. Guest it does feel different. I feel that now as an adult a lot of my family members who were alive during the height of what we think of as the Civil Rights Era and did experience it as adults, i was witnessing their trauma. There was a lot of silence. But with the situation with me what is going on . [laughter] i didnt have a lot of context because i didnt come from a family of storytellers. They hadnt even gotten over what had happened. But to say this moment does feel different what i have witnessed in my lifetime because it feels this is the first time racism specifically White Supremacy is taken on as a conversation we all are engaged in. In the past as the direct contrast with like sandra bland or treva on martin or eric garner it still felt like black people specifically and they are maintaining the conversation on their own so i feel there is a Coalition Building that feels unique and special and i hope there was some lasting transformation. I want to hear from professor to third on professor ibram kendi at this moment that it is owned as black people does this feel like a different moment to you . Talking about the passing on of john lewis also what is striking during the summer in many ways i feel its almost a passing of the guard from the civil rights generation who shook up this country and then really need to our generation or through these demonstrations or the voices at the heart of the conversation are carrying on that moment to stand on the shoulders of those giants like john lewis so i am beginning to conflate the two. And people of my generation a huge admirer and at the same time to feel it is our obligation to carry on the movement that they sacrificed or even as saeed jones says to be traumatized. Host looking at the name of Charles Evers who so courageously went back to took up the mantle when he was slain in the driveway the want to lift up that name along with john lewis. So speaking a lot about death with your book saeed jones that had so deeply is as a young man you still sought a relationship with death that people are not supposed to feel. Young people are not supposed to think about dying but that is the position of young black men and young black women as well. And if that has changed for you. So talk about the fact in the era of the hivaids, aids epidemic will read as beautifully as you would that you said that the reading of which was performed at your high school around Matthew Shepards death who was viciously murdered in laramie wyoming. And you talk about the fact as i was walking to the dusty hallway to the Assembly Hall when the truth collided can being black can get you killed being gay can get you killed and a black a boy is a death wish if youre lucky one day it will become part of a new project. But it also feels like what we have lived with one reason or another. So did this give you a sense in this current moment that isnt the only path for the future generation on generation of black boys will think of death before they should be . Guest i think there is the possibility to be different when i am struck by is i woke up this morning and forgive me i cannot recall her name but i read about the black trans woman just in the last few days and many that were killed. And the statistics seem to get worse every year. I draw attention to that and then to develop an understanding of our identity to say im not like all the white kids in my class or the straight kids in my class. What is different . Why does this matter . The way the transformation is signaled we are made aware of the peril. We see faces like ours on the evening news. So often to think there were 12 yearold black kids in this country who learned what happened to rice a few years ago that right as you step into identity your country shows you how it treats people who look and love and live like you. I wanted to believe because of media representation and do not think of death first so if you are not white. [laughter] our relationship to peril and death is not the much easier to be a black boy or a black woman in america if you are paying attention. Host recently testified about this the dual crisis of the coronavirus which is a global pandemic. People will say a virus does not discriminate. Just talk about your thoughts about that. Guest and it is fascinating that by late march people were calling covid19 the great equalizer and they could do that because we had the racial data and by early april we started to call for racial data. By the second week of april state started to release racial data we started to see Racial Disparities a black and brown and Indigenous People are infected and killed at a higher rate. Ever since april it has been consistent even to this day black people are two. Five times more likely to die of covid19 they and white people and latina are two. Five times more likely to be infected. By mid april the original explanation is because those black people are not taking the virus seriously or socially distancing but then the end of the month white people protesting to reopen states that argument cannot be made and then to take care of themselves. And those that are even more pressing and productive than preexisting conditions the air and Water Quality of neighborhoods. Do you work in a job you can socially distance . Access to Health Insurance and highquality care. This is never been what is wrong with black people and these Racial Disparities have been reflective of what is wrong with society and why you have communities finally beginning to call racism the Public Health crisis that it is. Host. Guest this was written about in the atlantic quite powerfully a few months ago. As soon as at least the Trump Administration realized or developed some understanding in their mind this was a problem for black people. [laughter] as delusional as that perception is, it felt like all of a sudden the pandemic was taken less seriously. There was a key moment of change you mean middleclass white people who have access of healthcare and ability to take care of themselves will not be as impacted as intensely as black and Indigenous People . Now we are going to the beach. Host but at the current moment is one in which people other than black people are participating they are majority white. And your book is flying off the shelves professor but that is not driven solely by black people so people are interested to learn from your work but how do you feel about that . Im starting to see a lot of conversation if a movement is coopted or if antiracism in the season of unrest is Police Violence so how do you feel about that each of you . Do you want to start . Guest sure. It is complicated. Conversations with my publisher and literary agent , i noticed through sales of my work that this is interesting. It is complicated because of course in the end you have to embrace people who demonstrate a willingness to do the work to think to ask these kinds of questions for those who have been doing this work for generations. So what is more important . Getting in my job or to leverage this moment to push the conversation forward . That is something that is on my mind and im trying to focus on lets get work done well we have their attention. Were a student who typically isnt interested the posture changes, they are suddenly asking questions. Interesting. Any good teacher seizes that opportunity instead of saying why are you like this every day you try to embrace the energy. Guest i have been torn about it. I like that readers are gathering the books of many, not just me who are writing on racism on black life and also what im finding is reading our books is open readers to other books i am pointing to as many as possible even from my book as saeed jones says to take advantage of that attention but at the same time, as it has knowledge or education i would say most black writers , if i could speak for us that want people to do it for the sake of doing it we want them to transform themselves to transform black people for what it is so they can see all the intersections for what it is to be a part of that movement to dismantle that oppression. Host have you seen this in your lifetime . Have you seen true transformation take place . Because congressman lewis one of the first stages of laying to rest was the ceremony Last Crossing when he was received by the Alabama State troopers white and black who saluted him. It was a moment that was never foreseen. People were just overcome by this but yet and yet, and yet, and yet, by the time this conversation errors im sure there will be yet another incident somebody has lost their life. Have you seen it . Have you seen transformation take place . I have seen at the individual level from folks who have read our books and have taken them seriously and have reflected. I have seen policies change and in louisville of course i want the rest of those officers as well who killed Rihanna Taylor but even to be reimagining policing in general and i never thought i would see black lives matter out in front of the white house i certainly thought i would never see black writers on the New York Times bestsellers list and to stay there as long as we have stayed there. At the same time i want lasting transformation and what i want to see is the lack of racial inequities. The lack of Racial Injustice and those policymakers to ensure they are using their power and pushing them to ensure policies on the book that provide lead to equity and justice. Thats what i want to see. Host what fascinates me who is not lgbtq you talk about the intimate encounters throughout your life with people who dont see themselves as lgbtq but yet they are powerfully attracted to you in this way. This goes throughout our history the Sexual Congress of slaveowners with enslaved women. That is what came to mind but do you have some insight because of your experience with the away that dynamic can shift for those who are attracted to the other but then those to be so powerfully attracted . Isnt that a dynamic going beyond the sexual . Its like people love the music but they dont love us. They want our culture but they dont love us. Is there something you have gleaned from this experience to be desired by that you think is applicable . I know that is a lot. You are absolutely on to something. What i would call out the book not gay, straight white men who have sex with men. There is a body of work. That these are ongoing conversations of people who do not know or refuse to identify with those ethnicities they are enacting. Yes come in the same way like breaking into american conversations the idea that it was as corrosive for slave masters. Whiteness and White Supremacy the specific white male toxicity that we all deal with , white men are suffering. There is a dynamic through the conversation where we are not examining our lives or not developing a stronger relationship with ourselves and who we are that is not a neutral status. We are suffering the entire time we dont know who we are. We dont know who we are. What makes you laugh . I suspect just you know i think im rooted in any culture. You know im africanamerican culture and i think one of the elements one of the cultural elements that i think has been passed down through the ages has been the ability to laugh even in a nightmare. You know, to be happy, you know, even in the midst of misery. And to even, you know, figure out ways to really separate if thats possible, you know, that joy from that misery so to literally have space and your space and black space lets say that you can find joy while you know whats on the other side or outside of that space. But i also know that truly racism, you know, based on my sort of chronicling of it, it is really only about 600 years old. And humans have lived for tens of thousands of years. Some would argue 200 thousand years. And so in many ways a young phenomenon it is not like actual not sexism. You know, religious oppression or which extends back into ancient world. This is a new phenomenon. So i always try to remember that. You know, you know when im in the midst of sort of this struggle that in a way we have caught this sort of racism early. Well a couple of minutes that we have left im going it give each of you a choice do you want to give you a choice, you can either tell us what give use hope in the currents moment or give us homework. [laughter] for teachers what do you think . [laughter] i can give homework. Okay professor so i would i think my homework to folks would be to first sort of write down this definition of a racist idea had is any idea that suggest a racial group if superior or inferior to another racial group in any way. And then you can sort of put below that, saying that something is wrong with a racial group is that something is inferior about a racial group and then, you know, the homework is to choose a Racial Disparity whether thats, you know, i mention black people being two and a half times more likely to die of covid19. Or whether that black, white, wealth is about ten times medium wealth of blacks. Or whether black people are twice as likely to be unemployed. And just ask yourself why . And jot down the reasons why. And see how many of those reasons fit into that definition of a racist idea. Okay. What about you you can tell what you say give use hope or you can give us homework. Chihuahua give mess hope but since thats a short answer ill do homework. [laughter] where is he or she . Where is he . Totally hes sitting next to me. Just listen you dont want to back the dragon. [laughter] i think for homework so so much of what you beautifully drawn attention was like, you know, be examined life. But also the way so much of what is going on feels like bit performed. You know, but white people trying to like perform work that in, and this has to be vibrant. I cant tell you what we need to do. It is something that is about you and your relationship to selfintegrity i think the homework is think of a time maybe helps to focus on a word in which you failed to honor someones humanity or cross the bridge. Very easily think of a time you used a word, a slur, or an insult that you now know that you would never want to use again right. And i say in your own privacy dont talk to anybody about it. Dont ask for help about it. Do something privately to make amends. You know . If you use a racist slur against a vietnamese classmate in school dont reach out to that class mate or burden them with your need to work out your feelings to yourselves read a book read something ab the history study art. But do it on your own. And thats something ive been working on myself. Like instead of centering myself in my wrongs and in my failings and then seeking out like this need for like please tell me im a good person. I think of more effective if we learn how to be antiracist in private and frankly hold ourselves to account and that feels like an exercise and developing stronger integrity that, you know, only you will know if youre doing that work. Can i burden you with my cool done lenses on loss of your mother which you write about so beautifully in the book. Thank you so much. Its such a profound experience that i have gone through and i just want to say if i may i appreciate you and i appreciate your talking about what it meant to you and on every level so i wanted to say that and my i burden you by saying im so grateful that you have recovered from the illness that you experienced a couple of years ago. I think that had to be profound life changing experience for you and i sort of wish you good health especially in this current moment an i want to thank you both so much for beautiful work and talking us to about it. Author of how we fight for our lives. It is beautiful. Memoir, and even author most recently of how to be antiracist, and im sure and i do hope well talk again im glad we have a chance to talk together. Thank you both as much. Thank you. Youre welcome. Thank you. Tv is courage of the 20th an usual book festival now continues. Heres author Heather Cox Richardson with her book, how the south won the civil war. History and biography is