Booktv, author adam coleman. Here is his book, black victim to black victor identify the ideologies behavioral, patterns and cultural norms that encourage victimhood complex. Mr. Coleman, were you a black victim, in your words, at one point . What does that mean . Basically, i was very much so looking for excuses in my life. I wasnt taking ownership of certain things that were happening throughout my life, and because of that, i was failing. And it wasnt until i started overcoming these things and i started changing my mindset that my life started to actually take off and the tra. Jectory that it did. So i very much saw the book talks about black culture and the victim ideology that exists within it, but its also talking about myself and what i went through and how i overcame that. What was that experience or era that changed you . I think it was a series of things, one from a sort of religious aspect, you know, throughout the bad times that i had, i realized that it could have been worse. You know, ive experienced some homelessness for a short period time unemployment for a period time while raising my son and then, you know, the best opportunity came from after i was let go from a job after a couple of weeks, couldnt get unemployment had to ask my mother for money, moved back home. But then my Career Opportunity came out of that. So, you know, its those type of things that i became very grateful of and and kind of understood that if as long as you keep fighting, you succeed and you dont have to make excuses. And i want to quote from your book, and this is what you write our Public Relations department has failed us by denying reality and clutching onto victimhood to accrue more social currency. But its a terrible strategy. What does that mean . And whos whos our Public Relations department . Very much so. I believe the black upper class black celebrities, basketball players, you know, lebron james, you know, can you can keep going down that list. Theyre the ones who have the mouthpiece. Theyre the ones who always get the attention or even down to like someone like sharpton. He always has the attention of the world. And he gets to speak on behalf of us, whereas normal people, black people, get to say nothing and were ignored. And everybody gets to say what we want, what they think, and are you saying that a lebron james al sharpton encourage or perpetuate black victimhood . Kxyes. And they they spread a message thats hypocritical through their own lives. So, for example, lebron james said on television, talked about he doesnt know if a cop is going to wake up one day, shoot somebody as if this is a an act of thing that most cops go through. Meanwhile, hes being escorted from court to court by police officers. So his entire life, hes protected by the very that he thinks might murder him. Its a he wants us to believe that. He actually believes that. And if he does actually believe that, thats really disturbing. But he wants people to believe that this is the reality for most americans and most black people, that we are worried that someones going to wake up on the wrong side of the bed and murderous. This is six statistics dont show that reality doesnt show that its its a farce. And in fact in your book you talk about the perception, right . You ask the question, how many young black men have been killed by white policemen and the perception is greater than a thousand for most people per year whats the reality . 2019 is about 13, and that is just saying who are unarmed . It doesnt mean that if youre unarmed, youre not dangerous. So if im unarmed and im wrestling for the cops gun, then the cop shoots me. Im still an unarmed, but i was still dangerous. I posed a threat to the to the officer. So, i mean, if lets say they were all completely innocent, wrong by the cop, cops should be prosecuted. They should be going after. And thats a terrible thing. But in the grand scheme of things, where you talk about millions upon millions of Police Encounters with all americans, including black americans, and the final number of 330 Million People within this country and i dont even know the total amount for four black americans. And you have 19. You you know, that tells me that the narrative is is far more absurd than the reality. And you go on to talk and write about black on black crime. Yeah, i think well, every demographic commits more crime against their own demographic. So people commit crimes in proximity. So if most black people live amongst each other, thats what they commit crimes against. But i think what ends up happening is people want to overshadow the actual violence thats happening in certain people. It doesnt fit a particular narrative. So the pain that these people are experiencing, the families who have to mourn these people, they get overshadowed because the person doesnt look the opposite of them. It just becomes the status quo from black victim to black victor. Quote, we dare not speak out loud so that others outside the black community can hear are distinct. Yeah, i mean, i think theres this theres a narrative that were not supposed to talk in front of other people, like, you know, in front of white people, white people or anybody else. Whats our garbage or whats our dirty laundry . This is our dirty laundry is our dirty laundry. But the reality is, like everybody can see that were dirty, just like we can see that other people are dirty. And its a its a way for us and not address actual issues. Its a way for us to have victims who never get heard or to change the outcome of peoples lives. All because were worried about how other people might see us. Well, nothing changes. So what is the benefit to being a black victim in your in your thinking about this . The only people who benefits or the people who make money off of it. So media makes money off of it. People like al sharpton makes lots of money off of it. As long as you can financially benefit or just get some sort of social currency from it, like we talked about lebron james, now hes an activist, right. So he can take a rare encounter, profit off of it, maybe start some profit, or at least show that he cares so much. Now, hes an activist. Well, thats it. Theyre the only ones who benefit from it. Everybody else suffers. Mr. Coleman, in your lifetime, have you experienced overt racism . Sure. Absolutely. I can count on one hand, i would say that its ever happened to me. The vast majority of my encounters with everybody has been generally good. Im one of the few people in this country. Most people live in one area or one state. Ive lived in five states. Ive lived in urban, rural and suburban. Ive been the racial minority of most people who look like me and the vast majority people i encounter are good people. And i think that the idea that just people are waking up every day or in just large swaths waking up every day looking to find a reason to hate me, just because i look different. I dont think thats the reality of the world today. I dont think that was a reality when i was a kid living in rural new york. Like, thats not what was actually happening. The vast majority of people were actually to me, go to me, help me out. When i was homeless, you know, my boss is white and all the other other managers got together to put me in a hotel. Right. So i didnt and he didnt want any money back. And this is someone who doesnt look like me. You barely even knew who i was. In the kindness of his heart. He did something beneficial for me. So identity politics, in your view, are doing what to this country in its use to divide people . I think race is something thats always going to exist and i dont think race is inherently bad, you know, for black americans its like a cultural thing. Itd be like if you said my parents are from italy or my grandparents are from italy, you associate with a foreign land for black americans. A lot black americans, we dont really have that. So black becomes our cultural reference. So in that aspect, i have no problem with that. Just like i have no problem with someone who says im of italian descent. The problem is when someone weaponizes that when someone says because youre black, you must behave way. You must think this way or predetermine your your your outcomes in because of it. Thats where i have a problem with it. In your book, you tell the story about a package being delivered. Yes, to an old address. After reading that story. Im not sure i would have reacted same way. Yeah. Happen. Yeah. Basically. I had moved from actually a pretty like upper middle class area and i moved back back home in a different and i went to some website ordered a shirt and i didnt realize the last time i ordered a shirt was i lived there. So i went there and it was dark out and i just read ladys doorbell. She was home with her kids. I could hear the kids in the black lady. Yeah, white lady. She was home with the kids in the background. She was peeking through the blinds and she was scared. And could hear it in her voice that she was scared. And she said, you know, like, i dont have a package. Theres nothing going on here. And at some point, i didnt try to press and i said, listen, im just saying youre scared. All im trying to do is get my shirt. And she said nothing came through. And so i went to my car, down my address information, my number. I said, if you do have a package, let me know. I rang the doorbell again. So ring my doorbell again and call the police as im just leaving this here for you. Im leaving. I dont mean any harm. And i felt shocked because. Im not trying to pose any danger. And she called me the next day and said, actually, it was in my mailbox. I said, all you have to do is leave it outside your ill pick it up. You dont even have to see me. And thats what i did. But it took me some time to realize if that was my wife, whos at home and some strange man came to the door saying that is their package. It sounds like a scam. It sounds like somethings going on where someone would say, that lady racist and reacted because i was black. Whereas there are there are so many different ways to kind of view this. And i its an easy cop out to singularly go to as i look different than her back the book black victim to black. Why is racism or race in general always mentioned when talking about. Simple. It is a mechanism of control and reaction. The fact that racism is so demonized in america means it is simply not acceptable. Calling someone a racist in 1920 probably didnt have same sting as it does in 2020. This is a positive in our country. But there are those have found a way to weaponize racism and benefit politically. Yeah, absolutely. You know, racism is a thing is hard to defend. Someone calls you. How do you how do you defend . Youre a racist. Right. If you say i, a black friend, my friends of black, feminist black, you say, oh now youre tokenizing people. So its a easy and actually a pretty ingenious way to slander people. You dont need any proof. You just nd look different than someone else, then, well, thats. Thats a valid. Why you might be racist. Maybe theres something there. And so were going to explore a Story Mission to defame you, to slander you with no evidence. And thats ultimately what happens with identity politics as well. We can say that the reason this person is this way or this this person is part of this party is because the ract ats the evide . Did they Say Something . Do something or you dont anything . Quote, you could publicly call a black conservative anything you want without repercussion. Ive seen it. Broadcaster call people. Uncle toms. Theres actually a twitter account that i follow where they point out all of the and of them are white liberals who say call them uncle , duke the name. Name calling goes on the list, even the nword, and no one says anything. And because theyre conservative. Because theyre conservative. So god forbid you know, Clarence Thomas does something and, you know, the left doesnt like it. Well, then its current because you can say whatever you want. Joyann reid called him uncle clarence on national television. She saw the job. Nothing happens when you slander a black conservative or republican. You can call whatever you want on television and, radio, and no one cares. And i think for me, it wasnt about like im republican because im not. Its a thing that i notice that was an unfair our society. If were talking about caring about black americans and saying how we should treat people like we want to be treated or even just hyper reacting to some sort of racism that might happen, it gets a black person. But have a segment of black people that you can outwardly slander on television in public. And nothing happens to you. And it doesnt even matter if youre black or not. That is something that is is not talked about enough. Adam coleman how would describe your politics . Its hard to peg me down. I would say im politically independent. I, in my writings, democrats and republicans, because no ones perfect. I would say socially more conservative about family, things of that nature. Im prolife, wholly prolife. Im pretty liberal as far as, you know, how we interact with people. I have no problem with people. Sexuality and gender how they want to see themselves. Im kind of libertarian when it comes to that. As long you dont hurt anybody, i dont really care. So im much a moderate in most scenarios. It really just depends on what it is. You talked about the role of religion in your conversion, which you call from black victim to black victor . Yeah, i think it has a lot to do with how i grew up. You know, we moved a lot. We were never really in the church. So when i reached my twenties, i had, like, a moment of trying to figure out, like, what am i . I tell people, im christian, mama, a christian. And so i kind of took the agnostic approach where i just didnt know. And it wasnt. I started appreciating certain even things that were outside that you would normally say, oh, this is a terrible situation, but something good generally came out it. There were moments where i was kind of dangerous, yet Nothing Happened to me. People who looked out for. Who didn to. It was just so many things that it was beyond coincidence in my head. I started realizing that these were tests and god was helping to bring other people in my life to protect me in certain moments he was testing me so all the moments that i went through, i now it as opportunities to highlight the grace of god and the strength that he gives us to overcome these particular obstacles. And i encourage people to keep forward, despite the pain that you might be going through. You have a chapter in here called broken black father. Yes. Where you detail your own experience. Yeah. You know, father was rarely around. You know, my father was always married, but he was married to someone else. So we were the other children. My sister and i and i would see him very seldomly. You know, one of the things that always sticks out my is he lived in detroit at the time. We were in new york and upstate york, and he was a tailor. So he would to new york city to get fabric and see some friends of his from trinidad. He was originally born in trinidad and he would basically treat us like a pit stop. So he would stay there for a couple of nights. But we never really interactive with him and it didnt really seem like he was like happy to see us. We were just there. But the thing that always stuck out to me, that and every visit, i never said goodbye to him. He would always leave in the middle of the night and he leaves 100 on the counter and. That was it. I didnt know that he was leaving tomorrow. No one ever told me anything. And i would never say goodbye to my father. And its kind of symbolic. When he passed away, i had no idea that he passed away until about three months after he died. So i never got to say goodbye to my father or acknowledge any of that. So thats much of like the emphasis where i talk about the broken black father, the ho doesnt care about his kids. And really its its an issue all the way around. You know, in many ways i talk about my experience, but its actually an american problem. Theres a lot of kids who who dont look like me who have gone through the same thing. What do you do for a living . What kind of work do you do for a living . Well, my trade was in it when i wrote this. I was 18 manager. I sat in my office every morning and just started writing, doing something that i wasnt familiar with and, you know, by chance, it just turned into other opportunities. So now i basically freelance write. I wrote for the New York Post almost every week. Newsweek and a whole bunch of other publications. I started roxby. To advocate for people to use their voice, express their opinions in wrong, speak as the Publishing Company was, because yeah, its publishing publish articles. We just started getting interviews for some journalism pieces, not clickbait stuff, but like stuff that people actually care about. And much of the money that i myself gets reinvested into speak. So its much of a passion project that is slowly expanding. We have a staff now and you know, so its its an avenue that i didnt see, you know, a few years ago that would ever happen. Whose louis was, sir . He was a man that i met while i was traveling abroad. I happened to be in madrid, and he was there, and we kept in contact and we would talk about soccer, because im a huge soccer. But one of the things he talked about was his politics. And at the time he was for brexit. And i was like, thats weird because thought brexit was for these racist british people. And i said, well, let me hear him out. So why are you for brexit . And he said, the United States would never allow an outside governing body to tell it what to do. And i said, well, that makes a lot of sense. So i, you know, i understood him and i listen to what he had to say. And from there, we kind of went on like audio book, you know, binge together and exchanging ideas. And he really, really introduced certain concept, libertarian and conservative concepts, things i had never heard before. And he was actually the person who introduced tommaso to me. And i said, thats so because ive been into politics for about ten years. I never heard of tommaso. How come no one ever mentioned this person to me . So he was very pivotal. But i met him by chance, and this is one of t a