And so i had to find ladies whod. Theres a lot more interesting women in this period that i couldnt find more information about other than, you know, a line or two, their names and so on. So i wrote a seventh chapter, and ive included those ladies. For more information on booktvs recent visit to sacramento and the many other destinations on our cities tire, go to cspan. Org citiestour. [inaudible conversations] [applause] all right. Good evening, everyone. My name is ted hammond, im the chair of journalism here at st. Josephs college. I want to welcome you to the college. This next year will be our 100th anniversary, so give it up, will you . [applause] this is clearly one of the most anticipated, Exciting Events that weve had in that century [laughter] just want to say very quickly that one of the great things about brooklyn is that one day you can be a delivery man in park slope, and before you know it, you are you can become a world famous author, and thats who we have here tonight. Its my pleasure to bring up jessica, the coowner of green light bookstore, whos going to introduce tonights event. Jessica. [applause] good evening, everyone. Im jessica, as ted said, and we are so pleased to be hosting Tanehisi Coates in brooklyn to present his new book, between the world and me. [cheers and applause] hes going to be speaking tonight with James Bennett of the atlantic, so youre in for an excellent evening. We are so grateful for this partnership with st. Josephs college in this beautiful space that has a lot more Seating Capacity than we do in our bookstore on fulton street. Weve had a great fall season already, and were looking forward to some more great events. We have musician Kristin Hearst of throwing mousses to talk about her memoir and the creators of podcast welcome tonightvale on november welcome to nightvale. Before i turn the stage over to the speakers, just a few housekeeping things. Silence your cell phone, and note that theres no photography during the event. If you purchased a ticket, you should have already received your copy, additional copies as well as other titles by coates are available for sale at the green light table throughout the evening. Theres no book signing tonight, but all copies have been presigned by Tanehisi Coates. Be please also note that some index cards were passed around before we started. If you have a question that youd like to have coates answer in the q a, please write it on the card. Were going to be collecting those x James Bennett will sect some questions to be answered select some questions to be answered toward the end of the event. Well collect those later in the evening. Please also note this event is being recorded as well as live streamed to st. Josephs students here on campus. Now, let me introduce tonights speakers. I actually had this whole introduction writer, and tanehisi said, no, youre not allowed to say that. James bennett, the president and editorinchief of the atlantic will be speaking with Tanehisi Coates who is a National Correspondent for the atlantic. He is the author of between the world and me, which as hes recently receive a mcarthur fellowship, the book has been recently nominated for a National Book award [applause] and we just found out this evening the book just won the kirkus prize tonight. [cheers and applause] so the rest of the evening im going to let tanehisi speak for himself. Please join me in welcoming to the stage James Bennett and Tanehisi Coates. [applause] hello, everybody. Thank you, jessica, thank you, ted, thank you, st. Josephs and green light for convening us and thanks to all of you for being here, for your interest in tanehisis work. I think you wanted to make a statement, as you put it at the outset. A statement. [laughter] this is my manifesto. [laughter] i wanted to talk a little bit about why i wrote between the world and me. And today before i signed those 900 books [laughter] between 800 and 900 books, i stopped at book court, and i signed merely 100 books. That was awesome. [laughter] but one of things that happened was there was a young lady there whos a book buyer now who i remembered 20 years ago as a 5yearold, and she worked at vertical books in d. C. , used to be near dupont circle. And i worked there for one summer literally 20 years ago. I was a horrible week seller bookseller. [laughter] just an awful, awful bookseller. You can only love books so much and be a great bookseller, right . Because if you love books and youre deeply interested in books and, in fact, deeply interested in doing the things that books do, you tend not to Pay Attention to things like shoplifters. [laughter] so, you know, i wasnt very good. I did it that summer. But, you know, i had a 30 Percent Discount at the store, and i probably spent about 30 of my check on books, you know . Just buying, buying books. So it was so good to see sofie, the young ladys name. And i went upstairs, i was looking through some of, you know, just the books that they had there, and i saw this book which is so important to me. Its a book of poetry by this woman, carla, and its called the country between us. And its a book of poetry that i read, jesus, i might have been 18 years old. I had just gotten to howard, and id been surrounded by this great community. And shes such a beautiful, beautiful writer. She wrote in such a way that i didnt understand everything that that she was saying, but the pain, the angst. And i have to say the violence now reminded me of something that i just is so deeply, deeply identified with. And she wrote in is such a way that i would read her poetry, and i would walk away. As i said, i would not be understand what she was saying, but i would think about it, you know . And i would go to bed thinking about it. This is what i was saying the other night, james, and id wake up thinking about it. Even if i didnt understand what she was writing about, i would think about it. Im going to trouble you guys by reading a quick poem of hers because i was so moved. This is all going to make sense in one second, i promise you. Im not just taking you through it. And also ive got to take any chance i can to advocate for poetry, by the way, which i think is not [applause] does not have enough friends in the world. I was joking that if i could run a j school, i would make everybody write poetry for the first year just to match the art of writing decent sentences, powerful sentences, really pungent sentences. Carla spent as a young person, you know, time in Central America and in ian europe at Eastern Europe at a period in time where the world was being turned upside down. And this is just when im teaching at mit in writing, i would assign this to my essay class just so they could understand sentences. This is called the colonel. Its about her encounter with an unnamed military official in an unnamed Central American country. What you have heard is true. I was in his house. His wife carried a tray of coffee and sugar. His daughter filed her nails. His son went out for the night. There were daily papers, pet dogs, a pistol on the cushion beside him. The moon swung bare on its black court over the house. On the television was a cop show. It was in english. Broken bottles were embedded in the walls around the house to scoop the kneecaps from a mans legs or to cut his hands to lace. On the window there were gratings like those in liquor stores. We had dinner; rack of lamb, good wine. A gold bell was on the table for calling the maid. The maid brought green mangos, salt, a type of bread. I was asked how i enjoyed the country. There was a brief commercial in spanish. His wife took everything away. There was some talk then of how difficult it had become to govern. The parrot said hello on the terrace, the colonel told it to shut up and pushed himself from the table. My friend said to me with his eyes, say nothing. The colonel returned with a sack used to bring groceries home. He spilled many human ears on the table. They were like dried peach halves. There is no other way to say this. He took one of them in his hands, shook it in our faces, dropped it into a water glass. It came alive then. I am tired of fooling around, he said. As for the rights of anyone, tell your people they can go fuck themselves. He swept the ears to the floor with his arm and held the last of his wine in the air. Something for your poetry, no, he said. Some of the ears were on the ground and caught this scrap of his voice. Some of the ears on the floor were pressed to the ground. So i read this, and im i always thought about, like, the brutality of that poem. And the line that always stuck with me among all of the imagery and detail was there is no other way to say this. There is no kind way, there is no hopeful way, there is no way to make people feel good about themselves at the end of the story to say this. And what i got out of that poem and what i got out of carlas poetry in general and what i got out of my entire study of poetry is, you know, it is the job of the writer to say things in truthful and direct ways. And in ways that maybe leave us in puzzling places, in ways that maybe, you know, leave us despairing sometimes, in ways that make us sad sometimes. One of the most, you know, probably, you know, pointed questions i get about the book and one of the things that people raise about the book all the time is that, you know, it is not hopeful enough. It does not inspire black people. It does not leave black people with a way out, with a way forward. And maybe it doesnt. You know, i think i would have an argument about that, but lets just leave it at that, maybe it doesnt. But, you know, i wanted to talk to you guys about it because i wanted to talk about defense of writing and the defense of literature and the defense of art and the right to create and act, the right to create a piece of art strictly out of a desire to reflect reality. Simply out of a desire to show something, to portray ones experience in the most beautiful way, you know, you possibly can. And i just think, you know, the desire to write something that makes people feel good at the end of the day, desire to write something that is a bedtime story, the desire to give you something that allows you to tuck your children in at night, even the desire to write something that inspires people to be better people, that as a strict motivation is so far away from why i wrote this book. You know, i wrote this book to create, you know, a beautiful work of art that says something that represented, you know, a particular time i was in, that represented something about my relationship to my son and, ultimately, that represented something about my relationship to my country. I dont know why i felt moved to tell you that tonight, but i did. So we can proceed with the program now. [applause] sort of feel like you covered everything. [laughter] so were im going to ask a few questions and then, as jessica said, ask some of your questions once the cards come up. I thought wed explore a couple of the themes from the book and maybe ask you to talk about yourself a little bit more. And the theme i thought we ought to start with is the one that you just evoked in par with that which is the theme of violence. And if you wouldnt mind reading a bit of your own work to start us off. Okay. Pick up with that passage . Sure. This is the beginning of, i guess, my political consciousness, and i am about it, about 12 or 13 years old. And i am becoming aware of, that some of the troubles that i experience in my neighborhood are somehow tied to, you know, greater conflicts and greater problems in the country i live in. And ive been told that all my life. I have been told that all my life, but im beginning to feel it, and im beginning to see it for myself and not just see it as something my parents tell me. Now the questions began burning in me. The materials for research were all around me in the form of books assembled by your grandfather im addressing my son here. He was then working at Howard University as a Research Librarian in the research center, one of the largest collections of africana in the world. Your grandfather loved books and loves them to this day. And they were all over the house; books about black people, by black people, for black people spilling off shelves and out of the living room, boxed up in the basement. Dad had been a local captain in the black panther party. I read through all of dads books about the panthers and his stash of old party newspapers. I was attracted to their guns because the guns seemed honest. The guns seemed to address this country which invented the streets that secured them with despotic police in its primary language, violence. And i compared the panthers to the heroes given to me by the schools, men and women who struck me as ridiculous and contrary to everything i knew. Every february my classmates and i were herded into assemblies for ritual review of the Civil Rights Movement. Our teachers urged us towards the example of freedom marchers, freedom summers, and it seemed that the month could not pass without a series of films dedicated to the glories of being beaten on camera. The black people in these films seemed to love the worst things in life; loved the dogs that ripped their children apart, the tear gas that clawed at their lungs, the fire hoses that tore off their clothes and tumbled them into the streets. They seemed to love the men who raped them, the women who cursed them, love the children who spat on them, the terrorists who bombed them. Why are they showing in the to us . This to us . Why were only our heroes nonviolent . I speak not of the morality of nonviolence, but of this sense that blacks are in a potential need of this morality. Back then all i could do was measure these freedom lovers by what i knew, which is to say i measured them against children pulling out in 7 eleven parking lots, against parents wielding extension cords and, yeah, nigga, whats up now . I judged them against the country i knew which had acquired the land through murder and tamed it under slavery, whose armies fanned out across the world to extend their dominion. The world, the real one, was civilization secured and ruled by savage means. How could the schools valorize men and women whose Value Society actively scorned . How could they send us out into the streets of baltimore knowing all they knew and then speak of nonviolence . Actually, give maybe you should give a little context for this. You write a lot about the sources of that violence in the book, and i think this is a realization you came to later that is driven by fear. Right. Right. Want to well, you know, i think in our current political dialogue there is a separation between what people call police violence, which were very concerned about right now, and what people call as far as im concerned by the wrong name but blackonblack violence and the notion that these two things are somehow separate from each oh. And when i wrote between the world be me, and, frankly, my previous book, i had no fear of talking about the violence that was around me and in my be neighborhood, what people considered to be blackonblack violence. Thats a part of it. That is part of to presentation. And i think when people look at africanamericans in the neighborhood, there is a way in which they look at our mannerisms, the way we walk, the way we talk, the way we pose, some of our practices, the violation itself, and what they see is rage. And what they see is this need to express power. They see machismo. And thats probably what i saw as a young person too. By the time i was older and by the time i could look at young boys at about the age i was, you know, i could see something else. And what i saw was fear. And the violence i talk about, the violence that is an enabler is the product of that fear. And when i wrote between the world and me, that was really, really important to say. It was really important to alter this narrative of rage which is in itself the specter of white fear, by the way. It is the shadow of white fear. But i was concerned with black fear, because i think when you do that, you can soften the people. You know, we begin to have humanity then. You know, we are just so often portrayed as like, you know, invulnerable, not being scared, not really, you know, i dont know, having the same fears that anybody else would have who lived in those sorts of neighborhoods, but we were afraid. We are afraid. And i just thought that was really, really important to say. Its a pretty powerful thing you say that as a child when you were shepherded into these movies that the heroes of the Civil Rights Movement struck you as ridiculous. I dont know if you include king in that list at the time. I did at the time. How do you think about them now . I think of them as peoplely heroic now. I supremely heroic. I think of them as having access to a kind of morality that i dont, and i think a lot of that is because i dont have a rooting in the church. So even the logic of it, i cant i think, like for instance, i think a lot of it is rooted in the belief in the afterlife which i dont share. I think a lot of it is rooted in the notion of a supreme god of justice and law and morality which i dont particularly share. But i think in spite of that, you know, you cant watch the end of the Selma Campaign and see dr. King, you know, give the how long, not long speech and not be terribly, terribly moved. You cant watch the last speech he ghei, you know, before he would die the next day where he is sick and so tired and literally falling away from the microphone, you know . This is the mountaintop speech, and not be terribly, terribly moved. These are people who every, you know, willingly day in and day out gave of their bodies, you know . I mean, put their lives, which is, you know, to my mind all you have, put their lives on the line, you know . For a world that they would not necessarily see. At the same time, i think whereas the broader country feels celeb story about that, i feel incredible anger. It never should have had to happen. When i see president obama it this is not anything personal about him, but, you know, when i see the president going to selma and commemorating bloody sunday, it bothered me. Had the president , had the government been doing its job at the time, bloody sunday would never have been necessary. It never should have happened in the first place. Martin luther king was killed. And the Voting Rights act, the civil rights act, the housing act, those things dont make it okay that he was killed, for me. I dont feel that his death is redeemed by those things. And so it is not even so much the sacrifice, it is not even so much the ethic of nonviolence, which i get, not so much the tactic of nonviolence, which i get now, but it is the celebration of it by people who dont necessarily even embrace those values themselves. And, you know, i find that bothersome. What do you think about the relationship between violence and political progress generally in American History . I mean, baldwin we were talking about James Baldwin last night right. One of the things he wrote, i think in fire next time, was that blacks were that heroism and violence were generally linked in American History except yeah, thats it. Thats it. Well, i think, you know, theres no other way to say this. I dont think theres really you can point to political progress in terms of black people without looking at violence. Now, there are people who say that in a kinder, who have said that in the past in a kind of eldridge cleaveresque, braggadocio kind of way. I dont mean that. As a matter of fact, i think thats a great tragedy. Maybe thats not even true of black people, maybe thats true of any state anywhere. But it is not, you know, through as i say in the book, through ice cream socials and picnics that emancipation for africanamericans in this country came. 600,000 people died. It was through great violence. And part of the way that war was won once it got really, really crucial was by enlisting former slaves to do great violence against, you know, slave master. And backwards, and the other way too. Thats how emancipation came. Theres one way of looking at the Civil Rights Movement that says, you know, that focuses in on the protests, and i think the protests are really, really important, but you cant really separate the history of the Civil Rights Movement from world war ii and from, you know, americans seeing racism taken to its most lethal ends. You cant separate it from the cold war, you know . You cant separate the freedom rides from bobby kennedy, you know, watching the freedom rides and saying, you know, were out here talking about democracy, this embarrasses us. You know, this has to get dealt with. And the folks during the Civil Rights Movement, you know, knew that. And so i dont take any joy, like, out of this. But its hard for me to see moments of political progress for africanamericans in this country and to separate them from violence. And, again, i dont mean that in any sort of heroic or braggadocio, anything like that at all. But violence is part of politics, i think. So in that context, how do you understand the violence that we saw in baltimore and ferguson over the course of the last year . Or more . I dont know yet. I dont know yet. I dont want to say this because i dont want it to be true, but i think it is possible, i think its possible that the violence is part of why those officers got, you know, ended up being prosecuted. I think that thats possible, you know . We know very much that, you know, theres a common myth that the riots that happened in the 1960s resulted in nothing, and we know very much that Lyndon Johnson when he passed the housing act, he talked about the riots. You know, there is Political Action that results from that sort of thing. That doesnt make rioting a good thing any more than it makes Climate Change a good thing, any more than it makes hunger a good thing. You know, rioting is something that happens when you put people under enormous political pressure or when your team doesnt win the national championship. [laughter] happens then too. [laughter] weird activity riots at howard over there. You were never in contention. You know, but rioting is a thing that people do, you know, when they feel that their backs up against the wall. And it is true that states often respond to that. Again, that does not make rioting a good thing. Its a statement of fact and not a statement of values. And so if i were out there, you know, i certainly would not urge think about to, you know, to take to the streets or to burn any or to do any sort of violence. On a moral level, i dont think its correct. I dont think the destruction of other peoples stuff can ever be justified. I dont think the potential for the loss of life can ever be correct, you know . And no matter what a system does, you as a individual have a moral responsibility to deal with that. At the same time, when i hear people who have power, you know, who have some amount of stake in the kind of violence that has regularly characterized baltimore from the time i was a child and before that, stand up in front of podiums and dismiss people as thugs or whatever, again, it bothers me. It greatly, greatly bothers me, you know . So theres that. Were still in it though. You know, ill have more developed notions once were out of it, but were still in it. All right. Well, this is probably a question to get at your method as a writer, i guess, a little bit, shifting gears. Id love to hear you talk a little bit about, if you would, about how you came to write this book. You said to an interviewer over the summer that you couldnt one of the wonderful things in this book the if you havent read it yet is its the partly the story of your becoming conscious, as you put it, in stages growing up and then at howard and then after that. But despite all of your reading and everything, all your thinking and reporting, you said that as of 2007, 2008 you would not have written this book right. And that you were radicalized in years after that. Right. So what is it that happened that brought it about . Well, you know, i had, i was very fortunate to be hired by James Bennett to work at the atlantic. Thats not what i was trying to get at. [laughter] but this is real. This is actually true. Not fishing for that answer. [laughter] when i was hired, it was, you know, i began writing for a magazine i think had that was interested in ideas and was interested in big notions and, you know, putting its footprint on things. That allowed me to expand how i thought about things. The second thing is my primary job was to, you know, fill a blog space with thoughts and notions. And i took that as an excuse to go back and study some things and to read some things and then to write about what i was reading s. And people would comment. They would read the stuff that i was writing, and they would comment on it, they would say you should read this, you should check out that. I had always been interested in history, but probably the past seven years, period of seven years have been, you know, particularly intense for me for the amount of reading that i did. Africanamericans who are in public and are somehow affiliated with politics carry this burden of having to be uplifting. You know, having to Say Something positive to the youth. In the most thin possibly way of that definition, by the way. Historians have no such burden, you know . Thats not how historians are judged. They write their work, and as sad as it is, most people dont read et anyway, so they just write it. [laughter] i dont care, its not going to have any impact anyway. But, see, that frees them, you know . And, you know, i always say this, but its like people who say, you know, my work is hopeless, my work is pessimistic, you should go spend some time in a history department. [laughter] i was back there when i was signing those books, i had an audio book with me, and im going through still, im going to finish soon, but barbara tushmans history of the 14th century in europe. You know, were talking about the black death, were talking about the 100 years war, were talking about skies m in the Church Schism in the church. We are i mean, you think whats happening on the streets of baltimore, were talking about people taking petty offense and then challenging folks to jousts, duels with battle axes [laughter] i mean, this is what these guys are doing. They literally would have gang fightings. Like you get 50 of your boys, your biggest nobles, and i get 50 of mine, and were going to do this. They could it championship, 50 of your best champions. But its really the same thing. Its really no different than you stepped on my sneakers or you said this to my girl. Its the same sort of language. This is not uplifting material. [laughter] but its deeply enlightening material. Its very you know, you feel like you know more about the world. You know, that in and of itself is a beautiful thing because for me, you know and, again, maybe this is the absence of religion i accepted and i have accepted that, you know, my life is precious, you know, all life is precious. It can with be snuffed out at any moment, and then that will be it. And the time that i have here, you know, i just want to understand as much as i can. You know, and so to understand is, for me, in and of itself a gift. So i had this great purity at the atlantic where i just spent a lot of time trying to understand things. And then that put me in a difficult position when it came time to write because its like, again, having a certain prominence. Youre expected to say certain things. But the people in the back of my head talk very, very differently about the world. And they talk very, very differently about, you know, the fate of what you know, i make statements sometimes like ill say, you know, listen, i have some doubts, or i would not be surprised if, you know, White Supremacy was with this country, you know, for the entirety of its life span. People say, oh, my god, horrors. How can you say that . And i say, listen, go poll a hundred historians who study race and White Supremacy in the community, and ask them if they would be surprised by that. Im living in france right now, and france has been dogged by antisemitism for, what, a thousand years or Something Like that . What sort of expectation is this for me because im taking too long . Oh, no, those are the questions. [laughter] not happy with the job im doing. Right. [laughter] get on with it. [laughter] but im just saying like, you know, that period. I mean, this is a longwinded [laughter] that period, i mean, i think it just changes your angle. And i dont even know that radicalize is right, i think it switched my orientation quite a bit. Do you think we can i mean, thanks for talking about way you work, because it is, i think, really better than any writer i know. You do this unbelievable job of connecting whats happening today to whats happened over a long period of time, and youre traveling back and forth constantly between narratives of what we see around us, what you see around us and its links to the recent past and the deep past. But from your study of history, are you you say theres lots of reasons, a lot of it is hopeless, but do you see areas where we have managed to escape or overcome yes. I mean, you know, i think obviously 50 years ago we could not have had an africanamerican president. I think what that means is we have, we are prepared to have a society where individual africanamericans through some mix of hard work, talent and a lot of luck achieve great things. I think were okay with that right now. That is our progress. We obviously dont have enslavement anymore. Thats gone. But, i mean, this goes back to your earlier question. When you think about how did we get there, you know, i see people being killed. You know . And its like even like whatever sort of progress, its great be violence. And what does that mean about our fate . What does that mean about societies in general . Forget just america, what does that mean about human societies period . I dont know. All right, thank you for these. Ill go to the audience questions. The first ones a good one, i think. Do you think between the world and me has had a bigger impact on the world or on your son . Do you wish it were the other way around . [laughter] its not going to have much of an impact on my son. [laughter] he heard it all before. No, i mean, the book is not i mean, the book is written as a letter to him, but nothing is actually new to him, you know . Be everything in here is pretty much stuff that ive said to him already, so its had no impact on him. And hes read the book several times. Its just, okay, daddy writes. [laughter] he liked the book, he thought it was a good book. [laughter] you did all right. Okay. [laughter] what about that comic book though . [laughter] ms. [applause] i cant judge what impact its had on the world. Im not fit for that. You did a little bit of this at the top, but do you have any advice for students and young people who want to do what you do . Yes. Yes, yes. Realize, read, read, read, read, write, read, rinse, repeat. [laughter] thats the job. That really is the job. And live, you know . Just go out into the world and live. But i think, i think you probably shouldnt think too much about getting published. If you get published, thats great. Its a lot easier now. Think a lot about getting better. Avoid any trappings of glamor. Avoid any ambition towards gamor. Glamor. Get adjusted to the loneliness and the misery and the horribleness [laughter] of sitting by yourself and facing a blank page. [laughter] and if you can adjust yourself to that, there are all sorts of beautiful things that will come after. A long time after. [laughter] but they will come. They will come. But i think you really have to adjust yourself to this sort of almost spartan existence of being a writer, you know . I think im probably not the best friend i could be, you know, largely because of where my commitments are. And youll find yourself having to sacrifice, you know, that i think. Dont drink too much. [laughter] no, i mean, this is real. This is not moral advice. This is because writing is a job, and its a thing that has to get done. And if you are out, you know, until two in the morning and youre not getting up until two in the afternoon, youve lost time for practicing your craft. Dont get on drugs, avoid drugs probably. [laughter] probably. Again, its not a moral argument. I mean, but the sanctity of your mind, the space of your mind is actually very, very important when you a writer when youre a writer. If you want to do a bunch of drugs and drink, go do something else. And thats fine. But if youre going to be a writer, like, your mind and your clarity and your vision is so, so important. For me i actually found and, again, this sounds overly moral, but i actually found monogamy and having a child at a very young age to be crucial. It rooted me and disciplined me and put me in a place i could not go out and do some of the things that people my age you know, my son was born when i was 24. I could not go out and do some the things that a lot of my friends in their 20s were doing, but that actually meant i had more time to write. There was nothing else to do. What are you going to do, youve got to write. I think, like, committing yourself to it, you know, and committing yourself to the clarity of it, i think, is hugely important. Im trying to extract there are a number of questions on similar themes, so and a number of them ask versions of this particular question which is many searching quotes on the to internet, i found a quote by you that says, but race is the child of racism, not the father. Its actually from the book. Uhhuh. Can you please elaborate more on that . Because i tried to give it my own meaning, but i couldnt. Sure. This is a pretty you will remark at how simple it actually is. Theres a great historian called barbara fields who wrote this book called race craft, she lays it out pretty well. This helped clarify things for me. Okay. So americans generally believe that the problem in terms of racism in this country is that you have a few or several different disparate groups who do not get along. And one of those groups has more power than the other. And that if we could just get the groups to get along, everything will be okay. This is the theory of race. And its benevolent theory of race. Its in our vocabulary, racial relations, race here, race here, and if we can improve relations between them, everything will be okay. Racial discrimination, you know, theres a race of people over here, and if we could just stop doing certain things to that specific race of people, everything will be okay. And so the racism comes after. Okay . The racism, the race exists and youre doing something to, you know, a race of people, and that act is racism. But the race itself already exists, its a real thing, its a demonstrable thing, its an obvious thing. That is built on the notion that black people themselves are a race of people that come out of africa. And white people themselves are a race of people that come out of europe. And asianamericans are a race of people that come out of asia. And native americans are a race of people that, you know, have lived here, you know, for a long time. Lets say. And increasingly hispanics and latinos are a race of people that somehow originated, i dont know, in the past 50 years or so. [laughter] it just happened. They just became a race, weve got a race now. Theres another race. [laughter] and if all these races could get along, then we could somehow fulfill the promise of america. That actually is the problem. Thats the notion that, in fact, race is the parent and racism results because these groups cant, you know, get along with each other. One group keeps doing something to another group or whatever. But thats not how history actually works. There is no coherent definition of race, be that white, be that black, be that latino, asianamerican, however, that you can maintain across time and geography. And this is easily demonstrable, okay . I am considered a black person be right here, right . If i were in louisiana in, say, 1750, i might not be considered that if i were living in new orleans. If i were in brazil, i might check some whole other block. If i were live anything apartheid south africa, i might check colored, for instance. We know that when irish people came to this country, when people came from italy to this country, when jewish people came to this country, we know they were viewed in varying degrees as being white. They certainly werent immediately accepted as white. We know this. We know there was a political process. But suddenly these groups of people became white, but it wasnt their mere arrival and everything was okay. In fact, we even know that different, quoteunquote, races of people by which i mean, you know, some people having a darker, darker skin, inhaling and hailing from Subsaharan Africa have been in interaction with people who have fairer skin and lived in europe for some time throughout our history. And we know the relationship has not always been the relationship that it is right now. We know, for instance, during the the 14th century to 15th century, the primary threat at least in the mind of, quoteunquote europe peens and even that word is wrong was, in fact, the turks or muslims. And they constructed themselves as being part of christiandom. And we know in africa, you know, certainly if you were a member of an ethnic group, there was no reason to think of to yourself as black or as part of a race. This is a modern invention. And when it begins to happen is when you see a need in the western hemisphere for labor. And for folks to be carried across, you know, oceans so that they can labor on behalf of other folks. And there was a need to justify that lay labor. And you read american slavery, american freedom, you can see the first group of enslaved africans coming to this country in the early 17th century and actually intermixing with indentured servants. Intermarrying, in fact. Having kids together, doing what hiewbses, you know, do. And, you know, there really being no laws against it, people not looking at that and thinking thats an awoman nation. All of abomination. All of that came later because certain laws were passed so that you could maximize the amount of enslaved labor that you could possibly have. There is no reason why, you know, one drop theres nothing biological about a one drop rule at all, nothing. It comes out of notion of having as many enslaved people as possible. What im trying to get you guys see was it was an actual process. It was a done thing. This is not the word of god. This is not even science. This is a decision that was made. This is literally laws that were passed, policy made to decide whos black and who i mean, plessy v. Ferguson, plessy was like James Bennetts complexion. But he had some distant african, you know, ancestor somewhere in there. And literally in the case the guy writes, listen, im not here to figure out whether this dude is black or not. Thats not really whats up, was he couldnt. Because he couldnt. Theres no coherent definition of it. So when you understand it in that way, you get that we made this world. And the trouble with that is that means you have some responsibility and even an ability to unmake the world. To make it different. It really is on us. You know, this is not some curse that somebody else gave us. We did this. So i think its, like, really important to realize that. So that, you know, is a long way of saying race is the child of racism, not the father. Heres a short and very interesting question, i think. How, if at all, would this book have been different if you had a daughter . [laughter] thats impossible to say, right . I had 15 years with samari, and thats my reflection of 15 years with him. I dont have a daughter. I cant know. I cant know. Now that youre living in paris, are you considering writing about Race Relations there now that were very far from its role as a haven for black americans. Maybe you want to reflect on that. Its not so great for minorities these days. Well, there are very few places in the world that are great for minorities. Thats part of the definition of a minority. [laughter] you know, its very, you know unless its an oppressive minority. You have that sometimes too. But in general, in a quoteunquote democracy, things tend to be not all that great for minorities. So just a word on this. I like france, i like paris, i like baguettes. [laughter] i like wine, i like cheese. I love paris like i love new york. You know . And i do love new york. Do i love new york because i think theres no racism in new york . [laughter] no. You know . I love new york because i love the village, i lo brooklyn, thats why. I love harlem. Thats why i love new york. And its no different with paris. Paris just a place. Its not an escape, or at least in that sense. It is different in the sense that when i speak my wad french, people recognize me as american. And the first thing they see is dumb american. You know . And this takes precedence, you know, in their mind at least over, you know, my skin color. My skin color. By the way, my skin color an africanamerican be, not africans who, you know, descendants of africans who live there and speak french perfectly fluently. My skin color, as an africanamerican. So it is a very, very different feeling. But i think on one hand the need to say, like, well, france is less racist than america and on the other hand the need to say, well, in fact, france is actually much more racist but it does x, y and z, i think youre in the wrong game. I think thats a fools errand from the jump. I think the thing to do is try to observe what the societys actually doing, you know, and use that as a standard of itself. I dont, like, observe america and think about racism in america, you know, in comparison really to other places. Thats not really my goal. Im trying to see the country in and of itself, and, you know, i would expect to do the same thing with france. Although, you know, its impossible to avoid making some comparisons. But i hope those comparisons will not be, you know, as mean as, you know, french people do racism like this and americans do racism like this. [laughter] i hope to get something a little deeper than that. You know, theres not a single question in here about comic books . [laughter] i was leaving that to you guys. I assumed somebody was going to ask about black panther, but its not here. Staying overseas for a second, this questioner says that she or he is an immigrant from africa. How can we continue to make genuine solidarity between Africanamerican Community and african communities . I dont know. Im going to disappoint on that question. Im not sure. I have, you know, spent my time studying, like, really, really specific things. The africanamerican experience in this country is broad, is textured, is multiple layered, and it is very, very hard to have any sort of general expertise in it. You know, you can have some sort of knowledge in specific areas. You Start Talking about the diaspora, you know, and it becomes even that much harder. You know, so the question like i immediately go to, what do we mean by africans . Solidarity with ethiopians, with South Africans . With senegalese . Is it different . Ghana has this program now where africanamericans can go there and get citizenship. Does that mean Something Different . Is there some sort of different relationship there . Can we generalize it in that broad sort of way . Thats not to insult the question at all, you know, its a decent question. But i think its one that, you know, requires study. It would require study from me, you know, it would require more than i know right now to actually intelligently answer. All right. This questioner says not sure if you know the history of this neighborhood, fort green. Ask spike lee. But many poor people of color were displaced to make this area beautiful and safe enough for, quote, us. Unquote. How can we respond how do you respond to gentrification . By advocating for rep prayingses, repeat reparations, repeatedly, over and over again. [applause] gentrification is just a funny word to say black people have less wealth than white people. I mean, that really is the bottom line. It would not neighborhoods change all the time. And, you know, in their makeup and their ethnic makeup. The problem is black people dont really have the same level of selfdetermination to decide whether they want to stay and whether they want to leave. And the reason why they dont is because, you know, and this is just, you know, the clearest example i can offer, we have a huge, huge wealth gap in this country. For every nickel of wealth that an africanamerican family has, a white family has a dollar. Twenty times the wealth. What expectation should there be that folks can live where they want or can have the same sort of choice about where they want to live as other folks when its that big of a wealth gap . And you know, there are all sorts of affordable housing, things making it easier for folks to buy homes, etc. , but until you get to that root problem, that huge wealth gap which is the result of policy which is not the result of magic, which is not the result of science it is the result of a particular kind of social science and social engineering but it is the result of decisions that we made. When we built the middle class in this country, ive made this case before, we made decisions about who was going to benefit from the kind of social engineering we were going to practice to to offer people the ability to build wealth through home loans. This is the principal way we built our modern middle class. And we decided black people werent a part of that. Not only that individual black people were not going to be a part of that, but whole blocks where black people moved would not be a part of that. How would harlem look if we hadnt have done that . How would fort green look if we hadnt done that . How old bedstuy look if we hadnt done that . If africanamericans had the same access to the social safety net when we made all those great reforms in the 40s and the late 30s . What would be the difference then . What would the world have looked like if we had not, you know, made a decision to only offer unionized labor to certain people . What would the world look like . What is the percentage of africanamericans on Fire Department right now . I know theyve made some efforts, but at one point it was, like, some depressingly low number. What would the world have looked like without that vim nation discrimination . My argument has been of late that that adds up. And so when you start on the level of, like, looking at fort green and saying, you know, what the hell is going on here . How come black folks cant hold on to anything here . But, see, it was game, set and match 20, 30, 40, 50 years ago. Youre too late. You are in the Fourth Quarter with two minutes left, and youre trying to, you know, win game, and youre on your own 2yard line. And youre saying why am i on my own 2yard line with only two minutes left . But, see, there was a whole third quarter, second quarter, first quarter. There was a game that happened before that. And if you start with the analysis right there, youve missed it. Youve missed it. And so, you know, i think like when we get to the point of talking about gentrification, you know, like youve got to dig deep. Youve got to go further back. It didnt start here. You know, the expectation that certain folks would show up to this neighborhood and decide they want to live here and that black folks will be able to have that same sort of deciding power given the past history of housing in this country makes no sense. You know . Gentrification is, you know, not so much lamentable as it is predictable. It is what will happen. Period. Some folks will have more choice about where they want to live than others. Because that was our policy for so long in the 20th century, to limit ability of black people to have the sort of decisions that other folks in this country do. So, i mean, fort green is predictable in that sense. Heres maybe a tougher or a pained question, a good one maybe for you to address before a new york audience about the book. You mentioned firefighters a minute ago. You wrote in your book that the firefighters who died at the twin towers were not human to you. Do you till feel that way . Still feel that way . No. I mean, the book is reflective of how i felt at the time. That part of the book comes after my friend prince jones was killed. Prince was killed september of 2000. My son was born in august. And thats, just, you know, a huge thing that the book turns on. My friend was killed by a Police Officer. The Police Officer wasnt prosecuted, wasnt fired, nothing happened. It was, like, whatever. He was mistaken for some other suspected criminal who charges were never even brought against. He was followed from the suburbs of maryland into washington, d. C. Out into virginia, and he was shot mere yards from his fiancees house. His mother, mabel jones and as i detail in the book had worked herself up from grinding poverty, was a child of sharecroppers, gone off to college, served in the navy, went to med school, became a radiologist. Shed done everything that, you know, you were supposed to do in america to, you know, improve yourself. And her child was just shot to down. They did nothing, and, you know, nothing came of it. And so when 9 11 happened and i saw all of that great pageantry, you know, for the police, for the firefighters and, you know, even the victims, to be frank with you. I just felt cold. I had nothing for anyone. I had nothing for any victims at all. I couldnt see them as human. As i say in the book. Because what made their deaths any more worthy of commemoration than the death of prince jones . I couldnt understand it. Surely, they were victims of terrorism, but my friend was a victim of a kind of terrorism that is as old as this country. And there was nothing for him. That was how i felt then. One of the things that happens, though, is, you know, you get older. Thats the first thing that happens. And part of getting older is that you can explain your pain, and you can explain why you feel a certain way, but that dont make it right. You understand . Its like i can explain to why riots happen, but it doesnt make, like, burning a cvs down correct, you know . The New York Times published a series probably about three years after 9 11, and the series was specifically on the Fire Department. And it sought to talk about, like, the decisions that happened that day and why folks, you know, went into the buildings, because the Fire Department had just, you know, a level of casualty that was beyond even the police department. And they did it in such a way that it was like this big thing like firefighters, this guy right here with a wife, with a kid, you know what i mean . With, you know, people that loved him. You know, with people that hated him, you know . I came to regard the destruction of individual life as a tragedy. And it does not matter how other people commemorate that. You know, my beef with other folks has nothing to do with whether i could have some level of empathy with destruction of individual life. Those are two separate things. Now, i can talk about, you know, hypocrisy up one side and down the other, i can talk about my pain, but it does not improve me to not be able to see, you know, folks whose lives were taken from them as human. That was a process. That took a while. I certainly did not feel that way at the time. There are so many good questions in here, unfortunately, i think i can ask one more x then we need to bring it to a close, and this is maybe a good point to end. A number of people are asking about your sources