Not enough but enough to stop the bleeding but its not like you know volcker thought 20 Interest Rates are going to be fun. He knew that it would be difficult but the country survived it. Obviously we cant survive it now. We dont have the Balance Sheet to afford 20 . We cant even afford 5 . I dont even know if we can afford 1 . I think its still zero, right . But at some point when the dollar loses enough of its value then the Federal Reserve will have to decide are we going to be germany or are we going to be zimbabwe and are we going to let the dollar go to zero or are we going to stop that . The only way to stop it is to jam on the brakes let Interest Rates skyrocket start selling down their portfolio treasuries in mortgagebacked securities so it would be massive debt liquidation. It would be a huge implosion much bigger than any crisis we have had before because banks are going to fail and governments will default in the government will have to default on its debts. He will have to default on its promises to pay Social Security and pay medicare not to future recipients but current recipients. The government is going to have to do that from stop the dollar from being worthless. It doesnt get any good to be made in worthless money. I dont think its that far off because i think the fed is already in this box. The world is waiting for the fed to stop and raise Interest Rates. And going to happen. We will figure up with excuses going to be but they arent going to do it. Because they cant. Meanwhile jenna gillen says the higher inflation is going to get a lot noisier. And that box is going to be exposed. The world is going to figure it out. Meanwhile we are hastening her own demise by finding all these foreign banks spying on all of our allies and listing off all the people we need to be up to. We dont even realize how vulnerable we are. That is how arrogant the country is. But what do you have to do about it . If the dollar is going to go down then you need to get off the ship and dont be lulled into a false sense of the u. S. Stock market. U. S. Stock market went up in the last couple of years based on the idea that what the fed did worked but thats wrong. It didnt work. The only people who thought it worked for the people who didnt understand the disease in the first place. All the people that didnt know the financial crisis of 2008 was coming all the people that didnt know we have a housing bubble until well after bursts these are the guys that are telling us that the policies work. The doctor had no idea the patient was sick now proclaiming he is well. People Pay Attention to it. These are the same people who said there was no problem. Jenna gillen everyone said shes so smart because she was warning about the housing bubble. The only time she ever talked about the housing bubble was too dismissive and say we didnt happen. The only warning she mentioned were the warnings other people were raising and she said they are wrong to be concerned. At the height of the housing bubble she said if im wrong and housing prices go down its not going to hurt the economy. That is what she said so who cares what she says now . She obviously doesnt understand economics and doesnt understand money. Thats why shes the chairman of the Federal Reserve. If she did she would be here. [applause] so the dollar goes down the stock market went up based on all the false optimism the same phony optimism we had in 2005 in 2006. Nothing has changed. U. S. Stocks are going to go back to dramatically underperforming. The price of gold, you know the stock market went down from 40 ounces of gold to 41 and i forget what it is. It went down to eight and now the dow is almost 17,000. Maybe it was 12 to one. I think its gone down two to one or one to one. This is a longterm bear market that the u. S. Stock market is in. It started in thousand so its ongoing. If you go back to 2000 the dollar lost value relative to most commodities its lost a lot of value relative to other currencies. Many of the fern foreign currencies we owned it was lower in 2014 that was in 2000. People think the dow was more valuable but its not. The dollar is less valuable and is going to get a lot less valuable in the future. What are our Investment Strategies . What are we doing . We are looking around the world for the countries that are making the fewest economic mistakes, the fewest monetary mistakes and fiscal mistakes. Again theres nobody thats doing it perfectly. Unfortunately there are no economies that are getting it all right. Its just a question of who is making the fewest mistakes. Thats the best we can do in the world today. But there are countries that i believe represent good opportunities and that is where we invest. We also look for value. Most of the stocks we buy pay dividend dividend yields of five, six, seven or 8 . The recurrence are paid in new zealand dollars or singapore dollars or hong kong dollars or norwegian krone. You are getting currencies that are not going to be inflated into oblivion. And more importantly when we are buying companies we are very cognizant of who their customers are. One of the problems with a lot of u. S. Businesses is their customers are americans and where the americans getting the money to buy . They are borrowing it so when the credits stops the customers stop buying because they can afford to buy what they are buying now. One of the things thats going to happen when the dollar collapses and a lot of people overlook this aspect of it but at if the dollar collapses against other currencies the purchasing power that americans lose doesnt leave the planet. Somebody else gets the purchasing power that we lose. The production doesnt stop at the factories are still here. We have a currency crisis in the doesnt mean factors that are producing stuff they dont stop producing stuff. But what changes is who gets to buy the stuff. Right now americans disproportionately by a lot of the stuff that gets produced in factories around the world. But when the dollar goes down we are not going to be able to afford that stuff. Somebodys going to outbid us so i want to own Companies Whose customers are going to earn the currencies that will gain value against the dollar because those customers are going to have more buying power. So the earnings of these companies are going to go up when their customers have more purchasing power. Most of the Global Customers even now dont need credit. They have savings. Americans have no savings and whatever little savings we have are about to collapse the value. So i dont want my customers being americans. I want my customers also living in the countries that have sound monetary policy, sounder economic policies more freedom, less government. Those countries are there. They are not as free as america used to be but they are a lot frear than america is. So that is where we are investing. That is where you want your money to be. If you are not there physically at least invest in those countries, in best and most Asset Classes and i also think about how i think the world change when a lot of people who were poor in emerging markets were doing all the heavy lifting the ones that were producing all the stuff we consumed and we thought this was a good deal because we get the stuff and they get the work, that hasnt been a good deal for them. Its been a gravy train for americans but that gravy train is going to and end when the producers of the world start consuming their own production what are they going to consume . So i think what somebody in china for example is going to buy is going to be different than maybe what an american bias. If they buy a car chances are its their first car but if America America buys the cards just trading in old one in. If someone tries to buy a car maybe its as if they have a bicycle so its a lot of steel and resources. A lot of the cars the chinese are going to buy they will get from us. We will be selling them all the used cars that we cant afford to drive because gasoline prices are going to be too high. Americans are already driving a lot less than they used to. One of the reasons as they dont have a job. That is one of the reasons Energy Consumption is down so much. Its going to go down a lot more. They are not going to be able to afford the gasoline because its going to be in china or other the countries because as the dollar collapses what happens to bar prices of commodities . They collapse and so if prices go down everybody tries to say deflation is bad. Deflation is great and if youre talking about Consumer Prices the best thing that happens to the consumer is that prices go down but when the dollar collapses prices for everybody outside of america are going to go way down. What do you do when the price of something goes down . You buy a lot more of it or you buy some of it. There are a lot of people from china who cant buy any of it because they can afford it. Why do we buy cell phones . They were 2000 apiece and it costs almost that much to make the car. But now we have them because they are cheap. People buy things because the price goes down and we enjoyed a higher standing of living because prices go down. Thats whats going to happen but in america we will see prices skyrocketing. It doesnt have to be that way for you because if you get your money now out of dollars, if you own the assets and currencies that are going to appreciate, to get yourself on the Receiving Side of that transfer purchasing power, 300 million americans will be a lot poorer but the other people who will be a lot richer as far as whether currencies are going to be able to buy. If you can just reallocate your portfolios now, then you will benefit from that transaction. You are going to have more purchasing power because you own the assets. The same thing when you look at an asset asset, as a country becomes richer assets in that country are more valuable. As the country becomes poorer assets become less valuable. So even if you think im going to hold u. S. Real estate, if america is a poor nation than u. S. Real estate is a lot less valuable. Because whats it worth . Its worth what you if everybody is spending threequarters of their income on food and electricity how much do they have left to pay rent . You know what happens in a collapsing economy people can afford to pay their rent or they move in with their parents where they move in with their kids or they take on borders and they rent out rooms. Even if the nominal values go up the real purchasing power goes down. The important thing is to recognize whats going to happen and recognize that this is bigger than 2008 and you think chico has a possible in such a big crisis to be on the horizon and hardly anybody sees that . Thats what happened before. It was the same thing and its happening all over again. Its interesting that im not the only person that was warning of it that the people whining about the last crisis are the ones are warning about the next one because winners of the problems were and because we understood the problem we know the government did not solve it. The government made it worse. Its not going to make everything better so you have got to recognize that you are not going to have a Second Chance to get this right. What i think is going to be much different about the next crisis in 2008 was in 2008 the dollar rose. It was at record lows going into the crisis and the dollar rose as everybody ran towards the blast. The next crisis, its not going to happen that way. The dollars going to implode. It is a dollar crisis is coming so its going to be very different and it will require a different approach. There a lot of people that think its going to be a repeat of 2008. Its not going to happen. The fed does not want to let that happen. They are fighting the last battle. They dont want deflation. They dont want falling asset prices even though thats what we need. Thats not what the fed wants and they have enough, they can print it out money to make sure its the dollar that loses value and is the world is rushing to get out of dollars its going to be a very different prices. So you have got to get it right and you have got to be early. You cant be late and you cant time it personally. Thats why support you get your account set up, fill out this carton turned the men and we will be able to talk to you. If you have any other questions you can come by the booth and talk specifically about manage accounts we do in brokerage accounts about the fees are, how to get started, how to transfer if you have an i. R. A. Or various types of accounts. We have several brokers from the office. I know we didnt have time to take you a date but again i will be at the booth if you have [inaudible conversations] good afternoon, everyone, and welcome once more to another panel by the harlem book fair. I want to thank Max Rodriguez once again for putting on this event year after year. The Television Audience cannot see outside of this auditorium, but if they could, they would see the street is filled with people, books, theres enthusiasm. Its just a wonderful day, and thank good the sun is out. Thank god the sun is out. I am5cn elizabeth nunez, but bee i introduce myself, id like to introduce my copanelist, Tracey Syphax. Just want to do a quick introduction. My name is Tracey Syphax. Im a 20year entrepreneur. I wrote a book titled from the block to the boardroom that basically has chronicled my life story, and im just here to share with you all this morning. I am also just a recent, just as recent as two weeks ago, one of the white house champions of change for this year by president obama wow. [applause] and i spend a lot of my time, thank you, i spend a lot of my time speaking on mass incarceration and using proper reentry tools, and ill tell you a little bit about why i do that later on. While we may seem strange partners on this stage here [laughter] the thing that binds us is that we have both written memoirs. And for me, its my first memoir. Ive written eight novels. Some of you may know some of my titles, in between boundary boundaryies, etc. I really am an academic. I have been teaching in the City University for many, many years and am currently at hunter college. And this is my first memoir, not for everyday use. So the first question i want to ask tracey is a question that a lot of people ask me, actually, is how do you get the courage to put in print some really true and hard things about yourself . Because when youre writing, when im writing a novel, i can hide behind the fiction. When youre writing a memoir, youve got to put it all out there. Yes. And be thats a good question, elizabeth. A question that i get quite often. In my book i take people to my lowest point in life, and as a 20yearold 20year Business Owner, a lot of people have asked thatni question, why would you do that . And you own a business, i own a construction and real estate could i just ask you, what, why did you do that . Yes. Theres a reason why. Its because as i said even though im a 20year Business Owner and, as i said, i was honored by4 the white house a couple years ago, i also made history aspirinston chambers entrepreneur of the year. Princeton is princeton, trenton is trenton. First africanamerican in the 51year history to ever win that award. So the reason, and to answer your question, the reason why i wrote the book is because i wanted to encourage anybody else thats trapped out in that lifestyle to let them know they can not only come out of that, but they can prosper. I wanted to take people to my lowest point in life and then to bring them to where i am at today as a respectable Business Owner in the community, a community activist, to show them that theres a way up and a way out. Could you talk a little bit about that lowest point in your life . How old were you, and what were the pressures on you to go into that life . Yeah. You know, and i say this all the time, a lot of our kids, we grow up, we dont have an opportunity to choose our parents. We dont have an opportunity to choose the environment we grow up in. It is what it is. I grew up in a single parent household, mother on drugs. I was first introduced to drugs by my mother and her thenboyfriend. Wow. A lot of my family members would go to jail one year, come home. So i grew up thinking that going to jail and coming home was normal. Thats what we did. Only to find out later on in life that thats not what we do. So being able to take people to those lowest points, i started using drugs at the age of 13 wow. Very young. Started selling drugs at the age of 14. And i just grew up in that lifestyle until i was 31 years old. And i finally said enough is enough, and i made a vow in 1993 when i came home from prison, i made a vow to myself and my god that i was going to change my life around, and i was not going back to prison, and i was not going back to that lifestyle. My last conviction was from 1988, and ive been free ever since. Wow, wonderful. He said listen, i have seen you twice since i have been under binge, 1980, 1988 and doing the same thing and he told me three time is the john. Next time you are eligible for 18 years and i can double that sentence and make it 36 years. This guy is trying to take my life and i realize i could not come back before him again and expect to get out of prison. Sometimes i really should be talking about my memoir too. I think people have children and dont realize my sister used to say to me, she said you know what . When youre going to deliver, have a good time because that is the least amount of pain you are going to have. It is a lifetime thing, people have children and dont realize the pressure is in their hands, they could shape it one way or another. You are seeing the other way. I tried to do Something Different with my kids. As a father, me and my wife celebrate 30 years of marriage this august. We have been together for 30 years so we met in the eighth grade. I am telling you my story, everything i have gone through, my family has gone through, a whole chapter in my book where she talks about the experience see had to go through being with the person that has a drug problem, been in jail, trying to get something together says she has a whole chapter in my book, the name of the chapters from that perspective and talk about that. Why didnt she it did affect her quite often. We used to call it our seasonal breaking up where she said enough is enough. Why didnt she go into that life too . She has never been involved with drugs. I did a lot of things from her. Is ironic now that here we are celebrating our 30th anniversary, my wife is a corrections officer. My daughter is a corrections officer, my son is in prison. Talking about how we as parents have a responsibility to our children. My son and my daughter grew up in the same household, my son is in prison and as a man is my responsibility to raise my son right. My wife does all she can, but i say this all the time, a woman cannot raise a man, cannot raise a boy. Take a father to do that. My daughter, corrections officer at the age of 23, she is a 7 year correction officer and as a whole career in front of her and my son, starting to realize the rap he took was the wrong one and he is getting himself together and i had high hopes that he was going to do the right thing. Two she huge questions and you have questions too but one of them, i forgot the name of the woman but she had done the deal and said most of the women were in jail are there because they because of their connection to a boyfriend who pulled them into their life so my question is your wife was important. She pulled away. What was it that had her pulling away and not pulling into the life . You said you got pulled into the life because of your mother and her boyfriend and the Community Around you but there she was. What made her so strong . My wife believed in her children more. Loved me that loved her children, more than she loved me and she told me that. When we broke up the last time she set i have to leave. You are not doing right. I have a son and daughter and my responsibility is to raise my son and my daughter in an environment away from what you are doing and i understood that. Living the life i was living i understood that some my wife is i have been with her 38 years. She is a very grounded woman and very strong woman and i thank god being able to have someone like that in my life, to have that to fall back on because the same relationship i had with my wife for 30 years is the same relationship i had with her mother who is another strong africanamerican woman who is like my mother so these two strong africanamerican women that have been part of my life for 30 years basically set the standard how to conduct my life and brought me from a dark time in my life to who i am today. Why is it your son is in the households with a mother who is a strong woman stands up against this. Why is it the daughter goes one way, what happens to the sun . Before i get there i want to say there was something you said it struck me which was that your wife loved her children more than she loved you. That is pre courageous for a man to say, for a husband to say. That was the passage in beloved that got me, when she says that her husband, you know, he fell apart when he saw what was happening to her and she said i went on and the reason i went on is i had two children and the baby needing my milk and i couldnt just in other words, she was raising my children over my husband and i say that because would you believe i am going to mention my memoir . That is one of the hardest things for me in my memoirs. My mother loved her husband more than she loved her children. I felt always that my mother, my mothers choice she had to make one was always with her husband and i recall a scene in my memoir that my mother had six children ranging from ages 9 to 2 and my father got a scholarship in london and i remember i was 5 years old and i remember seeing my mother crying crying crying every single day. She was useless, she couldnt take care of us, she couldnt do anything. U. S. Couldnt hold it together waiting for letters from my father eventually my mother took that ship from trinidad to england. I am talking long ago. And stayed with him for quite a few months. It just was something that stayed with me for the rest of my life. My friends who didnt have that situation and even in my family, there were 11 of us but i could tell you something at as i got older, all my siblings left the home and my parents died in their 90s, they had a very long life and healthy long life. They were not sickly or anything like that. I began to appreciate that they loved each other more my father loved us too. If they had to make the choice it would have been each other. I resented it growing up which i talk about in my novel but in the end i got to feel they didnt need us. They have a good time. So let me get back to your son, what happened . My son made bad choices. I am talking about the influence, what influences someone to go one way or the other and we are saying parents have a great thought because you were saying that is what happened with you that your mother had a great part in your going that direction. As i said, my wife was very grounded in her beliefs and strong in her convictions and that is why i said it is hard for a woman to raise a boy into a man. It takes a real man to do that and for the better part of growing up i wasnt there. I was in prison. My wife raise my daughter and my son and my absence and my daughter like i said is has a career in corrections and my son is in corrections. I take ownership of that. That is my fault. I also know that my son the last time it was just bad choice. My son my son just went to jail five years ago so he went to jail when i was at the height he was working for my company. Things he did he didnt have to do. He made the choice, people telling him being influenced by that crowd and ending up getting shot and spending time in prison. I want to ask about those choices when it comes to blackmail and it just seems to me, what is it that makes them make those wrong choices . Is it a kind of hopelessness, a kind of like i dont see a future, seeing the future with you. That is a question. One of the things i talk about in the book i grew up in the 70s and 80s in trenton, new jersey. Dont know if anyone hears familiar with trenton, new jersey. There was a street in trenton, new jersey two miles long which in the 70s and 80s was 1112 african americanowned businesses and i grew up in that area so i grew up at a time where i got to see on a daily basis what an africanamerican entrepreneur looked like. I looked i worked for two of them for a couple of years so i grew up knowing what that looked like. A lot of our kids to they grow up and dont see that. They dont see themselves as entrepreneurs and i have been involved with a program for 17 years, Johns Hopkins university, the Business Program and what we do in that program is going to Public Schools and teach six fort seven how to run a business. Africanamerican and Business Owners were part of the program so once again our kids are not getting the opportunity to see themselves. I have been involved for 17 years. I have to be the example of what they can be and i wanted to say this real quick. In trenton, new jersey, i am the only second private citizen in the history of that town to have built a private residence in that town. And i did that for a reason. Number one, once again, kids growing up need to see that image. My office is located on Martin Luther king boulevard like any other Martin Luther king boulevard across the country. One of the most challenging areas in trenton. A nice office, we renovate it. Once again, it is because i can have an office anywhere. Once again, our kids in our Community Need to seek fissions. Not just drug dealers, not fancy cars, clothes, they need to see visions of central entrepreneurs look like them so they know they can aspire to exactly what i believed for many years because i have been a professor in the university and i believe when i stepped in front of that classroom i dont only teach a subject but when the students see me it i give them an idea of what they can be because at this point i had written nine novels and i can tell you that i spoke my first novel at 42, why did i wait so long to write my first novel at 42 . That was because i never saw anyone like me writing a novel. I never saw a black woman and i have to say john oliver kilns, the great africanamerican novelist, a hero, came to my college as a writer in residence and eyes that look at these papers and he said you are a writer, elizabeth. Without that role model, without one who looked like me saying it was possible, i wouldnt have had this career. People talk about diversity as if making different colors in a room but it is not about that. It is about giving young people, older people, if you dont see some things that is possible it is hard to do it so right now i actually i give workshops in my room to residents there. I do it free of charge. It takes a lot of work. I am paying back early. It leads me to the other question about leadership, black leadership. Could you talk a little bit about that and before you do that tell us about the business you run . I believe black leadership myself, i speak for myself, i have an obligation. I have an obligation as a present that grew up in a city neighborhood that has been able to accomplish something in life and be successful. I have an obligation, my obligation to reach back and do more. I wrote this book not and trust me 16, not like getting rich selling these books. I wrote these books to be able to be that with the lot of young folks need. On the daily basis are losing hope. How are they going to get the book . I am speaking as an academic. One of the big problems is they are not reading. I understood that when i wrote the book. I did it if you get a chance bill on youtube and go to the board rob the boardroom and the video will show up. Of very positive message describes this book and the reason i did that is because once again just like you are saying a lot of our kids are visual and audio. I need them to see themselves in this book so i did the video young man out of trenton, new jersey, up and coming rap star and i knew this guy had talent because i gave him my book and said i need a theme song for this book. He did that theme song in one take. If you listen to it it has 10,000 hits on youtube. It is phenomenal that this young mind could create with rap music that song in one take and i didnt have to say take this out and put this in and the video itself when you go to youtube he directed the video, we shot the video in 12 hours in one day, we start in the morning and end at 9 00 or 10 00 that night. The talent that our kids have is there, just needs to be cultivated and brought out. I am going to tell you and you may tell me i am totally wrong, you are unique in this sense, it seems to be that most people when they get theirs, take pairs out of dodge. That is why i am asking about leadership. I just feel i dont understand when someone helps you get somewhere that you finally get there and you dont feel you have a real responsibility to get directly to that person, the community as you are doing. That is not what we see all the time and that is part of the problem we have. I agree and you can talk about that to athletes and entertainers. Millions. I tell you that i am really offended. I turn off the tv when they show programs of People Living in houses where they cannot possibly for a whole month, what do you tell me . The values you are asking me to have. I just feel come john, what are you giving back . It is important. I am very grounded in my faith and my religion and what i believe in and i got that way. It didnt just happen through my addiction to drugs and i say this in the book. I got shot in 1988 and i have but 102yearold grandmother and chief is sharp now. She told me 20 some years ago, i cant tell you to get out of the streets but i will tell you something. God is going to find you in your darkest hour. Only then will you realize what you truly are glitch that happens to me in 1991. I was in raleigh state prison, spent 20 hours in latka for something i didnt do. For years separate. Explain that to us. 23 our law. You dont the come of the cell for 23 hours. In half an hour, like in a yard like this where the walls are so high all you see is the sky. I did that over some things that i didnt do. I had a cousin who was locked up, the correction officer, tried to break it up and he went to the hold and got charged with assault. I got charged with assault. He got shipped to state prison. I got shipp to raleigh state prison. They gave him a street charge. They gave me a street charge. They dropped might street charge, the administrative charge is the prison system charge so i spent a year in a cell that is no bigger than the average sized bath room. That is good. God has a way of doing some Amazing Things to wake you up and smacked you around and he did it then because i remember sitting in that cell, i read the bible from start to finish and found out who i really was and i knew then that i wasnt the guy that landed me there. When i came out of raleigh in 19 around the end of 1990 i was shipped to camden, new jersey, to riverfront state prison and i was a changed man. I was a changed man. I was not the same person that went in. Stuff like that, i really believe, i get this question of a time. If you go back over your life would you change anything you went through . I got a bullet lodged in my spine. I tell people all the time i would not change one thing i have been through because what i have been through is because god wanted me to go through that. He wanted to put me where i am today and do the things i do today and to be an example of what you can do. You made the choice. God put you in the situation but you made the choice. It was a hard choice. You couldve gone either way but you made the choice and that is admirable. Tell us about low award you got from president obama. Lets june 30th, now i can remember this date for the rest of my life. In 2011 when i became a entrepreneur of the year as prison chamber of commerce as the first africanamerican in the 51 year history and the first acts offended but they didnt know it. I thought that was the top. Once i am gone, i was going to be there but a month and a half ago i got an email from the white house. As i said, i developed programs which i talk a little bit about, i also speak in prison and drug rehab stories and Halfway Houses around the country on ending as incarceration for nonviolent offenders and on capitol reentry to entrepreneurship for folks coming home from prison because ive learned this from 1985, october of 1985, i attended the million man march and if you dont have a charge you dont have a job your charge was to go back to your community and create one and i started my business three months after that. Fast forward to june 30th when i got the email from the white house, actually missed it became on tuesday on election day in trenton and i was working on getting a friend of mine of elected mayor and ironic when i was trying to get elected mayor the former police chief, best friends of the day, i talk about him in my book also didnt win, and checked on thursday and the white house had hidden email, and was nominated as a champion of change 2014 and i had to respond and i didnt so i responded that thursday and i was done. So she said listen, give as information by the end of the day and you are still in there. This was unprecedented. Thousand nominees from across the country. I was one of 16. [applause] went to the white house and was on some panels with attorney general eric holder and i believe we are in a good position, attorneygeneral older doing things are revamping the Justice System and criminal laws and all these laws that are continuously incarcerating africanamericans at alarming rates, incarcerating more people in america than any country and it is as immoral that as free as we say we are, it is mainly africanamericans and as free as we say we are we have laws right now, as was written so eloquently in the new jimcrow, we have laws, dont care if youre a convicted for one year in jail or ten years in jail you are convicted to a lifetime when you get home because you will never be eligible for housing, for a job, youre voting rights. All those things you need to reintegrate yourself back into society or strip for the rest of your life. I put my old state number 226926 as a reminder in my book. If i was ever to go back into the job market next week guess what . I will still have to check on the application i have been convicted of a crime. We worked in the state of new jersey and this is why i wanted a chance just recently i announced because it happened two weeks ago, the state legislature of trenton pass a law i worked on tirelessly for three is with the new Jersey Institute social justice called ben the box, which stops employers from discriminating against people with criminal records. It is not the you are going to be asked about that criminal record, just that we want you to release the second or third interview. We thought you could at least a we offered him a job, now we need to hear back before we give you this job and that is giving them the opportunity to get their foot in the door because if you check the box on the application your application only goes in this pile over here and that piles is to not hire a you could be listing your best employes, over 20 years in business during the height of mike company, 18 employees might best jobs are ex offenders because of a comment, 18 employees, some of the best employees i ever had. Looking for an opportunity. I got guys to come to my office on a daily basis a guy cant go back to jail. I just need and opportunity. I will sweep up, i will do anything. I cannot go back to jail. I have a son. When somebody tells you that and you have been through that and you know where theyre coming from is not something you can walk away from. Not something you can just ignore. Winning the award of being a champion of change in the area of reentry into mass incarceration is not something i take lightly, something im going to work on until the day i die because it is such a very important issue. My father used to say there for the grace of god go i. Limited too hard on ourselves, there for the grace of god go i. If you were in gods situation what would you do . I am sure you have a number of questions to ask so we are going to maybe exchange one more question here and if you would line up the microphone so we could go right into your questions while we are doing that. How is your son now . My son is in north new jersey at Anne Hathaway house so he is on his way home. This is my sons second bid. In the first one we sent to north carolina. We fly and my wife takes another airplane and listen. You were young. He came back to new jersey, got locked up again. As a parent you say that but do you really mean it. I am doing it again but like the judge told me, third time is the charm, i am telling him i am not doing it any more. For me as the person being locked up to go into the prison system i dont mind going back. I do at all the time. I will be speaking to the inmates at trinity state prison on september 12th which is my birthday i told him was my birthday. I will be spending my birthday in state prison talking to the inmates for the naacp to have a branch inside the prison because i believe it is such an important issue. This is it, i am not doing it anymore. I think he understands you will be there every single time. I used to say just dont let your children here several hits against the grounds. And under them, this is the last time it takes that sliding for you if you do it again. Tell us your name and your question. Lets go to questions rather than comments because we have a wonderful opportunity. My name is Chris Johnson from albany, new york. The question for Tracey Syphax is what role did the memoir play in your healing process from when you finally came out of hell to where you are today . I talk about it in the book. I was abused as a young kid, 8 years old. My mom moved to texas and when we got to texas she got locked up and i was in a foster home and abused by a young lady that was there. Something i never talked about. I talked about it with my wife. My mom didnt even know. When i wrote the book i talk about it a a lot of my family members found out about its only then. So writing this book, i had a ghost writer that wrote the book so you are talking a lot of full conversations, taperecorded conversations to atlanta. It was almost like on long caps being able to remove my whole life. I start to where i am today. I have a great opportunity to cleanse myself of a lot of things i held in. A lot of things other people did know about and did very well. It was good for me, good therapy for me to do the book. Cspan i will take your question too because the memoir has a kind of cathartic release and you find yourself facing some things you would not ordinarily face and one of them i have to tell you, when i was having my son in hospital in brooklyn which i will not name, the night before i was to take him home the night before, i am getting myself ready because in the morning i am taking my son home. In comes this doctor. He was a young doctor. Along with social Service Person with a clipboard in his hand saying they reported me and i said reported me for what . You know what. Giving your son macedonia to calm him down. I was a professor. I had a ph. D. I had written of book. But i was okay. I dont know what they are talking about. I cant connect. I didnt know what that was. He told me i was the heroin addict. And i said how . Immediately in front of everybody, i didnt care. I said find it. Find where i injected myself. It is in my memoir. It is a hard story for my son to read because it happened on a friday and they have already reported me and therefore the bureau was locked up. I couldnt get my son out until monday and of course at this point the hospital is afraid i am going to sue them so when i come on monday to get my son they have all kinds of excuses. Cheese spitting up, he is this, he is that, you cant take him, i can close my eyes and see myself ripping through that hospital and taking my son and i said i dont care what form you want me to sign he is going out here with me. It is a hard thing and people dont realize, they talk about racism but dont realize the extent to which it affects us. Almost in tears, you kind of hide that from your son because it is like once people believe it is absolutely not true but people believe it. I dont even know what it is about. You hide it and i wrote it in the memoir and is a hard thing for my son to read because the next thing in my head when he gets to go to college and looking for a job they have a hard thing, is an unbelievable thing that happened and that was 1976 missing a long time ago for some of you but that was yesterday for me. Lets take another question. Good afternoon. I am from new jersey, the brunswick area. I have a question regarding your daughter. You mentioned your daughter is doing well in her career and had a Strong Foundation with her mom. Strong africanamerican woman. How is your daughter able to establish a healthy relationship with african black men since there was such a conflict in her life with her father not there and her brother being incarcerated. That is a good question. My daughter has done very well in her relationship with other men. As far as i know my daughter is 30 years old now. I can only remember three boyfriends in her life. Her daughters father who she is not with now and the person she is with now who they are looking to get married in 2015 so i think she has done very well and i think once again i attribute that to her mother. To you too. She talks a little bit in the book also. My daughter will tell you that i am not the father that i used to be and she remembers but also remembers even in my addiction i had my daughter. You know what i mean . I played with my daughter, have a lot of pictures in my addiction, meet with my daughter, laying in the bed with her, so we had that father daughter relationship. She remembered that but she has done very well now. As i said i am an epidemic condition and academic and one thing i always told my female students, sex with a boyfriend, two children, you can be met with your boyfriend all you want but that is the childrens father so no matter what happens you keep this relationship, let them have a father. Was a lesson i applied to myself too. My son has a great relationship with his father. He hasnt got a clue. He hasnt got a clue with what happened in my life. I think when i told him i was getting divorced, everything seems fine, what is going on. It is two different things. I learned it from my parents the same way. Your child is entitled to a father or mother. No matter what your little problem is or your big problem is. Before we get to the question, with my father also, i didnt have a relationship with my father, i lived in trenton, new jersey, which is a 50 minute ride. My relationship with my father, when i did that in school, i took a buzz from trenton to asbury, got beach and went back to trenton. Even today, a relationship i had with