Transcripts For CSPAN2 Book TV 20130807

Peniel joseph. [applause] good afternoon, everyone. It is my pleasure to welcome you to our third panel of the day. Again the title was 50 years later blacks in the 21st century. The panel is framed around but kind of progress blacks have made since the Civil Rights Movement and the endorsement challenges and quality that these African Americans in the 21st century. The organizers have formulated two major questions for us to talk about. The first is of historical and contemporary factors continue to make racial equality a contested and elusive concept in the 21st century. And second, what kind of knowledge can we mobilize to face the specific challenges of racial inequity in our contemporary moment. I am absolutely thrilled to be able to be in conversation with two and possibly three speakers, dynamic speakers and thinkers today and i would like to introduce you to that before opening the conversation. Joining us is farah griffin, a professor of english, comparative literature and africanamerican studies at columbia, and she has also served as the director of the institute for research and africanamerican studies. Her most recent book is forthcoming in september, harlem nocturne Women Artists and politics during world war ii. Pardon me. Our second panelist is peniel joseph, founding director of the study for recent democracy and professor of history at but Tufts University and the author of wait until the midnight hour and dark days and the bright lights for to barack obama. The third is scheduled speaker is kendall thomas, who is traveling in from brazil. And unfortunately has not yet arrived but we are hoping he will take the stage as soon as he does come. I will introduce him and his absence. Hes a mass producer of falcon and co director and cofounder of the center for the study of law and culture at columbia and university and is one of the editors of the Critical Race Theory set for the movement. So we have three powerful sinkers and visionary speakers. [applause] welcome, kendall, it yourself comfortable and we are glad you made it. Barack obama set up our conversation about blacks in the 21st century through his comments yesterday. But i want to put into a larger context because we are trying to take a backward and forward look on this conversation. Where have we come to sense in the 50 years since the march on washington . At the same time, this particular moment is framed by the events. The first is in the three and a half weeks ago actually, the Supreme Court overturned the domestic marriage act and struck down the Voting Rights act. At the same time, seven days ago George Sinner minn was acquitted of the murder of Trayvon Martin and yesterday the first black president barack obama wrote his Second Public statement on the state of Race Relations in the United States. So this is a key moment to reflect on 50 years later, and what kind of progress have we made in black america . Im going to ask you to comment on what you see as the impact of these three events in the political culture and what they say about what kind of progress is and what is not being made in the 21st century. Thats a very provocative question. Its difficult to come up with quick answers in the heat of this particular moment. We tried to address it. But those three legal interventions so to speak tell us what racial progress has meant historic way, progress in an area of race equality is always to recognized by the Movement Forward and the retrenchment so that there is never any street sense of progress. We certainly have made Great Strides in the 1963 march on washington. There was the Voting Rights act to years later and what 50 years later we have a retrenchment on the key piece of legislation. We have something that none of us know to be an act of racial violence where the person has been found not guilty to the they are calling it an act of racial violence and that shows you the way the retrenchment works and it is a more sophisticated and more difficult for us to name things that have to do with race. Those of that call it an act of racial violence could have been divisive i dont think that could have been the case years ago but there is a retrenchment, a backlash. They take maybe two or three or four steps backward. You have to be aware of that and that will show us. Striking down the Voting Rights act is a step backward. And Trayvon Martin i think is both because it is a step backward the demobilization, i am heartened by the mobilization are rounded and the refusal to give into the kind of dominant narratives that were spun as a result of it so progress and retrenchment. [applause] skill mix e3 for organizing this panel. I think that we owe him a great round of applause. In National Conversation of recent democracy should be happening. We should be having in our communities everywhere around the country that should be multicultural, multi generational. And weve been having these conversations and our communities historic please route, but we need to have these conversations among white americans, latinos, gays and lesbians and young people, and its really it should be an issue of national priority. First of all i would like to throw out a prosecution triet i would like to throw out a provocation that the difference between 1963 to 2013 is that in 1963, black people knew they were being oppressed. A 1963 with a new that they were being politically, socially, economically subjugated. I would like to for about a provocation that when we think about the heroic period between 1954 to 1965, what the people did then is transform fundamentally american democracy and they did so with allies and latino allies but they did so through the blood and blood shed. The the thing about Trayvon Martin is the 14yearold black belt that was assassinated in the middle of mississippi in 1985 for allegedly violating racial etiquette and speaking to a white woman. His body was placed in the tallahassee river with a 125 lb coffin jindal tied around his neck. It was shown in the jet magazine and that spurred the nation to look at the price of White Supremacy on our dhaka see. We think about 1963, 1963 is the year of birmingham and the year dr. King writes his famous letter from the jail. Dr. King says the activism that has gone on the end of the young women and men in that are being addressed it sometimes as eight, naim, 10yearsold are taking the nation back to the democracy that was dug deep by the founding fathers. He was being too kind because the country was founded on racial slavery and it is a conversation that we still have not had. About 50 years ago with the march on washington provided a litmus test for democracy. When he speaks of the march on washington she says americans of all cultures and races have to struggle together and go to jail together to try to fundamentally transform american democracy. 50 years later in Barack Obamas 2008 election we have celebrated an unearned victory. We celebrated the victory and talked about postglacial america. We are celebrating the mythology of the end of racism and thats why people were surprised about Trayvon Martin. I am heartened that the president spoke out yesterday, but he spoke out and started to speak truth to power only because the grassroots activism that has compelled him to speak. Barack obama is not Martin Luther king jr. Barack obama is not frederick douglass. When you get a picture of dr. King next to the Lyndon Baines johnson, hes got frederick douglass, hes Abraham Lincoln, and the sooner the black community has yet to maturity to understand that, they can level eight respective critique to the president of the United States for not discussing the black agenda, not discussing black poverty. He said hes not president of black america. I would say find, no matter what anybody says, we are american citizens and we should be advocating for an end of poverty, the end of racial inequality, and the end of mass incarceration. So when we think about president barack obama, we need to go back to what dr. King said in his last speech. He said the greatness of america lies in the right to protest. Whoever is in the white house should be someone who we is talking about an agenda that affects africanamericans even if that person happens to be the first black president of the United States. [applause] good afternoon. Its great to be here. I want to join in the congratulations of the book fair for organizing this event and allowing us an opportunity to talk about the contemporary state of black politics. Tina, you offered three images. One was the u. S. Supreme Court Decision in the Shelby County case. Not to forget the court this past term also decided an affirmative action case from the university of texas, in which affirmative action survived by a hair. I am persuaded that by that the decision the Supreme Court is setting up the law to strike down racial diversity as a compelling justification for race conscious affirmative Action Programs. But taken together i think we can say three things about each of those events or images, each of which offers us an approach on to the state of black politics in the United States today. About that Supreme Court decision in his opinion for the court, the chief justice, Justice Roberts says its something that i do not think could have been set 50 years ago and would not have been set 50 years ago by a member of the u. S. Supreme court. There is a moment in the opinion in which he frankly admits that Racial Discrimination in american life, particularly here in the voting excess and goes on to say no one denies that. Yet by the end of the opinion, what he has given us is a legal judgment, the reading of the constitution, which effectively says Racial Discrimination exists. No one denies it and we dont care. So we are living in a peculiar moment in which at one in the same time we can add net the existence of Racial Discrimination, indeed racial stratification and subordination and on the other declared without skipping a beat that is something about which we are justified as a nation and not caring about. So theres the political culture of indifference to the questions of racial inequality which i think distinguishes our moment from 1963. I may be getting into some hot water here because i read the speech quickly and i read some of the press coverage. What strikes me about the press coverage is the extent to which the speech has been universally lawyered for its profound insights into the nature of race and racism in the United States today. Dont get me wrong. I am very glad that the president chose albeit a week after the event she chose to address the verdict in the zimmerman case and he acknowledged the widespread pain that African Americans and all americans who are friends of racial equality who are committed to an antiracist politics in the wake of that verdict. But as in so many of his other pronouncements about race, the president s remarks pretty much remained within the framework of what i call in my own work racial moralism. As a was put of sound and sentimental stories this could be your son or daughter. Trayvon could have been my son, i could have then Trayvon Martin. The speech only gestured through the use of the world context which depending on how you use it can mean anything and nothing. To the Structural Forces that have produced Trayvon Martin. And it is the age of neoliberalism and that brings us to the moment of the zimmerman verdict itself and which a judge instructed the jury which reached the verdict that held and this is another provocation that when it comes to circumstances like this, a black man has no right which a white man is bound to respect. I am paraphrasing. [applause] im paraphrasing the decision of the Supreme Court in the dred scott case, the notorious case from the 19th century which predated the civil war. Unless for the celebration about the change weve seen in this country in many ways around questions of race and racial inequality since the early 60s. I think its important for us as we think about moving forward not to lose sight of the continuity to the am i saying that there is no meaningful difference between the structure of racism in 1963 and racism as we know it today . No, i am not claiming that. What i think i can say is we live now as we lived 50 years ago in a moment of racial contradiction, and we need to wrestle with the reality of those contradictions instead of wishing them away. That simple to do. [applause] i think everyone would agree those were very provocative statements and i want to follow up with a few of them. I would love to hear you talk more about the contradictions each one of you is pointing out. The contradictions that you were mentioning between a historical moment during which there was a recognition of oppression and the contemporary moment that kendall was describing of indifference. And i think that links directly to the cycle that you were talking about progress and retrenchment to get to me it seems like one of the things you are putting on the table was the question of how in this contemporary moment is race being erased in a way that takes away the possibility for action, legal action and protests. They are being put back on the table with the Grassroots Level but i am wondering if each one of you would like to comment more on the implicit criticism that you are making to the way in which for example barack obama is asking us to participate in a National Conversation on race but at the same time saying that he cannot lead that conversation, the the government isnt effective place to have that conversation but it should be had. I would love for you to tease out more of the contradiction at all of you are speaking to in terms of what is race in the contemporary movement and how can we mobilize against it in a different way than we mobilized against jim crow for example 50 years ago. I think the most important thing is to recognize and acknowledge that contradiction. And i think that peniel is right. There seem to be to responses to the zimmerman verdict. What did you expect . I didnt expect anything different. It wasnt made to treat us fairly. And other people were stunned that in this day and time this was the verdict we could get and there and is the contradiction and there is so much little ground that we need to be yet to discuss that yes, we are in a moment that the country made a tremendous stride and elected an africanamerican person, president as kind of an exceptional africanamerican person. The Civil Rights Movement was quite successful in that it didnt knock down certain barriers that gave a few of us access to read a few exceptional in the fungibles access. Yet there are so many black people who still suffer from all kind of any quality that wasnt addressed significantly enough that in there and lie is those contradictions. One of the things we have to do is acknowledge their existence, see how the absurdity, for instance, i will stop here, in the judges instructions to the jury or in the prosecution they could say profiling the they couldnt say racial profiling. So, there is a way that the cases what are the possibilities when we cant even call racial profiling racial profiling but in the prosecution the use race all the time and show women afraid of young africanamerican men because one was at her house. We can have pictures that evoke these racial narratives that would strike at the heart of the jury yet we cant say in defense of trayvon that he was racially profiled. And the final thing i would say with president obamas speech its the problem i have with personal anecdotes. We all have personal anecdotes. And i guess it is supposed to strike an empathy and the heart of the listener. I like obama. I thought he was like me to but i voted for him if he cant get a cab in manhattan. And that becomes there is a certain drama to the personal anecdote to that story. That becomes the end all and the be all of the story so what gets lost when people were doing the post speech discussions they say trayvon could have been me 35 years ago. But its exactly what he says but i cant do anything about it as president of the United States. I want to acknowledge your pain, black america. I understand it, but as a president and a brother ive experienced but as the president i cant do anything about it. And i watched and i looked at twitter and facebook and everyone quoted trayvon could have been me 35 years ago but few people paid attention to that and said its not the place politicians cant start these questions, the conversation that needs to be had. Personal anecdotes are good, but i think it is really not in our service lead overshadows and it trumps the work that really needs to be done. [applause] i would like to build one thing we have to do even before our audience here is to talk about a definition of racism. When we think about racism, its not about personal prejudice, its about institutional subjugation and oppressions of the new racism isnt about white and colored signs. The new racism is about outcomes. Whos in jail and why . Who has no health care, who is unemployed, who is racially profiled and stigmatized, right . So its about the outcome, who goes to the predominantly segregated schools and why . Who is poor and living behind the poverty line . 43 million in the United States only 1. 6 make over 200,000 a year or more. 28 live below the federally mandated properly line and another 27 mcinturff 35,000 years. For that group of people things havent gotten better in the last 50 years and we think about president obama, i think president obama when we have to question this is the euphoria and the cultural transformation of having a black president and a beautiful first lady enough of that black president cannot provide substantive transformation to the community and go beyond even the Affordable Health care act which i think is substantive and that goes beyond the stimulus package which i think is substantive. But there is an urban agenda this president house. There is no confronting what michelle called the new jim crow and the mass incarceration the director of the schaumburg is called the condemnation of blackness and how that is connected to why black people are treated and dehumanized in the criminal justice system. The reason Trayvon Martin goes from victim to criminal is because of a cultural racism that effect the United States. What i say is this, the contradictions we are talking about are not contradictions. They are part and parcel of race and democracy in america. What dr. King and malcolm x and frannie lou hamer said is this america before the Credentials Committee in Atlantic City at the Democratic National convention. He had been beaten and brutalized the Voting Rights, a sharecropper. She said is this america . Lyndon johnson organizes a press conference to tanker off the National Television because he said who is that exposing the lack of democracy in the United States so the contradiction that you could have a black president at the United States and to get at 841,000 black males in jail that is not a contradiction, that is part and parcel of how american democracy has always worked. With the Civil Rights Movement did and the Power Movement did work multiracial progressives tried to do is transformed democracy and say theres a different way for the democracy to work. It doesnt have to work by condemning black people or by denying racism. The further we deny Racial Discrimination in the country and institutional racism and slavery the worse it grows like a cancer and a tumor of our body politic. The further we confront the Racial Discrimination and institute institutional racism the more we are left confused about the outcome. How come there are so many few black people . Beebee they dont like to work. Maybe its not about the industrialization are institutionalized discrimination. Its not about harlem and brooklyn getting a gentrified. As i speak and black people are left out, this is about institutions and certainly president obama is not confronting it, but we need to confront it and force president obamas hand. The reason that we discussed trade on martin is because of the grassroots insurgency of activists in the country who demanded the commander in chief speak out about this. 1963 they talked about racism as a moral crisis that was affecting and distorting our democracy. And kennedy did that because of nl que. Kennedy did that because the grassroots insurgency that forced the president s hand. By the time medgar evers, the civil rights had become everything. And it still is everything right now until we solve the problem of racial inequality in the United States and economic inequality in the United States. This democracy doesnt have a progressive future. [applause] so what is the nature of this contradiction . I but simply join in what michael panelists have said and read to you a few lines from a letter written in march of 1913100 years ago called an open letter to Woodrow Wilson and the author is w. E. B. Du bois you face no insoluble problem. The only problem the it is insolvable is when they settled by asking absolutely contradictory things. You cannot make 10 Million People at one in the same time servile and dignified, docile and selfreliant, servants and independent leaders, segregated it part of the industrial organism, disfranchised and citizens of a democracy, ignorant and intelligent. This is impossible and it is not factitious, it is in the very nature of things. So, the possibility and the impossibility of a black politics are what we might call feige of obama is the contradiction of race and racism. Is that contradiction . Again, of a president who can engage in a certain kind of identity politics identified with and as trade Trayvon Martin on the one hand, and to allow the complete and effective privatization of any conversation about this public issue that hes just publicly identified as an issue that ought to concern all americans. That privatization of race is the problem. The notion that race is something that affects our public lives but which at its root apart from racism narrowly defined as knowing a purposeful discrimination by the government they dont begin to scratch the surface of racism today. Now i think that a good part of the power of that vision of what racism is and how we should be addressed has to do with the extent which our economy and our politics is governed by a world view that the fancy theoreticians koln neoliberalism neoliberalism as an Economic Program and a public philosophy holds that everybody and everything is for the market. And that the the market that steers that market ought to determine Public Policy. We live in a situation in which the heart as i see it of racism against black people and other peoples color in this country is economic injustice. Yet in the neo liberal order, this question of economic injustice is simply not on the agenda Public Policy. We can nibble around the edges of it to be sure talking about raising the minimum wage and setting up health care collectives, but the transformation, the fundamental transformation of the economy in a way that would subject decisions about the distribution on shared Public Resources to the space decision making, that idea of the Economic Policy than it has been since the creation of the republic to the president obama that represents the first social secretary put it a valuable brand is himself a commodity in the marketplace that we call politics. In the age of citizens united, when politicians can effectively be bought and sold to the highest bidder one of the deepest challenges i think facing us not just as people of color but it generally it is the absolute and the utter bankruptcy if the political system that claims to be space, which in fact is controlled and run by corporate financial elites. And unless and until we are willing to look knowledge of the eagerness with which a president who will embrace ronald reagan, the architect of neoliberalism as one of the greatest president s in the history of the country come as a tool of neoliberalism we are not going to get anywhere. But i believe that president obama and the interest that he represents relies on our acquiescence in the name of a very narrow and ultimately disempowering understanding of identity politics. The identity is being mobilized in fact to disable, disencumber and defeat any claims to justice on the part of the collective who increase that identity. So that is the contradiction, the removal as a question of the space decision making, of these large questions of Economic Justice, which also questions of race. [applause] i want to follow through on many of the statements that you made which is on the one hand a critique of leadership in its present form, and at the same time, to ask us to consider the power of the grassroots insurgency. And i think thats not a contradiction. We use that too much. I think that is a concept that is being recreated in the 21st century. And so i would love to hear you talk a little bit more about given again, the provocation that barack obama has given us about the need for a conversation on race and at the same time, the creation and the offloading of that conversation into a private sphere as you are pointing out to be above what leadership look like, what would it need to look like in order to connect to grassroots mobilization that barack obama is responding to . So im asking you to think of the critique toward another moment. So what would it mean to actually be able to bring together effective leadership . What would that entail . How will the government be involved and how what it connect to the forces that are actively soliciting eighth response, albeit an effective one. I think one of the most interesting and powerful things and that is a great question is that is happening already. We get everything from color changes on line to different grassroots activists for the environment, for the antipoverty certainly mass incarceration. The book the new jim crow has been an activist all around the world in using that and certainly mass incarceration is even on the agendas naacp. I think one of the things the mainstream black leadership has done in the age of barack obama which i would add now the age of Trayvon Martin, the age of obama and trayvon, the fabricated their role as protestors. Theyve advocated a fair role as leadership that is going to critique of the executive office of congress, the senate, the different branches of government and the fat succeeded this for accessed. To access means that you get photo ops with the president , that he might come to some of your conventions and organization dinners. But when it comes to the tangible Public Policy initiative, zero. Youre not getting anything. With the black community has allowed obama to and im speaking as someone that has been critical the support of. So im not someone that was just attacking the president of the United States but understand his plight as a black man, understand the assault on him but we are citizens of this republic and you can never advocate your role unless the president gave a free pass because they said he has so much problems he doesnt care about the poverty rate in the black community. He doesnt have to care about mass incarceration and what the clinton crime who bill continues to do. He doesnt care about the difference between crack cocaine and powder cocaine into the fertile level it is still 181. He doesnt have to care about racial profiling and he even said that ray kelly who is the biggest profile to be the head of homeland security. We have to say respectfully, brother, no pity you cant do that even if you are the first black president of the United States. We have to have the ability to lead the peoples champion of 1968 he treated access to Lyndon Johnsons white house for the moral clarity that there needed to be antipoverty and job legislation in the United States. Dr. King died advocating for 1,000 black men who are sanitation workers in tennessee. And the reason hes assassinated is because dr. King is bringing together white and black latinos to come together to washington. Hes trying to bend the nations wealth into effective legislation. Some people talk about dr. King as a nonviolent activist. Shes using nonviolence as a tactic to bend the nations well to save the soul of america. So we cant have a black president because hes black we are unwilling to say look this is the agenda that we need. Fees one, two or three things and you have to push for this both rhetorically and Public Policy lies. He gave a great speech yesterday but then he told us as president of the United States she cant do anything about it. And we are supposed to say thats a good . That makes no sense. You cant find an executive order and make a speech about racial profiling. You cant say that we have to bring black and white and latinos and asians and all these people that live in the United States which is about to become a majority minority country. We have to bring them all together to have an uptodate conversation about what does racial integration mean and in the 21st century the fact that outcomes are a part of our democracy . We cant just do with the color blind racism game and claim that term colorblind racism and see that ecology is a fact when we know there racial outcome show the pervasive inequality and discrimination in america. [applause] how can you follow that . Some of you in the audience may be familiar with the very powerful s. A. That was published i think in 1964 by the man who organized the 1963 march on washington. The great black gay activist byron rosten who wrote an article called from protest to politics to the it and in that article, he contended that time had come for black people to move their Political Activities from the streets to the halls of the legislatures to the courts and to the executive branch as. There was something powerful about that call and in the context which ruston made it, it had some sense. We had the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights act so the legal architecture could be put in place. So from the protest based politics to the electoral institutional government organized politics in which we sought to gain office and get on the school board, the city council, to be in the office, to become governors, and yes evin president s. I think, however, that what the current moment ought to be telling us is of those of us who understand that the black Freedom Movement was a Freedom Movement and not just the movement for civil rights can no longer rely exclusively on the strategy of the electoral the government politics. For the me the question becomes what form leadership do we need, and where ought that leadership to come from . Well, im persuaded that leadership is almost certainly not going to come from the main stream of the democratic party. And theres no way its going to come from the republican party. So i think we need to look, my brothers, sisters, friends, fellow citizens, to the left. And to the left which understands the fundamental and intransigent resistance of a liberal democratic understanding of racism and Racial Justice. In pursuing that project, that images project of black freedom, in which black folk, brown folk, asian folk, native americans and others would be able as king put it in 1963, to live out the full meaning of the american dream. To have full, equal to be and substantiative citizenship. Thats where the question matters. Thats when you have full, equal, and substantiative citizenship. My suggestion is that we need to combine in a way i think is actually beginning to happen protest politics and electoral politics. I see no other way out of the contradiction, which on the one hand, gave us two election cycles in the 2008 and 2010 which black people were the demographic that voted at the highest percentage. On the other hand, has given us an Unemployment Rate 13 , which is higher than the black employment rate was higher in 1963. Those question of sober social and Economic Justice are questions for me that demand, and only confronted through a double strategy of protest and politics which is informed by the left vision, all right, of social democracy or, if you will, of democratic socialism. [applause] i agree with everything that has been said. I would add one thing. Over the past fifty years, a lot of work that has been done and maybe it hasnt gotten particularized has been challenging us think differently about leadership. And i know that work has been done. I have read it, seen it, taught it. I think we have very kind of Old Fashioned notion what leadership looks like. It still mess begannic, charismatic. We saw those kind of narrative working that had us president obama between malcolm x and Martin Luther king. Some of us cringed. Not because we supported barack obama. President obama was running to be leadership of the united. For some people that meant his interests were protecting these kind of corporate elite interests that are often against the interests of poor people regardless of color. And the questions of Economic Justice were never on the table. All right. Ever. So that work in the past i would say thirty years, twenty years, that taught us to look differently at what leadership look like it seeps in the analysis every once awhile. It seeps in when we mention the name of ella baker. Ic we have to go deeper. What did ella baker, not only women but what did they stand for . What did ella baker and eye data b. Wells, and these were women who were more involved on the protest end because it wasnt to them. I think the freedom struggle they talked about always knew that electoral politics we seemed to have given that up when we put everything behind the wishes in the basket that would elect president obama. They were leaders, grassroots leaders who understood their position was only as significant as they were capable of representing the interest of the people who put them there. Ella baker said strong people dont need strong leaders. All right. I think we look to communities and groups of people who are organizing if their own interest who put question of Economic Justice and mass incarceration. All the things that assault our Community Front and center that should be to the things fought our community on a daily basis. On front and center on the leaders are presenting to us. We dont think we think its people who reelect electorial politics and we dont think that black leaders or the leader of the community have access to the media. The media doesnt make our leaders. Ill leave with one, the most recent vision, i think, that could be a model of leadership for us. Its not a leadership of an individual. There was an article in the times yesterday or earlier this week about the organization of people. Some of them former tobacco gang members themselves organized to address black on black violence in, i think its east new york. Where they have not been murder a murder for 353 days because they do. Its gone on every day. Its work in the school and prison, its work that goes on at every level. Theres a Beautiful Image in that story of young brother on a bicycle who sees one of these organizers and says [inaudible] because hes met him in school and knows the person. There are those kinds of moalgtd model of leadership we should be looking to when we think about what does leadership in the 21st century look like . They are out there. I know, they are out there. They dont get on msnbc all the time. But they are out there. [applause] im aware i want to leave fief about toes more questions by the audience. I want to ask you by putting one more thought out there. It goes back to Barack Obamas speech and the way addressed this panel. Because at the end of that speech, he said he wanted to leave us with a sense of hope, and he wanted to talk about the extent to which he does think we are making progress. He described looking to his daughters and the way which his daughters encounter race. And saying they are different than what he experienced. That was one of the moment when i thought about not necessarily the privatization of the question of race and dealing with it. But institutions. , churches, education, the media. And since all of us are involved, deeply involved in each of those institutions, i want to end with a question of what is l the role of the law, of the academy, of the media, of social movements, of churches in intervening in this conversation to reshape it. Kendall, its time for you to go first. The short answer, theres no single role i think to be played by any of those institutions. Speaking of someone who professionally is part of the legal community, i want to be real clear that one thing i would not urge is an expectations that the law can do this work. If theres anything i have learned in the over thirty years i have been thinking and working on questions of law its that the laws limits are sometimes greater than what it can accomplish as a political tool. But i want to go back to this question of the image that the president offered of the generation to which his children belong as a generation which is experiencing and therefore feeling and thinking differently about these questions of race and Racial Justice than someone say would say of my generation or yours. Part of me finds cannot help but find that really power of the and beautiful insofar as it hold out the hope for a transformation, a change in the heart and behind in the heart of people and they think about what it means to have a race or to experience race. In community in common with, and in concert with people who belong or profess or identify across the color line. At the same time; however, as im willing to concede as feminism, i think, has taught us that the personal is the political. The possibility of those encounters of the president s daughters and the sons and daughters of those who belong to the democratic class from which the president and mrs. Obama come. That is the experience of a very narrow, sub community. All right, and of africanamericans. And so for me, the question would be how do we go about building a racial public. By racial public, i mean, communities of people that include, but are not restricted to people of color. Committed to an antiracist agenda. All right. Under conditions in which in schools, in workplace, in our neighborhoods. We are, in many instances, as segregated as we were fifty years ago. I do think that the media has a role to play in that. I think the institutions, the actual existing institutions in our communities can do a loath of work that they have not yet taken. Im not a person of faith. But i believe that institutions of faith and communities of faith have been doing extraordinary work on these issues of Racial Justice across denomination. I think theres a role for the emerging secular black public to play as well. But this work cannot be done by anyones segment of our community. It cannot be done in any one way. [applause] very quickly, were doing this already. We have a center for the study of race and democracy. We are a Research Center that is connecting race and democracy to Public Policy working with ngo and scholar works and activists. The late chester said that fighters fight and writers write. And were supposed to do whatever we can whenever we can. I think we have extraordinary activists and color in the room. Education is a big part of what were trying to do. We are launching a National Dialogue on race days. September 12th at the csrd center for the study of race and democracy. Were doing that to connect not only Trayvon Martin, but mass incarceration, violence against black women. Poverty, to a genuine Public Policy debate. Ive been talking about National Television on race and democracy because too often this issue of race, racism, and black people are made to fit outside of democracy in this country. We are made to feel as we are the other. Were marginal human beings even they have lived here the longest who had a right to vote for the shortest amount of time. Who fought in every single war the country has ever have. Black people have fought, died, struggled, and bled for democracy including the black women she was talking about. We can be part of this dialogue as leaders. Im not talking about were advocating our own leadership role. For those in the academy, in ebony and ivory towers. We have to connect the access we have to places like the some berg communities in harl harlem, oakland, and boston where i live right now. If we do that and connect on social media and i invite people to join the conversation. We have enough leverage he understands that there are other voices who are substantiative who are who have power, who are telling him something else. Thats what we need to do. We need to be the voice that says, look, we want substantiative Public Policy transformation. Were not just going settle for the cultural release of barack obama and Michelle Obama and sasha and malia. We love them and their existence and they are safe and beautiful. We want Public Policy transformation for our community and young sons and daughters who are living and dying all over the united. Things should be much better now than they were fifty years ago. They are not. But we are still optimistic they can be. We have to organize, organize, organize. Thats what we need to do. I love anything sasha and malia. [laughter] and so any kind of image that makes me go thats beautiful. I love them. I believe the notion that he put forward of kind of new generation set of conversations. But i also think and i know that is a set of possibilities as kendall said that is limited, small, narrow, and elite. The two notions of communities talking to each other and having dialogue stuck with me this week where the interview with juror b37 that Anderson Cooper did. Im i glad for the interview. Im thankful for the honesty of juror b37 and what he said and the insight she gave us. When she referred to people like rachel as those people they dont live like we do. We dont see the world like we do. So clearly shes not having dialogue with people who are different from herself. She doesnt know them. When she sees a picture of trayvon, hes unfamiliar to her and that same night there was an interview with rachel and she kept using a refrain. She said where were from. This is what we it means. People like that where im from. I dont know what it means where youre from. Those images of those communities, those ways of belonging that do not talk to each other, that do not in any way i think rachel was saying you dont understand where we come from. And the juror was saying, i dont recognize that. I dont know that. Its different from sasha and malia and their friends in school, on the basket court; right. So we have to our measure of how far were moving cant just be the measure of two beautiful little girls with great access. But it also has to be the measure of these people who dont necessarily come in to contact with each other for the kinds of dialogues were talking about until its too late. Until its in the courtroom and one is a juror who cant understand who fat m, cant comprehend the young woman in front of her. The other thing ill say i think they are all important. They are all a mess. They are all places are where we struggle and fight with each other, fight with our church memberring with fight with our colleagues. Theyre site where the work has to be done. Age new site were seeing and that we really need attend to much more is the site of social media. Twitter, frankly, gives me a headache. It really does. I have it gives me a headache. But twitter for all the, you know, i get angry at the ignorance. I get angry at the access that races have to me and especially to my husband. I get angry about that. But i dont think theres any place with the kind of dynamic dialogue where people are back and forth where people are strait guiding and organizing the immediacy of the organizing around trayvon was extraordinary. We havent seen anything quite like that. I think that, you know, for all of the messiness. No more messy than other. Its bigger. Its a messy and a lot of ignorance and educating that goes on. Theres at love organizing that goes on. Theres a lot of democratic debate that goes on. I would add social media to those arena that tina talked about earlier as well. [applause] [applause] and now im going invite you to pose your questions to this conversation and add your voices. There is a microphone there. I would ask that you were taking that microphone and question hear what youre trying to say. And in the meantime, i want to thank our panelists so far for their powerful statements. [applause] first of all the, thank you are for the conversation. How do you sell a leftwing democratic juror b37 . [laughter] i ask specifically because shes a voter, and, i mean, its kind of obvious the thrill is gone with the black community in reference of president obama. And im certainly no defender myself. I kind of found his comments yesterday anyway. The important point is that those people who discuss like the idea that a George Zimmerman isnt completely within his right to waste Trayvon Martin like hes trash on the street. Those people vote. They have been voting against the entire time when they werent attacking us or being and president obamas feeling with the fact they vote in numbers structurally that his side simply cant win again. We have watched democratic africanamerican pop tickses special they with, i there but never statewide. So im cienld of wondering what happens next. We want to bring an antiracism agenda to all the people of color in the country and around the world. Bringing together latino and asianamericans and gay, straight, everyone. When structurally speaking you still have a tea party that was doing better than us from most of president Obamas Administration when it came to grassroots organizing. That same tea party or the same kind of people who are voting in the stand your ground law and keeping people, you know, keeping idea like sovereign alive today here. Im wondering given the opposition that still very much entrenched as it was fifty years ago. What happens next . Well, i think we are talking here about a long revolution. And in the president s deference, one of the great things about his speech had to do with that moment in which he asked the people listening to him to imagine Trayvon Martin in that situation with a gun. All right. And what the response would likely be. All right. If Trayvon Martin had had that gun. Now the Great British cultural they theorist from whom ive learned a lot, stewart, said writing after the election of Maggie Thatcher that one of the things that those of us were on the left needed to understand about why thatcher won. Is that people dont always, or maybe not most of the time vote on basis of the selfinterest. Politics, he said, is much less a matter of calculated interest and reason than it is of how we imagine ourselves. How we imagine ourselves in relationships to one another. And so one of the potentially fruitful things about the reor rhetorical strategy that the president choose was that he was inviting the juror b37 of the world indeed all of us to think about the ways which we imagine ourselves in relationship to one another. Another Great British theorist benedict said in answer to the question what is a nation. Its an imagined community. And so fifty years ago, when Martin Luther king talked about the dream that he had. He was inviting the people in the mall and all the folks heard his speech through the media. To imagine themselves in a different way. This politics of the imagination some folks call a politics of fantasy; right. Is not the whole of politics. Its not going to be a substitute for hard rollupyoursleeves motivating. Its one of the things that motivates people to think critically about and maybe even refuse the primary identity that is being imposed upon us at this moment under late neoliberal capitalism. Mainly to see ourselves not as citizens but as consumers; right. People who buy stuff. And that understanding of who we are, of who we might be, and who we have been that the politics of the imagination makes possible. Its a cultural politics. It has to do with producing meanings. Making black mean something other than criminal; right. That kind of work is cultural work, which has to do with the politics of making new meanings. And that work takes down here, takes place here, and the level of the mass media. So i think that is a very important component of its someone once called, i keep banalizing the term politics of meeting, politics of imagination. Thats where i would leave you on this question. I would add to that also we might not get juror number b37. We probably wont convince her of anything. I know, this is a job of electricityial politicians to get every vote and not offend people and all of that. But, you know, so maybe we dont get to b37. Maybe we lose her; right. But i heard one of the representatives, one of the black representatives from that area say that one of the problems down there is we get so excited about National Electricians and mobilize for president obama but many of those people who uphold and maintain the strand your ground laws are in electoral they dont vote in the same. She can get her anemia there because we kind of sit those out. And so i think that the kind of mobilizing theyre talking about with the tea party did. They were very good at mobilizing at the loam level. And we let that go. We put so much energy, and we should have, behind the election of president obama. But the in between elections where the people who maintain laws like stand your ground we sometimes sit them out. We need to be just as vigilant in those kinds of elections as well. [applause] i came a little late, so but i did hear some of it. Many of you may be old enough to remember we had a Trayvon Martin called Michael Griffin and [inaudible] dlea are they they went to jail for thirty to years to life. [applause] the question is how come theyre on the panel, the expert at doing this. He was legally suspended from the practice of law because he dominated the criminal bar. And so i asked that when you go about talking about these things, mention alton, our children need know we have a lawyer still alive that won these cases. If he was working as an adviser in the Trayvon Martin case, b37 may not have made it on the jury panel. [applause] i look up to him. Its very painful. I have been told i need to cut our conversation short now. So please, i invite you to talk to the panelists afterwards. Please do. Please do. In the meantime i thank them again. I thank you for your conversation. Thank you, tina. Youre welcome [applause] senator ben carden. What is on your Summer Reading list . First, a book by my former colleague in the house, john louis. We came to congress together in 1987. He written the book. Im looking forward to reading it. What an incredible person i had the credit of serving with. Let us know what youre reading this summer. Tweet us booktv. Post it on our facebook page, or send us an email at booktv cspan. Org. Now in stanton discusses his book stalins secret agent. This was part of the summit hosted by the Heritage Foundation in washington, d. C. Our next speaker is one of the great longterm long time leader of the conservative movement. Hes been with us from the beginning and he still keeps going. Hes worked as an editor, journalist, television and radio commentators, and he founded the National Journalism center. He serve and Stanton Evans served adds chairman of the American Conservative Union from 1971 to 77. He has new book out called blacklisted by history; the untold story of senator joe mccarthy and his fight against americas enemies. Turning a proper name to a verb is a sign of historical significance, but the verb to mccarthy is inaccurate. As hes going tell us. Mr. Evans . [applause] im honored to be here. We go back a few years. Gold water days and even before. Its been a long road and many ways bumping bumpy one but one well worth traveling. We have time for q a . Fifteen minutes and fifteen minutes for questioning. Ill try to do it. Are there mics or speak from where you are . Well have okay. I say that because im a little bit hard of hearing a little deaf. When you get older, there are two bad things that happen to you. One is your hearing starts to go, and i forget what the other one is. [laughter] you probably think i want to commend you guys for being here without any [inaudible] and what you heard is going to i hope, help you in your own thinking and in your own careers after you leave here. I commend you for being here and putting in these hours on these serious matters. And im always i Teach College and i always tell my students theres more to life than keeping up with keeping up with the kardashians. [laughter] she condemned the Trayvon Martin. She would know about that that. Her father was a attorney for o. J. Simpson. [laughter] thats true. Thats correct. Do you follow katy perry . Is she still popular . Cat i are perry said a couple of years that two years ago it was an outrage that health care in america is not free. I asked my students are Katy Katy Perry concerts free . They are not. A friend of mine dean of the Business School checked. It was 83 to go to a katy perry concert. I said thats an outrage. I said why shouldnt i be allowed to go for nothing. Not that i would go to a katy perry concert. [laughter] just the principle of it. So anyway, im a bit of a con trairn in many ways. For example, the only time i text is when im driving. [laughter] im looking at some mccarthy i have a new book out called stalins secret agent thats the new book, and they are both kind of about the same thing. Theres nothing wrong with lumping them together a bit. Theyre about a period of American History that is very frequently, in fact, almost always misrented in the misrepresented in the history books you may have read in college and high school. I try to look at the mccarthy era, joe mccarthy. How many of you have heard of mccarthy . Mccarthyism . Okay. How many have heard anything good about senator mccarthy . I see no hands. That is typical. Thats not your fault, its the fault of my generation for not getting the truth out there. The new book is about its a long time ago. Its important to know this history a couple of reasons, and to know it correctly. Also because some of the things that happened back then and the way they are treated today are relevant to more recent events. I think we need to know the history to begin with just to know it, but also apply it to the present. And one of the things that a friend of mine told me, i didnt see it myself. Back in 1994, was the 50th anniversary of dday. You have heard of dday . The landing at norm this is being commemorated on television in 1994. The 50th anniversary. My friend saw this, and it was on a tv station in peoria, illinois whenever it was. And the young lady reading the tell prompter referred talking about it to world war 11. [laughter] and which suggested to me that maybe were not teaching history very well. [laughter] but also were not teaching latin a lot you would think that after all of the super bowl we would know something about the roman numeral. Apparently not. [laughter] anyway, what ive tried to do in these two books is look at what happened as opposed to what is in most of the textbooks that are out there. One reason this was possible is that the truth about all of the stuff for years was covered up in to some degree it still is; however, with the passage of time, we have had access to the files of the federal bureau of investigations. Who were tracking the bad guys who were trying to do us harm back in the 40s and 50s. This was all covered up at the time, and to some extent still is. Now we have a pretty good picture of what went on. To capsulated, very briefly, time is limited, especially essentially what was going on how many of you have seen the born supreme sincerity movie . Matt damon and james bond movies . Movie of that type. Theres a bad guy trying to take over the world. And matt damon stops them. And back then, unfortunately we didnt have matt damon. [laughter] back in the 40s and 50s which might have been a blessing. Anyway. Thats another story. We had plenty of bad guys; however, who were trying to take over the world. Just like in the movies. Except it was real. And the main people standing in the way of taking over the world were americans. We were the problem from their standpoint. They were called communists. They were agent of the soviet union which a game plan of conquering country after country after country. We were the big barrier to their success. So that the bag guys were trying to influence what we did, and they infiltrated our government to do this, and to effect our policy, to serve the cause of moscow. Thats what the books are about. The records that are now available from the fbi and elsewhere showing what really happened. Things that were not available fifty years ago. It turns out there were 100 agents in the u. S. Government who were some were very famous. There were many like him. They did a lot of bad stuff that helped deliver country after country after country to the control of the communists. Poll land, using involve ya, china black blank because of what the communist our own government were able to do. Thats what the books are important about. I cant tell you more than that accepted that one of the things that happened that the time was a kind of blindness on the part of the authorities as to what was going on. A denial that its not really a, you know, problem. We dont need to worry about it. Anybody complains about it like joe mccarthy or the they are witch hunting. They are just crying out for a danger that is nonexistent. We know that the danger was existent and it was very severe. Was a mind set which said that just because someone is a member of the communist party, that obedience to that thought communists were vined in to invited in to the government, and there was like an affirmative Action Program for communists. Which i said these problem is government we dont have communists. Particularly intense in world war 11 when the receive yet union was our alloy against the senate i that mind set and blindness exists today. The ability to blow up the World Trade Center and thing of that nature. Theres a blindness toward this and i cant document it greatly. I want to give you an camp of the problem. You know theres a big fight about immigration going on. Im sure you know this. About Jeff Sessions talked about it when he was here. By the way, theres a great man. Jeff sessions. Im very proud to know him. Goes to National Security problem and in addition to other things. The original 9 11 happened was that all the people involved in those bombings were here on visas. The government let them come in the country. How could they let the people in to the country . Well, the answer is because the mind set was the same as toward the communists in world to war ii. Im going to read to you some of the question from the visa Application Online the state department. Its not a joke. If i were most of these people from saudi arabia. They are asked questions at that time on the visa application process to find out if they should be emitted. They all were. Here is some of the questions that were asked. Do you seek to enter the United States to engage in export control violations . Subversive or terrorist activities . How would you answer that . Are you a member or representative of a terrorist organization . [laughter] [inaudible] youre part of the tea party. Thats where you are. [laughter] you wouldnt be here if you [inaudible] [laughter] and anyway. Have you ever participated in persecutions directed by the nazi government of germany . How would are these people . I was a kid in world war 11. Have you ever participated in genocide . Then there are boxes check yes or no. Check yes or no. So anyway. They go through yeah, i would like to do some export control violation and terrorism, some, yes. Yeah, im a member of al qaeda. Yes. Persecution . I was just a kid, but yeah. And some genocide, but, you know, i didnt have any values back then. Yes, yes, yes, i checked yes to these questions. And if im lying im done. The yes answer doesnt automatically signify unoperatability for a visa. If you answer a yes you might need to personally appear before a office. You nazi and you committed genocide and member of al qaeda. We need to talk. [laughter] hello buy a clue this is a same mind set of the world war 11. Theyre just communist. Come on in, guys. Thats what were dealing with. There are many examples. Ill give you another example. Mayor bloomberg of new york. Anybody from new york . Is he a real person . [laughter] she like a character out of a tom wolf novel or something. Anyway, back in 2010, im going wrap it up and go to q a that he was there was a times square bomber, a guy from pakistan. Drove a car bomb in the middle of times square. Pressure cooker. Thats the boston marathon. A pressure cooker. It didnt go off. Ill be darned. You learn something every day. He goes in there, the one he had didnt work. He was spotted by a hot dog vender which proves the Security System is working. Thats our first line of defense. Hot dog venders. Maybe we should put 20,000 hot dog venders on the Mexican Border maybe they would be able to stop this problem. But anyway, so the next he goes to the i want and airports and tries to fly to dubai. I was in new york after that, and hes being interviewed by katie couric. Who are giant intelligents. [laughter] so katie couric said mayor bloomberg, what do you think motivated this person . Why would he drive this car bomb to times square and try to escape to pakistan . What is going on here . And he says, probably upset about the health care built. Bill. [laughter] are they having a Health Care Problem in pakistan . Is that there is your mind set. We can go on and on. Sometimes i get a little res there was a teen children and a younger children. Maybe you have younger siblings. They were picking up things from the teenagers and repeating them for them to be cool. So and some of the stuff they picked up was offcolor. One morning the two little kids come downstairs for breakfast and the father is serving them breakfast and says to the little boy, what would you like to have for breakfast . The little boy says, what the hell, i might as well have some corn flakes. [laughter] the father reached down and slapped the kid across the mouth and said i adopt want to hear this again in this house. If i hear it again its going to be worse than this. Never say it again. He turns to the girl and said what do you want for breakfast. She said you can get your ass it wont be corn flakes. If something bad happens its good to know the words. My time is up. I thank you for yours. [laughter] [applause] ill be going to your school this fall. Dealing with the immigration idea and seems to indicate that perhaps reforming the immigration process, excuse me, would help with some of the issues with muslims causing terrorism inside the United States. Especially since we have terrorists walking in and saying yes they are going to be terrorists. What would you say in response to the idea that the federal government seize control of immigration and the borders to the individual states . Well, i dont know if that idea can pass constitutional muster. What weve had is the federal government contending that is preexampled the field and suing arizona with fraudulent [inaudible] i know something about the matters. And the states im sure would do a much before the job than the federal government is doing. I dont know if you read investors business daily i had a long piece in there yesterday about the immigration bill, which is a disaster, and must be defeated. I can tell you the state can do a better job than the federal government. They are not interested in doing it. All right, any other . No other questions . No other questions . Oh, yes. In the pink. This might be slightly unrelated. Ill introduce myself im made from hillsdale college. I have a question its about lincoln. Is it okay if i ask a question about that . Has Abraham Lincoln . Are you up on him . No, im not. Do you want a general discussion of Abraham Lincoln . When i was younger, i heard that he was a big hero because he freed the slaves. Then when i got to higher education, like college and high school, they would say hes actually racist and did it for political motivation. I wondered about the accuracy and why that interpretation has changed. You have more about this in hillsdale than i do. [laughter] im sorry. Larry knows more about lincoln than i do. But, i think there is some remarks of lincoln on record that reflect such attitudes. I think the general critique of lincoln, again, remember im from texas, [laughter] im a confederate. [laughter] and so we had other issues. [laughter] with president clin lincoln besides his language. He was a little too proactive from our standpoint, but thats another story all together. [inaudible] world war i. Whatever it was. Anybody else . I dont want to right here. Down here. Hi, im spencer. I go to the college of william and mary. How is it different when youre trying to when somebody has been when history declared somebody to be bad like joe mccarthy. Its sort of inspirational to say he wasnt so bad after all. What about people who are overrated in list i are who we need to bring down to where they belong like jfk omar tin luther king. Who are lie onized and nelson mandela. How do we come across as not being mean when we criticize these heroes of the left . Well, its a very difficult question, and but you are right. There are certain taboo you cannot criticize. Franklin roosevelt, my second book is mostly about president roosevelt, in the conferences at the end of the war, and what he did basically giving away half the world to joseph stalin, and i go in to that in some detail. Well, this is what you dont say this. Its not said. And jack kennedy. Phyllis and i were there when it was going on. Some of the stuff happening today in term of what obama is doing was done by the Ken I Kennedys fifty years ago. Using the irs to crack down. That was done back then. Trying to silence conservative on radio. That was done back then. Trying to stifle conservative opinion in any way whatsoever was done back then under kennedy and linden janson. This is all johnson. This is all ignored in the history books, and it needs to be emphasized. All i can say is you are talking to somebody , i mean, a lot about [inaudible] try writing a book about defending joe mccarthy and see how many dinners you get invited to at the New York Times or how much your books get reviewed at the New York Times or the washington post. Your answer is zero. Thats just the way it is. It should not stop us, you particularly generation, you guys are the hope. You have i dont have that many years left. You have lot of years left to do that stuff. You need to do it. Someone needs to do it. Now, again, i know about the kardashians, i know that we have to Pay Attention to what theyre doing, and i know you probably dont emphasize that probably enough. In addition to knowing about the kardashian or storage wars, have you ever watched that. Its one of my favorites. I havent had the chance to have to read the act of congress but the reviews have been pretty compelling. And i think that is free to be an interesting case study. When you are reading a book where you know all the characters coming you know of barney frank and senator dodd its interesting to get that perspective and some of the staffers. And then theres a book i just ordered on james byrnes who was a legendary soft carolina politics actually Jonathan Martin f. Politico said you are going to love this book. It is the guy that very nearly was Vice President instead of truman and 44 and completely played an extraordinary role in politics and became one of the architects of nixons success in 78 and 72 and interestingly enough popped up working with Henry Hopkins on the 1940 book reading on the 1940 nomination of fdr which is pretty neat political work. So i like to read about the process and i like to study history. And i read more policy and less history but i just need to learn a veteran history. Brookings institution fellow Michael Ohanlon talked about how sequestration in next years budget will affect the military. Heres part of his comments and you can watch the full evin at cspan. Org if you look at the 2014 budget, the cuts the would be required by sequestration are so harsh for that year and there is no way to face them realistically. Its even worse debacle when the ten year horizon. The payment that occurs force even lower than what we are going through this summer and compounds what we are going through this summer when half the air forces and flying for example piling up and we are not fixing the stuff we need to keep safe for our forces of the congress may ultimately save 52 billion in 2014 to defense cuts need to be softened a little bet. I want to anything that is changing the basic logic of sequestration. The specter of sequestration is so horrible for the armed forces. We recently spoke to ann romney, of a life of the president ial candidate mitt romney about person to be published cookbook, the Romney Family table. This is from the 2013 bookexpo in new york city. On your screen is a new book that is coming out this fall called the Romney Family table. Ann romney as the author of the book. When did you find time to put this together . Ive written a cookbook before but nobody would know that. And having a mother that is a fantastic coke and a grandmother that was a fantastic coke and growing up with only boys in my life, when they get time to get married and i thought all these family traditions and recipes are going to get lost the will to be picky and so i made a cookbook. Something similar is obviously a greatly expanded from that time. The other amazing thing that happened is that my love of cooking, my love of sharing and the love of the family table was passed on to some of my sons and my boys actually do coke. In this bouck i have some for my son josh and credit so that love of food and cooking gets passed down a little bit cheviot this is helpful thing started. After the campaign is over, my son that happens to be one that loves to cook said you should put together a cookbook and i thought this could be fun. But its not like a normal cookbook because it has left family traditions and a lot of stories and written material about why if. So its been to be interesting for people who think we know who mitt romney is and the family is, i think they will be surprised when they open this up and say we get a real peek into lifes struggles and getting together and Everything Else because theres a lot of stories in mer. I am a good cook. And i think people would be surprised to know that high really actually even have a Little Cooking School out of my home. I dont talk about that in the cookbook i do love to cook. This is a great picture in the family story right here that i would love for people to know about in that tradition. On the lefthand side it is george romney, the greatest guy in the world, and he brought the family together. We had to be there on the fourth of july and the homemade Vanilla Ice Cream is part of what we celebrated when we got together and that is him turning the homemade Vanilla Ice Cream and those are my sons waiting for their taste when it is all ready before it goes to the freezer and on the righthand side is the picture of my husband, mitt churning the same recipe with our grandchildren. Some of them are waiting to taste the ice cream. These are things we love to pass on bringing Families Together and having this time sharing experiences. Is mitt romney a good cook . He is fantastic in the kitchen and he helps me out. Thanksgiving morning he is the one stuffing the bird and sauteing the celery and onions getting things ready. Hes very helpful in the kitchen. He also is one of the most responsible people ive ever known when the meal is over because anyone that is working hard in the kitchen and cleans out himself, which is a great thrill for anybody thats been the lot of time preparing food. Are people getting family photos that have never been published anymore clacks you will see family photos like youve never seen before. It makes me laugh everytime i see it because we get together in the summer with all of our grandchildren, and this is one of you hear about the olympics and all the competition we had that we had a watermelon eating competition with our grandchildren. The higher the competition was the couldnt use their hands deep the watermelon but you notice that picture the world using their hands today if they are competitive, too because it started out not using any hands so what got evident quickly they werent going to eat much watermelon without using their fingers so you can see especially with the little ones. I wanted to ask you you put this together after the campaign . Contador life changed from after november 6, your schedule . Ive got to tell you you can imagine going 100 Miles Per Hour they are copying just here and there having the media follow you, busloads of the media following you every word you say, everything you do is documented and intense scrutiny and activity, huge rallies and political fundraisers, interviews and you are going from the moment you wake up until the moment you crash at night. It goes on for several years like that and then the next day it is done. Its over. And that kind of energy that you are about putting is such intensity for such a long time and so suddenly it is a huge adjustment in so many different ways. But i kept feeling for months afterwards and this is my sentiment coach, put me in. Im likely diminish the game is over. Im sitting on the bench now, put me in. Then energy takes a long time to dial back down again. It did for me. But now it has and i am back to normal life and my routine as much slower, life is wonderful and i have been busy with the book and another part of my life which is courses which i love and ive been writing and spending time with the grandchildren and enjoying our time together. We are writing and thinking, we are thinking about the country and thinking about the problems that face the nation and, you know, politics is one way to answer some of the problems but i believe, and this is part of the thing with family and Everything Else so many of our problems can be solved with good Strong Families and values and having to take care of each other so it isnt just a government that answers and solves a lot of problems in life, it is families as well. Ann romney, you said you and mr. Romney are writing or writing . Riding. We have been thinking and i dont think there is anything specific yet but we have been doing a lot of broad thinking about the challenges that face the nation right now. I know mitt is thinking a lot about energy and how our energy needs are going to increase and globally how the energy demands are going to be much bigger in china and india than they are in the United States. He is a broad thinker when he was in business he was known as the turnaround guide and his ability and a unique talent in a sinking about big problems and looking at it in a more unique and unusual language of how to solve big problems. I dont think that you will hear that from either one of us because we love this country and we love our families and are concerned that their future. How incognito with kanaby today . I can do pretty well with no makeup and putting my hair and a ponytail and i can hide better than mitt. Its very difficult to go out in public because everyone has a camano phone and wants to be on facebook and you can imagine every ten seconds someone asking you to take a picture when you are trying to walk on the street to go to a shop or restaurant. Its hard because obviously we dont have any security anymore. Its just he and i. Its all right because most people are just appreciative of what we went through and grateful and most of them are fans i would say. So it is a sort of testament to what we have been through and how we reach people. Weve talked a lot about the romneys family, but your family also grew up in michigan. What is the specter you talk about the cabin youre father built . My father built this cabin on lake michigan. I am a michigander and i love campaigning in michigan for that reason to be a i love the great lakes and what my family taught me beyond how to cook they taught me how to be strong and how to be they adored me, how loved i was. They taught me hard work. My father was a welsh immigrant to the we had no money at all as children, but we had a lot of love in our home a lot of joy in happiness. My father built this cabin with his hands, his bear hands. I would go with him on the weekend, travel up and remember him during the wiring, plumbing, pouring the cement putting it i was a young child so dont remember helping but the impression that i got from being in attendance and just building with your own two hands, coming to this country with nothing in having the opportunities and the great blessings of being in this extraordinary country taught to be by my father that is a picture of my dad as a young man and myself and my brother. What we were around together. I grew up catching frogs and snakes [inaudible] would you encourage your sons to go into politics . I am the mother of two minds, very much a mother of two minds because i recognize on the one hand that we need honest, decent good people to run. But i also love my children. And the real its tough to go out in public because you become an instant where criticism is not deserved. Youve got to really be prepared. I would say three of the five had no interest never having to worry about it but i have two sons i know that would have loved the game. My oldest son tag and number three, josh. I feel safe with my son tag debate its hard for a republican from massachusetts to do anything. But my son i can see him doing something down the line finally Shadow Mountain is your publisher. What is Shadow Mountain . Theyve been fantastic. They will be representing me in helping me get the book out the they are the ones my son went to and they jumped on it and they thought that this was a good idea. And then the company sent the book to me now and i think its a and b i think its kind be pretty big success. What is your favorite recipe . I think it might be mitts tener triet its not my favorite but its his favorite and i love to cook because obviously the fact of bringing family together. So this is a meat and potatoes kind of cook book of its meat loaf, this is his favorite sood which is meat loaf and that might be a surprise to people. They think he is fancier than that but hes not, he is a meat and potatoes kind of guy and homemade rolls and the Sweet Potatoes he loves, so this is a basic cookbook for basic home cooking. Its not a fancy cookbook. When was this picture taken . That was in our home. It was his birthday that we celebrated rather late. It wasnt actually on his birthday but i remember the first chance i had to actually get the family together and be on the trail for a day or to the first thing i did is get ready and make his favorite dinner. The Romney Family table is the name of the book and it comes out and fall of 2013. Ann romney, thank you for being on book tv. Thank you. What are you reading this summer . Book tv wants to know. I just read jonathan a thousand pardons, which i thought was my cassette. He wrote a book called the privileges. Im about to start reading an old book called the pity of it all, the history of the jews in germany triet there is a book that is coming out in the fall by gregg easterbrook, the title escapes me, im sorry, forgive me. But i loved him and i think that hes a fabulous writer and i cant wait to dig into that. The book just came out by a really smart psychologist at the university of pennsylvania called Adrianne Raine that i am dying to read as well and that is my Summer Reading list. On the next washington journal in light of the latest terror alert more coverage of nonfiction books in the book industry every weekend on book tv deliberations had just begun in boston following the 36 day trial of Whitey Bulger. In june the author of a book about the crime and hamas and the fbi informant of 13 Chicago Tribune of printers roebuck fast. Their book describes his critical career and the manhunt to capture him. This is 45 minutes. [applause] thank you for coming out on a beautiful day. Here we are. We dont get a lot of those here. I am Phil Rosenthal with kevin cullen and Shelley Murphy of the boston globe who are here not on the Chicago Black caucus but to talk about their new book on Whitey Bulger, who is the boston mobster caught in the land after what, 16 years . And first of all, lets note youve been boston journalists for quite a long time at this point. Someone said between us its been like 16 years . Weve been chasing him a combined year of 50 years between us. And also at this point in journalism, you know, having a java is its own reward coming you have an armful of trophies all the way come to the surprise, its and impressive list. You know, its a wonderful book. The thing i was reminded of the very beginning of it, something when i was a kid my father was taking a friend of mine to go see a Butch Cassidy and the sundance kid and he said you know, remember whenever the movie makes of them, they are the bad guys. The of a thing it reminded me of is the old line from mel brooks in the 2000yearold man where he talks about robin hood, and he says what about robin hood . He stole from the rich and gave to the port to duty said nonsense, he stole from everybody and kept everything. He said how did that happen . Well, she had a guy named mardy that would go out and tell everyone he came from the poor. Who knew . I was thinking about the Whitey Bulger story and pretty much every mobster these days there is a mess and i dont know whether it is that we want to believe it or whether they want us to believe it. They all seem to have a myth. Tell us a little bit about the mess of Whitey Bulger and what sets him apart when flushed against realities. One of the things we try to look for several narrative arts and one of them what is the myth making of Whitey Bulger. Whitey bulger when he was a teenage criminals he was in the Housing Project the first one built in new england, and he had a car when no one else had a car and when he wasnt driving around with his books on a girlfriend, she would be out scouting and he wasnt scouting for criminal opportunities. He was looking for old ladies so when he would see an old lady with groceries, he would pull over, pulled out, swing open the door to kirker res kaput than in the back seat and drive them home to read every conscious decision. And when everybody they called stoop talking. They would say he is a hoodlum. The old ladies would say shes a lovely young man. He gave me a ride home from the market theater day. She was so conscious of doing that and he did it right through. What is different about bulger and wasnt just his narrative, she had a very influential family and as his younger brother bill who became his advocate when he went to prison, and bill bulger was out there propagating, too. He is said to my face on several occasions my brother would never touch drugs. And jimmy bulger, Whitey Bulger come is very good at history so he will tell you he was never an informant because he never testified against anybody and put them in prison, whereas we have 700 pages she was an informant. He would tell you that, you know, like a criminal that she would never touch drugs. In fact we have a scene she made millions and millions of dollars by shaking down drug dealers and letting them go through the neighborhood in boston. I lived there in the 80s and 90s. There was more drugs per capita than any other neighborhood in the city. And he has that on his hands to get you mentioned his younger brother. As billy wouldnt of becoming the president of the massachusetts senate, the president at the university of massachusetts even when he was in the state house, he was succeeded by the future mayor of boston. So we are not just talking a quiet power broker, he was up there and important. They both came out of this family. The father had been injured, lost an arm, but more importantly, where those projects were in south boston. South boston is a neighborhood where there was a real irish ethos even though there were many different ethnic groups that lived theyre the neighborhood identified itself as i risch. Even in the public schools, the albanian kids were forced to sing irish songs. So it is a neighborhood where loyalty meant everything. Loyalty to family and neighborhood there was a lot of crime in the neighborhood and its interesting, billy bulger, who as you said was probably the most powerful politician in the state for many years to the he describes growing of in south boston in the very sort of idealistic terms about how close mant it was and that even though nobody had very much and they were poor, the kids hanging together outside playing games, kick the can, football, whenever. But it was sort of not unusual for one family to have someone who would be a priest or a politician or a Police Officer and another that would be a gangster to the and it wasnt all that unusual in the city at that time. One of whiteys closest associates grew up in the projects and went to harvard university. Kevin could have gone there. He was so brilliant but the father was proud of kevin for working his way to the position of the top enforcer that he wasnt in the group that went to harvard. So there was a sort of culture about the place and loyalty didnt mean everything and that takes us to how the story starts with being cultivated as an fbi informant to read it is an fbi agent that growth in the project with the family who recruit him to be an fbi informant. The agent john connally. The thing there was interesting and you know there are so many aspects about the story, whether it is evin the stuff where he is part of that cia Research Project when hes in prison. You know, who knows what the lasting effects. You will hear it during his trial, believe me. But of really striking thing is this intertwined corruption of the mob and the fbi if you can separate them in this case. Succumbing day thought chris i should ask you did they think they were making an informed or was this simply just a bad idea and corrupt at its core . One of the things shelley and i talked about this when we are planning the book. Could this have happened in any other city . My belief is no because there is no other city whether we are talking about new york, chicago, philadelphia, cleveland, atlanta. There is no city you have these organized crimes, one is tire version one is italian. The mafia is by far bigger and more powerful and more lucrative. In boston it wasnt that way. So one of the things we try to show is this all went square in the 60s when Bobby Kennedy went to Jay Edgar Hoover and said you need to get serious. At this point he did not accept the mafia but he was ordered by the attorney general you have to sell up a strategy so they decided to go after the mafia that they really didnt take until the 70s. And like i said, that is a national policy. The problem of National Policies they dont take into account regional differences and in boston that model didnt fit. But you have basically the fbi agents were told do what ever you have to do to make our policy work. So in the 1960s with the did is the plate god. There was an irish gang in the 60s, and whitey was very lucky because he was locked at the time and statistically though yet the high chance would have been a perpetrator of that violence. Instead he comes out to a decimated landscape. Its wide open for anybody with opportunities and smarts and viciousness and he had all those things. So he goes in there and now for carmen is very cynical, from the hud and saying the other thing about the fbi coming to get promotions, you get salary raises based on your ability not to make cases, but to turn informants. Succumbing you want to have as many credible informants in your file. It is a notch in your belt. You want to be the top echelon informant. So, when he recruits, Whitey Bulger in 1945 he gets to say this guy is the leading member and the head of the maldon boston to read that was good for the fbi. But the idea is he was a joke. The ottilie incident told him at his pants were on fire. The reality is his criminalists as yet did know a lot about the mafia and had been recruited by the mafia several times and always turned them down saying i want to stay on my own. Answer, he does it for two reasons. First of its good for him that there is an altar your motives that goes back to the hood and that was to protect the family to save them from whitey being dragged off to prison. Backtrack a little bit. The reason we are talking about this is people say this is what we are going to get out of this. Whitey figures out and you sort of wonder how could anyone not figure this out, i could use this. This is going to work great for me. Not only are they going to look out for me and make sure i know que because i will keep talking to them that i can cover my tracks on anything. I can send them off on people i just want to get out of my way. Thats absolutely right. Right around the time whitey becomes an informant that he is charged with 19 murders when he goes to trial next week hes charged with killing 19 people in the 70s and 80s but one of those people is a guy that had been kind of a rifle and eventually they sort of there was some mediation they were going to Work Together but he still had it in his mind that he wanted to wipe out these guys that he never really liked. So after he becomes an informant and he is charged with taking this guy and killing him to read so it is an interesting story because they are riding in a car and the telhami that they are going to kill someone else and he has a bulletproof vest on and he gets in the car and the hand out guns to everybody in the car and he gets blanks in his gun and they kill him and they buried him in a secret grave. Then right around that same time they decide to kill his friend. So they killed him and now the meeting that he has with his fbi handlers he says to him tommy king just killed betty have leonard and hes gone into hiding. Well, he is dead, so john rights to the fbi files, you know, that whitey had told him that, you know, he was the that tom king told him. And this disseminated to the boston police. So they are looking for tommy king and now he goes back a couple weeks later because hes like they are going to be wondering where he went so he updates the fbi and says they told him you better get out of town because, you know, youre going to get killed so he waits another few minutes and goes back later and says hes dead. They killed him. Now you will never find him. So, this is how he is manipulating the fbi to the but over the course of the year it actually gets more worse and sinister than that because the allegations are that when people went to the fbi to cooperate against whitey they would lead it and then he would kill them and so they didnt see the pattern to the estimate or they didnt care about the patent in december of the victims rfp dalia informants, and at some point as he is more and more emboldened that he can get away with anything, now leader ron we see a legitimate businessmen who are shaking them down and they are not telling them that calling them into meetings and saying i am going to give you a chance to buy your life. You pay me 400,000 i will let you live. By the way, dont go to the fbi because if you do, i will know in five minutes. So one of the many things we wanted to do, we showed that the Justice Department narrative of this being the creation of the one agent who was too close to the home boy is bologna to read thank you for saying pallone. He doesnt usually. Anyway, the fbi and the Justice Department was determined not to make this a big scandal. So they didnt invite other agents. By my account theres at least a halfdozen the agents that could have easily been invited including the one that called me in 98 and said if i put in the paper that he was an informant i would be murder. That agent was allowed to retire with a full pension and i was subpoenaed back to testify at the hearings that the judge convened in 1997 and in 1998. I testified him calling me at the globe saying if you do this coming year will be killed. Now the government i am going to rebut my testimony. Said he claimed that a gangster called and wanted to pass over triet he didnt know me from a hole in the wall. There is no way. But put it this way, it doesnt matter what happened. We have a series of hearings. I testified for three and a half hours and i tell my story to well have a contemporaneously with the editor of the spot claimed Team Investigator and the judge kept asking are you going to the agent on the stand to rebut his testimony . They wouldnt put him out there because he would have perjured himself or he would have taken the fifth and they would have had to do something. They would have had to do something to tom daly. Instead they just let him commit he said of texas prospectus testimony and then the agent retires with a fat pension to be a i feel good every time life allowed a tax form now. Terrific. Thats the thing about this. We were talking a little bit about this before we cannot hear how Whitey Bulger is one thing. Its what this says about the Justice Department. Its what this says about the fbi. He corrupt san at his worst to read schenectady you think it is down now . I think what will be interesting is Whitey Bulger went on for 16 years and hes finally caught living in a rentcontrolled apartment in santa monica california two blocks from the beach where he been looking for 15 years and its a crazy story how he is caught. Its actually a former neighbor who lives and, you know, a former ms. I slammed who lives in santa monica several months out of the year and she is back home watching a cnn report on the latest campaign to try to find whitey and she recognizes the wanted posters of him and his girlfriend and she knows them because kathy, his girlfriend by all accounts a lovely, lovely woman and insists he could never have done all these horrible things, she loved animals coming and she was feeding stray cats in the neighborhood and they thought how wonderful, what a nice lady she is so kind to that cat and she thought her husband charlie was a little cranky, but she recognized them and called the fbi and thats how they caught him. We have received from the book a friend of whiteys who has been writing to him since his capture. She had some of the letters and i might add it gives a great insight. Weve said whitey might have a lot of problems but selfesteem isnt one of them. [laughter] but in one of the letters she writes a cat about recaptured. We actually screwed up on the subtitle. See the subtitle. It should have said how the cat caught americas most wanted inkster. Im sure he would have loved that. She is a fan of reading about himself. She is. He likes to read in general but he wasnt fond of the boston globe because he shot out our officers and he opposed the way the editorial supported the busing to segregate the public schools. But the boston globe is in good company because he also took, you know, its a part of his social outreach campaign. They went after john f. Kennedy she was angry about them in general because the biggest period is a judge named w. Arthur. Jack kennedy made him the u. S. Attorney when he was elected and then Bobby Kennedy promoted him through the Justice Department and then Teddy Kennedy became not only his prime mover to push him for the federal judgeship but when garrey issued the ruling that is very controversial and then in the city they were seeing the social experiment on the poorest people and wouldnt affect all of the rich white suburbs that were more segregated than the cities of the heated the kennedys and he really hated teddy so he fires the birthplace that they spraypainted outside of the house bussed teddy. Meanwhile, his brother is also fighting against the forced busing. And i think when you look at this and say how much interaction was there. What i thought was fascinating in researching the book i traveled to california because whitey had spent nine years in federal prison and in the late 50s and early 60s he was sent to alcatraz which was the first National Security prison in the country and he looked at alcatraz like many of us might look at our all modern and we went to high school or college. He was proud of that and they gave him a lot of stature and the boston underworld because people were like alcatraz. But we have a chapter in the book called the university of alcatraz to this gimmick anybody can step through harvard but in the boston area when you can go to alcatraz that is exactly right. And he was a High School Dropout and he earned his ged while he was in the air force. But where he really educated himself was an alcatraz to give he boasted that he read a book a day to be and he read military history, he read machiavelli to be a disconnect most think hes in the cleveland crew. San joaquin woohoo machiavelli was. But one of the most interesting things you asked about the family dynamic is curious whitey devotees in prison, and at the time hes of the Boston College law school and hes five years younger and hes determined to try to help him and his lobbying while he is at law school to try to get him to move closer, the prison closer to home. Maybe he can get an early parole and he enlists the dean of the law school to become his sort of her as an pen pal. This looks good for him hes getting letters from priests and looks like he is really trying to turn his life around. Since you see this priest who is writing and try to help him in the present system to do well. He also gets at the time the speaker of the u. S. House John Mccormack to lobby who is also from south boston to lobby the prison to try to get whitey sort of special treatment can you watch out for him, he comes from a wonderful family, which he did. Can you get him moved closer to home . But he gets caught up in a couple of prison escapes attempts. So the House Speaker gets the head of the director of the presence in washington to fly to san francisco, take them to alcatraz and pay a little visit. How are they treating you . How are you doing . The bank robbers got business from the head of the prison. So at a very young age she is seeing how political connections can really pay off. But also when he got out he became his brothers sort of his brother was his protection when he was in the can and when he got out anybody he perceived as a political foe that would include the newspaper we worked for said enemy, and he would go after them. There was a guy that was actually the state senator that got up and had the temerity to suggest on the floor of the senate that they controlled all of the legitimate interest in south boston and his brother contained all of the illegitimate access. He was in the midst of a mental breakdown when he said that there were no true words that were spoken from the floor of the massachusetts senator. But he told us he called and said i am going to kill you. Thats the kind of stuff that he did to anybody that he perceived as a threat to his brother. We are not amateurs when it comes to family and politics and corruption. But i do have the sense that if you were the brother of a wellknown monster you might have stumbles along the way. How did his rise continue while this was also going on . That is one of the things apart from the story. The fpi protected and we know that but also the legitimate power is that he silenced a lot of things. He had a huge patronage machine. I mean i had cousins that got jobs that would have to be approved by the office. That is just the way that it went to the and so, a lot of people there was an enormous intimidation factor. I noticed you are not supposed to be sitting around a bar in the 1980s talking about him. That wasnt done to date and there was the sense that you stepped over him in boston the funny thing is what we know now from the organization was purposely very small, a criminal organization. But the perception at least when i lived there is it was huge and big brother was everywhere and every that he was intimidated that the other thing like i said, there were legitimate Police Officers trying to take out to be there were very few heroes in the book that some of them are named jack omalley and the state copps there were three boston cops, jennie car, who were trying to take him out and fairly good dea agents and they were getting screwed hid pecos kurdish return to read in one case it was a corrupt state Police Officer who actually thwarted an investigation or undermined it but everybody assumed was the fbi. There was the other thing in the 1980s i went to my director and said that is the only explanation on the street. And that wasnt me just taking it up to that i was hearing it from all these people that i mentioned. But they were so frustrated at this point that they couldnt take him down legitimately. And in one case it was when the state cops went after him, somebody secretly inserted the the right into the budget that killed the salaries for all the state police commanders. No one ever figured out half of it but it happened in the state senate. I wonder who could have done that. The idf family comes up in a lot of ways in this story. And not all the conventional ways of a mob story. One is in the way that he had a lot of family, didnt he . That to me is one of the interesting parts of the story. Here is a guy that was very complex and then he is an fbi informant even though he denies that he prefers the word liaison or analyst. But you know, hes an fbi informant and at the time he is the head of the underworld and is juggling a lot of different women and one of the most interesting parts of the story is true of these were his longest relationships. He had a young woman he met when she was a single mother with four children all under 7yearsold. She meets her shortly after he gets out of prison in the 1960s. He never maries but he basically treats her children as her own. He buys her a house and move her out of the project and he insists on sitdown family dinners every night of the 6 00 no interruptions, no tv, no phone calls and he lectures the kids on the importance of staying away from bad influences be physically fit, study hard, and then of course he would go off into the night and allegedly shaking down drug dealers and bookmakers and legitimate businessmen and was like a scene on a father knows best how she treated those kids and then he would go off about one or two in the morning when the bar closed down she would have over to his other girlfriends house. He was ten years younger than to recess of the 40 years he was juggling the saw the relationship for 19 of those years with another woman. She was voted the prettiest girl with her High School Class but never thought i was good enough. She exaggerated with a bachelors degree in the up teaching at the dental school in boston but then gave it all up and quit to basically take care of him but was frustrated of being the other woman of the time. Even though they both grew up in south boston calfee knew all about theresa. The clock is ticking and its clear that hes under investigation and is likely to be indicted in the fall of 1994 cathie decides we need to force him to make a decision. We have to choose between the two of us. So he calls cathy op one night and we need to talk. She tells her for the last 19 years youve been with him hes been with me for 19 of the last three years so a very rat scene. Mcafee is yelling but according to traviesa why did the interviews with and one of his friends kathy is screaming im tired of being the other woman and shes strangling her on the ground and his son has to call her off so the way this resolves itself is she says its over what i choose you and lucky to ressa because she was such a catch. So he takes her on this trip to europe that theresa thinks its a vacation but hes actually stopping and in london and dublin and paris and hes sitting up state deposit boxes where he has money and a fake i. D. Because hes planning a life on the run so when they come back to boston in a matter of weeks he gets the heads up from john you better take off your about to be arrested so off he goes with teresa but after about a month on the run she says after the way he raised my kids and took care of them and walked her daughter down the aisle shes a lawyer with a felt obligated to stay with him but now knowing that he betrayed me all those years, no, i know him nothing. So he drops her off south of boston, cheeks said kathy and off they go and it is amazing story of how they lived on the run because she is so grateful to finally be the only woman and he describes her like his life. They are like this married couple and she spent 66 the funny thing is in his letters that we obtain the are captured and she is serving eight years in prison because she refused to cooperate against him but he is writing letters to his friend from jeal saying those 16 years were the happiest years of his life it was like a 16 year honeymoon and he says how dare the government sentence her to 18 years in prison they should have given her a medal because she did what no Law Enforcement person could do and that is keep me crime free for 16 years. He did have guns in the wall, yes. Its a love story. Is a love story because hes working so hard to keep her, do what you must let me and that circled because we got a letter when she said he offered himself up for execution if he would let the woman i love gaucherie. That sounds very nice. It is bologna. If whitey really cared about kathy, all he had to do is have his lawyer talk to me, tell the fed whatever you want and i have no doubt in my mind they would have severely reduced the sentence and maybe not sentence for any time in prison that she cooperated but she wanted to be this girl stand by my man. And when we talk about whitey making the good that a guy that gives a ride home to old ladies and carries their groceries for them during the purchase on the floor they would say he died for the woman he loved. Its bologna commitment to believe that he was a good bad guy. There are two other points that the reputation is in the letter hes written he resigns of the fact the chance he would get acquitted if the trial starts next week with openings would run through the end of september he says im probably going to spend the rest of my life behind bars. He really thinks hes going to spend the rest of his life behind bars . Theres two things he wants to achieve our was never an fbi informant and i didnt kill those two women, two of the 19 victims are 26yearold woman he is accused of strangling and lets face it, good bad guys, they dont read on their friend and they dont strangle when men. Its continuing to this day. He put us on the witness list. I would be a terrific defense witness. I find it back before the judge actually cited with us and our lawyers me the First Amendment argument basically saying our rights and trumped his. But i recall which ensure hes not very fond of. I talked about this and i guess what the psychologists have called he liked to talk about himself in literary terms and he talks about his to prove in court. What he is a protagonist in that short story man without a country. Its about a flawed character that feels hes being persecuted by his own government so thats how he sees himself. He was the protagonist in the great story called the informer and he sold his friends for money. They wouldnt like the way they treated him because he was an undisciplined. Hes much more disciplined and his associates told us he would never come to be organized with blood on his hands. Whitey wants to tell the story his way. He doesnt want People Like Us defining him in terms of the of witness list if youre on the witness list you are sequestered and that would have been the point. Hes determined to tell it his way. How dare you write my story and something i can treaty on tv. He called kavanagh another lowlife. The book is Whitey Bulger the most wanted a gangster and the manhunt that brought him to justice. We have time for a few questions. For the fans [inaudible] and since he was a reader did he ever read the book about his cover of boston during his heyday in Common Ground did he ever express an opinion on that . I believe he did and yes they were big fans and there was a book when he went on the run and what his belongings was a teacher had written. Im not sure i dont think Common Ground was among those books but he was well read and he wrote about how much he hated was interesting because in the book sold dewaal to go she mentions the bombing of the jfk birthplace so they found his copy of the book and then next to the section where she mentions this he writes in the margins of the book too bad ted wasnt in the house mary jo would have been happy. I want to ask you to step up away from lee authors and how close you are to this case but as journalists if you were reading this account and just how as fbi and people that we look to has citizenry to protect our rights and protect us how that compromised your livelihood and what youre supposed to do in the role of journalism and if you could comment on that a little bit professionally what you uncovered and how you feel about that. Im glad you asked that because we are talking about Whitey Bulger being a psyche of catholic to the 66 psychopathic. I dont expect the government to act the way they do in this book to read the one thing i really did want to show is beyond the individual corruption is the institutional corruption. When the fbi knew he was a murderer and was suspected of several murders and the release, the fbi lied to its own people in oklahoma that were investigating the murder. They consciously made the decision to keep bulger on a rather than turn him over to the other Law Enforcement agencies. The other thing i really deeply resent is the way that the government has tried to why government doesnt get to pick who wins and dies. But he killed a number of innocent people. Defense was not a criminal. Deborah wasnt a criminal. Roger wheeler was not a criminal but the other thing we do try to show is he is protecting what this guy. People get money. To us from corruption goes to this day in a sense the Justice Department did everything it could to hurt the victims families and would not acknowledge their hurt and never apologize to them. They have gone out of the way to make sure the cases and the termination have been thrown out and the way the Justice Department did it is so cynical because on the side they would go and say he is an agent that got People Killed and the reason we know this is from Whitey Bulger and kevin. Then the same Justice Department but spend their several lawyers into a different courtroom and say these claims have to be thrown out because you cant believe a word. That is corruption that the government would do that to these people. That is one of the things i found most startling is after there were revelations in court about a love relationship with bulger that it led to a number of murders. When the families did file these wrongful deaths because of the fbis handling of the two informants and his partner, their government managed to get most dismissed on technical ground. They argued devotee never got to have their day in court. You know, you should have known. You should have been watching tv and reading the paper more closely. You should have known a couple years ago that the fbi was coming and you state your claim within two years so they were dismissed and that is just funny. We have time for one more question here. I think you started to answer my question to the head when you said at the beginning as both were a perfect storm in terms of where he happened to be and where he grew up said, are there other Whitey Bulgers this is my argument. I dont believe the culture has changed much. Last year i did a series of columns based on their reporting that i and another reporter who did and which we found the first phone call about the story. This guy was accused of a big mafia guy and the state police decided to target him because he was a wellknown dealer. He wasnt a nice guy but they thought he was an informant so they called the fbi and this list to years ago they said we think this is your guy and we have a move on him. Absolutely not. As soon as they get the why year upon thinking they get the wires on the subpoena and the court order to go on to this cell phone. The first conversation is him talking to his fbi handlers. I think the state police are coming after me. And when they took him down the first supervisor said he is and our guy. They called the commander and said that is a great pension you make. They say we have to put him in prison. And he says what are you, crazy . Hes killed at least six people and the fbi response to that is we know of only one. So dealing with a guy that killed one person is acceptable. You ask me has it changed . I dont think its changed. The fbi needs the entire situation to talk about it in the historical. Chellean i were in washington last week and i walked by the Jay Edgar Hoover building and thought what a disgrace that name is still out there to read in the history of this republic his name is on the building. On that note i would like to thank you all for coming out and Shelley Murphy and kevin cullen, the boston globe Whitey Bulger. I dont know how many of you are going to have time [applause] we will discuss International Trade and Port Security on washington journal. Then if we turn away from the needs of others, we align ourselves with those forces the to bringing about this suffering obesity in this country is nothing short of the Public Health crisis. I think they serve as a window on the path to what was going on with american women. Many of the women who were first ladys a lot of them were writers, journalists sestak they were in many cases more interesting as human beings than their husbands. If only because they are not first and foremost to find the political ambition. When you go to the white house today there is too much looking down, not enough change of pace. I think in every case, the first lady has done her personality and interest. Shia and later wrote in her memoir i myself never made any decisions. I only decided what was important and when to present it to my husband. Start to think about how much power that is that is a lot of power. Part of the battle against cancer is to fight this year that accompanies the disease. We transform the way that we look at these bugaboos and made it possible for the countless people to survive and to pose as a result. I dont know how many president s have had that kind of an attack on the way that we live our lives. Just walking of around the white house grounds i am constantly you reminded about all the people that have lived there before, and particularly all of the women. Today on washington journal we visit the port of virginia to talk about how the port is run and global trade. We began with the executive director and the chairman of the Virginia Port Authority. We are live in norfolk virginia, the Third Largest on the east coast and putting 350,000 jobs in this area. And its Economic Impact, its annual Economic Impact of 41 billion from 35 ships come to call a week here at the port of of virginia. Each container or each ship, excuse me, has up to 10,000 containers to get here to help us kick off the conversation, rob me all over with the Virginia Port Authoritys the executive director and jeff kevin wassmer for the virginia port of authority. Jeff, let me begin with you. In the history of the part of the virginia when did this start, how long has it been around . First welcome to the part of virginia. A great story to tell. From about 1982 the state took all of the terminals around and consolidated them under the Virginia Port Authority. The Virginia Port Authority consists of the commissioners appointed by the governor. There are some that serve as the chair and i am honored to have that position. We are all on an Economic Impact and we need the support. Rot me all over the executive director. About 300 people, 1200 more operate the part of virginia. What is your job as the executive director what are you doing on a daily basis . My job is to make sure everything is running smoothly. We have such a great story to tell and also to make sure that the employees have the resources that the need to view their job and to make sure that we get noticed and that the cargo moves through the facility. So tell me what does the port of virginia consist of a infrastructure y is . What is here . We own or lease and operate the terminals the largest facility and we also have a terminal in portsmouth virginia. We also have the Virginia Inland Port that is in the front row of a virginia and then also weve least the part of richmond. So, what is happening here today as we speak at the port of virginia it gets very busy around here. A lot of movement and as you said it is a big footprint on the water. What is happening . We were coming in this morning and there was a ship backing into the facility at the north end, we are the south end. They have a ship that is beginning to work as we speak. And as i came in today there were containers coming in by export and they began as we speak as well so there are containers being floated off the cars in the position to be loaded onto the ships that will become a leader in the day. We also have the floodgates that were open and the truckers are coming to to come to their final destinations. A lot of different moving parts. You are expecting a ship to be docking behind us are around midday today. What is the timing like for that . Are they pretty precise time line is that you have or what is the process for extracting the ship to come and . They are regularly scheduled but there are times when they have to be aggressive. You know when the ships are going to be here and you start working with the ship captains. Generally they go back for 12 hours to export containers we are fortunate 50 is in port cargo. So the ship is coming in along the way. What is the process for the ship until they get to the dhaka . Will notify the pile wet but it is coming in. And who are the pilots . The Pilots Association navigate the ships so they take over and are they federally run . No, they are a separate entity. They are a statesupported. So, they get them into the boats and on to the dock. What happens next . We make sure that its a secure and begin working. What you see here in the background will begin taking the containers off and putting the containers on. Generally, what happens is for a container that is coming off the ship it will be dropped on to the ground and will be picked up by what we called a straddle carrier which is a piece of equipment that moves the containers around the terminal until it is ready to be discharged either by truck or by rail. And then from there . The ports across our country. This is the Third Largest on the east coast. About one dozen run up and down the east coast. About 20 major ports. The port of virginia is in the list of regularly ranks around five or six depending upon the amount of cargo coming in. So start dialing in now with your questions or comments,