Microphones to your right and we hope the audience will be able to hear. As always make sure to silence your cell phones and turn off your camera flashes at this point in time come and with that please welcome dahleen glanton, columnist with the chicago tribune. [applause] good morning. Thank you all for coming. I am so excited to be here today with ibram x. Kendi whose book stamped from the beginning the definitive history of racist ideas in america is probably one of the most timely books that are out there right now. And we certainly can learn a lot from what ibram has to talk about today. So ibram is the recipient of the National Book award. They praised him in preventin pd that word as a masterful voyage the history of u. S. Rhetoric. So ibram is a professor of history at the university of florida, also a finalist for the book critics circle award. And i just learned today that while in undergraduate school, ibram was interested in being a journalist, working for a newspaper. We certainly could have used him in that profession, but im sure that he has been able to get a lot more accomplished by riding his books. So were going to start now and just kind of talk a little bit about the book. So ibram, as a journalist i am always curious when someone publishes something so compelling, a thoroughly researched piece of work that you have done here. Did you set out to write a 600 piece page, piece of nonfiction . How long did it take you to complete this book . First of all, its a pleasure to sit here with you and be in conversation with you and to be here in chicago for this festival. And, first, i will answer the second question first. It took me about three years. It was three long years of working from the time the sun was down till the time the sun was still down, and i didnt actually set out to write a narrative history of racist ideas that literally covers the entire course of antiblack racist ideas. I actually set out to initially write the history of scientific racism up to the 1960s, and then expand it to lets write history of scientific racism up to the present. That expanded to lets write a history of racist ideas in general, which is ultimately what i ended up doing, and as many of you would imagine, theres been quite a few racist ideas in history. I had to cut down a lot in order to make it as you would imagine. During that time that your writing as you point out in your book there were as you call them heartbreaking events that took place in our country that helped to kind of create kind of a black empowerment movement, particularly among young people pick it was a time of Trayvon Martin and michael brown, freddie gray, and others. So how did those events actually influence your writing . Well, i think when you are writing about antiblack racist ideas and you are seeing on cell phone videos, on Television Screens through the cries of mothers and fathers just how lethal antiblack racist ideas still are, i think it sort of inspired you and it really in sort of courage and showed me just how important this project that i was undertaking. And i think thats really i think what guided me sort of along the way. Like i could not sit here and talk about how difficult it is to compose this history of racist ideas when i saw these families having to do with the difficulties of police violence. And certainly these are issues that we continue to grapple with here, and so what i like about your book is about it lays out the history of these racist ideas and america in a great narrative and gives us a roadmap of how we can kind of move forward using what we have learned from your research. But another thing, and perhaps more important, is that your challenge is to look at ourselves and, to understand its not just white people but africanamericans who can also racist ideas, and that perhaps we are part of the problem rather than the solution. So some would argue though africanamericans cant be racist, that racism involves power over segments of the population that have impact economically, politically, socially. What do you say to that . Is there a difference between racism and racist ideas . I think the easiest way to understand and to really answer this is for us to distinguish between a racist policy and a racist idea. So i defined the racist ideas any idea suggesting that a racial group is superior or inferior to another racial group in any way. And a racist policy i more or less defined as any policy that yields an unequal outcome between racial groups. So any policy that produces racial inequality. And so i think as relates to power you clearly have to have power in order to create or even defend or even execute a discriminatory policy against a group of people. And so certainly it is the case that lets a white people have far and away more power in this country to execute those types of policies. But to say that black people do not have any power, which is typically the argument of those is a black people cant be racist because black people dont have power, is to simultaneously say that white people are allpowerful. And to say that white people are allpowerful is to express one of the oldest racist ideas in history, which is that white people are like gods. And so i dont think, despite many people making the case, the white people are gods and they are allpowerful, that that is the case. And i also think id also showed in stamped from the beginning that black people can say that black people are lazy. And i think we should also recognize the function of racist ideas. I think thats one of the whole contributions of stamped from the beginning it the way racist ideas function and operate in our society is it causes people when they see Racial Disparities, it causes of them to blame black people for those Racial Disparities as opposed to Racial Discrimination. And so then the next step becomes to either civilize foreign cars that black people. And black people are part of the project, as opposed to doing what . Challenging Racial Discrimination. And so fundamentally thats what racist ideas do. It suppresses the resistance to Racial Discrimination, including within the black community. Thats interesting. You know, one of the other things that i find interesting in what you write is, and maybe think about what we do a lot of times as journalists and in the newspaper industry. We publish come Everybody Knows in chicago we got our share of problems here with violence and so forth, and we have daily tolls of the murder victims that get probably more clicks than anything on our webpages, people like to read that. So do those kinds of things actually contribute to a feeling that perhaps africanamericans are a violent people overall . Does that, i mean come in any way shape the way people view africanamericans . I think for some people it does. I think that one of the most dangerous racist ideas in this country is the idea of the dangers of black person, is the idea of the dangers of black community. And i think we see how dangerous this idea is in the way it operates in the minds of Police Officers who, when they see the socalled dangerous people or the entry into these dangerous communities, their trigger finger is a lot closer than when theyre in other communities. And so i think this idea is based on a series of misleading statistics, or its based on ideas that only, we would think about the most dangerous neighborhoods, we only think about things like homicide. We dont think about other things like come lets say drunk driving, take an example. Some years more people die from drunk driving and they do homicides. We had studies that sometimes show that white men are more likely to drink and drive and kill people than other racial groups. But those communities with those high levels of drunk drivers are not considered to be dangerous, right . Because of our sort of flippant connection between danger and blackness. And i think we should reimagine, you know, what neighborhoods are truly the most dangerous by actually bring in the many different factors. I dont think we should just reduce it to those communities that have the most homicides. And lastly i will say that study showed that theres a direct correlation between Violent Crime rates and unemployment levels, which means that its actually better for us to understand certain communities as dangerous unemployed communities as opposed to dangers black communities. But then that would cause a different solution to the problem. The solution would not be lets throw more cops in that community and civilize these people. The solution of course would be very simple, jobs. [applause] what it boils down to really is racial inequality and what that means for all of us. So in your book you talk about the size of the argument surrounding racial inequality. And you say that those are not new ideas, that those ideas that have been around every point in every century. So tell us about the segregationist, the antiracist, and the assimilationist. Sure. Again, stamped from the beginning, one of the ways we can understand this title is bad racial inequality has been stamped from the beginning of this country and the four americans have been debating or i should sit argument about why we have so much racial inequality. And theres been three positions. The segregationist position has stated that is because black people are inferior. So to give an example, if over the last 50 years the black and upon the rate has been twice as high as the white and upon the right, consistently. So what segregationists will say is its because black workers are lazy. Black workers dont want to work the and want to hang out on welfare. Theyre not qualify. They they will principally blame black workers are black inferiority. Then on the other side of the debate is the antiracist position, and antiracists typically view the racial groups as equal. Thank you black workers as equal to white workers. For then they can be something wrong with black workers. It must be the result of job discrimination. So they. 2 job discrimination as the cause of racial inequality. And then the third position which is a bit more tricky is the assimilationist position. Typically assimilationist say its actually both. So yes, it is the case that black workers are lazy, but its also the case that there is job distribution. Assimilationist was a one of the reasons why there sullies is because they been subject into so much job discrimination. And so what we need to do is that only challenge Racial Discrimination, but we also need to civilize black workers. So we are amongst friends here. So give me some examples of people who we might know how you think fit into those categories. [laughing] okay. So lets see. The segregationist position, weeks after barack obama was elected president , John Mcwherter wrote a column, peace and Forbes Magazine stating that we are now living in a postracial society which basically means that racism or Racial Discrimination is over which means that any Racial Disparities and inequality that still exist must be the result of black inferiority. And so i think that thats one obvious example of a a segregationist position. I think that as it relates to antiracist position, black lives matter activists, went barefoot out at the problem of race and policing, they are principally stated that you know what, yes, we know its the case that in 2016 young black men were nine times more likely to be killed by police and other racial groups. Since young black men are equal to the other groups it must be the result of Racial Discrimination. It must be the result of discrimination from police, from the criminal Justice System more broadly. But then there were not only challenged by the segregationist bluelines matter crowd, but it also challenge by the all lies matter crowd. The crowd simultaneously saying that yes, there is a problem with race and policing but theres also a problem with these thugs because also problem with black on black crime and we need to basically solve both problems. So whats the problem with that . Whats the problem with what . What is a problem with maybe saying that its the combination of factors, that its not just the fact that we should focus on just black on black crime, that company we should not just focus on Police Brutality but also black on black crime. What is the issue with that . So i think, typically the argument for black on black crime is typically states that there is a fundamental problem with black people killing black people. That is not occurring in other neighborhoods. So theres actually something worse happen in black neighborhoods as it relates to crime. And so it ultimately sort of connotes this idea of black criminality, not criminality but black criminality being an american problem, that black people or americans sort of need to deal with. And again when we look at the statistics, again you have the policing community that will say its because black people commit more crimes. And so thats why we reportedly have a greater black crime problem. They make those cases based on arrest and incarceration rates. Thats Crime Statistics to even do with people everyday in in this country who are committing crimes and what, not being arrested. With people who are committee, were being arrested and not going to prison. But people assumed that if a neighborhood has higher levels of arrests and incarceration, that they have higher levels of crime. They have been assuming that for a very long time to justify the number of police in black neighborhoods which ultimately leads to more what, arrests, and ultimately leads to more incarceration. I should say also that a very seductive idea is the idea that slavery literally harmed black people as a group. That segregation literally made black people into groups, that poverty is literally impoverishing the valleys of the black community. These are very seductive ideas that is very prominent within assimilationist thought. Once believed them wholeheartedly myself. But when i started looking for evidence that actually prove these ideas it came up. Thats interesting. You know, one of the things that we know from polls and surveys of various types is that africanamericans and white people in general look at race to a different lens. You know, we just dont see things i do i. So often this talk about a conversation about race, that the country needs a conversation about race, what would that look like . I think the first and most important thing that would be important for that type of conversation, i think thi this a very reason i wrote this book, was for us as a nation to sit down and finally agree on a definition for a racist idea. And the reason why thats so important, i ended up again to find a racist idea is any idea suggesting that a racial group is superior or inferior to another racial group in any way. The reason why that is so important is because people have conversations regularly about race but then they refuse to admit that their ideas about black people or even other group of people are racist. So people want to speak of people want to denigrate and people want to imagine these racial hierarchies but they dont want to be considered racist. And so that creates this conundrum. People also do not want to accept the facts, right . So you present people with fax that dispute their ideas about black people but they still want to believe what they want to believe. It makes sense that because the other alternative is that Racial Discrimination is pervasive to can people do not want to believe that. People are so, they love this idea of a postracial america. They are hugging is a tightly and the refuse to look at the facts that say otherwise. Anybody who still thinks that we live in a postracial society, i, you know, i dont know what to say. But youre right though. Because we do hear a lot of that speed is if i could add one quick thing. I think another thing we should do as a nation is the way im mad off this book is by admitting my own racist ideas. So i admitted that i have been basically, i have consumed a series of racist ideas about black people over the course of my lifetime living in this country. We have to enter these discussions admitting our self how are we going to become better people . How were going to become a better nation if we are not willing to admit it . It makes sense. You have racist ideas swirling around you. Make sense that youre going to consume a few. Can you share with us something you realize about yourself . Sure. I of course as a black male having negative experiences with a black woman, i would generalize that to say black women are like this in a negative sense, which is a racist i did it i should be saying that that particular individual was like that. I used to think that black neighborhoods were more dangerous than white neighborhoods. I realize that was based on a series of misleading statistics. I used to believe that black children were intellectually inferior to white children, but thats not said that black children are cheating at a lower level than white children. When i realized that those ideas were based on standardized test that were created by eugenicist. And i can go on and on. I had all these ways of explaining Racial Disparities that denigrated black people that i didnt realize were actually not based on facts. So in order to do that, does it have to be a conscious decision that you want to examine how you feel about race . Yes. And decide that youre going to do something about it . Yes. I do think it has to be a conscious decision to want to become an antiracist. And so we like to think of and imagine that there are racist and nonracist. Theres no such thing as a nonracist. Either you believe in racial hierarchy, that certain racial groups are superior in certain ways that others, or you believe in racial inequality. And when you say racial equality, i should say can would you say groups are equal, you are not stating that the people are the same. You can have two equal teams that totally different officers offenses and defenses but just equal. Youre also not stating that everybody in both groups are great. What actually makes black people equal to white people and other groups is not the barack obama was of the world. Its not the Oprah Winfrey of the world. Its the imperfections of black people that makes them equal because it makes them human. In a group of people in this country, in this world, as a series of, basically a collection of imperfect individuals. But what happens is lack negativity is generalize while white negativity is individualized. So black people are not able to basically be imperfect when theyre surrounded by these racist ideas. So i think us striving to be at the races, us asking questions like okay, since the racial groups are equal what is actually causing this inequali inequality . So that raises another question. In the news lately, actually last week or the week before, we heard about what happened to lebron james at his home. We know that, well, that was one thing that happened. There been a series of things to happen. There was bill marr who use the nword on hbo. So how do you do things like that . Are those distractions . Are those things that we really should be focusing on, or are those just things that are out there that we should maybe just say you know, those are just some crazy things can let them go, focus on something that are more important . What you think . To answer your question i want to be very precise because i dont want to get, when you say focus on, doesnt say do not even looking at that at all. So i would argue that no, thats not things that we should be focused on. I think people who truly want to create an antiracist america with Racial Disparities do not exist should be focused on searching out and studying the discriminatory policies that are actually creating those Racial Disparities. That should be our focus from a racial sense. We should be trying to eliminate racial inequality. We should be changing policy to make that happen. And we should not think that we have to do anything to black people to create equality. Theres nothing wrong with black people. Really the only thing that is wrong with black people is that we think something is wrong with black people, just like the only thing thats extraordinary about white people is they think something is extraordinary about white people. [laughing] [applause] okay, well [laughing] you talked about angela davis, w. E. B. Du bois, Thomas Jefferson, who we might consider, most of us probably consider people who were probably, i dont know about Thomas Jefferson, i mean come we know that Thomas Jefferson has an issue, but the others were probably some of the most problack people we know, yet you think at some racist ideals . I think in the case of w. E. B. Du bois in particular, i wanted to first of all, you mentioned, stamped from the beginning at five major characters, and each of these characters serve like as tour guides for windows to the larger threeway debate that i was referencing earlier. And jefferson was one of those characters, du bois and angela davis was. In the case of du bois and even other people in the book, there is a specific reason why wanted to write history of racist ideas as opposed to racist with an aspect i want to sort of show the complexity of the human mind. That and certain Vantage Point you can see the racial groups as come you could see a hierarchy but in other Vantage Point you can see the racial groups as equal. In certain ways you good old antiracist ideas, in other ways you could hold assimilationist ideas as du bois did. I actually show in stamped from the beginning that his heralded double consciousness was, in fact, a double consciousness of assimilationist an antiracist ideas. But i also show over the course of his very long life that he was able to develop a single consciousness of antiracism, particularly by the 1930s, in which he was critiquing his own ideas of earlier decades. Is this hope for regular People Like Us . It seems it is complicated. At the same time it is complicated. It is simple idea for a a person to believe that the racial groups are equal. But then that becomes very complicated. When you realize all of these different ways we have been told theyre not equal. That is the fundamental assumption. Ep. Then there for, when they see disparities, comes to lets say wealth, they dont say, it must be because black people dont want to save money. They look for discrimination in basically banks giving out mortgages. They find that discrimination, right . As many studies have pound in recent years. That is really, im actually working on a book right now entitled, how to be an antiracist. Im sort of, im taking the reader through my own sort of personal story. I sort of begin the book with a chapter called my racist introduction. I take the reader through how i thought it became an antiracist with dubois and from the beginning. Listen to you talk about this, im also thinking about the young man and women that we come across all the time when were reporting about the violence in chicago, in neighborhoods, where this investment is just a way of life. There is nothing there. It is obvious that the neighborhoods have been forgotten and so have a lot of these young people to be quite honest. So how do you make a young person who lives in that environment, who sees this every day where the world tells him, that he is not equal . How do you make him believe that he is . Well i think thats, thats a very sort of difficult question. I think that it is a very long process. You know, i didnt, i think first and foremost people, individuals, understand their world from their own very narrow Vantage Point, right . They dont know about that disinvestment. They dont know about the policies that are driving down the number of jobs in their community. They dont know about the number of jobs driving down resources for their schools. They dont know about policies causing Police Officers continue to get off when they abuse them. They dont know about those things. Although they know about is the what they see, the violence they see. What i try to do, like i do for older people, for them to step out of their individual sort of circle, try to imagine their own circle from sort of a macrostandpoint which allows them to see how all of these greater forces are creating that circle, right . I also try to sort of hit home that, lets imagine for a moment, that the problem is not the people. Lets just imagine for a moment that the problem is not the people. The problem is not these young black people in you south side of chicago. The problem is not their horrible situation. Imagine it is not the people. What else could be causing this . Those are the questions i ask them and sometimes they come up with brilliant answers. And youre right, and i also think that young people live in some of these very poor communities, it is their norm, right . Its who they identify with, so it makes sense that there is often he violence, right . I mean, do you also think that some of it is even a bit of fake selfinterest . I said only thing wrong with black people, we think something is wrong with black people. So there is certainly, that is the only thing that is welldocumented. That is a problem with black people is their own sense that they are a problem, right, because they have been reared within that conception. Particularly poor black people, right. Because you had, you have the entire weight of the nation, intellectual weight of the nation from black elites to nonblacks looking at poor blacks as the worst problem in this country. You know, as the cause of the violence. The cause of their own poverty. And so for them of course theyre willing to think, yes, i am the worst, i am at bottom. I should get my head stepped over by every group in this country. So it is internalized even those ideas are not true. There is nothing wrong with poor black people, other than theyre thinking something wrong with poor black people. If we were to look out as these people as human as us, i think we would, it would make a world of difference. Within the communities where this is happening, certainly young black men are killing other young black men who look just like them, who live just like them. That seems like the ultimate . Yes. Another way for us to understand this, is, for instance, if any of house were to go home today and pull up, what are the top causes of death in this country. Homicide is not even there. Even though people demean these young black males, right, are we demeaning those, all those white males who voted for trumpcare, who presumably will causeway more deaths if that bills is pad than these young black males, right . I think we have to think bigger, right . We think of who is the most dangerous, who is killing americans, right . It is not these young black males. We imagine why is it that so Many Americans, why is it that so Many Americans die of Heart Disease and cancer . This isnt because of these young black males. Again we like to imagine [applause] but there is of course, there has not been a war against any of those people, any of those corporations, any of those establishments causing those problems. Im sorry. [laughter] [applause] one of the things that appears obvious is that if were ever going to make a difference here, people upon themselves to do it. A black president couldnt do it, right . No reason to think that we have an administration now that is going to do it. So, it is on us, right . So, where do we go from here . What do we do now . So i think again as it relates to racial issues, i think another, i guess, you can call it a central thesis of stamped from the beginning, we rethink where racist ideas come from. So we have been taught that people are just ignorant and hateful and that is how they develop those hateful ideas. People develop the ideas that black people are barbaric. These people instituted policies, like slavery or segregation or mass incarceration. I show that popular folk tale is just that, a folk tale. It is not true. What is actually happened over the course of American History is that you had people who have created discriminatory policies because it benefits them economically, politically or culturally. We understand, i will enslave people because it will make me what . Money. These very people or sean spice irs create, create, produce, defend, racist ideas to justify, to defend, to rationalize the inequality that comes out as a result of those policies, and then they circulate these racist ideas like this voter fraud problem. Then people believe that, they become ignorant and hateful. Then it al you hows those policies to continue and therefore those people to stay in office. Those people to continue to make money. Those people to continue to benefit. Like that is the history that i show. So what that means is us trying to educate or persuade away the racist ideas of you powerful americans. It is going to what led to change is protesting against racist powers. Even more importantly gaining power and putting people who are committed to antiracist policies in power. Insuring that those people are held accountable by the antiracist common sense of you and i, of the people. So that, that gives us a lot to think about. Were going to open this up for questions. People are lined up over here. Lots of questions i see. Testing one, two. As a woman ive seen a lot of negative images of women, certainly in the last election hillary was hated. Question i have as a white person is why is there i still a black acceptance in your communities, n word okay, only inside . I dont want to hear anyone woman driver, women in power are bitches. Why is that word still okay when all it does is reinforce use of that word . A movie was full of uses of that word. In any community that word should be gone. Why is that word still there . All it does for me is reinforce a bad word. Thank you. I should say that, within the feminist community there is actually a pretty strong debate going on about the b word. There are feminists who have, sort of reimagined the b word as a sign ever endearment. Im sure you would disagree with that position. I think within the black community there is a similar debate sort of going on about the nword and that debate has been going on for quite some time. What should all do, we should engage in debates in our own community. I think im not going to step into the Womens Community or the feminist community and state that well you should not be using the b word. I think from the same standpoint it is important for nonblacks to not step into the black community and tell us what we should or should not use. I think it is important, again, for us to try to stay in our own lane. [applause] i really appreciate your comments about the origin of racist ideas, how it makes money. I want to point out a book written by Dorothy Roberts, if youre familiar with her. A book, fatal invention, goes into history of race, our raos is social construct that has been used to divide people. There is another book called, the harm in hate speech. Discusses issue of free speech, when it is really he free and when it isnt. I was concerned about some of the debate going on in some of these colleges where you have people, give you an example. There is this guy Charles Murray who wrote the bell curve along with a guy named richard bernstein, came ideas around racist, blaming black people for some of the ideas you mentioned. He actually was going to be speaking in Middlebury College recently and then there was a protest that prevented him from speaking. Personally i would like to know your opinion. I actually think that that was a, actually a good thing, because the problem is, hate speech i think is is something like, yelling fire in a crowded theater, there are some laws against that. In a racist society that creates conditions that exist, to build racism, to blame people, as Charles Murray has done for their own problems, for their own predictment, is to me dangerous and potentially harmful and, people die from that. So, it is tricky, free speech thing but, thank you. Very quickly, im happy you mentioned Dorothy Roberts text, fatal invention. One of my favorite books. She actually operationalizes race as a political construct. I think its a very important distinction that this is about power. It is really a power struggle. As it relates to your question, i actually a few years ago i wrote a column that, sitting next to a world class columnist, i almost feel bad saying it, i wrote a column that differentiated between free speech and unfree speech. And i made the case that unfree speech is based on a series of, what we call now, all tern he tiff facts or alternative facts or outright lies. People should not have the ability to stand up in a column or even in a speech and basically state a series of just lies, then people are going to believe, and then people are going to go out and kill people as you certainly stated. [applause] in talking about this investment in communities and Different Things recently a whole foods opened in englewood, one of severely, socially economically disadvantaged neighborhoods. There was some concern, there were concerns from a bunch of groups inside of the community about the loss of income to, like locallyowned businesses to whole foods that brought better economic stability and jobs. Where does that fall in the spectrum of what your work is and how can you walk the line between adding economic stability while not taking away other that exists . Whoo. I think there is a difference between i mentioned earlier about the importance of jobs. The force of jobs is ability to build wealth. You build wealth being able to own businesses. Working class, poor people, workingclass people have to own Small Businesses. When you have a large are business like that come in, as you stated it sort of reduces the market share for Small Businesses. However at the same time, you have those companies coming and bringing a the lot of jobs. I think more of a question for that community themselves, right, for them to figure out what it is that they want. But i think if you were to remove the whole foods i think it is just as important to bring in access to resources so those people can have access to capital to basically, not just Small Businesses but Small Businesses that thrive. Hi. I wondered if you could speak a little bit about the impact of film and hollywood experience, impacting popular views on racist views and speak a little bit legacy that were still having hangover from birth of a nation . Yeah. So,. Birth of a nation, first major Motion Picture was basically the bestselling film until another film by name of gone with the wind came out. Gone with the wind came out held it done i talk about other films that emerged. You had a generation of people born and raised thinking that reconstruction era was horrible for white people, or you have people thinking that black people just loved slavery, loved through gone with the wind. Just like now you have people who still were born and raised on tarzan films. They think africa is a barbaric place. He when i go to africa, will you you go wear clothes over there . Crazy things like that. People watch films more than read books. There are all sorts of racist ideas that these films are reinforcing, that we have to push back. So even you have given us so much to think about, i certainly appreciate that. [applause] lets go home to do some selfevaluation. I know i am. [applause] thank you once again to dahleen blanton and ibram kendi. He will sign books out back and have books to sell. Thank you very much. [applause] booktv recently visited capitol hill to ask members of congress what theyre reading this summer. Well, i just finished a book called the immortal irishmen about a man Thomas Patrick moore. Leader of a movement and was banished, escaped to america. Became a confederate general in the civil war. First governor of montana. Intriguing book. One i would recod