Transcripts For CSPAN2 Race And The American Dream 20170413

Writer Nikole Hannah jones. Focusing on the post obama center. [applause] good evening. As you might guess, im kyle coldwater, im not the renowned thinker that was previously introduced. Im proud to be your moderator forking this conversation. Two important caveats. One is that our speakers have come to talk about a wide variety of views and you can imagine they may not be the same views. Thats the whole point of the conversation. Were going to host a conversation between our two guests today, and then we will do q a in the audience and there will be cards available for you to have time to write down your questions. I dent quote gleve a lot but his best quote is the instruction to the audience in rooms like this where you make a point to say please form your statement in the form of a question. Or if you have a question, please be its brilliant. As you think about the questions, meese be concise and that will allow for more dialogue. This is a room of friends and we are midwest nice if nothing else so i know the conversations will the soft and polite as we go through this very important conversation. We have two important guests. Both new yorkers who have come to visit us. Nikole hannah jones is an awardwinning Investigative Reporter covering racial and justice in the New York Times magazine where she has spent five years investigating the way racial selling degree gages and housing and schools is maintained through official actions and policies. Won several national awards, including the peabody award, the ward for Public Service and a finalist for a the National Magazine award. She has been named journalist of the year for the National Association of black journalis and a route 100. A 2017 new america fellow, and she is the author of living apart how government betray the civil rights law. She has been a guest on face the nation, this American Life and many others. She has received and earned a bachelors going in history from the university of notre dame go irish and has a master degree from university of North Carolina chapel hill and the school of journalism and mast communication. Jason riley is a senior fellow the manhattan institute. A member of the wall street Journal Editorial Board and opens on texas news for more than a decade. Started in high school. After join thing journal in 1994 he was named the a member of the Editorial Board in 2005. In published he authored let them in and his second book please stop helping us about the track record of government to help black and underclass, and he joined the man had tap institution in 2015. Mr. Reilly earned a bachelor degree in inning lynn from the State University of buffalo. Join me in welcoming our two speakers. [applause] so, i just want to start out our conversation to try orbittent us and our orient us and our participants in the audience how you came to this work and your experience and how did your work in journalism you both are storytellers who find issues and bring them to life in print. Hough did you come to work and how did racereligiouses become Race Relations become a core body of your work. I im also from the midwest and i can be midwest nice girl. Like jason, i have loved news from a young age. Read my newspaper. I started subscribes Time Magazine as a middle School Student and was facinated by the news and history and curious to understand the world i saw. Grew up in waterloo, iowa, on the east side of time where black people lived, early on noticed the way people lived on our side of town and our white neighbors left on the other side of town. Read everything that i could. I talked to my parents, and starting in second grade i was bussed in a School Desegregation program to white schools on the other side of town, and when i went to highly started taking my first black studies course it opened my eyes and i complained to my teacher one day that our student paper never wrote about kids like in the, kids who wrote on the bulls every day and came from the other site of town, black kid. And said if i didnt like it i need to join the newspaper or shut up and not complain. So i joined the paper, and i had a column which was called from the african privilege. One of my early columns is whether jesus is black or not. Didnt reach a conclusion on that one. But very really felt at that point the power of being able to tell stories of kids like myself and my community, and ever since that moment i was hooked. Jason, how did you come do journalism . Early on and what were the foundations that formed the way you think about journalism . Well, thank you all for inviting me today. I appreciate the invitation. Im a journalist because i have no other marketable skills. Thats the bottom line. I wanted to study economics in college, and perhaps become an academic of some kind. I got to second year cal plus in college and realized calculus in college and realize it it wouldnt happen. I went to school at a place that had the emphasis on math and the economics curriculum, and so i did what a lot of kids i imagine still do which is i my grated to a discipline that was much easier, and that was writing. And had a similar story in that although it happened in college rather than high school dish read something in the College Paper and went town to complain and was invited to join the person, join the paper and did. Between my sophomore junior and senior year in college i got an internship with usa today, on the sports page. That was a big deal. That was the reason you read usa today back then. So i took that and by the end of the summer i was convinced i wanted to be a journalist, which made the senior year of college very long. I did not initially see myself writing about race primarily. I had things to say about race but i didnt imagine it would be the focus of my journalism. I had developed more conservative views in college, discovered certain writer that had a human impact on me, and when i had something to say about race i would write about it in the paper. But i thought as a professional journalist this was all covered already and at the time there were a number of black thinkers. They werent necessarily conservatives but this was the late 80s, early 9ss 0 and were challenging the old civil rights or to the orthodoxy. You had oldtimer booze were economists and also had people like glen lowrey and Shelby Steele and willson and patterson, and steven carter, con class stick writer. Ran kennedy, a law professor at harvardment some became intellectuals. Such as kennedy who was left of center. My thinking was this ground is covered. Very hard for me to distinguish myself here. Im going to write about other things. I went away and that was pretty much my hattitude for the first 15 hat toitude for my first 15 years as a journalist mitchell first book was about immigration which happened to be a topic i covered for the wall street journal editorial page and decided to put it into a book. I didnt have a dog in the fight, wasnt immigrant or a child of immigrants but i found it fascinating and decided to write a become write a book about it. And then a lot of these guys i had admired in terms of their thoughts and views on racial issues were getting up there in age, and i didnt see a Younger Generation of people coming along to replace them. And it disturbed me because i thought that a lot of what they were saying was still true. It still needed to be part of the debate. And i was a little dismayed that there wasnt a crop of younger writers willing to take on the arguments, and thats when i decided to write the second book. And the second book is what led me to devote myself almost fulltime to writing on these issues. So, it was not as direct a route in terms of writing about race. So, we understand that how you both sort of come to this work more generally. The conversation we have asked you to be part of here is race and the American Dream, and how complicated these issues have become increasely more complicated. There is a heightened sense of this issue right knew in the post Obama Presidency and coming into the trump presidency, but more intimately here, we have a Community Interested in a conversation about race and the American Dream. How do you characterize race and the American Dream . How too you impaler im implore people to think about this. Want me to go first . Yes, please. Hmm. For most of our country, i think race and the American Dream have been oppositional forces. The black presence in this country has been theirs theres a lie to this motion was america was an exceptional place. So i think if you look at my twitter handle, i write about race from 1619 because that is when the first africans were brought to this country to be enslaved, which is long before we become a country and already decided to designate certain people in the bottom of the caste in this country. So theres no point where the race does not shadow over the democracy, and we have moments where we move forward, and we have moments where we move backward, and i think many people feel were in one of those backward motions when it comes to race. So, im not really sure how to answer the question. When i think about what is the American Dream and what has that meant for block americans, i think for black americans its simply meant being treated equally in a country of your birth, and i think for white americans it probably means something very differently. How about you . The question of race i think that American Dream is alive and well for blacks in particular in the country. Think tremendous progress has been made. A black as president is a tremendous progress thanks in part to the man who is birthday we honored yesterday, Martin Luther king, jr. The Voting Rights act of 1965 in particular, i think, was a hugely important piece of legislation enfranchising millions of americans, making us a more perfect union. There are pair years that re barriers that remain in place, racial or otherwise . Certainly. But i think a tremendous amount of progress has been made, and i think today, Going Forward, the real focus should be on in terms of black americans, read using themselves to take advantage of the opportunities now out there because of the work of civil rights pioneers like Martin Luther king. Thats the real challenge Going Forward, but i think many, if not most of the important battles in terms terms of civils were fought and won a long time ago. Could i interject on that . I assume thats why you have us here. Thats a dialogue. Its something that you bring up the Voting Rights act because we know that the key provision of the act was struck down by the supreme court. We know that it has been a flurry of Voter Suppression laws that are being and have been challenged in the courts. We know that in terms of how house segregation in many of the northern cities it has not budged 1968 and black americans are the most segregated group of people in the country by race and by class and regardless of income. Black children are in majority black schools in rate wes havent seen since 1972. So parts there there has been progress but i think say that progress for black folks is enough when were nowhere mere equality. Employment raid, ballot americans have twice the Unemployment Rate that white americans. At every measure, black americans are still the bottom so i never argue we dont have progressment my far was bon o. A share cropping farm in mississippi in apartheid. But can use at for black americans looks similar to when i was a child. We live in the same country, and we have had now two descriptions, yours and nikole of the same country. Are both pictures true . Do we have great optimism . Great opportunity and great challenges as we think of race in america . I said in my remarks, many challenges remain but the problem is whether progress has been made, and with respect to the American Dream, whether or not its alive and well in this country, and i maintain it is. Again, i think that the real challenge for blacks Going Forward in terms of closing Racial Disparity that we would all like to see chelseaed is to take advantage of the opportunities that exist. But i dont these are different challenges from what dr. King was facing, i believe. A fundamentally unjustice society, legal discrimination, jim crow, and also virulent racist attitudes among his fellow americans. That, too has changed and has moved in the right direction. In addition to striking down the legal barriers that existed, thanks to efforts of king and Thurgood Marshall and others. I the characterization of whether i i assume vote ever suppression laws or voter i. D. Laws, is that what you refer to when you say voter supression . Yes. In 2012 a higher percentage of blacks in america vote than whites. Even in states with the strict voter i. D. Laws. If voter i. D. Laws is the cause of Voter Suppression, where is the evidence . Polls have sewn that a majority of blacks favor voter i. D. Laws, along with the majority of white and majority of liberals and majorie of conservatives and democrats and republicans. But if you want to characterize it as Voter Suppression, i think some people might disagree with that, with that characterization. Again, there are barriers that remain in place. Im not sure i would identify the same barriers as my colleague. I think you mentioned segregation in schools. Which often comes up. Segregation in school. An abiding belief that my children need to be sitting next to white kids in order to learn in school. I reject that. Its long been majority black schools in this country. Since reconstruction, that it tide an excellent job of teaching black kids and they remain today. Some of the best Public Schools in this country are entirely black and brown. Some of them exist in the city where we both live, new york. In harlem. Or the south bronx. Or brooklyn. Majority black schools, outperforming the liliest white suburbs in new york city. This idea that the focus should be on the racial makeup of the school and not whether anyone is learning, i reject. I am not obsessed with the racial makeup of the schools. Im obsessed the performance of the schools, and i think our policymakers would do better to focus on that. Nikole, you have written on educational opportunities. So, give me the framework you would have us think about with regard to access to education or race in america and how education is an overlay to this conversation. So, heres what we know. Yes, there are exceptional schools just like there are exceptional people, but pointing out that the handful, the literal handful in my community of majority black schools that can sustained compete with white schools dozens in new york city alone. The hard. He success attempt network has dozens of schools thategularly outperform Neighborhood Schools. Right. Me question is is that the exception or the rule hapful. Just named a dozen its that the exception or the rule . This is the to go. The rule in new york city. Heres what we knoy know. They regularly outperform Neighborhood Schools. Ive been covering School Segregation for ten years. Ive poured through data compiled by the u. S. Department of education. The more heavily black and latino school, the less likely that school ties have qualified teachers to offer college rem curriculum, up to technology. In any school in the constant. There are exceptions but you would be dishonest to say thats the rule. When you are separating kids not only by race and class, that creates a toxic learning environment. Dot not mean, of court, that any child, black child, has to sit next to a white child to be smart. My own child is in an all blacker school and i live in an allblack neighborhood. So i clearly never say a black childing not be smart if theyre not in a class with a white student, but we do know, though, from the founding of public education, resources follow white children. We have not on scale ever provided the same education to black children as segregated schools that we have provide evidence to white children thats just a fact. Theres 60 years of facts to i have gone back to the funding of the country the founding of the country want to make the. Argument on the resources following white children. Thats long been made has not been a serious issue since the 760s. Hough has it not been a serious issue sin the 60s. Because of title i funding and to the point where today if you go to majority black schools like newark, washington, dc, and many others, you will see poor people spending way above not only state average but the national average, so the children in our inner cities are not suffering because money is not being spent on their education. They suffering because they tend to be in poor quality schools. Theyre in poor quality schools not because dont know how to educate them. We do, because there are high performing all black schools all over the country. Those schools have problems scaling up because of political pressure, which comes from teacher unions who dont want schools to open where they cannot organize. So in new york city you have 40 something thousand kids on wait list fort Charter School and the mayor wont budge but a the mayor takes a lot of money from the teacher unions and is doing their bidding, not they parents on the wait list. Its not a fung issue but political funding issue but political will. That is what is going on in public education. Let me when i talk debt. I want to move on to another one. Can i talk about resources im not just talking about dollars. When we look at teacher quality, teacher experience, one of the largest resources in classroom, black children are lease likely to have the teacher that is that is not about dollar. Full credentials teach evers north going into black schools. This is data that any can look up why arent the u. S. Depth over indicate. Why arent they going into this schools. You have to poll the teachers. We know its true in every Community Whether that community is a Small Community in the south, whether it is a major city. You cant have this uniformly happening across the country and its not for systemic reasons. We understand that brown v. Board of o education, says the black children to receive he same have to be in the same vicinity as while children remember thats always been the case. Not about what makes a child smart or not. And what i find interesting is we know that in neighborhoods, concentration of poverty is not go and has along term effects on health and on prosperity. The same thing happens in a classroom. You can talk to any teacher in a clam. If you have five kids living in program and five who are behind its easier to manage that than if you have every child is poor and is behind. Thats common sense. We also know from research from social i scientist all over the country, that concentrated poverty in classrooms is very difficult for the teachers to teach in for the children to learn. Its not good to have hat in neighborhoods. Dont never why we pretend that doesnt matter. It does. The other thing about resources. My Daughters School is 90 free and reduced lunch. Parents in that school live in Public Housing except for about 8 of us parents who dont. One mild away is the most very affluent school in brooklyn. That pta can raise a Million Dollars and fund more things that my childd school. If children want to apply to harvard there are parents there whoa can write a recommendation and get them a job. No North Carolina my Daughters School can do that. Its awful these things about whether you have the same dollar amount that matter, and i think that when we discount those things were not being really isic, dont believe your children are in all black core schools maybe they are but all of us understand if we have a choice we dont enroll or black people dont have school choice. To present that is okay and not a problem for those parents is dishonest. Lets dig into we have clear lines of demarcation on the argument. So, what im interesting in now ill bring my midwest nice back. I think one of the important parts of this is to feel very comfortable with differences of opinion, and feel comfortable with hard conversations. I think thats really what Common Ground is all about. I dont want to at all try to nicen up the conversation. What im trying too figure out is what im hearing are two people looking the same problem with different points of view but nobody is saying that these kids shouldnt have a great opportunity for a great education. So i wonder what are the machine ground, the places where there Common Ground and places to think about this particular example of education and race and opportunity and ways of thinking that this audience and others ought to be thinking about Going Forward, given the data points you have provided which are accurate but point to different parts of the problem. How to think. Common ground on this . I think theres wide agreement that black children, particularly low income black children, are stuck in the worth performing schools in america. The question is, what we should be doing about it. Im not obsessed over the racial makeup of these schools. Im obsessed with the quality of the schools and i want to scale up highquality schools, and the reason we dont scale up highsquall high quality schools because we are teacher unions and the politicians that they support. So, the barrier to School Reform is not racism. Its politics, and im not really sure that i would point to the problem of schooling for inner city kids as a racial issue. Its primarily an issue of mitt cal will and you have various entities in place, special interests, protecting their own special interests and i think that has led to the situation that we have today, and, yes, we need to do something about it but i dont think a focus on desegregating the school is the answer. So in other words if want people dont want to sit next to my school, have nobody problem with that as long as my children go to a high quality school. You have differences hugh to fix the problem. The Common Ground is political will. The political will to do what is where we dont agree. What we know from data going back that is selected by the department of ed, going back to 1970 theres one School Reform that has closeed the achievement gap is spin integration. And that gap has winedden going away from integration. There are a host of School Reforms it should be clear i started as education reporter right after no child left behind was passed in a majority black district and i watched as all of the schools that were 98 poverty, almost entirely black, were trying every School Reform known to man, Charter Schools, small high schools, they were doing Early College holies, Middle College program, International Back lower restaurants and fire plans and fire teacher and we have never been able to produce a School Reform that has worked on scale for black children, we havent, exempt for integration. And what is important is that brown people are never nexted in test schools. That talk beside poor citizenship and full integration for black children change the,a of their lives. Er in majority white country and protent being isolated in other schools away from people who are power brokers is not going to harm people, thats not true. Go to what the data show is that black children who go to integrated schoolers are less likely to be poor more likely to go to college and graduate. They live longer, healthier, and they pass those benties on to their own children and thats true even within the same family. So who siblings are measured and rucker johnson, an economist out of cal berkeley, followed families for 40 years and to find out there was even in the same household, itself one child went to a something degree getted school and wasnt intent to integrated school that the child who went to integrated schools had better life outcomes. So were not just talking about test scores or how well a kiddening do with talking about getting black children access to full citizenship. The back of mitt the lack of political will to do that one reform that we know works, you have to ask yourself, if theres one tool that dat, that sociological research that works, that one think that people dont to want talk about. Thats not because of teacher unions. I want to get us week in larger conversation about race and the American Dream. So, this conversation is really allowed to us drill down deep on a subject and find out what the demarcations are and what is Common Ground. How should we all be thinking about some of the challenges, the other challenges of race in america, and that create both barriers and hopefully opportunities to address the achievement of the American Dream. What other areas of race should we be thinking about, especially now also you pointed out, coming into a post first africa africanamerican president , theres a lot that many are saying reflecting on his legacy and the idea of a post racial america. How should we be thinking about other opportunities where we can deal with race and Common Ground . Well, i went to want to go back to something i talked about briefly earlier, which is that Racial Disparities that we see today were involved blacks taking it responsible themselves to take advantage of opportunities out there today. And i think that a lot of the barriers to that group advancement are cultural and thats not something we talk about mentioned two sociologists earlier, wilson and patterson, who of the nations for most sociologists, both at harvard now, believe, but wilson was the university of chicago for many years previously. Theyve written about how their field academics in their field sorry luck tenant, refuse, even to talk about how certain black well tour cultural traiting are particularly inner cities, have led to negative outcomes we see today. Sociologists dont want to talk about. Dont want to 0 good there they want to talk about bad schools or housing, but they do not want to talk about culture. Its taboo, and both agree this is ridiculous. We have to have these conversations. This is a major barrier. And i think that is something, even as a commentator, it gets you into a lot of trouble when you talk about that. Youre blaming the victim, letting the whites off the hook and ignoring racism but not talking about that, not dealing with it, is not going to help the problem. Its something that we need to discuss, and i think that is a major, major barrier too people taking advantage of the opportunity that are out there. Give you a statistic. If you look the poverty gap in americans between blacks and whites, its widened over the past decade, starting to narrow. Its a huge gap. Among black married couples, however, black poverty rates is in the Single Digits and has been for more than 20 years. So, is the blackwhite poverty gap a function of racism, or a function of the makeup of the family . Regardless of your race. That is just one example of what im talking about in terms of wanting to drag race into a lot of to explain Racial Disparity and i dont think racism is a sufficient explanation of the Racial Disparity. So, let me turn to nikole to sort of may certainly respond if you like, also want you to kind of help us think about how race defines some of the challenges were dealing with as a nation, not just race for africanamericans are how is race characterizing our achievement or barrier for the American Dream . Is it similar to what jason is arguing or something different. I do not think it is what jason was talking about. I reject the night that theres something inherently flawed the black culture that has led to disparity. Dont understand how one can study and understand the history of the country and think that. I dont think how one can understand the sociology that shows that in every step of the way, black americans are facing discrimination as that somehow theyre unable to overcome discrimination in job market in housing, in schools, that means that its simply a problem of culture. Would be interested if what is a problem with white culture that we need to be worrying about . The problem with white culture that continues to allow prejudice and inequality. If we want to talk about culture, lets not just talk about the problems of black culture because black people did not create ghettos, did not bring themselves over here, did not create jim crow laws, did not create housing segregation and School Second degree gages in the north. This didnt come as a product of bad black culture so rye reject that. My family is very working class, some of them will be considered the working poor. They good to work every day. They dont blame white people for their problems. They dont even think that large. Theyre not i look the system and the structure. Theyre not thinking about that. They dent know that ive read the studied about how if you apply for a job with a black name youre less likely to get called back. They dont know the studies about if you call your Congress Person and sound black youre lest likely to get a call back. They dont know about that to are four million emfacilitieses ofm housing discrimination. They know theyre working and cant get ahead but the work hard every day. So i clear live reject that notion. We are one generation out of legal apartheid in this country. I was born six years after the nation passioned a law saying that passed a law a saying you could not discriminate against black people if they wanted to buy a house and the law only getes passed because dr. King is afascinated and 100 urban ghettos in the north break out in riots. So to some how pretend that one generation out of that, we are responsible for the circumstances that we live in, i think i think its intentionally naive. I think it is i dont understand how one could believe that black kell tour is to blame for black culture is to blame for that and i take deep personal offense to that because i see in my own family, my Daughters School, people that work very hard every day, people who value education even when their children dont receive an education, they value it and understand how on the other hand that is. So when we think about what does the American Dream mean for black people . It is always meant to simply be treated like a citizen of your own country. A full citizen of your own country. Dont think thats true yet. I dont think you can look at black people who face discrimination and then say just work harder and overcome that and thats the fair society were asking for. So, im i know that is what you say, and i assume thats whaty thats not what i say. Thats what heard when you said the problem is black culture. I said that sociologists, willson and patterson theyre black sociologyities lamenting the fact that their profession, their discipline, steers clear consciously steers clear of discussing how black culture plays a role in racial they think that is insane because its so yous it does play a role. Its not an allpurpose what about giant argue it is but it is a factor. Ill give you an anecdote. A few years ago i wrote a column quoting dr. King. He was speaking to a black congregation in st. Louis, the late 50s, and he said to the congregation, were 10 of the population of st. Louis but responsible for 58 or the time 58 of the crime. He said we have to face that and too something below our morals we cant keep on blame thing white man. A lot of problems in black world and we have to face that. Youve said, quote, in a column, and eye used that quote in a column and readers accused me of making it up. Now, thought this was odd because in the age of the internet you can google anything and find the source and this particular quote came from a James Baldwin profile book on king in 1961 issue of harpers magazine. What struck me about the reaction was that it seemingly these readers could not conceive of a time when black leaders spoke about personal behavior in the black community. Let me move on to thinking about how then do we find a way to proceed because we can both have this picture of race, and the story of doctor king was the fact that not only could he talk about an aspiration for america that included the opportunity for his children to be standing next to a white child with the same opportunity, was that he put together a very Diverse Coalition of people who were never together before. We have this opportunity now, what would you say to progressive conservatives, moderates about how to deal with some of the challenges we are seeing, however you want to come to the condition of race that people should think about working together to deal with these. I dont know that we are at a point where we have talked about Common Ground. How would we speak to this diverse Political Landscape that we have about how we deal with race . German first. Im very dispirited right now about the sides coming together. The developments in the past few years make me very pessimistic and i am normally optimistic but again, getting back to king, king was all about colorblindness. Dont look at the color of my skin, dont Pay Attention to that, Pay Attention to my character. We flipped that over to them. We now have movement that focuses on race consciousness. People who go around the country chanting black lives matter are not colorblindness. They want race consciousness. Weve been down this road before. Some people in this room are old enough to remember when the black Power Movement broke off and went their own way, identity politics, it didnt end well. Not for the revolutionaries and i would argue not for most of black america. I think king had it right. When we have diverged from that vision, i dont think weve progressed as much as we were progressing when we adhere to that vision. You mention the coalitions that came together. Mainly other minority groups. Jewish groups in particular were strong advocates. Once colorblindness turned into color consciousness, a lot of the jewish leaders parted ways. Did they know not want to go down that route and i think that has been to the detriment of the Civil Rights Movement that that happened. So, i am very pessimistic right now about where things are headed. I think the movement, the flip side of the black lives move movement, to can play the game but it gets very ugly very quickly. I wish it would stop. Obviously both sides of the political aisle have their reasons for going this route but i think the rest of us as a country, our dialogue and conversations are all the worst off when we go down this path. How do we bring broad diverse political views together to deal with race in america. I dont know that we do. In the green room, one of the things you wanted to think about was how we find Common Ground on this issue. I think im having a hard time figuring out how we do that. What you presented was a homogenized version. It was not the post 1965 king. The coalition that king has built with white northerners and progressives began to fall apart as soon as he took his Movement North and stop challenging jim crow laws and School Segregation in the north. That is when he saw that coalition and support among progressive whites begin to fracture. That is when you saw civil rights begin to fracture. That is why the Fair Housing Act doesnt get past until 1968 until he dies because northern white congressman blocked that. It was going to bring integration to northern cities. We also know about king is that he talked about redistribution of wealth. He basically made the case for reparations based on black americans being deprived to the right to earn the same as white people and have the same opportunities in housing jobs and schools. He was not asking for a Colorblind Society to make up for the past. This wasnt a naive man. He understood the entire history of our country had been based on race consciousness and the black predicament he was trying to fight not just in the south, he was also fighting segregation that occurred in the north. He understood you were going to have to do something to catch black people up. You couldnt simply pass a law and say from here on fourth were not going to discriminate anymore and pretend that was even playing field. 300 years of black americans being deprived of their own labor or the right to earn or Home Ownership is not going to suddenly be made up because we passed a law that says you cant discriminate. He understood that. If you read his later writings, when he does lose his white support and when he dies, you understood he knew that. We would all like to get to the point in this country where no one sees race, but just pretending it does not exist is not make it go away. You cannot look at every single indicator of wellbeing and people who look black and perceived as black as the bottom of every single indicator of wellbeing and just pretend if we didnt talk about race it would not be a problem. You talk about raise racebased admissions, we know we have a segregated system that provides inadequate education to latino and black students but then suddenly when we get to College Admissions we believe in the what is that to up student who has 14 ap courses compared to the black kid who cant even get a chemistry class and wants to be a doctor. Then all of a sudden we want to believe race doesnt matter. If any people in this country would like race to cease to exist its clearly black people, but were not there yet and we cant wish it away. We have a couple questions from the audience and i want everyone to feel free to continue, let me channel these and then either one of you can take those questions. What are your thoughts on voters who supported obama in oh eight and 12 and supported trump in 16 . You knew you would get to the trump question. We talked about that in the green room. What does that tell you about the bill . I was not a supporter of trump. I didnt think he was going to win. I was surprised along with a lot of my colleagues in the country that he did win. I think one of the reasons he won, the main reason he won is because people wanted to upset the applecart in washington. Think a lot of us in the media in particular in the Mainstream Media were overly focused on his tone and temperament throughout the campaign as being disqualified. It was a tax on other politicians, his twitter and so forth, we kept saying this is just behavior unbecoming of a president , the public will not go for it, but they did, and i think what those voters who voted for trump were saying to people like me is jason, healthcare costs have gone up, i havent had a vacation in five years, im underemployed, i havent had a raise, you worry about trumps tone and temperament. You have that luxury. I dont. It sounds like he can mix things up. I know what i was getting with clinton. Its the status quo but its just not doing it for me. He won the areas of the country that keep our lights on and are motors running. I thought it was a very fitting description and not a description of where i live or where a lot of my colleagues in the media. The other narrative out there is that he won because racist voters put him over the top, but i think to your point that doesnt explain it. He won because he swept obama voters. Iowa went for obama. Obama won iowa easily in 2012. Trump won it easily in november. Did iowa suddenly turned racist over the past four years . He did this in county after county. He did it in wisconsin and michigan. He did it over and over again. He flipped obama voters and thats why he won. What is your picture on this. I actually wrote a story about iowa, my home state because it did go for obama in oh eight and obama in 12 and obama got elected because it was a role white state that showed it could vote for a black guy, but iowa also has caucuses in it was a Democratic Caucus so it was in a state wide vote and i think that played a big role. A couple things, the problem of the economic argument is it doesnt work for workingclass people who arent white. If you are only going to say it was economic anxiety that led people to vote for trump than he shouldve gotten black voters and latino voters. Clearly black voters are try s set, economic anxiety for all the midwestern city, i didnt see a lot of voters going to gary working for them. We have a distinct idea of who the working class are, particularly the working class we need to be concerned about. It cant just be economic anxiety or he shouldve gotten the working class black vote which he didnt. He also won for white voters across all income levels and i think the Median Income was 65 or 70000. These are not poor and workingclass. I think we should throw that in there. The other thing i reported and what i talked about it because someone once voted for a black man does not mean that person has no racial animosity or anxiety. We tend to talk about race and racism in a very complex on nuanced way. Either you are in the clan or you love the rainbow of everyone. That is just not how it works. Most people are falling somewhere in between and they can be tipped. When people are voting in 2008, we are coming off eight years of the bush presidency. You of the big Auto Companies on the brink of collapse, banks getting ready to go under, double digit Unemployment Rates for white folks, the kind of unemployment that they have temper tantrum. Obama won a good ground game. He goes into the communities that a lot of democrats dont tend to go into. He is able to get voters to vote for him because white voters are able to vote over the racial anxiety when they feel like its in their best interest. Just like all voters. In 2012 he loses some of those counties that voted for him before and i talked to people and i can tell you voters are saying yes we like his message, we didnt feel like we were living as good as we live, but the black lives matter thing really passed us off. Im sorry cspan. When president obama mentioned travon martin, that made us mad. They were saying one thing about economic anxiety but they started to feel like president obama wasnt representing them when he began to talk specifically too black people. They didnt really want to put their lives in with black people in the first place. If you think about, obama. We got very high votes from latinos and asians and he got some white votes and not put him over the top. Those voters who voted on a sense of economic anxiety, it trumped their racial anxiety. This time it did not. I think thats the difference that we can somehow say that because someone once voted for a black man or has a black friend were once went to a movie with black people that they dont have racial anxiety, its just not true. Im not trying to be funny but it just doesnt work that way. I talk to women who work with latinos but they want him to build a wall. They believe in freedom of religion but they want the muslims to be, people can hold the same views. We can believe and act in very different ways. I think that is what we saw with trump voters. The differences black folks have economic anxiety but when the other party is trying to take away or have the sense that the other parties trying to take away your basic Citizenship Rights you can vote on economics. He didnt have that choice. People in gary and all of these towns do not vote for trump and theres a reason for that. Let me move to a less controversial subject. This is for both of you. You may choose which one to go first. Can you comment on the effects of constantly affecting the residence of where they live . For more lighthearted topic kind of help us think about it. Well, i guess this boils down to why police spend so much time in the community. Is it because theyre picking on these residence or is it because thats where the 911 calls originated. The data argues for the latter. That the police are responding to complaints coming from the residents of these neighborhoods and thats why they spend so much time there. There is an over policing argument that has been made in the Empirical Data largely dispels it. Heres how. When you ask people who attacked you, the police right down and they keep those records. If over policing was going on, you would see police arresting blacks at a higher rate than they are named as the assailant. You dont find that. You find, it refutes the argument that they are being over policed. I think they are here for legitimate reasons and most of the lawabiding residents in these communities are lawabiding. They want Police Protection because they are the primary victims in these communities. I would agree with that, believe it or not. Of course people in communities want police. People in communities, black, white or whatever want to be safe. They dont want to be victims of crime. The problem that we have in black communities is over policing and under policing. Under policing on serious crimes. You look at the rate in black communities and they are extremely low. Chicago is not by accident that it also had a serious problem with violence because it spins out of control when homicides dont get solved. I can tell you, living in a poor black community, we see both. We see citizens minding their business who are constantly stopped by police. My neighbor rode a bike and the Police Stopped him and beat him. It was caught on camera and they arrested him for a resisting arrest. He goes to jail and loses his job because he cant report to work and people like that dont have jobs where you can just miss work. We know the federal judge found it unconstitutional because black and brown people were simply walking down the street and being stopped for no reason. Theyre finding no weapons and no reason to charge them. What people want is the same type of policing that white people experience. They want to be treated with dignity to walk around the neighborhood like free citizens. They dont want to be stopped without reasonable cause. That is not the experience in many communities and thats the difference. When you look at Police Response times, it takes police longer to get in those communities for real crimes. The sense is if someone is hurting me, i cannot get the police to investigate, i can get them to solve this crime but if im Walking Around minding my business and you have black Police Officers who worked within these organizations say that is what they are told to do, that particularly they need to collect policing data and make a lot of stops. Where you going to make a lot of stops with . White powerful people who can call the mayor and complain or those who think theyre probably doing something wrong in the first place. I think this narrative that somehow people enjoy being victimized, im not saying that but those saying they dont want police in the neighborhood is not true. They want the same policing that people, and lord knows they dont want to be treated with suspicion in the communities in which they live. Ive got a direct audience question for you. Does colorblindness help maintain power structures and the way they have long accepted . Does colorblindness help contain power structures. In other words is colorblindness actually doing the reverse of what you explained . Is it somehow creating the structure and perpetuating those . I guess i would need some of those terms defined. I will say this whatever power structures exist, they didnt stop obama from getting elected and reelected. He is just the combination of a civil rights vision that started with king which is what black needs in this country to advance social economically is political power. They focused on achieving political power. To a large extent they succeed succeeded. The number of black elected officials in this country rose from Something Like 1500 to more than 10000 between 1970 and 2010. Black elected officials running cities, big urban cities from mayors to Police Commissioners and school superintendents, it has happened. The Socioeconomic Progress that we thought would follow that or that the civil rights thought would follow has not hand out. I dont think it is due to a lack of political power or being able to, not being able to integrate political institutions. That has happened. It speaks to a larger. Which is that obama came into office with the expectations, there was no way he was going to be able to meet them. It was unfair that much pressure was put on him, but one reason he wasnt ever going to meet them, at least in terms of a group socioeconomically is because i dont think the current barriers are political barriers. Black people dont need an obama in place to get done what they need to get done. If it happens its fine but i dont think its an essential element. I think thats worn out by the patterns that other groups in the country and other countries around the world. Nicole you will get the last word. You have two choices you can respond to jasons point or there is an alarm in the audience who is a product of fair Housing Project and want you to reflect on your article of choosing a school for my daughter in a segregated school. So you can respond or do a reflection on your own article. I agree with jason on this that political empowerment had not led to economic empowerment. When you say you want me to reflect, what do you want me to reflect on. I was looking at a Housing Project and is a wellequipped school, as you might know, i learned how to play the french horn there. There was a lot of activity. I heard in your article and the tension that was there when they were potential issues to integrate. To the point you make earlier, from those who graduated from that elementary school, we went on to college, we graduated. I was the youngest of five and the first graduate from high school. Ive been living in grand rapids for 30 years. I know for fact what theyre talking about is true in my ability to achieve my hope. I know it is surrounded by milliondollar condos and Housing Projects. This is the statement in the form of a question. He has unfortunately eaten into your response time. Quickly, if you could. I would simply say ps 307 is possibly the most glaring example of why race is still a problem. It is that rare majority black poor schools. My daughter learns mandarin, she takes art and music. Her grades are great. The stem school, a magnet and those white parents will not send their children to that school and they live right across the school from it. You think about the arguments, people say they want Neighborhood Schools and less the Neighborhood School is black. Then they want choice. They want to be able to go wherever they want. If the Neighborhood School is white they dont want choice, they want to go to the Neighborhood School. Whats always the case is people want to avoid going to a school with kids who are in that school. The reason i feel so passionately about it is i was that kid. I was a poor black kid that they dont want in their school. I dont say this, i was smarter than most of the white kids in the school. Im probably more successful than almost all of them. They did not want me there. I think all the time about those little black and brown kids that nobody wants their kids around, what could they become . What could they be if we invested in them the way we invest in white children. We havent done that. I would love, i know how hard it was to have to write a bus two hours a day to go into an all white school where the kids never really thought i fit in, everyone assumed i was dumber than them, i know how hard that was. I would love to live in a country where black kids could go black schools and they would get the same things that white kids could get because i think thats very empowering. Thats part of the reason my daughter is in a black school because i know how hard it was not to be in one. We dont have that country yet. While we keep trying to figure out for going to get to be that country or not, the kids in those classrooms are in there right now. Theyre being deprived of the things that every person in this room would fight tooth and nail to guarantee their own child. Thats what i see my role as. I have some power. I have a voice. That mom in the projects was working at popeyes. Nobody listens to her. i think for us this is a great opportunity for us this year, both sides for very important issues on race in america and behalf of the Science Center in Common Ground initiative in the grand valley state of equity in the community of grand rapids we like to say thank you for being prospective here. [applause] both assembled heres a look at our primetime schedule on the cspan network. Starting at eight pm eastern on cspan its a look at the rise of Prescription Drug abuse in the us. On cspan to its full tv authors who written about flavoring america. On our companion networks cspan three its American History tv with events on world war i. Its been 10000 years of congress voted to declare war on germany. Sunday night on afterward. Washington Times National security colonists built gertz with his book, i wore which examines how are modern warfare has evolved with new technology. Hes interviewed by congresswoman from new york. Back i war is a look at what i feel is the new form of warfare thats emerging in the 21st century. Ive covered National Security affairs for over 30 years, been all over the world covering these issues and i think its a reflection of the Information Age that were now looking at this new form of warfare which i Call Information warfare and i define that as both the technical cyber that we seen so much of in terms of Cyber Attacks from the russians and chinese, as well as, the content influence type of thing which emerged in the president ial election with the russian whats been called the cyber enabled influenza operation. These two things will be the dominant form of warfare watch after words at nine eastern on cspan to book tv. This week on q a. Ive learned the value of discourse and compromise. The way i interact with people whom i dont necessarily agree with you completely changed. A special program chained on to attending the weeklong United States Senate Youth Program where they share their thoughts about government and politics. Now i can safely say at the end of this week, i am sure of what i believe and i said thats a good thing. Back hard work and fair chance for everybody to reach the top will turn out to be not an equal result but equal chance for everybody. Sunday night at eight eastern on suspense q a. Up next military readiness and modernization in the air force. Weve heard from