Transcripts For CSPAN2 Rachel Ferguson Marcus Witcher Black Liberation Through The... 20221027

Marketplace heartbreak. Hope and promise of america. Its a book that chronicles the painful failures of policy while also having some solutions from a Classical Liberal perspective. Marcus Richard Ferguson argue that a political system ought uphold individual rights encourage voluntary exchange and Civil Society to flourish. He couldnt tell im not an american but ive always admired the United States in its history. Its a nation founded an enlightenment values and committed individual rights and the rule of law. The founding of america was unique event in Human History and best described by a question that the second president john adams asked. He asked how few of the human race have ever had an opportunity of choosing a system of government for themselves and their children. The United States we live in today is not the result of mere chance, but a conscious choice on behalf of the founders to create a new order of the ages. Unlike feudal europe built on centuries of customs and hierarchy america was founded upon principles. Principles found the documents like the declaration of independence but being the first of its kind meant that americans had no blueprint or roadmap to follow. Over the course of history america is often fallen short of the promise of the declaration of independence denying black americans their birthright of freedom the institution of slavery the dreads got decision jim crow laws and modernday Police Brutality all of which are an insult the proposition that we are all born free and equal. The advancements have been made. We cannot turn our eyes away from the past failures. Especially when those failures continue to affect the prosperity life and liberty of black americans this day. But you didnt come here listen to me talk. So instead only truce our guests. First off we have marcus witcher. He received his phd in the university of alabama and is currently an assistant professor at huntington college. His Research Cover is the economic intellectual. Sorry. His Research Covers the Political Economic and intellectual history from 1920 to the present day. Hes author of the book getting reagan. Sorry getting right with reagan the struggle for the conservatism 1982 2016. Rachel witcher or Rachel Ferguson receiver phd in philosophy from st. Louis university as professor of concordia university, chicago. Shes assistant dean of the college of business and director of the Free Enterprise center. Heroic folks intersection of philosophy and economics of virtue shes also an affiliate scholar at the acton institute. And finally here to moderate our discussion is amisha cross who has many hats as a media host a democratic strategist and activist. She spent a career working in politics and policy serving the Vice President al gore and former president barack obama. Shes a body organizations such as the National Urban league and the naacp were going to start off by rachael giving us a quick introduction to broad overview of the book. Then amish will take over asking questions. At the hour mark, were going to take questions from the audience both in person and online if you want to ask questions online, please use the hashtag kido events and thanks again for coming. Hope you enjoy and learn something new. Well, hello everybody. Thank you for coming. Ill just start out by saying sort of how we were inspired to take up this project marcus and i are both Classical Liberal scholars. And you know if you run in those circles, you know that Classical Liberals have a lot of great insights on race and discrimination really important work thats been done in economics in the history of economics. But were not necessarily known for that. Are we people dont necessarily associate Classical Liberals with as a great resource for thinking about race and discrimination, and we wanted to solve that by bringing together a lot of the great insights that Classical Liberals. Have we thought that that would also serve another purpose which is just sort of address some of this tribalism and polarization that were experiencing in our country right now. As Classical Liberals we sometimes agree with conservatives and we sometimes agree with progressives. It depends on the issue and so having that ability to be a politically homeless to be outside of the tribes to bust out of those categories and unbundled one issue from another we felt could really serve us well in thinking about the history of black america in particular because black americans as well. Do not fit well into the political categories of the majority culture. And so we thought it gave us a great opportunity the first thing you have to do when thinking through the history of black america, of course is to address the relationship between markets and slavery. And so immediately as we jump into the book we take a look at the new historians of capitalism who are kind of rolling the idea of markets into all of the different forms of oppression, like colonialism and imperialism, and were saying we really have to separate these out we have to go back to adam smith. We have to go back to john stewart mill who knew not only how immoral slavery is because its a violation of your most fundamental property, right . Youre right in your own body. But also how economically foolish it is. Anytime that we take a group of people in our population, and we dont allow them to improve their human capital. We dont allow them to move around to where their labor is most needed. We dont allow them to invent things and sell them. We are all losers. So yes did a few southern planters get rich. Yes, of course they did but thats not what free markets do free markets. Dont make a few aristocratic types rich free markets make regular people. There they make the lives of regular People Better off and regular southerners werent better off. They were worse off even poor white southerners had their wages dragged down by the fact that they were competing with those who were enslaved and of course the lives of the enslaved were ruined by their slave masters in many ways. As we go on though, we look at emancipation and we see that after emancipation black americans are so excited about the possibility of owning land and owning farms. But of course, we all know how that story went. They were not given any land in compensation for all of the stolen labor. And so they went on to enter into sharecropping and one of the things we noticed there. Is that while so many of their rights were still being abrogated courts were not really recognizing their Property Rights or their freedom of contract. They had one very precious, right and it was the right to leave. It was the freedom of movement because you could threaten to go because you could move from the deep south to the upper south because you could remove yourself from that farm and go over to that farm over a few decades. You saw the formerly enslaved friedman now bidding up their wages or in this case. Theres shares quite a bit and even though theyre starting from very low point. You actually see black incomes rise at two and a half or three times as fast as white incomes at that time. So there is some catching up happening there, but we also see an amazing flourishing of black Civil Society. We see the arise of educational efforts particularly coming out of the church and we see one of possibly one of the most amazing leaps forward in literacy in the history of the world thus far going from basically zero at emancipation to 80 by 1930. I mean, its quite stunning. And there are just efforts everywhere in this regard. So thats a kind of positive story but as we go on this rollercoaster ride through black american history, we have to stop and look at the atrocities against black americans. Some of them are quite famous like the thousands of lynchings that occurred but others are not as well known like convict leasing in which black men in particular were just criminalized with many laws. That didnt even make sense like vagrancy laws that treated you like a criminal just for standing around and not having a job or not being able to prove that you have a job. I could go on and on about the ridiculous crimes in these men were charged with but the worst part is that they were then leased out to minds and farms as workers. And because they werent owned. They werent even seen as an investment. And so they were treated even worse than they were treated under slavery and many of them simply died. They were treated so badly that if any kind of sickness came through the camp 2030 and sometimes even 40 of the men in the camps. This happened to tens of thousands of black american men. Its an absolute tragedy and there are many other atrocities that we deal with in that chapter including things like the massacre in tulsa, oklahoma. We turn then to a more positive story looking at the history of the black church. We see how black americans really identified with the idea of being made in the image of god right having the same equal status with their White Brothers and sisters. We see them identifying with the story of the exodus and being released from slavery that dream of freedom and we see them identifying with the prophets who care for the poor and the widow and the orphan and the stranger and they feel cared for by god. We see how the black Church Becomes like the cultural womb of black america in which so many other forms of networks, including business legs and mutual aids societies and literacy efforts in School Efforts all flow out of that wonderful thick civil. Any institution . And then in chapter 6 we take a look at black entrepreneurship beginning with the great booker t, washington, of course washington gets kind of panned as an accommodationist. Sometimes given his debate with web du bois and of course being in the deep south. He did have to be very careful about what he said. He was an actual physical danger from being assassinated if he spoke out of turn, but secretly booker t. Washington was actually funding a lot of the great legal efforts for Political Rights as he was working on getting blacks into positions where they could be owning property starting businesses and really flourishing economically, and so we try to tell a longer story of civil rights that starts with the Business Community and the churches who are building up a black middle and upper class that are then able to be the lawyers and the funders of the fight for civil rights later on. So we really see booker t, washington as playing. Part there that he doesnt always get credit for and we go on to talk about the wonderful stories of madam. Cj walker, of course, john h. Johnson the very brave publisher who put the picture of emmett till into ebony and jet magazine, and of course trm howard the great black hospitaler who protected the family of emmett till during their trial and was a mentor to medgar evers and Fannie Lou Hamer so thats just a wonderful reflection on what black americans were able to accomplish despite all of the ridiculous obstacles that were being put in their way. Then as we move on we take a look at some of the really egregious. The egregious eugenicist views of the progressive era where right at the turn of the century, you know, its sometimes underestimated. Just how popular these eugenicist ideas were the notion of racial superiority and inferiority on a pseudoscientific basis. And from there we see the rise of the minimum wage the idea of the minimum wage and the notion that we can disemploy certain people so that the white aryan head of household can be supported by the economy and everyone else can just kind of fade away. Really sick and strange philosophy and we go on to see how the progressives push for massive social Engineering Projects like in the way that the federal Housing Administration used redlining to keep black neighborhoods and white neighborhoods separate along with immigrant neighborhoods as well. They go on to use that that social engineering mindset to build the federal highway system. Right, and so as municipal leaders are given millions of dollars to decide where these highways go instead of putting them through some industrial area. That wont affect anybody they decide purposefully to put them right through the black Economic Centers in so Many American cities and Latino Centers out west and its a terrible case of Eminent Domain abuse with Property Rights being violated. And of course the really tragic part of the story is the way in which the Civil Society institutions the Business Districts the schools the churches. The networks are just blown apart by blowing apart these neighborhood centers, and its only made worse by urban renewal which James Baldwin called removal because the same thing was done by taking away peoples property and in many cases not even compensating that as the constitution requires. And so we go on to look at the effect of the great society. We agree with many conservatives who see the terrible disincentives in the way that our welfare system is arranged the perverse incentives against work in marriage. We agree with that critique, but we also sort of challenge our conservative friends to be just as hard on other forms of welfare. Corporate welfare, which will also cause all sorts of malinvestment. And dysfunction in the economy and we go on to look at other social factors and then by the end of the book were coming up to the present day and were looking at the rise of the drug war. Were looking at mass incarceration at this point. Were looking at things in america that are actually not specifically black issues because theyre affecting all americans, but were gonna hear from black people about the more because black people are desperately affected sometimes because of race and sometimes because of class because theyre overrepresented below the poverty line and so we shouldnt be surprised when we hear about this particularly from the black community. And so we look at creative Market Solutions to thinking better about how we can deal with the mass incarceration crisis. And of course we want to end the drug war. And throughout the book as were going through kind of the history. We drop in two things one are lessons in Classical Liberalism where we just take advantage of moments where we can explain various things about Classical Liberalism in a way thats very easily understood by a popular audience. So if you have friends who arent familiar with Classical Liberalism, this is a great way to help them out and then we also drop in Solutions Including Economic Freedom educational freedom criminal Justice Reform those things. I assume youre somewhat familiar with but the two that you may be less familiar with or Transitional Justice which is an idea that has to do with healing huge societywide massive injustices and one of the main things we focus on there is the idea of institutional memory. We think the conservatives and libertarians should be just as excited about going into our local histories and really telling the stories of the survivors and those who were harmed by racist policies historically because its so important for our healing process if we dont tell the truth, we will never be able to reconcile and then finally Neighborhood Stabilization is the idea that no matter if we get every single policy we want and we get everything in place that we think is right politically. Some of these neighborhoods particularly in our very isolated inner cities. Are so destabilized that theres a gap in terms of bandwidth. You have people who would love to take advantage of all the things that are being provided but have too much to contend with and i call it network poverty, right . Theyre so isolated from the Employment Networks for instance that they need to take advantage of the only solution to this is a bottomup solution. We need a decentralized solution in which individual people and groups and philanthropic efforts are on the ground walking through life with people surrounding neighbors with the resources that we all take for granted right the kinds of networks that we take for granted. Thats a labor of love. Thats not something a policy or a check in the mail or a Government Office can do but its what weve got to do and im very excited to inform you that its already being done by people like bob lupton and atlanta with his focus Community Strategies by the great john perkins of the Christian Community development association, bob woodson who many of you know, Brian Fickert wrote wonderful book called when helping hertz where he deals with flipping our philanthropic model and really empowering people in dignifying them by treating them as not just as recipients, right who im going to sort of drop my gift on your head, but rather as someone with whom i want to exchange and so its an important kind of paradigm shift that i think we all need to think about in our philanthropic models. So ill stop there and then well get started with the questions. Absolutely. I think that that deserves a round of applause. Very happy to be here with both marcus and rachel you guys did an amazing job with this book. We cannot underscore that enough. It is a very thorough and quite frankly in depth vision of an understanding of black america not only in terms of history, but also up through present day one in which even those of us who have grown up in those communities who are of that community and have been through that School System quite frankly dont always get as indepth as that. So just giving you that off the top thank you with that being said we were missed to say that we are not in the midst of celebrating june 10th, so there couldnt have been a better time for this to be hosted. So thank you to cato for that. There are several things within this book that i found quite profound and the ways that you state them as well as the examples that you utilize. One of the top things for me is looking at black america as well as the vision of america as a whole when we talk about the american dream. Theyre all of these. Realistic goals there is this this euphoria of sorts about being american and what that means and the promise and the future that it holds something that is largely been kept away from black america quite frankly since our inception in this country. With that being said a great deal of what you talk about is within the Business Ownership entrepreneurship space as you as you know Business Ownership and entrepreneurship has been such a large and impactful part of the black community for a very long time quite frankly. The only way that many black americans are ever able to compete or have any extent of capital for their own families and communities. But with that being said there are just so many impediments to actually owning your own Business Building that as well as getting the capital to get it started and avoiding some of the pitfalls that quite frankly government institutions have put in place when it comes to black business and black Business Ownership currently black women hold the most black businesses of any demographic in the country. However, the gains the potential gains of that have not been seen black women are also the population that has the least amount of wealth in this country. From your from your book you speak about entrepreneurship as this gateway to opportunity but also as one that has been built over time. Is it relates to black people being able to have to have access how do you translate that into what is being seen today . Because entrepreneurship is continually pressed throughout the community. Thats something that regardless of what part are you stand for entrepreneurship is something that feel as though the black community definitely jumps a hold of but with that being said, they arent necessarily seeing that those same gains even though the numbers in terms of black entrepreneurship are there. Me yeah, so we first take a look at some of the policy issues that we could address and thats in the Economic Freedom section. We draw a lot on michael tanners book the inclusive economy, which i highly recommend theres so many things about the ware system is set up that rewards people who are already established who are already rich and is hard on people who are trying to start. For instance, we reward rich people for saving but we punished poor people for saving. So if you try to save something up you will lose certain benefits, right and theres a lot of Little Things like that, you know stacked policies that we could change to really change the incentive structure. We also look at things like occupational licensing reform these Small Businesses dont need more hoops to jump through a middleclass person may take for granted that you know, yeah, it takes weeks and weeks to get this done right and i have to ask five friends to help me fill out this paperwork, but no big deal i can get it done, but imagine if youre an inner city entrepreneur, you may not have those five friends you may not have weeks and weeks before you need that. You can wait before you start making a profit and so we need to lower all of those sorts of regulatory barriers for people who want to start their own businesses and great example was the Tennessee Law in which barbers had to have a high school diploma. Why what does what does having the diploma have to do with being good at cutting hair nothing but what you see is really crony capitalism right cronyism in which rent seeking whatever you want to call it privileged seeking in which established notice a local salon doesnt have to be a big business. They could be a small business, but theyre an established business. So the established business can go and say hey doesnt dont they have to have a high school diploma. You need to add that or doesnt that african hair braider have to go to Cosmetology School so that she has to work at my salon and i get to take off the top, you know from her profits. Well, no, she shouldnt have to do that. And so we have to fight really hard in our state legislatures and at the local level to make sure that were removing every barrier we possibly can but i also want to return to that point about Neighborhood Stabilization to say, you know, sometimes we cant wait we cant wait for those barriers to come down my friend shamed dogan in missouri worked on african hair brain for years before he got that removed. So what you have to do we have to come up from below bring our own networks and our own resources into the inner city entrepreneurs and help lift them up above the barriers right by giving them the bandwidth that we have. So part of that is philanthropic, but then i just want to end by reminding everyone and im always really careful to say this 80 of black america is above the poverty line the majority of black americans are middle class. They are on their way, right and so black americans are tracking in terms of income not caught up in terms of wealth, which is more complicated so we can talk about that but when im talking about things like Neighborhood Stabilization, im talking about those who have been left behind those who are stuck economically. Most of black america is not stuck. Economically and thats important to say. No. Absolutely. Im glad that you added that context for the reentry population marcus, which is a population that happens to in many cases be stuck by no fault of their own the idea of reentry is that you paid your debt to society so you come out and now youre able to go back into that society. Um, and theyre significant barriers whether youre finding housing issues in many cases even getting a drivers license getting access to your personal documents identification documents, but the biggest barrier is actually job access. So we see that they are more people who have reentered society who get all the door slammed in their faces when theyre trying to apply for jobs. So they have taken the entrepreneurship on in a much different way because the idea is that they cannot apply for and actually get accepted to traditional work. Even those who have had who have had education while they were in prison or in any other form of detention, so they have credentials, but theyre still not able to get jobs for those individuals who have different barriers to job access. What is entrepreneurship look like and how has how have states or how do you think state should manage that because this is a significant population of individuals who come out of jails or prison systems every year and quite frankly have no place else to turn. Yeah the story and much more comfortable talking about the ways in which we got to where we are rather than talking about. Certain sort of prescriptions. I generally leave those for rachel to sort of prescribe what we should do today. But having said that i think theres been a lot of good work done and surprisingly in some Southern States right . Its like, texas kansas one of the georgia, kansas oklahoma, you know to try and you know attack sort of the mass incarceration crisis and try and help people as they transition into sort of normal life and i think one of the things that we try to do in the book is we want to speak to conservatives in a way that says listen these are past injustices whether we use the term social justice, we just turn it use the term past injustice. These are past and justices that we need to address the wrongs that were done and to try and give them a vocabulary and speak in a way that well get them to recognize that there is a problem with mass incarceration. I think that we see that happening already right . Its already beginning to happen and the numbers are beginning to fall as far as sort of what we can do for those folks to help them reenter rachel. Do you have any specific ideas on like yeah policies that can be yes. So one of the things we do in the book is we direct you to other great books, and were drawing on those and those who are interested in particular issues can go deeper. And so one of the ones we look at is ending over criminalization in mass incarceration by Anthony Bradley and the subtitle is hope from Civil Society because what hes saying is look you have a governmentrun prison system, so its terrible, right . It makes things worse rather than better the only hope youre gonna have is from Civil Society and so he goes through many examples of groups that came in and made sure that kids didnt go into juvenile, you know delinquency in the first place right so that they didnt get into that crime cycle the groups that met prisoners six months before they got out right and started making sure that they were making the transition Business People who are actually bringing work into the prisons with real wages. Not just the federal wages right with real wages. I mean these guys were getting on the phone to do their homework with their kids. They could afford to pay for the call because they had a real job in the prison. I mean really creative stuff and then of course to go back to neighboring stabilization getting these kids before they ever get there, right and so finding these kids when theyre 12, 13 14 years old not taking them out of their neighborhood bringing opportunities into the neighborhood the Community Gardens right the woodworking the lawn mowing so that a kid by 13 14 15 years old is already getting paid and knowing how to show up to work and be responsible and deal with it when they dont feel like it and all of the things that are just hard about being a teenager, right . And so that that kid is already on their way to school or job rather than into the gang life, which is in many cases almost inevitable in some neighborhoods. And so its really important to go back to the root as well. And Civil Society is a common thread. Its a common theme throughout the book and as it relates to the black community particularly, its not a buzzword even though the activities or the activities of it have been seen throughout history. Where do you see Civil Society as it as it takes place today specifically looking at your chapter on the black church as we know Church Attendance in general has gone down particularly amongst the millennial generation, and we dont have that much that we dont have that much to look forward to the next generation either. Is it relates to people going to church on a regular basis and being involved at that level . Where do you see Civil Society playing in those types of institutions . Currently yeah, so Civil Society is like the missing piece, right . We talk about markets. We talk about the state and we always forget all of our lives happen in Civil Society most of our life 90 right happens in Civil Society and all of our voluntary associations. And so while its true that you know the rise of the nuns right the church going and things like that are going down black americans are the most religious demographic in the United States. They still are the millennials are more religious than black millennials are more religious and White Millennials more likely to pray more likely to believe in god read the bible etc. And so the black church is still a Strong Influence in the black community, you know, even though that struggle is occurring and how are we going to shift into maybe other Civil Society institutions . I think its an important question one of the things which is someone provocative thing we suggest in the book is that if we had School Choice if we had educational freedom, maybe the black church would be empowered to do for many black kids. What the Catholic Church did immigrant kids right and that would be a huge boon. I think of empowering the black church to do what they did all along right, which was the wonderful black education. I also think one of the things as a historian that i think weve lost over the course the last 40 or 50 years. Is this belief in Civil Society. I think, you know, there are many books that have been written about sort of the decline of Civil Society the decline of community as we sort of move into sort of a more advanced Technology Internet etc. But one of the things that we really try to capture in the book and i hope its one of the things that resonates for a new generation of activists who want to achieve equality is the amount of work that Civil Society that was done in Civil Society to build towards the Civil Rights Movement. There were massive protests in 1905 the Booker T Washington supported sort of on the down load not actively because he didnt want people to come and storm to speak tuskegee, but that he had supported but they ultimately failed the boycotts failed and like 1904 1905 and as a historian you have to ask yourself like well, why did they fail in 1905 but they succeeded in 1955 in . And the answer to that is in that chapter on black entrepreneurship, right and that chapter on black entrepreneurship isnt just about businessmen and women going out there and making and becoming millionaires like madam. Cj walker it is a book about how Civil Society organizations such as the black elks seemingly, you know people coming together to band together to create an insurance a coop for themselves or people would pay in and then they would have life insurance. Theyd have theyd also have sort of if you got sick, you know, you get sick. Okay. Were all gonna go over me to anishas house. So make sure misha is actually sick and if she is and well go ahead and pay her days wages right into my pop in from the elks, you know a week later just to make sure you were on the mend and whatnot, but it provided it means by which in you know in without sort of access to those widen institutions or without government, which is pretty welfare state giving those access. They created their own Civil Society or own organizations that enabled them to have those types of sort of social this sort of safety net. Right and the black elks were so much more than just that they also provided african the first opportunity at like political activity. I mean as many African Americans got this after opportunity during sort of radical reconstruction, but by 1873 that opportunity is pretty much my 1876 is definitely gone across the south and so they offered an opportunity for black men usually, but theyre also a female associations to come together to vote to become sort of active in their communities to to earn sort of a role and then they began educating right and so the work of the elks the work of the churches the work of the business men and women the naacp, right, which is an organization thats built out of Civil Society that borrowed actually many thats lawyers came from the elks who had to fight in the courts because white fraternal societies didnt want black fraternal societies to use their quote unquote their name, right . So all of these law many of the early cp lawyers actually grow up or get there sort of, you know experience fighting these cases and so we see over the course that 50 years what might seem mundane but is really the stuff that changes the world which is small small activity by the Civil Society organizations that build up a Foundation Upon which civil rights activists like Martin Luther king jr. And others could get donations. They could get support they could call on people right to help them as they in the 1950s, right . Were actually successful in carrying out these types of boycotts etc. So i think Civil Society is immensely important and one of the things i hope that a Younger Generation sort of takes away from this is that change doesnt happen overnight, right . Its gradual. Its can sometimes be slow agonizingly slow, but join a club right be a part of your Community Like meet people like beyond just like tiktok or whatever it is that right. And so i hope theres a sort of unappreciation for Civil Society that comes out of those chapters. I really appreciate that moment. You took well not the tiktok shape, but she took to talk about the progress because progress and change is often slow and i think that every generation assumes that the generation before them was able to get things done at a much faster pace a lot of younger people look back at the civil rights move and they see these young African Americans who are on the front lines and they think okay. Well if they were able to move this piece and this amount of time not recognizing that people have been working on that for 40 50 60 plus years before them and they came in and they took some of the lessons from the past, but they also adapted them to a television modern area at the time and now youre seeing young people adapt them to the Digital Space because thats where the action is, but the Civil Society is you as you phrase it the idea that these things are started at the local level at a very bare bones level at a level that does not have a hierarchical structure as one that allows for innovation is one that allows for a bridge to actually have direct impact in communities whether that is through education models or whether that is through programs that allow you to feed the hungry or take care of their health care or ensure that they have those benefits. I think that those are all things that members that maybe community would jump on but its especially the black community because regardless of whos in office our in front of your name d in front of your name lucky for whoever the independent is who gets it sometimes but it hasnt necessarily moved the needle towards the types of progress that those communities need specific. Likely those in your ultra urban or strongly rural areas. Im a native of chicago and at the end of the day there has been election after election. And right now theyre actually having a primary and the largest voting district happened to be the cook county jail. No one came out to vote. And the city is wondering why. And were like well. Violence really bad schools not many options to go to schools outside of your community. In addition to an extreme level of poverty the highest black male unemployment in the entire nation. And in Economic System where it is also the lowest economic outcomes in the state of illinois for black people anywhere. In america, so when you have those things set up, which i was shocked by that last one because i definitely thought it would have been in the south was completely wrong. There isnt an incentive or people feel like theres no incentive. Theyre living this every day. Theres no incentive to get out and vote because nothing changes no matter whos in office. When you have that type of setup which happens in communities across the country the idea of a Civil Society is something that is quite frankly appealing. What would you say to people who are not yet involved or looking to engage . How do they themselves create this system . Can i jump in and make another comment first just as youre talking . Im sorry. I lost my train of thought go ahead marcus. Ill come back to it. No, i mean so sorry. Can you repeat the question . So how do you create this type of system for individuals who are interested because we hear it time and time again, they dont feel like theres change in the communities. They have been fighting for very long time. They need to ensure that they have schools that are capable that theres health care that is available that theres Housing Options and there was a time in history as you alluded to in the book where there were coops they were organizations that came together and made this happen because outside of government has largely been the only way that many black communities have been able to survive all of this. Yeah the comment i was gonna make real quickly. Sorry. Okay is your thing is that i think your question gets at the heart of sort of this push and pull that we have between the left and the right right now, which is where the right wants to sort of say none of none of this has anything to do with our history of Racial Injustice and the left wants to say all of it has to do with her history of racial and justice and one of the points we want to make in the book is that Racial Injustice is the thing. Gets the ball rolling, but then as the ball is rolling it starts causing these other things which include breakdown of Civil Society institutions, right . So thats where you get some of the things conservatives talk about like Family Structure breakdown and so forth and those things are real and then the question is, how do we solve those problems . Well sending everyone to antiracist training doesnt necessarily solve it not only because antiracist trainings are kind of famous for not working but also so black people didnt ask for that. But also youre going back to that that nonproximate cause right way back there rather than the proximate cause which made me Something Like i need a mentor to help me learn how to parent right . I need a mentor to help me start that business and so thats why i think in many ways if conservatives and libertarians could be better about telling the history people would feel more compelled by their actual suggestions for what to do right now because we would be giving that nuance story of the way that its like a domino. From racism and then into the effect on Civil Society institutions. There you go. Yeah, i think your question about you know, how do normal everyday average americans make a difference. I think that i mean, i think its quite its actually quite simple. I mean the answer is i was the other day. I went out to lunch with a colleague of mine and she is very invested in montgomery and her neighborhood in montgomery, and she said i was really excited really excited about all this talk about Neighborhood Stabilization in saint louis because rachel is connected with love the lou which is doing amazing work is going block by a block revitalizing sort of the, you know, inride boulevard right like that. I sort of the rougher like blogs and she goes, how could i do that here in montgomery . Shes the spark right . Shes the person whos like i want to do something and i have a church and she says, you know, we have the resources in our church. Weve been doing charity for so many years wrong, right . Weve been we have we have resources. Whether youre in a white church a black church a multiethnic church, like there are resources their Network Connections if youre not in church that can be drawn in and shes like, how do i how do i get the ball rolling . Shes sort of like asking me that question. And you know i said you should talk to rachel because rachel knows way more about it than i do about like the specifics of how you get that started, but i think it starts with conversations right conversations about. All right, youre enthusiastic. Youve got the energy youre excited. You want to live in the community, which she does right . She bought her home her and her husband did in the community rather than you know, like i live in a suburb of montgomery. She invested in a home in the community because she wants to make a difference in the community. And now what we need to do and what i need to do is i need to set up a zoom call with rachel and maybe rachel can explain it. Maybe we can set up as soon call with lucas who does the hard work and saying lewis, whos the person whos actual neighborhood right and talk about what are the impediments what are the sort of things that you have to jump over in order to get this done . And then there are people like me who would be super enthusiastic about helping with a project like this who dont feel called to live necessarily. I dont think im made of that metal to live in the actual neighborhood. But but i have you know, maybe i should be shamed for that, but i do have other skills, right . Like hypothetically, you know, you know, i talked to teach people supposedly in classes and stuff so i can you know, you know, i can tutor i can help sort of mentor kids. You know, i can you know, like you always say like you can drive, you know a kid to go like see his dad if his dad happens to be, you know incarcerated like there are things that every single one of us can do if youre a lawyer right . You can come and help people who have questions about law the legality of how do you start a business connecting those folks to the networks that like rachel said we take for granted. I mean this sounds like a lot of work and i think it is for the person who actually is invested in the neighborhood. I think it takes a special type of person but for the rest of us, it might just be five hours of your week, right . It might be the equivalent of it might be less than tithing in terms of you know, the amount of money that you contribute to the cause, but if you get enough people who care about right revitalizing montgomery and improving its schools and other things like that, then you can make a tremendous tremendous difference. And of course, the other thing you can actually do is become politically active and youre in local elections, you know, like everybody gets excited about president ial elections, but if you really want to make a difference like the local level is where you can actually make a difference where your vote might actually it carries more weight just statistically right carries more weight that it would in federal level and so like become active go to the School Board Meetings like advocate for School Choice, right if you believe in that cause which i do right and i think that over time through Neighborhood Stabilization, ill be huge School Choice advocate like i think School Choice is probably the most important single most important policy that we can implement to sort of to address these issues. Yeah, but but you can talk maybe more about that in a little bit, but i think thats what you can do. Ive gone on long enough, but i think that you can do you just got it. You have to be the change and its cliche. But like we all have something that we can contribute. And you definitely walked into what was going to be my next topic. So School Choice has so many different tentacles and it gets people fired up on the left the right and in the middle people who have kids people dont have kids people have kids in the System People who have kids outside of the system with that being said when most people hear School Choice, they either think Charter Schools or they think vouchers the School Choice argument is a lot more than that and the idea of School Choice is one that as somebody who does identify as a liberal as somebody whos what voted for democrats and works for democrats. Ive always stood on School Choice. My mom homeschooled me when i was a kid, and then i went to a Public High School for high school, and i went to a Christian University for college. I believe that at the end of the day the communities that my family was afforded to live in because my mom was a single mom would not have provided us the best opportunities educationally. And we had this discussion and in before the green room the fact that schools should the quality of your school should not be determined by your zip code how much your family makes or the color of your skin and sadly across this country it is. There are great variances depending on where you live depending on the income of your family depending on quite frankly. The color of the predominant students in that building that becomes a very hard thing to sell and i have had several discussions with Union Members some of those quite heated and very vocal there are things that they say that are problematic with the idea that you can basically wait it out. I dont have children, but if i did have a child you cannot tell me that i can wait for 10 12 14 years for your school to maybe get it together and i dont even know in this context will get it together means because theres literally 500 things going wrong. So if you fix one, were still kind of screwed. With that being said School Choice is still a hot button topic and they think largely it is because of sometimes having faulty Charter School administrators or people who have single sites that come up and do some shady things and then leave but also many people dont fully understand the provisions of School Choice and what that actually means the idea of homeschooling is just now taking another turn just because of the crisis that we saw during the pandemic and students being forced to be at home with their families. But School Choice and homeschooling in general had a stigma to it for quite some time around ultrareligious people who didnt necessarily want to have their young people around the predominant culture. And it was also one that was seen as more only white people do this. Where do you think we are today . And where is this School Choice School Choice argument going to go. We know that in the previous administration. There was a large amount of hoorah around School Choice right now or seeing some of those things pull back states are fighting back and forth as to how far theyre going to allow School Choice to go who has their various provisions depending on where you live. Its not going to change any time too soon parents want a certain level of autonomy. They want to know what their children are learning. There is a riff right now between School Choice and obviously crt, which well talk about the culture wars. Later. But for this question when it comes to School Choice, where do you see this going as a policy matter . And why is it such an important part of Civil Society . Yeah. I mean, i think i think this is the moment. Okay, this is the moment for School Choice. The next two to four years is going to be really really important for what happens to the educational sort of the future educational system in the United States. This is the moment for School Choice. So if you care about the School Choice, like we should be like trying to knock down the doors knock down the impediments push on every single stay legislature. This is the justice issue of our it is the justice issue. It is something we have to get done and its something that conservatives and libertarians should be advocating for but its also something that black parents have been advocating for i think whats the Approval Rating among minority parents . Its like status 70 60 to 70 this is opposed by teachers union. Um, but i mean the basic concept right as you introduce competition into education right if you youre going to introduce competition through competition, youre going to lower the cost. You can increase the quality. Thats how competition works despite sort of criticisms of market processes. Thats how competition works. Okay, and if we do that in schools are going to empower parents were going to empower students and i just want to say like for my progressive friends like in many of these places things cant get any worse. It cant get any worse. It it absolutely cant get any worse. I mean we have like the montgomery School Systems. I think every single one of the schools. The Public Schools not the magnet not the not the chart your Charter Schools. Not the every one of them is like the lowest ranking you could possibly get. And theyve been that way for an extended period of time spending. I dont know the specific spending numbers in montgomery, but spending numbers on education over the course last 40 years have gone up dramatically adjusted for inflation, of course outcomes. Remain completely stagnant what were doing is not working. And so what i often tell, you know, my progressive friends is like lets give this a shot. Lets give this shot. We already have evidence that Charter Schools perform better than Public Schools. It may not be as good. Weve talked about this the data in some places as wed like it to be but they also compete theyre better on the margins of other things rachel. I dont know if you want to talk about those things but mental parents and for shooting up some Charter Schools you do but in some Charter Schools you see oh they do a little better. But you know, why should we take this risk if theres only a marginal change because test scores isnt the only thing that matters right it also matters that your child, you know doesnt get pregnant until after high school or doesnt get bullied to the point of a mental breakdown, right or maybe your kid is a little different from other kids and and theyre not fitting in and so its really important to parents to have safety both mentally and physically in their schools. Seeing amazing outcomes out of Charter Schools in that regard where you have many fewer students getting involved in the criminal justice system. You have Better Outcomes in terms of teen pregnancy etc. And so i think thats what parents really value but if you come at it from you know, the outside culture, youre not necessarily understanding. Whats at play there. Yeah, so i i agree totally with marcus. I think theres been 27 states that passed some kind of School Choice legislation the pandemic just pulled, you know, pulled the blanket off right and we all saw what was underneath and i think the exciting thing is markets create variety kids are unique unrepeatable individuals, and we need educational systems that feed their special callings. Right and what we have is a onesizefits all ham fisted system and the worst part of all go back to everything. I said earlier at the beginning about highways about fha renewal we realized poor black people and now were asking them to set up their School Districts based on a zip code. That is totally geographically unjust. So all were doing is perpetuating the injustices that we did in the 70s. Right, and that makes it that much worse. And so i think we just have to make it possible for these students to go elsewhere and theres a million different ways to do it. Theres hybrid right . Theres these special tax refund things, right . I dont even remember all the names of the different kinds of things you can do. Theres a lot besides charters that you can do in terms of School Choice, and i think now its busting open and people are getting more entrepreneurial and realizing that we can go in a lot of Different Directions and create all kinds of schools that serve different kinds of students and we dont even know what we dont even know what the alternative necessarily is to the Public Education apparatus until we introduce competition because suppliers of education, you know producers of education whether it be Charter Schools or whether it be sort of other, you know, private institutions etc. We dont know whats going to emerge like if we had actual like School Choice in montgomery, like who knows . Maybe we would have like four or five different, you know schools that would come in and tailor themselves to certain demographics. Like maybe there would be a school for kids whose parents dont want to transport them from places. Thats usually the questions. Like what about the kids who get left behind right . What about the kids get left behind well, it depends on how its done, but oftentimes they actually when people when the students leave theres actually more money than left in the Public School for those kids. So actually as sort of if you think fundings the issue then per pupil they now theres more money because these other kids have left you have smaller class sizes etc, but there might also be an educational entrepreneur who comes in and says i want to target people who are right in a position where their parents cant take them, you know five or ten miles across the city to go to the Charter School, right . Or maybe those Charter Schools create some innovative ways in which they bus or you want to say bus but where they provide transportation etc right for those students to get to their school right carpools. I dont know. Along those lines and so i oftentimes get asked by progressives like well tell me what its going to look like and im like and as sort of a libertarian, you know, the Classical Liberal so many believes in markets. Its like i cant tell you whats going to be created because if i knew then i would you know, like i would be a poor central. I mean all of us would be poor central planners. Like i dont know whats gonna emerge whatever i imagine like should emerge like i imagine the market will produce Something Like a hundred times better than what i in my like limitedness right could think of as a solution and so i think its really really exciting, but i also think on a more basic level middleclass families and wealthier families have been able to send their kids to the schools of their choice for an extended period of time because they have money why shouldnt working class moms and dads have a right to sit in their kids where they want to sit in their kids. Its like on just a more fundamental level. This is an injustice and its in his perpetuating past injustices, which we talk about extensively in the book that were caused by large government programs. Its also a really good example of public choice theory. I mean you have budgets going up and up. Were spending two and a half times what we spent in the 1970s, but all of the money is going to administration, right . Illustrations just booming teachers arent making that much more and so were really seeing that sort of cronyistic kind of corruption in the Education System as well. And were also seeing students try to fight back. We just saw this few months ago in baltimore. We had a group of students who literally Graduation High School diploma in hand who came out reading on the kindergarten level no matter how much High School Graduation has gone up which it has shot up tremendously over the past two decades. What we know is that the students who are graduating do not have the skills that acumen or quite frankly the basic education on the reading writing math level to succeed in the real world to even succeed past Elementary School level. So just having a diploma in hand which again high schools are giving those things out like candy at this point doesnt necessarily mean that anything is changing for those young people and i could talk to you all forever, but we do have some Great Questions that are from our audience. Well start here. Oh, sorry wrong person. Anybody have questions . In the room hello. Hi guys. Hi, stephanie. Im curious about the the response you guys have gotten to your book and if you ever get any pushback for being too white people writing about black liberation, you know, thats a really weve been asked that question now four or five times and every single time weve been asked that question. Its by a white person. So ill throw that out there. Usually its its usually by white progressive, but but were usually ask that question by other white people. Its something that we were concerned about. We had a we actually had a paragraph in the introduction and which were like, hey like, why are we writing this book . Like we know were both white like, you know, like like kind of apologetic right . Like, you know, we ultimately check it out, but we took it out because we did a round table with black scholars and one of the scholars he was like, why is this here . Why is this here . You do not need to apologize for writing about black America White people been riding about black america for a really long time. Theres lots of really good work by both, you know conservative but also progressive whites scholars, theres no reason to apologize for being white and writing about black america we care we care about individual liberty, and that doesnt stop. You know, its not based on the color of someones skin, right you could care about individual liberty for all americans and so weve gotten that question several times. What i will say is that the overwhelmingly the overwhelming response so far like knock on wood from reviewers has been overwhelmingly positive and overwhelmingly positive from the black scholars who have engaged with our work up into this point. I have to brag a little bit about the tweet the other day okay, because there was a debate on twitter about us being white authors of the book and some people argued back and said well, what about the ideas, you know engage the ideas but one person said about a week later. He said, you know Something Like hot take of the day. This book is actually valuable and he was definitely, you know a left leaning person and he said i listened to some of rachels videos and shes clearly a conservative leaning Classical Liberal, but she really understands racial inequality and then he went on to say do we really want to argue with conservatives about basic facts . Like do we want to be arguing about the facts of racial inequality or do we want to have the argument about the solutions right . And because we dont need to disagree on the facts of racial and equality we want to disagree on the solutions. And so i thought hey this guy gets me, you know, but i thought that was really neat that out of that conversation about why should these people even write this book . He went back and looked and he said no, shes really taking the history very seriously, and i i felt that that was a good plug. Yeah and one of the things that we really want to achieve by writing the book is we think that we can speak to conservatives and libertarians in a way that maybe you know, we can sit around and wait for someone else to write this book. We could it probably ever have gotten ridden, but you know we could wait or we could say listen. We have a unique opportunity to try and and try and speak to people in a language that they understand right conservative value individual liberty, you know protection private property. They recognize they passed injustices should be you know addressed and so one of the things you really try to do is you know is to try to take that language that we know that we speak with conservatives and were gonna try to get them in. You know, we want them to read the book and we want to engage with those things and recognize the real real sort of injustice and struggles right that black americans have gone through so that perhaps some nothing all conservatives, but some conservists will have a little bit more empathy and talk a little bit more intelligently about these issues moving forward. So even though were white, i think were doing something valuable. This is glad that you both can acknowledge the whiteness. Why does she . We have another question in the room and then im going to go to some of our viewers online. Hello. My name is everett bellamy. Im gonna break the trend as a black person asking to white people about to vote. I how much and in addition to the black scholars that you collaborated with or got their feedback. How much actually on the ground work that you do in black communities talking to Community Leaders seeing what their dearly lies were like as you wrote. Current aspects of your book not going back in history, but whats going on today . How much of that kind of work that you do . I would say just organically i do a lot of that work through several organizations that im involved with in st. Louis. So im part of a group called gateway to flourishing. Its a group of christian Business People who are trying to flip their philanthropic model right and do a better job and so we are both black and white believers and we also bring in both black and white speakers and so i thats actually how i met lucas from loveloo and met the community there on enright boulevard, and so a lot of that has happened, you know, somewhat organically and of course, it just naturally wove itself into the book. I actually give a little shout out to lucas in the book itself because i think hes a real hero with the work hes doing there but the wonderful part is that hes empowering the Community Members themselves. But yeah, i mean theres much more to do in terms of having conversations on the ground. I think thats a really important point. Actually were often in totally separate social networks, right . And so were all talking to each other and were not hes talking across. Im really excited. Im looking over at stephanie here because were gonna be next week at the actin institute and one of the things i love about the actin institute is that were talking about religion and liberty, but its extremely diverse. Its a very Diverse Group of people a lot of inner city pastors actually because of the Organization Made to flourish, which is dealing with how we can bring Economic Empowerment to our communities. And so i go to all those lunches every year at Acton University and im meeting, you know got people from detroit and people from various cities and its really wonderful, but we need to have more of that right we need to be crossing over our associate economic barriers our neighborhood barriers and our political barriers and the saddest thing to that ive seen over the last five years is the way in which the political barriers are going up, right . Those walls are getting higher and were talking to one another lesson. Were separating ourselves out more. I think thats really really damaging and i think Classical Liberals in particular. Have a good multiplay in breaking that down because we never fit in anyway, right and so we can come and push the wall down and facilitate those sort of civil conversations across those really tough barriers, but i appreciate your point. Youre absolutely right we need to do as much of that as we can. This question comes from don online. Why dont black political leader support Charter Schools and vouchers that provide better Educational Opportunities for minorities and inner cities and are eagerly salt after by black parents. Well, i have seen some black political leaders majorly across the line on this. I mean i want to give some credit where credits due. I believe her name is Maria Chapelle nadal is a representative in saint louis who really made people upset by associating herself with the School Choice movement, even though shes a very far left person. So i think that does happen and it crosses over more than you think. Were right here in washington dc which is where Miss Virginia lives, virginia walden ford who got the washington dc voucher system into place and i recommend i recommend that movie Miss Virginia to everybody its so good. So i think some have but i do think that the pressure from the teachers unions remember, i mean, theyre the funders of the Democratic Party if you if you go and you look at the amount of money, thats given youre like the top givers to the different parties. The unions are at the top of the list right . And so its really hard to go against them. Its just politically its very very difficult to do. I also want to point out that in missouri. We have a problem with white rural republicans saying no School Choice because out in rural areas. The unions are the greatest or i should say the Public Schools are the greatest employers right out in the rural areas. And so theyll kind of him and ha and then say no on the floor of the legislature. So its not its not just black political leaders, but i really do i have to say blame the unions the teachers union. Yeah. On School Choice, well stick with this. Why do you what do you think of all School Districts . This person is in favor of enabling lowincome kids to go to private. But what about allowing those who stay public to choose which Public School they go to regardless of income. Sure. Absolutely. I think that it should be completely open and free like if you get a voucher and you want to leave your Public School to go to the other Public School across the city, i see no reason why the best Public School shouldnt went out and the other Public Schools shouldnt whether on the vine if thats if thats it sort of, you know, its its future. I mean if its that poor right . We should empower those, you know, we should send the resources to the institution the facility thats actually getting results and if parents think that one school is better than the other school. Like i have no problem with that. I think there are some schools that need to fail that may not be popular to say but there are some schools that the culture is so bad it we would be better off if it died. Okay, and we created something from the grassroots or if you know from the ground up like some things need to die some schools should perish and so like that will happen and thats actually healthy and good that you know, hopefully we can also drive out bad teachers and bad administrators and the process right . And so i think that thats something thats gonna happen with School Choice that may not be popular with some school teachers. May not be popular with some people in the teachers unions, but i think the reality is is that we need actual Market Competition in all aspects of american society, but specifically in education right since were on education and i think in the process of that some schools, you know, i think thats absolutely perfectly fine and if a Public School ultimately is the best School Better than Charter School better in the private school. Thats fine with me. Like my mom is the Public School teacher. I have no problem right with Public Schools ultimately winning, but theyve got to compete in the marketplace no more sort of, you know protection for poor districts poor facilities Poor Teachers etc. I think we have another question in the room i get fired up. I actually have two questions if thats all right. One question actually is a flip of stephanies question, which is what is the conservative response to your book ben, you know, there are two schools of thought on whats keeping down black progress. Conservatives thinks its lack of individual initiative and drive and of course the progressive responses. Its the system and youre saying its actually the system comes first if i understood you like correctly. Yeah chronologically the system comes first. So what do conservatives say about that . And then the second question is in terms of School Choice in black support for School Choice. Im wondering if you know, i mean i i lived in michigan and detroit for a long time and the first School Voucher initiative was i think it was the first one in 1990s was actually in detroit and it went down in flames. Although there was fair amount of black support, but not all of black support and the reason that and there was also a lot of opposition in really white. You know conservative suburbs and so there were multiple forces that defeated this initiative, but one reason it didnt have even more black support was because in some ways the government is a vehicle for progress for black folks right if you can get a job as a teacher or you know in a Government Office, thats your ticket out of you know poverty and so the black that kind of divides black community because they also see Public Schools as a way of employment. So if you can speak to that. Yeah, so with regard to i was going to go back and talk a little bit about the way that housing affects this debate because of course, i dont know if cartel is the right term, but when you have a School District you do have the value of your home associated with the district, right . And so thats not really just in some sense. But but thats the case at the moment. And so theres a status quo that i think is going to be really hard to overcome and thats where you get to the lily white right thinking about how is this going to affect my home values if the district is different right from what it is right now, and so i think just to be realistic about the Public Choices that are in front of us one of the reasons why we need to keep that momentum going because weve got to push through some of those obstacles. But yeah, im familiar with this and i just want to take a moment to go back in the history again to see why we got to where we are at and one of the reasons is because quite frankly in paul moreno talks about this in his book about African Americans in the unions the private unions were deeply and persistently racist and this is like a story that just goes on and on and on and you see like tiny little efforts and they peter out and so what you have is a situation in which many black people never were able to take advantage of the sorts of manufacturing jobs and things like that that were dominated by unions, and i we do not disagree with the idea of unions, right . You can always negotiate as a group, but we have some laws in the United States that empower unions in a way that that changes the Power Dynamics and makes things a little unfair and of course if your union is all white and you have Something Like the davis bacon act where everything that the federal government does has to be done through a union then no black people can work on that job, right . No black people can work to build the highway because the union is building the highway. So what does that mean . That means that public the government areas have often been ahead of the game, right . So the for instance the desegregating of the army right of the military, which became a great source of opportunity for black americans and i think public unions have had that effect too. So we have to go back and look how we got here right and the way in which we have to own up to some of this racist history and some of its progressive right . Its progressive racism. I think thats really important to point out because we have this kind of stereotype of conservative racist and progressives who love love minorities, but the history is not like that at all that sort of eugenics mentality is coming out of the progressive era. So i think thats important to say so far. Weve gotten very good responses from conservatives. I think that thoughtful conservatives are willing to tell a more nuance story, you know, especially if youre willing to blame progressives a little bit right because theyre kind of tired of getting beat up and told that theyre racist all the time. So if you guys know actually everybody was pretty racist, right and so both sides and so theyre attracted to that. Theyre attracted to the critique of the Big Government, right the Big Government projects. And so you can sort of get them to finally admit some of this historical Racial Injustice by who you blame. Right . And so i think that really helps actually it helps conservatives to tell a better more nuanced story, but were not totally disagreeing with them in terms of cultural breakdown particularly in these very isolated areas either right . Yes. We want agency. We want grant we want to tell these kids that they can that they have hope right that they can make it in the United States, but we cant say that if were not coming into the neighborhood and surrounding number three sources because the truth is its unrealistic to think you can pull yourself up by your bootstraps in that isolated of the situation. Yeah on the on the question of how conservatives have received the book. I will say that the Philadelphia Society which was founded in 1964 65 by don lucia Milton Friedman william buckley. Etc invited rachel to come and speak, you know to give a talk. Thats Philadelphia Society about sort of race and covenant right sort of this sort of and they had that as one of the one of the panels it was really proud to see that in the Philadelphia Societys program. And i think theyre very thoughtful conservatives most of the people who attend the Philadelphia Society and we had our ginormous sort of you know poster of the book there and like people came around and we got tons of positive feedback, right . And so i dont i will say we havent gotten a ton of reviews yet from conservative conservative publications, but National Review plans to review the book, so well see and the imaginative conservative. Thats right and to review the book and so i i think the reviews will be positive. I think that the story that were telling offers conservatives a narrative in which they can address past injustice while not jedising the sort of principles of america because i think many conservatives feel very threatened by what they perceive to be sort of see the 1619 project. They see america and exceptionalism american greatness under assault and i think we want to were very realistic about america in the book. But one of the things we say is that its not our liberal founding thats to blame. Its not liberalism. Thats to blame the folks who say that on the left are wrong. Liberalism is not to blame liberalism is the answer to our problems. Its not the cause of our problems. We fail to live up to our liberalism. We fail to live up to our ideals we fail to protect black americans, right . We fail to extend the rule of law to them and so by providing conservatives with this we might we dont know if we want to call the third way a third type of narrative. I think what i hope what were providing them is a way in which they can retain their belief in america. And the promise of america while doing right by their neighbors and by the people who were wronged right by you know, sort of injustice that occurred in the past, so im really hopeful well see. Well see how it goes. Hopefully this event helps, right . Get off the word. So the best line is Frederick Douglasses right when he says its not the constitution, but whether we have honor enough encourage enough to live up to our constitution. Next question from our online viewers. What are your opinions on systemic racism does it exist . Yeah, so i think i mean, thats a really thorny question. I think comes down to like, what do you mean by systemic when were talking about systemic racism. I would generally tend to say like i agree. I agree the systemic racism exists in the country. I think that it is embedded within i mean we seen an outcomes. I mean if were looking at young black men who are here brought in for sort of like drug charges versus young white men. This may be partially socioeconomic, but i think its partially racial as well. They tend to be incarcerated much higher numbers than the young white men. So the young white kids so like why is that the case right . I think that we have impediments that disproportionately disadvantage people who are working class and because of you know systemic and explicit racism that is occurred in the past often times by government policy. People have been you know, basically these folks dont have access to these resources and so it continues to harm those and so i think that we have a hangover from hundreds of years. I mean were talking hundreds of hundreds of years of injustice. That is not going to be solved overnight, even if we get every single thing that we want in terms of policy. We get educational freedom we get an end to the war on drugs. All right, we get sort of mass every one of you go out to your communities and you like make a fundamental difference and we have Transitional Justice like its still going to take Transitional Justice and a Neighborhood Stabilization is still going to take time to to write the wrong set of existence in the past. Now when i say, you know, yeah, i think we have systemic. So we have systemic issues and i think part of thats in law that needs to be changed through legislation exception in the case the war on drugs. I dont think that the american project or liberalism in and of itself is necessarily tied to racism which i think is something that people who advocate some advocates for like say yes, im for systemic. I believe systemic really in just a success and i think its tied directly to liberalism. I dont believe that at all, right. I think its sort of like the liberal aspects that are holdovers from you know systems Economic Systems. Limitation etc that continue to haunt us to this day. And what weve got to do is try to write those wrongs and give everybody an actual equal opportunity. Yeah, i think one of the points of the book is to not have a mono causal sort of story right we have to be able to be nuanced we have to be able to bring in all of the various causes. So yes course, we acknowledge the existence of systemic racism, but we also dont totalize that as the only interesting explanation for anything that that is wrong with us right as a country. And so we just want to complicate that and add more information to that but we do want to acknowledge it. We hear a lot about black banking and books such as the color of money and how the lack of banks owned by blacks has contributed to racial wealth inequality. What role has the baking system played in perpetuating injustice if at all and what can be done to mend these injustices . Okay, this is huge. So we actually just got a really glowing review from the American Institute for Economic Research and he had one one critique which had to do with what we would do. It was actually about reparations, but i had to do with what you would do with that money and he was pointing this out actually that going in and supporting black banking would actually be a really really powerful way of lifting up the black community for the very reasons that youre talking about and i got to tell you this is a good example of actually multicausal explanations because you have this terrible history, but then you also have whats going on right now. Thats just regulatory stupidity. So you have this situation after the tooth is 2008 financial crisis which the new regulations have made. Impossible to have any small banks there are no new small banks. Its very hard to even have Community Credit unions. You now cant even get a small home loan for a little starter home because they cant afford to process your loan unless its way bigger than that, right . And so were just crushing anyone whos starting from, you know, a low starting point from even getting onto the economic run right the economic ladder getting out of the bottom run of the economic ladder. And so what thats a really good example of the ways in which yes, theres historic injustice, but theres also just bad policy and it has a bad effect on a community thats already vulnerable because of historic injustice, right . And so then that community is like hello, you know help us. Okay, and so i think we can tell that story where we can show that its not always racist intent necessarily but can have terrible disparate effects, right . And so that kind gets back to that question about make racism is it systemically racist that they have a regulatory system thats crushing the poor in terms of home ownership. Well, not necessarily in terms of intent, but if it has that outcome, what do we call it . Right . Well, its just stupid. I dont know what we should call it, but its not a good idea. So yes banking is a huge area in which i think we could improve but were stuck with terrible terrible regulations that are making any small experiments almost impossible and thats a case where its very hard to even create a Simple Society work around because you cant youre not allowed. A black banks were created out of the same spirit that hbcus were created and today all of those are virtually gone. They pretty much got swallowed up after the crash of 08 many of them were underwater with homes that they took on in communities that were of lower economic value and they some ended up consolidating before the most part people who depended on those banks really dont have any place else to go right now and i think one of the points we make in this section on Economic Freedom is it people really underestimate the extent to which Economic Growth helps the poor and economic recessions are the hardest on the poor right . It was the poor who didnt recover from the recession after 2008 until way past 2015. Well the middle and upper classes were trotting along just fine. And so i think in a lot of peoples minds they think about Economic Freedom and they think about Economic Growth and they figure its just a bunch of fat cat ceos, and were like listen if theyre bank account gets bigger or a little smaller. Thats not meaning a lot to them. Right, but if you suddenly shut down a major part of the economy because youve had a major recession it changes your whole life if youve lost your job right if you cant buy a house if you cant open a small bank if you cant go to the Community Credit union and get a small loan that changes your whole life trajectory. So we need to get it out of our heads that Economic Growth is something rich people care about we need to care about it for the sake of poor. Yeah, if anything it matters for the poor more right far more marginal utility make that i get really excited in class when i show graphs and show like 4 growth rate. So im like you all should be so excited by this graph right in the students are like, what is he talking about . Ill make no because this means that you can save for your Kid College Fund like you all dont have you know, most of my students dont have children, but im like, this is really important one of the things i want to say on black banking is that if if youre interested in this theres some one of the books that we draw on is my advisors book black maverick, which is about sort of a forgotten civil rights at activists trm howard who protected emmett tills mother and family during the trial and other things like that, but he was also really really key in sort of white to try to use the Banking System as a means by which to crush basically black activism after the decision over around the board and and that book is has just a few pages but five or six pages in the ways in which black americans pulled resources and through the banking establishments that they set up to typically outlast right the citizens. Is it the Citizens League the Citizens Council . Sorry the white, you know sort of the white sort of you know. Would call them Vigilante Group thats trying to like basically shut down and freeze out black americans from the economy to get them to be quiet about like political protests. And so theres some really Amazing Stories historically about the role that black banks played in enabling right the Civil Rights Movement activism etc, and its a pity that as you say like many of those banks no longer exists your question every year. We have a question in the room. Hi, my name is sinatra. Kapala foster. So you spoke a lot about the empowering and driving force of the black church, especially for empowering nature. Do you highlight the groups that were empowered by the black church even within their own communities mainly due to their gender sexuality and then from a historical standpoint. Well first you said there was a decline of black manuals who are religious. Do you think the correlates and and what is the Civil Society work around as you like to call it in order to incorporate the black Church Within these communities so it can become more empowering within the 21st century. Thats a controversial question. I have to tell you and marcus and i may take different different perspectives on this question. So ill give you an example the pbs special on the black church henry gates right and saying the first three quarters i loved. I thought he told the story that i told in chapter 5 right just this this incredibly source of selfesteem. And then in the last quarter, he made the point youre making he said, you know, these churches arent progressive enough. Theyre not socially progressive enough. On issues of gender and sexuality and its kind of an intersectionality point right that if theres a form of oppression happening other oppressed groups have to all band together. And i didnt appreciate it personally. I thought you know you just spent threequarters of this telling us the power of this tradition which holds scripture in in a very very high. Way right broad interpretation, but very very high view of scripture and it goes deep theologically and so to say like you guys just need to toss off this whole ethical area that you get from your theology. I dont think thats fair and it feels sort of mercenary. Like if im gonna support black people after all that theyve been through i need them to give up something thats central to them in their faith in order for me to be on their side. I dont want to do that. I think black suffering in america is unique. Its uniquely terrible part of our history and i i dont feel right asking the black church to do that. And so i think we probably will just have separate Civil Society institutions. I mean, there will be black churches who will go progressive of course, but its true that the black church in general tends to be conservative in those areas and i just want to honor that and you know as a Classical Liberal people have different ways of life that theyre pursuing and sources of meaning and and so i want to let that proceed as it as it is, but but i dont know if you disagree or agree on that market. No, i think that what i was going to say is simply that you know, im sure there will be black theologians who take a more sort of you know, who take the opposite sort of view or the or who want to support. Yes, right . Who for . Sure. Yeah, and i think those those that will emerge and then i think that those people who support those initiatives and that sort of reading and theology or you know, and well do so and then those and then that Civil Society can grow and so i think it can be built right it may not be connected to you know, and this is the chapter that rachel traditional the more traditional black church, but it can be a new form of Civil Society that grows out of and borrows some things from but deviates another ways and i think that that is perfectly i mean its obviously perfectly legitimate and one of the things thats so great about liberalism right . Im teaching 19th century europe to myself, you know, next semester and i am not a specialist in 19th century europe and im just been really really its really really profound to see the ways in which liberalism created Civil Society in europe. Where had not existed prior and so like in a liberal society like this is what we do right . Like we dont all have to go to the same club, right . We dont all have to be part of the same, you know the same church. We dont all have to, you know do x y or z. We have tolerance for one another we can build our own Civil Societies and thats why i was going to say i mean whether its within the church or outside of the church, right . I think that you know, its worth while to build Civil Society that supports those folks as they, you know, try to exper flourishing so theyre cute miscommunication. Hi, my name is nicole nahosa. I was wondering if you could elaborate on tulsas black wall street in relation to liberation through the marketplace. Yeah, so tulsa offers like sort of a word of caution to libertarians markets are not enough. Markets are not enough entrepreneurship is not enough if you dont have the rule of law if you know the government does not protect private property if the government and the police do not like arrest people who are based their terrorists. Lets be real the people the people who got had a gatling gun and were in planes shooting people were domestic terrors. Okay, like they are the Vigilante Army and so what we see in tulsa is its its beautiful. Im the the community is beautiful greenwood is beautiful and vibrant. Ive been teaching a book called the burning by tim madigan for i think eight years or so. Im so happy when like, you know, it was included in with hbo is the watchmen right . Like my students might actually finally know a little bit about it before they came to my class, but ive been teaching it for like eight years and the first half the book is about the beauty of the entrepreneurship and the Civil Society society and the prosperity in tulsa. And theres still an unequal relationship with whites like many people cross the train tracks to go into white tulsa, right . Theyre still segregation, which was imposed by the top down by the state by the way. Its an interesting history. There was more intermingling until oklahoma became a state and then all of a sudden once it became a state they had a state legislature which then put into effect jim crow laws. So its interesting how that became. Very rigid, but greenwood was beautiful and then it was destroyed. Why was it destroyed . It was destroyed because those people did exactly what racial and i would want them to do right exactly what booker t. Washington would have wanted them to do they put down their bucket. They went they did their job and they were great at it. They were the best doctors right people. The white folks would come over and get help from the black doctor and they did what they were supposed to do. They worked hard. They got ahead they created businesses. And then white envy reared its nasty head. And so i think tulsa is a cautionary tell libertarians that like, well not any sometimes libertarianages. I dont want to im that cato anyways point being right like like they think like, you know, like all the markets will just solve it like with no we have to have the rule of law right . I think most of returns recognize that have to have the rule of law right without private property protections like you can be as entrepreneurial as you want to and white. India is something that i think that you know, we really had to grapple within the book. Its like, you know, black americans oftentimes. This happened in memphis right with with adity wells like this happened time and time and time again, and what it was is a failure of of americans to live up to our liberal values. Thats what we say. This is not you know, this is on indictment of american liberalism. Its an indictment of that system it is it is is a failure of the individuals to live up to the system. A little bit the rule of law is great any in the mind frame and thought but the rule of law across many states has actually served to either not punish the individuals who create this vigilante justice for themselves or to make it more open for others to do the same thing in other areas where you see there is black economic progress laws were actually put in place to protect them not to protect those who they were abusing so rule of law for me and i think for a lot of black people is the idea that the rule of law for certain people typically not us and it often falls on us honors to protect ourselves and figure out a way through it because the law whether it is imposed locally or by the state and in some cases at least historically the federal level has not necessarily been provisions that were extended to the protection of us and our property. Yeah 100 absolutely. I i was on a liberty fun kind of around table for black History Month and we all sort of at each others essays in this exact point was made by one of the black authors who answered me. She said make sure you say the rule of just law because i think in our circles we say, oh rule of law and we know what we mean, which is like actually universally applied law, but not everyone reads it that way as you just point it out. And so i told her i said im gonna say the rule of just law from now on to make sure everybody understands what i mean because youre absolutely right. Oh, i wanted to make one more point about envy too, which is just that you talked about rule of just law, but we also need to talk about culture and and part of a liberal culture is that we see our we see ourselves as having a lot of winwin situations that we can cooperate and make one another better off and have exchange for mutual advantage and we and we dont conceive of things in terms of zerosum game and thats what envy does because its a status good right so i have to be above you and so really envy is incompatible with a liberal society. And i believe we had time for one more. Yes, but some tips somebody is back here. So well go ahead and as well. See so that lets talk. Current National Mood is incredibly pessimistic with regards to Racial Disparities and race relations. Are there any currents trends related to that liberatory potential of the market that are uplifting that you can share . Thats a great point. Were not at a were not at a very wonderful moment culturally when it comes to this conversation. I do want to say that i think there may be a purgative element to what were going through right now. Sometimes you can get to a point where like youre sort of finally safe enough to to express how much pain youre in if you know what i mean to use therapeutic terms and that maybe whats happening right now as were having this conversation, i do think culturally were seeing a lot of good things like groups like braver angels right these sorts of groups that are trying to have these conversations across barriers. I think thats really wonderful and i do think you know the idea of sort of black owned businesses right and and supporting one another and that return to the group economy. I think some conservatives get really nervous. They dont like that idea because were making that black white distinction, but i think when you know the history and you realize that theres been so many setbacks why not put special emphasis on supporting black owned businesses, so that movement i think could could make a big difference, but thats something to keep our eye out. Or you know moments of sort of hope and of course, i absolutely think that the flip towards Neighborhood Stabilization, which really is gaining momentum. I mean youre seeing a lot of like Nonprofit Administration programs reading these books and realizing were doing philanthropy wrong. We need to flip our model. I think the more we can get that to spread the more churches we can send to the Chalmers Center and get them to switch what theyre doing the better. Were gonna be in terms of really sparking that entrepreneurship in those areas that need to be revitalized. And john berlin competitive enterprise dude. Thank you for presenting. I look forward to reading the book. My question is what wasnt there someone after the the tulsa massacre somewhere that would come back with greenwood, but then that was destroyed by. Oh, im sorry. Im sorry. Um, but then dad destroyed by urban renewal. Do you know that story . So i think you know i generally leave tulsa in my class, you know after the burning we the the book has a an apple log where it talks about like the forgetting that took place in tulsa and the ways in which black and White America are White Tulsans forgot about the burning black black tulsans because they were petrified and you know harley had some, you know, something resembling ptsd about the event and many of those families just left right . They just left tulsa. And so i think that i think youre right to say the extent that like greenwood did come come back to a certain extent but its never gonna be the thriving that in once was because so many people had thought of it as i mean ida b wells if he goes out to oklahoma when she leaves memphis and she says, you know, this has been told that this is the Promised Land right and she gives out there and she goes yeah, i dont think so. Basically shes like if you want to go out there, thats fine. But like its not what youre being sold in the pamphlets. Its not correct. And so i think that like after the burning i dont think it ever really gets back to the status that it was before and i cant really i cant speak to urban renewal in tulsa. I dont know that story. Yeah, i specifically so we draw on two books the color of law by Richard Rothstein who deals a lot with fha redlining, but he does deal with highways to some extent and urban renewal as well and then specifically on highways we do we deal with eric avilas folklore of the freeway. So i recommend those books he does go over several cities. Im not remembering charleston. Yeah, but it wouldnt surprise. Yeah at all. It would not surprise me at all. To put a highway to greenwood and her theres a game. I just article Smithsonian Magazine the deadline decades after told to raise massacre urban renewal spark black wall street the second instruction. Okay. Oh, wow. Okay, so another round and im not surprised at all because it happens in every major american city. I mean, it just does because theyre handed millions and millions of dollars by the federal government, you know to with racist intents. Yeah and one last like comment on like are there things that are happening that are positive and i think one of the things thats happening thats really positive is whats happening in tulsa now, its an example of Transitional Justice right where the communities coming together. Were actually getting a sense of how many people lost their lives right in the burning and theres a recognition of the past and justice which is necessary for reconciliation there cannot be any reconciliation without recognition of passenger justice and conservatives that want to move. Well, lets just move on no, no, no, we dont get to move on until we acknowledge right the past and tulsa is doing that as a community. There was some pushback to it, but i think that those types of efforts that Transitional Justice which we talk about in the solutions chapter. Thats good, right . Its good to have those conversations. So i think thats quite promising. Thank you both and for those that are here as well as those that are listening at home or at work or wherever youre listening. Where can people purchase your book. Amazon. Com eighteen bucks. We we tried to make it as approachable as possible both in in readability and in price, so its a paperback a straight to paperback and you can follow me at liberty ethics on twitter friend me lincoln whatever you want to do, and im also posting everything i write at Rachel Ferguson online. Com you can also find me on twitter. Im not extraordinarily active. Im not a big fan of twitter. I think its a cesspool, but if you if youre polite and comment to me that i then i might respond, but im also a twitter at marcus witcher. So quite easy throughout this we have found out that marcus is not like twitter or tiktok. And thanks to the Cato Institute for hosting this amazing event paul. So, thank you all for your time. Hope you all enjoyed and thank you all to our panelists for absolutely lovely. Thats what one last round of applause them. Always looking to see and were gonna go downstairs now for some food and drink and some chatting. So, thanks again