Africanamericans in the u. S. Posted by the Manhattan Institute, hosted by the Manhattan Institute, this is two hours. I think we are ready to get started. I want to thank everyone for joining us today. Riley, im ason senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and i would like to welcome everyone to our symposium, which is called prospects for black america. Dean ball,ke to thank i want togton and thank them for their hard work. The idea is to bring people from different points of view about addressing racial problems in america. You will be hearing from liberals, conservatives, but most importantly, you will hear from people who have given serious thought to these issues. Everyone here is here to engage. There are people who are not afraid to touch third rails. Tois not because we want promote for the sake provoke for e being provocative, it is that we do not want to shy away from addressing the difficult and complicated questions. Was washington goodell washington sedenzel washington was asked if it is possible for blacks to improve environment. He said if you do not find a father, you find a father in the streets. In on theed to weigh criminal Justice System he gave the same answer. Blamed that you cannot the system . It is unfortunate we make such a easy work for them. Washington took heat for those comments. Plays ao doubt racism role in Racial Disparity we see today. I believe othertors play a r ole. The question is to what extent does racism explains these outcomes . And unemployment in other areas. Other factorse to we do not discuss . Answers impact where we focus our time and resources. Some are so eager to attribute Racial Disparities to the legacy of racism that they play down other plausible explanations. The progress that blacks made efter leaving slavery and th impact of the 1970s is not considered today. 50s, blacks and Labor Participation rates were higher than white Labor Participation rates. The black poverty rate fell by 40 Percentage Points between 1940 and 1970. Of blacks in middle class professionals quadrupled. Quadrupled. Ns the legacy of slavery and segregation is to blame for this, but what explains the oneress of blacks generation after jim crow. It as exists but citing the only reason for racial right. Ity today is n not delve into what may or may not be hampering black progress today as the al of this event. We will start with a Panel Discussion and some q and a. Then we will have ben carson make remarks. We will focus on education reform in particular. To my immediate left is darrel bradford, the executive Vice President of the organization 50 can and a longtime educational reform advocate. Ago. T years he contributed to education debates and several boards dedicated to putting the needs of family and students first. To darrels left is mark whitaker. Memoir he author of mark is aip home and journalist. Former managing editor of cnn ofre he was the head Washington Bureau at nbc. All agreek we can that Race Relations are in a bad place right now in america. Agree thatably also the current president does know that. With him. Start even if he has made matters worse. If you look at the numbers on racial relations coming out of the last demonstration, they wer worse than in the 1990s. Do you have thoughts on how we got here . Darrel i think there is a vast difference between the state of an black america, mark i think there is a vast difference between the state of my bookack america is about a Small Community in pittsburgh that produced the largest black newspaper in america. Some of the greatest black baseball teams. A sportswriter who thought to introduce Jackie Robinson to the major leagues. The greatest black playwright came out of this relatively small Industrial Town in pittsburgh and there were other black communities like that in detroit and in baltimore. Chicago, cleveland, st. Louis, etc. I will not get into the reasons why tse cities declined but e neighborhoods now are v astly worse off than they were 50 or 60 years ago. Which is amazing when it comes to the quality of living in america. You have to make a distinction between black folks living in y direities that are trul are issues and those who living in the middle class. Theres problems on campus and in professional workplaces but it is hard to argue that the black middle class is worse off than it was in terms of opportunity. The discussion of race, lets have a conversation about race seems to forget the that theseems to think is theof black america same across all classes. There are horrible problems for lower class black america. But there are issues for the black middle class. Jason when we talk about problem and it race probl ematic Race Relations darrel i would like to thank the Manhattan Institute for inviting me here today. There are a million questions to answer. I do think the situation for low income black folks in cities that were once great is wholly other. The economic and social conditions are ones that arrest progress of that might be in a way that is unique to Industrial Towns where not many are collegeeducated. The middle class is interesting. There is a professor from emory who did a study on housing value. The value of houses for black Property Owners goes up slower forwhite slower than white Property Owners. A idea thatere was you should move somewhere with some black people. Like policyings and redlining that have created that. If you look at it and want to ascribe it to Something Like race, you see that middle income black folks are suffering from legacies of prior policies driven by race anyway other in a way other folks are not. I think it is across the board. Derrel one of the best mark tok one of the best way improve Race Relations is to im Economic Opportunities. Ways tone of the best improve Race Relations is to improve Economic Opportunities. Rel what is it, the ira i have become suspicious about to idea of policy being able take us out of the mire. Are giving schools people an opportunity to get to their best selves. And those people are changing the world. About if you are talking mark if you are talking about black business or black selfhelp, you have to talk about the fact that, again in about,iod you talked you had a community really that cared about no choice itey had to stay in those communities and become leaders. A lot of them opened businesses. One of the perverse and unintended consequences from the advance of the Civil Rights Movement is you have an entire able toon he was my fatittsburgh, her, he got a degree and never came back. They had opportunities they never had in the predominantly white world. Derrel you are talking about what was happening under legal segregation. Then a time when government could be described as indifferent to blacks or hostile. We still hear talk of society threeegregated re segregating. That achieving this academic success that is off the charts does not stop critics from sayinga they are segregated. Nd that is and that is a bad thing. What should trump what . Are we more interested in the child learning or a child sitting next to a white kid in class . How do you respond . It is mark complicated. I grew up in the derrel i grew up in the 80s kidi was the only black at my school. Youe is a currency understand of how to deal with the ruling order when you are in people in situations of people who are not like you. An academy to school, you see kids looking theythe sun come up when talk to you. People are not assigned to these schools. A couple of people who happened to be black or hispanic decided to take a school that mirrored their values and it was no more segregated than the paper school next to them. Underexcellence is attack. When you have the Lowest Performing School were nobody is learning anything, yet the heat that open because it is all about democratic values. I support integration but i think it is being held up as the new poverty. A dangerousre in place where we built a policy framework where it is ok to attack black excellence that is chosen versus supporting that. Schools destroying futures in the name of values not conveyed to the kids attending. Are badthink things enough that we have to focus on what is best for the kids. There are kids who benefit from being in a mostly black environment where they feel a sense of identification with t eachers and classmates and do not feel the anxiety they feel in a white environment. You cane like derrel, throw them into a mixed environment and they an can thrive. Black kids, we have to learn at some point we are a largely white society. You are not being prepared for adult life if you do not have contact with white folks at some point. Jason you talk Higher Education and say you want to keep it real havekids but you likeizations on campus black lives matter that has made headway with these kids. Make of campus activism and the world where blacks are leading efforts to downe safe spaces, to tear is this aampus positive development . Rel mark i think college is a time for experimentation of ideas and identities. I think there are a lot of us who were more activist minded on and then people ll are still on the front lines. As a one advantage aboutd alum, i can talk going to that school as an undergraduate without being a jerk. I worked on the College Newspaper and my first beat was covering the admissions office. I was part of the first generation where there was enough black students at the kansas so they could at the selfs that they could segregate. Or could have a black table chose youere if you could live there. That existencee but what i also knew was that them came from the same environment that the white kids did. Thirtyd gone to one of 40 prep schools. 70 of all students across all races came from that selection of schools. They had already had the experience of dealing in a white environment but for some reason they wanted once they got to harvard to spend most of the time with eachother. In terms of how i felt about my experience was, they were m issing out. What i thought was great about college was the opportunity to meet people i would never meet or would have met in the environment i came from. In terms of background and ideas, the College Newspaper was a great place to do that. You can get righteous aut it and talk about defending or fourking but college is years and a life you do not get back. To be exposed to different ideas would sayriod i the same about white kids who orer meet a black kid hispanic kid. Derrel i am deeply disappointed campus protesting. An unwillingness of people to be in spaces with them. Who disagree with undermine the fundamental adversarial relationship that makes things go in the name of you cannot be around any ideas you want. Mark obvusly w live in a very heated polical moment. I keep thinking about where this is all elading and where all thing that the one is certain is a lot of us are going to be around but off the stage. A new generation is going to take over in terms of Political Leadership and so forth. That the facte that we all live in bubbles is a problem in our country, if there is going to be a solution, the solution must come from the next generation. Theres not enough time left to solve that problem. How do you prepare to lead a society where everyone is not living in a bubble if you live in a bubble during the most formative educational experience in your young life. Jason you have a background in print and cable news, what role doou think media perceptions the educational reform there talking about and reformation of black america in general. Andan watch cat videos Police Shootings sometimes i worry increased News Coverage is thatng for certain trends may not be there. Can you critique the media environment . I have already talked about polarization. The tone on Political Television increases that. It is economics. It is cheaper to program a 24hour cable channel with people arguing then sending people out than sending people out doing reporting. There is an issue that straddles traditional media and social media. Everybody is performing now. If you are not performing for a camera, you are curating the persona you present on facebook or instagram i worry in addition to the polarization that everyone is busy posing, so it is hard to really have a conversation. On education in particular but on other issues, what is required is a conversation. It is hard to have a conversation when you are p reening for the camera. I want to make time for questions. How much time do we have . You talk about or have thought about education reform and increasing the opportunity for families to p improves their to improve their educational situation. Attitudes ofack education. You can have the best schools down the street but if you value blackducation education does this play into the antiintellectual strain in the subculture. Derrel i would like to thank you for saving the softball question for last. It is not that the black community has a problem with education, it is american communities. In see a similar attitude lots of racial subgroups. Re are some anagram, subgroups black that really knock it our of the park. Some do not. As country, we have a narrative of what education is supposed to be but a lot of kids do not believe it. In a lot of places it is not true or it is not accessible. I want to highlight that. Questionnk about this often. I have no idea how i got to college. Wish i had a playbook for it because that would have been really helpful. If we could have another panel talk about sequencing. There are a few things your parents should want to do before you get here. And there are things you want to make thingst will likely get better. I did not have that sequencing. I think one of the things that changes attitudes is a people see a path to doing things. Thek people grong up in worst places in america, there are few people who put that path in front of you. Another thing interesting in having this discussion, like the really school instance relief. Is in high there are folks in communities of color who want better demonstrably. They have a strong sense of what look from a to z should like. That is not just immigrant communities but people of color. What frustrates me is those attitudes are attacked often. If you are a black striver and you want the school best for you kid, people say you cannot do that. That will undermine the republic. They might present themselves in attitude or Public Policy or perception. With education, you see a bit of a double standard with how black folks want to be discussed. Mark this is where family is key. But you are describing is something that exists nand has not always been the case. Jason in your study of early 20th century whitblack america, did you detect a shift in attitude . Mark the reason the community i studied had so much accomplishment was a shift and education. There were Educational Opportunities in pittsburgh that were quite unusual for the time. Now the western Pennsylvania University started admitting black students under a then the western Pennsylvania University started admitting black students under the sponsorship of a black abolitionist. On his own steam so he couldolina study there. Because of all the gilded age at the ende of the 20th century, there were thehighschools that were most expensive public high schools ever built in america. They both admitted 10 of the students in the 1920s. It was a huge value, musical famousy, they produced jazz musicians. There was a tremendous culture of musical appreciation and competition in pittsburgh. Friend atow, our harvard says we used to be the book. Of the what happened . Something did happen. We see it here in new york. Even in the poorest communities, if you have a grandparent or aunt or uncle who really cares about you having an education, those kids can still brake through. Through. When you have parents who do not care about their kids, you have all the advantages in the world and still do not succeed academically. Jason we will open it up for questions. This question for mark in particular, given your status as editor in chief of newsweek. I would like to get your opinion on these data the state of black people in media circles. One of the more some of the more prominent africanamerican journalists are called on to talk about race and ethnicity. Mark i think that is true. The thing about journalism now,s has been, but moreso there is no one path. My advice to all young journalists has always been when you are starting out, go to the places that will give you the opportunity. Nothe old days it was do necessarily go to the new york times. Go to a small regional paper. Go to a small market where youll get a lot more air time and stories and work your way up to the bigger market. Now with the decline of traditional media and rise of other forms, that is even more true. Choicesmaking more and the variety of places you can work. Anyone comes to concerned about being pigeonholed, particularly when you are early in your career and many financial responsibilities, you may says choices where you can have the opportunity that you want. You do not have to be pigeonholed doing the black story. There are many organizions where you can get hired on an entry level. Choose is that. Choose that. Lots of people want to be doing the race story and there are places they can find that. I could get on my high horse and talk about the responsibility of media organizations to do more hiring and promoting, but it is hard given the st