We are back. Welcome to the gaithersburg book festival. My name is syl sobel, im a reporter for gaithersburg. Proudly supports we are pleased to bring you this fabulous event. When you see them please say thanks. Please silence all your devices. Hope youre following gbs on facebook and instagram. If you post about the festival use the dbf hashtag. Your feedback is really valuable to us. Surveys are available on our website. By committing a survey you will be entered into a drawing for a 100 visa if card. Etan thomas will be signing in the siding areas, copies of the book are on sale in the politics and prose tend. A quick word about buying books. This is a free event but it helps the book festival if you buy a lot of books. The more books we sell at the event the more publishers send their authors here to speak with us. Purchasing books for politics and prose help support one of the greatest independent bookstores, benefiting the local economy and local jobs. And at first glance. It may not be obvious how much etan thomas and i have in common. Etan thomas spent 11 years in the nba including 9 with Washington Wizards as a 6foot 10 inch power forward. A 6foot 10 inch power forward. I of course did not. As a High School Sports writer for community newspaper, i spent a lot of time with and around High School Athletes and young fans. I appreciate how an athlete, especially a professional athlete can influence young people in ways that teachers, coaches, clergy and parents cannot. So does etan thomas. As he describes in his book etan thomas we matter athletes and activism, etan thomas realized in High School People would listen to him because he played basketball, quote, i can raise awareness. And so he has. Poet, author, activist, mentor and motivational speaker and i would add educated, etan thomas has committed himself to be more than an athlete, that is the title of his first book. In this, his fourth book, etan thomas continues to explore the power athletes have to influence youth. He shares with and speak about the experience of athlete activism like john carlos, alonzo mourning, kareem abduljabbar, describes positive impacts athletes can have on social change and encourages other athletes to do the same. For those of you who recall watching etan thomas play, remember he played with passion, energy, commitment. I can say he writes the same way he played basketball, with the same passion and commitment and never backing down from opponents, like racism and social injustice. Today etan thomas will be in conversation with Tony Massenburg. I can say to this audience, Tony Massenburg needs no introduction. He spoke about his first book two hours ago and most of you were in the audience and heard his introduction but if you didnt, tony, former university of maryland basketball star who played professionally. [applause] for 15 seasons in the nba as well as europe and puerto rico. He has been a gaithersburg restaurant tour, sportscaster and an author. I am getting out of their way and lets get the conversation going to lose hes joining in warm gaithersburg welcome for etan thomas. How is everybody doing . Thank you for coming out today. I want to start, everybody who knows me knows my passion for the spoken word. They called me a poet back when i played. I want to bring my son malcolm up. At the end of the book we matter athletes and activism, i not going to do the whole thing. It is called capital. [applause] he is carrying on his athletes. John carlos and tommy smith and kareem abduljabbar, craig hodges and many others. And criticized and hate it, to create negative association because they agree with our presentation of his message. During the National Anthem he took a knee, that represented the captivity of brown and black people in the socalled land of the free. Veterans thought we would have the right to be in or so they say. Oh say can you see. If they cared about their wellbeing, Homeless Veterans and medical treatment for posttraumatic state. We wouldnt have veteran sleeping on sidewalks and other bridges or put food on their familys plate or take off their hats to honor those who served in the military during the game. Fighting for the united states, they kick them to the curb, kicked them out my trash cans on garbage day. They had a lot on their plate, they attacked his character, ridiculed and mocked, chastised and criticized. Said he was antiamerican using the television to pin him down because he called out what wasnt right. They Say Something they dont like. I see them doing what they did to get him to put aside activism, the modern day mohammed ali is here today but as soon as Colin Kaepernick talks about racism and Police Brutality they tell him to shut up and play. I respect Colin Kaepernick. He talks about injustice everywhere as far as the eye can see. Refused to be forced to choose between one bad and one worse, he saw both choices, the lesser of two evils was a good enough option to work with. It was a uturn. And now the nfl is trying to block him, keep him from playing saying hes a negative influence and distraction from the rest of the team. They say he is a bad person and dan snyder is a model citizen. [laughter and applause] using a racist name he knows is offensive to native americans, rapists, murderers and wife beaters with no hesitation, repeated Domestic Violence got a standing ovation which had the nerve to let it come out of my mouth it Colin Kaepernick back the nfl organization, what a bunch of hypocrites. He donated 50 tons of food to somalia. He gave 50,000 to meals on wheels. He held know youre right caps for different cities. He gave money to stand the rock. To support a pipeline that would desecrate the sacred land, poison their water supply and destroy their lives. He stood outside a new York City Parole Office and donated custommade shoes. Hes getting ready for job interviews. He donated millions of dollars to black lives matter. Hes doing this out of the kindness of his heart and you question his character . All this hypocrisy is too much for me. Maybe my 13yearold mind doesnt understand that rationality but i do know a real revolutionary can never be stopped. Colin kaepernick is an inspiration to us all. His ability to stand for something even if it means giving up everything. That is why what he did will always mean a lot. Thank you. [cheers and applause] that is my man, malcolm. So thank you. The sort of thing i like to do is encourage young people to use their voices and develop their minds, their opinions. I do a lot of workshops, i have young people create their own spoken word on whatever topic, not just topics i agree with and that is the beauty of spoken word because you create your own everything. A quick promo of mine in my book we matter athletes and activism and we can start off. Everybody feel good . All right. For cats born without a form of silverware but got that innercity care. For jews who pursue red, white and blue promises from people who acknowledge that for some, life is a single crystal stair. For letdowns from juries who failed to purge, punish or hold those accountable who are sworn to protect and serve. For cats who keep hearing about these good times but only counter the bad. Folks who are tired of seeing victims on trial for their own murder when the trigger man has their backs. For folks who cant stand seeing things come out after the fact the when actually believe the cop was guilty but for some reason couldnt convict him. All i want to do is i am tired of seeing killers become victims. For every tiffany and elijah castile, eric garner and every other child who lost their loved one to triggerhappy cops will get paid leave and go fund me, dont believe for a minute your life doesnt matter. Now that of the chatter across nine indictment and not guilty verdicts no matter how much their injustice burns. I know you are perplexed because the earth gets worse as it turns and we are yearning for respect in a system that was built for us to fail. Telling us tales of freedom and justice for all. Gaming like an arcade and playing ourselves until our lives are over. Kicking in the air without the weed controller instead of wasting our energy but letting mobsters 3 like darren wilson, danielpantaleo and george newman, a bunch of cowards hiding behind their badges like Rudy Giuliani stopping at frisking all reality, trying to destroy our soul, diminish our spirit, investigate our mortality, so children no longer have a dad. They want to say the reason is all about black. [applause] that was awesome. Wasnt that awesome, ladies and gentlemen . Seeing this man go way back, we were 2 guys who like to play physical. I saw him when he first came into the league in 2000. By that point i was ten years in. He was a guy we had a lot of respect for each other and started working out together. I was still working out with him when i was well over 40 and he was in the nba and i was holding my own but i reached the point that i cant do this. Also, tony was instrumental, i had open heart surgery and on my comeback and my training i got with tony and he was pushing me, take it easy on me and i needed that. I thank him for that. He is an author of his fourth book. [applause] a big part of your life, everything you do. Tell us how you got so much. I was into poetry from a young age. I grew up with the last poets, langston hughes, playing around the house. When i got to high school i started writing my own poems and reading about malcolm x and wanted to talk about things like malcolm did. My high school, we were winning state championships in basketball and debate. It was a passion of mine. I remember during your playing days a report a you, quote, the big poet. Can you talk about how do you accept, when you are 6 foot 10, tell people you like to do the spoken word and poetry, what responses do people give you . They look at me kind of weird. I was kind of an aggressive player. The reporter you are talking about wrote for the Washington Times and was trying to mock me because i was a poet and i would use that when speaking to young people and dont care what anybody says and embrace other talent outside basketball. If i were to find my teammates and different places around dc and guys had appreciation for it but i didnt think a reporter would mock me. That is where you are comfortable with who you are. Anybody that knows you a little bit, you were an aggressive player, that is what the general population sees when they hear the name etan thomas, being physical. Can you talk a little bit about how you always spoke your mind and why . When the gentleman was introducing me i discovered my voice in high school. I was stopped by the police on my way to a big game. They thought they recognized me from a mug shot and that is why they kept me so long, trying to figure out where they recognized me from and 45 minutes later they found out realized i was playing basketball. So i wrote it and it became my original oratory. I started performing all over oklahoma and winning a lot and getting a lot of attention and wrote an article about it titled more than athlete. That is where i saw they were doing this because i play basketball as people come up to me and say i appreciate you saying this because it happens all the time but no one listened to us and so continued to use that platform to speak out on Different Things. You were young when that happened and there was no social media. When you think of the situation give us your thoughts on how that would play out today with a young man in the same position you were in, in high school are doing positive things, being mistaken for someone else or go through what you went through. Talk about how that would be handled now . Social media changes everything. I wrote about it in the book one time, leaving from practice and got stopped by the police. I put up my camera, you know what i mean . Turned the radio down, rolled the windows down, put it on the backboard. My hands were license and registration, i said i am going to reach on the dashboard for my license you just asked me for. Is that okay . He said yes. He shined a flashlight on my hand as i slowly reached over and came back. Turned out i had a taillight that was out. That was why they stopped me, nothing terrible happened but i use that as a teaching tool to my son malcolm as to what we have to do and has nothing to do with being fair or not. Malcolm was upset, you didnt do anything wrong. All that for a taillight that was out you not even necessary. We are talking about what should be, we are talking about where we are. When you are a black man stopped by the police, you have to work extra hard, you have to review the situation and the escalator situation you didnt escalate in the first place. The only thing that escalated is the color of your skin. That is the reality we are in. I was stopped by a policeman for Traffic Violation and in a split second we were surrounded by not one, not two but four police cars. I was nervous by the show of force. I asked the officer you told me you pulled me over for a violation. Is this necessary . He told me this wasnt a bad Police Officer. He was a white Police Officer but wasnt necessarily treating me like a criminal but this is what he told me. He said honestly your drivers license reads 6 foot 9, 260 pounds. He said when we see that we automatically tend to have a show of force in case things dont go well. I said okay. My question to you is if you had the opportunity to give Police Officers better training, how would you tell them to do that . They cant think we are all criminals, that is number one. Hearing the story, we have done this with a Different University and touring different places, i just did an ivy league, went to harvard and columbia and yale. The audience was mostly white. We dont know this world and you are teaching us about this world. What can we do to help and what can police due to not have the type of situation happen. It is a privilege not to be in that situation. One of the main feedbacks of my book was hearing different athletes talk about Different Things they of gone through, like hearing dwayne wade talk about how he was afraid for his son after trey von martin was killed by Carmelo Anthony came to baltimore and protested with people because they have a personal connection to it and to say how do you teach somebody to not fear you, it is a tough question to ask. What you have to do, i interviewed some of the family members of the victims of Police Brutality in my book. Terrence crutchers sister tiffany and eric gardners. Emerald and Trayvon Martins castillos sister. Tiffany crutcher, her answer to this question is we have to change the law. You cannot change peoples hearts. If they view you as a criminal and are afraid of you that is how they are going to seal. You have different people from the time they are young look at black people a certain way and it is hard to deprogram that. What you have to do, when he pulled out this weapon when there is no threat, clear things that are set where it is not allowed. Right now unfortunately, i feared for my life, that is it. No other details. We are looking at these different cases, i fear for my life, that is it. That is why i have respect for tiffany in particular because she is pushing for laws to be changed. For the language to be different. When betty shelby was on trial she cant say that is it. She has to show there was immediate threat, pushing for those laws to change what each Police Department is different. It is a tough battle because each one is completely different. The nypd is different. The fight has to continue because we dont want to keep having tragedies like that. In your book we matter athletes and activism you talk to a lot of influential people in sports, both young and old. Can you talk about the differences in their responses if you see differences between the Younger Generation and the older generation . The older generation, i interviewed kareem abduljabbar, john all the people i grew up admiring. Listening to them, the thing they are saying is they are happy to see this resurgence of activism in the Younger Generation. For a while it was quiet for a little while but now you have athletes, starting with lebron and Colin Kaepernick and the main athletes who are not hesitant to use their voice. The thing that is so incredible is they have social media where they dont have to go to the Washington Times to tell their story. They can use their own. Lebron has more twitter followers than trump. [applause] they are their own media. Imagine if mohammed ali had a twitter account back in the day. So much power there athletes have and i went can you continue to encourage them to use that power . That is collective. I interviewed john walsh for the book, he watched lebron and carmelo and chris paul when they made their statement and how powerful it was and how it inspired him. These are their peers but he is younger than them. I want to show these athletes of the Younger Generation, they are using their voices and hopefully continue to inspire. Very curious to know one guys opinion. Mark mood abdul raul, he took a stand in the 90s, would not acknowledge the flag and the warmups, did what Colin Kaepernick did before Colin Kaepernick and subsequently found himself out of the league, not in the manner Colin Kaepernick because it was clear that he deserved to be an nfl quarterback but was not given an opportunity. What do you think the difference is between the way he was portrayed in the 90s versus the what Colin Kaepernick is portrayed now given both protested the flag . As far as the nba there is a different administration. David stern was different from adam silver to be quite honest. Donald sterling was Donald Stirling for a long time. Everybody knew who Donald Stirling was. Craig hodges blackballed under david stern. I interviewed adam silver for the book and wanted to get him on record and ask him, would you punish a player who used their platform to speak on a topic, even when you disagreed with . He said i would never do that. He said i value athletes using their voice, talk about the history of bill russell and everything like that and i interviewed ted leon of the wizards and mark cuban from the Dallas Mavericks and i want to get different people in different management positions because the notion is if you do speak out, you will be shooting yourself in the foot, mess up your whole career and i wanted to get people in positions of power to ask them. I had a different expense with the wizards. I remember when i spoke at an antiwar rally during the summer. When i walked up there he had the biggest smile on his face and said my son was at the rally. He was like yeah and was raving, talked for an hour about politics and Different Things like Affordable Housing and all those things. I will say that entire experience could have been different if the polling was different. What you see in the nfl is a difference in leadership. Just like i interviewed people in the nba i tried to interview the nfl, roger goodell, dan snyder, they didnt return my calls, you know what i mean but silver got back to me. I love what you are doing, lets do it and that shows the difference in culture of the nba. One of the things i want to keep doing is let them know you dont have to be afraid. You can stand up, it is a different era now. The nfl is different. I spoke to eric reed and troy smith, sandra sharp who is hilarious and they will tell you when you step out in the nfl you have to be a certain level where they cant get rid of you or you are taking a little bit of a gamble and that is the nature of it where we are now. Would that be the case, what do you think moving forward is the challenge for malcolms generation, guys in the next 5 to 10 years . One of the beautiful things i see, im speaking to a lot of colleges in high school and i got to tell you it is great to see the passion in these young people. The passion in High School Age and not just one subject. They are taking gun violence, abortion, what is going on in alabama, they are organizing protests, beautiful to see the energy and it is not necessarily about something i agree or disagree with, just the fact they have that energy and awareness. When im looking at these high schools and talking to them they are the Political Awareness like back in the day. I dont know if it is as a result of the current administration, it shocked everybody, i dont know what the reason is that young people are aware and a lot of it has to do with social media because they are shown everything so much. When we were younger my first seeing on video of a Police Beating was rodney king. I was in middle school and that was shocking to me but they are seeing it every other week on social media. They are constantly on alert, we got to do something, would you dont know what we got to do but we got to do something and it is a matter of having the right guidance, beautiful to see. You talk to a lot of athletes. Have you ever had the opportunity to talk to any hollywood people . We talk about hollywood having influence over our culture. They are held to a standard where they can disassociate themselves with what they choose to support. Do you have an opportunity to interact with anybody on hollywood level and what would you say to them to bring awareness . You got to understand hollywood people look at us, oh my gosh, the man from the movies, that is tony, a mutual type of thing. There has been a lot, they come up to me, i like what you are doing. You know what im doing . You give them a platform for a minute. I was talking with alec baldwin because he does impressions on saturday night live and your impressions are so fantastic, got to tell you. He is telling me it is interesting the response actors get that differs from what athletes get. It is a stronger, i dont want to say hatred but anger when people dont agree with athletes. The reason you have someone like laura ingram who tells him to shut up and durable because she disagrees with what he is saying, but had he said something she agreed with they would bring him on fox news that he would be a guest is look at this athlete he would be on bill oreilly or sean hannity. You see something they disagree with, you need to stay in your lane. That is the part you see more with athletes. This is something i always say. It surprises people but this is what i believe. A little while ago, you had a trump supporter who was drafted and did a lot of things and cleaned out his account, a lot of chatter about it. I wrote about it in the guardian. If you dont know who he is, he is a draft pick for the San Francisco 49ers. Everybody has the right to their own opinion. I cant say because he has a different opinion just shut up and play football. I would be a hypocrite if i do that. There is value in healthy dialogue and discussion and debate. It is okay to disagree. You have to disagree without being disagreeable, like obama said. If you stick to the facts, this notion, it happens on both sides. If somebody says something you disagree with, shut the person down. Attack them personally. Make a look like they are not qualified to speak on the subject they are speaking. That is something we have to get away from. Everyone has a right to speak no matter what the opinion or position is and then you have a discussion. If you could, just for a day, if you could be in charge of the media, the way black men are portrayed, what would you change . So much. This is one of the things Michael Bennett talked about in the book. They are portrayed as superstars. Everybody in the arena art changing my name, wearing my journey and all this but then if my car was broken down beside the road, how would they view me . Would they view me as a threat like the Police Officer said over the scanner . A lot of times when we are portrayed, we are demonized so you have a person killed by the police and all of a sudden they are the one on trial, talking about when they got suspended in middle school and all this different stuff. Is the policeman going on trial, not the person who is dead . That is the demonization that happens in the media constantly. It is tough to see, because when i first wrote the book and opened up talking about my son malcolm who was 6 years old at the time, this was when Treyvon Martin was killed and he saw the news. I had it on and sometimes you forget your kid is there and he watched it. I had to make a decision and it was a very difficult decision to make. My son was 6 years old at the time but he is not a regular sized kid. He was 6 but looked older. Our kids look older because they are taller. Kids now, i dont know if it is hormones or what but they are built different. I had to remove the disney rosecolored glasses from him to make him understand as you get older you are not going to be looked at as the cute little kids with dreadlocks that look like daddy, your looked at as a threat and that is a difficult thing to have to do. In the book, one of the main responses i have gotten, the tour across different places in the country, different universities, people are shocked that athletes have the feeling that we have to talk with our children. That is the biggest response. Dwayne wade was afraid for his children . He shouldnt have to be afraid for his children. Somebody that you look at as a hero that you are a fan of to say it is a problem but that is reality. Is using that platform to bring awareness to mainstream america because of lebron james. Or russell or dwayne wade said it. You have a radio show. The collision. Every thursday right here on wpfw. We talk about everything. This is your fourth book. Yes. When people read any of your books in your collection what is the overall message that you want them to walk away from . There are so many. Before this was father hood raise to the ultimate challenge and basically got a lot of different people in all walks of life. This is like sports, rappers, athletes, actors, everybody and we all talked about father hood because i didnt like the way that fathers were being portrayed in the media, you know what i mean . So i wanted to create something different. I didnt like the way that i didnt like the way young people who grow up a and sent we being told that if they come from a broken home they will probably end up in jail or something terrible. I just didnt like people always thrown statistics at them. Just constantly. That bothered me so i wanted something that was inspirational toto the. A lot of stuff i do is based on inspiration. My mother is a teacher. She still a teacher. She retired but she still teaches. I dont understand other works but she retired and she still teaches. She always brought me to her school to, talk to her students. Ie was like, i just went to syracuse. Mom, i have done anything yet. m im little bit older than that. Here she saidal no, youre an inspiration because you are there at least. Shes always had me talking and thats just how i got in the motive always kind of using my mistakes, using my, not even talking like this type ofit a thing. Its using thehe mistakes ive made and being honest with young people and saying were telling you this so you dont make the same mistakes, too. Can people appreciate what dadults are honest. We want to take the time right now. We have a couple minutes left. Want to do a little q a with some of you guys. If you have questions for etan at this time. Anybody out there . [inaudible] Major League Players association and how they dont sponsor any kind of political involvement. This guy, nflpa, he ran for office. Redski redskins quarterback, he ran. And what do you think of the sports getting behind candidates and making necessary change in this country . I think the tough part about that, you know, right now were trying to give sports to not necessarily try to sign the athletes in different sports. You saw the problem that happened with the boston red sox, half wanted to go to the white house and half didnt want it and they kind of suppressed and didnt want so. 0s are kind of trying to balance so i think it would be tough for them to endorse one candidate. What they should do is create an atmosphere where their athletes have the theyre comfortable voicing their opinions, and especially in the nfl. You know, they talk about doing a few Different Things and carving out different instances because they put the spotlight on them now, but when you talk to nfl players and they have nonguaranteed contracts and that means theyre an employee atwill and they could say i dont like your face today im going to cut you. Its a different kind of a risk. Thats the first step for organizations to continue to start making steps whether athletes feel comfortable and not muzzled in silence. Anybody else . Right here. Yes, thanks, sir. Thank you. I just want to mention, did you mention anything about greenwood in your book . Malcolm actually has a poem on black wall street and we performed it a few different times. I grew up in tulsa so black wall street is something that we were taught from a young age and i was surprised after i went to syracuse so many people didnt know what happened. Where my mother lives ten minutes from where greenwood was and black wall street. In 1921, you know, the black community in tulsa basically had everything that they needed. They had hospitals, you know, banks, you know, they didnt have to go across the Railroad Tracks for my reason, i mean, cross the Railroad Tracks, to say its segregated and basically, the entire city burned everything down. The helicopters came, dropped bombs, it was a massive orchestrated event that you cant happen, something cant happen that way just lie chance. It was very orchestrated and it was a horrific time in history that a lot of people were not being taught about and thats in a nutshell what happened. Okay. Theres another one here. Use that microphone right there. [inaudibl [inaudible] inaudible thank you, appreciate it. [applause] could we get a microphone over here . I think were having theyve got it. Were good. They got it. [inaudible] just talk loud. How much of that dialog teams to be going on at the professional level, at the College Level and especially at the High School Level among black and white athletes . So people ask that all the time with me. How much dialog goes on about this and people are always surprised when i tell them, yeah, guys talk about this all the time in the locker room. Absolutely. Talk about the range of things. And gilbert is talking about this, the topics that everyone else is talking about. One of the things, there was a fear, you heard this a lot with colin koppernick, hes going to divide the locker room and its going to be terrible. And if you have people with different opinions somehow theyre not going to be able to play together. I dont know what the theory was. One of the teams saying the nba the most political and vocal, probably Golden State Warriors and they won a championship. And then you had, now, the eagles who they were very vocal in a lot of things they were doing and everything like that and they won the super bowl. And people, people think that athletes are not able to disagree because its like theyre afraid of creating anythi anything or having any topic be introduced. And people need to get past that. Because thats the whole part of discussion. Like ive had some of the best debates, discussions as im going through different universities and theyve been great, you know . And there are some that just recently, i believe i was at penn state and they said, okay, how can we be allies . How can we be allied . Im on your side and agree with what youre saying. This is not my world, i dont have to worry about the police. When i get pulled over by the place, man, how am i going to get out of this ticket . Yeah, thats not what were thinking at all. We understand that so how could we be allies . I said allies are so important. When you look back at the civil rights rrights movement in selma, when they were protesting and the police game, they beat the mess out of them. And they said we need to reach out to the clergy across the country and they came and then they paused and you know, that scene was so important, i think they didnt spend enough time on this to show how important the ali relationship is. Theyre not going to listen to kaepernick, or lebron. Theyll listen to steve kerr say it and Popovich Popovich is in texas, right . In texas, speaking the way hes speaking and didnt get na much criticism over it. Hes gotten praise. Gotten praise, so theres a certain amount of privilege you walk in, but using that privilege for good. And ive got to really commend popovich for and thats one of the things, let me ask you a question, i was so surprised by popovich. You played for him. I did not think that he felt the way that he felt. You know what im . As im talking to different players, asking antonio daniels. Yeah, popovich. Is that the popovich that you always knew . Thats the popovich ive always known. Youve got to remember, i met popovich when he was on larry browns staff. I was drafted by the spurs, and. Popovich, and larry brown. They were assistance under larry brown and one of the reasons why coach popovich speaks to the accountability, always holding his players accountable even thinks star players, one of the renes, because he comes from a red light background and there is no room for nonsense in the military. The goal is the only thing that matters and so he takes that military philosophy, that same philosophy, we are all one philosophy and not only brings it to the team, but to the entire organization because he runs the organization and makes everybody accountable, including himself. And thats the thing. Him being from the military background, he didnt buy into the narrative that kaepernick was trying to be disrespectful to the military and that was such a big thing because thats how the narrative was switched, purposely switched, but thats how it switched and i commended him for that. My point in saying that. Thats why the allies are very important. So people like the man who just had his daughter there. Its important for people to have allies and hear different perspectives and identify with an issue that might not necessarily directly affect you. It might not be something that youre worried about, but you can still say that it was wrong. First of all, id like to thank everybody for coming here. We hope youve enjoyed this gathering. This exchange of information this is so important. [applause] that Everybody Needs to understand. On etan thomas book is available. And my book lessons in lenny and along with my partner walt whitman and talks about it has a correlation that from the lem bias situation, and the laws now, enforced enforce ration, the difference between crack and cocaine. The action that has led to the problem that we have with mass incarcerati incarceration, a lot of that happened with lem bias. And look at the books, these are the way that etan can get messages out, what going on. Its not about changing everybodys finds to think a certain way. Its locking at things, and make a decision yourself whether its right or wrong and whatever it is you believed in. We hope you enjoyed this. We appreciate your thank you so much. [applause] [inaudiblele conversations] [inaudible conversations] watch booktv for live coverage of the National Book festival saturday starting at 1e coverage includes author interviews with Justice Ruth Bader ginsburg. Sunday night on q a, university of Pennsylvania Law School professor amy wax on Free Expression on College Campuses and the complex run an opinion she coauthored in the philadelphia inquirer. I think this is what ruffled a lot of people, that not all cultures are alike. Were trying to tout this code of behavior as being one that was particularly functional and suited to our current technological democratic capitalist society, comparing it to other cultures which are not as functional. We gave some examples, and that immediately caused a firestorm. Sunday night at 8 p. M. Eastern on cspans q a. Next coming university of texas profess