>> i think we are going to get started. hello and welcome. arrogant with carol anderson. i am shane mullen the event host for left bank book and i would like to thank our co-sponsor the ferguson public letter letter. their work and activism is incredible and inspiring. they aren't wonderful partner to have for such an event like this. let's think looks whose over 300 author print each year and with your help we are able to continue bringing in your favorite authors. we need support reinvesting in your community because your tax dollars are going into yours schools parks libraries and communities projects at an incredibly high. we get that by partnering with charities and organizations and also we are doing our summer fund-raising a river city readers program. the river city readers serve public schoolchildren by building their own home library and encouraging literacy. the students get to keep five looks each year and meet the authors of a culturally relevant new books that i would like to ask you to make a donation tonight of any amount. you can do so at the sales table or you can ask me about sponsoring a child. this broke them is near and dear to my heart and it is wonderful and i will tell you all about it if you would like to hear. so i would like to especially thank all of you for your continued support for us, left bank books. for information about her upcoming events and information on our reading group ferguson reads and much more please visit our web site looks.com. and get signed up or e-mail lists. and now i'm packing to do carol anderson for left bank books. as ferguson erupted in 2014 and media commentators across the spectrum are for today angry responses of african-americans and black rage rage and are some. remarkable op-ed in the "washington post" showing that this was instead white rage at work. carefully thinking historical flashpoints and social progress for african-americans was countered by deliberate and cleverly crafted opposition. white rage pull back the veil that long covered action made in the name of protecting democracy. gillani cobb author of the substance of hopes those few historians write with the great clarity and intellectual fervor of carol anderson in this book. their handful of writers whose work i consider indispensable and professor anderson is high on that list. the editor of "white rage" says this is one of the most important books that he has worked on. carol anderson is a professor of african-american studies at emory university. she is the author of many books including boars why radicals, the naacp and the struggle for colonial liberation 1941 to 1960 and numerous articles. anderson's opinion article from the "washington post" will appear in the new generation speaks about race edited by national book award winner jasmine ward which comes out in august and i highly recommend that book as well. that article shaped and help to find this book and a movement. "white rage" is inspiring maddening and necessary. from the epilogue and mentioned it is time to diffuse the power of white rage. it's time to finally truly move into the future. tonight carol will be discussing white rage stands book and truth of our racial divide answering your questions and signing copies of her look available for purchase from left bank books. would you please help me in welcoming carol anderson. [applause] >> thank you. and thank you. thank you for coming out on, what day is this? i really truly appreciate it and i appreciate what ferguson public library has done and is for this community. thank you. i appreciate left bank books as well. thank you. i wanted to spend some time first talking about how i got to "white rage," what "white rage" is and then to move into several excerpts from the book and then opened up for q&a. when i first began to wrestle with the concept of white rage, it wasn't ferguson. it was in fact february 1999 when a black man in new york city step out on his doorstep after a long hard days work to get something to eat and he was greeted with 41 bullets, 19 of which hit him. his name was, do diallo and he was pinned down by the nypd. he was unarmed. that was bad enough but as we know from these killings, it is the response that begins to tell you what is happening in society and so i'm sitting there and i'm listening to mayor rudy giuliani in an interview with ted koppel on nightline and ted koppel is talking about the nypd, the amadu diallo killing and he's talking about 41 bullets. he's talking about stop-and-frisk. he's talking about police brutality and rudy giuliani said, i have the most restrained and best he have to police force you can imagine. i had one of those scooby doo moments. what? and then he began to talk about how his policies were working, that what he had put in place in new york city had brought down crime. new york city is a safer place because of his policies at he had flow charts and graphs and bars. what you don't see here is that an unarmed black man stepped out on his porch and was gunned down i'm sitting there going something is fundamentally wrong structurally wrong. i didn't know what to call it. i didn't know what to label it but i knew something was going on. i began working and thinking and working and thinking and then in august of 2014, the television is on and i'm watching and they see ferguson, and then i hear it to pundits talking about it. and what they were talking about was lack rage. why are black people -- what is wrong with the black people? how could they burn up with a bit of? there something wrong with black people and why are they burning up and it didn't matter what ideological stripe, it was all centered, the baseline come the starting point was black rage. i found myself in this moment shaking my head or you know that moment when you are shaking your head, something is going on and you don't even realize. that's not right and that's when it hit me. i said what we are really seeing is white rage. what we are really seeing is that we have been so focused in on the flames we have missed the kindling. we have missed what has stoked this fire. we have missed the disenfranchisement of the black community and ferguson. through all kinds of shenanigans and burt, role has created where in the 2013 municipal election in a population that is 67% of ferguson's population we have a 6% black order turn art -- turnout. you have to work really hard to make that happen. and ferguson schools have been on probation for 15 years. 15 years were a state, and accounting system of the net credit nation of 140 points and ferguson public schools were getting 10 points a year. we have allowed that to happen for 15 years. we have allowed the tired generation of students to go through kindergarten to graduation with the school system that we know doesn't work. kindling. we have a police force that didn't see that its role was to protect and serve but saw african-americans as a revenue-generating source that could provide 25% of the city's budget, kindling. and what all of this kindling does and as i started wrestling with white rage, i came to understand that what we were really looking at were the policies. as a nation we are so drawn to the spectacular. we are so drawn to what we can see that we miss those tectonic plates that are actually moving. white rage move subtly. almost imperceptibly, corrosive league, through the courts, legislatures, government bureaucracies, the white house through congress and it wreaks havoc imperceptibly so it's hard to discern what is the source of what you are seeing? and so i set out to make white rage difficult because the first thing you have to do is you have to be able to see it. the trigger for white rage is black advancement. it is not the mere preference of black people that is the catalyst for white rage but it is ambition. with drive and purpose, with aspirations come with demands for full and equal citizenship. it is black miss that refuses to accept subjugation. black miss that we give up and threw a formidable array of policy assaults and legal maneuvering, white rage consistently punishes black resilience and black resolve. how else can we reasonably explained why government after government fight so hard to keep lack children from getting an education? we sought it after the civil war we saw it all the way through the brown decision. we see it now. why is this so difficult to educate black children? why do we have this even when at least since 1957 and sputnik when the u.s. said oh we of a national security crisis, we must educate as many of our citizens as we can to be able to effectively wage the cold war, but brown was not going to be implemented so even the face of the national security crisis, even in the face were we say this is what our nation needs, white rage says i don't think so. .. >> >> why would we do this to those who are not the primary users and sellers of narcotics? why? why would the state after state develop rules after rules to keep american citizens from being able to float and to have us say in their own democracy? why? when we say revalued democracy we say this is why we fight ahead why do we have such a massive voter oppression? none of this was done with the cross there was no cross burning and made this happen. all of this was done methodically and systematically. in my new book white magi a trace this with signpost in reconstruction of the great migration, the brown decision, the civil rights movement in the election of barack obama. i'll so trace it through three key sectors of education the criminal-justice system in the right to vote so now want to read some excerpts as you know, in 1950 for the u.s. supreme court ruled separate but equal was unconstitutional overturned plessey vs. ferguson that we must integrate jim crow was no longer the law of the land. the south rose up with massive resistance and used a series of rules that would drag the process out for a long long time in 1973 the coat -- the court battles are still going on in 73 there was an area in san antonio called the edgewood district and neighborhood it was 96% mexican american and african american and the poorest neighborhood with the lowest median income and lowest property values but were taxed at the highest rate to fund their children's education, by taxing themselves at the highest rate it was $21 per capita. meanwhile a predominantly white neighborhood in san antonio attacks themselves at a much lower rate. they garnered over $300 per student will were rate. 1500 percent more in funding. what we know is property values have a lot to do with public policy. where governments choose to put the landfill. where they choose to put to the highway. were they choose to zone certain types of businesses and not others have a lot to do with property values. the parents of the edgewood district signed took texas to court to say this violates our 14th amendment right to equal protection under the law and violates brown the u.s. supreme court ruled in the five / four decision, four of the justices appointed by richard nixon and one appointed by a eisenhower. that quotation there is no fundamental right to education in the constitution. they said the state funding scheme did not systematically discriminate against all poor people because districts across the united states use property taxes that it was not so irrational as to be discriminatory. thurgood marshall had the descent that i will read it fully recognizing the implications of rodriquez marshall wrote more than 40 percent of black children 14 and under live with families below the proper space hundred those circumstances african-american children would not stand a chance. those decisions will be seen as a retreat into a system of the chance to reap the full potential as citizens in was dumbfounded that a majority would knowledge the existence the advent instead of focusing on that cost is to appear wet to all the efforts to close the gap. the issue? not whether texas doesn't best to ameliorate the worst features of the scheme but rather the scheme itself is unconstitutional and discriminatory. moreover at the height of absurdity that taxes -- texas could argue there was no correlation of funding. you cannot make this up. [laughter] and from that faulty premise that there were no discriminatory consequences to those children of those districts. with us tendency to parade with the stories of children despite living in under resource to districts and funding was irrelevant that a child could excel either with underfunded schools with larger classes and a number of other deficits into the credit of the child not the state but rodriquez placed on the backs of the most intolerable with access to the necessary resources and playing in beautiful to substitute economics for race in achieving a similar result with the sheer demographics of poverty to have the disparate impact it is sobering. and then i moved to the war on drugs. and this has worked to american society that is so profound so how the war on drugs emerged and michele alexander s. so beautifully laid out as rigo through the court cases that taken together they are encouraged the criminal-justice system to run amok in that is what happened july 23, 1999 in texas in the dead of night local police launched a massive raid of a major cocaine trafficking ring how it was built by the local media by been tipped off windup to get the most humiliating for autographs of the town's residents handcuffed in pajamas and underwear and deadhead paraded into the jails for booking and cleared of garbage to praise law-enforcement and with that 18 month investigation from the texas attorney general attached to the federal funded at that narcotics task force he deleted team of investigators instead he single-handedly of that massive cocaine operation with more than 100 undercover drug purchases have hailed as a hero. his testimony led to 38 of the 46 being convicted just waiting to get into the clogged court system a pig farmer sentenced 99ers for selling to with dollars worth of cocaine to the undercover narcotics agent. white received 25 years while her husband william landed 434 years for possessing 1 ounce of cocaine. as the case began to unravel when the sister went to a trail they swore she sold the drugs she had video prove she was at a bank in oklahoma city 300 miles away cashing a check at the very well that he claimed they bought cocaine from her then another defendant had time sheets and his bosses eyewitness testimony that he was at work not selling drugs the with the outstanding lawman of the year swore under oath he purchased cocaine from the tall bushy haired man except he was bald and five ft. six appeared in court to became very clear that something was awry he had no proof whatsoever that any of the alleged drug deals had taken place there were no audio tapes, no photographs. no witnesses. no other police officers present. no fingerprints but his on the backs of the drugs. records over the span of the 18 month investigation he never wore a wire he claimed to have written each transaction on his leg but would wash away the evidence when he showered. [laughter] so i am thinking he showered once in 18 months? [laughter] additional investigation led to no corroborating proof when the police arrested those 46 people and searched their homes and possessions no drugs were found no weapons or money or paraphernalia or any other indication at all that the house at the pig farmer anyone else arrested were drug king pins the was discovered was judicial misconduct running rampant with the war on drugs in texas with a clear racial bias. coleman had accused 10% of the black population of dealing cocaine based on his word alone 50% of all black men in the town were indicted convicted and sentenced to prison. that was called a mass lynching taking down 50 percent of the black male adult population like that is outrageous like being accused of raping someone in indian in the 30's you didn't do it but it doesn't matter because a bunch of clans and on the jury will string us up anyway but this was a 1930 it was the beginning of the 21st century and a powerful civil rights movement, to bridge those two areas. and then the last excerpt i want to read the last chapter deals with the election of president obama and how white rage we are up in deeply profound ways in ways we have not seen in years so as a walk through voter suppression and then looked at the threats on his life in this respect of the office of the president has received a i began to deal with the violence plaque respectability or appropriate behavior if anything black achievement black success in aspiration are construed as a direct threat to obama as president he made that clear aspirations and the achievements provide no protection not even to the god-fearing june 172015 south carolinian dylan a white unemployed 21 year-old high-school dropout was on a mission to take his country back everson storage zimmerman walked out of the courthouse a free man after killing trayvon martin a racially polarized nation debated the verdict he led to understand the history of america trolling through the internet he stumbled across the council of conservative citizens the progeny of the white citizens council that terrorized black people closed schools to work in hand-in-hand with the state government to defy civil rights but just that -- despite their belief system through the mid 90's the group boasted of having 34 members in the mississippi legislature and powerful republican party allies including then senate majority leader trent lott of mississippi in 2004 the mississippi governor the chair of the rnc and 37 other powerful politicians have all attended evensong the 21st century the chair gave $65,000 to republican campaign funds in recent years including donations to the campaigns of rand paul and rick santorum the tri-c enjoyed precisely that respectability that racism requires to achieve its own goals within american society to providing that self-serving education to drink in the poison of its messaging got into the car and drove to charleston and landed in the bible study with those very african americans that the model of the acceptability he prayed with them and read the bible with them they were so nice then shot them dead leaving just one woman alive so she could tell the world what he had done and why taking over our country he said and he knew this to be true not even one full month after dylan gun down nine african-americans in charleston south carolina donald trump fired up the silence majority audience of thousands with a promise don't worry we will take our country back. know. is time we take our country for word into the future. thank you. [applause] >> now i will open for questions but because c-span is filming please go to the microphone. >> asked. [laughter] >> i have read your book. we have discussed it with the readings on race book group my one question that i find very helpful and a good compendium of things i know this is good to have in one place, of the one concern that i had is that you detailed problems that happened under republican administration is with eisenhower and nixon in the bush in that the present situation under obama of that not much for example, clinton as we know it of what happened under those democratic administrations that also had disproportionate effects on black people. >> absolutely. thank-you one of the reasons behind that is i was looking at the moments of the advancements in in those moments where you see the push back comes before 68 with the republicans end of retracts but the piece that i did in so long and just recently i do begin to unpack somewhat clinton and what he has done the article focused on the g.o.p. but understand that white rage moves through parties it isn't just isolated in the republicans or democrats and that is important to understand. yes. but i could have easily during the great depression when fdr is creating a whole series of programs one of the things you see happening is the southern democrats are saying we really do need relief made agricultural funding and support and social security the black people cannot have that so create this whole new deal compendium of programs but you have to exclude african-americans and i talk about that in that crunch piece of time. >> i really just want to thank you for your work if it is incredibly profound and the things he cited that i was completely unaware that the state of mississippi to not let get the amendment until 2013? >> yes. this state of mississippi finally got around to ratifying the 13th amendment that involve the slavery in 2013 and they said it was an oversight. [laughter] >> sold those are difficult pieces in here and take you for telling the story i had only recently learned about but i think being a witness is so important and powerful so i read the books of the ferguson readings and i learned so much i was diligent about reading it and i had to put it down sometimes and it was difficult and painful so my question is wasn't like that for you to write it? and had to be so much more difficult to research? >> it was tough. but i have been through this before in the first book i had to deal with a lot of the lynchings that happened after the second world war so i am dealing with the blowtorch lynching and talking about his eyeballs popping out of his head and by reading those records so i have been in the bowels in that is how it felt in those moments going through this i do have the very term lynching is tough and a woman protested because her husband was lynched she is angry and eight months pregnant and so they come after her because she didn't know her place how dare she protests that her husband was lynched. so they snatched her and a stricter and hong her upside down from a tree in doused her with gasoline to set her on fire then they saw her stomach she is eight months pregnant person out stomach was quivering so they slice to open the baby pops it out in the stock on the baby's head and when you read through those records because what is important to a understand about white rage the focus on the violence but it is the system around that condones illegitimizes that violence and allows that to happen and sanctions it that is the attraction so everybody knows who killed mary turner you go to the n.c.a.a. -- naacp their naming names so in so he works at standard oil so and so he works at a furniture shop and nothing happened so when you have that kind of violence in the community and then those powers that be say yes that is white rage because it creates those policies that allow that to occur to keep african-americans in their place to stop at. >> i have another question. we talk about this law in our book club but what can we do? >> you are doing it to. this is the thing that i steady movements i love movements what i study how we change the norm? there are these moments for instance before the civil war 80% of the nation's gnp was tied up in slavery 80 percent of the united states gnp tied to slavery but we got to the point to fight a mean and hard work we knew slavery was wrong we came to know jim crow was wrong in apartheid was wrong the movement that it takes to change those norms is a bit by bit neighbors talking to neighbors in demobilizing and organizing rising and talking and thinking it is voting to late pressure on policy makers to make this a much more just and decent nation in the world that is how we do it by working together. >> good evening. had to write it down to get everything wanted to say. [laughter] recently i was completing a job application was in latin in spanish and mexican it said african haitian horror north african and asian is said island pacific for japanese but just wait under caucasian but nothing to reference it european or russian so widely think it is so hard for some caucasians to recognize there also immigrants into the country and they're quick to say it is their country? >> i think a lot of that has to do with the way that history is taught. it creates a civics lesson but not a history lesson. in terms of a flattened narrative paul in the nation was founded who created the railroads who invented this or that we go to this standard textbooks what you'll find that is very minimal discussion whites to have sustained america whites who created america in that framing in our textbooks and not the of melting pot. i saw a statistic that said 20 percent of americans have a bachelor's degree. so that means a browned 80% this is the history that they now. and you now how would is when somebody tells you something the first story you hear is the one that everything else has to be weighed against it is what you heard over and over again and try to say your folks came from poland. i will tell you a quick story i have tons of stories teaching u.s. cold war for a policy i broke my students up in two research teams they were to be the transition team for a series of issues like human rights did energy into the environment and immigration so that brodeur great policy paper on the immigration i require they presented to the rest of the class. the responses were so vitriolic. my parents were immigrants but we need to build a wall. wow. wow. that is how it happens. >> you talk about we only pay attention to the flash points. here in ferguson michael brown is shot and killed. people take to the streets the politicians overreact ferguson blows up now there is the international issue and in baltimore people marched peacefully and nobody pays attention until they start to write this national news proposal me about as non-violent as you can get, it seems the only being people pay attention to is that when they turn violent so how do you protest peacefully and make it difference with the flashpoint is what they'll listen to? >> one of the reasons i wrote white -- "white rage" to pay attention to the kindling looking at the power of policy and pay attention to our office holders and what they're recommending or doing to ask that next set of questions. i would push back just a bit what we pay attention to win something blows up because in that movement and struggle you have whites who were there on the ground doing the hard and heavy lifting. agents on the ground -- asians on the ground during the hard and heavy lifting. you have people who were doing the base work of organizing and strategizing and though lecter writing and social media helps with that mobilization. you have that going on. but we don't see it but it is happening so because that kind of organizing has been in place you have people and organizations the policy rationale and options that you just don't see that initially but it is there and that is why we have to keep doing it is not sexy. we love sexy. and this is not sexy but as i documented looking at what the supreme court is doing what we have to pay attention to who the supreme court nominees are. because their decisions help to shape this nation. >> to follow-up we really do pay attention in different ways. when the white does not act appropriately and the media will talk about was it apparent santa environment with the intellectual assessment to figure it out to keep our image intact while the death of nine brothers and sisters but it doesn't count be judged ourselves by our best examples do you of your worst i've never allow the ingersoll's it is it uncomfortable but the media presents a narrative for those that are in support in that is violence for me. rigo flash points when we step out of line we make sure we come back looking good. could you comment? [laughter] >> i am working on a peace right now of respectability one of the elements is how african-americans don't get the benefit of the doubt. the walked through law a the politics was deployed during the civil-rights movement as the means to try to humanize to the power brokers and white citizens because there was a series of killings that were brutal and horrific like the ellen shade where the then hoisted up on the stated and tortured. tortured. they said there was no crime here said the naacp turns to the fbi if you cross federal lines but they said the rat was no ransom so seeing this kind of violence you see the civil-rights movement as a way to make visible the only way that you see the concrete in selma is because she is black this kid to be anything but racism that you have a criminal record so this is why the politics of respectability does have some good pieces. because being sober is not a bad thing. we no alcohol and drugs destroys families. education is the good thing when it doesn't do is protect black bodies from white violence. charleston drove me to this because i looked at that then nine that were killed were the model of respectability you saw ed hickey haley in south carolina said that is really bad and the their killer had to be the avowed white supremacist incontrovertible proof that he had to have the rhodesian flag ganed apartheid south africa flagon of the confederate flag and i am not dead yet. [laughter] and to start a race war. did you have to have the families of the slain for proof. in then they will take down the confederate flag we see that today would have ended it in orlando is horrific but the way the killer has become the "avatar" for all muslims in the world? you see the same kind of rationale with timothy mcveigh. right? that is part of the way the narrative's work because you hear as they talk about muslims that they talk about what kind of policies to put in place. >> you go with that story with soft three flags and then to strategizing end that would have looked at the white man but then they backed off to let her live in he told him to kill him. >> in 1946 a white shop order smacked a black woman. you do not lay your hands on somebody's mother. that veteran picked him up and threw him out the plate glass window whites organized to lynch the black man the black veterans were not having it and basically called the race riot after was over 23 were arrested a lot of shooting and killing happened. in caves to defend the black man but he couldn't stay in said he would have touche drive and thurgood marshall as they ever driving of columbia tennessee to look behind there is a cop car they go left the car goes left a speedup then they pull them over you need to come with us. thurgood is like snap. he gets in a cop car there are several cars behind and they don't turn around to go back instead they head to the words. marshall is getting ready to be lynched. the white man hops into the driver's seat and he starts falling in he is scared i will lot with this have been and then were you doing? i will not let you do this. is to think about the courage that that took in the middle of tennessee the lone white man standing up before the sheriff and his posse to say i will not let you do this. remember those aqua ville the commercials? [laughter] thanks. i needed that. it was a great moment they had never seen anything like this before. >> there is history with the solidarity. >> what i was going to ask you is i am involved in a lot of groups to solve it and get rid of the but we have a problem we need to know more about what happened and we have not been told the real truth i've been told by my caucasian friends but if the truth will offend them it will help them to become whole and that is one of the problems that we're not really telling the truth i am glad that you are writing and things are coming out. has an example i hear miss hunter in talks from a historical point of view about the al lin she knows that took place. i did not know they had lynching parties. they would roast animals and freeing the person in tibia lynch not only lynch them that cut off their head they might barbeque which they would not heed it but throwaway so things like that we really need to know more and what she brought up that they say the 49 people kill off is the worst we have ever had and she said that is not true. but some place said the arkansas? there were 500 and in st. louis , tulsa, keep on routine but i want to ask another question i have them looking for books on frazier and i read about him where might i retrieved some of those? zero lot ids books are out of print now. >> i can do that after words there are some good books that i used in my class one of the things that have been is there is though lynching story when you begin to think what that means in the family cow that shapes the way you move through the society and how the system works it is staggering. anyone else? they key is so much i appreciate this. [applause] >> i am a multiple reader i read a lot of folks at the same time that i finish a book in one sitting that for example, a started to finish this book i'm a big fan of the shakespeare it is a terrific book went on a spree with a huge collection but was of fascinating story ending up in washington. >> i am rereading the righteous mind a raw how we communicate in a more effective way the elephant makes all of the decisions and a lot of times we should be talking to the elephant making the decisions to a person explaining that but with those political situations keep in mind who we are talking to lemnos of reading a book i picked up at the national gallery called the accidental masterpiece how you see art and to meet the everyday objects that these are the interesting cocci picked up you can see that i like color and they do my own art although i intend to keep my day job i just want to mention i was not born in this country english is not my first language in a library and awakened my love of reading of those little kids that would set at her feet and that brought up the love of reading for read it is foundational. basically to be a good writer and i am a pretty voracious reader. >> i also picked up aitches for hawk across zero read "the new yorker" compilations of short stories of what i can read what i have time the other thing i want to mention think about the books that change your way of thinking that was the feminine mystique a lead ball went on and i decided that maybe my life would not consist of getting married and having children and living that kind of life i should think