Transcripts For CSPAN2 Capitol Hill Hearings 20130810 : comp

unexpected contentment that is settled upon me like an ancient ceremonial robe, warm and splendid, mislead but valued all the more for its belated retrieval. randall robinson, thank you for being with us. >> guest: thank you for having me. >> on this week's newsmakers, dana rohrabacher. he's chairman of the foreign affairs subcommittee on europe, eurasia, and emerging threats. we discussed a variety of foreign policy topics, including israeli and israeli palestinian peace talks. these makers is sunday on c-span at 10:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. >> we wrote this about a year and a half ago, it's called 10 letters. it's letters that president obama reads and i went back and found 10 of them who had written to the president. it has been a pretty good read. when that is done, then we go on to act of congress and another guy at "the washington post" and back in the 1970s there was a big difference between then and now it is just that these guys have written. collision 2012 is written and there was a similar writing back in the 2008 campaign. all the guys involved, and that is coming out in august. the other one is through the perilous fight, which is by steve bulger, also someone i used to work with closely. we look back at the six weeks during the war of 1812. >> we saw the movie. two let us know what you are reading this summer. post on her facebook page or send us a twitter tweet or send us e-mail at [email protected]. >> mayor and council chairman, they face each other in one of the most contentious and expensive elections in the recent history. raising nearly $5 million in an attempt to hold onto his seat. and vincent gray race only $2 million. but shortly after he took office in 2011, a candidate for mayor had told "the washington post" that she was paid and promised a job during the election. federal investigators soon discovered that much of brown's story was true. they also uncovered an even bigger secret. the shadow campaign. >> basically you have a campaign that is going on that is the regular campaign that you see. then you have another set of folks who were in an office right next to the campaign. during the campaign there's so much going on. we have several workers actually complaining. several official workers complaining about the other workers. because they felt that they were getting paid more than there was a lot of confusion as to who was paying them and who is paying why. etc. and it wasn't until a year later that hoax started putting things together when federal investigators began asking questions. they realized, wait a minute, the folks that were next-door, we cannot find any record of them in the campaign finance records lec. so how do those folks get have those folks get paid, and who is in charge of them. >> corruption in dc politics. sunday on c-span2's "q&a." >> you're watching c-span2 at public affairs weekdays featuring live coverage of the u.s. senate. what's key public policy events on weeknights and every weekend the latest nonfiction authors and books on booktv. you can get our schedules on her website and you can join in the conversation on social media sites as well. >> coming up next, janet langhart cohen following the trayvon martin trial. we spoke to her on "washington journal." >> you out on multiple occasions that obama has asked blacks to understand the high wire he is forced to walk on the subject of race. he had pleaded that we cut him some slack. most have done so even if conditions in the black community have become more desperate. >> yes. >> i wrote that as a plea to the president to speak out truthfully and boldly on the issues of race and racism. >> you spoke about that a few days ago? >> yes, two days ago. he surprised everyone by walking into the briefing room. he spoke in a way that no other president before him could have spoken. he had a personal experience, having experienced racial profiling is a young man he spoke to it beautifully and i applaud the president for doing that and he has opened the conversation on the issue of race and racism. when i wrote this, many of my friends and some other reporters that i admire were opposed to the president speaking on this issue because he said that the president would degrade the conversation. and i thought, contrary. and he conversation the president enters, he elevates it. >> host: now you see oprah winfrey and many others that have also experienced this. >> guest: those who have experienced racial profiling and are speaking out about it. i would like to see more white speak out about it. >> host: what was it about the zimmerman and trayvon martin case that angered you? >> guest: it angered me and stunned me. we are accustomed to not getting justice in the system. i was hoping against hope that this time would be different. while the defense and prosecutors were saying adamantly that this case is not about racial profiling of race, it's not about stand your ground, i think that is exactly why. it angered me and it frightened me because i thought, given our history in this country where young black males are concerned, that this verdict, that lott would send a signal to the rest of the society, the intolerant part of our society that it is open season on young black boys and men. >> host: the front page of the washington times says that state lawmakers are pressed to factor in racial impact how they now have racial impact statements when it comes to creating laws. it says that they will have to be able to explain the potential impact on hispanic, black, and other minority residents. legislatures are now preparing the statements to ensure that other minorities are not affected unfairly by criminal justice legislation it segregated america, lynchings that we couldn't get federal sanctions against them. it is about time that we consider that. >> my husband is well he and cohen, secretary of defense, former secretary of defense. under bill clinton. the first republican to serve he is the republican senator from the state of maine. bill is half irish and jewish, his mother was irish and because of jewish law, the jewishness matches a lineal line. since his mother was not jewish he could not be accepted as jewish. so he knew what it was like to be an outcast and not accepted by those that are jewish and not accepted by those that were not. so he felt like he was half the 10 hole of another. i felt as an african-american growing up in apartheid america, was born in 1941 and my husband and i back then were not able to sit together on a bus. much less marry each other. so together we wrote this book in the romance is the best part is that from this morning's newspapers. many americans have no friends from another race. >> that is so sad. we are supposed to be an integrated society. you have friends from another race, don't you? >> yes. >> you didn't expect me ask you a question, did you? [laughter] even though we have immigration and go to school together, it is probably very much like it was when i was at the university. the students and i would study together and something would happen when we leave class. we would go our separate ways. in the classroom we had to learn math and a book, but we didn't have to learn this in the book. we would go our separate ways. they have a black homecoming queen and white homecoming queen. i can proudly say that i have friends of many races. kimberly and friends, friends from bolivia, and my husband, of course. he is my best friend. >> who is your best friend? >> i would say probably a woman by the name of live was my best friend. >> and then my last friend i adopted as my godmother. one of the first women to serve in world war ii, we just lost her a few years back. she was my dear friend. he met a girl in a mostly segregated society. what associates, but never friends. a friend is a very special relationship regardless of the color and you get lucky when you get a friend and can hold onto them. but i never really thought in terms of race and friendship. >> if you had to generalize the race relations over that statement, what would be? >> i think we must celebrate. we are talking about unemployment and education and what i want to say is the narrative has always been negative, but there are more black children in college than there are black people in prisons. some want to make sure that i make that point. but it is like what martin mckeon said, we have come a long way, we are not in slavery, when we were free, we were told to wait for a priority and writes and then we have a black president that told us to wait a second term for you can say anything to him about race. and i think that you will hear, from what i understand, the president is going to speak at the march on washington commemorating the 50th anniversary. he is going to speak, and i think that that may be an important speech. people will remember when we remembered the speech of doctor king were the gettysburg address or abraham lincoln, i think that is something special. >> we will go to calls after we show you this. here is a little bit of the president talking about his experience. >> finally i think it will be important for all us to do soul-searching. >> we are having a conversation on race. i have not seen not be particularly productive. when politicians try to organize conversations. they end up being politicized and folks are locked into the positions that they already have. families and churches in workplaces -- there is a possibility that people are a little bit more honest. the least you ask yourself your own questions. do i have as much bias out of myself as i can. am i judging people as much as i can based on what the color of their skin, but the content of their character. that would be an appropriate exercise in the wake of the tragedy. >> we are talking about race relations. let's have our first caller. >> caller: good morning. i would like to thank you for applauding the president to speak out on humanities. i know he's in a tight position and he has to be careful with what he says. i think in certain matters like race because we have to take the lead and decide to bring people should come to a conclusion , i know about being a black person in white society. he does have to do this, and he is the leader and i thank you for applauding him and trying to get him to look at this from this matter. >> thank you very much. isn't it sad that we have to say that it's difficult for him to speak about race and racism that is to say if we have a woman president, what should work in any discussions on equal pay? if they have a jewish president, they will speak about issues important to the jewish community. they are part of this. so we thank you for your call. and i agree that he is the leader regarding race i have to tell you that i wrote a note and it said, dear mr. president, now that you have had a summit on economics, would you please have a summit on race. but we have a race and reconciliation it was before the president was elected and talked about race. we have people from each side of the color line. we ask for the whites to leave their shame at the door and blacks leave their blame and can we come together and talk or because we talk about race all the time as african-americans. based on what i am seeing, so why don't we talk about it together. >> host: we talked about dividing our normal lines which we have politically, we talk about dividing them by race. >> guest: i would've loved that. we rarely hear why people talk about race. my husband is a great leader in the conversation on race. one of the few white men. kim burns is a great documentarian, tim wise, peggy mcintosh. i would like to sit back and let white people talk about what they are going to do about it, how they feel about it, why they are afraid of black men, whether they have the masculinity and find it more menacing. i would like to know about that. i would like police commissioners to talk about race. there is a disproportionate number of black men. and the pope has talked about his trip from brazil. he said he would not judge those who are gay or have a different orientation that was evolutionary, revolutionary. for the pontiff to say what he says so he can talk about this issue. why can't he talk about race. one of the italian ministers is from africa and he didn't have to come all the way to talk about race, he could begin there in italy but. >> host: hopefully people will listen and follow that. we have a tweet. mrs. cohen, did you write an op-ed for clinton or bush to speak out about racism in america? >> guest: as i just said, i did write a personal note to president clinton because i knew him. i do know bill clinton. and my husband was asked to talk about race and racism. and he agreed to do that. as i said, events overtook the situation he was able to do that. but. >> host: we have a caller. >> caller: hello, i am white and i hope you'll let me speak or do i find the hypocrisy of liberals and people that want to point out the color of our skins that the content of character are amazing. recently on the news, which is being ignored, there were three young black teenagers beating up a white boy on a bus. you don't hear jesse jackson or al sharpton, it doesn't fit their narrative, so they don't speak about it. as far as president obama goes, being reluctant to talk about race, he talked about this at a particular summit and he grew threw his grandmother under the bus. i am afraid of a kid that wears his pants down around his thighs, has a hoodie on, have tattoos and doesn't have a job. i don't care if they are white or black. that's what i'm afraid of. everyone uses that type of discerning information. >> host: you have a black friend's? >> caller: i have black friends. but there you go again. do i have a friend that has skin color? book will kind of question is that in america. planned parenthood destroys more black babies in the black community is devastated. it's like they have acted like black people can't take care of themselves. welfare, affirmative action come it's so insulting. >> host: we have a lot of information. >> guest: i just want to say that i'm really sorry about the young white kid that was beaten. i think it's wrong for anybody to bully and hurt anyone. so if you haven't heard from jesse jackson, you just heard from me that i think that is reprehensible and i'm very sorry about that. as far as the president throwing his grandmother under the bus, i didn't get the impression when he admitted that she was or had admitted to him that she was nervous about black men, encountering black men. a woman of her era was pretty much culturally conditioned to fear us. i think the president spoke quite boldly and honestly. >> host: we have ones from st. paul, minnesota. >> caller: you definitely did run for president, ma'am. i appreciate what you're saying. i think that i have gone into the dialogue about race for years and years. and i do get a little frustrated when i hear people say that we need to have a national dialogue or we need to talk about this. i think that we talk about a lot. here's my question. what specifically, what format are what specifically would you like to have whites discuss, and in what would be the outcome. thank you for your time. >> host: are you white? >> caller: no. >> host: african-american? >> caller: i prefer black. i understand the raise issues that are out there. we have come along way in this country. not that their issues out there. but companies and organizations have prevented blacks from moving forward and laws have been removed. we have come a long way. i think that what we really need to do is have a dialogue that says what we need to do to take care of people who have bad behavior and not go down the victim mentality. thank you. >> guest: he said a lot of different things. this prevents the same conversation we have, except we have in public. i'd like white people to recognize the history of this country. a lot of it is not studied in the history books and i learned more about holocaust when i was in school than i did about slavery. all i knew was abraham lincoln freed the slaves, very little about the economics of slavery. i think it's important to talk about the advantages that the white privilege and unearned white privilege that whites take for granted. i am sure, peter, when he walked into a retail store and someone comes towards you and is following you, you probably think that they are there to serve you. well, because of my conditioning is an african-american or black person, as i prefer to be called, i'm not sure that they are coming to serve me or monitoring me. maybe they are just coming over to say hello, but i don't know that. but the cultural conditioning has made me thirsty about race and that is unfortunate. so i would like to know what the whites think about. when we talk to our children about the police, we are very serious in giving our young men to talk. my little brother was given a talk about what you do when you encounter the police. would you white people tell their children when they encounter the police? are they taught to respect them? .stand your ground in the sense of that speak up for yourself. so i just want to know what white people say about us. .. as. >> indianapolis was a polite but segregated city and mother taught me there are people in the world that will not like to simply because of your color. i said who were they? what other names? she said that is not important they will be white but i don't want you to judge them. at seven years old i had that delicate balance to understand there is racial prejudice but yet there are good people in the world like my husband, you, and many others i could name and i could think more now you ask me of my white friends. >> host: to reset go-ahead you are from tennessee. >> caller: i am a white woman i grew up in georgia i watched it turned the community turn to white middle-class working hard community to a black community the violence shot up the robbery, carjacking in property values went down so we have to leave but to ask what we teach our children? you use the victim card as a way to further your agenda. everyone is out to get you to teach your children know whites are out. we don't teach our children that the black man is out to get them and the black man is the reason for all of our ills. i don't mean it to be rude but you need to get over the slavery. it happened 200 years ago we had nothing to do with it. i am against it to when you offer the benefit of it as a white white you think the black schools are closing? and did you realize when brown vs. board of education 1954, many southern white schools closed their schools before they would integrate with black children. are you aware of that? >> host: the caller is. but what about her statement that the town went downhill? >> i am not, i do think there is a cycle of poverty that wraps around the black community she probably doesn't know that in this country it was illegal for black children to read and write or to learn that and she would teach a black child she could be fined and the child could be whipped so we were discouraged but then we could not we were called dumb. i was a rather than trying to give a lesson of racial history in america '01 '01 i would suggest the she would just click on to american history. atlanta and georgia history to learn more about it then she to the observer of the question. >> host: the voting rights act and affirmative action? >> guest: it is interesting when you talk about the voting rights act. the supreme court is rolling back so many of the black-and-white fought and died to get. isn't that the most democratic right? they will get back taken now to section five. >> host: but it was because we have advanced so far. >> guest: but not that far. how do have 300 years of slavery, 100 years of apartheid segregation and denial and equal opportunity with blacks not allowed to read or write than 30 years of affirmative action to say we are equal now? and no. it takes a little longer than that. but he thinks that we had enough to rule that back and to show that there were bad intentions with even those outside of it they have all rushed to establish more obstacles for those for young people are old people or people of color. we instituted these obstacles and to eric calder's credit at the president's bst is taking that on and i hope he wins. is every american's right to vote. they're closing down voting on sunday. no same-day voting. voter identification. when i was growing up in this sad because i love this country. and has been good to me with all of its obstacles and i come from the economic bottom and have risen to the top. only in america is someone like me are braving the way that i have but i am not a victim. i am victorious i have risen to the top so has colin powell, dr. ben carson and kanye west and we can be victorious so if we as people of color come out of bondage with this country then those that have no experience with prejudice or repression should be more generous rather than calling names to save victims and get over it would you tell someone that was you wish to get over the holocaust? i would guess not. >> host: a democrat from new york. >> caller: god bless you and please be heard -- hillary clinton's running mate. [laughter] i am a black and and i have a white trend and if you want to talk but he should / age region because there is so much stuff but to hear people from the red states to have the liberal values i have listened to c-span for 14 years and there's a lot of changes since 1986 i don't want to offend anybody there is a lot of good people but you could be black or white if you work hard there is definitely every race or culture i will tell you know, because they want you to be as miserable as they are. a black man who walked in with a lady into a diner at 4:00 in the morning that looked like your c-span hostess so think how that would feel. and one thing i want to say to the c-span audience some of us'' on a quiet -- quote-unquote evil liberals believe we should find out we have more in common. granted them by tuesday bill maher and rush limbaugh fight it out. [laughter] >> host: thank you for calling. >> guest: i just find his comments interesting and i agree with a lot of the sentiments. >> host: the independent line. >> caller: name-calling with race relations and leered native american and people have said my family made it from the bottom but space the people forget about the native americans through the trail of tears or when i was in school we were not allowed to speak our native tongue but today we have learned to band together like the naacp who was there to help us? no one was there to show us the right way to go because everyone says you're not black. you are not white. what is the big deal? >> guest: you are not forgotten about ian reed to remember those who were here first a great many of the native americans were very good to the african americans when we came here in slavery. the seminoles my family and a is part shawnee indian from kentucky. but how they intermarried and that enabled us to pass a freedom so that you are not forgotten. we like to hear more of you. we are that i'll lay it -- ally of the latino and of good will people but i think house sadly the native americans work treated when they were pushed westward westward, peter, the benevolence to those who were pushed off their band, and they gave them that gift of the investment of small pox blankets attempted genocide was the beginning. we owe a great deal to you and i am sorry with the way you have been treated and i wish i could visit a reservation. i have only been to one in oklahoma a heavily been to the one so if anybody invites me i would come. >> host: is the military race neutral? >> that was a wonderful experience that i had when bill was secretary of defense, being his wife in the men and women of service they are professional gave me is when they say duty, honor, country, it stepped forward as the soldiers to man they say we will go for you and they do. we pay them very little and they put their lives on the line their parents, and their spouses and children and those four years i was there at the pentagon with my husband bill:i did not see any prejudice. those that we choose to serve in the military, actually they choose come from the civilian society there from texas from p.r. and we have a lot of immigrants serving in the military but i did not see 1 ounce because of the good order and discipline but i felt very at home with the people of our military. my mother raised just like we were in boot camp so i was into the discipline that the bravery, the dollar, the respect makes you proud to be an american when you are with men and women who serve in the military you know, why we are the finest. because of them and we sleep under a blanket every night. >> he also has servicemen but what he learned. >> host: i apologize as a black-and-white couple. >> guest: i am not sure they look at us because they recognize him but we were just in western junior i have always been reluctant to go south of richmond. just the way i was cultivated and mississippi was a scary place because emmitt till was murdered there. and i still remember ibm blacked and when we go together i wonder what people think and all day ever say is come back. i remember you from your service and never sure president. but i was a little gun shy with how i was brought up but we had a wonderful time. >> calling on the republican line. >> caller: with a race race, every time a black person kills a white person and it is o.k. but if a white person kills a black person they set out it is a race. it is not race all the time. we are past all that we need to except people who they are and quit complaining. >> guest: who is complaining? >> caller: the blacks always complain. >> guest: whitey think we're always explaining our circumstances? >> caller: they just complain get over the past. >> guest: you are from the south. you're from the south to the seveners get over the loss of the confederate war of the state's? >> caller: i am past that. the south lost. >> host: can you give us a little bit of your history? were you raised segregated in alabama? we you raise to racial undertones or overtones? >> actually i was raised in mississippi. i went to school with black kids and when i was small, i think the fourth grade my best friend was the black kid and his sister like to be and he was my best friend and his sister was melissa i still remember them. >> guest: with your mother would have allowed you to date melissa? >> caller: nobody can tell me who i can or cannot date. i am my own person. i will take a black person. >> host: she still think there is racism in the south? >> caller: i am sure. it is all over the place and will always be that way. take obama. he is not a black president he is a mixed president he has white in him. i understand why they keep calling him a black president. >> guest: what would you call him. >> caller: i would call him a human being. >> guest: good for you for your very enlightened. thank you. >> host: georgia hello william. >> caller: i read your book i enjoyed it. i admire your husband. but i am a black man in georgia i am still in it today. but to forget something i go someplace i have a middle-class job. why should i forget something when you would not forget i'd like a the president? live just want to be nisi speak to you but you have the mentality all uc is being the black community don't call the black you called me the edward. every race of people that i know in this country they have the mentality treat me wrong. there is nothing i can do about it. the president, yes, he is a good man but he is a human being he's black and white but what can we do? three respective and that is what we're supposed to do. >> host: do you have any white friends? >> caller: no. i never tried even when i was working. sometimes they would not say anything to be nine hours a day and i would not say anything to them but i could speak to you wonder%. >> guest: it is interesting when you say they want us to get over it. what is it they want us to get over? maybe we would have a good chance if they got over it. >> host: collar you are on a go-ahead. >> caller: i am the former liberal and idea may conservative now. the main reason i moved is because i think the policy is bad for the port and the race issues are on the left. but the piece that is missing in the dialogue are black conservatives because they cannot back -- the talk down to have patronized the way the whites can but the view of where we need to go is different from the liberals say we don't have the black conservatives the way it works is is there any racism? if you say there is not the new year in garett if you say there is then used to validate whenever the liberals want to do. we need the black conservatives to be a major part of the dialogue. >> guest: we need a compromise with you are conservative or liberal but i was curious what about the liberal political agenda to you feel is bad for everybody? is he still on? >> host: he is not. duty gal sharpton and the advances the cause of greater understanding? this is a tweet decade in. >> guest: he is out there saying things that a lot of us feel and need to be said. he is playing in a major role i know he has a mixed background but every night on msnbc he is walking the walk in talking the talk and saying feigns chris matthews is fair and i hear the young reporters on the cycle letter pretty fair. joy, melissa of is very good to bring the issues but where is the white point of view and how they feel about it? they just think we are chewing on his own and will not let go of it in races of his over? oh like to hear them talk about it i don't think of my friends and terms of color strom thurmond was sitting there at our wedding or trent lott was there. >> host: is your friend of yours today? >> guest: yes. although i was interviewing on capitol hill because he is the same age i said you were born in the '40's so were you where and it still was murdered and the aid came up and he said senator you have to vote in case of the mississippi and confederate flag he is more than from mississippi and more than a sevener but we have remained friends we're great friends. >> host: you mentioned it earlier but what is the play? >> guest: an imaginary conversation between and frank that left the diary and emmett till the 14 year-old boy black boy from chicago who was in mississippi and was sold at a white woman and brutally murdered. they have been a party from the very beginning. , learned about both of the matt the same time it even though i knew how the story ended i was intrigued and of course, and it still being of the same age and the same ethnicity i've is just thinking was brown vs. board of education those nine men said i was equal and could go to any school i was all excited but then the summer august 28 with learned of the murder of this 14 year-old boy and resaw his mutilated body in jet magazine and his mother insisted the casket be open because she wanted the world to see what a racist white america had done and wanted the world to see what happens to black people in this country. because of that i brought these two together, to children who lived in society very much the way of trayvon martin there is a lot of parallels trayvon martin as the ghost of emmett till. >> host: maybe you asked how far we have come, i am 72 years old and i live to see a black president but i ate bread like to see the innocent boy that was struck down the did not -- but he got away with is how far have recovered? >> we have a republican. you are listening. >> caller: we were talking eagerly year how wonderful the experience was i am a 20 year military brat. and i was raised in a different culture i did not see color. i did not understand when we got back to the states from living in germany, the we were always different color color, a mixed marriages, race, religion, a nd i did not see that part of the first time i saw actual racism that when you age out you are just kicked out into civilian life and it is a shock. a living in new orleans was the first time i actually saw racism. one of the maintenance men had cut his hand and the southern belles were looking at me like how could you touch a black man? this was back in the '80s. i just looked at her and said i would rather have a black man's foot van some white women that i know end that would shut up the conversation. but we just had a conversation on our social media group and we were talking about the race issue after the zimmermann trial. we all had a very long conversation with hundreds of comments and often together we realize we do not have this problem solved >> host: thank you. >> guest: yes. military is unique now since truman has date -- desegregated the military they live together in close quarters, the families worked together, and support each other, they are about survival. they have little time to think about the priestess -- racist issues from the civilian side. i say it with love. it's often said you black people have come a long way. you have come a long way. i said another way. it's white people who have come a long way. we have always had the capabilities to be president, secretary of state, television personalities. we've always had the ability. we've just been given the opportunity. because of it it's america that has come a long way. >> host: what do you think when you hear the phrase "the black "or "you people"? >> guest: i think ignorant and insensitive i don't know if it's meant to be a pa jourty. that's how they've been cultivated to speak. that's why i want my play in the classroom. i would like it to start in middle school. i learned it at seven years old. i think they can learn earlier. if you learn early, that people are pretty much the same. you shouldn't be dividing people based on race, gender, when they speak english or spanish. you should measure a person by their character. it if we learn it early there's a song that said you have to be carefully taught. i think sadly so many of us are carefully taught what to think of one another based on our differences rather than embrace our difference. >> host: i whether or not -- wonder where race relations would be if -- >> guest: it would have the conversation. it would be a different conversation. what has happened, i think, with president obama's being president, we have seen this -- racism will probably never go away. we need to manage it. we need to see it in the open. i think with the black president we have seen it come in the open in the beautiful build trying when he gave the state of the union, the awe disty -- audacity that someone was yelling a lier. -- lair. you never -- he's going say that to somebody occupying the presidency of the united states? calling him an anticolonial ken began. aren't we all in the country anticolonial? calling him names saying he's not legitimate. they're saying things about him. he's the lightening rod they say about a lot of us that we are subhuman. somewhere between being subhuman and criminal. that we are troubled. it's so many things that weren't said that are now being said. i think we have advanced, at least the conversation where it's out of the open and we can say who is who. >> host: pat, cleveland, ohio. a few minutes with our guest. >> caller: good morning. >> guest: good morning. >> caller: i agree with you. this is about the racism to the fore front. with the president. but i would like to say to the people that seem to have so much common sense. my grandmother told me the biggest fool in the world is an educate one. they think they know everything. the president is a black man. he had a white mom. he had a black dad. he was raised by white people. why is that one drop of blood people refuse to say you're white? because are the black man more superior? is their blood more superior because that one drop would makes more superior if we're not white. but we're black. and first of all, another thing, we have conservative blacks, but the conservative blacks we have, like, the supreme court justice thomas. condolezza rice. they do not really relate to the average black person. >> guest: well -- >> caller: and the fear of people being afraid of black. blacks don't want to work. blacks don't get the majority of welfare. welfare was not started by black people. welfare was started by the people of appalachia. it was not started -- the first person to receive welfare was a white lady. not a black lady. i didn't even know what welfare was until the '70s. both my parent had good jobs. one worked with general motors, one worked with ford. i moved from a 99% black community in the '50s to 98% white community. went to school where i had three blacks. the kids were yearen, they didn't come here -- blacks were beneath them. the white kids play with the black kids. we went to their homes. we ate dinner with them. their parents didn't speak english but the children if. there was no racial bias until they became really americans. we spread this hate to others. another thing want to say. >> host: pat, very quickly. >> guest: i like her. >> caller: yes. one more thing. other people can come to this country and they don't have to have their voting right reaffirmed. why do our voting rights have to be affirmed? thank you. >> guest: well, yeah, i heard what you said about clarence thomas being a conservative. i can't speak for him. he doesn't speak for him on the court. condoleezza rice. i happen to know her. she's a personal friend of mine. while she conservative, a bright woman. she is concerned with issues of race. she identifies as ab african-american. she's from alabama. she was friends with one of the four black girls killed in the church. condolezza doesn't need the vouching. she is an african-american, she knows who she is. she has fiscal conservative values but socially liberal. i hope condolezza doesn't mind me saying liberal. i had to speak for her. we have been speaking with janet. coauthor of "love in black and white: race, religion, and romance." she's been our guest here. we appreciate your time. >> guest: i've enjoyed it. thank you your viewers. on the next washington journal a look at president obama's proposal. "washington journal" begins live at 7:00 a.m. eastern on c-span. >> what year did your father buy the book? >> 1933, he had just gotten out of the government and been out three weeks. he was governor of the federal reserve board. he started the reconstruction finance under hoover. he stayed as federal reserve chairman for a little while under roosevelt then reseened was he didn't like roosevelt's monetary policy. the post came up three weeks later for auction on the step of the building. and he bought it an anonymously. and so it had about circulation of about 50,000 in a broken down building. and so he started then and he was a businessman. he thought he knew how to turn around businesses. he never had any experience. he encountered the most horrible difficulties in finding his way up. he really did a terrific job starting with nothing. >> along with our schedule you see our program at booktv.org. and get the latest update throughout the week. follow us on facebook and twitter. we talked with randall robinson. >> host: what does america owe blacks? >> guest: it owes them an acknowledgment of what happened. we don't like to talk about that in the united. even black history month. there's a truncated version of what carter and woodson had in mind. now, it starts with slavely and moves forward and cut us all from any access to african history, which was not what woodson intended. and so we obviously owe the value of our hire to those people who suffered so much and their families and those who dissented from those people that worked for 246 years for nothing. we owe them something for that. we owe them the story we have been asked to dmeact people can survive in good, sound psychology health. ashes and obliterated history of when i was a child in richmond, virginia. we used to have a phrase that we used all the time from here to tim buck too. nobody knew with the place was or what it was. nobody knew the prodense of the world. didn't know where it was. didn't know it was a place. it was, of course, was a cross roads of commerce in mali. it was also of sit one of the world's first university which was built before the black -- which built the first university in spain. and 7-eleven ad. still there you have all of the manuscripts written between 5 ad and 15 ad literatures support. we didn't know anything about the queen of shiba who is described in the bible. the bible describes her as a woman of black skin. in the movie it was played by once said that living without your story without memory is like driving without a rear view mirror. it was a part of the world that was built to separate those who were stolen and used and exploited from their african story. and so they have the highest violent crime rate on indian reservations. the question is why. what awful thing happened that would cause this situation for them? and the same is true in the case of african-americans, and when it was all over this awful chapter from the beginning of slavery 246 years followed by people were forced to work for now income in the south. and then legal segregation one can't say before the end of the voting rights act that the nightmare had ended and during that nightmare untold sums of lives had been wrecked. and the social damage is still with us. and so we owe an an acknowledgment of that. this was not peculiar to the the people of turkey don't want to acknowledge the genocide against dominions in 1950 and people were killed. but we owe people the truth. we owe them the history. and we owe the them of the value of the their higher. we owe them repair and we're not doing that. not only that. >> host: you say the loss of heritage is exacial to the holocaust and some of the other genocide. >> the holocaust was 12 years. this is 246 years plus a century. people lost their name, they lost their languages, they lost their culture, they lost everything. many people had their genitals severed. people lost their tongues. thomas jefferson, when he was 42 years old, had a relationship with a 14-year-old girl, sally, that he owned. and it wasn't frowned upon. we know what it would be called today. we lost any idea of who we were. it was our past. our memory was vanished. and we worked ourselves to early deaths. and built the capital. built the white house, and harvard law school which was endowed by isaac royal from the proceeds of sale of slaves he owned. and the west indies. these things were routine. many american institutions transferred wealth that they got from the work of people who weren't paid to their families. i can go back to my great, great grandparents with pictures and my great, great, great grandparents with the stories in the united. that's extremely, extremely rare. >> host: "in the debt" you write what white society must be induced to do own up to slavery and acknowledge the debt to slavery contemporary victim. pay the debt in massive restitution. rebuild the blackest teem it dproid by democratizing access to a trove of histories to which blacks contributed prominently. that meant everything to us. white we were damaged by segregation, you milluated by segregation, we had a family that was intact that was sound. that was strong. so many people didn't have that. i think there were some of us who were in a position to move out and up once segregation ended. i was among that group. until that time, we and those who were bottom stuck were all in the same boat. we virtually lived on the same blocks together. we were closed in to each other. some of us were ability to go up enough. others of us could not. so we split in to two parts, even then. i'm not sure that those institutions that fought so hard for us all at one time have fought the same tenth annual nation battles for those remain bottom stuck today. we have the largest prison population in the world. over 2 million people. the largest in the world. half of the prison population is black because of the way people's lives. because of unfairness in the criminal justice system. we see that for nonviolent drug crimes. we institute 14% of those who commit those crimes. but roughly if i still have a figure right something like 56% of those prosecuted and close to 75% of those incarcerated one sentenced powdered cocaine. another for crack cocaine. the powdered which is essentially what white people use. the sentence is much lower than it is for crack cocaine which is what black people have used. so the system is unfair. the history has been cruel. and in many cases very little has changed for those people. >> host: in -- for all of my life i had wished only to live in an american that would but reciprocate my locality. a country that would -- mount of it's making authority and ideal of public candor and unconditional compassion, a country that would say without reserve to the disadvantaged, to it involuntary victim, to native americans, to african-americans, to the poor of all color, stripes, tongue and religion that your country wronged you, wronged you and separate and discreet way, wronged you with horrific and lingering consequences, wronged in you, in some cases, from long ago and for a long time wronged do you a degree that would morally compel any civilized nation's serious and sustained attempt. we don't want to talk about it. we still don't want to talk about it. we run from it. we call it victimization. it's the sad truth. >> host: why did you leave the country? >> guest: well, i was as much going a place as leaving a place. some of both. i had been going to the caribbean for 25 years, and it's a small island. it's made for someone like me who doesn't like big crowded places, big cities. it's a beautiful place with mountains and clear blue water. it offers a type of into mate sincerity. you go downtown and you don't see someone you know. but the biggest piece is that the woman i loved and married is from the area. with so we decided many years ago that we were going build a home there. which we did 11 years ago, and so hazel and i have been there all of that time. and our daughter went to high school there and finished high school and came back here to college. so that was one reason. i was also weary, tiered -- tired of a struggle that defleeted me. america had worn me out. simply because things that can't be talked about. it doesn't -- it has no tolerance for that kind of honesty, and as no plans to make anything right. it's as if it says -- i heard it saying we have stopped the act of crime. and so if there's damage, then we are -- as if at the end of slavery you could liken to to runners in the race at the starting line. you take a gun and shoot oner in both legs. now you say run. you can't catch up. the people who have had everything taken from them -- and the things that are not material are even more important. it's just software, it's your interior plumbing. it's what you have been caused to think of yourself. how you see yourself. the confidence or lack lot of with which you are trying to run in a race. it's the last 1,000 years in the world. it's not like we bombed japan. and incinerate hundred of thousand of people and in literally minutes because if the japanese who survive can remember their literature, can remember their culture, their traditions can put it up back up again. the people who have lost it all, mothers, fathers, children, traditions, cultures ways living -- they don't know where to begin. i went to a jewish friends' -- hazel and i's some years ago went to a bar -- to seeing the launching of the adolescent son in to adulthood. they say all the wonderful things of the child because of the traditional rite there had been things like that and still i practiced in africa. but we lost all of that. so the cause to reinvent culture almost every generation. it's a lot of -- it's a lot of damage. it has to be acknowledged and reckoned when i prepared it. >> host: how much time do you spend in the states now? >> guest: i come up about three times per smesser. the dean of penn state law school whom i've known for a number of years, phillip mcconaughey called and asked if i would like that teach a human rights course, and i spent all of my life in human rights. i've been growing out of what i've been talking about. i said i would be happy to. it's my due. my -- grant parents survived. >> host: written in 2004, by the way, have you changed any of your view since the election of president obama? >> guest: i remember my mother, when he was nominated, we were in montreal, hazel and my daughter and i. she called me at the hotel. i think 'pit. she was crying and said it's the greatst day of my life. it tells me. i didn't need that telling. i always knew. america is many places. it's a place that is can be tolerant and accepting. a place where views can be moderated and differences can be reconciled. it's important to other segments of america as well. that are not unlike the america we saw when i was young in richmond, virginia. but i think there are several americas. i had grown tired of at least one of. >> host: you write that america never helps anyone unless the assistance can be fied to an american interest either strategic or economic, and one cannot always disting wish one from the other. >> guest: it's certainly largely true in the foreign assistance. foreign assistance has to be associated with the strategic purpose. when we look at what we did as a country to haiti. thomas jefferson did everything he could defeat the haitian revolution u. the only successful slavery vote in the history of the hemisphere. these people turned back an army from spain, armies of 60,000 apiece from england and france twice and one freedom opened their doors to fleeing slaves from all over the world gave weapons and musket and soldiers to fight for freedom in latin america in exchange for believer of freeing slaves there promise he didn't keep. but they did all of these things. and america did everything they could to quash this haitian quest for freedom. the people who have been enslaved. when they won their revolution, they took with it two-thirds of france's foreign income because it was the most valuable colony in the world to france. now, that survives even until now. frederick douglass spoke the chicago's world fair in 1893/'94. mystified about how hostile the united states has always been toward haiti. hostile toward them because they won their freedom. george bush blocked loans from the inter-american development foundation of 146 million loans for water, education, things like that. the international republican institute arranged and organized the opposition tool. then we, as a country, trained rebel soldiers in the dominican republic trained and armed them to come in to haiti to overthough the government. and the last analysis those rebels didn't figure in to it. bush carried out the coup himself when american soldiers arrived at the home of the president and took him off at 3:00 in the morning to the central africa republican. we had to go in. maxine waters, a jamaican parliament, the president's lawyer he said the minimum income ought to be raised from $1 a day to $2 a day. that the sweat shop owner, essentially white in haiti beginned with american authorities to get him thrown out of office. if you look at the history of american foreign aid, what we do and why we do it is not a pretty picture. >> host: in your most recent non-fiction book. you write in haiti's 200-year history one is hard put to identify a single episodes of organized human suffers which the u.s. didn't play a direct collateral or instigative role. gail: we didn't recognize haiti until after the emancipation in the united states. from 1804 until the end of civil war, we combined cannel on haiti and had to be paid $12 billion for having lost the right to use haitian slaves. it's the first time in history ever that the winner of war had to be pay reparation to the loser. then after that in 1950 woodrow wilson invades haiti and stays for 189 -- 19 years. kills thousand of people with american marines and takes present leader of the revolt in haiti in response to the innovation, and nails him up on overt of public display to common strait to people what the consequences could be when you fight back again america. working at the direction of the united states. got the father killed up to 50,000 people that was fine. the first democratically elected president of haiti. we are responsible for the coup that took him out of office. the bush administration did it e -- directly. not coveted in the american press. the american press said he fled to south africa when he was taken to the central african republican. we had to go there to rescue and jamaica braved the american storm to keep him there until he could go to south africa. we were responsible for that overthrow of the democratic government in haiti. the haitians we owe so much. because the haitian revolution, first of all, made possible the louisiana purchase because that poll began was -- thatnapoleon was done with the empire as a result of the humiliating defeat. secondly, after haiti, after that revolution, the north atlantic slave trade was ended by britain and the united. and the last sort of breadth of that was the end of the civil war. one of the great story of history. >> host: this month on booktv in-depth program author and activist randall robinson. he's the author of five non-fiction books. here they are. what is transafrica? >> guest: transafrica is or the organization that i began in 1976 to galvanize african-american opinion on foreign policy issues. particularly issues that concern the black world. u.s. policy africa, the caribbean, and latin america. so transafrica, of course, of the organization that used instrumentality to galvanize american opposition to apartheid . for the set of sanctions that president reagan vetoed was overridden by republican controlled senate because of the work we did and the millions we organized to make a difference. that coupled with the great work that was being done in south africa lead to a new south africa that we see today. >> host: who are max sincerity and doris robinson? >> caller: my mother and father. i already introduced you to them. they had strong opinions, and they were extraordinary parents. they were extremely principled people. i remember when my brother max was with abc news as the chicago anchor. he had gone to smith dloaj make a speech. he said some things critical of abc and i was so proud of him. i saw my father, and the kinds of things he stood for when we were -- >> host: did it hurt his career at abc? >> guest: it sure did. no question about it. he thought -- as much as he loved his work, he thought there were a few things more important. >> host: in "defend the spirit of black life in america." you write about being raised in richmond. when were you born? >> guest: july 6, 1940. >> host: what was your first twenty years like -- first 18 years like? >> guest: two realities. everybody was nearby. we saw everybody and a lot of family all the time. and so all of that was wonderful and joyous. and i did it and i remember real releasing the clubs in the bag on the green, and -- this is a country club in virginia. the golfer said if you rattle the clubs again i'll wrap one around you. i dropped the bag and walked off. and went home. this is sort of like that. and sort of them -- some of them had us witnessing our parents having to accept what was going on. mother would to put a cap on her head before he could try on a hat in stores in downtown in richmond. one store on gray street, you would go in and stand. no one would wait on you. as if you weren't there. when we would even go chinese restaurants to get food, the chinese had -- would to abide by the rules too. we would to go up the stairs to the kitchen and get the food to carry out. the bus was empty except for us, we would still have to sit in the back behind the line. these things register on your psyche. they stay there for a lifetime. >> host: from defending the spirit winter 1967, cambridge massachusetts you write i arrived from seg dwraitionist virginia to attend hoovered law school. the first year class of more than 500 students is divided in to four sections. my section sitting through a torts lecture given by a young professor charles freed. he was born in prying, czechoslovakia educate at princeton and oxford and colombia and will become solicitor general of the u.s. under president ronald reagan. you talk about some of your classmates, and one of them is mark joseph greene. liberal democrat of university. mark was running for office in new york recently. i haven't seen him since that experience. when he was running for office someone read that in the book, and. the axe forgets but the tree remembers. >> host: when you hear the term bill clinton is the first bad president of the united states. what are your thoughts? >> guest: oh my. i think -- well, this is absurd. i think sometimes we have been denied the highest attention for so long that when people attend our church and now the hymn or they play the sanction phone reasonably well, we call them credit that is largely undeserved. bill clinton of returning fleeing haitian refugee who had been fleeing the military dictatorship that we armed, and supported in haiti, and he cordoned the place with ships and caught these people and turned them over to their killers. -- in rwanda in the u.n. it was ambassador madeline albright who had to take some responsibility for the deaths of 500,000 in rwanda because she single handedly obstructed u.n. intervention with the support of bill clinton. when a handful of nations in the caribbean -- that were giving that market opportunity to these caribbean banana producers who only produce bananas that was what their economies were based on. he wanted to that tiny bit, that slice of market opportunity to go to which key that ban that that who the ceo was a big supporter of his. he couldn't have been a bigger supporter as the black community had to him. and so was taken away from those producer and caribbean economies were significantly damaged by that. when he was asked to reconcile the differences between the sentence for the use of sale of crack cocaine, powered cocain. he talked about it but never did anything on human rights he never ratified -- he weakened the treaty for the international criminal court. >> host: what was the last time you have talked to the president? >> guest: clinton? >> host: yeah. >> guest: never. when i was a 28-day hunger strike trying to get him to stop rounding up people and sending those people to their death in haiti. on the 28th day i was hospitalized. maybe it was the 26th day. dehydrated hospitalized. he thought i was going to die. he sent sandy, who was my law school classmate to talk to me. to see whether i was really dying or not. sandy came within an offer if i would agree to end the hunger strike he would agree to screen the haitian refugee. it's all i was asking for. when you are fleeing with a well founded fear of prosecution under international human rights law, and all the member nations of the united nations have an obligation to provide refuge to you. that's all i was asking for. he knew the people were fleeing with a well-founded fear of persecution. when he thought i was dying he made an offer to sandy. he simply said to the press that he was glass that i was out there. i ought to stay out there doing this. i never knew what he meant by that. i have never talked to him. >> host: what do you say to sandy? >> guest: it wont long discussion. i was in bed. hassle -- hazel was with me. i largely listened. he told me what the offer was. i told him that i would accept that offer. he asked if i would appear with him on "meet the press ." i think sunday which was the next day. i said no. >> host: randall robinson is our guest. it's your turn. we're going begin with a call from bruce in georgia. hi. >> caller: hi. thank you for having me on. [inaudible] i was born on the social security -- south side of chicago. what has -- [inaudible] apart from the careers. your career -- the career and -- [inaudible] susan rice was nominated for sex tear of blank secretary of state. susan rice was undersecretary of african affairs during the clinton administration, she was a lobbyist for ethiopian and -- our policy has been to give military aid to every country in africa we have completely militarized our africa policy. we give military aid to every country on the continent except -- [inaudible] it's the only place where our foreign policy is -- [inaudible] >> guest: let me be brief about susan rice. i've been troubled by those associations that you have described. i don't know the extent to which the black political class has closed ranks or did close ranks around her. i've been out of the country a large part of the trim. try to keep up. i'm not priefe to that. ly say in self-defense of elected officials, i don't know that we can have sanctions against south africa without vigorous sport of the congressional black caucus virtually every member of the congressional black caucus went to jail at the south africa embassy and did a great deal to support the sanctions effort. we a discussion about -- i was on the phone from my home when we were trying to find a place for him to be maxine was on the call charlie was on the call. the prime minister of png patterson was on the cat too. he told us that condoleezza rice threatened him and the government of jamaica. that was abducted by the bush administration with the collaboration of involvement and power and condolezza rice. i'm not sure if we know about doing in the world. if we're generally well read enough. if we are connected to the outside world in a way that would give us to believe that people on the outside see us on the outside differently than we see ourselves. they know an america we don't know. gregory van leer senior from wood bury, minnesota e-mails. marging and protesting are old school descrat gi. black folk have not evolved in the digital age in tactic. my opinion is we rely too much on emotional sympathetic appeals when power and money moves wheel in washington. what do you see going forward that can make for a more effective plan to advance our cause? i love how your mind works. >> the reason i wrote -- the business of losing access to our story and history has done damage. one's real power to stand against the winds comes from inside. so it means that we have know the world. we have to feel that we can change it. i don't think it's the thing you can charge to leaders alone. it has to has been for everybody. and this is a book about a grandmother who has lived previous lives, she was there for the 11th dynasty in ancient egypt when -- was in charge and built this enormous empire. we don't know anything about the dawn of christianity and ethiopia's role. we don't know anything about ancient mali where the people knew about the serious star system. they knew about stars that couldn't be seen with the naked eye and before the age of a telescope couldn't be seen at all. they have known about the stars for thousand of years. how they knew, we don't know, but they knew and named them. we don't know about them. if you don't know your history, you are lost. and this book is about this wise and extraordinary woman who had has previous lives. she has seen our history from the age before slavery. and she tells it to our grandson. so that he can be empowered by it. and so i think that is a part of our responsibility. we have to cause our country to give us a different kind of education about ourselves, we could learn something from native americans. something about climate change. something about how to treat the environment. something about culture and tradition. but we don't learn anything about anything. we only teach it one way. that is the history that -- does not fit our particular situation. >> host: randall robinson, is your method in writing changing. it's a wonderfully intimate place. it's been good for me and my family. >> host: when you're writing, what did 0 you look at? where are you sitting? >> guest: well, i don't look at the water. i don't think i could get anything done. i go in a room upstairs and i turn the ceiling fan on one. i let it move slowly. it makes you think and hope something happens. frequent think does. i've been very happy about that. i wrote those books that way. maybe it reflects that. >> host: how often do you wear that nice suit where you live? >> guest: never. there are occasions i go to the prime minister's gala once a year and there are formal occasions that i have to put it on. i don't frequently wear long pants and think it's a different pace and life. and i like it. it's made for me. >> host: before we go back to calls in "quitting america." i want to read a little bit of the chapter. >> guest: two island. 35,000 people between 35,000 and 40,000 and 10,000 on the other island. >> host: colonized by the english? >> guest: by the english. well managed democracy. seriously democratic. >> host: chapter seven. money in "quitting america." whitney houston came here once on a private jet with her husband bobby brown upon emerging from customs whipped out a roll of $100 and began passing them out outside the terminal. many, if not most of them gave the must be wack. americans would find this odd as i'm sure mr. brown did. he no doubt meant well. he couldn't have had ample opportunity to understand very much by how the culture works here. >> guest: i -- hazel and i were driving the country side and we saw flamboyant that we liked in a field. it's one of the prettiest tree in the world. it blooms between june and september. bril maryland red or orange or something in between. it's just wonderful tree in every way. we located the man who owned the tree. it's in a field. and so we're stopped and said how much would you take for the tree? iom an american, you see. i have -- unfortunately manners i shouldn't have. because you have occasionally people that stop you. americans start somewhere in the middle of the conversation by getting to the point. [laughter] how much for the tree? he said -- that sort of thing. so this, of course, and i'm interested in buying the tree. he said it's not for sale. and i said, oh. but it's not doing anything there. it's not -- he said it's not for sale. i said suppose i offered $500. it's not big. you can still dig it out and replant it. most things are fairly easily replanted in the caribbean soil so rich. rains so much. so warm. he said not for sale. i said suppose i offered you $1,000. he said no. i said suppose i offered you $5,000. the tree is not for sale. now, we -- this whole business of what we call success only have one definition for success in america. that has do with how much money you make. and i don't think it's their definition. what do you mean by success. i think their definition may be a little different from ours. it certainly doesn't have everything to to with money. when i was child we used to spend some time in the yard because i loved it. i loved my hands in the soil. that's one of the things that i love about the caribbean. everything blooms all the time. and it's so wonderful. and so you can get treeses rather easily, and planet them. >> host: randall robinson you spent several years living in the d.c. area. did you -- is it -- is it easy to get intoxication by the power available here? >> guest: here? >> host: yeah. >> guest: depends on who you are. it didn't take with me. i was never interested in that, and not anything necessarily great to say about me and built that way. i'm essentially quite private i never used to like the private side. -- there's no place in the world that i want to be more than we our history in america and how we treat one another in the slavery. i'm a big fan of -- [inaudible] and american civilization, american -- [inaudible] american christianity can be made to include and protect -- [inaudible] as i talk to people about where i came from, my struggles, my crime and we -- it seems like we're not comprehending what we're talking about. the struggling and where we came from. >> host: let's get a response from randall robinson. >> guest: well, i understand very much how you feel. i think that you can't have often much reason expectations for anything different. because in my view, it is our due. i expect that they will materialize in even in my lifetime. and i not the in near term future. it is we have to learn as much as we can about the story. we have to read vigorously everything we can put our hands on. we have to make sure that our children get the best education we can win for them. and that they have the right values. and we have to do the best question with what we have and we have to continue to say that that doesn't come close to what we have owed for what we have better been made to endure for a long, long, long period of time. we all inherit our starting place in line talk about social wealth and poverty. so the release is much more difficult for some of us. and -- and it was made difficult because what we had to face for 246 years. catching up without any recognition of that difficulty. we continue to say that notwithstanding of whether or not that is accepted on the other side. >> host: you're watching booktv on c-span2 every month the first sunday of the month is want in-depth program. a three-hour discussion with one author and his or her body of work. this month is author randall robinson. if you can't get through on the phone you would like to make a comment on our facebook page. likelike us on facebook, and make a commenter have that smith asked the question. you have seen the -- different part of the world. in 2013 when africa enthose africa dissent still trail in economic viability. what are your suggestions to gain empowerment without economics the politics won't ever work? >> guest: i would agree with that. it seems to be of our value to some extent. to balance them overbalance them toward entrepreneurship. there's little that can be cone without money. we have to to be in a position to endow our own efforts. we don't have a kind of money now. we don't own any news broadcast that are major organs. and so we are still depending on other people in their news rooms or decisions are made often to make decisions to tell stories that would favor us about our situation about our history. about our journey. and that won't happen until we're in a position to make it happen. and so we often thought i was young basketball player, and thought more about the sentence -- i did better to own the team than play on a team. we have got to get that lesson through our head. we have got to understand, for instance, that in the caribbean, the caribbean model who tell their children when they come to the united to go to college, don't associate with african-americans. they do this because of what they see on american television. they watch american reality shows. and those shows picture us in a very unfavorable light. they don't show us in colleges and don't show us in graduate programs. they don't show us axeling -- in science. they don't show any of that. they show the worst possible things about us. it's off putting to people who watch the shows around the world. well, somebody is making a lot of money from shows. i'm not sure it's not the same thing writers and other people behind the camera. but we don't make the decisions to put these shows on. but they are there. we have to be in a position to control these sort of operations. these sorts of operations. so we have to prepare our young people to aspire to that. to not only make them -- make the movie, not only be in them, but direct and green light them. we're not in that position. the "new york times" didn't even color -- [inaudible] lydia had gone to the by centennial and described hundred of thousand of people small but enthusiastic crowd. i do think it's often the case about black writers in publications do things that disparage the black community. facilitated up with mobility in their shopses. and i decided that she wasn't the right person to have on the plane. goodman was there from democracy now, and the reporter from "the washington post -- >> host: peter? >> guest: yes. by and large, this story was an extraordinary story. it was not covered by "the new york times" at all. zip. nothing. how could they not cover it? what kind of journalism is that? >> host: gary posts on our facebook page in lew of supporting questionable regime in africa, china in the trade deals with african nations built schools and hospitals and other infrastructure needs of the masses instead of massive cash payment to war lords and the like. any chance u.s. could follow suit? >> guest: well, i'm fearful of chinese motives as well. i -- because i'm critical of policy in my country have a responsibility to practice that criticism that constructed democracy is all about. but i'm not happy about china either. china has a horrible human rights policy. both in china as a one-party dictatorship and the treatment of its own citizens and particularly what it has done in western china to the weaker people. i've seen a lot of america and history. but i want to talk particularly about the mining industry worldwide, and particularly what is going on in africa. and is it connection to possible mining in minnesota with certain companies? i've kind of looked at some of the ceo, it's pretty much american or educate -- [inaudible] wall street and -- [inaudible] thank you. >> guest: i'm not sure i understand your question. i'm not an expert in mining. i don't know how to approach it because i'm not sure i understand the germ of what you're saying. >> host: on twitter@booktv fraser tweets in could you ask randall robinson who he thinks would make a better u.s. envoy to haiti than bill clinton and why. >> guest: any number of people . envoys message carriers. right now our policy toward haiti is so bad that we would do haiti a service if the united after 200 years would leave haiti alone. virtually all of our policies have been antidemocratic for haiti. i felt strongly when i was characterized as a friend of the president's and always said it was not the issue. while she a friend, i have never been for him politically. because that's not for me. i wasn't for nelson mandela in south africa. i was for the south african people and the haitian people a right to choose for themselves. who their political leaders would be. the administration has, now, of course, embraced elections in haiti that banned the largest political party from participating. that is -- [inaudible] we ought to be ashamed of ourselves. and president obama took some pains to try to block the president's return to his country from south africa. that is a violation of the international covenant on civil and political rights, which the united states is a party. .. >>. >> guest: that is very true am in a particular human rights. we have these wonderful instruments that come on with the founding of the united nations after 1945 spearheaded in many ways with the universal declaration of human rights and one that followed that much with the education of the developing world with colonialism beyond discrimination. because the united states won the war it largely had a bigger steel of on the link which with civil and political rights a big similarity there but it is important to realize that the same time across the world had ratified by a important conventions that have not ratified to protect the interests of children to protect women and just recently the senate failed to ratify the convention to care for those of the world with disabilities and voted not to ratify at the convention after listening to a plea from bob dole making that plea from a wheelchair before the senate so many of the important human rights we have not ratified that have been virtually every other country in the world but the united states. our feeling is, it is for you. not for us. we are exceptional. there is no theory of that we seldom consulted with the court's but only listen to our own that is true particularly with human-rights. >> host: californian good afternoon. >> caller: it is a pleasure to speak to you mr. robinson i am greatly impressed bayou. what is your opinion relative to the movement of national reparations of the descendants of black african slaves in america? my second question is how do we redress the issue of african american politicians that are political prisoners and america? particularly aided california and to qualify that question this. >> guest: may i answer your first question? did you can come back to me with your second question? let's talk about reparations first of all. we have supported reparations for the jews that had forced labor by votes why did during world war ii ended ministration supported that. we have supported reparations for japanese these other proper and right things to have done but then in turn during world war ii is a terrible fate hall for people who were american citizens one that could be called reparations for native americans but with that question comes up for the descendants in slaves the huge enterprise of romney as i have said the longest-running human rights crime that own the is analyzed a and thought about a and justice missed out of he and a and it is not proper or acceptable. but it is most important those that were ground into the dust and a to the profit making the wheels of slavery it is most important those people recognize the matter what officials america does, we know what we are owed. we know what happens if we know there is a story of the us with the long bear part of the history that occur before slavery thousands of years with the great pyramid was built, a 5,000 years ago it is now authenticated he was very black as many of the other pharaohs feel the other one and we go about is cleopatra because she was descended from a trip -- greek ancestry but virtually everything was built by black egyptians before the arrival of the arabs in north africa. we should know this history. we should know all of this history but we have been cut off. when i was the child a they have said before, far from where i grew up but the book them this education of the negro was not allowed in public schools. a harvard ph.d. by his work was not acceptable because it would tell us something we needed to know about ourselves that we could not be allowed to no. but we have to. we have to break through this because with that last analysis, even more damaging with the theft the quantification is even more important to that is our story. we don't know who we are as emerson said, when i discover who i am, i will be free. >> host: go ahead with your second question. >> caller: relative to the african-american leaders who are currently political prisoners in america today, 16 years in federal prison for mail fraud and other one fine to $3,000 of misappropriations that they find it be determined was not true in the day let him go but wanted to make certain he did not run for office again. another individual who was curtly 80 years old recently sentenced five years in prison for going to educational workshops as the educational officials for i have a serious problem with these issues and i like to know your position and our also like to thank you for your elaborate can't answer to my first question because for me and my family we cannot trace our history beyond our grandparents. it is critically important that we educate our children and teach them who they are so they have more pride. >> host: we believe that there. >> guest: i wish i could be more helpful on your second question. but i don't have the death understanding of the particular facts of those civil cases to make a judgment. i would have to know more. to form an opinion whether there is mistreatment. i do not know e. enough and i don't have any facts of these cases and all. >> host: in "quitting america" you say all it has all but ceased of the pretense of effort on domestic racial and social justice users even the empty words of the old promises have disappeared. still, republicans as well as democratic administrations must anoint for flattery to sit said to the president in the cabinet meetings that on the condition no unseemly and do is made by them of the causes of such blacks or possible solutions. >> guest: give you an example. the evening president aristide was adapted from his home before 3m the next morning when the american marines special forces arrived to take him away to the plane to be flown into the night, i called the president. an american voice answered the phone. that was very strange. i sit down like to speak to president aristide he sat here. that of aristide? she's not here. then the line was cut. tavis smiley was to go to haiti the next day to interview the president might wife who was working for haiti at this time along with former congressman ron, was making the arrangements. tavis smiley call to save the trip was off that ron just called me to say that he had just spoken to it secretary of state powell and he said the slugs, the rebels for coming to port-au-prince the next day to kill the president. the of rabil hit -- liberal head already said he would do that on sunday the 29th of february was his birthday and he planned to kill the president on his birthday. and he also said we will do nothing to protect or defend the president. the president's security agents. >> the steel foundation had already checked to see if the u.s. would do anything to defend the of the sea to help control the rebels. the u.s. said they would not. the president was all along. the helicopter pilot in spite of the rabil was trained by americans in the dominican republic and armed by the bushel administration. they were 100 kilometers from port-au-prince headed away from this city in the president knew this and colin powell had to happen this when they said the recovery to kill him the next day. he said publicly we would not allow all the overthrow of did democratic administration the privately he was trying to get him to flee. when aristide did not do that or later but i thought his life was under threat i called peter jennings and randall p. instinet cbs and said they are coming to kill the president on sunday and we have to get news. then peter jennings called back and said that ron will not confirm he had any conversations with the secretary of state. of no story. but the president knew that the rebels were all long way away so they stayed in the city and then the special forces arrived, and abducted him to a kim and his wife against their will stopping in india we were told that the airport that even the immigration papers were inconsistent first saying there were 50 then striking through it to save zero but e special forces people aristide and others and that is why we had to go to the central african republic to rescue and bring them back to jamaica where the prime minister gave them refuge for seven days before they could go to south africa but with a french roll the column paul will rolling is a reprehensible. >> host: why the change from what ron told you? >> guest: do zaph -- have to ask him. >> host: had you? >> guest: as a matter of fact in the month following recalls ron three times and he never returned the call and i have not spoken to him again. >> host: had you known him for a while? >> guest: years. 20 years. >> host: we have another hour and a half with randall robinson the author of five nonfiction books including "the debt". he begins this book talking about the u.s. capitol rotunda. we will show you a little bit of video from the c-span archives of mr. robinson talking about that. >> she called to my attention that we will talk about here she urged me to come down to the rotunda capital i had been there and work to their it operates for the victims as well and she said look up and a saw a painting on the eye of the rotunda of george washington in represents to us all the ideal and objectives of american democracy. george washington and is surrounded by figures all of whom are white there is one that predicts american history from the dylan other exploration to the dawn of aviation. though douglas the tubman no blacks period. the entire era of slavery what was reflected at the capitol down at the ground level there are massive pavings said into huge stones no blacks to be found anywhere. upon examination i discovered that the stones were cut in virginia, brought up the river, put into place by slaves but the statue freedom sits on top of the capital was cast, disassembled, reassemb led and twisted to the top of that capital by slaves. the forest between the capital in the white house was cleared by slaves. but not a tablet, monument tablet, monument, in museum exist to commemorate the victims of the american holocaust. ♪ ♪ >> host: randall robinson is our guest on "in-depth" we have one hour left of our program and call you have been patient. your from georgia please go ahead with randall robinson. >> caller: you thank you very much. i have three questions. i have been a passionate follow word of your work i want to thank you for your struggle and all the things you have dug for black people all over the world. >> guest: thank-you. >> caller: the first question what are your thoughts about imperialism as a philosophy? your work for you right scam of black people in america and all over the world dash light violations from the american empire. is it any different how the roman empire or any other in history has treated other people. >> host: very quickly your second and third and we will try to get to all three. >> caller: what is your thought of the u.s. role of the overthrow of gaddafi in the viet? said the third question is as a radical democrat whittier thoughts of the key of africa because he faces a situation that he has named himself president for life as a necessity against the imperialists efforts to remove him. thank you very much. >> host: are your originally from ghana? >> caller: yes i am. >> host: thank you. imperialism compared to the roman empire? >> guest: we have the united -- the united states as a military footprint in over did the country's. with of the reasons we're so resistance to ratify the criminal court is we don't want to see a circumstance in which any american might ever of old the international criminal court for anything at any time. so for those that don't have that kind of exposure in a number of wars at the same time not involved with so many countries in the end military fashion didn't have that same risk united states has had. so i think it describes what we are doing. we are interested after world war ii opening for american trade and products to develop those markets for americans and american businesses. that takes on some of the earmarks of vampire. so i think that is a fair description to call it an american empire. i don't think the comparisons to the roman empire are perhaps so apt because the time is so different. do we use the military to accomplish these objectives? military? probably are we interested did profits? yes. we tolerate human rights crimes id china at the same time we try to crush cuba. it is doing the best it can to develop its health care system under the american embargo had almost killed medical equipment in some surgery's were made impossible because of the embargo and children were dying. we continued but we would never consider that to try them because that would not be in our interest. now the second question of the killing of gadaffi, i think that was unfortunate. i never wanted to send u.s. military into south africa i thought that would have been a mistake there and don't think that is the way to build democracy and any time you create the downfall of the tyrant to court day democratic military means you find the restoration of order it is difficult to accomplish. the problems follow you in those cases but that doesn't mean it is not a tripling consequence of a feat that was a mistake to do what we did in namibia and the way he was executing that we may endure some responsibility is more urgent. third, although i thought he was a marvelous color and i've read a great deal of his work very closely and was impressed by it as yet a special connection to the united states he was a graduate of lincoln university in pennsylvania and donna was the first country in 1957 to accomplish and dependence that gave the black community a great deal of pride. . . and a now, it starts and moves forward and cuts us off from any access to african history, which was not what woodson in tended. and so, we obviously owe the value of our higher to those people who suffered so much and those who are descended from those people who worked for 246 years for nothing. we owed them something for that, but we owe them the story of themselves. we have been asked to expect that people can survive in good, sound psychological health, on ashes and obliterated history. when i was a child in richmond, virginia, weiss to have this phrase that we used all the time. from here to timbuktu. but, nobody knew what timbucktoo was. nobody knew the meaning of the word. didn't know where it was and didn't even know it was a place. timbucktoo of course was a crossroads of commerce but it was also a site the site of one of the world's first universities of san kora which was built before the blackmore's ilk the first university in spain at sala make a and 7-eleven a.d.. and so still in timbuktu you have all of these manuscripts written between five a.d. and 15 a.d., literature and support manuscripts of the highest quality written by african and arab scholars. and we knew nothing about it. we didn't know anything about the queen of sheba who is described by this claim of sheba. she. she lived all of her life and ox him which is approximately where it ethiopia is today. that sheba was and what is now yemen, but it was shortened to the queen of sheba. but the bible describes her as a woman of blacks can but in the movie it was played by gina lola bridget and sell all of our story was taken and the plot of all of this is people have history because they need it. people developed cultures and mores and issues because they need them to stay in good health. that is how we make social progress. a great jamaican once said that living without your story, without memory is like driving without a real memory -- rearview mirror except it's more dangerous to live without your story. so the point is that we were cut off from all of that and then renamed. when i was a child we were called. no one knew what the providence was at that word, where it came from and what it was supposed to mean but it was a part of the ball that was built to separate those who were stolen and used and exploited from their african story. and so if everyone in the world has a story so did we. the second thing is for example, they have the highest crime rate in the country, violent crime rate on indian reservations. the question is, like? what awful thing happened that would cause this situation for them? the same is true in the case of african-americans and when it was all over, this awful chapter from the beginning of slavery 246 years followed by virtually a century of pnh which people were essentially forced to work for knowing him in income in the south and then legal segregation before the end of the voting rights act, that nightmare had ended and during that nightmare untold sums of lives have been wrecked and the social damage is still witnessed and so we all an acknowledgment to the fact that this is not peculiar to the united states that you don't want to acknowledge. the people of turkey don't want to acknowledge the genocide against the people of 1915. jenna does not want to acknowledge its discriminations in tibet or in western china against the uyghur people. many nations hide from their past but we owe people the truth. we owe them their history and we owed them repair and we are not doing that. not only that, we don't even want to talk about it as a society. >> host: you say that this loss of heritage is comparable to the holocaust and some of the other genocides. >> guest: the holocaust was 12 years. this was 246 years plus the century that people lost where they lost their languages. they. they lost their culture, they lost everything. many people had their severed. people lost their tongues. thomas jefferson when he was a boy at two years old had a relationship with a 14-year-old girl, sally hammonds, that he owned and wasn't from the -- we know what it would be called today. that was routine. we lost any idea of who we were. it was our past, our memory was banished and we worked ourselves to an early death. rebuilt the capital, built the white house, and doubt harvard law school which was endowed by isaac royal from the proceeds and the sale of slaves that he owned and antigua in the west indies. these things were retained so any american institution transfers the wealth that they got from the work of people who were not paid to their families and making their line rich and impoverishing those who had been stolen and used in this way. >> host: mr. robinson how far back can you trace your family's history? >> guest: i am very fortunate in that we have pictures. i can go back to my grade, at great-grandparents with pictures and with my great great great grandparents with the story of their lives in the united states. but that is extremely lucky. >> host: it in "the debt" what america owes to blacks you wrote what white society must be induced to do, own up to slavery and acknowledge its debt to slavery's contemporary victims. pay that debt and massive restitution's. rebuild the black esteem it destroyed by democratizing access to a trove of history's to which blacks contributed to prominently. when you talk about slavery's contemporary victims, what do you mean? >> guest: when segregation ended, there were those of us, and i was very fortunate to, a headstrong parents and an intact family. both of my parents had finished college. my father taught history in high school. my mother taught until she stopped to rear for children. and that meant everything to us. and so while we were damaged by segregation and we have a home. we had a family that was intact, that was sound and that was strong. 's so many people didn't have that, so they were exposed to the brute sharp edge of what was happening to them. and i think there were some of us who were in a position to move out once segregation ended. i was among that group. until that time, do we and those who were -- were stuck in the same boat. we were closed in to each other. some of us were able to go up and out. others of us could not. and so, we cleaved into two parts i think even then and i am not sure that those institutions that fought so hard at one time have fought the same tenacious battles for those who remain stuck today. so we have got the largest prison population in the world. over 2 million people, of the largest in the world-3/4 of those who face the death penalty are black and hispanic. half of the prison population is black. because of the way people's lives have been involved but also because of the unfairness in our criminal justice system. we see that for non-violent drug crimes. we constitute 14% of those who commit those crimes but roughly if i still have the figures right, if something like that a 6% of those prosecuted and close to 75% of those incarcerated. one sentence for a pound of cocaine and another sentence for crack-cocaine. the pound is essentially what white people used. the sentence is much lower than it is for crack-cocaine which is what black people have used. so the system is unfair. the history has been cruel and in many cases very little has changed for those people. >> host: in "quitting america" you write for all of my life, i have wished only to live in america that would but reciprocate my loyalty. at country that would absorb -- exhort from the several and diverse mounts of its decision-making authority and ideal of public candor and unconditional compassion in a country that would say without reserve to its disadvantage to its involuntary victims to native americans to african-african- americans to the wretchedly poor of all colors stripes tongues and religions that your country wronged you in separate and discrete ways, gronke with horrific and lingering consequences, wronged you in some cases from long ago and for a very long time, to a degree that would morally compel any civilized nation serious and sustained attention. >> guest: we don't want to talk about it. we still don't want to talk about it. we run from it. we now call it victimization, so it's not to be raised. it's a sad truth. >> host: why did you leave the country? >> guest: well i was as much going to a place as leaving a place. i have been going to st. kitts in the caribbean for 25 years, and it's a small island. it is made for someone like me who doesn't like big crowded places, big cities. it's an exquisitely beautiful place with mountains and clear blue water and a kind of smallness that allows the kind of intimacy you seldom go downtown and don't see someone that you know. but the biggest piece of it is that the woman i loved and married is from st. kitts, so we had decided many years ago that we were going to build a home their, which we did 11 years ago. so hazel and i have been there all that time and our daughter khalia went to high school there and finished high school and came back here to college and so that was one reason the. i was also wary -- weary, tired of the struggle that had depleted me. america had worn me out. simply because there are things that can't be talked about, has no tolerance for that kind of honesty and has no plans to make anything right. as if it says, and and i heard it say we have stopped the act of crime, and so if there is damage, then we are walking away from that. it's as if to say at the end of slavery, you could sort of like in this to two runners in the race. you take it done and shoot one runner in both legs and sounds the gun and you say now run. you can't catch up. there are people who had had everything taken from them. and the things that are not material are even more important. it's your software. it's your interior plumbing. it's what you have been caused to think of yourself, how you see yourself, the confidence or lack thereof in which you're trying to run any race. it was drained from many people over that love period and it's not like anything that has happened. we are talking about the longest running massive crime against humanity, the last 1000 years in the world. it's not like we bombed not the sake and hiroshima. and it is incinerated hundreds of thousands of people and in literally minutes because if the japanese who survived can remember their literature, can remember their culture and their traditions and put it all back up again, if the people who have lost it all, mothers, fathers, children, traditions, cultures, ways of living, then they don't know how to begin. i have jewish friends and hazel and i some years ago when we were in washington went to a bar mitzvah to see the launching of this adolescent son into adulthood. bland praise comes say all these wonderful things about a child. such a wonderful cultural traditional right of a ceremony to practice. there have been things like that still practiced in africa but the lost all of that. so your cause to reinvent culture almost every generation, that's a lot of damage. and it has to be acknowledged and it has to be reckoned with. >> host: randall robinson how much time do you spend in the states now? >> guest: i come up a few times. i was the dean of penn state law school that i have known for a couple of years, philip mcconaumcconau ghey called me and asked me if i would like to teach human rights courses and i spent all of my life in human rights and growing out of what i've been talking about. i said i would be happy to, so i teach a human rights course at penn state law school and i come up about three times a semester. arrested that we do via video so it works wonderfully. >> host: have you kept your u.s. citizenship? >> guest: oh yes. >> host: why? >> guest: my mother and father and my grandparents survived that for me. it is my duty. >> host: in "quitting america" the departure of a black man from his native land written in 2004 and by the way have you changed any of your views since the election of barack obama? >> guest: i remember my mother when he was nominated, hazel and khalia and i were in montréal. she called me at the hotel. she was i think 93 then. she said, and she was crying. [inaudible] i didn't need that telling. i always knew this. america is many places. it is a place that can be tolerant and accepting, a place where views can be moderated and differences can be reconciled. and i think a good deal of america supported vigorously the candidacy of a rock obama. and it's not only important to the black community. it's important to other americans as well. but he still faces a sort of vicious kind of ridicule from certain borders that are not unlike the america we saw when i was young in richmond, virginia. but, i think there are several americans -- i had grown tired of at least one of them. >> host: and "quitting america" you wrote america never helps anyone, even the starving and list its proposed to an american interest either strategic or economic and one cannot always distinguish one from the other. >> guest: well that's certainly largely true in foreign assistance. foreign assistance always has to be associated with a strategic purpose. when we look at what we did as a country to haiti, to thomas jefferson did everything he could to defeat the haitian revolution. the only successful slave revolt in the history of the hemisphere if these people turned back an army from spain, armies of 60,000 apiece from england and france twice and won their freedom, opened their doors to freeing slaves all over the world, gave them a weapon and muskets and soldiers to fight for freedom and black america in exchange for freeing slaves there, a promise he didn't keep but they did all of these things and america did everything they could to quash this haitian quest for freedom for people who had been enslaved. and when they won their revolution, they took with it two-thirds of france's foreign income because that was the most valuable colony in the world. now, that survives even until now. frederick douglass spoke at the ship cargo world's fair in 1893 and mystified about how hostile the united states has always been towards haiti, hostile towards them because they won their freedom. we did everything we could to overthrow the democratically-elected government of president aristide. george bush blocked loans from the interamerican development foundation of $146 million loans for education, water and things like that. the international republican institute arranged and organized the opposition to it and then we as a country trained rebel soldiers in the dominican republic, trained and armed them to come to haiti to overthrow the government and then the last analysis, those were a pulse didn't figure into it. bush carried out the coup himself on american soldiers who arrived at the home of the president and took him off at 3:00 in the morning to the central african republic. we have to had to go there. maxine waters, a jamaican parliamentarian and sharon webster and the president's lawyer flew off to rescue him to bring him back to jamaica and then condoleezza rice threatened to make the jamaican government -- threatened to make it very difficult for them if jamaica accepted aristide even for a matter of days before he went to south africa. all because he said the minimum income ought to be raced from 1 dollar a day to $2 a day. the sweatshops of essentially white in haiti combined with american authorities to get him thrown out of office. if you look at the history of america and what we do and why we do it to, it is not a pretty picture. >> host: in your most recent nonfiction book, "an unbroken agony" haiti, from revolution to the kidnapping of a president from 2007 you write in haiti's 200 year history of one is hard put to identify a single episode of organized human suffering in which the u.s. did not play a direct, collateral or instigator of role. >> guest: we didn't recognize haiti until after the emancipation and the united states. from 1804 until the end of the civil war, week combined with all of the western powers to smother haiti, to destroy haiti and then in 1825 friends imposed sanctions on haiti saying that they had to be paid $21 billion for having lost the right to use haitian slaves. so it's the first time in history ever that the winner of a warhead to pay reparations to the loser. and then after 1950, woodrow wilson invades haiti and stays for 19 years, kills thousands of people with american marines and takes the peasant leader of the revolt in haiti in response to this invasion and nails him up on a board for public display to demonstrate to people what the consequences could be when you fight back against america. and then, a chain of black presidents working at the direction of the united states duvalier's son kills 50,000 people and that was fine. aristide, the first democratically-elected resident said we are responsible for the coup that took him out of office. the bush administration did it directly. not covered in the american press. the american press said that he fled to south africa, when he was taken to the central republic. we had to go there to rescue him and jamaica braved the american storm to keep them there until he could go to south africa. we were responsible for that overthrow of the democratic government in haiti. and the haitians we owe so much, because the haitian revolution first of all made possible the louisiana purchase because napoleon was done with the empire as a result of that humiliating thing. secondly, after haiti, after that revolution the north atlantic slave trade was ended by britain and the united states at the last sort of breath of that was the end of the civil war. all of this was precipitated by the haitian revolution. people in the united states know nothing about the history, nothing about the story including african-americans. so we owe so much to those haitians, ex-slaves, who defeated for the four of the most powerful armies in europe in the 12 and a half year war for their freedom. what. what a great story of history. >> host: this month on booktv's "in depth" program author and activist randall robinson. he is the author of five nonfiction books. here they are beginning in 1998, mr. robinson wrote in 2000 "the debt" what america owes to blacks and "the reckoning" what blacks owe to each other came out in 2002 and "quitting america" the departure of a black man from his native land in 2004 and finally "an unbroken agony" haiti, from revolution to the kidnapping of a president. 202 is area code if you would like to dial in and participate in our conversation with randall robinson 585-3880 for those of you in eastern and central timezones and 585-3881 in the mountain and pacific timezones. you. you can also contact us via e-mail or go booktv at c-span.org or social media. you can make a comment on our facebook page. facebook.com/booktv or send us a tweet at booktv -- @booktv is our twitter handle. randall robinson what is transafrica? >> guest: transafrica is the organization that i began in 1976 to galvanize african-american opinion on foreign-policy issues, particularly issues that concern the black world, u.s. policy towards africa, the caribbean and latin america. so transafrica of course was the organization that used its incher mentalities to galvanize american opposition to apartheid and with the embassy arrests that we were able to organize the arrest of 5000 people and in the 1980s and 1984 and the next year, and with that working with members of congress. we won the support for the set of sanctions that president reagan vetoed and his veto was overridden by a republican-controlled senate excess of the work we did and the millions we organized to make a difference. that, coupled with the great work that was being done in south africa led to a new africa that we see today. but we have been doing that work over a period of time. i had been there 25 years when i stepped down. >> host: who are maxey and doris robinson? >> guest: maxie robinson was my father and doris robinson was my mother. and i have already introduced you to them. they had strong opinions and they were extraordinary parents and they were extremely principled people. i remember when my brother max was with abc news as the chicago anchor and he had gone to smith college to make a speech. he was critical of abc and i was so proud of him because in him i saw my father and the kinds of things that he has stood for when we were children. >> host: did that hurt max robinson's career? >> guest: oh, itch or did. there's no question. but i think he thought as much as he loved his work, he thought there were a few things more important. >> host: and "defending the spirit" a black life in america you write about -- when were you born? and what was your first 20 years like, your first 18 years like? >> guest: two realities. i was happy in our home and family. epic family. i had brothers and sisters and everybody was nearby. we saw everybody and a lot of family all the time. and so all of that was wonderful and joyous but the conditions under which we were living were horrid. although i could go for works with -- weeks without seeing a white person the experience when you have them were -- every lesson that was taught was designed to teach you that you are inferior. and i remember caddying on a golf course and my father had encouraged me not to do it. >> host: and encouraged you not to do it? >> guest: no, carrying bags for people and i did it and i remember rattling the clubs in the bag on the green and this was a country club in virginia. the golfer turned to me and said if you rattle those clubs again i will rattle you. i dropped the bag and walked off and went home. it was sort of like that and some of them had us witnessing our parents having to accept what was going on. mother would have to put a cap on her head before she could try on a hat in the stores in the downtown richmond. one store, could tell those on gray street, you would just go in and stand and no one would wait on you. as if you were not there. and when we would even go to chinese restaurants to give food , the chinese had to live by these rules so we would have to go up some stairs to the kitchen and get the food to carry out. when it was empty except for us we would still have to sit in the back and behind the line. these things register on your psyche and they think they stay there for a lifetime. >> host: from "defending the spirit" winter 1967 cambridge massachusetts. you write, i have a ride from segregation is segregationists virginia to attend harvard law school. my first year of class of more than 500 students is divided into four sections. my section is sitting through a tort lecture given by a young professor charles free. professor freed was born in prague czechoslovakia in 1935 and was educated at princeton and oxford and columbia and will become solicitor general of the end ask -- u.s. under president ronald reagan. you talk about some of her classmates and one of them is mark joseph green, liberal democrat of cornell university in great neck new york. repressor freed asks, can anyone think of an actionable nuisance we haven't touched on today? mark joseph green says, what about black people moving into a neighborhood? a thoughtful discussion ensued and sanders looks at me. we all look at each other in our faces portrayed little. in any case the privileged young white scholars are oblivious. their legal arguments to be mustard pro and con. the discussion of whether not the mere presence of blacks constitutes an inherent nuisance swirls around the five bucks. we say nothing. we cannot dignify insults with reason for a bottle in the choices between ventilated rage and silence reaches silence. >> guest: mark was running for office in new york recently and i haven't seen them since that experience but when he was running for office someone had read that in the book and a journalist and asked me of course about it. i told him and something about that was published. mark did not deny it but he said he couldn't remember and i thought about the african proverb. they ask for gifts but the tree remembers. >> host: when you hear the term bill clinton is the first -- black president of the united states what are your thoughts? >> guest: oh my. i think it's absurd personally. i think sometimes we have been denied the highest attention for so long that when people attend our church and they know the hymns or they play the saxophone reasonably well, we accord them credit that is largely undeserved. bill clinton was returning that fleeing haitian refugees who had been fleeing the military dictatorship that we armed and supported in haiti, and he cordoned the place with ships and copies people and turned them over to their killers. in rwanda, in the u.n. it was ambassador madeleine albright who has to take some responsibility for it but deaths of 500,000 tutsis in rwanda because she single-handedly obstructed do you win intervention with the support of bill clinton. when a handful of nations and thecrbe st. lucia, dominica and a few others, banana producing nation's, had a small slice of the european market to export their finance, though clinton fought and threatened with 100 or send those european countries that were given that market opportunity to the east caribbean banana producers who only produced bananas. that was what they're a common these were based on. but he wanted that tiny bit, that slice of market opportunity to go to chiquita bananas whose ceo was a big supporter of his. but he couldn't have been a big a supporter as the black community had to him and so that was taken away from those producers and caribbean economies were significantly damaged. when he was asked to reconcile the differences between the sentence for the use and sale of crack-cocaine and powder cocaine, he talked about it but never did anything. on human rights, he never ratified -- he weakened the treaty before the international criminal court, but he never ratified. i really don't understand when you look at his record, outside of naming blacks to positions, i don't see some of the not so well-known things of course would reveal that he did some rather unsavory things to the black community nationally. i don't understand much of what he did as the basis for black support. >> host:>> host: randall robinsn writes about former president clinton, the dead -- "the debt" sipri. mr. robinson was the last time you talked to the president? >> guest: to president clinton? i have never talked to him. when i was on a 28 day hunger strike, trying to get him to stop rounding up people and sending those people to their deaths in haiti, on the 28th day i was hospitalized, the 26th day, dehydrated and hospitalized and they thought i was going to die. he send sandy bergman who was my law school classmates to talk to me to see whether i was really dying and sandy came with an offer that if i would agree to end the hunger strike he would agree to screen haitian refugees. it was all i was asking for. when you are fleeing with it will founded fear of persecution under international human rights law, than all the member nations of the united nations have an obligation to provide refuge to you. that. that is all i was asking for. he knew these people were fleeing with a well-founded fear of ursa keeshan. we were supplying the weapons for these folks. but he kept doing it. but when the hunger strike publicized all of that and he thought i might die, he send sandy to make an offer. but i never once spoke to him. he's simply said to the press that he was glad that i was out there. i want to stay out there doing this and they never knew what he meant by that. i have never talked to him at all. >> host: what did you say to sandy? >> guest: it wasn't a long discussion. i was in bed and hazel was with me and i largely listened and he told me what the offer was and i told him that i would accept that offer. he asked if i would appear with him on "meet the press" i think sunday, which was the next day. i told him that i would. >> host: randall robinson is. >> host: randall robinson's or guess it now it's your turn. a call from bruce in marianna georgia. hi bruce. >> caller: thanks for having me on. i am black and i was born on the south side of chicago and i have two questions. the first question is, really, what has the black political class really done for us in terms of great victories in the last 40 years? this may be 1972, part from the illustrious careers. your career and barack's career. what have they done for us really since then a number two is susan rice nomination, when susan rice was nominated for secretary of state for whole black political class closed ranks around her as if she was some kind of martyr or as susan rice the undersecretary of african affairs in the clinton administration. she was a lobbyist for ethiopians and rwandans and our policy has been to give military aid to every country in africa. we have completely militarized our africa policy. we give military aid to every country on the continent except -- in libya and it's the only place where our foreign policy is totally integrated with our diplomacy. that is what africom is and all the wars there in the congo, six or 7 million people have died since the mid-90s and susan rice had been -- in blood. >> host: all right bruce, lot on the table there. randall robinson. >> guest: let me be brief about susan rice. i have been troubled by those associations that you have described. i don't know the extent of which the black political class has closed ranks or did close ranks around her. i have been out of the country a large part of the time although i do try to keep a, but i am not privy to that. i will say in defense of elected officials, i don't know that we could have won sanctions against south africa without the vigorous support of the congressional black caucus. every member of the congressional black caucus went to jail at the south african embassy and did a great deal to support the sanctions effort when we had a discussion about aristide. i was on the phone from my home in saint kitts when we were trying to find a place for him to be, after taken from the central african republic. maxine waters was on the call and charlie rangel was on the call and the prime minister of -- t.j. patterson of jamaica was on the call too and he told us that condoleezza rice had threatened him and the government of jamaica, if we would accept this democratically-elected president of haiti and jamaica, and he did it anyway but the caucus was very supportive and maxine was supportive. maxine waters, she went on this flight with us to the central african republic which was a dangerous mission to go and to meet with the president and the central african republic and to say to him as she did, i have to be back in congress but i'm not leaving here without president aristide and are you going to release him or not? he then called washington and he called paris and we were wheeled up with him, headed towards jamaica, him and his wife, an american citizen, american-born mildred aristide that had been up to it by the bush administration with the collaboration and the involvement of powell and condoleezza rice. and so the congressional black caucus under all of these things on the haiti issue as well as on the south african issue was solidly on the right side of the issue. >> host: what about the black political class as bruce mentioned in that call? >> guest: i think the bigger problem, the bigger problem is an american problem. and that is that most americans don't know very much about these issues. we are just not knowledgeable. you can't have a healthy democracy without the very enlightened citizenry and i am not sure that we know enough about what we are doing. if we are generally well bred enough, if we are connected to the outside world in a way that would give us stability, people on the outside see us differently than we see ourselves. they know in america what we don't know. and so, i think that applies to blacks as well as whites. >> host: gregory family or senior from what very minnesota in e-mails in, marching and protesting her old-school strategies. black folk have not evolved in the digital age. my opinion is we rely too much on emotional sympathetic appeals wind power and money moves the wheels in washington. what do you see going forward that can make for a more effective plan to advance our cause? >> guest: the reason i wrote my latest book, which is a novel , "makeda," has to do with the repair from the inside. i think this business of losing access to our story and our history has done incalculable damage to us, so that once real power -- one's real power to stand against the winds comes from inside and so it means that we have to know the world. we have to feel that we can change it and i don't think this is the kind of thing that you can charge two leaders along. it has to happen for everybody. and so this is a book about a grandmother who has lived previous lives. she was therefore the 11th dynasty in ancient egypt when mento hotel was in charge and had built this enormous empire and she was there in the first dynasty with armor. both of these egyptian leaders were black and we don't know anything about this. we don't know anything about the queen of sheba. we don't know anything about ethiopia and the dawn of christianity and ethiopia's role. we don't know anything about ancient molly where the people knew about the serious star system. they knew about stars that couldn't be seen with the naked eye and before the age of the telescope couldn't be seen at all. they had known about these stars for thousands of years. how they knew we don't know but they knew and they named them. and during the malian empire, the written constitution and the human rights flavor to the constitution. we don't know about these things and if you don't know your history, you are lost. and this book is about this wise and extraordinary woman who has had previous lives and she has seen a whole history from the age before slavery. and she tells it to her grandson so that he can be empowered by it. and so i think that is a part of our responsibility. we have to cause our country to give us a different kind of education about ourselves. we could learn something from native americans, something about climate change, something about how to treat the environment and something about culture and traditions. but we don't learn anything about anything, we only teach at it one way and that is the history that does not fit our petition particular situation. >> host:>> host: randall robinss your method or your lyricism and writing changed since moving to st. kitts full-time? >> guest: perhaps, perhaps because it's such a very lyrical place and it affords friendships of all kinds across and up and down socioeconomic lines, it's a wonderfully intimate plac's beed good for my family. >> when you are writing for the looking at from where you are sitting? >> guest: i don't look at the water and i don't get anything done. i go in a room upstairs in the house and i turn the ceiling fan on number one and let it move slowly and it makes you contemplative you know. i sit there and hope that something happens and frequently it does. so i'm very happy about that. i wrote cata in st. kitts so maybe it reflects that. >> host: how often do you wear that nice suit in st. kitts? >> guest: never. there are occasions i go to the prime minister's love once a year and there are formal occasions that i have to put it on. i don't freak that we wear long pants. it's a different face and a different life. it is made from a. >> host: before we go back to calls, and "quitting america" you have a chapter on st. kitts. two islands? >> guest: two islands, 35,000 people, between 25 and 40 on st. kitts and 10,000. >> host: colonized by the english? >> guest: by the english. able, well managed democracy and fiercely democratic. >> host: chapter 7, money, "quitting america." singer whitney houston came here once on a private jet with her husband bobby brown, who upon emerging from customs with data rollup 100-dollar bills passing them out to petitions outside the terminal. many if not most of them gave the money back. americans would find this as mr. brown did, he notes gout well but he couldn't have had ample opportunity to understand very much about how the culture works here. >> guest: hazel and i were driving in the countryside and we saw a flamboyant trade that we liked growing in a field. flamboyant tree is one of the prettiest trees and limbs between june and september. it's a brilliant red, orange with something between and it's just a wonderful tree in every way. so, we located the tree and nothing is going on. and so, we stopped and said welr the tree? i am and american and use the i have unfortunately some manners i shouldn't have but because you have it occasionally people stop an american start somewhere in the middle of the conversation by getting to the point. how much we take for the tree and he says -- for you and that sort of thing. so of course i am interested in buying the tree. he looked at me and he said the tree is not for sale. and i said well, but it's not doing anything there. he said no, it's not for sale. so i said suppose i offered $500. it was a modest sized tree. it was not a. you could still dig it out and replant it. most things are fairly easily replanted in the caribbean. it rained so much and is so warm. this is not for sale. i said suppose i offered you $1000. he said no, at no.

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