So little perspective on this moment, its quite impossible to say. I think the perception that many people in the United States and of course also around the world have that this is an extraordinary unusual time something we are the time out of time, will be curiosity in the future people will look back and wonder about that very wonderment i think its an interesting phenomenon. When you think about today do you compare it to any period in history . Jill lepore as a historian im interested in analogies we have a cognitive tendency to enjoy analogies to find d one thing to be like another all the time. Just in the same way and the kind of person that sees likenesses and family members, and look at a new baby and say, that looks just like great grandma someone so. Have the same time, even as they say i recognize a lot of that is minded perception, my need for familiarity. I think there has been for most of my career as a historian the question to ask historians is what time is this like.
You today by your television profess provideer. And now on book tv we are live with author and Harvard University history professor jill lepore who over the next 2 hours will be taking your calls and comments. Professors book include secret history of wonder woman, these truths, history of the United States and the newly published if then, about the cold war origins of data mining and social manipulation. Harvard professor jill lapore, before we get into the substance of your book, as a historian, what is your contemporary view of how our world is going to be viewed . [laughter] guest i think we have so little perspective on this moment that it is quite impossible to say. I think the perception that many people in the United States and, of course, also around the world have that this is an extraordinary uni shall time is something that we are in a time out of time will be a curiosity in the future. People will look back and wonder about that very sense alienation. I think that would be
Can to reverse in this country for a long time we saw ourselves as a country with a racial problem underneath that that there are pure races that exist in this country a white race from europe for a black race from africa and an asian race from asia and the latino race. I dont know where or even that the actual name comes after the attempt to take somebody something from somebody happens so define problem but really it is the things about we continue to do to this very day. But the way that racism is a figure into the idea of race we will talk about a particular power it was created through the housing policies sold talkedabout the place and also in our daily lives. Guest. Let me say the fact that we live separately every metropolitan area has a nervous implications for so maybe you can start there and talk about housing in and how it affects us in our daily lives. Let me say the fact that we live separately every metropolitan area has a nervous implications for those that we face i sp
Test captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2008 some democrats were perfectly willing to have integration in the north as long as they could preserve segregation in the south, going back to the time of slavery, never a dispute whether it could be prohibited in the north, we had border state problems in missouri and kansas, but the north was free to integrate as long as is the south could preserve segregation. That doesnt explain the housing issue. The other reason i think is that well i guess its not really an answer to your question why they did it, why its so hard to think about this problem, and that is we desegregated formally every area of American Life but when we desegregate busses the next day africanamericans can sit anywhere on the bus, desegregated lunch counters and the next day africanamericans could sit down at the lunch counters. We desegregated schools and the next day, but we desegregate neighborhoods what happens . How do we put our heads around what were
That deep, deep research that goes to the bones of our country and unearths the things we are not interested in talking about. So im deeply thankful to richard and i am paying back the favor by being here in conversation with him. The second part of this is there is an notion i have been doing whatever i can to reverse this. We have conceived of ourselves as a country with a racial problem. Underneath of that is there notion is that there are pure races in this country, a white race from europe, a black race from africa, and asian race from asia a latino race that hails from, i dont quite know where. Increasingly in arab and muslim race. This is the path we are going down and what this language does is obscure the fact that race and racism in america is a done thing, that the name comes after the attempt to take something from somebody and what that allows us to do is feel like we are some sort of divine, god in with some sort of divine, god made problem when we are in fact dealing wit