Transcripts For CSPAN2 Book TV 20240622

Theyre not as good as the fouryear Public Institution degree but that theyre allowing people who are working without degrees to go back, often times in their 30s and get i think theres plenty of public in most places theres plenty of public options. I worked for free for the university of the people, that is essentially free. And just as good as the university of phoenix which is going to charge you a lot of money for exactly the same amount of educationsive convenience. I think the language that would work in america in american politics you hear the plate tall pundits is the fact that these are not this is not private enterprise. This is corporate welfare. Theyre getting the public really known cussing on the fact that theyre just hoovering up Public Resources theyre not really free theyre not really businesses that are standing in competition in the real economy. Theyre just these just like defense contractors with no bid. Theyre just something that are actually just like welfare sucking off the government, and that is a language that most americans will resonate with and will turn the tide, i think rather than focusing just strategically to focus on that, on them taking our money, rather than the fact that the damage it does to the students, which is the ultimate issue but in terms of political tactics focusing on the fact theyre taking taxpayer dollars would the more effective argument. Uhhuh. For me im going to go with one big philosophical transformation, so not necessarily a policy intervention, and then one smaller thing. I think the smaller thing is to close the mismatch between the extent of student loan funding pell grants that are available to people that often are unable, firsttime collegegoers, to Access College opportunity. Close the gap between pll grants following behind and tuition costs rising over time. And then my big philosophical transformation this is something we havent yet touched on but that keeps coming back to me in every conversation i have like this, and that is that as a society we tend to think we can get equality on the cheap. We think that we can do this by tinkering around with policy designs, and not actually challenging the private decisions that all of us make daily in our lives and one of those decisions that i think is still very politically correct it is not theres no public norm. Theres a big public norm against discrimination but theres not a public norm against constantly reaffirming segregated neighborhoods. So the affluent are incentivized to make private decisions to accumulate more wealth to keep their kids in an i live in knew new haven and i see this. The yale faculty and anyone affiliated with yale lives in one specific neighborhood, and there is one specific good school for the entire city of new haven and they all send their kids to that one specific good school. Or they if they cant get into that school, they send them to private education. I think until theres a real norm against private behaviors like that, were just going to keep having the same conversation across generations. In other words ive seen this month progressives, liberals, who believe to their core in equality and they want to do the right thing but then theyll say, bit decided to live in this neighborhood and i decided to send my kid to this school, and i make a little donation to the other school in that neighborhood and i feel okay about it. I think until theres a strong public norm against private behaviors that accumulate wealth and that drives enter generational enter generational wealth accumulation, were not going to get very far. So thats any bigie. If the genie was here and i could wish for anything it would be the similar norm against education would exist against private choices that adduce benefits regularly and that hurt. Dont have a language that these actions actually hurt others. They draw down resources for failing schools. They mean you dont interact with neighbors who have different income levels. They mean you dont even need to see the poor on a regular basis and i think that until we have that conversation, you can tinker around with getting rid of the Home Mortgage interest deduction, tinker around with maybe my other suggestion, increasing pell grants but were not going to get very far. Let me ask a question with that. So sort of bold, lets sort of change even the way were thinking about it. So what would we say as an alternative . Ill give a bit of a personal story. We lived in chicago for 12 years, and we were one of the i guess, black special families that moved back to the hood. And maybe the first couple of month we were there there two two boys coming buy on a bicycle, and we got in a conversation got going to school and he went to school in the local school in the neighborhood. When i asked him about the school he said do not send your children there. So this is a young black boy just broke may heart for him to say it. But he went on to talk about just how challenging it was and that he it was this tenyearolds recommendation, based on his experience, that he should i should not send my children there. So what does one do, then . What does one do with that norm . It doesnt the norm isnt wrong but speaks to the totality of what would need to actually change in order for that conversation. Im not sure exactly and this isnt what i study but why not organize a Community Jump where several families that believe in the value of not just getting your kid up the ladder but of giving them a diverse environment, and teaching them the value of living around people with different means and teaching them value i live in a similar neighborhood, and 90 black and latino, mostly working class, lots of people falling under the asset poverty line, as it were. If i didnt live in that neighborhood i wouldnt have a chance to give me old laptop to to 12yearold kid that lives next door to me. Wouldnt have the chance to interact and say check out the preschool my kid goes to. And people said to us the same thing. Its more criminal in that neighborhood. Your housing value wont appreciate this, this and a third. And you know what . Were fine. And i like it. And i think theres value in my childs learning to not hyper segregate himself and i wanted to i guess thats my big kind of if i were to transform something it would be that. I dont know how you do it. Maybe when he gets to regular school age ill have different feelings. But theres its really funny to me how quickly people become pseudo scientific when it comes to their own children. And when it comes to their own decisions about where to live. Theres no science saying that if you send your child to a school that doesnt have the greatest test scores that the bad test scores will rub off an your kids. Theres no science saying that. So why not embrace the actual science, which is that parenting matters, that reading to your kid matters that talking to them matters and regardless of what schools theyre going to. But i think that this conversation is not one that im seeing in the New York Times, not one that im hearing. In fact i hear quite the opposite. The regular messages when we first moved to yale, you need to live in this neighborhood, you need to send your kid to this school. Its not just yale. Its not just yale. Its my example but youre absolutely right. Its everywhere. William . Until we october of these things in structural terms and not individual terms we wont have the change we need. I think it is important that people struggle, as you explained, with your own situation, and how you live your life. That is important for each and every one of us. But change comes when people get together organize, demand that the sim change, and that thats really the issue. I would endorse the suggestions that you made on education and there are thousands of these changes that would make a difference. The freedom budget, black lives matter now has an Economic Program that some people are working on, which i think is very good. We know what needs to change. The question is how to change. So i was thinking, your genie coming here and granting us the wish, anybody here probably not as old as i am but remember ozzie davis play, pearlie victorious you remember the genie, and he turns that racist cracker black and it was such a great image because if white people could understand black reality and just get out of what theyre in well, ozzie davis was great and it was brilliant but thats what id ask of the genie, the problem is stupid white people and scared white people. Mostly scared white people. And until they understand why where their impression comes from and its not from blacks we cant have the kind of changes thats going to make a difference for people of color. So i go for ozzie davis genie and help white americans understand a great deal more about the realities that people here have been describing, that people in the audience know very well. Because academics were always asked for policy advice. Im going out to detroit to be an Expert Witness at a trial against the emergency financial manager in detroit but its not just detroit. Every black city practice dominantly black city in michigan has an emergency financial manager who has taken over from the democratically elected governor, while white cities in as bad shape a lot of white cities in detroit that should have but they dont because theyre white. Sort of basic stuff that has to be fought, got to be understood, has to be seen structurally and has to be changed through collective action. So i want that genie to help me organize the white folks. Thank you. Let me build off of that. With the followup question. What would you say to someone like me, just a concerned citizen talking very high level policy and sometimes when we talk very high level we talk policy and were often asked about policy its much clearer for say a concerned citizen what one can do. So, lets say i this is were done here and i walk off and say incredible, im not a policymaker, i dont know any policymaker, i dont have enough wealth to influence policymaker. What are some things that i can do . Each of us is going to work in ways that seem sensible to us and that are consistent with who we are and we cant tell people you know, that some people here might have been a year ago a man was selling loose cigarettes in Staten Island and got murdered bay cop. Well a year later that is still eric garners reality and the eric garners in across the country, and until we manifest in large enough numbers and with the intensity to change that, it doesnt change. But what we see happening as people get angry as they get organized, de blasio is a decent guy and i think he is making some differences. I think we support the politicians who do good stuff but we also say that its the system that is broken. This is a broken, sick system and it needs changing, and the only way its going to change is through organization. Now, as individuals were each small. We cant do it, as you say just a concerned guy. What are you going to do . But we can give money to the organizations to support the young people who are out there when were not so young anymore and the marching isnt quite as easy for us. We can teach them and give. The a sense of the history of the only changes that matter came through struggle. Frederick douglass, without struggle and thats what we can do. Even if it seems small collectively as we all do it, the world changes and thats basically all the genie could tell you. Its a very good question. I think there are organizations out there that are pushing Economic Justice initiatives. Theres one starting up, i serve on the Advisory Council for it, at the center for community change, for example. A way thats going to reorient and make economic demands. Right . So i think supporting their efforts i think also more broadly, realizing that all of our fateslinked. Whether youre wealthy or not your fate is linked. We as political scientist have begun to say that we have reached levels of income and wealth inequality that make us look more like an oligarch can i than a democracy and the stream levels of wealth inequality and income inequality are hurting the democratic function of our system. Theyre actually contributing to Political Polarization, contributing to spatial sorting so it youve look at maps from then 1970s versus today youre much more likely to police in counties with other people of similar political persuasions. It has meant that the parties have pulled further and further apart. Its more difficult to get compromise legislation through. The ach achievement notwithstanding its extremely hard to eek out political broad consensus on legislation and conditions of extreme polarization and that polarization i think has everything to do with wealth polarization and income inequality. They track each other. If you look at Political Polarization and income inequality they track neatly. So i think by realizing that were kind of all in this boat together and if were all in an oligarchic boat, how safe are any of our achievements . Right . When we are you see this in tax dynamics all the time. When you are forced to pay for emergency healthcare of somebody else, or when you are forced to pay for failing schools over there and youre paying in new haven its not uncommon for somebody to own a regular old house and be paying 35,000 in property taxes. Because the poverty over there i might be able to keep it over there and live in a different neighborhood but im going be taxed for it. Im going to be paying for it. So i think until we have that broader conversation that we have really reached levels of racial and classbased inequality that are just simply not sustainable for the Democratic Health of our nation. I think that can be a sort of broader mental transformation that makes people realize okay, its in my interests to support bringing people above the asset poverty line. Im of the small little policies from universal preschool to an Early Childhood to paid family leave to Something Like a nest egg for every american when theyre born that they can accrue and everybody can have, by virtue of being born to this rich country have a nest egg a Sovereign Wealth Fund where we all own one share by virtue of our citizenship. I can go on and on literally probably not in a thousand but maybe a hundred different policies getting rid of the cap on Social Security and on fica taxation. To save our pension system, our public pension system. Rather than raising the retirement age as william mentioned. But iles recognize you dont get those thousand changes without a social movement behind it. Id like to ask my panelists what you think because we had this moment with obama wall occupy well street a couple years ago and it passed and seemed like there was a potential for some real policy change or political change from that, and now that seems to have slipped beyond our grasp. So that is i assume what youre talking about in terms of social movements william but what could we have done differently or do differently now . Im stumped. Thats a great question. I think the way things are going, that we talked about the shrinking middle class and again, Something Like the statistics are 25 of young white people born after 1970 to middle class families dropped out of the middle class. Its 37 for africanamericans born into the middle class have dropped out. So this slink shhh rinking of the middle class as impacted black people and has impacted white people, too and with the globalization, the loss of jobs that factory jobs that people without skills, without education could do, those jobs going abroad to the global south, with technological changes that have taken even accountants, paralegals theres a lot in the Information Processing arena where processing can do so much. Even retail trade with amazon and having stuff delivered to your door, people are working in warehouses at very low wages under horrible conditions. We dont see them. Theyre preparing this stuff that you buy but you dont see the exploitation. The better jobs, the unionized jobs the jobs with protection, with lifetime security, have been disappearing. The public sector, the attack on teachers and saying that poverty is no excuse just because a kid comes to school hungry and goes to a place where theres no room to study and prepare for school the next day. That none of this matters. Its the fault of the parents. Its the fault of the teachers. Were interesting were in this period that is a very dramatically different period than the post war period. The technology, the globalization, the financialization, so many of us are in debt and that the debt is dominating our lives and the inability to get out of that debt. This is stronger in europe because the euro has created problems for the peripheral countries, greece, and others, and in america were actually doing better than these countries, but were not doing well. And so were in a very different historical period, and it is my sense that, especially the young people know this and we will see i was thinking as you were talking when i was in college, the vietnam war was just starting, and a group of us antiwar activists before there was an Antiwar Movement every week would go to a different dormitory a different fraternity and explain that kennedy had sent socalled helpers to train the south but what was really going on this was going to it was very frustrating because we never thought we would get anywhere. But as things developed more people joined the Antiwar Movement. The same with the Civil Rights Movement. When the kids sat down at the counters but things, i think we are entering a period where were in a period where thats going to happen. It has to happen because what is happening to so many people in this country is not good, and its the inequality that you both were talking about. It is more extreme than any year not since 1929 but since 1928 as you pointed out once the depression started the rich lost a lot but the difference was this time around, the federal government gave it all back to them. And that is why the ruling class did not have the same interests as the new deal did in dealing with the system to create a demand ask create jobs and so on because with globalization everybody is trying to do it through exports to somebody else but unless the martians are going to buy a lot of stuff china cant keep experting because we cant keep buying it. So youre working with a very serious, very serious Global Economic situation and again while it seems big like the war in vietnam or the Civil Rights Movement there will be organizations. There has to be, and the kind of changes, the big and small i certainly agree with all of the small suggestions. Theyre not so small. They make a big difference for real people and youre really right about that. But i think that theres going to have to because were going to have a more jobless economy. There are too many people looking for work and not finding it. It means wages are going to continue to be pressed down. It means the one percent the one percent is getting 95 of the increase in national income. So growth really doesnt help the other 99 because 95 of it is going to them. We have had wage stagnation for three coming on four decades now of peoples money incomes going up but their real income after adjusting for price changes has been stagnant, and for a lot of people surviving is a real issue, and i think that what is preventing the kind of Economic Movement that can change that is racism because it is the racism in america that keeps whites thinking that if government has programs for education for building infrastructure, for all of the things the country needs its going to help them and its going to come out of my tax dollars. This is the racism of the current period. Its different than the old style racism of lynching and cross burning but it is a very real racism and hence my objection to post civil rights america. And i think that we have to both educate ourselves and work with other people to understand this current moment, what is wrong with the way its set up, the kinds of things we can fight for, and i think thats what comes out of this and thats our job. Its no easy way. Thats the work we have to do. Just ive also been struck by the rise and fall of the 99 . My speculation is that we are still in the era where were learning about how to do protest through social media. And while that allows for the spread and gathering people, it doesnt necessarily yet allow for a way for them to coalesce, whether its through a consistent message or a leader even if that leader is symbolic or anything else, but just as an observation, this is one thing that ive noticed. Im quite curious to see how we evolve and through the use of social media for these types of activities but certainly with the occupy movement, at some point many groups are out there with multiple agendas and i think that made it difficult to sort of maintain consistency. There were other factors, of course but thats certainly one that i observed. So we have just a few more minutes and i just wanted to both sort of pull things together. A lot that was covered. But also just give each of you a minute not to wrap up your statement but when this type of gathering is here, i like to have the broader conversation and then just one minute of what your book is about. And the specifics of it. So, thank you first for coming. This has been a fantastic discussion. And i think we could keep talking and i hope that offline we do keep talking not just to one another but with all of you as well. There are a lot of factors but one nice thing about this the way we wrapped up there are also paths for hope and progress as well. And that we can think more sophisticated about how all these different factors that are associated with wealth, wealth inequality how we can start to think about how they all Work Together whether its something as concrete as Voting Rights or how but also thinking about how we even use in our discourse. So ill end there because i want to make sure everyone has their minute, and it is a minute to just what your book is current book is about. Well, the book that the reason im on this panel i think, about the social poll . I america think tries to put wealth at the center of the policy debate and specifically racial inequity and wealth and argues for a new affirmative assets policy and other policies to promote integration of neighborhoods, family homes are the primary vehicle of wealth for a typical family; and sort of goes over all the evidence and of the importance of wealth and what we can do to promote equal opportunity in the United States. Thank you. My Current Research is on intraracial inequality across cities with jennifer but that is not yet written. Half the research didnt done mitchell book last year was called the regs citizenship and its main intervention was to say, look, major part of government for the black poor and governance is happens through being involved with the criminal justice system, so and so we need to understand if we want to understand what democracy means what citizenship means in these communities, we have to actually understand how being stopped by police being convicted being booked being sent to the Halfway House affects ones political life world affects how they see and make claims on the state affects how they weather and how much path they have in the american dream. Affects how they coalesce with others around shared interests and if you can believe it, most political scientists mostly treated criminal justice as an apolitical institution. Surety of a bureaucracy wasnt something to the studied wasnt consequential, and so i was trying to argue along with amy herman that this actually is very important for how people make meaningful the quality of their citizenship and we argue that what came out of this intervention 0 over the past four or five decades was something we called custodial citizenship. People that feel that they need to stay under the radar people that feel that the only government they see is the Police People that feel that they dont have an equal shot at the american dream. And so most of my work has to do with the bottom half of the distribution. Not the top half. I do believe that what is going on at the top has everything to do with extraction and custodial supervision at the bottom. Economists look at macro economists look at the large and inequality its bad for all the reasons we have talked about, and you have all thought about, but its also bad economically because it means people dont have enough money to buy the potential stuff we could produce and that would make their lives better. The people at the top end up with all the surplus but they dont invest it to produce more goods and services because the ordinary people dont have the money to buy that. So it goes into financial speculation, and it bids up markets, bids up Financial Assets bids up derivatives bids upped stocks and bonds and then crashes and that is what happened in 20072008 and will happen again because the inequality slows Economic Growth because we cant make the things people want because people dont have the now buy it. Its that which makes inequality economically harmful to us as a society, and i want to leave you thinking a little bit about that. Thank you very much. Thank you all. Thank you so much, another round of applause for amazing panelists. Bill, want it to Say Something about post civil rights america. That title is more than ironic, that was the focus of the conversation. So we want to invite you to stick around but before that we ask you to go outside to the barnes noble tent, purchase your book of these amazing authors, bring it back and theyll sign it right out here. Join us back here in the auditorium at 1 00 p. M. For a panel between pamela new kirk didnt olife of ota benga her new book. Thank you for the panel. [applause] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] that was an author panel on economics from harlem book fair in a few minutes well be back with more live coverage. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] president ial candidates heres a look at some books written by declared candidates for president in his book, immigration wars jeb bush argues for new immigration policies. Neurosurgeon ben carson do you recall greater individual responsibility to preserve americas future in, pow win nation. Against the tied, lincoln which fee recount times serving as a republican in the senate. And former secretary of state Hillary Clinton looks back on her time serving in the Obama Administration in hard choices. In a time for fruit toy ted crews re counsels his journey from a cuban immigrant son to the u. S. Senate. Carly fiorina is another declared candidate for president , and rising to the challenge she shares lessoned she is learned from her difficulties and triumphs. South carolina senator Lindsey Graham released an ebook on his web site in my story he detail this childhoods and career in the air force former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee gives his take on politics and culture in guy god guns, grits and gravy now and in leadership in crisis bobby incal explains he believes conservative solutions are needed in washington. George pataki is run are for about. He release pataki looking back at his paul, and kentucky senator rand paul calls for Smaller Government and more bipartisanship in his latest book taking a stand. Another brand, former Texas Governor rick perry in fed up explains that government has become too intrusive and must get out of the way. In American Dreams marco rubio outlines his to and bernie sandsers is a democratic candidate. His book the speech composes of his eight hour long filibusters against tax cuts and in blue blue color conservatism Rick Santorum um argues the Republican Party must focus on the working class in order to retake the out who businessman Donnell Nadal trump has written several bombs. In tie final to get tough he outlines his vision to further american prosperity. More president ial candidates with books include wisconsin Governor Scott walker, in unintimidated he argues republicans must offer Bold Solutions and have the courage to implement them. And former virginia senator james webb looks back on his time serving in the military and in the senate in i heard my country calling. Others who may announce their candidacies for president vicepresident joe biden and promises to keep he looks back on his career in politics. Ohio governor, john kashich calls for a return to what he sees as traditional American Values in stand for something. And finally, new jersey governor chris christie, and former maryland governor, martin owe omalley announced candidacies but have not released books. What is your day job . Im a psychiatrist. Medical school and i divide that time between treating patients, psychiatry, and teaching medical school and residents. Host what made you go into psychiatry . Guest when i was in medical school i was decide doing psychiatry and cardiology two very different field and was leaning towards cardiology. Then when i was getting to see patients and getting to the nittygritty of bag doctor, found i way a like the idea of talking to people and talking people through their problems, and that way more so than the more mechanical side of treating their heart. Host youre also an author now. What possessed you to write a book . Guest well this book is basically a memoir of my journey through medical training but its written through the lens of race there are a lot of physician authors out there and at lot of books out there but i think race is a really important issue in medicine and these authors largely overlook the subject. So i think thats a really a mission, because so many of the leading medical schools and Teaching Hospitals across america are situated in communities of large black populations, and many cases theres an historical tension between the communities and the large institutions. Thats the story that hasnt been told in a narrative way and so thats writing this book i was trying to tell two stories, my own personal journey of backing a young black man from a working class background, scaling this sort of academic medical ladder, but at the same time telling stories of a everyday black people facing Serious Health problems and trying to weave the two stories together. Host what is your background . Guest i grew up in suburban maryland on the corridor between washington, dc and baltimore. Working Class Community all black, not segregated but thats how it played out. That was my background going up. Host were your parents educated . Guest well did they encourage your education. Guest yes, they did encourage my education absolutely. My parents grew up in the kind of time of segregation in a very rural part of virginiadidnt gate chance to finish high school. He went into the military and worked as a food store in a sort of job in a typical Grocery Store and was a meat cutter for several years until he retired. My mom didnt finish high school. Didnt have a chance to go to college. Family couldnt afford that, and he worked for the federal government for many years. I have an old are brother and he was really the first person in our family who went to college and graduate from college. He was that sort of role model because the community where we grew up in, it was almost like the way to get out was to be an athlete, and thats the case in so many africanamerican communities. So he was a living example of someone who could succeed in this other way, and that was an important part of my development. Host at what point in your life did you decide you wanted to go into medical school . Guest probably high school. I was a good student at an early age. When i got to high school, was able to test into this Magnet Program that was in our School District so the science and technology program. A teacher made me do it. I didnt want to do it at first and that was transformative. I was able to get close to people who had different backgrounds, whites, asian people and really helped me see another world and another opportunity, and as i was seeing i could do really well, said, well medicine seemed like a good way to really give back to the community and really make a difference in a positive way but also to make people in my community having to the examples in my own life up until then. Host black man in a white coat this name of the beak and on page 3 you write being block can be bad for your health. Guest yes. Very true. Basically any Health Measure number you want to look at, whether its life expectancy, which i consider whether i shorter in africanamericans particularly in men the mortality rate, death rates from out sorts of cancers all of them are considerably worse in black people than in white people. Really any other group you can compare them to in america and there are lot of reasons why thats true. Probably three televize look at that. Theres structural, systembased factors, things like black people having less likely to have Health Insurance more likely to be isolated in geographic areas where theres less access to good quality care and then theyre this doctor patient relationship where black people for many reasons of history are kind of more wary of seeking treatment and as soon as they present their healthcare much later and preventable diveses are more advanced. And then theirs Community Level factors in terms of individual Health Choices in terms of diet and exercise and these are all fact fors of larger problems. So many ways to look at it. Host how many black psychiatrists are there in america . Guest i dont have an exact number but in general there are probably about five or six physicians as a whole are africanamerican. Psychiatry is a little less. Maybe anywhere from three to four percent. The numbers vary depending on what data set you look at but its pretty small. Host your patients black white, mix . Guest mixed. That lead to some interesting things. As i mentioned many of the medical schools are located in communities with large black populations. For instance, durham, where dune is is 45 black. John hopkins, closer to my home town in baltimore 65 black. So you have large groups of black patients and very small numbers of black doctors no doubt about that. Host so what is the reaction youve get from other white patient, from black patient . Guest from a white patient when i was younger most people, very positive reaction, but many people are wary. Theyre not sure what to make of me. Theres some people who i would say maybe they harbor some prejudices some cases i had pretty frank cases that were overtry prejudiced and i write about some of those in the book. But i think on average most people are kind of a little wary but after you get to know them and get to talk to them, they kind of come around. Theres this idea of having to prove yourself, which its its own challenge. Maybe expectation at first youre not as good as another doctor. You have to work with that. Host thats something you get from your white patients or patients across the board . Guest i think across the board. Particularly mow pronounced in white patients but have incident is with black patients where i had the same issue of having to overcome this perception if would be less qualified. So its happened but its more commonly happened with white people. Host has it changed over the years in the last 20 years the person perception of a black doctor and how people view them . Guest i think there actually are more if you go back 40, 50 years ago there was very, very few black doctors. The numbers have increased the last 30 years and that has affected perception some. Its still a battle, though, and because in many parts of the country, still very few black doctors and people may have never seen a black doctor in their life. Host why did you write the book. I felt like to was this untold story. Theres a lot of talk about disparities and inequality, but not as much about in the health realm, and even more so not in a way that sort of where youre tell it through the stories of everyday people. Statistic can one important way of seeing information but telling stories is also a way to really capture the essence of what it means to people on the ground. Host give us an example from the book of a patients reaction to you positive, negative, whatever. Guest one story that i think really kind of stands out, when i was an intern, my first year as that brand new doctor, really most difficult year 0 as a young doctor, and i was on a medical team medical service and an elderly white gentleman came in and when he came to the hospital, he saw a nurse who was black, black nurses aides several black staff in the hospital, and he made a comment in not so Uncertain Terms he did not want a black doctor. He daytona use that word but he did not want a black doctor, and it so happened he had the misfortune of being assigned to the one team in the hospital with a black doctor, which is me. So it worked out that way. So you can imagine that is probably not the best way to start a doctorpatient relationship. So he came he had his he had that perception, had negative thoughts about him as you can imagine. So this gentleman was very seek and was old and really towards the end of his life, and his family had kind of similar approaches to life in terms of the way they responded to me initially. But over the course of several weeks in the hospital, hour by hour day by day i was able to chip away that this huge racial divide we had and by the end he was very receptive to me, family was very receptive to me. An amazing transformation and made me think about how things you kind of strip away the superficial barriers that we all seem to have, and really kind of make a human connection. I think thats a lesson that you can learn from everyday life. A lesson from the medical world but a mosstive were encountering so much racial discussion that is often so unpleasant. Host there is an unfairness to that . You have to work at chipping away the prejudices before you can treat patients . Guest sure. I talk about that in the book. Theres a lot of aspects of it and thats part of why i wanted to write the book. Very few black doctors have written before the this perspective and this experience. There are certainly theres an unfairness to it but its more important for me to focus on how to deal with it and how i overcame it but its not fair. Host black man in a white coat. Comes out in september of 2015. The author is dr. Damon tweedy. Youre watching booktv on cspan2. Youre watching booktv. Television for serious readers. You can watch any program you see here online at booktv. Org. [inaudible conversations] on your screen now is a live picture of the Langston Hughes auditorium at the schomburg center. The home of the harlem book fair. The center for research and black culture part of the New York Public Library system is one of the leading institutions focusing on africanamerican life culture and experiences. Well be back live with the harlem book fair in just a few minutes. [inaudible conversations] what we often think as the bribery of our National Leaders by powerful special interests in washington may actually make more sense, understood as extortion by government officials both elected and unelected. Please elaborate. Guest i think sometimes that often times in fact the conventional wisdom is wrong and the conventional wisdom is you have good intentioned government officials who are being influenced or there are attachments to influence them by corporations corporations and public unyouens and if with could just seal off these Public Officials from outside influences everything would be great and so i sort of call this the Jimmy Stewart mr. Smith goes to washington scenario and that does happen. You have wellintentioned politics being temped by outside forces but my experience in watching politics and researching and writing more offer than not the opposite is true. You have a lot of corporations or entities that want to be left alone by the federal government, and you have politicians or people in the executive branch who are looking for ways in which to enhance their services or the needs to get corporations involved. The hightech industry is classic example. A years ago Companies Like going or microsoft had very small lobbying presence in the United States. They were doing what they were doing and you had a series of actions taken by congress, people from both political parties, that essentially forced those Tech Companies to set up lobbying operations. So my view is that often times what happens in washington dc has less to do with a bribery and more to do with extortion. But does the money follow political figures who have a certain core set of beliefs, one portion may support one politician because they support the issues that are important to their cause and not being viewed as bribery 0 even extortion . Guest i think sometimes it does. You can find instances where a politician that is aligned with a picker cause or policy view is gifting large sums of money from a certain industry, but people would be surprised if you look at a lot of major u. S. Corporations they tend to give to people right down the middle politically, so you find that the oil and gas industry, for example, will give to democrats who perhaps are not predisposed to support their position, butman often times acts as a mean of access or a gateway, and i had examples i cite in the become from executives from shell oil and others that talk about being at ma meeting where members of congress were lambasting them for high gasoline prices, and one of them even called for sort of the potential nationalization of u. S. Oil companies. But after that meeting that very same elected official asked this executive i they might consider organizing a fundraiser for them. If you are an executive and you just heard this sort of veiled that that maybe we should nationalize you guys and then theres an attempt to say, could you raise money for me issue its hard not to see that as some sort of extortive practice. Host you say quote warrant to believe that Committee Assignments are based on knowledge, expertise and background but a member of congress will end up only Paul Committee like ways and means or financial solveses, only if he or she can raid the money. The more powerful their Committee Assignments the more money members are expected to distract from extract from the industries they oversight or regulate. Guest this one of the shocking things i was naive about. I assumed a member of congress is elected maybe theyre a distinguished attorney send occupy on the judiciary commit year or maybe they served in the military so end one an armed services. The shocking reality is in both Political Party does this. They have a system that they loosely call party dues, and party dues basically functions as a price list. If you want to be on a socalled a committee and an a. Committee is a powerful committee from which you can raise a lot of money, house ways and means financial, House Financial Services which has oversight of wall street and the banks. Those are a. Committees. You have to raise somewhere on the order of half a Million Dollars in election cycle nose for your own reelection but to actually go to the Party Committee of your party, which l thats the republican or democratic congressat committee. And if you dont raise that money, there will be threats and if you continue not raise the money you can be booted from the committee and put on a c. Committee, one that you really cant raise a lot of money from, and so people dont tend to want to be on them. For example, the veterans committee, which we would all deem does important work in making sure that our veterans are taken care of and their needs. Thats considered a c. Committee because apparent hill the ability to extract money from veterans or from an industry connected to veterans is not deemed so great. So the sad reality is that Committee Assignments in washington, dc are determined by the price list, and your ability to raise money and if you dont raise sufficient funds for your committee, you will be removed and put on a lower or considered lesser committee. Host among the many books you have written several on Ronald Reagan. Have you ever midwest him . Ever meet him . Guest i did. I met Ronald Reagan after he left the white house in 1994, at his office in los angeles. Thick looking back, certainly saw a little bit of the forgetfulness that came with age or with alzheimers but we had a 30minute meeting. Came as a result of a book id written on Ronald Reagan and the cold war called victory. That was a result of the book being published. Host what yours impression of them, even though he had stages of alzheimers. Guest he had presence. I have met other current president s and corresponded with former president s. He certainly had presence. He was very engaging. He certainly still had a understanding of, i think the core issues. Reagans always struck me as somebody who had a sense or an understanding of a few very, very important things. I cite actually in one of the books i wrote on reagan, an is day about foxes and hedgehawks and talk busy the way people think. You have foxes who know a lot about a lot of things. You Los Angeles County Something Like Richmond Nixon or bill clinton and say theyre fogs. They understand the minutiae of a lot of issues. So you have fox on the one hand, hedgehawks. Hedgehawks know bat few very, very important things, profoundly important things. So i put, for example, Ronald Reagan as a hedge hog. He was not a technocrat, not a detailed guy. But he understood human freedom he understood human schooling blown it okay. To human psychology when it came to freedom and that made the difference for the worldand type of leader has was. Host on sunday, august 2nd become tv is live with the cofounder of the Political Advocacy Group code pink on in depth, our live monthly callin show. She is the author of nine books clegg investigation into the use of drones for military purposes, drone warfare. Other titles include the growning of he revolution and stop the next war now how to crete political change through activism. Other books cover topics such as how to aid People Living in the third world profiles of women; live on booktv, sunday, august 2nd on in depth. You can send your questions or comments to facebook. Com booktv, on twit ex, book tv, or call in. Booktv is back live from the harlem book fair. Pamela newkirk is next. With the book spectacle the astonishing life of ota benga. Good afternoon. I hmm rich from the Columbia University school of the arts and welcome to our second panel for this years harlem book fair the 17th annual harlem book fair in the newly restored Langston Hughes center. Lovely. Our first Afternoon Panel features Pamela Newkirk on the book on ota benga. So introduce the panel we have mr. Allen mcfarland. Mr. Mcfarland is where is his bio. Its right here, i think. Im so sorry guys. Yes. When you have too many papers in your hand. Mr. Mcfar land is the assistant Vice President of outreach and engage. In new york university, also adjunct professor in the department of social and culture analysis at nyu and will introduce our dynamic moderator thank you so much. Allen. [applause] well, thank you very much, rich. Good afternoon everyone. Good afternoon. Come on now good afternoon. Good afternoon. Fax. We have a wonderful panel this afternoon and were in for a treat. Im so happy to be here this afternoon to introduce our panel. For our panel today which will be pride and prejudice more on the white gaze. Literary critic ken neglect burk once said were the instrument our instruments and we have who exemplars who clearly have the heir work in im pleased to introduce our panel this afternoon. Lets start with our mott rater in our discussion, and that is the director of the shomberg sheer for research, and that is khalil. He is a former associate professor of history at indiana university. His book, the condemnation of blackness, race, crime and make offering a modern urban america will be published by Harvard University press and it won the 2011 John Hope Franklin best book award in american studies. And here also this afternoon is we have author and nyu professor of journalism, dr. Pamela newkirk. He book, which you all see in your programs, is spectacle the astonishing life of ota bengal she is an author, journalist and professor at new york university, multifacetted scholar who has published a variety of works that present multidimensional portraits of africanamerican life. Her first book within the veiled black journalist, like me, explores historical troubles of journalists integrate can mainstream news rooms in america. Love letters from a black america which i had the pleasure of reading recently, a fantastic tome put on the list. The book were talking about this afternoon im not going steal her thunder as she is going to talk to us about the book and all that went putting it together as part of a wonderful afternoon. Please join me in welcoming our speaker this afternoon. [applause] thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you all for that terrific production. I want to thank all of you for being here this afternoon, and i want to thank our guests, decider Pamela Newkirk the author of spectacle. Its hard to say wonderful with the subject matter she hays written about but i think that as a writer, as someone deeply committed to learning from the past to recovering stories that have something to say that speak to us across generations that makes this book quite rivetting and amazing and one that if nothing else gets said of any interest, you must buy it and read for yourself. Because in some ways this story is better known than some others and i do want to talk about the context that ota bengays journey is situated in, one which you lay out clearly. For those who dont in the name Ota Benning Gasser dont know the story of a map in a caged zoo just a few miles from here. What happened . Guest so first of all thank you for facilitating this conversation about a very difficult subject at an apt time in american life, as we look forward we also look back on, like what it is that africanamericans have or African People have defendant with over the centuries. So ota benga was a Young African, a person from the congo said to be a pygmy i say a socalled pig my because thats a contested team because of the etymology of the term. At one point it meant chimpanzee. But he was brought to the United States first in 1904 by a man named Samuel Verner, who was commissioned by the organizers of the st. Louis world fair to bring back pygmies to exhibit on the st. Louis world fairground. So thats how he first came to this country. And then would years later behind up being exhibited with an orangutan in a cage in the bronx zoo to seen to say that those who have known of ota benga, just about everything that we thought we knew about ota benga was a fiction created by the people who exploited him. So there was always this suggestion that he was complicit in his exhibition. He was complicit in his degradation, as if he was showman, but the archives show definitively that he was held he was captured and brought to this country against his wishes. He was caged in a zoo with apes against his wishes. So this is a corrective of history. Host so he book opens with a very detailed and textured account of the bronx zoo nit early days. One of the things that is really compelling in the way you present this story is not a story of horror. It is a story of triumph. It is a story of scientific celebration. It is a story of the architectural grandure of a new Technology Age where the United States of america is positioning itself in relation to hit european counterparts as having arrived and so the very notion of a zoo in the bronx as a course part to central park is sort of the arrival of the bronx itself. Talk about that context as the annexation which many of us dont know about. Guest the bronx zoo was not part of the celebration of new yorks rise into this global city that only recently the five boroughs have been consolidated into greater new york. Now we have going from a place where brooklyn was a city and all these manhattan was a city 1898. So the bronx zoo arrived two years 0 year later and it was an architectural wonderland. Right . The greatest architects from around the country and the world were assembled to build these beautiful structure. So there was this juxtaposition of grandeur with the dedegreed gages of this Young African man who had been can touper and was now being shown as the missing link. Host you describe the earliest tours the revealing. Were all accustomed to exhibition openings, whether its the Natural Museum of history and well learn something about a the dinosaur we had no idea walked the earth or some fine arts show. These are big deal. So talk about the moment when oat too beginning back goods exhibition opening happenings. Guest right. So william horn horn aday, the offending director of the zoo and the nations most imminent zoologist, the founding director of the national zoo in washington, dc, major major fig. Host the kind after people you look up, right. Yes. Eminent scientists. So he had this pygmy. Right . And he is at the gate telling people you have to see what i have today. You have never seen what you are about to see. This is an amazing exhibit. So he starts leading people, one and all to the primate house where its in this glistening white building, where there are little animals engraved on over the doorway family of monkeys, apes, to suggest what was inside. It was the prime primate house and people went in, and there he was, this slight 411inch boy s03 pounds and the second day the New York Times covered it. Bushman shares a cage with bronx park apes. So the second day sunday, thousands of people stream up to the zoo to see ota benga and were calling it the bronx zoo then it was the new york zoological garden. A centerpiece in new york city. This was again asymbol of what new york was at this time. And by the second day hornaday littered the cage with bones to suggest that ota beginning back was a cannibal, and he added an orang gang to his cage and placed him in a larger cage, crescents shaped cage where more people could view him and that was the introduction of ota benga to new yorkers and he became first a sensation in new york city and then a sensation across the country and then eventually around the world. His exhibition made headlines in paris and london. Just everywhere. Host this is every Museum Directors dream. Guest i hope not. Host well, well talk about that because this is a moment where in the language of our tech know rattic present the way we think about metrics and think about best practices and how we measure outcomes and success, the success of hornaday was to drive attendance and he is breaking records. Guest he broke records. One day alone, 40,000 people went to the bronx zoo to see ota benga. Who sat solemnly in this cage looking out like, he must have like, who are you . Are you crazy . Why . Host so, just to give a little bit more texture to what pamela has already described in terms of the New York Times adulation for this event i want to read a quote from the article she has already cited bushman shares a cage withbronx park apes ota beginning base normal specimen of his race or tribe with a brain as much developed as those of his other members. Whether they are held to be illustrations of a arrested development and really closer to the anthropoid aprils or jude as descendents of ordinary negroes they are of equal interest to the student ofth nothing and can be studied with profit. Guest this was science. Accepted by most mainstream white, i should say americans as science. Host although you cite a few headlines from around the country, one from los angeles quote. Genuine pygmy is ota benga can talk with orang gang. In new york, from minneapolis which is considered a very liberal city, from the minneapolis journal, he is about as near in approach to the missing link as any human species yet found. Guest those are the kinder headlines. Host you go to great length and i think thats a real credit to what you have done here to highlight this moment in relation to the selfreflective, selfrighteous notion of new york as an imperial city, an evolved place sophisticated place. Much easier in this moment to sort of think about this as something that southerners would have engaged in, but its very much not the case. Guest right. Even Southern Newspapers mocked new york for what it was doing to black people. Host which i think is also another entry point into the fact that there was resistance from day one. This wasnt a story that went unnoticed by those who saw this as an outrage to humanity. Guest one of the people who saw ota benga the first day and who expressed outrage was a very prominent minister in new york named robert mcarthur, who was pastor of a church on 57th street. Thats still there. Cavalry baptist church. In the retelling of the story he ends up, this black baptist minister but he actually was a white canadian pastor, and he raised objections and he went to the black ministers who were in the nearby tenderloin area which is where black people lived. Very few people in hard. He at that time. And he said this is outrageous, you have to go up there and see what i saw. So they had an emergency meeting monday morning and then they went up to the zoo and from that day on they were protests they demanded to meet with the mayor. The mayor refused to meet with them. The New York Times was like, what is the problem . Why . He is a savage. He is subhuman. And that was the view of most of the newspaper editors at the time and while there are lot of bad actors in this drama its important to point out the handful of people who did defy the convention of the day where race was concern and one was William Randolph hearst, the man known for yellow journalism, his paper was the only paper in new york city that called it a disgusting outrage. So but these people were in the minority. Host to come back, we wont beat up on times too much today. But there is an arc worth noting but just to echo what pamela just describes, the New York Times, somewhat on the defensive, editorializes just a few days later in the midst of the initial outrage and the quote here from the editorial is pygmies are very low in the human scale and the suggestion that benga should be in a school instead of a cage ignores the high probability that school would be a place of torture to him. The idea that men are all much alike, except as they have had or lacked opportunity to for getting an education is now far out of date. Lets just pause on that for a moment. Guest stick with that. Host because we live in the midst where for several years now, we have had ongoing critiques of the war on drugs and mass incarceration just earlier this week, a sitting president for the first time in history visited a federal penitentiary in a moment where we have the largest imprisoned population, not only in the world but in recorded history. And so the notion that 100 years ago, in a moment where scientific innovation was beginning to shape the world we know today that the most liberal and sophies tick indicate paper, then and now could make the claim that it would be foolish for us to think that education could be the great equalizer that the motion that some people ought to be in school rather than in cages seemed to echo across time and offer us much greater insight into a lot of the thinking we are now fighting. Guest the times was only reflecting at attitudes imbedded in science and imbedded in government policy. They didnt make this up. This was the mainstream racial ideology of white america. Host and that drive for scientific certainty that assertion of inequality, is definitely on the ascent. This is not a moment where even the critique of ota bengas encagement or imprisonment will usher in a reformist moment. We are only in 1906 at this moment. So the very idea that jim crow itself could be legitimatated on the basis of proving that people who looked like an ota benga or descend from an ota benga were in fact, ipso facto prime ma fay she on the face of things evidently inferior. Guest and while ota benga was being exhibit net a cage, the belgian king leopold who owned the congo he was given the congo host jo show the first slide. Guest he was the congo was being plundered by these civilized people. Right . Who were killing to the purpose of profit and progress. Guest exactly. And in the name of civilization, you know, the congo was being plundered. Millions of congoese were being tortured maimed, killed, and ota beginning back, one of its millions of victims was being exhibited as a sign of savagery. Host could you describe this caption. Guest yes. Thats ota benga. This is him in some of the other Young Congress la congoese who were brought to the United States and theyre been exhibited on the st. Louis world fairgrounds, posedly as evidence of the least civilized people on the planet. They were said in the catalogue for the world fair to be cannibals, to be savages to be none was true. And ota benga the is the second one on my left. They said he was in this picture 21 years old. If you believe that, i have a bridge to sell you. Clearly a child. Clearly a child. And two years later he thats who was exhibited in the monkey house. Host one of the things you point out in the story again its easy to think about ota benga, but there had been numerous africans brought to the United States by missionaries, by anthropologists by other scientists appearing both in this world fair and previous ones could you talk about that larger practice that of which ota benga is part of. Guest so world fairs at this time were very popular not only here but throughout europe. And people the 1904 worlds fair has an anthropology exhibit that brought tens of thousands of people to across the fairground and the whole point was to allegedly map Human Progress from the lowest to the highest civilizations and guess who is represented the highest civilization . I wonder. The people who set up these fairs. So you had an irish village. You had a native american village. You had a host real people. Guest not just real people. Hundreds thousands sometimes of these people, whole villages brought to the fairground. Babies mothers fathers. Samuel verner when he was given a contract to go hunting for pygmies, which is what he said he did. He said he he wrote himself in an article for the st. Louis postdispatch, how i hunted pygmies in central africa. He went heavily armed. So, this story for 100 years he had emerged as ota bengas saviour and his hero and his friend. Host you describe in trying to get to the truth of how ota benga is captured, one of the myths is that he was saved from cannibals. Guest the biggest myth a myth that survived 100 years was that he gave many stories but in every account he was ota bengas saviour. He saved him from cannibals saved him from enslavement. Saved him from life in the congress congo but he saved him and he suggested that he came with him willingly. But in the archives, we see that he stopped in london on the way there, and he brought like, cases and cases of ammunition, guns and rifles and all manner of military gear, and he even suggested in one letter that maybe hell take a cannon to make it easier to execute his mission. Why would you need that . These people were supposedly coming here voluntarily. He took a you know. So he went heavily armed. He brings them back. And all of the writeups on ota benga, they were friends. They were best host bffs. Guest yes. Host we have a closer portrait of ota benga. So Samuel Verner is their friends and that is accepted, and also the bronx zoo in the 1970s, and recounting what happened, said its unlikely he had ever been exhibited at all. That he was their helping with the monkeys and all of the signs, people were curious oh, there is a sign was put up, but at the time in their own zoological bulletin there was an article on the latest exhibit. Host the rewriting of history. Guest rewritten and then the think that kind of cemented this fiction into the american imagination was that Samuel Verners grandson in the 1990s wrote a book about the friendship between his grandfather and ota benga and that became the definitive story on their relationship. It was just accepted. And do. Like gone with the wind the history of the confederacy and the flag. Guest yes. The slave love and the master. It was that familiar but pernicious narrative about black life. That he would subject himself to this kind of degradation and do so happily. Host can we talk about the teeth . There are two stories. Guest this is because he had these they were actually called chipped teeth. I i it was a conceit in the congo, very popular in some villages a woman wont date you if you didnt have these beautifully filed teeth. The people who did them were artisans so you goo do get your ears pierced or tattoos or whatever but that was a very popular Style Fashion and in the congo but it also made it much easier for sam uverner to pass him off as a cannibal. So unfortunately that is what most led to him being the one who Samuel Verner crept close by. Host we have one more image of Samuel Verner, just so that we have this in the juxtaposition of civility guest yes, from a very prominent family in South Carolina. South carolina. And [laughter] guest sorry. Sorry. Cant make this up. Host chisel South Carolina out and just guest i didnt say that. Host i did. Guest okay. So a lot of good people in South Carolina and out of South Carolina. He was not one of those good people. From a former slave holder family father was in the legislature, family of congressmen and educators and just very, very prominent and his father was one of the South Carolina legislators who led the protests against reconstruction and the rise of africanamericans from enslavement and they were determined to take back their country, where we were before. Yeah. With the story we see how systemic these ideas were the result of them being in miscarriage. The system managed to degrade most people of color it made legitimate the notion of inferiority. There were degrees a response. But the notion is that it will be ridiculous to think that there are equal to people. Right. So why i thought this was so important if the record straight is that hornaday emerged as the bad guy. He was the one bad guy. Everyone else but this was a whole city that was consistent. Everyone signed on this. Very few protests. Most people thought that it was a good thing. Can i read a quote . You are describing here other people have expertise. Pelosi again . He was one of the people that wrote the letter to the editor. He turns out to be some swindler. You have to here this quote. Thisthis is his reading about a bank. He like the white mans country he was treated as a king. A splendid room and the powerful of monkeys and enjoy all the comfort except a few wives. And hornaday himself as the protest began to build the said that the bank had the best room and the monkey house. He should be grateful. He couldve been much worse. ,. They give her the best room. We want. So what happens . Spoiler alert, you mean that . I guess it is a book. [laughter] he wants me give you the end command im not doing it. All right. Fair enough. He dig it out of the cage. He deserved and for that. [applause] and he had much to do with getting out. In addition to the ministers who protested in new york city and then it became a National Protest a black ministers. Outrage around the country. But the biggest thing that resulted in him being released to the care he resisted captivity. He was strip is close off right before the gates to the park opened. Start disrobing. Start disrobing. He did everything he could to resist captivity. It is clear and letters written by zoo officials he is becoming difficult to manage. Uses savage. We cant control him. And one letter seminal were suggests killing and drugs which is what he said he did to the frenzied africans. He never had to do with how the bank. You have to give him a tranquilizer. Actually i have the quote here, one of them. Hornaday is complaining about the resistance. He said the boys leave your immediately we will be confined. The value he is a savage. Now, one of the things that jumped off the page or me in reading that quote is, theyre has been a recent report doing story, soon alexa disparities in the use of solitary confinement for black men compared to white men. The disparity in Mental Health. Essentially white men incarcerated are more likely to be treated for Mental Health illnesses often derived from the experience of incarceration itself when black men show similar signs of Mental Illness as a result of incarceration whether through anger frustration for outrage, the kind of things that could you label of unruly savage they are being put in solitary confinement. I cannot help but think about relief the man out of rikers he choked himself after being confined unjustly for years. I cannot help but think when i started writing this book researching this topic five years ago i could not have known that theyre would be this black class Matter Movement whether we would see this cycle of Police Shootings of unarmed boys and men people shot in the back, you know, just within seconds. But in some ways i saw that this could be a metaphor for these times. You no metaphor for black boys and men. He was captured. He was caged. You know, he was degraded. And much of society had very little sympathy or empathy for what was going through. And i think of mass incarceration. Its just that a society have worked on impassively at generations there were locked up. Often times for lowlevel drug offenses but also innocent people who just never had a fair trial or legal representation. So it is a continuation of the same kind of ideology that could result in what happened to him. I wanted to no whether or not you polled teachers for educators at schools of education or others who are in a position to no how wellknownwell known story is what our nations teachers and not the story is being taught in the nations classrooms. The book to just come out two months ago. Your take on it. And it came out in june. I would like to no that myself. I would venture to guess that most people do not no just based on the reaction i get. If the people who think they no they no the other story. I hope that because of you and because of this book for being televised people take this is a petition. It seems toit seems to me that if we want a different world, different outcome and opportunities like this to learn something because the story emphasize already, it is not for the story is about one game is degradation. In its simplicity is the largest toy of american progress. That is a story is still unfolds at this moment. Were going to open the floor to q a. As you formulated question or have aa Quick Response thats fine. It can be either or. Im going to ask them want to talk about the latest reference to a black and what it signifies and where they fit in the hierarchy of humanity. Some of you no Space Alliance just won wimbledon last weekend. Some of you have the New York Times article about the critiques. Jk rolling for example her response to the article describing williams has a very muscular woman and contradistinction to one of her opponents who said that because she is a woman and she was to be a woman is a coach, but i also have the genes why dont i have to do you figure because this is not going anywhere. In. In other words, the coach is european tennis player say essentially ill have the capacity to be like serena williams. There was one tennis player who has suggested that she could do that. She just chose not to. Right. Right. That was my favorite. Yeah, right. Maria syrup over says i always want to be skinnier with the cellulite. I think thats every girls wish. So these debates about body and ones own capacity and place in the world. May have been number of studies that have shown the black women have a healthier body image a hundreds if not thousands of letters. Wonderful. I dont know if they knew what was in the archives but they let me in. I sat with those letters pouring over them for months and months taking pictures when i could. And then the museum of Natural History had tons of letters the because no one in a village of these things many of the contemporary stockers theyre not going back a hundred years. They are hearing the same stories we had heard. But there was. Then i began to find signs everywhere. I found him in long island where he worked as a horse groomer. I found him in the ship passenger records were found out how he traveled here. After a while it was like he was talking me. After two years have really having a tough time and wondering if ill be able to finish this acase in. , i was going to visit my Daughter College and i was writing the epilogue to this book. And im writing about all of the artists who were inspired today. Fred wilson artist, macarthur. He had done an exhibit. Let me see exactly what he did. As it turned out he went up to dartmouth to the museum the genius of his work he goes to institutions, goes into the closets and there were houses, pulls out things and repositions them to make a statement on what is the there doing. Went to collectors. He found something that the commission by the regime of Natural History in st. Louis that i have been looking for the whole time i was doing this project. The people at the museum i will no if that is. He found it up at dartmouth in the closet and pulled out so when i got theyre they have the extension records how they got it, more letters. It was like everything that i looked for a more i found. He has a voice now because there was so much documented about what had happened. Thank you for that. Powerful. Going to take his last two questions together. I just wanted to say you dont have to make this stuff up. I think the powerful lesson of colonial archives is that everything you can imagine that you might think sounds fantastical in terms of our capacity to destroy other human beings and defended making the chief of legitimate, you dont have to make it up. A semi passive person on the street he might possibly 2nd and listen to the details and traced directly back to your because that is essentially what pamela has done. The stories are all theyre and they are unfolding before our eyes. I know you went to germany recently. Ive been doing research. Within my research i found in jews in germany. All over. Germany. All over. I was wondering if you could comment on the international and National Aspect of human disease. You know, they were as i said assembled by the people who had conquered these african or whatever nation was philippine. They would then exhibit them as they are you no. This is what we got. We took there land, took the minerals and whatever other resources. Now here they are. Here are these primitive people. And they were put on display but i always wanted to draw a distinction between human zoos and what happened because he was not part of the human zoo. More so in st. Louis he was for been in the bronx only he was a human being in a cage with monkeys. Why . Because the director to get more people to visit. An idea about making money. And to the spectator it was left to figure out whether he was human are in between. At that time in 1904 i forget which encyclopedia, or of the big ones maybe britannica said that africans were midway between an orangutan and human being so this wasnt farfetched rhythm. This was granted the scholarship of the time. And being taught in a textbook. Absolutely. I have been browsing college. I had never heard that he was being in the zoo and the bronx zoo, especially in 1906. The dawn of the 20th century. You have black men at Ivy League Universities and the naacp being formed around that time. Then he had the movement mention of four. Trying to wonder why the progressive blacks think and do during this time when i saw this at the same time. You havetime. You have black men out theyre, Cornell University and Morehouse College getting education. They were the ones who protested. They protested. Thats how he eventually was able to come out. They were the ones who rescued him. [laughter] im not getting the middle that. [laughter] [laughter] thats funny. To the. About 1906, you also make notes that dixon the novelist who posed as a klansman that same year his work with no one to be the basis for the birth of a nation. Which was screened at the white house works right. We areright. Celebrating the centennial of the release of the film which is to this day original in its content or essentiallyessentially reconciling the north and the south on the basis of White Supremacy and defending not only the subjugation of black people but violence clan violence directed against it the celebration of the ku klux klan. The celebration. So that his mom is also wrapped in his literary moment which produces a groundbreaking film about Popular Culture. And that is a groundbreaking book around the same time, the enigma beast. Charles carrolls book. So in every sphere is essentially of human endeavors from Popular Culture to literature was the reinforcing of this idea that these people were subhuman, worthy of zoos and certainly not worthy of equality. We want to all thank pamela duper crew telling the story. [applause] and is supposed to mention saying the historical record straight and throwing the government down to our nations audience of viewers, teachers because this is a story that must be told and hot. Thank you for being here. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. [applause] it is a curious choice show