Transcripts For CSPAN2 Book TV 20240622

[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 it positioned a black family is traditional. They brought you inside a Nuclear Black family in a way that was pathology is our caricatured in American Literature and Popular Culture but also did not show in the difficulties in dealing with the challenges of stigma inequality command race in general. Continuing the tour. This is a kind of interesting story. Currently as i mentioned a part of the collection includes amazing fine art and represents the can of like raise. Aa year and a half ago from the bronx reached out to the curator and said i want to give the schaumburg. Come check it out. This was purchased by the gentleman father in1941 with the original bill of sale for 125 still on the back of this panel. Whatwhat makes it even more interesting is this panel was done during the same year as the great migration series. This series is now exhibition in collaboration with the philips. New york. All 60 panels come together. Jacob lawrence himself heres the thing, not only do we have an orphan panel have notpanel, have not yet. Have to work on trying to match the paint, but also that Jacob Lawrence actually use the library in the 1930s were in jersey and men atlantic citys the study reading the books of the collection which gave him the information that he needed to tell the great migration story. So talkso talk about the importance of boats preservation of libraries being open to all. Jacob lawrence is a product of the early influence of the schaumburg collection. And that painting is probably worth a little more than a hundred and 25. Definitely as is the rest. All of these photos on the wall. So one of the most prolific black photographers in the late 20th century. He worked for major publications the particular for the usia. Us Information Agency that was part of our showers a cold war apparatus. In surveying postcolonial nations and keeping an eye on things this is the benign side of the cia. Richard saunders was a photographer. Taking a picture in nigeria, 1970. He has an expensive body of work we have the entire collection. The images here meet the description of the show which is lesserknown averages across the continent its a pretty fabulous so. Elijah mohammed is rarely seen. You photograph here. And this is Elijah Mohammed at the end, correct . And there is mathematics. This is a 1961 shot in washington dc with a church of god figure during the show debating the merits of christianity and islam. Quite a debate. It must of been. Do you think we can have that debate today . Is taking place on a global scale. Yeah. Were having it. It is not polite in front of cameras. So were having a debate. Often go. Ill show you one other fascinating image of mathematics. Here he is hard to her at the museum of Natural History in new york. He is essentially using the image of africa talk about black people in a broader context to a group of young girls. And this is also fascinating because your we are talking about the boys. This is a History Lesson being taught. Negro historian. And sociologist. [inaudible conversations] and book tv live coverage of the harlem book fair we will continue in just a few minutes. [inaudible conversations] greg was graduating from high school very talented basketball player. He had an offer from the university of washington theyre was going to pay his way, and he had been accepted at princeton with the family would have to pay some of the bill and he would have to earn some money on the side to get together princeton. And he had a conversation with his father and his mother was washing dishes talking with his dad. Well i think i might go to the university of washington his father didnt come down on him. I would be kind of disappointed if you made a decision like this. Craig said, well i will think about that. It was elated because he wanted to princeton. Anyone to princeton. His parents paid the difference, sometimes the credit card. He loved actually being theyre. He. Felt so grateful ever sense that it is a story he does tell. And michelle a couple years later decides i would like to go princeton to perhaps. At the time or Customer Service a grade in school or 20. Thats right. She said programs can get in the princeton, i can. And exactly the counselors said you might want to think of a more modestly about where you can go. She applied. She wrote a long essay. She kind of torture when. She. You didnt feel she talked to weigh in. A lot of people have looked. She told the story about the grades and scores. Now what she hoped to be. This is the area of affirmative action and a lot of people over to michelle saying she only get in because of affirmative action. But she had to do something to make a case. She argued her own case. She had done very well in school. As with so many students getting access for the 1st time she only went to princeton but did extremely well. You did well. Wish you happy . It was an interesting remark she made at my answer is Memorial Service last year when she said looking back of her recent career he talked about what it was like to be on the campaign trail imagine the feeling of loneliness. She had a bit of a struggle but she 1st got there. And she worked her way through. The prepend Michelle Obama determination. All of affirmative action debate affect her career at princeton. Herhave princeton. Her sense of herself, her sense of living in two worlds for being judged as something other than just michelle. Right. She wrote her senior thesis that some made her more aware of my blackness the. Then in chicagothen in chicago that was because of the nature of princeton at that time where black students were very much in the minority where we also should remember there were not so many women and also the class was a big question, natural. I got to princeton and saw kids with bmws. I didnt you know adults who had bmws. It was a place for any by students felt slightly not welcomed. This was something she was very aware of and she and her friends talked about. In the 1st days on campus dormitory for the 1st roommate. Its a remarkable story that has to do with the mother of her freshman roommate. The student and this is a story she herself tells us some chagrin. She is in a dorm room. Everyone is moving in. Robinson shows up and says is my sister around. She wasnt. Catherine went to see her mother and her mother went ballistic and tried to get her daughter pulled out of that room. She complainedshe complained to the authorities its about time did not come to princeton to endure the black student. Princeton did number for. Later the semester she did move out but it was a dramatic side of the time. You can watch this and other programs online. Booktv. Org recently visited capitol hill to ask members of congress. Looking for in a few weeks. The harper lee put. She wrote to kill a mockingbird my alltime favorite books. It was a weird career and is such a wonderful novel wasnt followed up by anything. Recently this manuscript was found which before to kill a mockingbird. Im sure it will live up to that but im looking forward to it. Right now im rereading his 1st one was set some sort of nostalgic. New orleans i grew up in. In the greater new orleans area. Book tv wants to no what your reading this summer. And next upharlem book fair. Good afternoon and welcome to the 2nd or 3rd panel for the day. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Much better. I am from Columbia University school of the arts partnering. Before i introduce a colleague who introduce a moderator want to say a bit about how the devil proceed. Go to barnes noble 10th with a look at get your book and come back and have it signed in the auditorium. Ill be right here. Then we have it on sale in the bookshop. You can purchase that there. Were looking forward to that. Our next panel is called the image and black race and politics a time of crisis. At 5 00 oclock mayor David Dinkins we will be here and we will pause that panel to have him way and a bit. With thatwith that said there going to buy books outsider upstairs the tobacco have the time please look. We have the founder of the africanamerican Childrens Book project it is amazing moderator. And as well. Thank you very much, and i am happy to be in harlem because theres a lot of exciting things happening here at the harlem book fair and eternally grateful for makes rodriguez for continuing the tradition. My name is vanessa. Many years ago i was a fashion journalist in rome italy. I worked for daily newspaper and i was coming out in after on platform shoes and as my editor with the uniform was. Covering her money to our stretching. The coverage versus the town some ideas. If you dont have expensive jewelry invested in a set of rules but also sensible shoes. Always where black. You dont no how expensive for how cheap that article of clothing is. Asas you can see and you watch television, his around in black. But today the woman on this panel are going to tackle the topic of fashioning the self the image of black. We continue to judge a book by its cover. The man walks in the room and his pants or datasets the automatically say when not be ready for prime time. Again woman comes in with a paira pair of hypocrites for stomach out, she might not be ready for prime time. I hope the Panel Discussion of us to better understand africanamerican studies program. In his 1st book she has written a number of books the politics and culture the sounding board for journal a former professional dancer member to company in the repertory ensemble and a young woman of color access are produced based projects in detroit, newark in new york city. Good afternoon. Welcome to the harlem book for his family and just acknowledge what they already no. The things that we think about happening community. We often think about the scholarly writing. So we write and speaking communities with you. I also want to turn to is amazing what if its okay having the way we should proceed today i like to offer some i truncated bio so you are speaking with. I would like to offer an additional frame to this conversation that is rooted in your. His depression talked about in the way that we are able to stay alive and i. I want to think about fashioning beyond the individual body is i hope you can do that today. We have to my far right now is in newark, new jersey has an author historian and edwards professor of American History America Princeton University and author of seven books including the history of white people, creating black americans, africanAmerican History and its meaning, 1690 to the present in my favorite. As a painter work digitally and manually on honest books most recently on art history. 27. Now she received her phd in history from harvard and are nsa and painting from the Rhode Island School of design. Please give a hand to her. Next line her an interdisciplinary scholars work explores how the aesthetics of race and gender theyre with fashion impact and are impacted by Popular Culture social history, and political life. Currently an associate professor at Cornell University where she is also the director grassroots studies and Africana Studies the author of three books command raising beauty culture, and africanamerican women. The choice for outstanding Academic Book and the Public Library association 1997 award for outstanding University Press book. Written ladies pages, africanamerican represent africanamerican studies. [applause] last but not least michelle gainer who is the author of the beautiful vintage by clamor. Butbut that Oprah Magazine named one of the ten best books to give and get. Regarding the. Lives in harlem and is currently completing vintage black grammar gentlemans quarters, mens edition. [applause] okay. I want to say a few words. I want to get into a conversation but its important offer different frame the title of this panel is fashioning the self each word offer so much for us to consider and we consider. What do we mean . Where the possible ways we can allow ourselves to see and imagine knew ways of creatively making ourselves. And then the word image. Image is formed in our minds materialized in countless ways including the visual arts consumer and the rituals, representations of people so fees, Academic Research and our own everyday ways of being in the world that are publicly viewed and privately experienced. Solidifying the stories we tell about ourselves and each other and played out in the actions we take the images produced social and legal outcomes that reach far beyond the space bar imagination. Of course, blackness or black identity. The panel can deal with that. Will be thinking about how they. What that means picture again. All of your work and across to the disciplinary practices employs a variety of methods to get us to think about fashion particularly as it relates to black women. How that relates to black women beyond this gender notion of fashion is simply about choices we make in the realm of how we dress ourselves adornment, beauty practices an individual body if i could ever like to start us off by thinking about this contemporary moment. I mean, this moment on the stage right now the possibilities. Ii want it to be about this moment and the larger context of the threat of black life. What we can do to think about the question of beauty, adornment, and fashion within that larger context. Thats a good place trust to start. Im thinking about black women long before it was Media Attention was is returned to what they do on the frontlines of protest. Involved in a political fashioning a political refashioning. Im also thinking about how in one weekly new cycle we can witness a 14 yearold micro code by a hyper Aggressive Police officer. Serena williams, Misty Copeland command Michelle Obama valorize been demonized for the physical bodies in the same spaces and a white woman taking claim for black womanhood in the strategic choices she makes about her hair clothing, speech patterns. Even with all of us. While all this is happening behind the cover of these replay narratives black women his face is we dont see televised have to contend with the residue from these overly mediated images. How do we think about fashioning this context . I want to open with that. What is this moment this time were speaking into it against and what do things like fashion and beauty and adornment, how you move through the world, how you make yourself has to do with these larger questions. So i turned to the panelists there is a lot for us to think about, but im hoping we can down the conversation my specific question is how would you define this moment command how does the work that you specifically write about, the work that you are engaged in providing intervention in this moment or speak to the importance of where we are now when we speak about race and body and fashion . Well, in this moment now as far as how we present ourselves the context of black lives and the danger wherein. I dont think there is safety. I dont see any way that you can dress yourself as a black person, as a black man or woman and be safe. Thats my thought initially yeah. [inaudible] a lot of the work that i did in my first two books the second one is about black womens magazines. And let me say the first black womens magazine is from 1897. It is not essence magazine in 1970, it is africanamerican fashion, and its a combination of essence and vogue for black women in the 19th century. Very often people will say you know how essence got its start. Theres five other magazines before we get to essence. We have a long history in figuring out how to represent gender and fashion in ourselves. A lot of the work that i do in those first two books i talk about as figuring out what it means to wear your race right or wrong. Like the things that i do about aesthetics in fashion and hair have as much to do with the playful kinds of choices that black folks make, that all people make about our bodies about how we want to represent ourselves. We just say it feels good, it looks good its soul satisfying. But depending on whos looking at your choices, depending on the space that youre in, people make determinations about if youre wearing your race in a way thats disturbing, thats upsetting around gender Politics Around sexuality politics, around being too political, too radical about not fitting. And the responses. So the thing that i think its always important to think about is its not just how you are representing yourself, it has to do with the sense that people make of that self when they look at you. And very often we want to say that a being free means we dont have to Pay Attention we dont have to be mindful. That being human of being adult means we get to make choices about who we are and move through the world. And in all kinds of ways that are often chilling, often tragic its just not true. It can be true. It is often true. But those moments where those choices cost you because people understand your self to be different than what you understand it to be is still something that happens. It happens regularly. Yeah. Well i am sort of working on an artist book called the truth about beauty. Noel by and i have been colleagues since the 20th century. [laughter] and together we did a conference on beauty that halle berry keynoted. And i talked about some of that work. At that point it was not. Arthel tist book artist book but that was before i went to art school. And i think about the truth about beauty and about the truth about saving your life as a woman, as a black woman as a darkskinned black woman, ive come across one truth. And its not a new one. Actually duboise in talking about the twoness talked about seeing yourself from inside and seeing yourself from outside. And he was probably thinking about educated black men like himself at the time. But still there was the sense that theres a bemused gaze out there. And then you struggled with that as a black person because you know yourself as a fullfledged person. And he said that that struggle is absolutely exhausting. Uhhuh. Yeah. Thats the part i remember, because people ask me, you know, now that i am a person of a certain age with a great dial of wisdom deal of wisdom [laughter] they say oh, were you ever discriminated against . Well, you know not big discrimination. Did you ever struggle . Ive been a very lucky woman. But its been exhausting. And i think about this time when i my public face isnt facebook, so im getting it all through facebook. People are exhausted by every week having another atrocity to worry about. And i think that that almost is a conspiracy against black people to keep us from doing our work and to keep us from fashioning ourselves as individuals. Its almost as if to be an individual is to turn against your race standing. This is a very difficult proposition because it means you dont do your work, and you dont love yourself as an individual. So what i would like to say about the truth about beauty for us here the four of us, those of you who are here and the people you talk to, is to find a means of shutting down that gaze from outside to stop the barrage. Because we live in a capitalist society in which most of the images you see are marketing. And marketing means i want you to feel bad about yourself so youll buy my stuff. Exactly. [applause] all right. So shut that down, see yourself from inside and do not hear or see the images that your society sends back to you. Thats what i want to say about self fashion. Yes. Its interesting, what you say because that happened yesterday i had the honor of meeting a legendary dancer. There was a panel last night moderated by an author, and it was another dance legend and missy copeland. And she said the same thing you just said, that focusing on all this, you know the race and the Different Things thats happening around us, its keeping many of us from our work, from focusing. And its a distraction. And after a while theres something every day theres a new atrocity a new hashtag. And its taking us from our work. And so she said it doesnt mean that you ignore it or that you dont have a conscious about it. But at some point you have to kind of take it in and make sure youre focused on your work and let it go. Because thats going to affect our history in generations going forward. Thats right, yeah. I just want to carry that over and think about this more in terms of how we make ourselves in beauty and the ideas that we have around beauty. So often even in the ways that we think about these daily atrocities and were always in this reactionary mode, even the way we think and talk about our icons, beyonce or Serena Williams and this idea whether were celebrity or just your everyday young woman on the bus through brooklyn, that the way you fashion yourself or carry yourself seems to always be talked about in reaction to some larger narrative usually a white narrative. And i wonder of danger of that, too, when we think about the fact that our beauty is an inheritance from our ancestors. This is in us. Its not developed as a response to something else. So i wonder if we could think about how those processes independent of reacting to something happen, what are the ways that people, everyday folks from your experience and the work that you do, find ways to show themselves and represent themselves that are not about resisting something or fighting back against it, but just really about the idea of the playfulness that you bring up. Playfulness and pleasure and experiencing your beauty and sharing that. But heres the thing, i dont think we have we have a problem talking about the playfulness around beauty and that we should be playful and that hair styles dont mean anything [laughter] well no right. Its all just hair and anybody can wear it, and we need to let some things go, or that black people as black people we are all united in actual literal levels of melanin in your skin is not something that we should talk about or be mindful of. And i actually find myself very often wanting people to be mindful of that so that we can move through it. Like you cant the difference between a kylie jenner wearing cornrows its just hair and the numbers of black children who are constantly sent home from school in tears from wearing their hair in cornrows has got to tell us and, again, i want to push back on the playful. Were good with the its playful, its fun. No, i have not heard of any white people being thrown out of school consistently for wearing a hair style a particular hair style that, like cornrows, that is really common for many. For many. Not all little black girls grow up with cornrows. But its hardly some sort of strange thing. So theres a dangerous in whos play a difference in whos playing. At the same time, i will tell you one of my favorite quotes by zora neale hurston, hes talking about the characteristics of negro expression, and she says the first one is the will to adorn. The will that what we do with our hair and our bodies in fashion and with a little bit of nothing and how we make something that is soul satisfying out of that. What she says is the number one exing presentation of. And can expression of. And we can see of all the ways that hair, for example. You know baltimore hair when you see it right . If youve been to baltimore, you know [laughter] when someone is southern rocking a certain kind of hair style versus somebody whos from brooklyn. You might all have twists. They dont all necessarily look exactly the same. There are all kinds of ways that we make choices within our communities and the ways that we understand what were doing that are affirming, that are soul satisfying. That we absolutely should be able to do. But at the same time, we also have to be able to say if every if lupita is the only standard of black girl beauty, that does not look ethnically vague, right . Black skin comes in such a wide spectrum of color we claim it all. You know we claim it, we recognize it, we celebrate it all. But on a larger kind of cultural stage what is celebrated is a certain little subset of that spectrum that i call ethnically vague. You could say, you know, people are from the middle east, they could be from Central America they could be look like they could be sisters or cousins. Right. So to not even have a space where you can actually talk about, it matters. The amount of melanin in your skin can dark skin, dark girls, it matters. Black people and how much money you get paid and the kinds of jobs that you have, in the amount of times you get arrested, in the levels of sentencing you have. The people who do that [inaudible] and theres not that many people who want to actually break things down to that level. But they will tell you those kinds of things matter. And at some point if were not going to have those conversations, at least notice it and own it. Not to be swept away by it or made necessaried or, you know turn on each other and, you know take to beating each other. Thats not the point. But to at least notice it because you cant fix what you dont see. I dont know about the whole place, thats my thing. Thats what i was getting at, right . Like who can play and who cant. The fact that we dont always act in reaction to, but there are clear cons intentions that consequences that lay differently depending on how dark your skin is, whether youre considered a man or a woman, which is what i wanted to get to while you were speaking. Im wondering and maybe this is a question for you nichelle since you are work on the gentlemens quarterly quarters. Quarters version how does this can we talk about what this means in a gendered way . In the ways that we talk about playfulness and the repercussions for how you present yourself. Is there a way you can get us to think about the gender dimensions of that and what we should be thinking about when we think about this idea of fashioning the self and beauty as it plays out in gender terms. I think it depends because in my book, in the first one the womens book, and the forthcoming book for the men vintage black glamour gentlemens quarters, the book is focusing on individuals. Its not really, you know, black people all of us as a whole. Im really talking about people who have made impact in history in our cultural history. So it tends to be, you know, entertainers, some artists activists, actors, photographers, writers. So, and its a different as far as im not sure about the playfulness part especially with the men because they, a lot of it was just about they wanted to look sharp. I mean, duke hellington, they elington they named him that in high school. Some people just have that aesthetic about them. Thats just who they are. Some people, you know, some women are just never going to go to the corner store without lipstick and powder. Im not one of those women but [laughter] again, thats an individual thing, thats a personal thing. I dont know that my, in my particular books have anything to do with that particular question. Yeah. Yeah. I want to Say Something about blackness. [laughter] there are a lot of really good things. One is that its easier for us to feel a sense of solidarity with one another and to feel linked in, to feel a sense of community. Thats really important for keeping sane. You mentioned about adornment yes. And, you know, in a sense im not worried about black people being kept down in terms of appearance, you know . What i see is much more playfulness, much more adventure and a kind of happiness with the body that seems almost unamerican, you know . People, black people are wearing great things and showing great bodies and showing all kinds of bodies, you know in a way that nonblack people sometimes hesitate to do. So there are a lot of really good things about blackness, and thats just to scratch the surface. One bad thing and here i speak as a former historian is history. And i think that too great a knowledge of history is not good for you if youre black. I think that immigrants among us are going to save us through not carrying our history so heavily. I think if you remember our history, if you remember the trauma part without remembering the creation part, i called my book creating black americans. And the inside of it is about trauma, but its also about creation. We have to remember the creation part. If you focus too heavily on the trauma, you cant do anything. Youre stopped because you automatically feel theyre going to cut me off they wont let me do it the police will get me. If you only focus on the numbers and the statistics its so dismal. You would just stay home in bed. So let us respectfully not keep our history and not keep our social statistics foremost in mind as educated, thoughtful people. You need to know. But as a sane person in the United States of america, you need to forget. Thank you for that. [applause] remember the well, i guess maybe i can tack onto my answer, because part of what i do is not to ignore the trauma but to let people know within our history its not all trauma. Thats right. Theres creation. This is, you know, my book celebrates or artists, you know . Lena honor, you know the cab callaways and the things you have not heard about them. To give you not just another story about them having to go through the back door in a white hotel, but the story of them writing a song or painting a painting or studying their lines. In my book theres a picture of dorothy [inaudible] taking a dance class. Young people today love beyonce and talk about her work ethic a lot, and i always like to bring that up in that context for something you can understand. The thing you admire beyonce for or Janet Jackson always seen rehearsing, thats not new. Theyre from a long tradition of artists who were hard workers and loved art of every type. Lenalena hornewas a big reader. Thats right. Im so glad you said that, because i hear a lot of especially undergrads who say to me all im learning and whether its an ethnic