The first one is why this book now quick. Of course i am delighted to sit down and the reason is they feel like my last book of the issue of racist ideas to show their collision and their clash so i would speak about that book i would encourage people to be the antiracist and move away from those ideas that were ingrained in them so then if you know those that are taught not to be racist so this construct of how to be antiracist to realize i felt like i could potentially answer that. You hadnt necessarily planned to write the book but you are a historian through and through and to be associated with the immediate implications so talk about that distinction that you draw in that clear fashion and the authors of current books that are critical that is the indication of how important it is that thought deeply about race so why is that so important quick. First and foremost how this term was emerging currently. So typically say im not racist when they are charged with being racist. Even wellmeaning people who try to be against the movement of racism recognize so with that genesis was classified and when jim crow segregationist were charged they said im not racist. Even now as a White Nationalist to say im not racist no matter even if they are in the white house are planning the next mass shooting. People dont realize fundamentally that this is all we have been able to uncover and a way to deny and has a clear philosophy and a clear history. And the potential and with that community so the point really isnt whether or not but what are you doing how that is a possible aspect of life. Precisely. When many people say they are not racist because they think it is like a tattoo. That if they put that racist on their foreheads they cannot escape it that it is a category and they believe a racist is a person as a White Nationalist i am not any of those things i am a good person. I am not racist. But it describes what a person is doing in the moment so if a particular racial group is inferior than if a person is doing nothing in the face of racial inequity, when they are literally supporting persons or policies that power that creates racial inequity and injustice. That is important because you get the category racist , of that personal indictment that this is descriptive and im offering a count so stop being so emotionally invested. Precisely. And that emotional investment also people dont realize the origins. The racist is like the r wor word, it is the worst insult and that is a pejorative. Actually White Nationalist in particular have been parroting that idea for decades because what they wanted to do is to get people not to recognize their racism and White Nationalist can organize it. And Richard Spencer two years ago to organize unite the white rally and the violence that racist is not a descriptive term it is a pejorative term the equivalent of somebody to say i dont like you. Thats an important thing to confront. And shifting gears to come back to that question to offer an account of what it means to be antiracist but what you can do quite powerfully in the book but the title is it is the instruction you are offering and that personal implication so how do we discern affluence that if you are participating in the structural logic were trying to dismantle them . So talk about structural issues and gender and sexuality. So i think that is powerful and important and i want to ask you. In the midst of you having the structure and the history and power that you decide at that level. I didnt want to write this book and when i say this way i did not want to speak to people through my own personal story. And then to communicate scholarship or ideas and then im deeply personal and private so to put some of the most shameful moments of my life on the page for all the world to see that makes it very difficult to do but at the same time with these ideas of structures and policies and at its core and those individuals that are challenging racist power or those supporting it so fundamentally because of the impact and each of us are supporting racism that i want to show that on the day to day basis and conceptually and all the complexities. And in my case for most of my life i was supporting White Supremacy i did not even know it. I want to talk more about that because to talk about your personal journey but probably some of the pushback that you get it is an important argument that you make that people can be racist and the one way to talk about it that black people cant adopt white supremacist ideology. And also the relationship as a largescale phenomenon into encounter with the individual. And why you thought that was important to include. And for a long time i thought black people could not be racis racist. And then until i start researching. And then to decide that is inferior or superior in that book was about anti black and then ultimately one of the things i try to do in the book and to take those ideas and to figure out the intellectual genealogy. With those black intellectuals and i wanted to exclude them or go around them but i couldnt because one of the most dominant and harmful ideas of the 20th century was the idea of the broken black family in the patriarchal black woman and so on and so forth. And that which was popularized in the moynihan report and repeatedly cited a black scholar. And then on upon the negro family in 1939 who also who said that was a similar thing in one of his black family studies said w eb devoid. So the broken black family. That was largely coined by a black scholar. And how that justifies the assault on black women and welfare and ultimately that was the first recognition i cannot separate that genealogy but what was critical realizing what racist ideas and that person was anti black or they thought there was something wrong with my people to spend some time intellectually with the organizations or attack black people and everything but the real problem and how that literally function from the ideological perspective it is absolutely the case that black people have limited amounts of power is particularly in a white supremacist society. Its just not true and then to say even 100 years ago and didnt have a black person on the Supreme Court or so many black professors we all still have the power to resist. Typically those who did not thought the problem was black people. We are working through all of that that ultimately caused me to realize that black people can be racist to and in particular to black people and internalized racism. Beautifully stated. Talking about azure days as an adolescent and with that deficiency or inadequacy because what you describe is quite common. So you call into question that practice which is longstanding. And it is a question why do you think there is such persistence . Most of us black people think we are antiracist. It is a combination of factors and then with that contest and i was one of the finalist i was one of three finalists across the county and basically my speech was the anti black ideas with black youth they are the most feared in society. Like black youths dont value education. And with this high tree of pregnancy but what was wrong with black youth and ironically and coming down on the heads of black youth and that when i came of age and to reproduce them but and across that ideological void it was acceptable to say those ideas. And then to say that in a different type of way. Not only in terms of the ideological but they see that negativity. And this is what we had been led to believe that we could generalize precisely so everything we say because we know you dont value education and to have individuals like that. Without sometimes realize that white people dont value education or choosing violence. So what makes black people equal to other racial groups is not our great attribute but the imperfections. And thats also the piece that you talk about because all of those things that you describe and not with the working class and also challenging and with that liberal perspective because of a lack of opportunity to traffic in these ideas to be deficient. And so we make a case by showing how largely the new black middle class to understood themselves as a distinct racial group and my parents were taught and we believe they were members of the black middle class because of ingenuity which meant because they werent working hard and with the racial groups and Racial Disparities or interracial distinctions or to think about there is such a thing as white trash to substantiate their own beliefs. So i think that class is critical in the way that race operates. So talking about being antiracist not just the black elites are equal to white but to recognize that all they neededs resources. And one of the most difficult things for people to realize and it took me a while to accept it with those impressive conditions are not just dehumanizing but may people be subhuman but that poverty literally depresses the cultural attributes of black people. Its because they are poor and those black elites like white people and black people create their own standard and from that standard because they are poor. In those that are logical on those mechanisms for survival in those resources that are necessary. And i love the way you tell a story because one of the things is what happens with civil rights and black power and its so easy to fall back into the groove because of the way the world was organized. And that vulnerability is so refreshing. But at the same time and what is rare is talk about the series of ideas if you talk about the nicest papers or to move into the series of ideas but you dont do it in a form of attack but then i find that refreshing that these ideas and the way we try to approximate the truth even if ultimately thats not what you meant that. And ultimately what is the problem . And when i graduated high school and what was predominant but then a few weeks into my college life and pretty much with the Voter Suppression and coming through the election to george w. Bush in the face of the black people. Those first and second hand stories and those were flooding into cmu to hear racism and in particular to be undeniable. I didnt really see it as racism at the time but almost all the people who are engaged in these acts are white. That black people and to the extent of racism but then to say what is wrong with white people . And trying to figure out and why are they engage in these racist acts quicksand when i started to engage to take classes in african history and ultimately the problem took me a while to get to that point. So to take that up but there are some leaders who give space to white people so what is it that the white leaders with the possibility and their potential of the Antiracist Society . And then how to navigate in the struggle. Im not racist. And then to confront that. There is no such thing as being not racist but antiracist. But there is such a thing but if you Say Something thats racist at that moment even though you are raised to be racist and the past majority either consciously or unconsciously you still have the capacity to confront and to be different and that is a constant struggle we decide we dont want to be that way anymore and wake up and say im not that way anymore. That moment by moment day by day basis. And then struggling to be antiracist. While simultaneously and to talk about this early in the book obviously with many other writers to recognize that privilege in so many different ways. But then also to recognize why so many people of color are angry. And not only angry about racism even when they say or do something that white people truly are racist and has an understanding particularly when it is racialized. And how insidious it is or how difficult for a person of color to pick out the good antiracist person in a crowd. Person in a crowd. If youre thinking you get the feeling as a reader i am supposed to have this position i am studying and thinking and trying to make sense so this is both a beat and development and the path to becoming antiracist and one of my favorite parts of the book is when you talk about your time with two of our mutual friends. I love it because you talk about one you bring the question of sexuality and gender and talk about being antiracist which in frequently in this conversation but also come it is one of the multiple places where you talk about the individual encounters that were a part of your development. The way they are now they are pre apologetic of our antiracism, antifeminism, their love of people, and of course they work the same way then as graduate students and at temple. I was coming from inexperience at cmu which i never engaged and understood. I never even considered or even deeply thought about black queer thierry and even in that chapter by parents didnt necessarily raise me to be homophobic but they didnt raise me to recognize that there was nothing wrong with black queer people so because of that in many ways, i consumed many of the ideas about black queer people and women and i arrived at temple pretty much as they homophobic sexist and it didnt even realize it. They allowed me to realize that because they created a community in which certain things were not going to be tolerated. Attacks on black women, it just wasnt going to be tolerated in their presence. If somebody said something about those communities, they would of course engage them, but i thought those attacks and i had to recognize why i felt those even when they were not talking to me, they were obviously talking to me. What was beautiful is even though i had these ideas, even though i came in with this, they sort of opened themselves up too me to mentor me and befriend me which i thought was absolutely sort of critical in my own development so any sort of gender critique that i have and any sort of critique of homophobia that i had i offered those women. Host its beautiful on multiple levels because you describe the cultivation of a community that on the one hand doesnt tolerate bigotry but also doesnt ask though. Guest and that is a very slippery slope. Host but in essence that is what you are suggesting in the book is how do we do that, hell do we think about how to do that and have space and transformation to work through the moment of feeling defensive and under attack. That is precisely the process that is essential. I also think that it is important because it is you provide in that chapter a combination of the scholarly endeavor because they are both extraordinary scholars and the work of community and so for the academics to scholarly endeavor is apart from our interpersonal interactions. But you are talking about bringing those pieces together and similarly, you know, you talk about your personal encounters and some rather difficult ones. I wonder if we can talk about that because part of what you set up if you provide an accounting of all of the effects of racism including the physical ones with respect to health, and then you write about for you and your wife encounters with serious illness. Guest one of the things that happened when i started speaking about it and people started reading it if people would say this book was so difficult for me to read. 500 years in every way imaginable it was very difficult for people who either care or who are not black and for them it would say it was that much harder to write. It would go in one ear and out the other because they didnt even want to think about that. I was sort of so focused when i was doing the research. As you know, to the book and i wasnt thinking about the impact it is having literally anything combined with the fact i was writing this history as a black person and ended up being 500 pages but i probably collected thousands and thousands of pages of ideas many of which i had to sift through and how to be an antiracist i talk about this like trash bags, i literally like how to consume to make it legible for the reader into the time i was doing that, i was also a caretaking my wife who had breast cancer. She was very young in her early 30s. When you contract a disease its hard that when you contract a disease you dont think you should contract because of your age, it is even more difficult. So it is a difficult process caretaking for her. I in no way wanted to focus on my own health at the same time my wife had a serious illness had so obviously i do not. A few years later i was diagnosed with stage four colon cancer and friends asked me to using in effect they didnt use the term trashbags but taking all of that in, and i didnt know. We will never know but certainly that could have been the case. We are finding out the literal Health Effects of racism. Host that question of the tf the variety of ways that racism marks us in the body whether or not there is a kind of direct correlation in the way that we talk about italked about it in f science or a sort of larger environmental phenomenon, so for example being a scholar that has an enormous public profile and a father and a husband into the director you are serving the world inserting your family in a multiplicity of ways and even has potential cost in the sense of calling that we can read in part thinking about the consequences of the nation. Related to that, i do want to talk a little bit about sort of your work and developing this Antiracism Center and it is a thrill and honor to be at the book festival that you organized which i think was one of the most extraordinary book festivals that i have ever witnessed both because you have a fantastic array of speakers but often a sense of community and investment and people who were thrilled to be there with you in this space that you have created. You talk about the connection as a writer in a scholar and educator at someone cultivating like a think tank of sorts. Guest i can never thank you enough for coming and sharing about your biography of course. We wanted him to envision the center as a way of convening. So many writers for instance right now writing of racism to get us out of this pit that we have been involved in for years. We typically coul typically go k festival or theres only a few of us there were of course we speak of on but its rare that we come together at a festival and share ideas so we felt what if we convene some of those intellectuals and that is part of a larger team to take a more scientific approach to sort of how we are solving i should say how we are examining enfolding and we should be building teams of people. We should be convening people to ask and answer some of the most intractable issues of our time and as you know we do this in isolation. We know part of the answers are what if we bring the different parts together whether it is to have those conversations at the National Book festival, with its research and policy team is that conduct Research Policy and ultimately design campaigns to change policy or whether it is literally convening specialists in the field to creat