Transcripts For CSPAN2 Michael Signer Cry Havoc 20240712 : v

CSPAN2 Michael Signer Cry Havoc July 12, 2024

Continues to bring authors to our community and our new Digital Community during these challenging times. Every week we are hosting events under crowd page and our Event Schedule appears on on our events we could also sign up for email newsletter and browser shelves from home for this evenings discussion we will have some time for a few questions for it if you have a question for a speaker at any time during the talk tonight, go to the q a button at the top of your screen. We have limited time for questions tonight but well get through as many as time allows. If you like to buy a copy of cry havoc. There will be a link. All book spots support Harvard Bookstore. Thank you for your support during this time. There also be a link for donations in the chat if you like to give Additional Support to Harvard Bookstore. Your purchases and financial contributions make the virtual author series possible and now more than ever supports the future of landmark independent bookstore. Thank you for tuning in an incredible staff at booksellers at harvard we appreciate your support now and always. And finally as you may have experience in virtual gatherings these past few much technical issues may arise. We will do our best to resolve it as quickly as cancer thank you in advance your patience and understanding. Nine please introduce tonight speaker, michael is the former mayor of charlottesville, virginia he is worked as rights of turning in his sleep fathers overcoming extremism projects but he is the author of two books, the fight to save democracy from its worst enemies and becoming madison, the extraordinary origins of the least likely founding father. He will be joining conversation with houston city counselor Amanda Edwards and former house of representatives Mickey Edwards. They will be discussing michaels new book, cry havoc which recounts a story of white supremacist actions in charlottesville during the summer of 2017 that left one antiracist protester dead and the entire country wondering what the trump era has brought to the forefront. The reviews called the book deeply introspective it is a complex, disturbing valuable tale of a racial disharmony, government failure, and one mans frantic attempt to save the day. And now i am so happy to turn things over to tonight speaker, michael, amanda, mickey, the digital podium is issuer thank you for coming. I am Mickey Edwards im going to to start things first. I want to tell you it is really a pleasure to be able to do this to be with amanda and michael both good friends. But especially because this book is so timely. Actually mike it would have been, i thought at the time right after charlottesville right after this happened if this book came out would be great but its even more important today because of whats developed since. There was a point in your book which we will get to and you will get to where you talk about what happened in charlottesville is like a firestorm which could serve as a crucible for change as a result of that and more so with what happened after words. I think it is really a timely and important book now. One of the things that moved me when i read this and also as i reflect myself i spend a lot of time as you all do on worrying about how it is we can protect our liberal democracy. Which is not only a democracy in terms of the facts we go to the polls, would choose who are leaders are, and ultimately we are in charge. But also it has these various pieces with deliberation compromise rule of law, innocent until proven guilty, the free press. All of these pieces that are really in danger at this moment. We have a very significant number of people in this country who, who know what outcome they want. And the process just gets in the way. The process is what liberal democracy is about. I love the book. One of the things i hope you talk about because it really resonated with me as we are seeing as everyone knows, who knows me i hate political parties. And we tend to think of things in a different way but with two sides. In charlottesville on two sides there was the right wing protesters, White Nationalist, whatever you want to call them. There is also the people came to protest against the protesters to try to block them from doing damage. But what i was struck by in your book that is so important to where we are in america today, there is a third group. Thats the people of charlottesville. You talked about anything back to that time and your memories of it you are drawn to the people there that you knew that you led as mayor. And the effect on them. There are people on the right and there were people on the left and a good large part of americas not on the right or left, just hoping to be able to make it to be able to have enough money in the bank to take care of themselves, to be able to be treated fairly, freely, equitably. There are a lot of people out there that is a big part of what happens in charlottesville. When i read what you wrote but i had not thought about that much. One of the points i want to put on the table and see where youre going to go with this, as we move forward we have a tendency where ever we are to look for a leader, someone who is going to step up, be in charge the current president says only i can fix this he sent a pretty good job of only he can mess it up. But we look for the great leader is going to come in and save us and that is dangerous. That is where you get tyrants all over the world. One of the things you did im going to stop here and give it to you is the mayor of charlottesville is not like the mayor of new york city. You dont have all of the powers that the mayor has or the governor of the states. It is a fairly weak mayor position as you pointed out. You are not a leader you had to step up from the position you are in with limited authority and exercise leadership. I think that is really a lesson for people all over the country. I mandated in houston, you did it in charlottesville. Im going to stop there, tell us about the book tells even more than that the argument you are making about what needs to be done . Alright will thank you, nikk nikki. Thanks to Harvard Bookstore for having me. Im really looking forward to this this was supposed to be live in person but this will be just as good. Want to have a couple bio notes we got to know each other because he is the head of the program of the aspen institute. Its part of the leadership Training Organization to alumni are really Extraordinary People the platform with those kinds of issues that are federal. Thank you mickey, you keep this up perfectly abyou teed this up perfectly. It was a very at times frightening, often enraging experience to find myself in his feet as these events unfolded you have three White Nationalist event in the year 2013, not just one, the way in which they built on each other was important for what it said about how charlottesville comes to be why joe biden is running for president , by his own statement, why charlottesville figures into spike lees new movie black klansman marks become its touchstone in modern American History when its also hyper local story and the truth of it, the lessons, the insects, how did it get this hyper local story colored by individual experience and actors and the history of the city . How did they get to become a National International story and to me the answer is very intimate and has to do with throwing things down and telling the actual story of what happened. I wrote the book about this modern historical event i happen to be there for for two reasons, one was which to tell as best i could the truth about what it is like to hold any position of leadership in the eye of the storm with the particular powers that you have with your city council or mayor or chair of a county board or school board member, chief of police come whatever the positions are to me the real learning is going to come from what was it like being there. What you try to do what could you not do . What was the Emotional Experience like . How did you make it through . How did the events impact you have it they build on one another . Thats what history is really like thats how we learn. That was the first fold is to tell the story the second is different they both go to some your questions the second one was i have this intuition through even some of the most painful violent episodes of this that as awful as these events were and chaotic and havoc filled that they still could serve some purpose in america growing through this trauma. And the city growing through this trauma. There is this kind of concept that overarch is the book learning from disaster basically. And trauma producing wisdom and this ancient greek tragedy of the agon, agony can still produce growth and thats how a lot of greek tragedies were structured. I was mindful of that and thats one of the things i tried to in my narrow lane as the thinking about what is the nation learn from the experience of such overt horrific racist antisomatic violent conduct by is a dozen ultra and White Nationalist paramilitaries asian and killed a woman who was a protester after the rally was disbanded, what do we learn from that . What do we learn from how trump reacted to it . What cascades did it set forth . I think there was a lot of specific growth that happened afterward that are crucial to understanding the scope of charlottesville, what the meeting was. The first one i want to talk a little bit about the first, the personal under fire story. There are way too many books out there that are sanitized about politics, government, that are constructed around hollywood narrative where there is a hero and a villain and a clear structure and there is a clear take away. The fact of it is, when you are in a crisis, especially now where social media and the extremes on both sides created such intensity and such conflict the cadence of it is so rapid and intense its unlikely the hollywood or the sanitized version is going to mirror anything about the actual leaders went through. The reason this is so important is if we are going to handle like right now today everybodys minds are on the crisis of the last two weeks which is horrific racist Police Brutalitys sitting on top of a 400 years of organized oppression and brutality toward black and brown people in this country and where theres been some progress but clearly not nearly enough and a lot of ways we backpedaled. This is the reality of the experience that people have and people witnessed Police Brutality and witnessed 16 times an average black family has 16 times less wealth than average white family and average blocks are four times as likely to be sentenced or charged with marijuana crimes as whites so the disparities are current, they are real and they begin in history. Those are all true facts but the question is, if are going to deal with them its committed required government. Its not going to come a government is a means to the end of solving problems in the kind of government we have is not a government of dictatorship and its not or bond saying giving in order. Its humans a lot of times strong people in passions knitting together in a deliberative process and a lot of time at City Council Chambers trying to come up with answers. Working on policy to use government to get it done. For in a deal with minneapolis committed an article in the New York Times which said that for them to really dismantle successfully their police force and deal with the longstanding problem theyve had, that is going to take at least a year for them to deal with the budget and the police union and the contracts in the way that funds are obligated the Police Department and my point is, thats in a required government. People who are willing who have thick enough skin and big enough hearts and care about the ins and outs of what leadership is which is ordinary people taking on a position of trying to get something done in the system. And the book, its hard. Its the most proximate, the most intense kind of government i would say because when you are failing somebody its right in your face at the Grocery Store or the parking lot or the bagel shop, is a tale in the book, and when people are frustrated its good to be right in the City Council Chambers and a lot of battles about how to get answers done are also going to be incredibly intimate. The book is a pretty intense, it was very intense to write, pretty intense to read because you have a lot of open conflicts and a lot of demands and anger. But to me the devil is in the details of her actually deal with injustice in this country we have deal with the details. I want to read, im going to read in my talk before we get to amanda only a handful of paragraphs but better than me just summarizing. The first is, i will suggest in this book is actually five underlying brushfires to converge to create this. In each area the conflict between ideas, ideals and constraints created friction, seat and combustion. First the conflict between the freedom of speech and Public Safety in our First Amendment law the second, our collective failure to come up with constructive ways to address the history of racism through a memorial and public spaces give a lot of what happened to charleston was prompted by calls to remove a Confederate Monument that was put in place during the jim crow era. Third, the clash between order and the passions of todays politics and the fight to define severity itself, or the challenge of providing accountability in a crisis to a public clamoring for real answers and how the new psalms drive for him can abandon generation policy and governance. Each area we are abby people demanding that one should be easy to find and that we applaud even evil if we could. Supposedly simple answers the quick sweeps. On the First Amendment and repeated business by White Nationalists denied the permit and stop them from coming here. So chart with entities these demands can be distracting and dangerous sparking blazes that could spread contagious in an age addicted to slogans that fit social media and the press the struggles to cover complexity and substance with little appetite for leaders doing what leaders needed to do, grapple in the crucial gray area that lies between the seductive poles blackandwhite this gray is not mild or equivocal, it was the gray of smoke and ashes. Telling the story of what its like to be a mayor and a weak mayor form of government with the most 50 of American Cities have its painful but for me i hope for the way the book is set up its rewarding because i had taught about democratic growth and resilience for a long time and the prior two books that i wrote were on different angles of this project. The problem is how is democracy last and grow and strengthen. I wanted to share the experience and lessons not position and wanted people to understand the stakes of committing to this kind of government and theres a lot of hope in this book theres a lot of specific advances that were sparked by charlottesville on one example was we sued along with Georgetown University for constitutional advocacy protection the militia groups that invaded the city using a provision in virginias constitution that was 200 years old that nobody ever used that made militia groups illegal unless they were operating with authority and permission from the civilian authority was that you never needed to go back to those laws before because weve never seen armed groups taking over the streets of towns like charlottesville before. Its an innovation sparked by necessity thats asked essential thats about reclaiming space for democracy itself and there are a lot of other examples like that in the book. To me the greatest mistakes we see right now with what tropism addicts core is about it threatens selfgovernance. It threatens our commitment to invest in the liberty of selfgovernment to democracy and you also see threads of that on the very far left where there is anarchism dominating some parts of that discussion the sentiment is right to deal with these injustices and to achieve extremely progressive ends but its gonna have to come to government and this is a book about what government is really like. I think thats what i want to thats what i want to say for right now. Theres a whole ending part of the book which is about Lessons Learned and specific people out there, leaders, nonprofits, who are doing the work of overcoming extremism, there was a project we started called communities overcoming extremism with a Bipartisan Group including the Antidefamation League the charles token institute, the baxter institute, new america for the folks interested in looking at that you can go to overcoming extremism. Org is a final report eight pages long and has tremendous insights and case studies and best practices how do you deal with extremism using the hard tools of Law Enforcement and the soft tools of engaging with marginalized people so the not victimize her radicalized. At the end of the day and hopeful i want people to understand what it really is to fight for democracy. Thats great, mike, in fact, to make a transition here going from somebody very much involved in local government in a relatively small city to houston, the thirdlargest city, fourthlargest city in america. You have been a leader there in the city council but not only that, you have in common with charlottesville that houston has become a center of these big battles. So why dont you jump in here, give us your thoughts and then after that we will have a conversation together. Can i remind people in the audience to use the q a box on the screen if you want to send some questions that we can get to micro the panel when we get to the end. Thank you mickey. Or as i like to kyle you, cousin mickey, were not related but i would also like to say that. Be su

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