Southern social political and economic ideologies prevailed in the American West. Following the civil war. Enjoy but to be on cspan2. Hello everyone and welcome and thank you for joining us. Around the world. We have people from st. Louis and harlem and albuquerque and the bronx. We are so pleased to have you here. My name is maia marshall. Obook watch, its origins lessos of our own. And published by crown books. Before i introduce the doctors, and the organizers of this teaching them with books. Our bookselling partner. To order these books, please visit labyrinth books. Com and get the Discount Code at checkout to receive free shipment of your order. [inaudible]. It will be fulfilled in about a week. Critical that we support the publishers the source. You can do this in many ways. First by buying books from places like the free market books by buying them directly labyrinth in second bite joining the book club. 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Talk chat options of the live chat option because theres so many of us on this call. Upwards of 9000. Clearly text problems, in my get choppy, haymarket will give instructions on how to deal with that in the chat. And for interrupted for any reason, you can go back to the haymarket page. This event will have live closed captions. To enable them just click the button the bottom of the video. Having any trouble with close captioning, there will be a link to the tract. Thank you so much for providing the life captioning. What we will do is have a conversation for about 40 minutes. And then questions and reminders of events. And now, just list your questions in the chat. It is my pleasure to introduce the doctors. [inaudible]. The most wellknown books, democracy and box, race and the american soul read in the shade of blue, and the politics of black america. Professor of religion it will correct me in a second. Africanamerican studies. At princeton university. Doctor west, is a professor of the practice at harvard divinity school. Best known for his classic race matters. Democracy matters. In his memoir, living and living out loud. He is the host of the new podcast. Will be discussing the beautifully written book begin again which was just released yesterday. This book is absolutely beautiful. Hopefully the moment where we need that. Im going to read just a little bit about where this book came from. Then we will start. It begins in crucial and encouraging space. In the dream was slaughtered that love and labor seem to have come to nothing but scattered. We knew where we have been, what we had tried to do. To attract been murdered around us. Not everything is low. Responsibility cannot be lost. It can be only advocated. And when we receive the certification again again. Welcome doctor reed. Thank you. I am so delighted to be here. Thank you maia. Stacey so excited to have you. So happy to jumping with this question. Why now. First off, just let me think everybody for making this possible. All of the folks in haymarket press. Anna specifically thanked doctor west who has been so important in my life and has made me possible. So this is making my heart smile just to be with you in this moment. Its exciting. [inaudible]. Often, why now pretty well in some ways we saw barbara emerge in the context of 2014 is amazing before. As black lives matter was beginning to give voice to his own desire. They were reaching for a voice. Reaching for this clear black man is spoke in kind in truth, who carried with him the kind of wage and love. Like he cleared the effort omit politics who offered a different kind of understanding of what it meant to preach for a different way of being in the world. But i wanted to turn to baldwin because i was trying to grapple with my own despair and delusions meant in this moment. Talk to the extraordinary moment of 2008 in the election of barack obama. Then we saw for eight years with that meant. And then we witness police, murdering our brothers and sisters and we saw these young folks in the streets, risking life and limb. And what we see in response, voter id laws and Voter Suppression in the country we ended up with donald trump. So this was a moment of betrayal of profound betrayal. In the country and did it again. So what i wanted to do was to return to jimmy who had been so much in this moment. To figure out how he dealt with his moments of betrayal. And how he turned his back then. How did he pick up. And what resources were available to us now. Because in my mind, it was one of the most insightful could be critics of the record for free so makes his army, it made sense for me to reach for him in this moment. Thank you sir. And what this book is which is part biography part history and part historical grounding in this moment. And the disappointment that follows. An important again to help in this constant rebuilding. I wonder if each of you could take a moment to speak to the practice of hope and witness now. And our responsibility to care for the witness. Resting critically nasty things happening to witnesses. And one who witnessed the murder of george floyd. How do we practice hope. And the responsibility of witnessing. How do we take care of our witnesses. I love would you say doc. First i want to thank the sister there for her work there at haymarket market there and running the menu script section and poetry section in general. In his brother right here. Lord have mercy. Just look at him in his eyes. Remembering 30 years ago, i was fairly convinced that my dear brother, i said you see that brother talking. I say he is going to be one of the great exit laws of our tradition. Did you you talking about the greatest tradition in the modern world. Unflinchingly catastrophe still dish it out a low voice. What beauty that is. The goodness. Love is a truth. And myself as a christian, love of god. In those 30 years have been such a magnificent journey for me. So the slippery joyous occasion and that of days and became the decline of the american empire. And then my brother eddie. He seemed to path, i want you to see what it looks like. See what you have in this text. The way in which you attempt to regenerate and revitalize the greatness of a tradition. The black intellectuals. Brandy intellectuals concerned about blacks doings and sufferings. So we begin with on talking about at the end of his life. No talks about where hope comes from. I hope somebody will find when they dig in the wreckage in the rubble and the ruins, something that could be of use to them. Eddie glaude represents the voices of the cloud of witnesses, a custodian of a rich inheritance and a caretaker of a great tradition of people to keep dishing out these levels of truth. This is why he engages with somebody like altman at the highest levels of greatness. Greatness not in terms of i want the book to be number one but the greatness not measured by just remember that its measured by what went into it, the courage to think critically and the courage to love and the courage to generate hope and to practice hope is to be connected to the best of ones tradition to understand whats going into the making in the molding with that love all the way into magnificent mississippi. Thats what senate and what senate intimate that tradition available to the whole world the whole world being at that level, you have been able to somehow keep it on, keep on pushing so thats what you actually get in begin again and lets be honest about it its a tear soaked, bloodsoaked and yet soulful tradition. Thats what you get in this text. First of all i hope my mom is listening. Thats what i want to read i pray that she heard that because you are going to bring me to tears but there is a line. There are so many lines that will blow you away but theres a moment in istanbul where hes being interviewed and he uses begin again and ill buy the sitting there and its 1970 i think. The interviewer asks him about hope. Baldwin retreats and this is on page 145. I remember that. I remember exactly what he said. What did he say . Hope must be enlisted every day, every day. Is that right . Thats right. Thats our tradition brother. Thats our tradition. Its the verb, its motion, its movement its indeed, to practice and you have to be improvisational about it. You have to be jazz like about it. You have to be blues like about it. You have to reinvent that every day. I have to reinvent a resources so well come back the next day. And come back the next day and its going to come back the next day. And baldwin of course he has the best position in the world. So i was thinking about that line as an answer to mine. In the face of the assassination of dr. King where they murdered an apostle of love and collapsed and could barely pick up the pieces and tried to commit suicide and 69. His relationships collapsing around him and thinks hes this child because his daddy told him he was so ugly he believed that nobody could love that ugly little boy. He finds himself in a stumble trying to figure out how to. To this moment and there he gives utterance to this line, this formulation that the doctors laid out. Thats a necessary practice that we are in fact are the hope. It is our commitment to showing up. That is the hope and that is the model in the practice. Its just so awesome. All the courage and willingness to be crashed and misunderstood and misconstrued and pushed to the fringes and still have that kind of bounce back. You see what i mean . The what we have and brother eddies book here in the middle of a blues like situation in the u. S. Empire hes saying well you know we lose people in this aint new for us. We have been here before. Not particularly so at the moment but in similar kinds of moments and asked a human thing. Its not just a black thing. The black folk are human beings predisposed and dont have to prove nothing to nobody and he has to learn how to love and fight and hope and laugh with their families are mamas and their daddies and their synagogues in their churches and their universe. He didnt have in mind the genius from mississippi. To be distinguished university professor. He is not surprised. Hes her fellow colleague and hes not surprised and im not surprised. We have teachers who see us as we continue to grow and mature. We are not surprised at the fact that he is like all bone is connected to the best of his tradition. Thats the thing about it. You probably want to say a word about when he tells the students. You tell that story brother. Its a gorgeous moment. He was so central to sncc they produce that radical coal hardin group of corbin cox ends stuckey carmichael who would become they all come out of that group so they invite him to come to campus any supposed to be on stage with allison who could make it in the rain who was too sick. He lays bare but then they retreat after the panel discussion. Malcolm was not audience too. He says i hear the Little Brothers going to stake and i want to hear him because i know he speaks the truth. They get the liquor and they are talking until the late midnight hour until the sun begins to come up and baldwin has the last word in jimmy says if you promise her elder brother that you will not believe what the world says about you i will promise you that i will never betray you. And to ray tells michael farewell in his autobiography and farewell quotes it in jimmy never betrayed it no matter what they said about it. I was sitting next to stuckey carmichael and to ray at the funeral december of 1987 at st. Johns cathedral with the genus name baraka and another genus names Toni Morrison who gave their heart soul and mind and cried like a baby. He isnt the crying kind of brother. He knew given all of us as human beings baldwin never was a fake never a phony and never frauded never a coward. Given all of his ups and downs. And the suicide attempts, right . Hes wrestling with this. Its true for all of us. We are wrestling with it but hes wrestling with despair but he never betrays everyday black people really everyday people you see and thats a beautiful thing. Its majestic. If you are able to tease that out and this is why this is the most important text ever written on old when and his genius and his relevance. Its a positive check on baldwin and the blues in his connection to the music but in terms of the relevance of this is particular historical moment linick we. Thats fun. Absolutely. Youve made it clear that James Baldwin was a man who was pushed into the basis of this one because he is a person who believed and your reality and maybe you could give us perspective. Maybe can tell us where you are from and thats abundantly clear throughout the text. Its such a great point. Ive wanted to come and ive i said this kind of, i knew what i decided to start reading and he would ask things of me. But i wasnt quite ready when i was younger. Theres a sense in which baldwin always says this is a precondition. To know that lessons of the world we have to deal with your own any of said deal with the Material World is a precondition to say anything about the world because baldwin thinks the message of the world is a reflection of the lies that we tell ourselves. So im sitting here wanting to write about the moment and im grappling with the fact that im a vulnerable little boy still dealing with my daddy issues, still grappling with the fact and thats why began this way. I love my father. He made me possible. Woke up every day and he used to sweat in the mississippi heat delivering mail. He could look at me and scare me to adapt. I would shudder and ive been grappling with what it means to have that fear put inside of me so early and as i was writing the sentences came out about my dealing with my daddy and by the time i get to the end of the novel, the end of the book my father is with me as i visit his grave. Im talking about us telling each other how we loved each other, how he called me to tell me what to say on television and how proud he is of me right . And when you read jimmy you read baldwins notes to the native son his critique of his stepfather escaping but you read baldwin by the time hes about to die in december, the later writing about his father understanding what the world it to him. Its not so much him but the context of his living. I think the writing of begin again is the kind of writing ive never done in public before theyve been taking risks because jimmy demanded it of me and i should say this really quickly. It forced me to deal with the scaffolding of my own lie. And is asking that of our country as well those of us who are trying to pull a nation back from a fascist moment to be honest because narratives are important to please take a moment to speak to your definition of the lie as you talk about in the book and the notion of the value gap resulting and i would like to hear the two of you discuss that. The best way to talk about it is the passage on pain nine page nine. 1964, he wrote it for robert a. Good ones 100 years of emancipation and it breeds the people of settled the country had a fatal flaw. They could recognize a man when they saw one. The new he wasnt anything else but since they were christian and since they had already decided if they came here to establish a free country the only way to justify the role one is playing in ones life to say he was a man or if he was and that no crime at and committed this lie is the basis of our present troubles so what all one is saying here part of it is there have been lies told about by peoples capacity about our character, batter passions all to justify this system of exploitation this cruel barbaric study at the heart of the founding of the modern world at the heart of the founding of the country. Not only do you have lies about like people you have lies about what americans have done to black people and then you have the lie that is the key point. The way and what the lie works that is malformed and i use that verb. Its malformed in any effort to expose the reality of what it has done. Anything that comes to reveal the truth of what the nation has done, what it is done to the native people and what it has done in haiti and cuba in the philippines and what its done in the hiroshima not the sake anything that reveals that america is not the shining city on the hill by the example of democracy or anything that attempts to reveal that reality. Absolutely. Thats what i mean by the lie and that lie is the architecture within which the value gap is this fundamental belief that white People Matter more than others. Thats at the heart of our social arrangement in our political arrangement in her economic arrangement. The valuation valuation of black folks in the valuation of white folks that lead to the dispersion of the disadvantage that distorts the character of the folks who hold it so they can become the kinds of people that the conception of democracy requires. Absolutely. Really what you are saying is a tool we have fighting that additional fear that we are born with is a true reality and a sense of who we are and in fact we are human without having to ask and we are deserving and thats the crucial truth we have to hold in our hearts. Im going to read just a little passage from the book and ask you one more question. When it comes to our history it fits the story when americas innocence is threatened by reality. When measured against our actions historically told ourselves about america about being a divine nation a beacon of light is a lie. The idea of an honest assessment of what happened after the civil war is a lie are the stories we have to tell ourselves of the Silver Rights Movement in this country and dr. Kings moral vision and black power, knitting in the election of barack obama are all too often lies so i wonder what if we disabused ourselves of the notion of innocence as it relates to the citizenry and the state . You know at one level we could leave behind the swaddling clothing. [laughter] the lie keeps us in never never land. A perpetual state of adolescence so your is be responsible for anything and it allows us to exist in the a kind of willful ignorance about what we have done and what we are doing member that moment in 63 when he talks about what is happening to black folk. He said its not just the line that echoes in the whats that movie with the late brother with ice cube where he said they dont know when they dont show.