Transcripts For CSPAN2 Calvin Baker A More Perfect Reunion 2

CSPAN2 Calvin Baker A More Perfect Reunion July 12, 2024

In conversation. Part of our ongoing Virtual Event series. Were so fortunate to be able to be here with their authors and their writing. Every week we will be hosting an event via zoom. This evenings event well have your questions available. If you go to the check section. They have also included in the chat. And lastly. The technical logistics may come up. We apologize in advance for that. We will do our best to recall any issues. Im so pleased to introduce tonights the speaker. With the graduate school of the arts. In taught at yale university. It is featured there. With the national footwear. With the basic works before joining that. The captivating portrait. They were spinning the first. With the morning in protest. May it not be confused with the construction. The result is a book that is exactly dash matt elegantly crafted. It was called a bridge. With politics and culture. We are so honored to host this event tonight. Im gonna turn the event over to kelsey. How are you doing tonight. Thank you for doing this with me. Of course. This is can be great fun. Im excited to have this conversation. We started working on this in 2017 she has just been invaluable in the process of this book. We wanted to start it was with some First Principles or assumptions that we think we can make in the space because i think we are in this moment. Were having another conversation talking about race in america. As we know for a long time. Why dont we start. Lets start in the middle. And make some things clear. One of the things i wanted to say was well had to talk about or explain that we believe in the humanity of black americans and black people black people all people of color in the u. S. We believe and we know about how a structural Structural Racism works in this country. There is probably some other things you want to ask about. We think that we know because it is the feel that forms us. Were aware of this idea of the systemic racism. I wanted to begin this book for people who are intelligent and dont need to be things dash mike told the things that you just said. They think deeply and have some prior knowledge of about race in history about american culture. And to avoid the repetition because the fear of enlightenment is one that begins with the revolution itself. Leading up to the continental congress. We realize that weve have a race problem again and again. And were realizing that a new. At the things that we are saved have all been said before i began the book assuming that we know these things. You can go back and you can read douglas in baldwin and so forth. Our moche are most things about race. How do we move forward. Its a more active question. Then i think some of the other conversations that we want to avoid. Why integration. We talk a lot about diversity. We talk about desegregation. But youre very clear talking about integration. Talk to me about that. It was an intuition that someone who longs the integration was the real goal. Because race is a construction. What is it that the Civil Rights Movement is all about. Thats were douglas and set. There are two ways for these people to go. They must wholly part or wholly integrate. And then styling further and further back. There is a boston lawyer from the 16 hundreds who points out we can end slavery but how do we integrate these people. You can be an abolitionist and still harbor racial feelings. You can be illiberal and still build a life for yourself that segregates you. And true integration was not assimilation because that reduces or flattens the black cell. Not diversity. You can hide a lot of things in diversity. Now we have diversity. Its integration and by integration i mean making available and assessable all of the tools and opportunities for the American Society to society to all of its citizens. And that is what the countrys historically shy away from when it comes to africanamericans. When we talk about things like the new deal. Or the g. I. Bill. Its always but not for them. And even now. When the National Conversation with people same im willing to sacrifice to make things better for black people. We dont think its a giving up only talk about anyone else. When we talk about european immigrants coming here. Theres enough for everyone. Thats what we do. We create opportunity. Its always this assumption that somehow a zerosum game. Its a competition and i wanted to push past that. Because theres all of these psychological barriers in the American Mind in the mind of all of those who have been colonized or who had colonized. Where it comes to race. How do you move past that. You have to go to the material conditions the cultural conditions. The interlocking. In the structures where race is that create race. And the hard sites of law economics. The culture and education. The narrative that we learn the things that we here in private. And then our intra personal relationships. How you think about me. How i think about myself. All of those places were racist. When we talk about things like diversity. And frames like post racial or colorblind. You find that people want to move beyond it 90 of the country supports principles of racism. But when you come down to those mechanisms that we know it create a greater opportunity for us as americans people stop. Why do they stop. As this book shows the first half of it really delve into the history of the country and the moments in which we have stopped. And part of it i think is that we race a soda finds america. It has so defined america. We have a hard time imagining what this country is without it. Talk a little bit about that. Why do we keep this in mind we keep getting stuck. Im in a correct that slightly. In the beginning. It all goes back to victorian england you dont have the structures of race. In shakespeare there are shades of skin color. And the variance of hair texture. Its not race in the way that we recognize it. Race is a thing that is constructed. Its constructed hand in glove with the slave state. As Frederick Douglass says. Anything made can be unmade. We asked the question of why do we start. Why do we unmake this. There are two essential mechanisms i would argue. One of them is a real resistance on the part of the american conservatives. It begins in the revolutionary time there is very little. It continues with the civil war. It snaps back. There is nothing being said in this current moment on the right that has not been said before. They simply use the new tools and they pass these from generation to generation. Its true on the left as well in a different way. And because race becomes a belief system. Something like a religion it is the same thing that shapes us. Its very consciously use to create an american melting pot with all of these people and these new immigrant groups as we did in the 20th century coming over from europe. While how do you make one people of them. And so, i talk a lot about david nasa in one of the things that you see happening is you give them a narrative of likeness. You create these spaces you can go to a ballgame. You can go to a theater. The ballpark is segregated. The theater is showing other shows. This extends to advertisement. In the culture itself is created. Its giving you this narrative. And white as a construct. Is a construct. It exists in opposition to that which is not black. It is not brown. So go directly to the question. Thats hard to let go of. If that is the narrative that shapes you. Its hard to let go. Because even in ways someone committed a heinous crime. They were talking about the need for basically a final solution. And then they say were not racist. Right. And then on the left as long as im not that that im not racist. But you see we have these narrative of race. That are constantly reinforced. They are reinforced every time you open a newspaper and go to the cinema. There also told in private. So we have a performance of race that we do in public for the benefit or because as socially unacceptable to be racist however we have another conversation in private. You say things. I will use the david chase example here. When he says to his credit he admits it but hes is also completely unaware of it. I grew up in a family they were what with you call white cheek racist. They want to take what you have. Everyones growing up to that. I guess the question is how do we get out of this rut. The way that we have does find ourselves. We cant imagine a world beyond it. We still have the same conversations over and over again. I think of to focus on outcomes. One of the things i was thinking about as i was writing the book. Is walking through new york city and looking at all of these spaces that we would say are integrated and then going a bit deeper and saying this was actually simply a performance. In asking the question of every state in which we participate how integrated is the space truly. To what extent is it representative of the peoples of this country. B, werent they free to be themselves. And to what degree do i in my looking through racial frames but also, you go to a restaurant wiser only one kind a person in a restaurant you go to an office and you look at the employee pool. In the distribution of those in position of power all of those are racially segregated spaces to desegregate all of these spaces that were people stop. Because it means going back. It becomes an interlocking system. And the manager of a company. I would like to increase my pool of africanamerican employees but theyre not coming from the universities i recruit from. Then have the test scores. In the case of new york city. They passed it to get into the most elected schools the problem is always somewhere else. In fact it is always places. I want to talk a little bit about how long you had been thinking about this book. You walk through the city. You think it is a melting pot and inter gated city but its anything but. And you move through spaces and it really sticks out to me. I know in your fiction you had been working through some of these questions. In trying to understand what a freak consciousness really means. How did you start feeling like this. I will tell the story. This has been a 20 year long process. I had been writing about what it means to live in a multicultural Pluralistic Society world and also what it means to inhabit a black consciousness is it perfecting itself. The black americans dont have full social consciousness. What does it mean to have a fictional world in which one does. Talking to a brilliant friend who knows a lot about books. You are too far ahead of people. Your answering questions to problems that people dont know they have. What is the disconnect. Also the frustration i want to talk about i want to talk about the relationships in connections between america and the rest of the world. Its always been a multi racial space. I cant get there until i move past race. Look at the conversation that we were having about race. And just a real frustration as someone who grew up reading bald went. We are repeating ourselves now. We may not be saying it is while the second time and third time that we did. Morgan had to read this conversation. Those conversations themselves are being captured economically it becomes a performance. Weve talked about this a little bit. They are necessary performances in some cases they help people baldwin makes the critique in the 19 they make this about protest. And they flatten the self. All youre doing is reacting against it. The self is so much more than that. I wanted to make a book that spoke to the whole self what does that mean. What does it mean to talk about these problems in a whole different way. I came across that quote from freud. Lets pretend that it is an official entity. Nothing has come to existence has ever ceased to exist. Or you go to your therapist and you talk about your child in your dreams. In the nation all of these things exist in race is reflecting with all of these points. Talking about a whole society. Everything is policed. How do you move past not simply the harm to the body but the harm to the spirit that harm that happens every day in major and minor ways we see the only answer to that is integration. It took a lot of digging now have the receipts. You break down a lot of the academic silos if i know history i dont necessarily and know literature or sociology. Now her to talk about the race problem. After that were to talk about football. When i can talk about public comments. And the ways that our cities are organized. Were just gonna talk about the abstraction that is the race problem. Hope that it takes is where we need to go and it never does. In investigating this in the book. You made some choices. You told us the story of someone like ben montgomery. I worked on history in the space. I did not know the story. Can you talk a little about this history and what it represents. I love the story of ben montgomery. Its one of the first black hounds in the country. It comes into existence right after the civil war. The founders. He was born in luton county virginia is sold down the river. Is purchased by a lawyer named davis who is the brother montgomery runs the plantation. He turns it from a backwoods operation from that fifth or third most profitable plantation. During the war and he is running Jefferson Davis is plantation davises plantation as well. During the war. He is lending both of the Davis Brothers money. Eventually he buys the plantation out right. 8million and parent dollars. Then after or during reconstruction. The very large davis clan. He was at north to a place called mal by eve. Its fascinating to me what a remarkable man to thrive under these conditions the relationships that he has with these people with the people be in the davises is nearly equal. Its still a slave. But he is respected. They have a patent issue for one of montgomerys inventions. This is exceptionalism. This is something we know whereby one sees the history of race. I talk about that as a way of showing you can have a completely racial state and davis was a utopian he considered himself a benevolent master. For his day and his place in time. Arguably he was. What it means to be there. The first is what it means to be enlightened is always so subjective and so socially circumscribed that i think i can be enlightened but still be in part abysmal and object. Whenever we look back at history we think hey im more enlightened. I dont make those mistakes. We all make similar mistakes that we dont even examine because it threatens the ego. The second point was the notion of exceptionalism and when we hold up africanamerican celebrities. If you do these things you can have these outcomes. These are Extraordinary People why cant everyone have a decent shot at an outcome. Thats one of the things i mean by integration. Part of the fear is holding up the exceptional praising exceptional and thats necessary. We should celebrate special people. What about everyone else. Thats what we did with obama and you spoke earlier about the need to move past race. Which is very different from that post racial america that we were living in during the presidency. Talk to me about the difference. Living at the time. Ive written about this. You see all of these people go and they say now we are post racial. It is twin to the notion of colorblind that exist on the right. Its also if we do this one thing or if we play it makebelieve hard enough and then then this problem goes away. I can cast a ballot and suddenly we are in a post racial state. The 30 of africanamericans who live in poverty dont matter. If we are post racial. Were talking about Extraordinary People who had had extraordinary opportunities who have made much of them. Everyone does it get those opportunities. Everyone is not that brilliant or that disciplined. That willful. Just ordinary people. What about the guys hanging out on the stoop. And you go to work in the morning should they have an opportunity . So post racialism says i dont have to do the work. Its very much about america. There is to global two global phenomena i want to highlight. One of them is nationalism. You see the notions of f no nationalism. These are old notion for a world in which people arent moving to the degrees that people in this world in this and this country are. You make the nation by telling them that theyre german. And this is the german flag and you should love it. If you do these things then you belong and everyone else doesnt belong. Versus a country in which its much more complex and nuanced. And we participate in and all of these shared overlapping spaces we have. We have all these overlapping selves. When i talk about integration i wanted to be the public that sears our lives. How do we participate in the opportunities with the country as people citizens. What you do in private this is always why it is shy away. Little patience for some of the language of race. It becomes more and more esoteric. It might be needed. Lets focus on the outcome. Lets focus on the things that we can see field touch. Thats where the problems are. We will probably move to a question soon. I have a question for you. You saw this book two and half years ago. He saw a proposal. It was 50 pages that were not as well developed as the book. What was i feeling. Youve worked a lot with the materials with political and sociological materials of course. What drew you to this. What was your experience. I think it was that i have not heard an argument for integration before in the way that you articulated it in the proposal. You are very clear about that be in the goal and that being the only pathway to a full democracy which we have never had in this country. It was partly the length between the integration of the goal and democracy. That really struck me. I think it was partly talking to you. Our first phone call we talked about fred hampton. I think part of that. That was how my great grandfather. They loved fred hampton. The idea that this little old italian men you and i could talk about that. And it would mean something to both of us and also represented so much about it. About integration. In the potential of it. I think it was the thing that convinced me. Thats probably your favorite chapter. Is it time for questions. It looks like we have two questions right now. Im going to start with this one. From deborah. What are your thoughts about reparation. I think reparations are one lever of a more complete solution. And certainly the way it is framed. You can want rates him a check and leave them alone. They are still not integrated into the citizen tree of the country. The Civil Rights Movement. They understood it was in itself a kind of reparation. They are not mutually exclusive. Here is a question. There is a lot of current discourse. Rather than their amenity. What is a stance on integration. There is a range of arguments currently being aired but i would argue that they tend to be reactive and they are responding to intermediate harm. With a state of oppression. What must we do to co

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