About your book, with something you wrote toward the end of your book, which i think is jumping off for your book, he right, i tell everyone the hardest job is to eulogize the life of someone who did nothing. My friends, is harder still to eulogize the lifeblood of the country who did nothing and then you say i beg of you, give me something to work with when your time comes and im standing before your family as they prepare to take me to god, let there be something worthy, something of merit you did for your fellow man that helped lift them. The name of your book is rise up, talk more about that, why it is imperative for people to give folks like you and the rest of us something to eulogize, to look up to. I think the definition of ones existence is what they do in life, at the end of life, the only thing that will matter is what you did beyond your own particular making and living and having material things. What was the value of your existence . Did it change anything, did it continue anything of significance . I think people dont really think about that. What brings it to mind, the eulogy for michael jackson, the biggest popstar of his time when we recovered out of the cemetery that night, at his burial, a wellknown artist that i wont name specifically, the eulogy for michael and if i go first, i want you to do one for me like that. I looked at him and said you got to give me something to work with. Michael broke records and records being sold and managed. Work he did, this particular artist never really did anythi anything. I think people never really think about what statement did i like . I think its all depending on the time in which he lived and the challenges you face, whether you met the challenges in a broader societal context, i think people often dont think theres one thing about making a living and theres another about making a life worth living. In reading your book, several books in one, on the one hand it can be read as maybe hes going to run for Elective Office again because you talk about specific policies and issues facing the country and what you think should be done and on the other hand, it is a memoir, you reach your personal story through all the chapters and we get to find out bits and pieces because youve written other books where your life is more common but we get to see who you are and where you came from and how it fits with the time we are in and then its also a bit of a howto book when it comes to advice you give to activists. Why did you decide inviting rise up to do your book in that way . I wanted to say i feel between the last two administrations, Obama Administration and trump administration, that we have a graphic unmistakable way, the two roads this country continues to wrestle with but we see it mostly in the last two administrations. In obama, continuing the tradition of continuing to fight for civil rights and inclusive society, africanamericans or women for lgbtq or people of lower income levels and on the trump level, we saw the reverse of that. Exclusionary policies when it came to flax and women and immigrants, lgbtq and i wanted to challenge people on both gross, which won this country would choose and if they decided to choose a road i chose which was more a tradition that created a barack obama, there are some ways to do it and i wanted people to know that i came to these conclusions because i had done certain things in life that was instructive to me. I think we are at a crossroads. I think this country has got to choose one way or another and theres a constant battle with the founding of the country and as we are now in the 21st century, we have to make a real hard decision and i want people to know whether they agree with me or not, the road i chose or not, how i came to those conclusions and therefore, this is the conclusion they need to make but whatever decision, you dont have to do it my way, you can do it in a small context, maybe in your home or your neighborhood or your church or bingo club, everybody has practical ways. I wanted it all in one book because it will make people committed and want to make a commitment, people say what do i do . I cant do something and that, everybody can do something and i give them ways of doing. I didnt see it coming, when i got to the park part, i didnt see it coming. The advice you give having known you and covered you for 30 yea years, actually, yes, i see that. He practices what he literally preaches but i want to bring you to the beginning of the book because you do not bear anyone, not the president , not liberal Republican Party, how to start this group of people who you have dubbed latte liberals. Youve been talking about a lot, before your book came out, talk about latte liberals, who are they . Why are they so problematic within the Democratic Party, progressive wing of the Democratic Party . I think its those who the armed chair kind of people that always want to set the tone, the policy but never get their hands dirty will get involved. They have assigned themselves to leadership but they are not reading anyone. They are not on the ground. In the last decade, weve had every battle in the Civil Rights Era from Trayvon Martin to george floyd. We always had the latte liberals that would interpret with the movement ought to be doing but they were not on the ground trying to deal with how people who are angry, how they would react. How people were angry on the other side, how they would react. How you deal with people who want to do something and didnt know what to do, they were back sipping lattes, discussing great thoughts but never put any feet to action and those, to me, seemed to be very much an obstacle because what they theorize may not work functionally to sit back in the living room paul or and sipped a latte or sit in a studio and spout great wisdom. If you are not on the ground dealing with people who are hurt and angry or dealing with people on the other side of the barricade that are just as adamant and a lot of things you have to do practically is based on being in action. One of the things ive always been is being involved. You may have involvement but a lot of it is because you are moving and reacting in real time to real people so if im dealing with the case of racial violence or police violence, victims family, immediate community, the reaction but these are not people who are activists or politically up to the last situation that we may interpret as this is the politics of the time. They are dealing with a real matter and how you deal with that matter in the context of whats going on in the social world is what you have to learn how to deal with. They just dont have to deal with that so if im dealing with a mother of a Police Brutality victim, i got to feel and deal with her pain and reaction, what she wants done or not done in the name of the victim they were the mother of. They never talked about mother and they dont know the father is as concerned about how am i going to bury my child . The cost of it, they may not have been insured. How might dealing with a broken family who may not have come together . All of that and they will be judged but never active they have become just as much as an impediment as those on the other side because they are so intellectual they are not doing that. One of the things you also say is they are more interested in purity, policy purity and actually getting anything done. They seem to have that group of people. Here is my Ten Step Program and if youre not with those ten, all of a sudden, youre incorrect, not useful. I might have eight of them but to i dont feel functionally works for the people and trying to work with and im trying to help serve. Everything else. This purity test i think is what costs a lot of movement forward. Politics, for example, they would give a purity test to Hillary Clinton or joe biden in this disagrees with both of them but overall direction was where the based on who was opposing them. If you say it was my way, you have to check off all of these boxes of the ten list and if you dont do that, im opposed to year. If the opposition to all of us rather than getting something done. Dealing with real pain and issues with people on the ground. Trump says you have to work with people you may have a problem with on some things but the overall is going to help position where you want to physician people toward moving down the right road. You write Something Else new book about the latte were liberal i want you to expand on, they may mean well but his lack of empathy or understanding the basic inequalities that go handinhand with bigotry, racism and economic disparity, making it go back to anyone struggling to get a foothold in the American Dream id go so far as to say is if latte liberals have this in the issues and their black and brown and immigrant brothers, there would be no need for someone like me. I wrote in the margin when i read that, bernie critique . Talk more about that. I think what i was saying, the people in black and brown communities and workingclass for what communities in the Lgbtq Community, these are People Living with a lot of latte liberals are reading about so they are dealing with how they can analyze without expressing the pain and reaction and the outrage. When i go to a scene like george floyd, i am standing there on the corner where he literally died his death was on video. Im thinking about the human suffering this man had analyzing the law. The law is applicable who will express the Inhumane Treatment . The outrage of people seeing a man dying. Theres so caught up in their analysis and fitting in two their part, they miss the actual facts, this is a human being, somebodys father, somebodys brother, somebodys son that lays there and was killed in eight minutes and 46 seconds. By the time they half of their analysis theyve rejected because its like you dont feel my pain. Someone like me expresses the pain and outrage because when i looked at george floyd, or trave on, that could have been me and its affected my life journey. I am not talking about some analysis i learned about a situation that ive had to live in they never get there which is why they appear useless. Those of us have the coverage and ability to express that pain becomes necessary because first and foremost, they want somebody to understand i am hurting, he is not there, this is not right. Im being treated wrong. Everything is the expression, black lives matter, we matter. Im not an object to be analyzed. And something that ought to be regarded, restricted and therefore, ought to be treated this way. Now we can get to the social formula you want, legal kind of analysis you want but first, you must confirm you understand that i am violated as a person. I want to come back to that in a second because theres something you wrote in the book that surprised me. He mentioned Trayvon Martin, eric garner and there have been countless other victims of Fatal Police Violence or vigilante violence, ahmaud arbor comes to mind. You wrote in the book, i think it was when you went to minneapolis to see the site where george floyd was killed under the knee of a Police Officer, that got to you. Correct me if i am wrong, you said it broke you. Why overall these decades, what was it about that particular circumstance, that particular victim in location or city that affected you that way . Festival, when i got the call and then an attorney called me and said the family would like me involved in said would you go to minneapolis and stand up on this issue . I told him absolutely. I called eric garners mother and said going to minneapolis, one of the reporters is going to give us this, would you go with me . Is in the middle of the pandemic, none of us were flying, very few flights at that time i knew she was concerned, as all of us were, traveling during covid19. She said im article back so we got on and went to minneapolis. We go as ive gone for the last 35 years but when we pulled up in this community who met with some of the local activists at the church that was diagonal to where george was killed on. When we walked up, i looked where the band played and it looked there and i thought about this young lady who walked by and videotaped, this was right off the curb. Frost daylight with his knee on his neck. How was this and what a way to die. He was begging for his life, playing in the gutter. People walking back and the other two policemen were standing there, aiding in this mans life being taken and it overwhelmed me. I say that in the book, when you lose the sensitivity of a human life, if you dont feel something, another situation, then i think you are ineffecti ineffective. It really bothered me, george floyd brought home the viciousness, and sensitivity, ruthlessness some people have toward human life. At one time eight minutes and 46 sevenths, that this is a human being even if you thought he was doing something wrong . This is a human being begging for his life. The humanity and that that never kicked in. It was something outrageous about that to me. Thats why when i did the eulogy and at the end, instead of eight minutes and 46 seconds, i dont think people understood how long of time that was in people told me data, but i step two or three minutes and it never really hits you, wait a minute, this is a human being, somebody that i am squeezing the life out of, coming to face with that, it was overwhelming. The other thing about that, the fact that the Police Officer has his hand in his pockets. In broad daylight on the city streets and he was nonchalant. Nonchalant, and later when i found out when he was calling for his mother and i said i would come back, i said, he said the family wants to meet you because i talked to him on the phone and he did my television show. He said his mother died. What you mean his mother died . He was calling for his mother. He said that was what was so strange, he was calling for his mother. It almost tears me up is calling for somebody who he had to know wasnt there and he didnt have anyone else to call. It is like calling he would probably call for all his life for 30 years, i knew that feeling. I think that brought it all back with the emotions of the funeral because when nobody else would help, my mother was there. I felt that was what george did. As the son of a single mom, as well, that was the thing that got me, thats your person of last resort. When youre calling for your mom, there is no one else to turn to. As a result of the killing of george floyd, we seen i cant remember an incident that created this much outrage. National protests almost overnight in cities big and small, protesting the killing of this man everyone watches, for eight minutes and 46 seconds. One of the things i noticed and lots of africanamericans notice was the complexion of the protest, you seem pretty protests you and the africanamericans were marching this time in majority of the protesters have been white question but given your you about that, White American rally to support africanamericans is something we have been protesting and ringing the bell on and screaming the bell on for generations. I was impressed with the fact that so many literally came out and not just give removed simply but became part of the movement and in many cases, there were more than us in many cities. Maybe we are getting through this, maybe this is the spot that will wake up a lot of the country regardless of their race because of the outrage of this kind of scene. Part of this in an ironic way, this happened where everyone was locked down. It was no sport so you watched the move. People were watching the news, hoping it would Say Something that would break through and we can go out tomorrow. People were houston and they had to watch this tape over and over again and i think it just exploded into this movement because people said maybe didnt see because you could watch the ballgame go to the local place but you can go anywhere or watch the ballgame, there was no ballgame. You had to watch this. I think you see it more and the more outrageous you get. People everywhere started marching on their own and i said maybe this time, maybe, i am still skeptical, maybe this will calm through but it kept going kept going for broke out everywhere. It was Something Like being able to see what youve been trying to say a long time and maybe saying it in ways that was not appealing to people, not only speaking in terms of the victims family but speaking on my own thing and it and maybe this will be more opalescent than any of us could ever articulate. They came to me and i wrote about this in the book, it came on the first time i went to minneapolis, i went over to the Shopping Mall area and was talking to some of those marching and walked to the side and i was doing a live interview msnbc. When i was finished, i got ready to walk away and somebody grabbed the sleeve of my jacket and i turned and looked and i looked down, there was a young white girl, maybe 12 years old and i braced myself because ive been where people scream racial names out us, what are you doing here . Are you causing trouble . I braced myself, waiting for hostility. They said no justice, no peace. Thats when i said to myself, things will slowly be different this time. Weve got to sustained this for real. Maybe things are changing bur phrasing of latte liberals because im wondering latte liberals are now taking over some of these protests, i am thinking about because the president of the naacp in portland, oregon wrote my paper, washington post, basically expressing concern about the gentrification of the black lives Matter Movement and how you have white protesters putting themselves now at the center of the action, so much so that the message of the protest is being lost. Is there a danger the latte liberals have grown from the arising and sipping lattes just getting there exercise by getting out of the house and marching . I think there is a danger. The danger is compounded when they come up with their agenda and their points of this is what we want. Talking to the victims and those who live in this environment all of their lives say no, this is what we want and they speak for people and speak to. Not all of the white join, but many of them putting this together, its an almost elitist attitude. I know what its like and i know what the political agenda would be actually kidnapped the movement from those who were the victims. They dont even talk to the victims. What it is w