Tonight were hosting Kareem Abduljabbar for his newest nonfiction work, writings on the wall. Theres a were hosting David K Johnson for his timely bestseller, the making of donald trump. Please check our website for more information. Tonight were honored to bring you a Crucial Panel voices on race in america. This is a necessary difficult conversation and we are honored and humbled to have it at politics and prose. April is our moderator and the person who brought these great a minds together. Aprils White House Correspondent and Washington Bureau chief for american urban radio network. White house report is the First National radio feature broadcast directive from the white house. She has developed a devoted audience who depend on her for honest and challenginghallen reporting. She is the author of the bestselling, the presidency in black and white, my up close view of three president s and white race in america. In in the forthcoming, at mamas knees,. Hurt 30 years of journalism have been devoted to truth telling in an unwavering dedication to never accepting easy answers. Please help me welcome ryan april ryan. [applause]. Can everybody hear me . For ta we can hear, let there be sound. Good evening and thank you so much for taking time out of your busy schedule in washington d. C. Tonight and for those of you at home to discuss something that is very, very impactful and important right now to us. Issues of race and pleasing, lawenforcement and the community. Tonight on the table we will discuss all lives to include black lives as well as blue lives. It it is very important and we started off the summer in louisiana with a fatal involved shooting of a black man who in the we saw the aftermath, the Fatal Shooting of another man who had a weapon in his possession. Not long after those more shootings occurred. This time in dallas, texas in retaliation for what happened in the other cities. It was still very sad, Police Officers were injured in five a were tragically killed. Then in louisiana, shots ring out again. Three Baton Rouge LouisianaPolice Officers were killed. Just just today, president obama was a baton rouge, louisiana and he met with families of alton stirling, and also those Police Officers, the families of those Police Officers who were killedi not long after that we heard about cities like milwaukee, usease of all shootings there. And so on and so on. Just on the just down the road in the city where i call home and per Esther Higgins in the death of freddie gray. The Justice Department released a scathing report against the Police Department in matters of race but acknowledge the Police Department is actively working to fix his problems. Ty and these problems of contention with the community and police as far reaching. Heres a fact. I talked with the head of homeland security, jay johnson recently. He said when there is a problemr between communities and lawwbr enforcement, when trust is it broken it becomes a National Security issue. Once again, when trust is broken between the community and police, it is a National Security issue. You ask why . Because of the Police Department asks us to Say Something if we see something. So the trust is broken. Introd i want to introduce my great panel this evening. First, next to me is he is an author and internationalim community consultant, summarize, human rights an expert, hishis latest book and post racial america. Then we also have eddie eddie glaude. He is at Princeton University and his latest book, democracy in black, how race still enslaves the american soul. Also with us today, the esteemed, one and only a Julianne Malveaux who has been recognized by her progressive and insightful observation. She is is in noted author and colorful commentator. Her latest book is, are we better off. I cant i cant wait to see what she has to say. And we also have the tory emery christopher. She is an amazing woman. She has written so many novels and you wonder why a novelist is here, because she has a book out called standard ground. Victoria christopher murray. She has done so Much Research on stand your ground. Lets give lets give our panelists a great round of applause. [applause]. St we have one person who cannot make it who is stuck in new york and she sends her sincere apology. Our dear friend, joey reed whose book is still on sale. It sale. It is called fracture. She is supposed to be hash taking and sending me a question today so you can hear her voice at least through social media. One thing we are going to you today is your sitting here,ay there is a one thing we ask of you. If youre in the conversation and you are enjoying the conversation, how many of on social media . I know we told you to turn them down and off. Pull them out. Mu them, then bridging the divide. Hashtag bridging the divide. This. This is about solutions. Ths its about solutions tonight. When we talk about solutions and we talk about the critical issue of policing, so many of our young and we think its justt been happening the last couple of decades, i hear some aim is going on over here, its not an issue that just happened, itss an issue that they has been a long time. Ha i just want to thank politics and prose for having this. I went and cspan for televising it. Im honored to be here with the distinguished panelist and of course april thank you for keeping us in line tonight. Im happy im happy to provide some perspective on this. If the word patrolman dates back a couple of hundred years. Of course to slavery times. Thats when individuals were hired to catch fugitive slave. That is where the term patrolman comes from. There were patrols to catch fugitive slaves. This issue goes way back in terms of please community relation. I think doctor king said it bes. During the dark days of the Civil Rights Movement when he was very discouraged. He said the ark of the universe is long but it bends towards justice. What i think about race in america, criminal justice issues, education issues, economic issues, i think about that arc and how it has been towards justice but it has been a long one. Go go back to the original document, the declaration of independence. We hold these truths to be self evident that all men are to be created equal. A. A lot of people would say that is a selfevident lie. Not a selfevident truth. If you look at what transpired. I wish thomas jefferson, i wish the founders had left jeffersons original paragraph that he wrote in the declaration. I wish they i wish they had left him in the final one. He critiques the International Slave trade. He criticized king george for kidnapping individuals from the distant land would never harm to him. I wish the founders had left that in. The final declaration. Who knows what impact that t wouldve had on the Abolitionist Movement for 100 years. But im focusing on the negative, i recognize, as many of you do that there have been tremendous changes, tremendous progress in this country over that long arc. Arc. Weve ended slavery, weve entered jim crow segregation. We have passed antidiscrimination laws in housing, employment, public accommodation we have implemented affirmative action and education and employment and of course most recently we have elected and reelected our first black president. This is monumental. This is progress. Th this legislation that we passed over the years, antid discrimination legislation has made a huge difference in the lives of many minority families in this country. Let me give you an example of my own history. My dad and my local both volunteered. Was your uncle . It was higginbotham junior. He was one of the longestserving in this country. First africanamerican federal commissioner and someone who fought the civil rights in this country until he died in 1998. Judge higginbotham when he was a law student in 1952, he won mord oral advocacy award than any student in the history of the law school. At the Court Argument where he won the prize, three judges were there. One, john w davis who had a law firm on wall street, one of the most successful at that time. Wht and also two months later would represent the board of education against linda brown and thurgood marshall. John w davis who im sure did not vote for the uncle to win this award, to a georgia other judges did. He went up to the other three finalists and asked them and congratulated them and asked them to interview at his firm in new york. My uncle got neither a congratulatory handshake nor an offer to interview. 30 years later, i graduated graduated from that same institution in 1982. I had no honors like my uncle, and i graduated, thank youlater lordy. My uncl [laughter] if you went there you know about it. A whole lot of folks note that is. I got an offer to join that same firm and theres a reason for that. Because we pass laws, antidiscrimination laws. We encourage we encourage policies and practices from corporations to open up, to be more inclusive of women and racial minority. Many families have been impacted by this. Progress doesnt mean postracial. I recognize that progress but that does not mean postracial. When you look at whats going on today, the in a today, the inequities that exisn today and they are widespread, 18 1 in terms of wealth accumulation between black and white families today. E 18 1 and that is worse than what existed in south africa. I know you want and write me so ill stop right there. Think you will come back to paris will have audience questions and questions from twitter social media. I want to go to edit, me about the long arc of issues of justice when it comes to the department of justice. They have been issuing pattern practice statements and studies. Talk to me about what were seeing and how it relates historically into today as it relates to policing. Let me first thank politics and prose and think you april for this important conversation. Particularly in this moment. What i want to do is narrow the scope of the question. Rr perhaps begin with what will be celebrating the 50th anniversary of the commission report. Explain what that is. This is in the aftermath ofoe the riots, uprisings, rebels, rebellions, however we want tode describe them. And they tend to account for why American Cities were exploded across the country. The Current Commission report comes out with the study that in its initial form was more radical than in the final four. In affected said there are two americans and at the heart of the conflict was thisral relationship with the police and underneath with material condition of black america. There is a host of recommendations from much more progressive than others. Within the report there is a host of recommendations around policing. That we continue to see. From the Current Commission report to milwaukee, what have we seen . We continue to see this antagonistic relationship between africanamerican communities and Police Departments. The department of justice has been pushed, not we dont want to simply celebrate them, they have been pushed to do their job in so many ways by politics of disruption. Black lives matter, and all of its instantiations have insisted that criminal justice be on the. Front line. And it is precisely in the aftermath of the murder of Trayvon Martin by a want to be Police Officer. In the after math and that death and murder of Michael Brown and the doj report that they said the fbi did its report, investigation, and of course what they find, what they did a fine, but offers huge guilty of any crime but they said the Police Department and ferguson had engaged in the predatory policing that was it militaristic to the community. They did it in cleveland, newark, seattle, should i keep going . Keep on going. All of these reports around policing. Poli so much so that if you read this in the news, the fraternity policing in seattle tried to hold the city hostage. In the judge said to the union that you needed to do x with regard to place in black communities in the unit respond well do x if we get a raise. He doj but its just fascinating. But the doj just recently, and this is really important filed in brief in the federal case around bail for folks who cannot affort it. Forcing people to pay like a fixed bill price if they couldnt they would have to be in jail. Think about it sandra plan would be alive today if she had 500 dollars. Hundred dollars. B if she had 500. Now its interesting about it is this is progress but it is progress as a result of a politics of disruption. Acti this is a result of young people, activists and grassroots organizers put in there bodies on the line, literally chaining themselves in the lobbies and union halls in manhattan. Interrupting the brunch inirves manhattan of the top one tenth . Interrupting your commute to work. Home from work. Forcing the issue of criminal justice. Forcing the issue in a way that goes beyond the claim of just simply community policing, common sense policing that really talking about decriminalization and misdemeanor. You could just breathe of the United States to break the law. What would it mean to decriminalize such that yououk would reduce the encounter, what is a need to give her the bill b for all the Violent Crime . What is it it mean to decriminalize poverty . So to begin to push the issue. We see from the Current Commission report till now we see the change has happened. Not from the beltway out, but from struggling communities around a particular issue. From the outside in. As we celebrate the progress we need to acknowledge project mia in chicago. Black Youth Project 100, the dream defenders, a fight for 15 dollars. All of these grassroots organizers for in some ways lifting up the banner of democracy in a moment where we see the most vulnerablg and in some ways under serious attack by the state and by its representative. Thats interesting and thank you for that. Its its insightful to listen to this wisdom and understand really what is that the foundation of what is going on. And that is an economic piece to this. So i want to go to ferguson. Ferguson of all places, they are trying to change the dynamic that happening thereafter Michael Brown death. Now, we understand that they tried to raise taxes and increase taxes to reform the system. The people voted against it. The second thing work after you have a system where they are focusing in on certain groups and getting revenues for those groups given citations just to those groups they can get more money in their coffers for budgetary means . The ferguson situation is very ostracized. Trying to raise taxes on poor people who are already being hit. You have people who you cannot afford to register your car so you leave it in your driveway. This means youre not driving this car. However you get citations for the car that is sitting in the driveway and after you get one you get more than one and another one, the next thing you note you over 1500 which you do not have. If you had if you had 1500 you would have registered your car. And then, you are arrested foreo having essentially unpaid warrants and youre spending time in jail. The department of of justice found that the way that they find people was racially biased and extremely unfair. Ferguson is no different from any number of small places. Lets look at what of the things that could happen there this week. The judge ruled that their cysto of election for the board of education was unfair. So they suspended the election. Essentially that you like people on an atlarge basis. Three of the Seven Members of the board of education arere africanamerican. Canamer ferguson is much more heavily africanamerican. Ily afrier if they did this election there be at least four of seven africanamericans on the school board. Which would mean a majority, which would mean that you would be able to do some of the things that ferguson has not been willing or able to do. When you look at ferguson and you look at it as a microcosm, you look at the fine piece with a fine piece connected to the differential economic state that africanamericans experts in our society. You talk about at the commission and the material conditions in which africanamerican peopleecommsinr as long as we account it, since the 19 fifties, the black on a planet right has been twice that of a white on the plummet right. The poverty rate in the African American community, although it has dropped a little bit, is still at this point at about 24 . 40 of our young africanamericans live in poverty. This is more than we have seen a long time. Time. That number has picked up slightly. You mentioned the wealth data. Wealth data is a stunner. Today it is black womens equal payday. If a black woman wanted to earn the same as a white man had earned, she wouldve had to work until today. August 23. Where as a white woman would only have worked equal payday io april 12 or thirteenth. And a latina woman would be working until october. These are some of the inequalities that are basically hardwired into our system. Not to mention the differential levels of Home Ownership. Not to mention the fact thatat africanamerican Home Ownership took a big hit during the great recession. Africanamerican homeownershiphi level is dropping. Virtually any piece of data that you look at shouts out these inequalities. What does it matter . Wealth matters first of all with leasing policing because y