The great story we have two minutes left, i wanted to thank everybody for being at the 7th annual book festival. Please check john norris hold it up please about crime, journalist mary, john is at twitter welcome at john underbar 8 underbar norris on twitter and the book about mary the delightful read about history and journalism. And marlene is at Marlene Trestman on twitter about bessy will inspire you, and cause us to all be indebted for places that we are now injustice in our labor law, and elsewhere because of her long career. So check out their book. Check them out on social media. Co check them out on social media. Next year to the book fast on instagram and twitter and come here in person. If you you are not here personnel, maryland is a great place to visit. Book. Thank you to you, thanks to cspan and thanks to jonathan noris. [applause]. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] this is the tv on cspan2, television for serious readers. Cures are primetime lineup tonight starting at 6 15 p. M. Jeremys cahill and Staff Members of the intercept report on the Us Government drone warfare program. At 8 00 p. M. , mary roach talks to her book, grind the curious science of humans that were. Afterwards at 9 00 p. M. Eastern. Eric fehr recalls his time as an interrogator. At 10 00 p. M. , a look at the strained relationship between fdr and Winston Churchill took we wrap up our sunday prime time with John Hickey Looper at 11 00 p. M. Easter. The governor remembers his past of Public Office tonight on cspan twos book tv. [inaudible conversations] could evening. Welcome to our writers life serious. And vivienne scissors, made miniature of the africanamerican department and on behalf of the library we welcome you here this evening. It is my pleasure to bring up to bring to you Sean Robertson who is a Career Development trainer for the center for urban families and he will introduce this evenings guest speaker, mychal smith. So, sean . Good evening. How is everyone . Its a privilege to introduce the show man. I told him i spent four hours reading his book. If you have not read it, you have to. And challenge my thinking in the book is called invisible man, got the whole world watching, a young black mans education, about his life and political education as a young black in america. In actuality its every mans education. Actually, a womens education as well because when you read his book you see out richs perspective. Did you an idea of what it looks like for folks in this generation to really have a global perspective on what it looks like for justice. He has written i want to do a quick exit of something he wrote that really struck me. He said that anger is what makes our struggle visible and our struggle is what exposes the hypocrisy of the nation that bashes fashions itself a moral reader. Consistently, you see things like this. He challenges everything from our view of women to sexuality to how we treat human beings who may be different from us. He challenges the way that we consider a womans role injustice in the family and society as a whole and its an awesome book. If you have not ready, you need to get the book. Hes a young man that i think we will hear a lot from to come. I have only been talking him for the last 10 or 15 minutes, but one of the things that strikes me about him is how unassuming he is. For someone writes with this kind of power, you would think and who has this level of acumen when it comes to writing, you would think he was a lot more boastful or proud or there would be a level of useful hubris, but i think he understands that civility comes before honor and he takes that very seriously and is unassuming. I told him how good his book was and he said thank you, i appreciate it and it was genuine. Without further ado and you dont want to hear from an old man like me im going to introduce you to mychal smith, the author of invisible man, got the whole world watching, a young black mans education, about his life and political education as a young black in america. Thank you so much for the introduction. Hopefully, i live up to it. Thank you all for bringing this rain and coming out to hear me read a few selections at talk about the book a little. Thanks to cspan for filming this. I would say this language in the book and in seconds i will read i will say that this is my first time cursing and at public library, but that would be a lie please bear with me. Yeah, so im just going to read a few selections from the book and give you a sense of what it is im trying to do with this work and i will just start with introduction so that you understand the places we are in, time period that i am trying to tackle and the ideas that i wanted to wrestle with. The nba western conference allstar had a sizable lead over the eastland conference widget George Zimmerman killed Trayvon Martin. It started with a 911 call on the night of february 26, 2012. The guy looks like is up to no good or hes on drugs or something. Its raining and hes just Walking Around looking about. He looks black, dark video like a great hoodie in either genes or sweatpants and white tennis shoes. He is just staring looking at all of the houses. He has his hand in his waistband and hes a black male. Somethings wrong with him. Yep, hes coming to check me out. He has something in his hand. I dont know what he his deal is. Zimmerman followed the suspicious figure in the 911 dispatcher told him not to do that. Briefly. He then decided he needed a more accurate dress and the Police Called him back and he needed to let them know where he was. I was trying to get that information, suspicious figure in the hoodie attacked him emerged from the bushes, punched him in the face and knocked him to the ground and pinned him down. He screamed for help. That acyl is destined to get away punched him repeatedly still pinning him to the ground. Not knowing if he would survive the attack with no help forthcoming he began reaching present. The suspicious figure so what was happening and started reaching for the gut as well. You are going to die tonight he told zimmerman. He was left with no other choice. He reach for the gun first, shot him in the chest. You got me, the suspicious hoodie said. That is the story zimmerman told thats the story that Sanford Police department believed. The story as old as america itself. The story about black men toward violence, our reliance on animal instinct, general unfitness for civil society, preference for death is destruction. To believe this story, where trade on with the aggressor, a teenage boy more interested in fighting a stranger than getting back on to see if Lebron James Bron james could lead a comeback that he brought zimmerman close to death with his bare hands is to believe the stories White Supremacy was told about black boys and men in america. You dont need to hate black men in order to believe the stories. Black mans humanity only need be invisible to you so you never question where the stories came from and why they access. Far too many people were content to do that. Thats how zimmerman was able to raise a little over 200,000 for his Legal Defense fund in two weeks, im up before he was arraigned. The only weapons ban on trade bonds body with a can of arizona iced tea and a bag of skittles he just purchased, but it was zimmerman with a gun on his hip that would. For his life. Trey bohn was anything people believed by people to be an Trayvon Martin became another of our martyrs. s name became a rallying cry to theory video sublet existence and Family Living memory of what american races and steals from us. He did not ask for any of that before it was assembled he was a boy. You like football and little wayne and airplanes and taking things apart and put them back together. He was a black boy in america trying to become a black man. George zimmerman made him into another black boy that would never have that opportunity. I dont remember what i was doing when George Zimmerman killed Trayvon Martin. Im sure i was watching the same allstar game as i had done since i was a kid, even younger than trained on. I may have even made a snack run to 711, almost certainly was tweeting or reading twitter. I may have been on deadline convincing myself that watching the game wasnt procrastinating my writing process. I was probably stressing about money and not thinking about that black boys. Had the opportunity to do a number things that trade on will never have a chance to and the guilt of that weighs on me. Everything tres funded thats justified his death, wearing hoodies, walk into the store at night, having tattoos, smoke weed, being suspended from school, i did that. I couldve been trained on. So many must black boys trying to become blackman in america couldve could event and knowing that made his death so much harder. One of them most effects of racism is the consecration seen a wandsworth and purpose and can be almost as debilitating as death. I dont wish to make these things seem equivalent. Had my life. Trade on does not. The source of my guilt is understanding racism will take some of our lives while Holding Others to success provided that allusion there is an escape. It places us in the position of wishing that our martyrs could have survived. I tried to imagine what trade on where he wouldve been on 2015, 2016 and beyond in the things he wouldve seen, the world he would amount and how he wouldve created himself. When he introduced to a martyr as a result of his death there not a whole person. They are aiming in a story, a set of symbols and projections. Their lives are flattened for consumption and whatever attempt to make to remind ourselves of the humanity is no substitute for the facetoface interaction we will never have with him. Particular painting that realization when the martyrs as young as chelan. I did not do to no trayvon but he had as a 17year old he probably hardly knew himself. He never got the opportunity to ask himself why, never had a substance challenged or his world shattered, heroes humanized or moral questions. He never had to comprise of bigotry or complicity in different systems of oppression to ask who he wouldve been on figure 26, 2013, 2014, 2015, 16 and beyond. George zimmerman took the opportunity for experienced way from trayvon. Trayvon martin was a 17year old black boy in america, White Supremacy tells a lot of lies about 17year old black boys that crop in america, but we cannot escape the fact that they absorb eight culture of bigotry, violence, untreated Mental Illness and a host of other american problems that translate differently when experienced through racism. I want to appear to be tarnishing the image of Trayvon Martin, a black boy never knew. Its almost a desire to protect our martyrs with so many of them being black men maliciously aligned life. If we dont rescue their narratives they will ever be remembered. We do a disservice to our martyrs by imposing perfection upon the. We do a greater disservice to ourselves and not honestly working with our martyrs were to the could event. We resist this conversation because black men in the culture they create so easily become scapegoats. Without nuance they quickly turned towards a claiming a black man pointed existence of society homophobia and the rest of american problems. On careful examination on how men can experience these forms of oppression and more images of black men is connected to everything wrong with the world and the easier it is to justify killing them. Racism is seen as a natural reaction to the existence of black monsters. Who would Trayvon Martin have been february 26, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020 and beyond. Short answer, he wouldve been a black men in america in the long answer involves that entails. I was 25 years old when George Zimmerman killed Trayvon Martin. I had not prepared for life at 25, having believed different points my life that i would not make it that far. I couldve been trayvon or any number of nameless faces black boys killed by police and diligently in these or other black men themselves. 25 was a relief and surprise and an opportunity. I would be afforded the time to create myself as trayvon was not i do not know how to do that or did not know how to do that and become a healthy and whole human being. It seemed every black man to witness the potential to create himself came through to the other side broken. Walked to the culture of homophobia, transfer via, the lead is him, self hatred, violence, untreated Mental Illness and other american problems. I was doing the same because i didnt know other way. Then, George Zimmerman killed Trayvon Martin. I looked at the face of the boy who became a symbol and wanted more. I wanted more for him than the choice between moderate token. Wanted more it for him than eulogies. A wanted more for him than just an opportunity to create himself. I wanted for him, for all that trayvons in waiting a world where they did not have to grope broken or not grope at all. I wanted to fear how to greet that world. I look to my life to ask targeted to 25. I asked who influenced me to think the way i did, what events have been most important shaping my worldview, who in what challenged me to see different. I asked myself how did you learn to be a black man. That i wrote down some answers for the martyrs and tokens, for that trayvons that could have been and are still in waiting. Go to read one more section after i next section comes in chapter four of the book. The book gems around in time quite a bit and deals mostly with my College Years and the years immediately after that. So, part of the book is part of the section on going to read right now is situated then, about 2007, 2008, with the case of the jenna six, i dont know how many people remember the section boys that were charged with attempted murder which was assumed essentially a schoolyard fight. That was a spark to me and my activism on campus and the work i was doing as editorinchief of my school newspaper. A lot of the chapter deals with that. But, where im starting gets us right back to zimmerman and Trayvon Martin because there is a question here that i really wanted to wrestle with and i went to present to you, so it will jump back and forth a little bit and include some later stuff with ferguson and Michael Brown and ill get into that. A few months after George Zimmerman killed table Trayvon Martin i got my third tattoo. I put invisible man, got the whole world watch and. I wanted to do it for a while and the timing family that right and that song mostly speaking to the idea that hiphops local popularity brings unfounded attention on the invisible man. He charts black mans rise through labor, music and the rise. We went from picking cotton, chain bank, hiphop. Invisible man at the whole world watching. This came back to me after trade on staff and challenge of overcoming invisibility is one that black men take up daily in the quest to live freely. Its a rare instance when we can make the world stand up and Pay Attention to extend to as basic humanity for the price of either are sanity or integrity. With Trayvon Martin and jordan davis and Michael Brown did not choose their visibility prick he was thrust upon them by the same system that made them invisible to begin with. In death they came to full view of flesh and blood. The price for their humanity was their life. As black men, must we always choose . Can we not live free with our humanity, sanity and integrity intact even as the world watches . Are we destined to forever be the invisible man . Invisible to whom, toni Ravel Morrison is asked. Growing up i heard nothing but praise for the novel and came to swear by his wisdom when i finally read it. Worsens question, when i didnt hear until watching her in late 2013 conversation had never crossed my mind, but is the most important question to consider while reading invisible man. When she wrote i am invisible, understand since it because people refuse to see me. It meant white people. Invisibility is establish their white peoples refusal to see blackman is fully human. In one sense, feeding this much power as the world inhabited dominated by the economy government and culture that abuse whiteness with every conceivable benefit. Been invisible to the systems has real mature consequences, but in the response room questions, not me that reveals the novels greatest flop. Ellisons focus on visibility of whiteness and white people makes invisible the very people who are able to see him, black women. A year after Darren Wilson killed Michael Brown i traveled to ferguson to be part of commercial operation and was only my second time in ferguson and gone in november before the announcement that wilson cannot be indicted that mr. Then was understandably much more tense than when i returned. The anniversary weekend was a time of reflection and in some way celebration. It was a tragedy that took Michael Browns life, but with the spirit of resistance encouraged young people who had when your earlier decided they would no longer allow the fear of Police Violence to control their lives. They were so many young people in the streets. Twentysomethings on down to babies born. Whether or not the new movement produced substantial policy changes felt secondary this moment as i heard five and 6year old marches champion along with black lives matter. With they would know regardless of outcome of the movement was that someone that their black life