Incredible democracy that gives the average person power and average person does not vote. I think its a shame of all of the develop democracy in the world the United States is last in voter participation. That really bothers me because if we dont keep our eyes on the prize, and if we dont understand how we have to constantly be monitoring whats going on and taking steps to rectify any problems on these problems will multiply and we end up like we are now, very divided and at each others throats. That should not be the case but unless the people want to participate in this democracy, thats whats going to happen. Host you are calling for new arguments or new ways to look at old arguments. How so tranthree im calling for new arguments, the Founding Fathers understood they had their own biases and their own idiosyncrasies and maybe they didnt get it all right. So they gave us of the document, the constitution that allows it to be amended and tweaked so that they can deal with problems as they arise. That was i think the genius of what the Founding Fathers did. At this point in the life of our democracy, the average person is not engaged, not involve. If that happens we end up with a mess like we have no. Host in your view is the cream not rising to the top when it comes to politics country i think people are asleep at the wheel with regard to using their vote. They need to use their vote to punish the politicians who ignore their needs. So many politicians are more interested in getting reelected than they are in the with the needs of their constituents. They get elected, they start asking for money from wealthy people to get reelected and to forget about the people that theyre supposed to be representing. Thats a real problem. Unless the people who are suffering from without lack of attention, unless they do something about it by using your vote this will continue. Host one of the issues you address in trannine is the education system. What would you like to see changed tranthree i would like to see the money spent on education actually go to employing competent teachers and making a good education accessible to all americans. That has changed drastically. Our Public Education system needs to work for everybody. Now it doesnt. Or now we have exclusive schools that are able to produce elite students and the we have other schools like an inner cities where its just a joke. The kids dont get educated and they suffer for it. We have to change that. We have to get everybody involved. We have to get parents involved, have them participate in the decisions ar that are made in or School Boards and everything. That again requires of them being involved and caring and using their vote, using several for city councils. And people are going to be elected to the school board. All of these things are very crucial to getting the results that you want which is an excellent education to all of our students. Host you write this much inequality in america but the most destructive inequality is economics. Guest absolutely. I think people who do not have the opportunity to support their families end up dealing with Desperate Measures to support their families, to support themselves. We have so many people who cant afford to raise their children the way that their children need to be raised, and they get out. We have a whole lot of abandonment of young people because the system does not accommodate their needs. We have to change the. Host one of the arguments you put in your book is an argument over the r. Word. Weve all heard about the nword but you talk about race as the r. Word. Why . Guest raises really an artificial construct race is from what we can understand what anthropologists and sociologists tell us. People look differently because they evolved in different physical circumstances. People who evolves under the bright sun at the equator got darker skin than people who evolves away from the equator. But we are all homo sapiens. We are all the same species, but just the nonessential physical differences that we have seen to put people in a situation where they think they are different from other people. We are all the same, and in america we see what that means. We are able to contribute to our democracy with our intelligence and our hard work to equal degrees. We have to forget about the whole idea of race, and understand its all about who you lived with, the people in your community. Thats so much more important than what you look like in terms of your physiology. Host your book is somewhat autobiographical as well and youre right you have been writing for 40, 50 years. Guest yes, i have. Host what changed . Whats gotten better . Guest i think the whole idea that people are starting to see, even people who dont look like them, they are starting to understand that these our fellow americans. So in that sense we are part of the same group. Our ancestors came from various different places but we are all here now and this is our country and weve got to do everything we can to make it to the greatest place in the world. Host from your book, i was called an n in high school and i was called an n last week by someone who didnt like an article i wrote. Guest i put that sentence in there to let people know that racism is still an issue, still a problem. On the election of president obama did not eliminate the racism and the systemic racism that we have to deal with here in america. A lot of our institutions are racially fragmented, and there is bias at the heart of a lot of different institutions in america. We have to understand that and try to eliminate those problems when we cant. Host kareem abduljabbar, are you a role model . Guest whether i like it or not i am a role model. The fact that i was able to achieve what i was able to achieve as an athlete and hopefully as an author has made me a role model. I am a parent might have to be a role model. All parents are role models. I dont think that any of us escape that burden. For some its a burden, for others its a joy we all end up in a position. Host are you a National Role model . Guest i guess so. I will have to accept that. Host is it a good thing . Guest i have to make it a good thing. Its something for me to decide what i can do with it and how to use it. Ive been trying to use it in a positively. Host and you youre right i have a complicated relationship with the media. I have used my celebrity to take political positions. Guest i think that i started to use my celebrity in a way that enables me to say things that need to be said. Im glad to see there are other athletes that are getting in line with that. Win tamir rice was killed and so unnecessarily in cleveland, lebron james came out and said something about it. I think that was very important to me, the fact that lebron, despite his incredible celebrity and achievements as an athlete, he was concerned about the killing of a young person in his community that should not have been killed. That was awesome. I was happy to see it. Im glad that whole tradition of activism has not died in our community. There were a couple of members of the Cleveland Browns also who came out and said something. Some of the guys on the police force seemed to have an issue with that. These guys were parents and they could see easily how the kids couldve been tamir rice under the same circumstances. So their concerns were valid and they voiced their concerns, and im happy they didnt. Host is a controversial, is it harmful to a professional athlete to take a political stand translate it can be harmful to a professional athlete, but i think we have to take that risk if the issue is that important and that meaningfumeaningfu l to you. Its worth taking the risk. Host when did you start writing . Guest i started writing when i was in grade school really. Im still in touch with the nun that taught me in seventh and eighth grade. She wrote me and said she remembered, the entered into an essay contest all of us in the eighth grade. Because i was the best writer in my class. Its something ive enjoyed my whole life. Host the books and looking and research, when did you start into that . Guest research, i enjoyed research. I enjoyed being a historian, just finding out what happened and understanding how that can affect whats going to happen. If we dont learn from the mistakes that we made, we are condemned to repeating them. So knowing what happened is crucial for anybody who wants to understand whats going to happen. Host you talk in writings on the wall about your conversion to islam and what its meant to you and what its meant to other people. Guest well, i think my conversions to islam really was something that was personal to me. It was a religious event in my life. People have tried to make it a little, but really it was a spiritual thing for me. I think islam has given me an anchor that has enabled me to differentiate between right and wrong, and understand life in those terms. My conversion to islam was something that was very personal. It ended up becoming political but i didnt want it to be like that. I probably would have done it different if i had had a chance to go back. I would do with a little bit differently. I didnt necessarily have to be so public with it. It was important to me and it was a way for me to assert my own identity as a black american, and not have to be portrayed as somebody who was sitting, a stereotype that was not actually me. So it enabled me to define myself, and as such it was very important to be. Host where did you grow up . Guest i grew up in manhattan, new york city. I was born and raised in harlem. Had a great time growing up in manhattan. I would not have traded it for anything. Host what did your parents give . Guest my dad was a police officer. My mom was a seamstress. Host you mentioned a catholic nun as a teacher to you went to Catholic School . Guest i went to Catholic School up through high school and then went to ucla. Host in your book you talk about rules, following the rules of the, following the rules of the coaches, following the rules of dad. Guest ive had a lot of coaching. I understand discipline from a lot of other peoples Vantage Point so unhappy at this point in my life that im following my own. Host what are you doing these days . Guest these days im writing. Im spending time with my granddaughter. Im a new grandparent. I have a beautiful granddaughter, and just, so i just take in whats happening in the world. Host what about your charity . Guest i have a foundation. My foundation tries to get kids from the inner city to understand what s. T. E. M. Education is all about, science, technology, engineering and math. So we send them to camp for five days and four nights and give them an opportunity to be exposed to s. T. E. M. Education, and that enables them to get an idea of where all the good jobs are going to be in the 21st century. So i think its a good thing to get kids to understand what the possibilities are so many kids, especially in the inner city, they all want to be Denzel Washington or beyonce or lebron james. They dont understand that there are so many great jobs out there that requires them to be well grounded in science, technology, engineering and math. So by giving them an insight as to whether jobs are at the right time in their life, i think that makes it possible for them to take a good path toward achieving their goals. Host does writing come easy to you . Guest i think writing does come easy to me. I enjoy it. Im able to organize my thoughts in a coherent way and get them out there. So yeah, i think writing is something that its natural to me. I seem to enjoy the. Host easy peasy is than being out in public . Guest at times it is easier than being a public because you time to think things through and make sure that everything is what it means to be so that your message is coherent. You can have your thoughts organized and present them in an intelligent and organized way, people are not going to get what youre all about. Host kareem abdul jabbar, youve recently attended an oped in support of hillary clinton. Why . Guest im supporting mrs. Clinton because i think she has the thoughts and concerns about the lower classes and middle classes that have been ignored by so many politicians. I think doctor focus on trying to make the government and make the political system work for the average person, i think thats very worthwhile and i support her in that spirit is some reset you im a donald trump supporter, do you come to an immediate, get an immediate picture in your head of who they are . Guest no, i dont. I have an idea who they are. s only people that are being motivated by fear. The whole idea of what mr. Trump said about immigrants and everything, trying to make us afraid of mexican immigrants or muslims, i think its reprehensible, and certainly not an accurate portrait of immigrants or muslims or any of the other issues that he claims to be so knowledgeable about. I think he really issuing everybody how ignorant he is. Its unfortunate but thats whats happening. Host in writings on the wall to talk about reaction and reacting from fear. What your prescription . Guest i think the only way we can get over fear is through knowledge, becoming familiar with the issues that we seem to be afraid of. Wants to get an idea of what is actually happening, you can figure out a solution that does not involve building walls across the mexican border. We can fix a lot of these issues if we have an honest and rational approach to it. I dont think we are going to solve anything by fear mongering and demonizing people. That doesnt work. Host is it time in your view, we talked to bill ayres of yesterday, and is a time in your view to try a brandnew system . Guest well, i mentioned earlier the Founding Fathers gave us the constitution and to make adjustments as we move forward because there are new issues and problems that the Founding Fathers did not foresee. So they gave us the means to deal with it and we have to just use of the tools we have. Too many people are ignorant of the fact that we have these tools, and thats a shame. Once we get that idea across to people, i think a lot of people will calm down and do what they have to do to effect meaningful change. Host one more issue you brought up in writings on the wall political correctness. What does that term mean to you . Guest a little correctness really just tested it with trying to be polite to people. I dont see that as a big problem. Just trying to be respectful to other people and not offend them by the way you depict them an talk about them. Trying to be gracious. Thats all its about. I dont think its a big political issue, but some people want to make a big deal of it. I dont think its a real problem. Host if somebody says i am not politically correct, what does that mean to you . Guest to me it means they did have some things they want to see the people that their kind of annoyed to have to watch what they say. But being polite is a social grace that a lot of us just use for destruction. Host where did this book come from . Guest this book came from just how i feel about whats going on in my country. Its my attempt at trying to talk about some solutions that might work. Thats all it is. Host and it is youre what, fifth, sixth book . Guest 11th. Host kareem abduljabbar, writings on the wall searching fora new equality beyond black and white. It comes out august of 2016. You are watching booktv on cspan2