thank you for the invitation to be here tonight. dr. west and i are in the mission across the country for the new text for the. rich and the rest of us. when we were asked to consider making one of our stops here, to support this great work, we immediately accepted. in part because we belief in the work that greene is doing and dr. west appeared at the conference before. i was just at the writer's conference this year, in fact. as a matter of fact a couple of weeks ago. i'm back in new york city. a couple of weeks later. we have been delighted on the tour to have about half -- i guess about half of our just over half, actually, of our tour stops have been to support through fundraising efforts those kinds of causes and entities that we believe in supporting. whether it's feeding america, with all of the food insecurity that exist in the country, or the national black writer's conference. we found ourselves traveling on the tour libraries, nonprofits, to corporations, to colleges and universities, and to churches all across the country. we've been talk about the issue of poverty. and so we are delighted tonight to be here to support this work. obviously, we happen to be african-american writers. most people prefer writers who are african-american. again, we are delighted to be in new york city tonight. and to offer of or support have a via your presence for the great work. thank you again for being here. i know, he thanks you in a second. thank you for showing up tonight. i want to talk about the book and set the stage for a greater talk from america's leading public intellectual. the person i regard as the new boys of our time. dr. west. i learned a long time ago, twenty five years ago we became friends, he is the big brother they never had. i'm the eldest of ten kids. the eldest of ten, i obviously have never had a older brother. i at least i didn't have one until twenty five years ago. we qebted. he is the younger brother of clifton west ab and never had a younger brother. twenty five years ago i became the younger brother he never had. he became the older brother that i never had. we've been running for twenty five years together. [applause] a lot to be shared. delighted to be sharing with the stage with descr. west. we look forward to your question and answers and questions q and a with you in adjust little bit. but i've been fortunate for twenty five years as his younger brother, and his friend and his radio host on public radio international. smiley international almost two years old. we tried to do significant work being true to our vocation and our calling and our purpose. tried to do significant work across the country for the last twenty five individually and collectively. for that matter, around the world. but for all the work that we have done together, we have never written a book. i was actually stunned the other day, we were on somebody's program and somebody count the books i had written. counted the books he had written and the total was almost forty. between the two of us we written forty books and edited others. we have never done a book together. it represents the first book we have collaborated on. it makes sense to anyone who knows the work we do the subject matter would be about the least among us the issue of poverty in the country. the book is called the rich and the rest of us. a poverty manifest tow. it's been fascinating. i'm going to take my watch off i'm going to filibuster. with two mikes in front of me, anything is liable to happen. been fascinating. now that we have a week under our bets, or almost. for what is going to be a three week tour across the country. we've been out for almost a week. there are refleshings that i can share about the book and how it's been received and what people are saying. one of the things that dock and i have been struck by. what i didn't expect, maybe i was nay veef nor not expecting it. i was struck by the conversation that kicked up about the title of the book. doc and i had no issues whatsoever and didn't spend any time whatsoever thinking that the title "the rich and the rest of us" would be controversial. if he did, he didn't tell me. i didn't think about. i thought it was a great title because it was an accurate depiction of what is happening in the america. there are "the rich and the rest of us." i thought the title was good. and the subtitle lets the reader know what the issue is we want to tackle in the pams -- pages. i didn't know until we got on the road there would be an consternation, shall we say, and such controversy about the title of the text. but i don't know any other way to describe what's happening in america right now than to say there are the rich and there are the rest of us. and what are arguing in book debate i way make way for doc west. we argue in the text that poverty threatens the democracy. now, i did believe and did think that some would find that a by hype bollic. we might be accused of being a little bit over the top with a book that suggested that poverty threatens our very democracy. we believe that to the we believe at the core of who we are. that the very democracy is threatened by the issue of poverty. we further argue in the text that not only is our democracy threatened, it is in part threatened because poverty is not a matter of national security. that is how serious the issue is as we sit here at hunter college in new york city tonight. one out of two americans, and people ask us, you know, they'll say you say one out of two. we don't say, the census bureau says. it's not like we made the numbers up. we had a wonderful researcher named sal vester browne jr. who helped us navigate through the issues and your reis we had about the case we wanted to make in the text. but when our government tills us that one out of two of us is living in or near poverty. that a crisis. i'm not a math major it means that 150 million people in this country are in or near poverty. when you take the -- you take the new poor we argue in the text that the new poor are the former middle class. so you have the poor, you have the new poor, and you have the near poor. folks who are a paycheck or so away from falling into the poverty. you put those three groups of americans together you talk about 150 million people. who are wrestling with the issue of poverty. either trying to get out, or trying to make sure that they do everything they cannot fall in even though they're on the edge and on the cusp. our friend susie orman who we quote in the book. there are a number of people. suez has a great line and the line is simply it this. there's a highway into poverty for too many americans, a highway in, but not even a sidewalk out. and that's the problem when it comes to poverty in the country. it's easy these days for tokes 230 fall into poverty. once you get stuck in the poverty, it becomes very difficult almost impossible for so many americans to pull themselves out. one of the things i found interesting and fascinating about our tour today is the fact that so in people in these conversations want to talk about the plight of the poor these would be the middle class. they want to talk about the middle class and what happened to them. they want to talk about whether the middle class is entire disappearing, how it happened to the middle class. all kinds of interviewers and conversation list want to talk to us when we talk about the book about the middle class. we're happy to do that. we believe in argue the book. the data a that the former middle class are in fact the new poor. it means that once again find ourselves in a place in america those who have been persistently poor. those who have been poor are still stuck right where they are. and that nobody is really committed to having a conversation about those persons who have been systematically and over sustained period of time stuck in this poverty abyss. we talk about in the book in chapter one, we lay out a chapter one, a portrait of poverty. we thought it was important before we got into the subject matter to remind people how we arrived at this place. what has the journey been in this country. that allowed us to arrive at the place where we've never seen it as bad as it is right now. what you discover when you read the text, we discovered in researching it we have ebbs and flows in this country when it comes to our courage, conviction, and commitment to address the issue of poverty. the reality is the last time we had a sustained conversation in this country about poverty, was during the johnson administration. you know this well, the war on poverty. now, that means there have been a lot of democratic presidents, maybe -- that's a stretch. a whole lot. it means there have been democracy ins the white house and republicans in the white house neither of those mrs.s, none of those administrations, rather have taken the issue of poverty as seriously as nay out. we argue in this text, that it seems to us, at least, there has been and still is a bipartisan consensus in washington that the poor just don't matter. the bipartisan consensus that poverty is just not an important issue. so how do we get traction on the somebody how do we make poverty a priority in the country if the two major parties and the heads of the parties don't make getting america out of poverty a priority? we remind the audience and reader that four years ago, when we exercised our right to vote in a president issue election where barack obama was elected president. we immigrated that. we did 65 different events to help barack obama get elected president. for those persons who never seem to quite understand why he wants to hold that president who he fought for to get elected accountable, to progressive policies, just remember, that he chris crossed this country from california to carolinas to get him elected. who better to hold him accountable than in the first place. in the last election of 2008, three president issue debates between barack obama and mccain the word poor or poverty doesn't come up one time. obama doesn't ever races it. mccain never autoers it. the moderators never ask about. three president issue debates takes place at the moment our economy is tanking and there is no conversation about the poor, no conversation about poverty, in this country. you fast forward four years later, half of your citizensy is in or near poverty. we unapologetically aside that we can't abide another campaign for the white house where the issue of the poor in the country not addressed. we can't go from here to november letting barack obama and letting the republican nominee romney get away from having another con test or the contest asian of poor people's humidity is the order of the day. so we put this book out now, again, deliberately to do our small part to remind the nation that we cannot render poor people invisible. we can't treat them as an gast thought we can't treat them as a political calculation. we argue in the book, that it is the telling of truth that allows suffering to speak. if nobody tells the truth about the suffering of every day people, if nobody highlights the poverty that is so rampant in the country, it gets rendered invisible. it never gets addressed by the body politicking. how do you do that? you hop on a bus in the summer of 2011, and grow to eleven states and 18 cities on the poverty tour bus as we did last summer trying to get an understanding a firsthand understanding an understanding what the so called great recession has done or did to the american public. we released a few things on the tour. in no particular order. we realized that the condition of poverty in this country is so dire that a simple or slight uptick in our economy is not going to address the crisis. there are some who believe that when the jobs numbers come out and unemployment goes down a half of percentage point and they start break dancing in washington. it dropped a half of a personality age point. we learned on the tour that poverty in america is so extreme, food and security is so real, gingrich can make jokes, bad jokes all he wants about obama as the food stamp president when congress just this week -- friday night here in new york city. two days ago on wednesday, the agricultural committee in the house of representatives tight end even further restrictions on who can apply for food stamps. just another example of the wrong headed notion that us austerity is at answer at the moment like this. tightening the belt on poor people. further demonizing them, further criminalizing them, further treating them as invisible suspect going to solve our problem. we learned on the tour that things are so extreme and poverty is so deep and dire and a slight uptick in the economy is not going to address what we saw. we learned on the tour not that we ever believed otherwise we now know for sure my grandma would say we know sure enough that poufty is not color-coded in did country. we want -- we seem to color coat poverty in the conversation. we talk about or think about it we think black and brown. that's what we mean by color coating. the truth of the matter is all americans race, and breeds are falling faster into poverty than ever before. specifically women and children. weapon talk about in the book bill clinton, whom i like and respect. he's a friend, i think. sense i've said it a few times over the last few weeks, maybe not. women and children are falling faster into poverty than anybody else in the country. the deal that bill signed 15 years ago. peter the husband of freedom fighters, has a book out now called so rich, so poor. we're not the only ones. we don't have a monopoly. we're not the only ones talking about it. there are folks who have been long distance runners before i got in the race talking about the issue. peter famously predicted years ago it was going to reaping some dire consequences if bill clinton passed this law signed it into law fifteen years ago. he resigned his high post in the clinton administration in protest over this issue. fast forward fifteen years, i have news for you, peter was right. that's why we see women and children falling faster into poverty than anybody else. what does it say about the nation that allow the women and children oftentimes most weak and vulnerable to fall into poverty faster than any other group of americans? so we solve saw that poverty is dire that a slight uptick in the economy isn't going to solve the process. we saw that isn't are it isn't color coated. so many poem in the country right now are trying to hold into the dignity. we believe dr. king believe trd is dignity in labor and work. and when you have half of your population struggling to hold into find a job, you have a dignity deficiency and where there is deficiency of dignity, you have problems. i was watching an episode of 60 minutes a few weeks back. they had a panel about dozen people, most of them white americans. who had once been in the middle class, making six figures and the 401(k) and the savings account and the things that come along with having access to or realized the middle class or more american dream. all of them had lost their jobs. mostly a white americans. it was fascinating to watch this. it is on the book, and i'm watching the story on 60 minutes. i think scott pellly did the story. it was a great piece. i remember vividly a particular woman having the last word in that conversation. and she said to scott, i'm paraphrasing, i'm beyond the embarrassment of having lost my job a few years ago. i'm beyond the embarrassment of having lost my 401(k) and savings account all of my savings. i'm beyond the embarrassment of having lost my house. i'm beyond the embarrassment in front of family and friends who know how long i've been unemployed. all i'm trying to do right now is hold into my dignity. that hit me. and it took me back to the poverty tour last summer which was in part of the genesis for the text to to ohio. we sat in a room full like this, a room full of military veterans who had put their lives on the line some of them injured to protect and preserve our freedoms. here they are back home now, and they've been unemployed for two, three, four years unemployed. one guy in the room, though, who told us a story that had me in tears. doc was slumped in his chair. he and his wife were having a difficult time trying to make it after both being laid off. that after twenty five or twenty seven so years of marriage, they had to split. not because there was any trouble in paradise. there was no trouble in the love relationship, but they couldn't -- they didn't think they came to the own conclusion they couldn't make it together. they had to split to try to make it. and he's living in an all-male shelter, all males. she couldn't get in. she's living across town in another all-female shelter. they had to split because they couldn't make it together with the extreme poverty they were enduring. and we saw these kinds of stories all across the country. we went -- we started the tour on a native american reservation. doc west and i i asked native american brothers and sisters what the great recession done to them. they replied, what recession? we have forgotten about them. we've treated them, they don't feel the impact of no recession. these are depression-like conditions we live in day in day out. decade in decade out, year in year out. so americans, again of all races, color, creeds are suffering in a way that many of us have never suffered. the time to do something about it is right now. before i bring dock west up. the book lays out in a simple format, first chapter is a portrait of poverty. how did we arrive at the place? second chapter is called the poverty of opportunity. and we talk about why there is such a deaf sit, why there is a poverty of opportunity in the country including the greedy corporations who are making money at home and sending more jobs abroad. that's one of the reasons why there's a poverty of opportunity in this nation right now. but beyond the poverty of opportunitying with here's how we want to challenge americans to re-examine their assumptions about poverty. to expand the inventory of ideas as it was about poverty. to look at poverty through a different prism. we want to challenge folks to do that. what it is, what it is and how to reduce it and eradicated it once get a more authentic answer about what it is. the next chapter is a poverty of are fir make. we talk about that compassion. a poverty of vision in this country. a poverty of imagination in this country. and we waved throughout the chapter the people we saw and spoke to. we spent time with poor people not just talking to them. we staid with poor people. we stayed with a family with ten kids. a the dog and -- two dogs and three catses. we stayed with them in mississippi. we stayed on the -- sleep slept object sidewalk one night sleeping with our new friends. we talked to one of them a couple days ago. we try to stay in touch as we best we can. we spent the night on the sidewalk in the nation's capitol not too far from the capitol. we spent the night on the streets so we could get a sense what they were enduring. with spent time with kids in detroit who had nothing to eat and they were part of a food program sponsored by feeding america. we didn't want to just go and take our cameras because it came a one-week documentary on pbs. on a national television with our film. we wanted to really understand what these persons were enduring. we know there's a poverty of are fir make. beknow compassion. vision in this country. we know there is a poverty of imagination and we also know near the end of the text, there's some lies, just bold outright, demonic lies. that are told everyday about poverty and about poor anemia country. we want to debunk those lies. finally in the poverty manifest tow we play out our plan and