[applause]. [applause] back to back via [applause] please join me one more round of applause for these people that have shared in theire jo the musical talent. All [applause] the ensemble by chuck and the Orange High School choir. [applause] before we close i would like to highlight an event at the nixon library. On sunday december 6 at 12 noon in the east room of the Nixon Foundation will host the sixth annual honoring hometown event where we recognize those that have given their lives in military service from california honoring the gold star families we invite you to attend and join us in honoring them. As inspired as i am by his presentations into the incredible warrior i highly recommend you purchase a copy of the book. Thank you for being here and god bless our veterans and the United States in america. [applause] next a Panel Discussion on race and politics from the 17th annual harlem book fair. Im going to begin by introducing my fellow panelist briefly and then we will just get right into it. On my immediate right is samuel roberts, the director of the institute for research in africanamerican studies and associate professor of history and associate professor of of the socio medical sciences at the school publichealth at Columbia University he writes lectures widely on africanAmerican History, medical and Public Health history, urban history and history of social movements. And the political economy is held the race a peer co that encompasses the jim crow era and from the bacteriological revolution to the antimicrobe or therapy. The author of the awardwinning book the color of our shame. The the call amend the stone into his right is professor l. Irvin painter who works in new jersey as an author and historian is the edwards professor of American History at Princeton University and the author of seven books including the history of white people creating black americans can africanAmerican History and its meanings in the department and Sojourner Truth a life of symbols. Shes also a professional painter and works digitally and manually most recently on art history by volume 27 in the ancestral arts. She received her phd from harvard and the nsa in painting from the Rhode Island School of design so please join me in welcoming the panelists. [applause] we are here to talk about race and politics in the time of crisis. I was thinking we could begin by thinking about the current state of affairs and if we just think about it have a pretty dramatic way of thinking about this moment. So in the past, we have encountered the deaths of two black women in police custody, Kendra Chapman who was only 18yearsold and is on drug and the mass murder of the church in church in charleston. We celebrated, thats probably the wrong word, but remembered the anniversary of eric garners death. And the last week that 40 of black children live in poverty. We have black unemployment remaining twice the rate of the americans etc. And so i want to begin by asking the question of all of you. I would ask the same question as doctor king asked, where do we go from here . There are people that share with me how are shared with me how they lived through the 1960s. You see a real sense if you want to be pessimistic about it things havent changed that much but they still as you mentioned are a lot to do for a up for. Its not to focus solely on what we have to deplore but if you were here for the earlier session come and please bear with me because im going to repeat something that i said and that is i almost feel as if there is a conspiracy to keep us from doing our work by engaging us constantly with atrocities as a historian and a person that has lived for many decades now, i dont feel that somehow more black people are being murdered i think that we are simply hearing about it in a very sad and perverse way i suppose, but my point is we have to find the means of coming to terms with the atrocities of finding the steps we can take to counter that whether it is going into the street, whether it is joining an organization or giving money. We have to be able to take a step. Because to do something already gives you some space. And then to continue on your own work. A i have two things on my mind. Basketball players like lebron james being called king james. Look. Its obviously two Different Things but that doesnt mean they wont get better. Its different than what they used to look like but that doesnt mean that you have actually moved forward. A i think theyve actually had some progress. You are right about change. It doesnt mean that everything is okay. Address the people who say what things have changed there for, we are done. Thats who the comment is addressed to. But this refers back to the name of the Panel Politics in the name of the crisis and i would beg to differ because the crisis is a puncture or kind of disruption of the normal that is to detriment of the subject but this is the normal for black folks for a long time for centuries. The only difference now is that maybe now some folks are listening. So the question really is who is the crisis for. Technology has made it possible because if you look at the statistics. There is the idea of the technology will force of who is the crisis really for and i think in an interesting way theres a reversal to people at the back and finally realizing that certain kind of moral regulation for how black americans are governed and how they are pleased and how to control the distribution of goods. And in that sense it may be more organic is possibly a moment of genuine hope through a lot of tragedy where we finally have a whole nations attention. The question is whether things change from here but i think this something to be said on the Pressure Point and hopefully they would stop soon but every time it happens we actually say look, this is consistent with the history and we will have more time to talk about the denial of history which is what James Baldwin important theme of how folks forget their history and what that means. I knew him when he was a tiny tot. I think it views the crisis for us and psychologically because ive heard so many people feel for my father i cant take it anymore but constant drumbeat of the victimization is something that makes people feel badly judge. I agree the crisis is what mental this moment has passed for democracy which has been in a state of decay the past several decades. I think thats where the true change will happen and i agreed when we live in a the moment of atrocity that it can prevent us from the real work such as ulcers dropped her role to get to is also structural. So going to the question of where do we go from here we have to think very creatively about some of the structures and for example i dont know why i was surprised when i heard that the president was the first sitting president to visit prison and why would they be surprised we do not live in a democracy where people in prison, really a lot of people who are not in prison but has been in prison can vote. They do not represent a constituency in todays political logic so why would you you might visit the smallest town in iowa to pick up the delegate votes but why would you ever go to the super max and we have to rethink a lot of our assumptions, the level of different franchises that have been in this country and i think all the way down to people who were inside as well. Hispanics hispanics who just got back to the point made earlier about the digital circulation and our awareness because part of it is not just that we have become increasingly aware that people are responding in new ways and im interested to extend a rrw may be optimistic isnt the word about our view is suggestive of suggestive of some possibilities for transformation or does it strike you simply as mobilization but not whats your perspective . If i may i think this mobilization is incredibly impressive. I think some of it is technological in the sense im not sure that in Human History weve had a Pervasive Network of communications and it came at a time people remember the period before quicker or the internet. What were the three channels you got your news from . We have a kind of citizen journalism but you know what they said about the new york times. That wasnt the only newspaper. I do agree. There was this robust press that diminished between the rise in the digital age. But i think that we are at a moment where there certainly is intense organizations and attendance intense awareness and we were speaking in the green room before i was just kind of surfing around and i went to the bureau which keeps all of the fiscal data on the physical data on the criminal justice etc. We have very little about the Police Killings for example and what we do have indicates that there hasnt been much change over the past ten years so what we are seeing now has always been going on but we dont have the epidemic of Police Killings but people actually paying attention being fearless enough to feel and that technology you still have to have a human body of the recording and going there can be repercussions but i think thats where it is there is a moment where we are realizing that power mileage doesnt see anything willingly it doesnt end the unsurmountable as a moment of hope i dont want to be pollyanna ish or naive but particularly after the news of this past week one wonders how many other people die themselves and we never knew about it. I think that there is we are correct in pointing out that the papers have been an important part of getting the word out there is Something Different that there is Something Different about this moment that is ironically technology has acted as a very democratizing factor and everybody in this room has advice right now as Something Else happens to somebody else to begin surveying right away and he would be able to go home and let the rest of the world know like that that is new and different and very powerful and that is something that is cause for hope. I guess i will play that role and there is also something we have to a cautious of. It can always be reversed especially when you dont have the power for every Police Officer to have a camera and they are not already over surveyed in the first place and thats something for people to think very hard about and you dont even have to be doing anything. So we are not recording them just as a matter of course but we are catching them in the act of something but what would it mean now to be recorded just crossing the street walking to the corner that may be known for other kind of activities where youre going to get a pack of lifesavers but then its Something Else to go back to 9 11 maybe some of you feel this way but a very peculiar thing happened. The news played it over and over and over and something happened to me. The first ten times i was horrified and by the 50th time i sort of detached fascination with this awful thought to have but then been the action begins to get doubled so there is something we have to be cautious of because they are hitting the web and that by itself cannot do the work we need to do there is a way this begins to dull the senses. I am on leave currently and i feel like i come back every six days to news and facebook and somebody new. Now its like every five or six days we have another video so when that happens we have to take care we simply dont say we are seeing it it has to have the effect of motivating people and that is the danger of being so pervasive that it becomes part of the regular news stream that is being cautiously optimistic in the perspective. I agree to the whole host of images when you see the 9 11 it also spends not just into the general public but for the general public it quickly became the fire of the sentiment of the patriot act and the whole post of things so you dont have to be entirely pessimistic to understand that so i agree. On the other hand i think having this awareness is a painful thing we all have to go through and we have to make sure people are saying their names and you wont be relegated to obscure. We will make the Mainstream Media take a look at this. For all the talk of the president s bucket list as he calls if im not sure it was on his agenda to visit a prison and when he was elected the first time or even the second time. Weve moved up so much further. Im not particularly discouraging. But also not wholeheartedly pay for everything hes done and i think that we have very much given him the credit for taking the initiative to visit and you know, i think he generally wanted to do it dont get me wrong but all the work that people have been doing for years before he was elected now player at the point power is starting to acknowledge some of this. What we see through the internet and interconnectivity is very important that i want to stress on the psychological side and at the political side the importance of action of doing something and thats doing something can be giving money and it can be part of an organization and there are many ways of doing something that speaking as someone whos been through this and knows how long the struggle lasts a precursor to have meaning of doing something and then stepping away and returning to our work and when i say our work i need your work and your work i dont just mean the political work. For some people that will it will be political work and for some people it will mean running for office and for some people that it will be writing reports that well get to the fbi or the bureau of labor statistics theres so many ways of doing it that we each have our own work and if we only talk to each other or talk to the web about our we are not simply black people in anger but we are also writers, scholars, artists, whatever else it is that you do you need to do that as well. The point you make about the psychological wages also designates with respect to 9 11 read one of the consequences people talk about is those who watch the footage over and over again are unlikely to have posttraumatic stress than those that were on the ground and that there is a way to the witnessing can become a deep wound if we dont have the resources to do something in response to shifting gears a little bit one of the critiques that has emerged is about around whom we mobilize with respect to gender identity, Sexual Orientation etc. Do you see its been much more common for people to mobilize around this gender, heterosexual black men than all other categories of people have been subject of Police Violence or any other kind of deadly violence. You see the shifting. I see this as a prime example of a privileging of a male stands stance. You feel strange knowing his specially i grew up in the 1980s where things like the extinction of the black male is an entire political discourse but nonetheless that is still what it is. Theres a sort of privilege and that is a can of worms the can of worms that really becomes ultimately unproductive when you start favoring the hetero marmoset video that accompanies that you end up finding yourself in close uncomfortable company with critiques of the families that have come down since well before the report embedded in that whole line of thought that we shouldnt subscribe at all and i think the other thing about it is that it quickly puts us at the stage i can talk about my brothers keeper. I am very skeptical of it and it puts us in a mindset of gender segregation cognitively translate into policy and is also inappropriate as well as a tactic i dont think it would be productive as well. Your brothers keeper . I also agree i think whatever has happened for example is lawful and the ads instruct that its made the news it has and i think i would like to think that that is equalizing our intensive fields and so i like to hope so and i think one of the things we can think about what is happening in the background of this nobody likes the idea of marriage for example whats happening is the American Families dont tend to get how they used to look in terms of the competition so im hopeful that that can change but its one of those things also the communities cannot let america set the agenda for us to have to be accepted to it ourselves and im not sure that we can but i think part of it has to do with sort of kind of gender norms about the fight and who can be at the front lines to speak. But i have been guilty of it and when i have spoken of the issue of privileging black male victims to be sensitive to the all black wives matter then we say the catchphrase and other folks. And thats what he put up with we put up with the mobilizations in early may to put it back on the agenda and thats why its important that we have to guard out to be the are now more of the world. Ultimately, this is about politics into the action and doing. But we have to think really closely the fear that goes. The discussion that has to be offered and its important to have those voices as leaders of the movement. In some ways but is distinguished for me about this moment is that there are black activists refusing to set aside issues for the sake of some solidarity that has to but has to be in trouble part. He is now no longer new and before that, we had a charismatic year. Cory booker who is now a u. S. Senator and cory booker had a much higher profile nationally. Cory booker was a regular mayor. He didnt walk on water by any means she had a very highprofile. But what has happened in new york which doesnt have much money is that the administration has been able to topic system sources of money and support he and his administration agree to oversight which cory booker and his administration fought off, so. They have jobs in the city this summer and simply because the administration has been active reaching for the use of existing resources. What i want to say for this is first of all, when we talk on the importance of pushing on the press or the cabinet or the Administration Pushes on the local level and part of it can be our action to keep our sanity can be acting at the local level in fact i would say that its more useful and it fe