he has received the naacp freedom award and congressional gold metal for his service as commander of the 100 fighter squadron of the 332 fighter group, better known as the tuskegee airman. [cheers and applause] >> ilyasah is an author. educator, and lecturer. dedicated to preserve the shabazz foundation. her father is globally reveres as one of the most important human rights leader.

he was an international advocate for human rights. today he's committed to developing educational federal program that is foster self-empowerment to expanding the role of government to encourage individual responsibility for improving society. and to capitollizing on the arts and entertainment to encourage an understanding of culture, of history, and of self-expression. she's corporation president of the malcolm x and dr. betty shabazz memorial center. we're honored to have her with us today. >> toure is a renowned journalist and author and cultural critic. he is currently on the morning meeting and host two shows, the hip hop shop and on the record.

he's been featured in the "new york times," "new yorker" and several other publication. and he has his own three books. never drink the koolaid. and he's currently at work about the state of black america. thank you. [applause] >> and last but far from at least, we have re baa coo smith's daughter. one the original authors. mr. smith was avid art selector. he shared his love of the arts with his children. rebecca has created exhibits at the museum. he has been a friend to some the new york city finist chefs. she's an activist in the fight against hiv and aids. and we're honored to have her as part of our panel.

[applause] :

>> surely, you've been quite of bit of yourself. and what was your driving force? >> i was thinking the way he was talking office slavery. in 1930 when i was about 8 years old. it was 65 years from the end of slavery. now i'm 87 years old, and it's 65 years since the world war ii. now put those two things together. you have two parts of history

that effected the african-american tremendously. fighting out of slavery, going to reconstruction, going through the lynching, then world war ii, opening the door. integrating the military, civil rights movement, and what you want to ask what i mean about the post-racial society. there's a post-segregation society. because when i was a young kid, segregation was the law of the land. i went to the black school. i went to dunbar high school in washington, d.c. great school. and since our schools are great. because we made them great. we are great teachers, great mentors. when you look around to sacrifices, sacrifice is relative to your time. what would i be doing if i were a slave. i'd probably be the revolt of

some sort. then the question is not everybody could. somebody had to intrude into the big house. find out what was going on. find out what was rules of the underground railroad was. so when we looked at this. this is a book that gives you context. everything in this book should be viewed in context. and leave it to each one of you to pick the segment of the book that relates to you. the news about blacks and the movies. it's about blacks in the sports. this is about blacks in the military. black inventors. there's so much there. but you have to put it into context. think about what i said. 65 years as a youngster after slavery. 65 years after world war ii as a professional. i guess think about what i would have done. i want to be likened turner. kill a bunch of them.

go out in flames. i'm not going to do this. i'd rather be dead. i'm sure a lot of them fought that trying to do what that'd turner did. there must be others we don't hear about. we knows thousands. others trying to failing. but we also don't know all of the things that help them back. not just the brainwashing that they were given. this is the physical things. like how tired you were every day, because you are barely eating were you're working all of the time, you don't see your families and you're heartbroken all the time. now i'm going to try to run away. and i don't know where to go. i don't know this country. i'm not from around here. >> remember, follow the north star. and that north star, go on. >> toure, i know given the current things that you are working on, you are class times of post-racial society.

>> we had a whole meeting about that book as i recall. and i mean the book that i'm working on in dealing with post blackness which is not at all akin to post-racial. post-racial is psychologically impossible. it's impossible for me to meet you or you and not think okay, this is a black person, it is a woman, she's older than me, younger than me. blink material. obviously i'm going to know. how the racism parts comes in are we going to make negative or positive or neutral decisions based on she's black, he's white, whatever. hopefully it will make neutral and not negative decisions based on the basic facts. what i'm talking about is something entirely different. there's a different way to look at the possibilities of being black. there's much, much, much more. we can pick up the whole panel talking about that.

and we won't. >> malcolm talked about being black. he's raised a lot of consciousness. a lot of people were mad. we asked how -- as a youngster, how did you feel? >> what? >> the idea of being black was beautiful and the not something that you should avoid. >> i don't think that we ever thought we were to avoid anything. so it's difficult to answer some of the questions. we were happy, we were proud, you know our mother made sure that we learned about who we were as women. who were we as people. so we just always were proud of who we were. >> our generation has malcolm. she's malcolm's daughter. she has malcolm in the house to understand that we grew up proud. without that thing of your era. you remember there was a time to

be backed black or african was an insult. we didn't have that. >> i grew up the guidance and wisdom of frederick douglas, of w.e.w. duboise. i grew up in a society that black was beautiful. black was excellence. the people who didn't think that was stupid. james brown had to say black was beautiful. nobody would do a song like that. obvious of course we have pride in the way we look. >> i think it's changing. i think it's -- you know, i don't think that we really have a lot of pride in being black. and i mean we even understand our history and the richness of it. and i think this is really the importance of this book and the importance of history. so that we can be proud of who we are. but we're not continuously brainwashed.

dr. roscoe brown and i were just talking about. in our household, we were either a victim or you were an activist. there were no victims in my. my mother always said just as one must drink water, one must give back. the struggle is not over. as much as we'd like to think it is. it's not really over. it's really important that we teach our children the importance of this. my parents, thank god, made sure that we knew who we were and, you know, there was no question about it. we went to the same boring school. i think i'm over it. when i went to school, there was maybe two, there weren't many black girls. and i remember doing my -- later on when i went and got the masters, there was the phenomenon about being a product of -- if you're a child of a

single parent versus a child of two parents. is it better to be raised by one functional parent versus two with dysfunctional parents? we could be a step ahead, not necessarily be in a school and in that roning so that we can assimilate better. >> one the things it does is to reach out to the young black folks who are alienated. those who have violence. those who are not understanding how proud we are and how proud they would be. i would encourage those of you who are going to buy the book to take that book and go to the corner. and show him some of those things. because there's so much amazing stuff in there. hundreds of packages by african-americans. so many african-americans who did discovery and so on.

so those -- we need to reach out to the young people who were and yell mated. because in our black community, sometimes those of us who have accomplished don't relate to those who haven't. that's a big problem. and i think this book might help us by causing us to share with some of the young people. >> the idea of black and beautiful and having that message reinforced within your home. i'd like to know because your father was such an appreciate tour how that was on to you and how it feels to you not knowing how many people struggle with that. >> well, i mean -- well, i'm a women. i'd had my own personal struggle with beauty. and it's put upon me daily what is beautiful. also back to what everyone was

saying prior. you know, i think you would like to think we all would have revolted. there's also something to be said of the quiet revolt. if you read the quiet revolt, search for meaning. he spoke about making his way through the concentration camps by dreaming that he was eating breakfast every day with his wife. and i hope that people buy this book and realize that their own personal life can be a personal statement that they make. it may not be aired on tv. it may not be in books. but they can personally influence the people around us. by being someone to look up to, by walking the walking. in my home, beauty was not the big deal.

it just wasn't. i think my mother is beautiful now. and was beautiful then. you know? i think we were taught that strength was being looked to in terms of beauty. and when my father was growing up, there was only one african-american that came to school. he was a foster kid who lived down the road. the farmer was a bigot. so his foster son was darky. and that was very hard for me to deal with. and very upsetting to my father. i think when tony came up to our house and brought them.

i think for me, it helps me to understand that no matter what, i had to remain true so that i believed. even though i suffered at the hands of some of those -- and he had a ponytail. black people at the house. i just think it's also a personal journey for everyone. >> i want to know why the bigoted farmer had the kid and, i love that you are like oh, he came over to the house. >> yeah. i had read. i mean i was blown away.

>> you could hear the result. in the mean time the same farmer asked people to skin his palms if he was on the panel or something illegally. stuff that we don't do in manhattan. not to animals.

>> the same topic that was deemed darkies. and it was started by south africans. it -- i woke up one morning and bringing this to the forefront. everyone was contributing. other than, it was a really sensitive topic. i appreciate the social networks for allowing the forum for that type of discussion. toure, i know you were a part of that. how do you feel about that? >> i mean one thing about twitter that's great, there's a lot of things about twitter that's great. you come into contact with what

people mainly feel. things they would not have the cajones to stay to their face. somebody's name was oner. there was a trend in topic that kanye had died. good, one less dumb nigger. things like that. actually, i remember a guy was mad at me and saying that rush limbaugh wanted to own the rams because he wanted to own a plantation of black men.

so his response to me for that was he sent me a picture of a lynching, which i think is in this book. if i don't know the history or people and my direct relatives. if they are not in my bloodline. they are still in my brothers and sisters. i think there's the value in us knowing it's about a racism still exists. i was on o'reilly's show before the election. and laura inn gram. and she said that she -- the discussion was will there still be racism if -- that's when they were conceding obama was going to be like if and when he was elected. i was argue, of course there still would be racism. she acted like that was

ridiculous. if he's elected, you can shut up and take your whining somewhere else. obviously, they have not ended since the election of president obama. >> of course, that's what they wanted to do. they want to put in thousands of neck of the african-american and latinos. and it's over. the question was how do they go to that next step? :

>> that plax discovered this, they helped to build a building, obviously helped to build the pyramids, that they help to change basketball. they help to change the military. we do a hell of a lot in this world, so this is something that we should be proud of, but at the same time we need to establish the fact that you can

this is not a post society. we don't have a legal bound that we used to have but we still have some of those. that's why we need to support groups like the legal defense fund, naacp, and all those who fight for freedom for everybody, not just african-americans. >> it's interesting you find this book a boost to the ego. the last third, last half, but the first half is harrowing. i mean, i was almost crying going back through it, like these brothers are getting lynched and charred and burned and attacked and they're constantly on the run. i couldn't imagine the mindset of these people who work -- you were going to ask what's my favorite store. i'm just going to jump ahead to that because this is a fantastic thing from 1911. and they posted over two pages, angry mob burned, colored man who'd murdered police officer.

obviously, this story, you have to read through the lines because it starts off saying having shot in cold blood and instantly killed as police officer. obviously, this brother did not just run out in the street and shoot his fellow. so something was happening before that. but you know, his and his terrific because he's running -- he's hiding for a day and a half while the whole town is looking for him. so the chair he must've felt that they finally find him in a tree, and bring him down from that. when he is in the tree he realizes the end is here, and they are going to rip me apart. so let's have it out now. and he puts a gun to his head and tries to kill himself. the article doesn't say why that does not kill him, but it doesn't kill him. so then he has to go to the hospital where they say he's quickly revived. how was he quickly replied?

[laughter] >> were they beating the crap out of him? and then he goes to jail, but then the mob drags him out of jail and lynches him. can you imagine how he must have felt? like, you hear the mob coming toward the jail, and you're like oh god, this is why i try to pull the trigger, and i can't even imagine what he must've thought going through all that. and he knows how it began, that the cop came up and was going to shoot him, or attack him, or whatever the cop did you begin this whole problem. >> this can make you so mad, that you have difficulty mobilizing yourself, and maybe that's part of the beauty of this book. they put the real oppressive and nasty stuff up in the front, and towards the end they begin to give us bill robertson, how the mcdaniels and laybourne, and duke ellington. smack this is the generational divide i think that's going on

in our community, i think, because i hear from people in your generation that you guys experienced more racism than our generation did, but we are angrier about racism in the history than you guys are. and are tactics for dealing with it are different. you look at this and you're like, -- >> you don't know how angry we were. all of us were on the picket line. we were pretty damn angry. >> no, i know. now to take anything away from all you did. >> to intellectualize this, we got hope and oppression. but the fact is a book like this generates a kind of compensation that you and i are having right now. >> and a book like this makes it, that hopefully let us not forget. i mean, we constantly talk about not repeating history, and yet we constantly repeat history. whether it's anti-semitism against african-americans, you know.

is a constant repetition. and we don't seem to know how to do it. i don't know why, but i myself feel discouraged. you have to put what's tougher, but it's just as hard for some of the women that were in the back, you know, of the cotton club cabaret for being darker than the lighter skinned women in the front. so it's not that the book went from harsh to easy. there might have been a more pocketable part, but that woman in the back of the cabaret may have been the best dancer there, and yet she had to do what she had to do. you know. we still have people today covering themselves white, or hiding their heritage, or whatever's going on. so there's a lot going on. >> i do have, about race, two

questions. i didn't prepare you guys for, and that is the images toward the end of the book are a lot of lack hollywood images, and you do see the images there, and the response to them, toni morrison talked about, you know, if enjoying kingfish was shameful as a child enjoying sambo was nothing short of treason. how those images of black folks that seem to caricatures, if we look at them now, people actually enjoyed. and i see a parallel and entertainment now. i mean, some people will say tyler perry is a caricature, but other people, you know what, we are there, we are in films. he can greenlight himself. i like that conversation. do you and how to participate? everyone. >> well, it's hard to judge the previous generations and became

a choices with our lands, right? it's hard to do that, and i think we've made great mistakes in history doing that. ralph ellison being called a tom in the '60s because the mood had changed toward what your father was giving us, and not that he uses that, which is obviously completely wrong. ralph ellison was never a tom. lee armstrong, encountered some of the same things. farther from the truth. you know, we can misunderstand. we can't judge the actors of a certain generation and say you were playing these maids and all of these stereotypes, unit unit, it's too collocated to just judge them that way. but yes, nowadays, i want to get out the pitchfork when i see people and some people tried to make this connection between pressures, which is an amazing brilliant film that i would urge all of you to see and bring two

boxes of kleenex, because it will mess up your whole day. but it is amazing. but then the amazing nuanced beautiful portrayal of the very difficult black life in precious, and then a caricature of a black woman in tyler perry's movies. you know, if he made one i would feel like, okay, what ever. but how many has he made of these? six, seven, 10? he has greenlighted himself. i don't know. i don't know. >> heat if you get rich off of selling poison. >> well, he is rich. but at what cost to the rest of us? mac but if you think about, years ago my mom was just telling me this morning, that a lot of the movies that are in this book, the whole sections with the african-americans were taken out in the south. you couldn't even see that. so you're always going to have somebody making a film that you find disturbing or parts of it

seemed disturbing, or you don't think someone is leading correctly. but we're here in america and we're given the right to free speech. so i think for me, a lot of it has to start at home. what do you teach your children at the table? how do you prepare them to see things in movies, and how do you prepare them to go to school? how do you prepare them to defend? whether it's one person or home or not our whatever. we have to take some personal responsibly rather than looking down our noses at everyone. >> and that is very true. i know one of the things my father pointed out is a parallel oppression of the modern jews and those of african descent, and he said that jewish people never lost pride in being jewish. they knew they made a significant contribution and they would make sure that the world knows. and all of us and you know about

the holocaust. and we even discuss it, but when it comes to, you know, the enslavement of african people, you know, we don't talk about it and we get bored and we get embarrassed and we get restless because we really don't know all of the stories. we should know the source of timbuktu. we should know, you know, the reason that we were taken and that we cultivated the rest of the world. we should know this. and then take pride in how these people who were enslaved and tortured and psychologically, ties and dehumanize and everything else, how were they able to keep this. , how were they able to survive and still create and design and do all the things that they did. and you know, and then here we are today, how -- why are now our children, you become with the black and white doll, you know? and they call themselves the hb

and the end words. and summary of the things. is not that we are stepping up to play. all all of us are clearly capable. you know, it just becomes are we being active is or we becoming victims? >> i guess the question is who's going to step up to the plate. whenever something like this book comes out, it energizes a lot of discussion about what black folks ought to do and what they didn't do and what they have done. but one of the things that i think and come out of this is a lively discussion about the issues, like toure and i talking about the bad part in the good part. the fact that we were able to survive it as a matter of fact, there's a little piece in there, i think tony mortimer, we were able to survive. we did things to ourselves and we might not be proud of, but w were able to survive. and that strength and survival is the thing that we need to

revitalize and carry on to our young people. and any sense by letting people read some of these things and see some of these pictures, it might raise their consciousness. because that's one of the things that should happen from good literature. >> very, very, very, very extremely important that we do know our history. it's so important. you know, this is really a great collection of preserving some of its. >> and just with the experience of katrina, you know, history should have said that we should have never let that happen again. but it happened. okay, a flood happened. that we can stop, but everything else that went on was just an abomination. and that should never, ever happened. but it did. so i think we are given chances to discuss this, but unfortunately, i think that we often multiple people from talking about the nitty-gritty.

not everything is going to be free and frolic. i mean, you're going to have to talk to your children. you're going to have to talk to your friends. you're going to have to really talk about things. and if they're uncomfortable, let them take a breather and come back. but i don't think we should caudal in the longer. we don't have time. why do we have to wait? you know, obama, why do we have to keep -- he shouldn't have been the first black president. this is crazy. you know, we shouldn't have to wait. >> one thing in reading this book though, you can get very, very angry and say that some of the things that happened and still happen now. there's a section in there about the military and about blacks being in west point and about them being forced to take examinations under difficult circumstances and being failed

out. of the first 18 blacks to be appointed to west point, only two of them, colonel charles young and henry were able to graduate. and this resonates to a lot of young people, to a lot of young african-americans who are in schools that are not expecting much of them, and put them down. so one of the things we have to do among ourselves is to point up the struggle that we went through to keep going step by step by step. i, as you know, was one of those in the tuskegee airmen, the official state was that blacks couldn't learn to fly. and some of the instructors didn't want us to learn to fly. but we kept after it. fortunately, we had a white among other things, and we were able to learn to fly. then after we learn to fly they didn't want us to go to combat because we would not do the job right. and we fought through it and what to come back again when we got to come that we did so well that they wanted us to escort those bombers but that just

shows what's driving accomplishes, but you got to stick by it, step by step by step. and let them turn you around. >> should be good to questions? >> yes. ladies and gentlemen, if you could just raise your hand and wait for me to come around with a microphone. thank you. >> hi, everyone. my name is stephanie. and my question is about what exactly do you guys consider black myth. and i remember i was talking to my friend early about how there was an issue about your black is because your wife was a black and people were trying to say, oh, he's not really black because he's let me to a black woman, which could mean was absurd. and the souls of black, i don't remember the name of the chapter, but he was saying that he met his family in the south and being black is being who they were. there was no such thing as being black, just as he woke up as. just wanted to hear your opinions. >> yeah, my wife is from lebanon

air guy here that occasionally, like when some is in an argument with me about a certain point and you know, they are losing or whatever. [laughter] >> well, you're not really black anyway. like, how is that an invalidate anyway. i black enough for the both of us. the thing is that blackness is whatever you are. there's no authentic way of being black. there is no one sort of thing, and didn't like jim brown is black and what else it is deviations away from him. you, or malcolm x is the standard and everybody else deviates away from him. we all perform blackness in our own way. it's a little different for everybody. you know, and even clarence thomas is black. he can't get away from it. we may not like the way that he

performs blackness, and that he thinks about blackness, but he's still in the tent. you can't kick them out. >> i'm just happy i need a hill is a woman. i will say there was one thing, i don't know if my family knows this, in the '70s when my dad wrote the book, i remember he got a letter, a phone call from someone and he was really upset. somebody he knew, and that they said, how could he get involved with this book because it's a coffee table book. and he didn't know if african-american families had coffee tables. so i mean, i hope it's just everyone has a coffee table at some point. >> we've got another question up here. >> my name is gunther. this is a very interesting panel.

what i want to contribute armada ask how you can reconcile that is during the time of slavery, there was a lot of colonial occupation of african countries and in the caribbean. now, when you look how jewish struggles and talking about jewish accomplishments, they don't isolate it to various countries. say america, england, or hungry, for example. to talk about freedom fighters all around fighting for the jewish cause. and i've traveled quite a lot. i've been to english and other places. everyone seems to speak about individual struggles in various countries. and it's been a lot of great freedom fighters all across the globe from angola, south africa. going forward, how's it going to be integrated into this book? because kids from this country,

great fighters across the globe, not just america, how would go into integrate that? >> is a very interesting question. african-americans tend not to use think of a global struggle. i think our struggle as african-americans is very specifically american, because we are physically cut off from africa. and now we are dealing with an american problem trying to get rights and peace and freedom and access to things that allow us to live and prosper within america. and one of the things happening in africa don't seem to have a drug collection of what we're dealing with. going forward perhaps we should think more of going globally. that's difficult to compare us to the jewish struggle in that way because that was a much more global struggle. there's people are coming out of several european countries, you, the middle east as well, try to get what we going to go, dealing with hitler in a world war.

so it's a different struggle. it's not easy to compare them in the same way. >> there was a man back in 1917 to talk about going back to africa and reaching out to african brothers. so there's been a long string of that. toure is right. the geographical difference has something to do with the. but also has something to do with the differences in africa. not all parts of after are the same. not all people have the same blade which, had the same culture. so i agree, we should be reaching out and many of us are, and hopefully this book will stimulate many people to reach out and find out about our african roots. >> we've got another question in front. >> i've enjoyed the panel very much. thank you. i notice on page 38 there's a photograph of the first jubilee singers, and they did a documentary film on the singers

and most americans don't know, it's because of the jubilee singers that nashville, tennessee, is called music city. because in the 18 '70s when they sang for the queen of england, pointed toward it, she pronounced to her court that they sing beautifully they must be from the music city. and now we hear the words music city, national, and we think it's all about country music. i want to ask the panel, and they are making billions and billions of dollars on this farce. because those words, and music city, had nothing to do originally with country music. it was about this group of former slaves who sang to the queen of england. so how do we address this cover-up that has kept us in poppers since the emancipation proclamation? i mean, i see a primary as a financial purpose by keeping this history hidden. but i'd like to hear your comments on that. >> toure, you can bring it on your program in the morning. well, one of the issues when we

talk about history that's been lost is how do you correct it. the only way you correct it is to keep repeating what the truth is, because we're not going to get the money from it but we do want the recognition. we want people to know that our contributions help to make in this sense, nashville but to help make this country great. so just keep telling the story. i'm glad you brought that up. that was an excellent part of reading the book and sharing with the rest of us. thank you. >> i'm going to agree with that. you know, you're familiar with john henrik clarke. most people haven't a clue that the people in the caribbean, the people in america, the black people, in caribbean, america, that we are all the same people. and i think for me one of the greatest benefits is being able to travel. and i went to the south african traditional music awards, and watching this huge production.

they had the green carpet, you. really, really big. i got to see so many different traditional dance and so forth, and i mean, i could have easily been in the caribbean. i could've been in america saying the lindy hop in the 20. i could've seen the green stepping. and so i think that really, it's up to us. if we are aware of our history and we are aware that there is a lie, you know, that someone else is claiming our history. you know, it's so big and kind of like, i don't want to say to me things, but you know, it's our -- it is our responsibility to really make sure that we are the ones who preserve our history. and if this isn't enough then we have to do more books. and promote john henrik clarke and not be afraid of tokamak because malcolm x was just a very young man. a lot people don't know this. he was just in his 20s when he

took on a huge responsibility here key was in his '20s. people say he went to the middle east and he changed. he didn't change. he baltic we continue to grow. we learn. we talk every. but my father read everything that you can imagine. these are guys that were instilled that i know you didn't ask this question but these are guys that were instilled by his peers. so we would have to just take the responsibility of if we don't know the history, we have to learn it we have to preserve and document it and everything else. he said that -- >> i do think that what you were saying before is the saddest part, because what it does a tribute to most of the time is the bottom line. money. who's going to bring the most money rather than acknowledging what you are talking about. so i think again, what i said earlier about this personal responsibility, as you were saying, it's something you have to do pursley, whether you are

on the radio talking about it or not. it to do you meet everyday, who do you rub elbows with every day. i mean, there's so much weibel under the rug, even in this country where we are supposed to be so open. we don't talk about the fact that, you know, people are starting right now. it's all the bottom line most of the time it. so i would just keep putting your view out there, talk about it, write about it, push it. >> we got our next question. >> hi. building off of what ilyasah shabazz said, to what extent does religion permeate the issue of blackness? both contemporarily and african-american history. >> to what extent does media influence? >> religion. >> religion.

well, remember, we didn't come with a religion that most black folks have now. and religion was used as a tool to help to subjugate us, but it also there became a tool that we use ourselves against the masters. so when we say steal away, we majesty away. [laughter] smack and i don't know, but a lot of the african people that were taken were muslims that were brought into this country. i know a lot of people didn't know that, but most of the african people that were taken were muslim. >> ladies and gentlemen, we're going to try to start doing a question and a lightning ran. i think we can squeeze two or three more in. here's one of them. >> hi. my name is norman douglas. i've been concerned over the years. i grew in an environment, and i was the only black, and he touted 10000 people. i used to say i would do a

public school and a private town. [laughter] >> i think that at a certain point, unit, what gets overlooked a lot in this country is class. one of my favorite examples, i've are glass, or most people are, the guy who does this american life. and he prefaced one episode that documented the life of a single black mother, by saying that something like 70 percent of black children, versus 25 percent of white children grow up in homes that are run by single mothers. if you do the math, actually, the number of -- that means because there were only 10, 11 percent of the population that if you do the math, that means actually twice the

number of white children are going up with a single mothers than black children. in other words, in this country there are more white people living under poverty and what's the official poverty line than there are black people, period. but the media constantly gives us these figures and percentages so that if you say like 80 percent of black people are poor versus 20 percent of white people, it keeps sounding like more black people are poor than white. the issue of class becomes ignored so not only are we stuck with a situation where black people feel like they are the cause of poverty and why people think they are, but you have all these white people who feel isolated. so i'm wondering what role, like, how we can get this idea class difference out because i think the class difference taiga precipitates all the other

problems, racism, sexism, gender issues and so forth. >> playing the job of comparative statistics, how badly a our ofcom issue is not a productive way of dealing with it. as a black folks, we ought to be trying to do the best that we can and reach out and help our folks. in this book helps to give you the background of where we came from and what we need to go. so i don't even worry about contrast with white families and black families. black families have survived. they've survived under very difficult circumstance that they continue to survive, and what we want to do is help them survive with the pride and respect that's going to make them better citizens and feel better about themselves and could be more to society. >> i don't know. i appreciate that, but i understand what norman is saying

actually. i think there is a huge class problem in our country, in the sense that there's a lot of shame involved with whoever is bored. whether it be black, white, whatever, whatever color it is. and until we stop being ashamed of the fact that the ones who have, really don't want to be elbowed her oboes with those that don't, we're not going to get anywhere. you know, we have -- that's the new hidden problems. is the shame. i mean, i myself lost my job. i lost my apartment in harlem. i was pushed out, you know. i can't afford it. i'm living back at home, and thank god, i have a place to go. what they should not be my path at age 44. but i'm not ashamed to say this. you know? i was more ashamed that people

with hiv were being held. i'm more ashamed that the drug companies are running this world. i'm more ashamed that we're not talking truthfully about the lack of food. people have a blackberry before they will have food on their table. and what is that? that to me is hellish. you know, and i think we have to talk about what's going on. even when i went to get help from the welfare department, the guy took six personal calls while talking to me, and then muffled to his supervisor, what is this white girl doing up your moaning about the fact that she can't afford her apartment? you know, and i'm sorry. that's a bs on any level. i don't care what color i was when i walked in there. i d