africans vanquishing the partite only apply to the fresh paint to a house on fire. the architect of the open ocean remains intact. i like obama but i'm not that in to him, lee says leader. yes he is black but i believe he is a white mentality because he was raised in a household with his grand mother this building that ronald reagan garbage. threat least 60 years black south africans and americans have seen in one another their avatar bono's leaves from that country ever land ashore in the united states. jim-crow laws were not very different from apartheid structures. the catechism of the assassinated african-american icon malcolm x was the model for that preached by the assassinated south african icon steve. with mandela and the king the fund inspiration from gandhi and the liberation hero.

america's anti-apartheid movement was largely set in motion by black americans like randall robinson and south africa's afrikaners white settlers of dutch and french extraction who initiated the formal part by state or the spending architectural image of america's white southerners both groups invented full-court tales of how the conquer hostel play and and hostile dark skinned people delivering civilization, religion and technology to welcome savage. south africans translate the work colloquially as red neck. there's a popular story told in south africa perhaps. it goes like this, a white south africans traveled to the united states in the mid 80's and landed at o'hare international airport in chicago. at customs, a white american immigration officer summed silently to the south africans

passport for a minute or two prompting the white south african traveller to ask the middle-aged officer if there was a problem. so your from south africa, the officer asked without looking up. his on-again, the traveler answered expecting the worst. the officer stanch the passport, lifted his head to look the south african in the eye, smiled and returned it to him. we like the way you handle your niggers over there and he waved him through. consider this: 1961 the year obama was born and mandela formed the armed wing of the african national congress, black americans earned on average 54 cents for every dollar earned by white americans. and 100% of all south africans living in poverty were blacked. 47 years later 99% of all poor south africans are black and african-americans earnings have inched up to 57 cents for every

dollar earned by white americans these are not political structures. political and economic structures that are designed for black people to get ahead. niggers says later describing his faults one of the room around him celebrated obama's acceptance address. i ron for that moment -- of roughly that moment in his thoughts his friend whose parents held from haiti surfaced from his stance lee, she shouts, yes, brother, lee answers, we are about to do this, she shouts, pounding his chest twice for emphasis to it shocked the world, shocked the world, south african style, baby, south africans title. yes, lee says, like removing his glasses to wipe them with a handkerchief. that is exactly what i am afraid of. so anyway, i will open a two questions here, but i hope you get a sort of feel for what we

were trying to expand upon elaborating which is what is our black political identity and a sort of we are in this age of post racial america. [inaudible] i'm breaking my promise. i'm going to speak for a small libertarian [inaudible] about six of us in america. we focus on the individual and [inaudible] post racial america seems to be the strong argument i don't think it is the idea to [inaudible] people who say what are you talking about post

racial so consider that but it seems to me the argument ought to be something that maybe bill cosby got in trouble for don't argue about that word, argue about take a look at how much race plays and economic prosperity on deciding advancement in africom middle class americans and contrast that how much individual behaviors, white or black dysfunctional behavior play in the economic development which you focus on as i can tell [inaudible] isn't that a bitter debate to have? >> [inaudible] -- that's what you're talking about and we do talk about that. i think there's a lot of debates to have in the country and we do

focus on individuals. there's not a lot of people that we talked to in this book. jon and i have differences of opinions and that is why we've wrote the book together. because there are lots of different -- sorry -- lots of different americas. but there is -- it is unmistakable that there are still top-down things that happen in america that affect how you operate in today's society. a black man was elected president in the united states a year ago, and the next morning in a lot of communities including my own and the paper, the headline the next day in the newspaper the disseminated all the news in that area said the came, louisianan favors mccain. that was the headline.

it didn't even -- it said obama to receive intelligence briefing. never said he's the 44th president of the united states. so to say that it's just about individual -- what happens to individuals, it's not true to what exists in today's society. yes, has there been progress? everyone we talked to would talk about the progress that has been made. but post racial has become we would argue a political term that actually and i think we are not that far apart on that a political term that doesn't mean anything, it is meant to sort of squelch discussion as opposed to open up a debate. >> i just want to add one thing which is one things in the book is a sort of complicated intersection between race and class so of course it is very difficult to part the two. but one thing you see over and

over again to give away stored in memory of a celebrated african-americans or people who are black or identify with black or who sort of speak the same language and one of the women we interview we profile as a white woman comes from scotland originally who married a caribbean man and had two daughters. i joke with robert she's the blackest person in the book in some ways. but we wanted to identify and talk about sort of how every successful social movement in this country's history black people have played a central role. that's not to assert any kind of superiority. it is just true of the abolitionist movement, whether it is the civil rights movement, you know, every construction which is trying to build the egalitarian society not just for black people but poor white people who fought the war so what we are trying to do is give this place because typically

when the blacks have been sort of have a leadership role as the rest of the country has followed in one way, shape or form a citizen of the things we want to do is give voice to people whose voices are increasingly marginalized but are very central to any kind of progress in this country in terms of social movements. >> if you can just keep the microphone and handed off to [inaudible] >> howarth you doing? i am a washingtonian kernan the graduate student. i want to give a statement and get your reaction to that statement. what i want to focus on is the impact of the obama presidency on making realized gains in the community, and i believe that one of the reasons why some of the gains may not have been

realized is because of the lack of sophistication of african-americans as a collective organized political unit, so for example, i believe barack obama is the first president that likes the base. he doesn't have the base because mainly to of the groups were responsible for the election were african americans and young people and both of these groups have not traditionally been in the power structure of america therefore we are not used to holding elected leaders accountable or are not as good as you would say conservative evangelical movement. i think this impacts obama's ability to impact of these groups in the sense that because he doesn't have his base it's hard for him to have the constructs that informs his decision making because obviously his construct doesn't

aligned with african-americans political community as you can tell by the congressional black caucus lack of ability to sway his agenda so i just want to get your reaction to that while obama doesn't have a base and may be our fault in that being as able to hold the hour leaders accountable. >> the argument you make, the one argument that why obama is not dealing with some of his constituents what is because those constituents are not making him do it. so you could argue that will go to your first point but i guess i would take exception to the fact that african-americans are one of the first people elected because democrats always got to 97% of the black vote and so obama might have gotten -- i forget what the number is but we are still 13% of the populations of black folks didn't put him in office. if they could have just gone away from him than maybe that would have hurt him.

but anyway, you wanted to say something? >> by putting him in office a thing you have to focus, they chose him about -- >> that is a great question and in some ways spawned this book because robert and i have been arguing in some ways we agreed where we want to go we've been arguing for two years about barack obama as though. it is a great question. two things. one is barack obama does have a base. the problem is the base, and this is not unique to barack obama. it was true with bill clinton that the establishment for lack of a better term conservatives and even to be honest the sort of blue dog democrats, white democrats from southern states mostly who are more conservative don't accept as a legitimate his base which is black people, people of color, women, they don't accept the base as

legitimate. that is part of the base, it is. so if you look at how george bush responded once he was elected president the first time, even though he did not win that election he had a mandate because he was in office. that is a mandate, right? that brings us to the second point which is part of the problem is he's not recognized as having a legitimate case, as a legitimate president by a wide swaths of the country. i couldn't tell do if it is half or not but a fairly substantial chunk of the country. the other problem is that this is -- i don't have the answer to this but i agree black people have to do more to make a demand on the black politicians and all politicians as well as the working-class people need to make more demand on politicians. i'm not sure it's going to work

and this is why. if you look at the entire war demonstrations and the people in the streets, you look up the immigrants, the immigrant movement that put millions of people in the streets of chicago and los angeles are around the country nothing changed so i say that to say this i'm not convinced we are at a point this is a failed state that is unable or unwilling to respond to the will of most of the people. if you look at health care reform, most people want single-payer, some kind of government style reform, canadian-style ka european-style, they don't get it. they don't want to be in this war. not only aren't we at war we expand under barack obama. so one is there is this a legitimate basis that barack obama is seen as powerful people and the other is i'm not sure that he isn't heading at this point a failed state.

he's not innocent in this, but it's not like he's the first either. there is a history of i think you could easily go back to clinton at least of this being a failed state, unresponsive to the people. and you see that again and again. >> the failed status jon's words. people don't talk about it, some of it talk about it but people talk about the on responsiveness of government and not in that low were sort of context. but there is a lot of different voices, about that and i would argue [inaudible] >> good evening. i enjoyed the presentation. you said that the post at rival -- i would say for the most part if you put the issue of same-sex marriage on the ballot those who

speak to first call as you heard second, i would like your views on a racial nomenclature as the upcoming census. when it comes to the issues of race, it says black, african-american or negro. and there are a number of african-americans who are negro is appearing november, 2010 census but supposedly the black population is so called -- what do you think of that? >> this is the first question you had about our african-americans views towards

the gay community and gay rights and this is the one if we had more time the chapter in the book by wanted to write was about african-americans attitudes towards the gay community and based on what happened in los angeles and california during the the election and i don't know if you remember that there was tremendous scapegoating as it sailed the exit polls said african-americans are against gay marriage and we were. the majority voted were against gay marriage. not nearly as much as though as latinos, whites, mormons, catholics. why do you scapegoat, why would people scapegoat us? so this is really sort of a very relevant issue to the book which is like this sort of cynicism, faceless mass and the african-american community as the inability to recognize for who we are. there is a tremendous amount of homophobia in the community.

it just so happens not nearly as much as other communities so why are we always singled out? there is a nuance that's complicated. i don't want to make it seem as though we are perfect. we are not by any stretch the imagination and we need to deal with this idea of also be but it's a lot more nuanced than you will see in the mainstream press. on the issue of i've never spoken to terry miller. i don't expect a call from her by the week. [laughter] and on the last question, i am aware of the sort of phrasing of the language for the census. i'm kind of diagnostic. i think especially now when you look at the unemployment right now what everyone, not just blacks, the real unemployment rate if you measure the way we did in 1980 is 22%. the height of the great depression of its 25%. so in the trade and cities like that, detroit, oakland, you see basically the unemployment rate that is fair world, the same as

what you see in johannesburg's south africa. and so it seems almost like a distraction. it's not that big a deal like don't think personally, my personal opinion is there is so much more to be concerned about. really i think the irony of this book and barack obama is that at the time we appoint this black president we are really black people, african-americans are isolated from the mainstream from our neighbors in an effort at any point in the history of america if you think about sort of there is this jim-crow is gone which in some ways to delayed how far we could go and now we have this incredible distance between wealthy african-americans and everybody else which is true of the entire country and that is such a -- that is unsustainable. that is how some communities and some people collapse so i'm just kind of diagnostic on the whole since this issue.

>> after we take your question and i don't we see if a woman has a question. >> i grew up in alabama so i know the deep south and am looking to respond to two things. you see in the book there is a wide variety of opinions for people in african-american communities. would you consider that day demonstration of the notion of the style leadership and lead people to the promised land that opinion -- the failure of president ought to move significant gender that would leave black people pleased that he is going to be able to -- the fact he can't button that said

just king or malcolm x rise up and speaking for the country as a group that is antiquated because he is in the most powerful position on the planet and yet his ability to move the agenda in office has to be not considered [inaudible] this website is sometimes we have to be careful of what we ask for because we did it because in terms of president obama becoming the first black president he's not the icon for the meritocracy like he is risen from the place that many black people have risen from the place black people start and we know the pedigree nothing is farther from the truth so in two ways, one of the leadership is datacom and number two, our presence has become an indictment against us.

>> messianic leadership. when we start talking about the media -- it's easy to do that. it's hard and the environment in which we operate. i don't want to say that it sells necessarily but that is how you end up -- our community is different than it was when martin luther king was there. there's a lot of different voices. let me step back a little bit. when we talk about what barack obama's agenda is and what he has not been able to get accomplished, first of all a lot of the people ascribed to him things he never said he was going to do and so i think we have to sort of backed up and say what did he say he was quick to? for afghanistan he is doing exactly what he said he was going to do. people say we should be out of the boer mac. but he said on the campaign

trail i'm going to increase the troops in afghanistan so that's not something you can knock him on because he said he was going to do that. and number of other issues that are similar so i think that is one issue. the second part is i'm not sure -- will back to the question earlier, there was a certain segment of the community who may be some who had not purchase it pitted the young people and people who otherwise feel like they are left out of the sort of mainstream who thought you could get things done right now. but most of the people we talked to understood clearly that sort of improvement is a process. people like for instance the koppel we talked to out of prince george county they wanted one thing, largely one thing. they were small business owners and say don't get rid of push's tax of people over to under $50,000. they are not looking in a party in the sky from barack obama.

that is very specific. do for me when you did for the big corporations. that is one of level of folks. and in july in the chapter we are talking about, it is a white woman with the two doctors, she wanted something done about health care, very specific. when you to focus on the environment of health care. in her basic thing was the disappointment in barack obama for them is not that he has achieved all of those things they don't feel like he's throwing a rock on their behalf yet. it's like all of you to do is throw back at the structure that jon is talking about that says all these corporations get whatever it is they want to but i want someone -- i want to feel like you recognize the problems that i'm having and you will try to at least in packed them. >> i just want to say one thing because the idea of a messianic

figure of politics is so strong and goes back. robert and under privileged to live in south africa for a short time, and the idea of the messiah test -- we get it all honest. that is something that africans and african-americans, that we've always believed in but i have to say i'm not sure that it's ever existed in this country and to some extent, it's been the failure of a messianic figure in barack obama or even the last 30 years in some ways i think is emblematic of just the sort of polarizing class divisions that have erupted in the last 40 years in our community. so what you have our people who are more and more distance to from working-class people and concerns of working class people and i don't want to give to esoteric about this there is a theory in one of the chapters to talk about the factory workers of chicago and these are

essentially there is this -- when they decide they're going to strike and they argue about should the strike and have a sit-down strike there is basically the discussion came down to whether or not mexicans most from keefer over the last ten years many didn't have papers to be honest. would they be deported and the blacks who had previous arrests, would they be arrested. if we deported we a rest. and i think so much of king of course is from a middle class family in atlanta but if you look at the rest of that movement simply from a working-class family people who in power king or from working class environment. i think that is what is missing. so the messiah was always in some ways if you look at king and malcolm definitely from a working-class family, fred

hampton who i am a huge fan of, very much working class families and even if you look all over the world, the power and impact of unions and radicalizing people and making them sort of want to understand what their rights are and what their rights should be and that is what is missing because ultimately what to talk about is isolation of people and that is i think the greatest danger for the community now because we are isolated from one another, rich verbivore and that is true for the entire country but that to me is where the messiah figure comes up short. we can't produce it any more. >> [inaudible] >> thank you for sharing with us tonight. in the last question you touched on this issue and that is barack obama campaigned didn't say

anything specific to what people except the most part of some personal responsibility [inaudible] other groups he served specific things. it seems like he [inaudible] i'm also sure when we talk about black people and all this -- he talked about this and said we are small as are not cut for us. so my question is to the extent that you talk about other people can you have a discussion when we haven't decided what it is we want besides saying we want our children to perform rather than we want to our children to speak

[inaudible] >> that goes back to the question of who is we. and it just isn't a model because when you start talking across those things some folks issue -- their kids are graduating. their kids are grudging at a high level. if you've got money to your kids are doing fine. so those black people -- that is not their main issue. like i'm good with that. this is what i need. so why don't know -- i think there as -- anyway, the question you have to go back to who is "we" again? when you start talking about the community used to have to live in the same place we live in the same place anymore. there's a lot of things that have changed and that affect some sort of having upon