the board of directors. he joined judy woodruff and mike mccurry and juan williams and a number of others who run why have to answer to the board of directors of the center. robert king to the program from louisiana state university. he was a junior and he went back to school and entered the school paper and then for a while he thought about getting a master's in business education, but the "washington post" saved him from the fate of personal wealth by recruiting him as a reporter for the post and now she labors under the slave wages of journalism. what's left of journalism. thank goodness the "washington post" owns caplin testing or there might be more problems here in washington, d.c. with journalism. on the model lee am pleased to introduced robert and jon jeter but i am now jealous because i

haven't written a book, and i am pleased that he has done so. the only thing i ask is i get to ask the first question after they make their presentations. by the way with a few exceptions i will represent all white people here tonight. [laughter] i know that you're always asked what do black people think about this, so you can ask me what white people think about this. robert, jon. [applause] [laughter] >> good evening. first of all, jon and i wrote this book because we've known each other for about 20 years or so. we started together to post in january of '93 and we didn't know each other at that time. we were both coming to the post and both of us were a little

skeptical of the other because like what kind of brother wants to work for the washington post. [laughter] so we were -- that's how we start off with each other. but we became friends, and we've covered politics, we've covered a number of things. i started off as a terry setup the washington xin center for politics and journalism and got to cover the washington, people like ron brown and others got to go to attend the white house events and see what the defense of washington look like. and terry's goal was to have thus become political journalists who would not be so one of ideology or another but sort of look to cut through that to say here is what the democrats say and what republicans say and introduce you to keep folks at the same time. i did some political reporting but then i got -- i gravitated away from it because not a lot of it felt real because our

political leaders a lot of times i didn't know whether i was talking -- it almost didn't matter what durham was talking to records or republicans because of your body was spending. it was about the spending and not the people and on the campaign trail even when you go out into america what passed for journalism was going to a donner. during iowa caucuses as opposed to knocking on doors so that's the kind of reporting jon and i have done over the years and that's the kind of -- that is kind of where we come from this. this book was sort of two years ago, i mean a year or so ago when barack obama was elected president there were a lot of teams hope, change and a number of other things. one of the things they were talking about, when we start talking about black people the discussion was black people think this and it was one black people terry talked about with him representing white people

and black people think this. this book was meant to turn the camera the other way and look at the crowd and say who are these folks and what do they think and what they came up with a lot of different things. and so we've talked to union workers. we've talked to offenders and people who were business owners who don't want their taxes cut and so a lot of people have a lot of different opinions about the world. one of the chapters -- the chapter i will read from we both did personal shoppers. my personal chapter was about my own family. it was about my family centered around my grandmother, daisy mae francis. and my family moved off the plantation of 1975 and that is not a mistake. that was 1975. i was 7-years-old when we moved away from the plantation and so

we talked about that whole -- that is meant to sort of serve as the connection from slavery to the presidency and i will read a little bit from that chapter. for most of the zinni's life expression was not an option. on the plantation everyone understood the rules. white people talked, black people did what they were told. the plantation was named for alice colder the wife of the man who once owned the property in the black slaves who worked on the fields. the main plantation big house is and 1850's revival style structure with a grand foyer. at the rear was a sweeping lawn that runs of. stately oaks stricken with moss, oaks that she did my grandmother, my mother and me as we played as children. we had from the sun, ran up the steps and ruled in the dewar debate could dirt oblivious to what had gone before. this is the deep south, between

black leaders and white wealth. of 1860 st. mary parish was home of the machine tells of 57 sleeve's more than just about any other parish in the state. my grandmother was born there november 22nd, 1929. there are no records of her birth but she knows that to be her birthday because the family friend remembered her own daughter had been born on the same day. when she was two months of my grandmother was given away by her mother who worked for a family moving in new orleans and for made the young woman to take the child along daisy mae in the put her mom who died when my grandmother was five. my brother was a faint memory but paabo's second wife remained a source of content more than half a century later. she was no devil, daisy mae said of her stepmother, she was mean. she never had any children of her own. i was something she felt like she wanted to beat on she did it. poppa didn't know about all of

that. i never told him. i don't blame him. he was a good souls. poppa's alstom the quarters in a vernacular pass from slavery referring to the original slave quarters. the house had two rooms, it could run and catch all rumors people slept on the sofa bed and the family ate meals and socialized. they raised a little bit of everything. mustard greens, turnips and okra, chicken, hogs and turkey my grandmother said most of the time we had agreed to go along with royce and gravy. big families were the norm. school children walked half an hour each way to attend school in franklin, the closest town. my grandmother wanted to be a nurse but quit school in the eighth grade to help on the plantation. add the sugar ground mill turned nonstop october through january until it was dismantled in the 1950's. during the grinding every hand was needed to bring in the crop. slavery might have been outlawed after the civil war with life on the plantation move to the same cyclical rhythm that the ancestors had known. in the plantation long after

slavery had ended blacks were treated like children, their wives or guardians. orders paid no rent or utility ve got sick and went to a doctor the bill was sent to the manager of the plantation to to get out a little at a time. at the company store, the store clerk decided when the unannounced credit limit had been reached. discrepancies and pay or store charges went unchallenged and workers are not expected to know or care about politics. it was not until 19683 years after the voting rights act that a majority of black citizens for dissipated in the national election but participating for daisy mae did not necessarily mean free choice. the overseer was safe. there's an election coming up and this is you're supposed to vote for, she told me. so, fast forward to 1975 and one of my uncles was drafted to the nfl and he got a contract in the

plea in my years, but two years after he was drafted, to put a downpayment on a house in town and this is my grandmother's reaction to moving from the farm to town. it was great, she said, it was a joy. the one thing i appreciated about that was that you could have hot water before you have to heat up the water was different way of life. she was no longer isolated. she still didn't drive but now she could walk places. one of those places just across the street was the elementary, the former negro school she attended as a child. she was hired as a cook. her boss was a black woman and never dreamed of that. so anyway, i will stop there. so that is sort of to represent one of the sort of where we came from in this country that so why there was euphoria about the election of a black president, and as an aside my grandmother who i talked about here had been

battling a very in cancer for 40 years and she died on wednesday and we just buried her today actually. but she was the reason this book came about because she was the reason how we sold this book was with her chapter to the publishers. >> first for women to thank everyone for coming especially with the rain. robert and i were in new york and had this note so we were thinking about naming this the biblical book tour or the fire next time book tour with a locust or whatever. but let me say robert gives you a glimpse of the turks are he read from. his grandmother was the inspiration for this book. and it's the first chapter because it is where we are. it's where black america begins and america begins. it's rooted in the south, the

deep south on this plantation. one of the things when i first met robert he's right we were suspicious of each other because we work for "the washington post". but one of the things, one of the first conversations i remember having is he told me was born in basically the slave quarters on the bayou in louisiana and i just couldn't -- i was raised in indianapolis in the midwest and i just couldn't believe that. i thought he was lying but i couldn't conceptualize being born a slave quarters. but any way what you can hear from robert reading is this book is not come to be honest it's not particularly preoccupied with barack obama. in some ways it is bad marketing but we want to tell the story of us, who are we, what does it need to be black in the age of obama, and obama becomes peripheral to the process of asking, we are, what is black or what is race.

and i came upon this recently. this is just my second book but i swear every book i have written so far, the weak actor published. texas act quote that sums up the books away fred does quote from a european, black european british sociologist who said race is not biological. it's more of language than anything and that is exactly what we are trying to capture is the language of black america, the language of black america in the age of obama and if you think about the language of the most molecular for my id is identity, and identity of nothing more than the memory, and that is a narrative that we feature experienced or it's been passed down from people who in the tribe have experienced, and that's sort of the root of this

book is who we are. and then why do we need from the leadership if we identify who we are. so that idea of identity and memory making who we are provides a distinct political character, and i think that is one of the things we identify in this book both for through anecdotes and the numbers that show this very clearly. so the first thing is african-americans are the most liberal voting bloc in the country and you can see that in poll laughter polls. there was a poll done by the california group in 2003 that showed that basically if you sort of just looked at city by city the most liberal city in the country is detroit and the most conservative city is somewhere in utah. so it's a function of the language of race is one of liberation. we want to be freed.

so you see that sort of the political consciousness. now, one of the first things we see and we talk about this in the book the economic policy of black people this keynesian which means we see that government -- we see the government plays a role in economics. i haven't seen a pulled yet but i'd sure if there was one order is one out there you would see that african americans really want the government to play a very central robust role in procreation, wpa, new deal like a job creation program. the second thing that is equally important is that we are distinctly pro union and there's a chapter in the book we talk about the factory in chicago that went on strike. shortly after barack obama was

elected. they made on a sit-down strike because they were not getting their wages, and basically the plant closed, the public windows and doors, and they were not going to give the factory $sn on the plantation, sleeve plantations, and they would organize a sit-down strike or

just stop work in order to get a sunday of four to be able to visit their relatives on another plantation. and this is one of the four earliest forms of the union and to the end to this day of course if you talk to the sort of union avoidance boyers, they will tell you the person they fear the most, the people they fear the most are black when because black women are most likely to join a union suite is always the women. this is true with every demographic but it is especially with us it's always the women. so the other thing that we identify as we are very pro-military but antiwar and you can see this going back since world war ii. every war african-americans had been steadfastly against even though we support the military as a means of sort of rising and social mobility. the first iraq aboard the one exception of the kind of support, there was propaganda around that and then we sort of

turned against. so, i suppose that to say understanding who we are is the basis for what france called mom consciousness or steven called black consciousness. and this is not to be confused with nationalism. nationalism is fundamentally the chauvinistic sort of a few of your community using sort of the nationalistic barometer the same way that you use race or gender or tribe. but consciousness is a very different thing. sort of an understanding where you're trying to get to and it's the opposite of the reaction of default. what fred hampton talked about being reactionary fighting fire with fire. you don't fight fire with fire, you fight fire with water, racism with solidarity.

you fight a capitalistic system that uses people as tools, you fight that with a capitalist system that uses -- that sort of turns the equation upside down and uses the economy as an instrument of the people. so anyway, i say that to talk a little bit about sort of who we are, where we are going, and to raise the question whether or not barack obama is this transformative leadership that we need or is it more reactionary and transactional. robert read the first chapter but his grandmother. i'm going to read from the last chapter which is about a young man named lee alexander, south africa, young south african, 28, and he married a young

african-american woman from chicago. and he -- this chapter begins basically when barack obama is about to accept denver and there is a crowd of people, about ten people mostly black but not all, some blacks and whites, some arab and we are watching television as barack obama takes the stage and this young man, wheat, is watching and everyone else is sort of celebrate -- the ret in celebration, and lee is looking with his head between -- he's on his knees looking pensive almost like she's

worried and i describe this leader in the conversation about this moment and why he was looking so peacefully -- pensively and i will store reading from here. materially very little has changed for his black countrymen since beijing quist right to lead the white minority rule in the first space election. on and plan it is higher than ever. economic disparities have grown. the crime rate has soared, schools are crumbling and the farm land, the country's most valuable resource remains almost wholly owned by whites and just as it was during the days of apartheid. walk into any nice restaurant in k-town and see who sits and who serves, who drives their mercedes and who rides. the fleet of crowded buses that swarm johannesburg and cape town lake pingree buzzing bees.

pool owns the house and who cleans it. mandela has come and gone from the main stage and voters are preparing to elect their third president enough to launch this is 2008 again. but the defining truth is laid of land now as always the darker your skin the poor do our. what good is a dummy prisoner of your jailer looks like cuba does not set you free? black south africans turned to one of their own to govern but wasted the opportunity to transform the values opposed on their country by outsiders and he can hardly bear the thought of, repeating the mistake. in south africa's case, lee believes the mistake was looking at the west generally and to washington, d.c. specifically to solve the problems of african people. and as was the case with apartheid there's nothing in americans fetish for democracy but the free-market for people

of color. what is it the cubin -- what is it the cubans say? each day in the world to hundred million people sleep in the streets, not one of them is in cuba. can america's a that? while lee is watching, obama takes a step closer to the presidency and an african proverb comes to mind. one of his black countrymen often try to describe the dilemma in the post-apartheid era got a stone but not a not to crack, not a not a that no stone to correct it with. the south majority government built homes for the people what left them without money to pay the rent provide them with running water but shut off the top when they couldn't be the bill to replace the names of bullheaded white segregationists and the the schoolhouses with those of black liberation heroes but didn't replace the shoddy roofs. order companies to hire blacks but permitted them to slash wages. so it goes for the new south

africa where a small white minority continues to inhabit a split country, splendid country that is for all intensive purposes canada while three-quarters of the population resides in the country with living conditions similar to those of kenya or zambia. it's almost as if black south 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,outh

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 state