>> caller: if you're opposed to the war, i want you to say i'm opposed to this and this is the book i've written in regard to this or opposed a political person. >> host: kenny, we got it. we're almost out of time. >> guest: that's a really good and fair question. i strive to be neutral.

this is neutral inquiry. i'm not for obama or against hymn, that's why i'm able to do this work, i think. i'm not foror against the -- for or against the war. i'm trying to present what carl and i used to call the best obtainable version of the truth. >> host: the book, of course, is "obama's wars" and if you're a reader it's available anywhere you buy books. bob woodward returning to c-span as he always does with a book to take your questions. thank you. >> it is an assistant editing manager of the "washington post". he's been a newspaper editor for 40 years. for more information visit bobwoodward.com.

angela davis presents a critical edition of for frederick douglass exploring the intellectual life and simple other editions of douglass' memoir. she's joined in conversation by plight city prize -- pulitzer prize winner and nobel peace prize winner, and this program is just under two hours. >> good evening. >> good evening. >> hi, tony. >> hi, angela. i'm sorry about that entrance, i was not doing it for spee -- theetheatrics, but i have a brand new

>> a publication has material that a reasonable person would construe as written solely prt furp of communicating information designed to achieve a breakdown.

[laughter] not just your average breakdown, but a breakdown of price -- prisons through inmate destruction such as strike or riot. [laughter] this is february 20th, right after my birthday, 1998. i was amused to get this, but thrilled. it was an extraordinary complement. [laughter] [applause] that paradise could actually blow up into a riot in a prison, so i thought in addition to my inquiry about expanding literacy to visual literacy as well as print, i wanted to make some

connection between prisons, their organization in the prohibition and what they understand to be lethal and dangerous, lights, reading, like literacy, like understanding. >> and i actually wanted to begin with that scene by talking a little bit about the inaccessibility of libraries, and i'm thinking about my own childhood when i saw this incredible building in birming ham, hams made out of -- alabama made out of limestone. it was birmingham library, but it was for white people. the only black library was run

down, very few books, and i tell the story because i first entered the doors of this library in 1959, and i can remember how it felt to actually walk into a real library because although i had used the library in birmingham, it was very lacking in resources. it was broken down. timely, they -- finally, they built a new one. >> years later. >> yeah, many, many years later. >> yeah. >> so i think that as we talk about the democratic impulse of libraries and the accessibility of libraries, it's also important to talk about those places where books have a hard time penetrating, and your example of the texas state correctional system is one. just before the event, i had an

opportunity to look at some of the items from the archive collection here, and i saw -- i saw a wonderful collection of a periodical published by prisoners from, i think, 1939-1940-something, and i was thinking about, you know, what was required in order to be able to do that? this is for those of you who don't remember a period when we didn't have xeroxing. i looked at it and it was mimeographed. is that the word? >> yeah, mimeograph.

>> and the prisoners who put this together and the books they had to read to put this literary publication together was quite astounding, so i'd like to thank the librarians to allow me to see these documents, and i also had a brief conversation with -- what is his name? the head of the correctional -- what's his name? >> i forget his name -- >> nicklaus, yes, who coordinates relations between the new york public library, and the island and the women's and the men's detention facility there. >> interesting. >> so i was actually telling him about my experience in the women's house of detention here in new york.

i'm having all of these new york moarms. [laughter] -- memories, and i was in jail in new york. i don't know, did you mention i was in jail? [laughter] okay, some people don't know, and one of the first places i went, i was able to go in the jail was the library, and i didn't see very many interesting books there. [laughter] all right. i mean, i had just finished my studies in philosophy and went to the library expecting something very different. [laughter] so what i did is i had people send books to me while i was there, and i wanted to share those books with the other women. there was something like a thousand women there, and i was not allowed to do that. as a matter of fact, in the

library, there was a big card board box -- >> you could receive the books. >> i could receive the books and read them myself. it was okay for me to read them -- >> but don't share them. >> but don't share them. one was george jackson's book which was not allowed at all, although, you know, one of the things i learned when i was in jail there was, you know, how to secrete certain kinds of things. we were able to -- [laughter] we had these reading groups with books smuggled out of the box in the library, and it kind of reminded me of frederick douglass' effort to get an education, to learn how to read, and his idea that education really was liberation. >> absolutely.

>> yeah. >> that scene that i'm sure people who read it of the master claim don't teach him and the mistress wanting to but being afraid to, he uses an interesting phrase in describing her which was irresponsible power. >> right, right. >> and i thought that's gist not having the power. it's the irresponsibility of how you manage it, and his hunger was overwhelming because he knew, as we all know, that that was freedom, and the people who did not want blacks to read knew that. i mean, that's why, you know, there had been, you know, simple far ri stories -- fairy stories, it would have been different or even that. there is power. if you can't read in a place like that, they can cheat you and beat you, and the other route is extraordinary.

the things people suffered in order to read. i remember in trying to figure this out in a novel i wrote on mercy, how would that child learn to read? she was in maryland which was a state king charles bought as a haven for catholics who were being beaten up and killed and persecuted during the restoration in england. the catholics had a different idea about the soul of black people than some did. they reshaped the definition of what is human being, who is the other? the priest would defie the virginians, for example, who were church of england people,

and teach people to read, slaves to read, children to read, not that they. -- not that they wanted them to read the bible, but so they could read some religious tracts, so there was that kind of priest in addition to other kinds which would not be reading, but there were exceptions in the way in which they interpreted enslaved people, and i also wanted to emphasize in that book, i wanted to separate race from slavery. it wasn't really the same thing. we assume all slaves were black, and that does not reflect truth. they're called white slaves in order to get legitimate, they were not chat slavery, but they

functioned that way. if you had a servant, you can extend their contract forever. any little infraction, you could add another 7 years, and if they dropped dead or happen to have children, you can use the child to pay off the debt, and there was many instances in which white europeans were working right alongside black slaves on plantations, and i always remark on this one incident in that book, and what i learned is this thing called bakers rebellion where a group is called a people's army, some indentured servants and native americans, indigenous people, all got together and deposed the governor of virginia, and they ran things for a month. they were not so nice

themselves, but still. i don't want you to think there was a noble group going forth, they were just another group. anyway, when the governor returned from england, they killed them all. the interesting thing is that they established these laws, and the laws were very, very interesting. they said things like any -- no black shall be allowed to carry a weapon, ever for any circumstance. second, any white can maim or kill any black for any reason without being charged. now, you see what that did to the indentured servants who were white, now they are better, freer, more powerful. there's the same situation. they are still enslaved, but they can carry weapons, and they

can beat up black slaves without punishment, so they had this little margin of status, nothing else, nothing else, but that little margin and that little margin has warped its way through this country since then. that was in 17th century, and, you know, the southern strategy, you know, all of these things in which you, you know, flag race and racism as a cause or even a goal. racism is not a goal. it's a path. it's just a route to power and money. that's what it is. that's what it's for whether it's a war or segregation or what have you. the thing itself is just a manipulation and a tool and it's purpose is what i just described

that went on off the rebellion. how did i get there? >> you know, i was thinking as you were describing, as you were describing the conditions in the -- when you were talking about mercy -- >> oh, that's how i got there. >> i was thinking about, you know, frederick douglass' other passage where he heard the word abolition, and didn't know what it meant and heard about the abolitionists but had no idea what it meant. he said at some point he realized that it was connected to something that he really ought to be interested in. [laughter] and then eventually, i mean, he describes this pain staking process of learning, you know, learning how to write and, you

know, learning how to read, learning how to write by looking at the markings that were placed on the boards to be used to build sheds. one would say forward star and learned the letters fs as a result. >> right, it's amazing. >> then he talks about bribing the white boys to teach him how to read and write. he says at one point, he dares a white boy who was around to prove that he could write better than frederick douglass himself could. he really didn't know how to write that much, so the white boy could write a lot more, and in the process he learns what the white boy was writing, so -- but the point that i was making about hearing this word and

knowing that there was something about this word that was so important -- >> yeah. >> but he had no idea what it meant. >> he was attracted to it. >> yeah, it was like abolition. abolition. >> it sounds right. it sounds simple. >> yeah, and then of course, he becomes the most powerful abolitionist of the era. >> yeah. >> but that kind of curiosity that really is only possible through a process of education. you know, which is to say people who don't know how to read and write don't have that curiosity, but learning how to read and write opens up a whole new universe. it opens up a whole new dimension, and that's why the texas people didn't want the prisoners to read. exactly, exactly. >> what paradise, really? [laughter] >> you know, when you consider that there are now 2.5 million

people behind bars, what can they really do? what can they do that significant to, you know, reading and writing that really allows for the possibility of inhabiting a very different world. >> but the control of those 2.5 million people, i don't know about all, but it's such a profit-making thing now. >> yeah. >> you have whole cities, i know in upstate new york, who live off the benefits of a brand new prison, employment of the guards, cooks, you know, all the pair fa kneel ya that goes with the prisons. i read about a prisons in texas that when the prisoners get out,

they owe money. >> yeah, they have to pay for their own room and board. >> right. >> they're in college. [laughter] >> yeah. it's just like the sitters; right? >> room and board, and if you get and you still, if your family -- not only do you pay nor time for whatever, and then of course, the kinds of laws that are, you know, heavily weighted in certain communities for minor offenses and so on, not to speak of, but i was interested in your book because i'm not sure i understand fully that separation -- well, the implication is that there's a difference -- well, there is a difference between vengeance and justice. >> uh-huh, uh-huh -- >> but justice itself has some

pleasant consequences. we have to assume that if we want justice for some bad activity by a bad person, we want punishment. we want restraint. we don't want rehabilitation, and that assumes that there is something called the other. there is a stranger that your neighbor or the criminal, so-called criminal is some other thing, is an other. now, i was thinking along those lines when i was trying to figure out another area that is of great interest to me and has always been, but i've never had the patience or maybe the

intelligence of the research to kind of follow it through which is what the impact of torture, enslavery, enslavement, and violence has on the per traitor -- terp -- perpetrator. when i consider the other possibility, it seems to me that when you destroy somebody through vengeance and or severe forms of justice that the real object of the pain really is the

self. don't have to go there with you, but that's -- [laughter] that's why it's so -- the menace is so mundane in a way, so i'm thinking about these slave owners. i'm thinking about, say, women, enslaved women who were pregnant, lying on the ground, may make a hole for her stomach and beat her and any other savage response that even the one that frederick douglass speaks of, it's clear in his case when he finally confronts that covey. he's destroying something that is in himself. it's not that that person is animal or soulless or inferior. if you're strong enough, you

know, it's the fragile personality, the fragile personality, not the strong one, but the fragile, almost erasable personality that can do that because there's already the self-contempt and the self-loathing, and it's in that area that i -- well, i don't know if i'm working, but i'm looking at these various forms. it's so easy, racism obviously is the easiest thing you can do. it's very easy to block off these so-called criminals and they are away from us. they are not with us. we don't have to be tolerant because they are over there, but if they're us, if we're doing that in order to control a

certainly behavior whether it's high or low to redeem something in ourselves, that's a whole different situation, entirely different, so i want -- i've read a couple diaryies, not these little let me tell my grandchildren what to think of me, but interesting diaries of slave owners when they are not showing off, just marking how many barrels and how many of this, and you know, writing up and down and so on. it's really interesting. ..

>> who pays that? >> okay, they make money. they make money because they hire nonunion staff. they either don't allow the employees to continue to be members of a union or else they hire entirely new staff and they probably also cut back on services. the only reason for such a

company existing is its profitability. >> what about the person who wants to go buy a book? do i have to pay a fee for joining the library? >> maybe not yet, but who knows what'll what will happen in the future. it is very dangerous. the privatization of everything is what we are in the process of witnessing but that is what i said. i wanted to put in parentheses. the other comment i wanted to make was the fact that i have been looking at the work of this woman from new york. her name is day. she was a quaker, and helps to publish a book in 1976 which was called, instead of prisons, the

abolitionists handbook. so she was one of the key figures in the prison abolitionist movement in the 70s. she was a quaker who had also been involved in the antiwar movement and i just saw -- there is a film with eerie koshy auma called mountains that take wings. some of my students are here and they saw it. and he of course is an amazing activist, japanese-american activist who was in an interment camp and she lived in harlem for many years and met malcolm x and was responsible for introducing drivers of hiroshima tim outcome and as a matter of fact she was in the audubon ballroom when malcolm was assassinated and

there is this incredible photograph of her leaning over malcolm's body. that is koshy auma. the woman i am talking about his faith honey knocks whose daughter told me the other day that her mother worked with the same group of survivors of hiroshima that was introduced to malcolm x so what was really interesting, all of these knopp. not like alfred. the point that i want to make is she came to the conclusion after doing all of this work on prison evolution that the only way and the whole movement would be able to move in a progressive

direction would be to demonstrate that it was possible to address some of the horrendous problems that imprisonment presumes to address, so she started to work with child sex abusers. >> child? >> sex abusers and she spent the rest of her life working with these mostly men, who had sexually abused children. because she felt that she had to enter the hardest question, and she also felt that if we continue to be incapable of confronting those around us acts of violence that human beings inflict on each other, that it would never be possible to get rid of the prisons because what

we do now is we say that, when someone commits such a horrible act, put them in prison where we don't have to think about them anymore and we don't have to think about the perpetrators and we also don't have to think about the problem. and it continues to replicate itself, so in a sense addressing it in that way has guaranteed that there would be this reproduction of the problem from one generation to the next. and, you were talking about the diaries of slaveholders and people who committed horrendous acts and who weren't necessarily necessarily -- somebody has a cell phone that is ringing. okay, we will wait. good. >> thank you. [laughter]

and so, yeah, and you were saying that they weren't necessarily evil people. they committed evil acts, and i think this is something we have a hard time recognizing today. >> somebody called it a case of mistaken identity. and the suicide was a case of mistaken identity. [laughter] >> suicide is a case -- okay, i see. you really meant to kill somebody else. you don't recognize yourself. >> you don't know who you are. [laughter] so it may be the same. it may be the same thing, you know.

in a theatrical way, when we put that aside we don't have to be justifiable anymore and there is not the activity, whatever the behavior is, is somehow beyond the pale and it is not us. because you know, i am getting a little weary with that notion of the foreigner. i get a whole thing at the louvre called the foreigner's home. the foreigner is home. >> at the louvre in paris? >> the foreigner, this is his home. he owns his home. i mean in africa they are treated like foreigners, right? i mean after colonization you be, foreigner and you own your own home. and certainly it is true with african-americans who have preceded many of the people who came here. >> and native americans.

>> you or foreigners own home or the foreigner is home, but the notion of the foreigner, not just linguistic or geographical or community. it really is a kind of severancr status, maybe just because of another group that doesn't have advantage is you do. one of the reasons back to this last completed work of mine about mercy was that i know, as everyone does, that no one in the world is born with those attitudes and prejudices, no one. you can learn them early as long as you are taught in your own environment and in which such ideas can flower. but it is not in your dna.

it is not natural. it can become environmentally you know, necessary or you live in a certain world in which there is none. okay, that innocence with this romantic notion of the innocent american. americans are always innocent. do so i want to go back before the institutionalization know, these are people coming money or resources or they are scared mean you have to powerful going on to risks two some raggedy ship. most of those were down there

were cows and pigs and things with probably nothing, and it was bountiful, certainly that, but what were they running from? usually religion or poverty. at the point was that they did not come over here. italians who came to this country were not italians after he while. they were white. >> but it took a a long time. >> a tip a long time. it is a process. but i wanted to get back to that notion, this country particularly with the political flavor and poison now, to look at what it was like then when every country wanted a piece of

this place. i mean because we are speaking dutch now or spanish or swedish. did you know there was a swedish empire? i didn't. doing what they did obviously in africa, taking little bits and claiming this towns names changed every five years. somebody else was saying no, no, no it is not new york, it is this. it is not this, it is that. they changed names constantly. that was the big thing but the people that were suddenly here who were arrested to came here with some other ideas, so what made this outrageous, the necessity, for that level of enslavement and racism in this country was where i said, money and profit. i mean, this country entered an

industrial revolution like and i don't know, three decades. other countries took a century. this country in three decades. why? because they had slave labor. instantly, you didn't have to do anything. just feed them and corral them. and then you look at some place where they were making sugar in cuba and the people kept bringing slaves over and bringing slaves over. it was a little island. why did they need so many? to get 1000 slaves to cut sugar or 2000. then i learned that they were dropping dead. >> they died and they would get another. >> that's right, just replenish them. they would get younger and younger ones, so you are replenishing them like putting coal into a furnace. so all of this is my trying to

figure out not just the consequences of grace, which i did in the first book i wrote, the bluest eyes but other things around it, since it seems to have a hold. these have to be ferociously apologetic or you are the victim of it or the perpetrator of that and i just wanted to get rid of that discourse because it didn't go anywhere and find out what the origins are, what its purpose is. not just a scapegoat purpose, but it has a real function, which is power and control. and money, which is pretty much the same thing. that is what it is for. it is not something that oh yeah, this group of people are like this.

i mean, you know, we all know -- and that is why the phrase, but one of my best friends is, because we know one that is not quite like that and that is part of the staple. i am not really but there is something in the diet, the intellectual diet and the ignorance, you know of well-meaning people and even their own work. and i was serious when i said i don't understand why therapy of dollars the way they do. that is a powerful thing, you know, in the mind. angela's experience in the library and somebody else was talking about having to --. >> it was alice. >> yes, and she just could not. >> she said that she finds it difficult to enter libraries today. i was so hungry for the experience of the library that i

never experienced that difficulty and icons at libraries all over the world for a very long time, but toni. >> my first decent job other than scrubbing somebody's floors at 12 was to be a page in the library, because my sister was secretary to the head librarian. sheep of men and they didn't fire me because i was very slow, and i would read the books. [laughter] they just moved me to another department. >> toni before you move on, i have a response that i want to share. i always loved listening to you talk and i realize that i'm also here to participate in the conversation, so i can't just sit back like i usually do.

[laughter] all of your brilliance. but, you know the summer i was in colombia and as a matter of fact in september. >> columbia? >> columbia. and visited a community of people outside of cali who live in this mountainous area. afro-descended people, peoples whose ancestors were enslaved 400 years ago, who were brought to columbia to engage in gold mining, and they still live in the place where their ancestors settled when they escaped slavery, so it was initially a fugitive slave slaves settlement like a moran settlement and the people who live there now live

on the same land and do the same work that their ancestors did 400 years ago. they still mined gold in this very different way. the women are minors and the children are minors, and the women talk about mining in this incredibly passionate way. the guys mind too. [laughter] they all mind. they all mind, but i mean it is interesting that the women say, i have been a minor since i was in my mother's womb. so the point that i am making is that now, even though they actually own the land, they were able to get the title to the land but not too what is in the land, the subsoil, the minerals, and there are a number of a

mining concerns that are trying to evict them, so that they can institute these new industrialized modes of mining, strip mining and one of the mining companies, this kind of complicates our notion of what counts as racism in this day and age and its relationship to power. one of the mining companies is called the anglo golda chante. [laughter] and it is headquartered in south africa. the ceo of the mining company is a black south african. >> there you go. >> yes, there we go. there we go. it is also about the way in which racism has its own dynamic

and its own momentum, regardless of who the people are or what the people think. i mean, here is a black south african who just, how long ago, experienced freedom from apartheid in south africa and he was now about to kick these people off their land, people who have lived on the same land for 400 years. so what kind of a story is that? everybody should write the new president of columbia. >> we will. >> that is one thing we can all do this evening. what is his name? he just got elected. >> we will find it. we will google it. >> uribe was the last president and a new president was elected just a month or so ago. what is his name? santos? that is right, santos. but you can google it.

>> we low right, don't worry. >> write a letter of protest. >> what time is it? [laughter] >> do we want to take any questions from the audience? a few? well, it is about -- wow it is a little after 8:00. how long have we been talking? >> a little less than 55 minutes. we have about 20 more. >> we will take a few questions. >> i want to apologize for that darn phone. it was from death row in pennsylvania. [applause] >> if we are talking about prisons and talking about inhumaneness and how we are

being deprived of so many brilliant minds that are in prison that should be helping to lead the country, can we talk about mumia and all of these political prisoners who are in prison who should be amongst us, please? >> well, first i would say that speaking of literacy and libraries and liberation, mumia has made such an amazing contribution to all three of those categories, and yeah, this is something that we have to say mumia's life. we have to save mumia's life. [applause] and it is also about the relationship between learning and freedom.

it is about the uses to which we put our literacy, and because of the fact that there has been this mobilization against mumia by law enforcement all over the country is it has not been possible to build the kind of campaign that we see in other parts of the world. as a matter of fact, mumia is an honorary citizen of paris and there are streets named after him all over europe. in germany, everyone knows his name. but what can we do here? yeah, that is the big question. what can we do? [inaudible] >> where?

>> in philadelphia. >> flare in philadelphia? [laughter] what? [inaudible] >> my big demonstration in 1998. >> and also i think we have to do the work that needs to be done to build movements. that is to use all of your contacts to encourage people to think about this case. tell people about mumia. if you have kids who are in school, asked the teachers to talk to the children about the meaning of living in a so-called democratic society and using capital capital punishment as a routine mode of addressing a whole range of issues. this is the only industrialized

democracy in the entire world that puts people to death in this way. and mumia more than anyone has been the face of the campaign to expand democracy in this country, to abolish capital punishment and the death penalty so thank you, thank you very much. [applause] >> good evening. the first thing i want to say is that the women's house of retention as a market library which i think is really kind of great. >> it is a market? >> on teske and sixth avenue. my question is, professor you mentioned self and i wonder if that can also translate into the current anchor we see in some of the immigrants but specifically around the youth suicide and bullying as well and i'm

wondering if there is any thought what the connection between gender expression and some of the hatred in the south and some of your resources, and professor davis you have done a ton of research on that as well. if you could comment on that. >> that is clear to me. the, it is so obviously, the violence connected with that. is obviously a destruction of cells. i mean it is this blatant, you know, to me these others are maybe people don't realize that so much but calling people names and beating them up and hanging people off offenses. i mean, it is just so self-destructive. the more vicious it is toward the so-called person, the more violence there is towards

oneself, and i think that is, distributes itself and other kinds of scapegoats. i don't know, mexicans, please. i read somewhere that when the berlin wall came down, my prognostication was, oh be in theoretical, not really but the end of communism is also the end of raw capitalism. i mean, if one goes, the other goes also, and i have been proven right. >> you said you have been proven? >> correct. capitalism is not dead obviously. [laughter] but it is crumbling. >> but i mean, it is, it is, it is. most people don't know it. >> they are horrified by the notion of not having a.

>> they think capitalism penetrates into our very emotions in ways that it was never able to do a. >> that is true. and when we look at privatization of libraries. >> i am telling you. >> okay, tell me. how do we speed up the demise of capitalism? that is what i want to know. [applause] >> you have to keep those republicans out of office. because they are hanging on tooth and nail. [applause] capitalism, in his rawest form. not even the sort of civilized form, but the broader the better. so that is one way, but i may not live to see it. i will be 80 next year. but you will, my dear.

>> i am right behind you. [laughter] >> you so, that is one thing. oh, the berlin wall. interesting, when the berlin wall fell -- this is how we talk all the time. all sorts of other walls went up the one between israel and the west bank and then the wall in mexico that is a border. all of these other walls jumped up and they are not physical walls but there are other kinds of imprisonment walls. just constantly separating. in some instances the berlin wall was so some people couldn't get out and now we are building walls so they can't get in. so there is a constant -- this shift looks to me long-range like part and parcel of what i am certain is, you know, the

disconnect. it is really crumbling. when these people say i want the government out of my social security. >> i know, i i know. >> it doesn't matter. >> since you are talking about, since you are talking about capitalism and communism i want to acknowledge allie mitchell who is sitting over there. [applause] charlene was the first black woman to run for the office of the president of the united states of america. she was on the communist party ticket. [laughter] [applause] >> hi, good evening. my first job was also a page in a library on 96 treat and i'm also a writer so you have made me feel really good about my prospects for accomplishment.

[laughter] my question is, i have two questions and one is about your ideas around visual literacy. i immediately thought about movies particularly in the context of how movies now are being adapted from books and the type of literacy that we get from movies versus what we get from the book. i would hope the director is walking a fine line although even with ease, pray love, the general masses or outrage. i think that becomes even more complicated when you talk about black movies, but black women and black movies particularly like the color purple waiting to exhale and now we have the girls coming up. i just wanted to know your thoughts on adaptation and film and also if you could flush out some more of your ideas in terms of visual literacy in the realm of film adapted from books.

my second question is a lot easier. how did you two meet and how did you end up writing her, editing her autobiography? >> i don't know what she was doing. i had a job at random house. [laughter] and she was an acquisition that they were very proud of so we got to know each other at that point. i think i had published one book or to. >> you had published by that time already and you were working -- you had already published but you were working, because i can remember he would like write three or four lines. we would be driving from your house to the city across the george washington bridge. there would be traffic. you would pull out a little note tag and right or see a reference for a slave and then you would write a little bit here.

and then when the book finally came out, i said, i cannot leave this. you know, it was like magical. [applause] wonderful. but also, i should say that i really appreciate what i learned about writing from toni. when i wrote my autobiography, i was somebody who was used to writing philosophy, so i didn't think about writing in the same way. you now, rather than like writing it for me, toni would say well, you know what was that room like? you know, what did it look like? what was in there? what were the colors. so she made me understand writing in such a different way and i am forever grateful for that. we also had fun. do you remember when we went to

the virgin islands? and i made you walk from one end of the island to the other? >> there was nowhere in the united states where angela could feel safe in writing, so we went to the virgin islands. [laughter] for a long time. it was like a month or so. >> yeah because i remember we have are going to stay in the holiday inn hotel but it wasn't finished yet when we got there. >> was in complete. >> we also went to -- remember we went to finland and sweden and denmark. >> helsinki. >> yeah. >> these women formed a circle, huge circle and they held hands with angela in the middle and i was sort of there. [laughter]

the photographers and the journalists and the cops or whoever, they just formed a circle. it was amazing. i should have had a camera. do you know what i mean? >> this is really a wonderful question. how we met each other. the question was visual literacy >> i think -- what? >> movies and adaptations. and what do i think? i think that most of them are pretty awful. [laughter] [applause] there is some, i don't know if it is fear of doing something. you know how creative say african-americans have been with music? i mean, nobody told them how to do it. i was just reading about locke coming out right after the atom bomb.

it was so chaotic. everybody was in shelters and saying the oh my god. the music changed right away into something that was odd notes, speeches, new language. anyway, back to the movie thing. it is as though they are fearful of powerful and different creativity. how to do something wildly different or they would follow a certain pattern. you know, i mean from the first scene, everything. now, i understand that the business requires a certain kinds of formulas in order to get the money and to get them out. i understand that. it is such an expensive project. i was surprised anybody knows anything. i was stunned looking at -- this has nothing to do with african-american films, but i

saw, what is that -- no country for old men. my god, there was a movie with no score, none. they didn't tell me -- [laughter] the guy just blew his head off you know, with no sound. there were just some mexicans on the guitar and that was all. it was like they trusted me. it was frightening. it was different but i was not urged by the music, pushed. this is really scary. this is going to be happy. you know, and i thought, isn't that interesting? so that is the little bit i know about the movies but what i am saying is that i wish it were possible to do more inventive,

creative, non-formulaic hollywood things. it is possible in the movies -- hey think about passing strange. [applause] wasn't that something? i have never seen anything on broadway that literate and that musically inventive and stage that way. that was really a leap for me. i thought it was fantastic. so it is possible and i just want to say that you know, i had an unhappy. oh, who cares? i am happy but i'm not wholly satisfied by a lot of the films and musicals that are going on although there are well-intentioned. for me, well-intentioned isn't good enough. it is like happiness. that ain't good enough. don't rest on happiness. it is okay, i hope you all are

happy but we have got to do more than that. more than that. yes? >> hello. first of all let me say this is an incredible honor just to be in front of two of my literary heroes and i could have my own break down without even reading paradise but i have to question. [laughter] the first being, you talked about you now writing a letter to columbia and talking about in protest to what is going on with the miners there. what do you think in this time where it seems like lethargy and cynicism has risen so high it is almost choking us? how do you feel, what do you think the role of richmond protest is? i mean, does it still have an effect, the written letter protest? the other question i have is also in these times, what do you think the role or the importance

of the storyteller is? >> well, i want you to answer both of those questions. [laughter] but i have to say, perhaps we live in this fast food nation. americans just wanted now. and a lot. and they sort of like deserve it. you know, politically, everything and if you don't handed to them right this minutu just drive by and tell the little machine what you want. pay the man the money. to get your food and go on home. it seems like that is a sort of constant thing so that actually sitting down and writing a letter, mailing it, telling three other people to do the same thing and organizing like actually getting on the phone

and calling some people. that takes too long. it is like, it may take a while. it may take a while. that is my version. >> okay, well, i totally agree with you because we have forgotten how to write letters, you know. i was going to say for those of you who will have problems actually sitting down and doing a letter and putting it in, finding out how much it cost to mail a letter to columbia and all of the. you could perhaps figure out how to e-mail. but let me see if i can answer that question in a slightly more complicated way. the previous discussion we were having about capitalism and the

extent to which we assume that as individuals we are powerless, which is in part a consequence of neoliberal, individualistic ideology that we only think of ourselves as individuals and we don't think about possible connections, writer connections with communities that are not only in the u.s. but better in other parts of the world as well and, it seems to me that this is the real challenge of this period. even for people who consider themselves progressive in a country like the united states of america. because we also, we also imagine ourselves as somewhat different from the rest of the people in the world. you know, american exceptionalism has its impact

even on those who pretend to be most radical. exactly. and so, what would it take? what would it take to create a connection to with that community. there are about 7000 people, afro-descendent columbia and, many of still whom have african names because they have created a history and a culture that goes back to, goes back to resistance against slavery, and they are still resisting. as a matter of fact they received an eviction order for august 18 and they refused to leave. so, yeah, and writing, to answer your question, written protest is a process that can perhaps help us feel as if we are making

community. we are reaching out beyond ourselves and that we have emotional connections with people who live on this mountain, in this village. >> i have this mantra in connection with angela. when i was young, they called us citizens. we were american citizens or we were fighting for citizenship. >> we were first-class and second-class. we were second-class. >> but the word was citizen. now citizen suggest some relationship with your neighbors, with the block, with the town, with the village. after world war ii they stopped using that word. and we were consumers. that is all you could hear. american consumer of this, american consumer that. and the bot things and that is

what we were supposed to do. now, what are we? we are taxpayers. [laughter] >> all of a sudden it is about my little tax, my little money. those people who should not have it, you know. and you talk about capitalism seeping into your blood, they just change the language and redefined us. and we go for it. yes, my driver was fussing about his taxes. i said, so what? you pay taxes, so what? so all of a sudden we lose who we are. or we are redesigned, and when the language changes, we change. the labels change so all of a sudden it is about taxes.

but if we were still citizens, that is a different thing. we would feel some obligation. >> and citizenship not narrowly defined. >> largely and there were no losers. i remember when hobos were romantic. hemingway's story and they were on the strange. now they are the homeless losers. who, by the way don't pay taxes. [laughter] you know? [applause] [laughter] >> actually there was some great blues players out there on the railroad playing some fantastic, fantastic music. ladies it is an honor. i like to see your hair up in a

fro. a book that i had that i was looking for, and you brought ida b. wells alive from a. >> idea? how? >> yes you did. there was a program. >> oh yeah, and em paula. she wrote the book. >> correct. >> can i just say something? many people don't acknowledge how important toni morrison was to the emergence of what we now call a black feminist literature. of bosco. >> that is true. i mean, i say this to my students.

i don't know whether i've ever said it to you, but i remember when she was publishing, right? and gail jones. [applause] so what we know as that black women's writing that took shape in the 70s and 80s would not have been possible had not toni morrison insisted as an editor at random house on publishing these works. [applause] and you published public giddings. and you published paula getting' first book. >> paula getting's first book. >> my first book. [laughter] >> she didn't realize that she was doing this really historical historical. >> in this case there was a

hiatus. i was writing in between, you know. they didn't like that at all. they didn't hire me to write books. they hired me to edit them but what can i say? >> sorry, i interrupted you. >> no, you are exactly where i wanted you. [laughter] speculative literature, fiction, sci-fi. how does it relate to the third world, women and the movement through literature? as a student of anthropology always routed into what is real, but i look for fiction for ideas to make what is real it listed, eliminating. show me the reverse. where are we in the third world, writing back speculative, soft sci-fi about what is going on

socially? >> sci-fi -- listen you have got somebody coming here. this is a good story and i hope i am not stealing your thunder. edwidge danticat. she just published this book called create dangerously or something like that. anyway, she gave a speech at kinston and she was describing something that happened in haiti i was overwhelmed by this and i hope that answers part of your question. she said that during the really tough times in haiti when they were running around chopping everybody up, they established a rule that if somebody died, your son, your neighbor, a stranger, on the street, if they killed him, you could not pick them up.

you could not go and get the body. even if it was yours, i mean a relative. at some point a few days later, a garbage truck would come along and pick it up and put it in the garbage and do whatever they did or goes so, if you went out to pick up a body, to bury it or whatever, he would get shot. so everybody was afraid. i hope i -- i know this is part of what she said. at some point your neighborhood, if somebody organized a little theater in a garage and the local people came to participate in this place, some could be ended and some could watch it and they did it and they would come by to check and see what they were doing and walk on by. but what they were doing, get

this, the play was antigone. [applause] i mean that to me was the most extraordinary thing. it provided solace. it was about the subject, the conflict between the government and so on. so i was thinking not only about your inquiry but also about the visual literacy thing, the many many ways. there is no one way. the latter is a beautiful thing and important and permanent. i mean, it is there. it can't be erased. can be burned, but the same thing as the theater. the same thing as with -- tried to think what it is like in the world if you can't read. what other kinds of things jump out at you. use everything, everything to

become you know the best human being you can be. [applause] >> i also just noticed the lights are on now, and i noticed that amir baraka is in the house. [applause] look, look, he is behind there. [applause] [laughter] >> thank you. >> yes? >> good evening. i am very honored to be standing in front of you. you are my idols. i represent the resistance in new york city, the black and latina mothers who believe in public education, who used the libraries, who are so opposed to

me oral control and the privatization -- [applause] of our schools. and i want to give a shout-out to the parents in chicago who have just sat in for a month in order to get a library for their children. there was a field house that was going to be torn down, and they sat in because they wanted a library. i am speaking to you because, as i say you are my idol since i was greatly influenced in the 70s and 80s and the literature and being able to use now the internet, to be able to hear you give speeches and to speak in front of like the new york women's agenda or the ms. foundation or the new york women's foundation, where mothers like me, women in the community don't have access, and so i am asking now if you can give the women, the mothers in new york, the women that i

represent, can you please give us some words of encouragement and inspiration so that we take that back to the community and we continue our fight and our struggle for proper quality human rights-based education, public education for our children. [applause] >> send us an e-mail. do you have e-mail? [applause] >> afterwards? >> yeah, give me your e-mail. >> let me say, let me say that what you said in that minute that took you to explain who you were, i am sure inspired so many of the people here in the work that you are doing. [applause] this privatization. so, the message that i would give to you to take back is to

continue doing what you are doing. we all need, we need to follow your leadership. we need to all be involved in this campaign to prevent privatization from taking over our lives, and especially from taking over the public educational system. so, thank you. thank you very much. [applause] >> thank you. >> you are welcome. don't forget. [laughter] >> hi, this is a question for angela. before we saw the shepherd very image of obama, even you know in the context of you have this iconic image of angela davis, i'm wondering how does it feel when you see people you know using an imposter on t-shirts. does it feel like it is you?

does it feel like is co-opting your image or does it feel like they are trying to spread what you are trying to say? [laughter] >> okay, i will tell you a story because it did begin to bother me somewhat now. it is so easy to create the possibilities of proliferating image. anybody can do a t-shirt and then it goes on the internet, so i was a bit disturbed by that. i asked a young woman, who was a high school student, who had one of those t-shirts that said, why are you wearing that? i thought that one went out in the 70s because then there was a reason. the reason was to help to create this campaign to free me. exactly.

so i said, but this is the 21st century. [laughter] and she said, well, i wear this t-shirt because it makes me feel powerful. it makes me feel like i can do anything i want to do. and i don't know what she knew, whether she knew anything about me really, but that made me recognize that people bring their own interpretations, and that image is an image not so much as me as an individual as it is of an era during which millions of people came together all over the world and demanded my freedom. ..

>> i remember being in high school. >> yeah, yeah. >> and then later, of course, adams, natural, a beautiful natural. [laughter] so why do they keep picking on me? [laughter] that i don't understand, but thank you for the question. [laughter] [applause] >> hi, i'm here representing my classmates and professors, and i want to ask -- >> what classmates?

>> conquidia college. >> oh, yeah. >> which is worse being internally imprisoned or prisoned by society, and do you think it's possible to be free while being imprisoned by society? referring to slavery and just being imprisoned recently and things like that. thank you. >> huh, you're really asking about freedom. >> yeah, yeah. >> internal, external. i have a very small short answer about internal freedom. i'm from near ohio -- [applause] >> no kidding. [laughter] >> i was 10.

come to new york and make good. [laughter] i was near lake eerie in a working class town with steel mills, shipyards, that's all. a lot of people came there. african-americans themselves and mexicans and europeans and so on. i'm a really diverse, as they say in the rural community, but again, we were citizens in some cases, and, you know, the polish lady next door would bring us those little cabbage things with meat in them. [laughter] if we didn't have any, and if we had something, you know, we'd bring her, and everybody had gardens. i'm trying not to make it sound thrilling, although, we were too young to realize we were miserable. [laughter] at any rate, my experience is

about race a very different from many other black people. one is because i grew up in a mixed neighborhood. it didn't mean people didn't call me names, but you know, they were calling each other names so so what? i remember coming home and a little boy called me a wicked name and said you ethiopian you. [laughter] i was like, mom, what's an ethiopian? [laughter] she said that's a continent in africa and this and that. i think the original human beings were born there or something. [laughter] i thought, what is he talking about? [laughter] so that, but, here's the thing, there was little minor things like that. sometimes from some adults, but i never felt -- and this is curious, i think i

know why, but i never felt it the way it was meant, and i think the reason is because i always thought that those people were deficient in some way. >> oh. >> always, even as a little one. i thought they were deficient. >> okay. >> i had a big sort of racial moment when i was working for some white family just before i got my job. i was working after the school just doing housework, two hours a week. one of which went to my mother, and the other i could keep, but she had some complicated, for me complicated like vacuum cleaners. [laughter] i never saw one, and the stove, and i didn't know how to work it, so she'd curse me out every

now and then. [laughter] my mother, mom, i got to quit, she's too mean. my mother said, quit. i was only down $1; right? my father, i was daddy, she's so mean. he said go to her, get your money, and come on home. you don't live there, so i didn't have an employment problem sense. my life was not there, and also i didn't have to disstain or be afraid of or neglect anybody who had a skin advantage over me, whoever they were. i any further felt that, and when i wrote the first book i wrote, i reallimented to know -- really wanted to know how that girl felt so bad, a real life

girl who said she wanted blue eyes. we were troubled whether god existed. i was persuaded he did, and she didn't believe it. her proof was she prayed for blue eyes for two years, and she didn't get him. obviously, he wasn't up there. when i looked at her and thought about how awful she would look -- [laughter] if she got them, and then i thought, the second thing was -- [laughter] how beautiful she was at that moment, you know? i didn't even know whether she was beautiful or not until i thought about what she might look like. the third thing is, of course, why does she want that? what makes her think that's an

improvement? that kind of self-loathing which is real when you don't have support made me, you know, think of that as the real subject for a book, not some oh, victim, but really how it works, how you can actually face the question. >> it was about freedom too, so. all right, so that internal thing, i had trouble when i first traveled south, not with white people, i mean, yeah, maybe, but my inability to perceive how southern blacks who were, you know, their whole lives were oppressed, like not being able to go into the library. i mean, just anything like that, not knowing, you know, is this place safe? is that place safe?

or knowing what the safe places are, and what that might do, how to escape from that, and how does one internalize that, or does one, you see? and if you do, how does it, you know, how do you get rid of it? so, all of those -- and i never -- i always thought that the people whether they were adults or children that they called me ethiopian. that was like so stupid. [laughter] they sort of complemented me in a way. >> yeah. >> i couldn't feel the self-loathing, which i felt inside which i suppose is called arrogance. [laughter] i think it was the way in which my family responded to that, and they were both from the south, deep south, alabama and georgia,

but they instilled in us some other things. >> maybe i could just add a couple of things? is this the last question? >> no, no, please ask some things. >> and it's actually on a different kind of register about freedom and internal freedom, external freedom. what do we mean by freedom? we've been talking about frederick douglass and freedom had a certain historical meaning then. it was about abolishing slavery, and as i thought about this new edition of the narrative of the life of frederick douglass, i thought it would be important to point out that in a sense as

incredible and as brilliant as frederick douglass was, his imagination of freedom was historically constricted, so that in a lot of ways, it was about manhood. >> yes. >> and that site was conveyed and proved his manhood, and in the process, it provides a path towards freedom, so the question is well, you know, what about, what about women? >> what about little girls? >> yeah, what about little girls. how could they imagine freedom? so, i want to say this in response to one of the earlier questions that i didn't get to answer about homophobia and suicide of young people today and how we think about freedom and the historical --

the deeply historical character of our own imaginings of what it means to be free and, you know, what did it mean to be free in frederick douglass' time and what did it mean to struggle for freedom during the civil rights era? you know, what does it mean to expand our notion of freedom today? we've talked a lot about immigrants, you know, toni you talked about the world and in mexico you talked about the palestinians, and how do we wring the palestinians into our frame of freedom and into the way we imagine freedom today? how do we think about transgendered people? how do we think about gays, lesbians, bisexuals within the

frame of freedom? what does that tell us about the extent to which our own framework of freedom is quite restrictive, so i asked myself sometimes a hundred years from now, how are people going to be talking about the struggle for freedom because i don't think we're ever going to get there? i don't think we're ever going to reach a point where we can say we a free. we can rest. we can stop now. we've won. and so it seems that in the very process of struggling for freedom of reflecting on freedom of writing about freedom, we constantly challenge the framework within which we

develop that imaginary of freedom, so -- >> i think it is powerfully imaginative in a certain period it's this. in another period it's something else. i think of freedom as, well, a major part of did for me -- part of it for me is knowledge, maybe wisdom if you get there, but certainly knowledge, and then i'm reminded that the first sentence, genesis, the sin is knowledge. the acquisition of knowledge. that's where they get thrown out of that little kindergarten they were in, that little place where they could just, no no, you know something, and one of the words in the king james translation is

they may become wise, so stop that. they knew, and in many other religious forms, that's why faith and belief is so important, not knowledge, faith, belief, just instinct. i'm not complaining, i'm just suggesting that there's something so powerful, so attractive, so liberating about what we call, you know, science, knowledge, that it, you know, you can't have it, which is the same sort of thing that we were talking about which is documented from the texas correction bureau, and what angela is talking about when she talks about the necessity of reading literacy of all kinds under constrainted circumstances and what frederick douglass did having an intellect like maria in prison. you know, all of this works into

the same thing, the big horror. they have led us to believe is knowledge, that will set you free. >> on this note of knowledge -- [applause] i would like -- [applause] i would like to thank angela davis and toni morrison. thank you very much. >> this event was hosted by the new york public library in new york. for more information visit nypl.org. >> joining us a jonathan, eating annals. you talk about farms of annals produced for eating -- animals and they are treating larry king living an -- living animals like dead ones. what do you mean by that. >> there's factory farms and

small family families and small animals on grass and farmers walking in sunshine, and now 99% of the animals come from factory farms raised in tens of thousands, and given antibiotics and pieces of their body is removed and when they treat living animals like dead ones is our food system has become like, you know a foreverring system where it -- manufacturing system and it doesn't matter how we treat them or what the environmental effects are. >> where did you get the idea? >> when my wife became pregnant with our first child and having the thought of feeding someone else, that prospect made my anxious.

i wanted to know more about the effects of it on our bodies and world. >> beyond the effects of the bodies, you talk about the effects on the environment. tell us about that. >> well, the u.n. which is not the humane society says this is the number one cause of global warming and produces more greenhouse gases than anything in the world, and it's the problem of pollution and so on. basically, knowing what we know we know it's impossible to consider one self's an environmentist while eating factory farm meat. >> you talk about social considerations. explain that for us. >> well, you know, it takes between 6-26 calories put into an animal to get one back. it's wasteful. in the process of making the

food, we're basically moeing south america. we are taking gross advantage of africa, pulling natural resources for something that is not so valuable, is not so great, it's not something we can't live without like a .50 cent hamburger. >> is there any such thing as good meat? >> i'm not one to say. different people have different standards. is there such a thing as a farm where animals are treated well? >> yes, some farmers treat them better than i treat my dog. they gave them the space, food, and slaughtered them in a way they didn't feel. i went to farms that were sustainable. the question is can we have a farm system like that, the answer is no. there might be an analogy to child labor. i can imagine giving a 6-year-old a job to save that kids life, but that doesn't make

me an advocate of child labor because when there's a system like that and when there's incentives to abuse the power, it always gets abused. in america, we will always have really good farmers really noble people who do the job as well as they can and appeal to the biblical notions of dominion, but we'll never have a farm system like that. >> it's called eating animals and the author is jan thn. >> here's a portion of one of our booktv programs. >> in addition to a question questionnaire that covered a wide variety of background items, the members were asked to imagine the nation's history from scene of this accident until the -- 1996 until the end of the

century, in other words, the year 2000. they were looking ahead for 34 years imagining what they perceived or viewing as what would happen to our country for the remainder of the century, and the graduate student doing this study, richard bromgard was surprised by the belief of the yaf members that a continued drift to the welfare state and socialism and moral decay would be reversed in the near future by an awakening of the american people resulting in moving the train of events back to common sense. bromgard also surveyed members of students for a democratic society which was the leading new left or leftist organization on campus' of the 60s, and the young democrats and the college

republicans, and he reported on his reports in an article he cowrote in an academic journal. it's interesting to view some of the projections of these yaf members in 1966. one yaf member protected a redirection of american society towards freedom and conservative principles. remember, again, he's writing in 1-9d 66 -- 1966, and here's what he said. the united states led by hypocritical and unprincipled leaders becomes very bureaucratic in increasingly socialistic. the united states generally loses the battles in foreign affairs because it does not present its philosophy of free enterprise, libertarian beliefs, ect. as well as it should. sounds almost familiar to the current day, doesn't it? finally, as he predicted, in the

1980s or there abouts, the american people realize that economic security is not necessarily freedom. they realize their freedoms are being abridged. they realize the economy is becoming too regimented and the government too bureaucratic. the people will then change the trend of events back to common sense conservative principles of government. remember his prediction was 1980, and if you recall from history, 1980 as it turned out was indeed the year in which the american people voted for a conservative president, ronald reagan, who did indeed -- [applause] who did indeed change the trend of events back to common sense conservative principles of

government. bromgard sited at yafer for events in the future of 1996 to 2000. his predictions were as follows. 1968, republican victory. 1972, reagan elected president. 1976, reagan reelected. 1978, fall of soviet russia. 1985, end of welfare, social security, and medicare. 2000, end of unions. now, as he noted compared with their sts counterparts on the left, yaf had a mountain of naive faith. well, let's look back nearly 45 years later, and we can see that this naive faith seems to have been rather accurate in its prediction of future events.

change a few of the dates, modify a few of the conclusions and these yaf members who were just high school and college students have laid out the political history of the last third of the 20th sempleg ri. consider nixon ice victory brought a realignment of politics and the disgrace of water gate, impeachment, and resignation. reagan's victory came eight years after the yaf members predicted, but was indeed followed by a landslide reelection. it took nine more years for the berlin to fall, closely followed by the demise of the soviet union. then, in his 1993 state of the union message, a new democratic president promised to quote "end

welfare as we know it." and the reforms of our welfare system were enacted a short while later when republicans gained the majority in congress in 1994. two years after that original state of the union message, that same president declared quote, "the era of big government is over" in his state of the union message. >> to watch this program go to booktv.org. type the title or author's name at the top left of the screen and click search. >> well, we're pleased to be joined now by craig robinson the author of this book, "a game of character." his the basketball coach at oregon state university, not something covered on book tv, but the forward was written by maryann robinson, so we thought

it was worth having coach on. coach, who is mary and robinson? >> none other than my mother, mother of craig and michelle and wife of fraser robinson, and one of the influences in my writing "a game of character." currently she's at the white house and that's michelle balm's brother. >> yeah. >> you have an old family photo. who is fraser? >> fraser is the grown man there who was my father, and he died roughly 19 years ago, and a game of character is a tribute to the lessons i learned from both mary and and fraser in how those lessons resinate in the court, classroom, at the dinner table, and in the boardroom.

>> we have gotten to know maryann a little bit being with the girls and everything, but what did fraser robinson do, and what do you remember most about him? >> my father worked for the chicago water department, and was an hourly shift worker, and spent the bulk of his free time raising his children, and he was the keeper of all of the family folklore. he passed along the lessons, told the stories and values, and "a game of character" talks a lot about the lessons that i learned from him. >> and craig, you talk about life lessons you can learn on the basketball court, what are they? >> you know, when you play pick up basketball, you can tell if a guy is selfish or not,

egotistical and you know you have to make your own calls and give up calls, so there's quite a few things you can learn. >> when's the last time you played basketball with barak obama, and what did you learn? >> the first time was when my sister asked me to spend time on the court with him to see what kind of person he was, and what i found is he is highly intelligent, high integrity, team player, and i also said that most of all, he just didn't pass me the ball because he was dating my sister. >> how much time do you get to spend with the obamas? >> you know, during the season it's tough. you know, i'm here just on the day, so i won't get to see them on this trip, but in the summer, we get to catch up so we come out here with the family quite a bit. >>