much advantage of you. >> we're about out of time. but your son, how old is he? >> 9. >> what's his name? >> antonio. >> how long has he spent in the united states? >> well, he's coming back in a few days. we're going to meet in chicago and we're going to california to talk about the book. he wants to be in america. he loves america. america is his playground. he hads it's great fun. >> how is his english? >> nonexistent. his passive english, he understands. he watch cartoon and thing. he understands what goes on. but he's shy. if you want to learn a language, you don't have to be shy. >> we can't complete this. but television you write about. you say it's constantly agitating. >> not this one. how about that? >> what do you mean by that? >> people seem to be in a frenzy all the time. they have sort of glassy eyes. and they tell you everything. ... well, i don't like that.

i think the attention span of people is reduced to -- it becomes too short if you just have bum bum bum bum bum. you're probably thinking i'm being clever and i want to be nice to c-span who had me for an hour. >> here's the cover of the book. it >> next, an interview with the president of the charlotte writers club, david rad slip.

>> give me a little bit of the history of the charlotte's writers club. >> it was founded in 1932, so that makes it one of the largest -- the oldest arts organizations in north carolina. i don't know if we're the oldest, but one of the oldest. and it started off a little bit more of a reading club, a social club for lovers of literature, and then it's just evolved over time. so it's going to be 90 years old -- or, no, is that right? 90 years old next year. >> what is the focus of the club? >> well, we have a variety of focuses. we want to be a support group for writers, so we offer workshops, contests. we meet once a month during the academic year and listen to presentations by established writers, and we want to offer resource and networking for writers, but we also have members who are publishers, editors, people who love reading or literacy. we're advocates for literacy as

well. we have people who have published a number of novels, poets, playrights who have sedu- who have been seduced, but we also have a number of young people that are just starting out. it's very eclectic. we have journalists, we have must ri writers, i have a friend who writes zombie and vampire novels, and you have academic poets, historians, a little bit of everything. and i think that's wonderful. it's not an academic group particularly, although we have, certainly, academic people in it. but we have people who write bestsellers and so on. and then charlotte's an interesting place because it's, um, a large city, but it also has different kinds of communities, ethnic communities and, um, different kinds of groups. so that makes it fascinating. we have a lot of critique groups, and that's one of the things we offer to writers. i would guess maybe as many as

half of our writers belong to critique groups, and these are typically 4-6 writers in a group, and it might be a novel group or a science fiction group or poetry, short stories, children's literature, young adults, and you get together with these people, and you read each other's work. and writing is a very lonely kind of endeavor. you do that by yourself. but then you want to go out and interact with other writers and get feedback before you send it to the publisher. so we offer a lot of that. we offer opportunities for new writers to connect with people, get a mentor, join a critique group and listen to these presenters come in. we have a number of great writers who come in to talk about their writing. they read from it, and then they talk about how they wrote, they answer questions about publishing. we have the man coming in at our september meeting, kevin morgan watson s the founding editor of

press 53 which is one of the leading independent publishers in north carolina. and he's going to talk about getting published with an independent press which is a little bit different than some of the mainstream. the novelist, susan hassler, who's coming in october has published with a mainstream publisher, so she can talk about that. and, um, so we try to offer a lot for our members. >> next on booktv, in his book "black and tired," anthony bradley applies christian teachings to the summits of race -- subjects of race, politics, contemporary culture, globalization and education. this is about an hour. >> good morning, thank you for joining us here an the heritage foundation. as director of lectures and seminars, it's my privilege to welcome you to our louis lairman ud tore yum and, of course, to welcome all those who join us on our web site.

we would ask everyone in house that you'll make that last courtesy check that cell phones have been turned off. we, of course, will allow questions from our internet viewers if they'd like to e-mail us simply addressing those e-mails to speaker@heritage.org, speaker@heritage.org, and we will post the program within 24 hours for your future reference. hosting our discussion and introducing our special guest this morning is jennifer marshall. ms. marshall is director of domestic policy studies and our richard and helen devos center for religion and civil society. she also manages family facts.org, our online catalog of social science research related to family and religious practice. prior to joining us here, she was -- worked on cultural policy issues at empower america, and before that she was a senior director of family studies at the family research council.

please join me in welcoming jennifer marshall. jennifer? [applause] >> thank you, john, and thanks, all of you, for being here for our book event on "black and tired. essays on race, politics and international development by dr. anthony bradley. a few days ago here in washington, d.c. hurricane irene pushed back the official dedication of the new memorial to dr. martin luther king. but the silver line anything that hurricane -- lining in that hurricane is that the delay appropriately extends our focus on dr. king's civil rights legacy and the work of those who since him have strived to make all god's children truly free at last. well, dr. anthony bradley is one of those freedom seekers. as the title of his new book conveys, "black and tired," he's not satisfied with the progress to date. although for reasons you may not often hear about. as the essays in this book show

with titles like devaluing the family, hip-hop's delusional god talk and green booze led, anthony bradley is a scholar with wide-ranging interests. his academic pedigree shows that as well. his undergraduate degree from clemson is in science, and his master's and doctorate from westminster seminary are in theology. today he teaches at the king's college, a christian liberal arts school in new york city. anthony's first book was "liberating black theology: the bible and the black experience in america." his latest book, "black and tired," looks at the experience of one race to teach us truths about all humanity. our views of human nature, he argues, will shape our public policy. so it's worth pausing to consider what it means to be fully human. please join me in welcoming dr. anthony bradley as he helps us do that today.

[applause] >> thank you, jennifer marshall, for the invitation. i am honored and delighted to be at the heritage foundation for this event. for years i often say because i'm a nerd, you know, growing up i would watch c-span quite a bit and see people at these think tanks, heritage foundation, i would sit this and wonder, i wonder if one day i'll be standing in front of this backdrop? [laughter] with a foundation? so i'm honored to actually, actually be here, so thank you for the invitation. my connection to this foundation goes back quite some years. i have, with great honor and boasting, used a lot of the work

of robert rector in my own research and writing. his work has been particularly helpful for me in terms of my own, um, attempts to think differently about both political and economic liberation for african-americans. the united states is an incredible place. it stands out among other nations and in the world, and i recently had an opportunity to be reminded of how great this place is at my family reunion in escambia county, alabama, actually in the city of atmore, alabama. escambia county is the county that my family's plantation was, and so i stand here before you as a descendant of slaves from the bradley plantation in

escambia county, alabama. a -- slavery, reconstruction, civil rights movement, this is my family's story of struggling and fighting for humanity and freedom in a context and a culture that was saturated with injustice and dehumanization. now, what's so amazing about this narrative, this story is that not only does my family know where the plantation is in escambia county, we now own it. and there are members of my family currently living on it as free people who have property rights to it codified and protected by the rule of lawment

lawment -- law. now, how many countries in the world is it possible to have a group of people who were once slaves on a piece of property, a few generations actually own the property that they were living on? is -- they were being enslaved on. so this makes this place absolutely amazing. yes, of course, we notice the progress in our country by having a black family in the oval office. there are not too many countries around the world where you would see subdominant cultures rise to that, that level, that status. and just a few generations after movements like the civil rights movement. be so it's amazing to me, and i personally am delighted to think about what is it about this

country, what is it about our founding principles that allows someone like myself to be a descendant of slaves, to be standing in front of a group of people having earned a ph.d., standing in front of this heritage foundation backdrop speaking to you about my second book? to me, it's just an amazing narrative about the potential of freedom and liberty and be economic empowerment this country actually offers to those who have the opportunity to take advantage of it. so i named my book "black and tired" on purpose. one, because i am black, if you can tell -- [laughter] and so i want to remain connected to the history of my own family, the story of rising to success in spite of incredibly traumatic and

wounding and painful experiences in this country. because the hopes and dreams and aspirations, virtues, institutions, values, principles that created the conditions that put me here today are being sabotaged and eroded by those who have good intentions but often do not think of the consequences of public policy decisions because they have different views on the human person and human dignity. then those who actually structured our government in the first place. and while the effects of this anthropology are not immediately seen, the long-term effects have been uniquely and harshly experienced among the black underclass. and this makes me tired, tired of those who think that putting decisions in the hands of a few people is best in the long run

when it has been demonstrated repeatedly in history that concentrating power in the hands of a few people leads to more oppression, not less. and, in fact, this concentration of power, those making decisions, a few making decisions for the masses, this has been much of the black experience in america. and so, in fact, "black and tired" because it seems there is this movement, this energy to reposition african-americans in such a way that a few people are making decisions about those masses. it's been exhausting to see the national campaign for the dignity of blackness under the visionary leadership of folks like dr. martin luther king and ralph abernathy and rosa parks,

andrew young. and so be hijacked by the organizational narcissism that we find in government agencies operating under the delusion that they have the expertise and capacity to solve all of society's problems. it's been exhausting to see the politics of envy undermine this campaign for dignity which seeks to redefine what people deserve by pitting those of varying degrees of wealth against others. as if life was some sort of race, as if there's some competition. it's been exhausting to see zero sum economics which poises the imagination of -- poisons the imagination of those who do not understand the social implications of wealth creation enough to believe the myth that

the only way to wealth is to exploit others. so i sit, then, on the same political island with thomas sew well and walter williams, friendless -- [laughter] with the understanding the key catalyst of the economic liberation of african-americans is inseparable from honoring the dignity of blackness by guaranteeing opportunities under the law for blacks to be treated no differently than anyone else. this equality of treatment is sabotaged today in a culture drowning in narcissism and entitlement. it is a narcissism that blames others for one's shortcomings and justifies breaking the law and moral norms out of a sense of entitlement. you owe us, say the entitled. but how do we get here?

you see, today the consequences of a few converging trends, one is the decrease in american religious life. secondly, the erosion of an understanding of human dignity. and third, a focus on the equality of results instead of the equality of process. this cocktail has been poisonous to the black underclass because, one, the black church is more and more being ignored as an agent of public virtue which has been and had been a black -- excuse me, one of the black church's historic functions. the less religion you have in society, the more and more people turn to government to make sense of their lives and to mediate human action. i mean, this was precisely the intention of the communists and

the socialists wishing to purge religion from society. human dignity has been perverted in ways that force us all to embrace the visions of a few to, essentially, plan and impose their will on the rest of us. and the pursuit of the equality of economic results for all has created new pathways for justified injustice. today it's called people doing their fair share. why then does the black underclass continue to struggle so many years after the civil rights movement? martin luther king dreamt about an america where women and men are evaluated on the basis of their character rather than skin color. the fight for equal dignity, however, was derailed by a quest for political clout and bling.

the goal of equality measured by outcomes, sought by means of government-directed racial inclusion programs overshadowed the more challenging campaign for true solidarity based on widespread recognition of the inherent dignity of all people. beginning in the 198 l 0s, many civil rights leaders began to identify justice on the basis of social cosmetics, including how much stuff blacks did or did not have compared to whites. size of homes, number of college degrees, income disparities, law school admission rates, loan approvals and the like. instead of whether or not blacks are treated as equals in our social structures. equal treatment by our legal and social institutions may yield

unexpected results. but it remains a better measurement of justice than creating results we want. one misstep in the movement beginning in the mid 1960s on into the 1970s was not recognizing that the most successful minority groups in america were those who pursued economic mobility through the marketplace instead of politics. so when you look at asian immigrants, when you look at the history of jews in america, you see other subdominant culture who chose the marketplace as a means of social and economic mobility as opposed to politics. now, much of this erosion has to do with our understanding of the role of religion in society.

alexis de tocqueville cautioned in democracy in america that the pursuit of liberty without religion hurts society because it, quote, tends to isolate people from one another. to concentrate every man's intention, excuse me, every man's attention upon himself. and lays open the soul to an inordinate love of material gratification. end of quote. in fact, de tocqueville says, quote, the main business of religion is to purify, control and restrain that excessive and exclusive taste for well being which men acquire in times of equality. religion makes us other regarding. in fact, i've recently said that every black person apprehended for robbing stores in this a

flash mob should have their court hearing not in front of a judge, but facing the 30-foot statue of martin luther king jr. at his washington memorial site. each thief should be asked, what do you think dr. king would say to you right now? i was that angry when i initially saw the news footage of young blacks robbing convenience stores across america, i was actually brought to tears. we may all need to take a closer look at king's chiseled stone face for the presence of his own tears, tears like the ones shed by native american actor "iron eyes" cody in a 1976 public service announcement about pollution. i'm actually old enough to remember those. the psa showed cody shedding tear afceeing pollution in

america -- after seeing pollution in america that previously had none. it ended with the tag line, people start pollution, people can stop it. if king were alive today, he might proclaim with these flash mobs that people start them, and people can stop them. king's dream, of course, has been realized by many african-americans who have been able to take full advantage of the opportunities made available through this martyr's quest for justice. would king ever have imagined that a few decades after his "i have a dream" speech, a black family would be in the white house? not as maintenance or kitchen staff, but as the first family? yet years after the civil rights struggle affirmed black dignity, we have young black people ransacking stores in groups. every time a flash mob loots, it's robbing king of his dream.

all over america from philadelphia to chicago to here in washington, d.c., young people could be contributing to the common good, but instead are trading off their dignity for the adrenaline rush of stealing from others. we will not tolerate such reprehensible behavior here, says district of columbia mayor vincent gray. he goes on to say some news coverage of this incident has reported residents questioning whether the robbery could have been morally justified. actually, says the mayor, both morality and law are quite clear. it is wrong to steal from others, and if people do not obey the law, they will be apprehended, arrested and prosecuted. what gray highlights is a troubling regression of public

virtue and civil rights. king's dream was one that harmonized morality and law. however, king's dream will never be realized in america as long as this country continues the mythology that freedom does not require personal integrity and character. proponents of sociological and psychological theories of why these mobs loot stores, because minority feel disentreason chiezed and marginalized from mainstream society. and this, in fact, may be true, those may be legitimate feelings. what king taught us, however s that political and social frustration does not justify breaking the law. perhaps if these disenfranchised youth were more familiar with life under slavery is and jim

crow or cared about the legacy of civil rights heros like thurgood marshall and rosa parks and john lewis and andy young and others that i mentioned earlier, they could tap into the imagination of an heroic generation. formed by the virtues of religion who pursued public justice by pursuing public virtue. an ailing american culture is responsible for this spectacle. a society that does not value forming young people in the ways of prudence and justice, courage, self-control and the like. why would we be surprised that convenience stores are being robbed by youthful mobs? in a society that does not value private property and fosters a spirit of envy and class warfare through wealth redistribution,

why should we be surprised that young people don't value someone else's property? or to use a more technical term, stuff. [laughter] radical individualism and more relativism define the ethics of our era. in criminal flash mobs -- and criminal flash mobs expose our progressive failure. as we celebrate king's memorial, we must lament the fact that america's abandonment of virtue is destroying the lives of young black people and undermining the legal and economic catalyst that could end our recession for good. in solidarity with mayor gray, i stand in front of the king statue with a new dream that a resurgence of virtue would give rise to a generation of moral and law-abiding citizens. it is in this way that blacks

truly experience the dreams of king and others who died for justice. and, unfortunately, we have this bifurcation between religious life and public virtue and those things that make the values and virtues and principles of our country actually work. for example, religious life actually effects education success. a series of 2010 studies at howard university's journal of negro education, one of america's oldest continuous academic journals focusing on black people, reported how church involvement increases education success in inner cities. in the article titled "faith in the inner city," dr. brian barrett, an education professor

at the state university of new york, describes the unique contributions black churches play in cultivating successful students in inner cities. he observes that, quote, religious socialization reinforces attitudes, outlooks, behaviors and be practices, particularly through individuals' commitments to and adoption of the goals and expectations of the group. end of quote. now, these are the things that are conducive to positive educational outcomes. in fact, back in 2009 barrett reported in another article that for black inner city youth who report to religious services often, the black/white achievement gap, quote, was eliminated. i'll say that again. the black/white achievement gap was eliminated simply because

students in low-performing schools in bad neighborhoods were actively involved in religious life and in religious community. barrett reports that one of the most important advantages of inner city churches is that they provide a community where black students are valued both for their academic success and, more broadly, as human beings and members of a society with promise with talents to contribute and from whom success is expected. churches also affirm inner city youth as trusted members of a community that celebrate academic success and the practices that produce it which overrides the low expectations communicated at school. additionally, barrett highlights the ways in which black churches because they are equipped to deal with families are effective at sustaining and encouraging parental education and

involvement from the heart as well as providing context where youth can have regular contact with other adults for role modeling and mentoring. barrett is not alone. also in that same journal from howard university, 4,273 black students were studied, and it was found that family and religious life, family and religious social capital are the most important predicters for positive student college success. so those students in low-performing schools in inner cities who are involved in religious life outside of the family it's the second greatest predicter of them actually going to college.

and, as i said earlier, it eliminates the black/white achievement gap. these authors conclude that students with active religious life, involved parents and active social life have greater opportunities and choices in the future. if we look, for example, at issues like the minimum wage, we recognize, of course, that emotionally this is a winner. people love to think about the consequences of raising the minimum wage, but i would like to submit that off people don't think about the long-term consequences of raising the minimum wage because we live in a world where people act and make decisions on the basis of something called incentives. such an increase, actually, hurts minorities. it actually hurts teens, it hurts those that don't have skills in the long run because

minimum wage jobs are usually entry-level positions filled by employees with limited work experience and few job skills. when the government forces employers to pay their workers more than a job's productivity demands, employers -- in order to stay in business -- generally respond by hiring fewer hours of low-skilled labor. low-skilled workers become too expensive to employ creating a new army of permanent/part-time employees. government wage increases are supported when people forget that the money used to cover the increase does not magically appear. it has to come from somewhere. since americans love the best products for the lowest prices, businesses will not likely pass that cost of the wage increase on to consumers in the form of

higher prices. they will, instead, reduce the cost by laying off workers with the lowest skills, relow indicating -- relocating jobs or the entire business to another country or skirting the law altogether by paying employees under the table. or by hiring ill heel immigrants -- illegal immigrants. university of connecticut professor kenneth couch estimates that a $1 rise in the minimum wage in the current economic environment would further reduce teen unemployment opportunities by at least 140,000 jobs. one of the modern manifestations of racist ideology is the assumption that everyone else operates on the basis of incentives except for african-americans. blacks don't think, they simply do what they are told.

told where to live, told where to shop, told where they have to send their children to school and so on. choice, freedom, preference, options, personal decisions and so on, those are for more sophisticated people. with high-level thinking skills, those who deserve freedom. often these are called elites. and the rest of us must do what the elites say. elites enjoy their own freedoms but do not be really believe that others are capable of exercising the same freedom just yet. so they position themselves as surrogate decision makers for others who aren't nearly as enlightened as they are. if blacks were considered people with equal dignity, a prospective employee would be free to negotiate her own wage for employment based on her honest assessment of her needs

and skills and capacities with a potential employer. offers and counteroffers would be made without the oversight or intervention of surrogate third parties because there would be the expectation of both the employee and the employer that they know what's best for themselves. if black parents were considered people of equal dignity, they would not have third party elites who do not have their own children in low-performing schools tell those minority parents where they can and cannot put their children. the elites with their magical capacity to process complex knowledge, they always seem to know what's best for everyone. it is, in fact, patriarchal condescension. we know better than you people.

so what the elites want to do is remove the decision, excuse me be, to remove the decision from the hands of hoer people -- lower people into the hands of people who have greater capacity. now, this was the black experience during slavery and during jim crow, but the society committed to removing black men and women from cultural and economic processes so that they could not be able to make their own decisions and experience liberation for themselves. keeping african-americans out of the process removes their power and keeps them from experiencing liberty and under the subjection of others. for political and economic empowerment will only come to

african-americans trapped in the underclass when we all recognize that when we take the decisions from the masses and put those in to the hands of the few, we undermine people's dignity. if you believe that people have dignity and capacity for reason and virtue, you will put more and more decisions in their hands. if you believe, however, that some people have superior wisdom , more so than others as a class, then you will put more and more decisions in the hands of the few to rule over everybody else. this is a de facto caste system. as long as america does not respect the dignity of those of the underclass and stop tying

their shoes for them, our nation is going to go bankrupt. the institutions that built this country are going to erode and be, and subside. so i long for the day when blacks are respected enough that their virtue drives the economic and political liberation, entitled in be what it means to be human, entitled what it means to allow one to pursue the virtues of religious liberty and political liberty and economic liberty. just as parents often remove decisions from their children who are not mature, it is, actually, unbelievably insulting that we would write public

policy that would treat our class of people as if they are perpetual children. this, i submit, is what the civil rights movement at its core was about, was liberating african-americans from the control of others who sought to make their decisions for them as if they were children. so during the civil rights movement you saw men carrying la cards that read, i am a man, i'm not a boy. and we want to live in a country that treats us as full individuals with capacity and virtue and potential to make those decisions for ourselves and our families that leads to our own political and economic liberation. so until then, until that time where those liberties are experienced by those with

dignity is honored, i will remain "black and tired." thank you very much. [applause] we'll take some questions or comments at this time if you have any questions. yes, ma'am. >> my name is dana bass, i want to thank jennifer for the invitation, and i really appreciate what you have to say, and i would imagine on most points i agree with you, being nationally conservative, a woman of faith and from the south, georgia -- >> okay, good. >> my question is where do we, and pardon me with all the white people in the world. >> we can have it just between us. yeah, this'll be a chocolate conversation. [laughter] >> okay. in some things i feel like i

don't want to give white america a pass. >> yes. >> i definitely realize as a black american woman i have apparently responsibility for everything that i -- a personal responsibility for everything that i do, and my mother raised me such a way that i have home training. >> yes, absolutely. >> there are things that i will and will not do, but what i don't like, as we have these public conversations, i don't want to give white america pass. >> when right. >> we talk about these flash mobs, and those, i believe those are kids with no home training because there's no way on earth that my mom -- even now as i approach 40, i know there are things my mom says, dana, you better be not do, and i don't think about it. so i think that's the result of no home training. it's simple. but there are kids in this world, little black kids in this world who do feel so angry. they're black, tired and angry. >> uh-huh. >> and so how do we have this conversation without giving white america a pass on things that they don't deserve a pass

on? >> right, that's a fantastic question. and this is where i emphasize the rule of law. what's so important about the way in which our society's been structured is if you look at the constitution, if you look at the bill of rights, things like that, we have to hold people accountable to the fact that they aren't even applying the law equally. and so we have the rule of law, and this is one of the things, this is one of the beauties of the civil rights movement was calling america to its own standards. and so, right, we cannot give people a pass when they're committing acts of injustice against human dignity which are against their own standards. that's hypocritical, right? so where there is injustice, where humans are being treated with injustice, where their dignity is being undermined, we want to call that out, right? some and some have argued -- and some have argued that one of the roles that african-americans

have layed in this country is to be the conscious of this country. because when you're the dominant culture, you have a lot of blind spots, and it often takes some brown and yellow people to raise a flag like in soccer, raise a card and say, wait a minute, you may not realize this but some of your actions have hurt my opportunities for success. so we absolutely need to continue to speak about issues related to white privilege. right? we need to continue to speak about issues related, um, to what i often call an lo normativety, that things that are white are just normal and everyone else must simply conform. you'll remember, for example, that ridiculous article that came out in "psychology today" on beauty. that said that black women just aren't beautiful, right?

and that was a great example of this anglo normtivity that says what is right is just normal, and everyone else must conform. so we have to continue to address that because, because, um, we're all morally fraught ourselves ask have our blind spots, and we can't collectively as a group have a blind spot together. so we have to continue to talk about those things, and i'm more than happy to do that, i do that all the time. which means i don't have any friends. [laughter] i get to talk on both sides because i'm equally concerned that, that in some ways both ignoring the problem can actually expose some racist ideology. you don't even care enough about the people to be concerned about the issue. but on the other side you have the patriarch of good intentions

that undermines dignity by treating people like they're children instead of treating them like adults. now, this issue of home training is really important, and this is where the preacher side of me comes out. i won't preach a sermon now, but i want to, okay? but i won't. so these institutions, like the family and church, have really eroded in the black community, particularly in the hip-hop generation. i mean, this is, the hip-hop generation represents the most unchurched group of african-americans since the plantations. so we have to begin to ask questions about where the is the church. so eddie at princeton university recently asked, is the black chump dead? because that -- church dead? because that institution that so contributed to moral virtue has been on the decline in terms of actually influencing that generation. because home training was broad. it wasn't just at home, it was home and community. so anybody at church could smack

you and tell you to shut up and pull up the pants and spit the gum out, right? you had all these aunts and uncle t. so those two things are very important, so thank you for that question. very good. yes, sir. >> good to see you again. >> hey, mark. >> i want to follow up on your point which is very important. so quick background, my sister's black, adopted into our family, and she's 17. so going through some significant questions that force these questions in our family to, um, these have been questions that have been addressed long before now, but it's different because there's a draw of the hip-hop culture, there's a rap sheet now. my sister has been involved in some activities, and i won't get into the details of that other than to make the point the draw to activities that are detrimental -- >> yes. >> -- it's hard to have a conversation at the level that you're having because the initial category respect even there necessarily -- aren't even there necessarily. it's not easy, it's not as

accessible. what can, um, the dominant culture or let's just say the people of faith, christians or people in churches or people with strong moral categories, what can we do to make it easier to start from categories of dignity and freedom and bring it down so that it's more competitive to, you know, bling? and things that are very attractive to young people who are just trying to sort of express their identity, be part of a group that maybe isn't, doesn't look like something that their friends would have a hard time understanding if, you know, you -- we can tease that out a couple different ways, and i think you know where i'm going. >> yeah, sure. >> and maybe one higher level question. that's sort of in the family context. what can a preacher do, or what can a person who has that vested authority to do to bring about the reform or the question so that the hypocrisy that i agree exists, the reform that's needed back to sort of the standards of

america's founding and how we honor freedom and the gift that it is? and what does it mean that all are created equal as given by god or given by a creator with inalienable rights? that's the dna of our constitution. how do you hold those values firmly in a church context and keep over the long term pushing those forward -- >> yeah. >> -- to that these conversations are a lot easier to have? they become flash points, and so i don't know what help can be coming from outside the family, but inside the family it's tough to even get there. does that make sense? >> yeah. i mean, that's just -- yes, of course. i mean, those are two very important questions. you know, we have this tension because, you know, i'm an academic, i like using big words because it makes people think i'm smart, and i get raises because of of it and contracts. i love it. i love circling the clouds, you know, sort of up there. but there comes a time when you have to talk to, you know, real

people, sorry. sorry, academics in the room. how do you, how do you challenge people to think about these categories in ways that make sense? things like virtue and people are like, what are you talking about? and, listen, i'm not promoting these artists exclusively, i just want to say that as a caveat. but if you listen to lil' wayne's new song about love, and in the context of that he sort of displays how misdirected love become self-sabotage, right? he does it in very crafty ways by telling a story. lupe fiasco does, also, a good job storytelling and telling people the consequences of their actions. i think that we often, um, forget about the power of story

and narrative, and in my own work what i've seen is that people who have, who are the best at principlessed arguments -- principled arguments are horrible at storytelling. and it's actually the storytelling that draws people into their principles and actually embeds it, right? is so the biblical narrative, you know, go-thirds of it is -- two-thirds of it is story. so i wonder what would happen if we were better storytellers about these principles and actually presented them inductively? so that people could actually see the full tapestry of what it means to be a person of dignity, to live in virtue. or to do a little census like in the book of proverbs, for example, right? look at the -- [inaudible] people understand what that mean. i could also give a lecture on, you know, sloth and the consequences of that in light of a person's human dignity and the

implications therein. yeah, i could do that, or i could say, look at that slug ard. if you don't work, you don't eat. okay, i get that. so we to do a better job of putg these things in stories because it's the story that compels. action, ethics, right? so your sister is actually splicing herself into an ongoing narrative. and, actually, i argue that many people on the left and in the middle and on the right -- not as much on the right, middle and on the left and way left -- they actually invite people into a story, right? a utopian story of the way things could possibly be. and a lot of people have these very principles that are with our founding, they just don't do a good job of storytelling. so i began to wonder about ways to sort of tell these stories first in such a way that people say, man, hmm, where can i read

more about that? what's the principle behind that, right? coming up with the story first. now, in terms of pastors, sort of religious leaders, um, i mean, you know, it's a multifaceted vocation. i would say this, that on the one hand there still needs to be the type of leadership that prophetically speaks to social injustice and is able to highlight and see the ways in which society isn't live anything solidarity, right -- living in solidarity, right? the ways in which there's social breakdown that effects all of us. but then also we have to recognize that people have stories, people have narratives, so you have to actually know people's stories. this is one of the consequences of the one-size-fits-all approach to doing social justice work is that everyone consistent have the same story, right? everyone isn't in that position they're in for the same reason, and sometimes you have to unpack that story to know how to help them. right?

and so those who are closest to the people like pastors have better information at understanding how to actually help people. so what this actually involves, and forgive me for using this ancient principle, is to actually love your neighbor, right? to actually get to know their neighbor, you get to know their story. for example, it's often the case that a lot of children in inner cities grow up experiencing a tremendous amount of trauma, family trauma. and that trauma actually effects that brain, it damages their brain. it create t learning disabilities. they have attachment disorder so when they can't go to school, they can't make it. so they actually know people. i'm of the thinking that pastors need to continue to speak prophetically about the culture, helping people understand the ways in which virtue is celebrated or not celebrateed to sort of situate their own faith

within the large community, but also to really help people understand that we have to actually embed ourselves, enter into this ongoing narrative of brokeness to bring hope and peace and to create a new imagination. one of the things i think that plagues people who are stuck in cycles of poverty is hopelessness that the future is going to be different than the past. and i think those of us, again, with good stories, good principles can actually help people walk into, connect themselves to a different narrative by offering a new vision for what it means to be a thinking person, and be we need to do more of that, more encouragement, more uplifting because that actually recognize that is the person has dignity, right? it's not determined, your fate's not determined in terms of your own political and economic life. so what, so how can we actually

inspire a new imagination for a human person so you can come out of that and go on to this? those stories are incredibly important, and i think in part this is the great tragedy of the current hip-hop generation not being as familiar with the civil right generation struggle, the lives of those that lived in jim crow and slavery, right? so i grew up hearing these stories. i just came back from a family reunion, okay? >> so i heard all these stories again. they get reinforced, right? we don't want to go back. people talk about the good old days. not for us, right? the good old day is the the future. i'm not going back to 1950 because i'd be -- i wouldn't be standing here if that was the case. so i think those things are important. thanks, good question. in the back. >> i just have a couple questions. you mentioned that church was able to close disparities in

inner city schools. >> can yeah. >> what was the effect of church on white studentses? was there a gap between churched white students and unchurched white students? my other question is why do do you think there was a breakdown in institutions in the '60s and '70s? you mentioned that's the cause of a lot of the problems we're having now, but you didn't explain why that happened and when it happened. alan bloom makes a similar point where he says civil rights were originally -- [inaudible] and after the death of king they became relltiveistic. so which came first and why? >> yeah. to answer your first question, in the research, it's really interesting, for suburban white kids religious involvement versus nonreligious involvement really didn't matter. there really was little difference because the types of things that reinforce success

are actually embedded in middle class community. so the difference is that within the context of church in low income neighborhoods, it actually speaks against a lot of the self-sabotaging modes of living in the community. see, when you live in a community that socially reinforces those things that lead to success, those things reinforcing the church don't bring nearly as -- sorry, they don't bring nearly the effect of when those things are actually absent. now, in terms of which came first, you know, chicken or the egg, i'm not an expert enough in those legal arguments to know, um, per se. however, i will say this, that it had much to