tweet us your feedback, twitter.com/booktv. >> now on booktv, anita hill examines housing issues in the united states. miss hill, a social policy professor profiles several african-american women and reports on their attempts to secure housing against numerous obstacles including racial and gender discrimination. this is a little over hour and 15. >> welcome to cam bridge forum. tonight, we'll be discussing reimagining equality with anita hill, professor of social policy, law, and women's studies at brandheist university. i'm brenda rose, and i'll will your mon -- moderator.

reimagining equality, stories of gender, race, and finding home, hill takes the idea of home and explores how our family homes and national home are linked to understandings of achievement, opportunity, and equality. hill takes us on a journey beginning with her own family story and ends with the current mortgage melt down. along the way, we visit homes across america and meet extraordinary african-american women from playwrights to baltimore hairdressers. how have these women experienced home in america? how successful have the movements for racial and gender equality be in eliminating barriers to opportunity? how is the current economic crisis affecting america's commitment to equality? what challenges does anita hill see ahead? the youngest of 13 children, anita hill grew up in a farm in

rural oklahoma. after receiving her jd from yale university in 1980, she worked in private practice and for the federal government in washington, d.c.. hill is the author of numerous professional articles on international commerce, commercial law, bankruptcy, and civil rights. he book, "speaking truth to power" details her experience as a witness in the thomas supreme court hearings. her littest book is the basis for our present discussion. please join me in welcoming to the cam bridge forum, anita hill. [applause] >> thank you. [applause] [applause] >> thank you, good evening, and

i cannot say thank you enough. i'm thrilled to be here. thank you, professor rose, for that introduction, and thank all of you for coming out tonight in this lovely weather. [laughter] i could stay all night here. i have friends here, of course, i have to start with beacon press, but i will also end with saying thank you to my colleagues for coming out tonight to support me and to hear me talk about this work that i have been mumbling about for the past, oh, two or three year, and really working hard to try to get together. as professor rose mentioned to you, i'm starting out this work with the story of my family and my ancestral family, and in

seven chapters, i bring us to modern day issues and conflicts in what i call a crisis of home. this is the launch day for the book, and so this is the first time i've given this talk, and i'm -- i guess i'm a little anxious about it because this product is really something, reimagining equality is something that is very near to me. it is part memoir, but it is not entirely memoir. it shares with you a not only my family story, but the stories of a number of women past and present, and it attempts to bring us into a future conversation that will, i hope, impact generations to come.

i'll begin. >> we are often referring to or referred to the united states as a nation of immigrants. what does that mean? what it means to me is that as such, as a nation of immigrants, we are a population of seekers and descendents of seekers. people in church of home. for decades in our early history, we measured american progress. in terms of movement and expansion. even today we gauge advancement towards the american dream by one's ability to seek out and secure a new, often bigger, and presumably better home in a disimpt location from where they are now. growing up in a stable community

in rural oklahoma with my 12 siblings on a farm, i felt not so much like a seeker as a settler. i felt very settled in rural oklahoma. i even felt cheated out of ancestral participation in the pivotal movement towards progress that so many african-americans experience known as the great migration. it was known for me as the great migration in part, not just because there's a lot of people moving from south to north to west, but because of the great anticipation and the great expectations that came out of the movement. however, in researching reimagining equality, i learned that my family story involved

movement as well. in doing so, and doing the research and understanding my own relationship with home as well as my history, i came to appreciate not only the role that movement plays, but also the role that those years of being settled on the farm in oklahoma played in terms of the achievement of equality for me and for my 12 siblings. now, for those of you who are interested in research and i hope some of you are, doing your family history, and i'm sure every one of you have a family story to tell about home, i'll just say that i began the story, the chronicling of my family story with a family legend.

that was the start, and as many of the people will say, you know, when you're an academic, family legends are not necessarily to be sort of taken on their face. you have to have hard documentation to go along with them, and so as i was filling out the family legends and stories, i did interviews with family members. i had conversations and read historian's work. i searched through historic documents from a variety of sources, and for those of you -- i'll say, well, younger than i am, that's a lot of you, i use new technology, so let's start with the family legend which is where i began.

family legend had it that my grandparents left arkansas and left behind a large working farm, and so the first question i asked myself to question was where -- how we got from arkansas to oklahoma and to understand the movement of my family was how did my grandparents get a large farm in arkansas? my grandfather, in fact, henry, elliot, william henry elliot, was born in 1864, so he was born a slave, and i wanted to know how this child who's born a slave could ultimately come upon owning a large farm in arkansas given the times that he grew up in, but what i found when i researched the historical records was that, in fact, there

were 80 acres that william henry elliot and my grandmother, ida elliot, homesteaded in 1895, and through the bureau of lands management, i was able to find the documentation of this homesteading. indeed, the legend had truth to it, although in looking at the documentation, i will tell you that i was thrilled to discover this documentation. i never knew my grandparents, and to find this documentation of their lives in their existence, to me, in a government record was so compelling, and i felt as though i was probably looking at a document that had been tucked away since 1895 that no one had ever paid attention to, and for me, it was like a discovery, a discovery of the part of my past. i will say this, that i also discovered about that document

nation, the deed, itself, had a number of entries, and quite a bit of information -- i'll share some of it with you -- but nowhere in that documentation was my grandmother's name mentioned. she was not on the deed. ida crooks elliot's name did not appear on the deed. the only way that she was referred to was in an applicant question. now, it was is the applicant married? the answer was, yes. there was also a refeferl, information document that said that the elliots, henry, took possession of the property in 1895, and a month later, he built on the property a two-room cabin where he, his unnamed

wife, my grandmother, ida crooks elliot, lived with their seven children. now, that seems a little crammed, but, indeed, it was, i am sure, better than the slave cabin in which he spent the first ten years of his life. acre by acre, the elliots plowed and planted and cleared the land covered with oak and pine trees, and five years within the five years of the homesteading period, they had tilled and farms one quarter of the entire parcel. they planted an or chard, and as one noted, a fine or chirred with fruit trees, and ida filled the yard with flowers. so this was the farm that henry

elliot owned, that he and ida elliot occupied, and this was the farm that allowed my grandfather, henry, to go from being property to owning property in about 50 years. now, where does the technology come in? i said i used technology. through google earth, i got a bird's eye view of the property, and i looked at it, and today, it is once again over grown with the oak and pine that was there when my grandparents found it. the trees hide its past, its past farm, and even perhaps the past pain that my grandparents experienced there, so how did

the family end up leaving this farm? it seems like a really quite an io dellic situation, and, in fact, perhaps it was in so many ways. it was such a great achievement that even generations later, my family members talk about it with great pride. but there is the other side of the story, and that's the legend that said henry elliot left arkansas with his family after he was threatened with the lynching. i heard this story through the eyes of my uncle george, my mother's brother who was born in 1909. he was one of my primary sour, and he, really, it was interesting because he was in his 80s when he told me the story, but he tells me the story of the family's journey to oklahoma through the eyes of a

child. he said, the day they got on the train, he was just so excited about being able to ride a train. this was the first time that he'd ever been on a train, but he also says the day that they left their farm was the first time he'd ever seen his father cry. ..

and the names of the lynching victims in arkansas, county by county, your, and there were quite a few in the area which my grandparents lived. so the story of the lynching threat is likely, given the fact that it is in door all of these years, given the fact that my uncle's all my grandfather cried when he had to leave. i put all of those things together and say if i cannot say with absolute certainty this happened but i can tell you there is a great likelihood of it. but i also discovered other factors that shaped their ability to keep the home they had obtained by the right of all to keep the home the sheep to make their own. i discovered a one-sided

agreements that my her grandfather henry eliot signed with former slave holder elders, debt agreements that were there simply so that he could lay the crop to stay on the farm. these agreements actually are written in the record in little river county, and if you read them it's amazing. they were so one-sided that mortgage holders actually had the right to decide and determine what the interest rate on the loans would be. there were a crop prices during the early 1900's spiraling downward potentially and caught him which my grandfather grew

what. i learned the hard shift that my grandparents experienced and three of their 14 children died before they reached the age of 8-years-old they were able to make a home in little river county by land and official indifference to its or even worse supporting of it will. the unavailability of credit or any kind of resources, financial resources to help them earn a living. the agricultural money or no alternative for an educated farmers, particularly if they were black and female were. so ultimately henry and al qaeda lost their home and i leave it to the reader to decide six ackley how all of these factors came into play.

but what they did is what americans do. they moved. they moved west what to oklahoma. to search for a better life if not for themselves for their children and soon to be born grandchildren. as i piece together my grandparents story, it sounded very yearly similar to some of the stories i read about today. the lack of credit or bad credit if you will. the loss of economic resources, the loss of homes, the heartbreak i read in stories in papers in the newspapers today in 2008 and throughout the last two years really remind me so much of what took place in the early part of the 20th century.

and as well there are racial elements to the story is presented today as we learn about the devastation in the communities of color in the losses that african americans and asian-americans and hispanic americans are suffering at the end of this recession as many or as much as 65% of the equity and 65% of the wealth among asian-americans and african-americans and hispanic america has been lost in the last few years and much of that has been tied to lobby in the value of their homes were. and we imagining the quality of the explore the link between credit practices and failing and the feeling the economies of my grandparents' time.

itt through the era of outright and hostile segregation through the era of redlining throughout which were women were confined to secondary roles inside and outside of the home. i look at restricted covenants and the role they played in shaping communities and even today when how the inigo and shadow over communities and urban area someone bloodworth i bring to a reverse redlining and targeting of women and people of color for subprimal and - loans that occurred in the height of the sub prime lending debacle. in doing so i explore a number of ways that we learn about and

think about the quality. i look into law, i look at popular culture were. one of the things i look at was sometimes people can really relate to the story when i talk about how the role that the whole has played in our thinking about what achievement is and when people have finally made it would, remember this it, the jeffersons? roi how many of you remember the theme song to the jefferson's? how could you forget? one moving of to the east side to a deluxe apartment in the sky. that showed that you had made it. towards jefferson and weez jefferson as an african-american couple had made it. and what did they do? move up and not only did they move up but they didn't have to

have been burning on the grill anymore fish fraud. they had bought into a new way of life because they were now able to relocate and prove to the world that they had made it. as we look at popular culture and a look at literature to help really illustrate not only the role that is played but the home plate and our thinking about the quality but also our share desire, the desire that we all have to find a home whether we think of it does that place or a state of being. juan play this pivotal at least in my growing of and understanding the significance of the home and the relationship that is played in the role of equality is lorain a reason in the sun and it is such a move in

many ways a timeless way we quote it's been debuted in 1959 were and it had an anniversary may be two or three years ago, and across the country there were 200 different stagings of a reason in the sun. for those of you don't know it, i will say it is the story of an african-american family who have come into money. they have been living in cramped quarters in a tenement apartment in chicago, and the mother who lived in the apartment with her two adult children and a daughter-in-law and grandson what want to use that money to buy a home in the suburbs. she decides she is going to buy a home in the suburban chicago.

well it is a segregated suburbs were what and sheets with resistance in her effort to buy this home, and why of course in the end of the play quote we have a somewhat happy if not cautious one conclusion we're ultimately the family moves into the suburban and the neighborhood is integrated. but i think even though the white neighbors resistance is prominent in the play the plea is eliminating a number of ways. it's illuminating lonely about the desire of african-americans but the desire of all america will. so in real imagining ecology, i write a rasin in the sun illustrates not only how home became a repository for black americans dream of finding a place in the nation, but also

how it symbolizes all americans desires to be long. it is a story of race and gender and a universal experience of be leaving in a dream. it is a cautionary tale revealing that a dream deferred doesn't just dry up like a rasin in the sun but it's news suggests instead could just explode. moreover, the consequences of the dreams are not always a media. they can extend decades into the future with consequences for generations to come. for over 50 years, loranne hansberry's audience has focused on african-american clashes with the world outside of their home. her ability to see into the future of conflicts inside the home is just as compelling.

hansberry advises us of a relationship of the problems outside and those conflicts inside. in the years since her play i've come to fully appreciate how to work together to enhance or to impede our chances and in real equality. so i look at what the play were and i see not only the tension that she is raising, the tension between african-americans and white americans but also it tells the tension between women and men and how equality will be defined. what she signals is the clash unless we can resolve that within the home, unless we can resolve issues of gender

equality, we will never be able to fully resolve the issue of racial equality. and so we move forward when beyond the clashes that hansberry. we move through the 60's. we saw people of color, women of all color makes strides in the 1970's and 1980's. yet we also what was all rising and materialism, increased violence in the inner city, resistance to the civil rights games and cultural backlash against women. we saw the suburbs were expanding and we also thought that the blueprint for the average american home was

growing as well. inside the home, changes were occurring as women of all races became a part of the paid labour force. and so there was a mixture of factors. some who gains and some losses and there were also laws and policies and that were somewhat enforced and some were neglected to a poem. if i could fast forward what i would simply say is all of those things came together to create new almost the formula would i will call it for the sub prime lending crisis. and in reena jeneane ecology, i.t. que through to show how all of those factors contributed to where we are now.

but the quality even though it was beginning to be realized in many respects the housing crisis came along and hit us hard one. it hit communities of color so much so that cities like baltimore, maryland, memphis tennessee, the state of illinois are suing wells fargo bank for the devastation the alleged that might visit upon communities throughout the location. [applause] it was no accident that the foreclosure crisis occurred. indeed, i suggest, hansberry forecasted the factors leading up to eight even though she didn't of course forecast of the foreclosure crisis none of us could have.

so in real imagining he quality i drew her upon her wisdom and vision and i look at the lives of contemporary african-american women who are like the millions of americans who are uncertain about their place, their home and for themselves and for their children. i look at their desire as universal desires, but i also look at them because of their race and gender make their struggles unique. they are not simply looking for ownership. they're looking for a semblance of equality and authority, and that is being threatened by the foreclosure crisis and the housing market collapse.

i hope i will share some of those stories with you as we go through our discussion. but i also want to say the i don't just leave you with the story. i do tell you how it happened. and i offered ideas for how we can prevent it from happening again and number two, how we can make sure that what is happening now does not sit back generations to come so i propose a number of ideas for how in the wake of the foreclosure crisis we can overcome the ravages of neglect and deliberate abusive law practice. we can assure that the dream of finding homes continues for these women and for their children and all of the children in america. and so, i will close with a

little bit of my vision for what that america will be and what the dream ought to be in the future. now, since the first african-american in our history now occupies the white house or calls the white house in its home, it is fitting that i will begin with dhaka. in terms of this vision. barack obama, whose fervent search for homes brought in to the presidency must seize the moment of crisis to enlarge the concept of home for all americans but especially for the next generation. i would call fell upon all leaders call of the nation's leaders, political and social. i would call upon all of you as well to take up this cause. americans are in need of a 21st century vision of our country.

not a vision of movement, but one of place. not one of tolerance, but one of the longing. not simply of rights but also of community. a community of equal. this will lead to the american democracy the st is alive and free means real for every one. if you will allow me one indulgence, a personal indulgence, i started talking about my mother's family, and much of this book is inspired by my mother. and on october 16th, 2011, i will celebrate the 100th birthday of my mother, berma hill. [applause] now, she is not alive to celebrate with me. nevertheless i will celebrate.

the place with long snowy winters, that would be here, is not likely but she contemplated 35 years ago when she sent me off with two sets of luggage and i tell that story. but it is my home and each day i honor her by looking at to her dream that i would find a more just america that the one she grew up in and that as she did, i believe that america better than how i found. thank you. [applause] >> thank you. you are listening to cambridge for them as we continue the discussion of making a home in america, finding opportunity in

a jeep in overcoming the racial gender and economic barriers of our society with anita hill. i want to open up appear to sort of sink through what professor hill couldn't get to. it's a marvelous book, and the first thing i've wanted to give you an opportunity to talk more specifically about how and why you settle on the very interesting hybrid format that you settled on as the listeners can tell there's personal story telling, there is individual storytelling about african-american women throughout the 20th century, but there is also historical, social, context will policy analysis and the connections are made between them. it's a very rich format it's really quite intentional. can you speak a little bit to what you had in mind? >> i wanted to in writing the book start with how people really learn and think, how they learn about inequality in the house -- we learn about inequality or we learn equal the

through a number of devices. we learn through history. we learn through the law and how we think about the quality is sometimes shaved by how we think about fall and we think about rights but we also learn about equality for pop culture and literature. hansberry's rasin in the sun is the endgame of the integrated society of a request for a quality, the dream. we learned through pop culture, life of jefferson and we learn about inequality for pop culture war that depict women in a favorable way. and so i wanted to reach the reader when and how they learn about these topics but i also wanted to offer more than simply

storytelling. for me it's important for us how to link this behavior in our own understanding to the policies and of law that are in place. and so that is why i wanted to come to their readers with a different way of life thinking about all of those devices that they have heard throughout their life. >> it works very well. one on page 112, an academic these days. you save the persistent devaluation of those things black and those things female undermine our community and our country culturally and economically. and i was struck throughout the book by the desire to make real and personal and emotionally connecting the stories of

individual black women of a variety of class positions, and i wanted if you could come speak to how you think we can move from else you said tolerance to a real belonging of race and gender because it strikes me this notion of home is how we can share this space in more meaningful connected ways. >> well, the word empathy, we have heard about politically from the supreme court nomination it really is in some ways it is about empathy but it's really about more what. it's not only about understanding how these individuals feel, but also what what they feel and what happens to them relates to us. when we say look african-american communities in baltimore are devastated and we

try to isolate that we feel bad for people, we are showing empathy but that's not enough. what we have to understand is the devastation of those communities hurts all of us. i talked about in one of the stories about the crime in her neighborhood. street crime that ultimately resulted in her son's debt and we like to think okay if we just stay out of those neighborhoods then we will be fine. but in fact we are not fine. we pay for those crimes ourselves. so in addition to empathy that i want you to get from these stories, i also want you to understand our connectedness and that of the face of individuals we don't know and may not even

read about in the newspaper really matter in our lives. there is a reason that the state of illinois is suing wells fargo, and that is simply put because the attorney general of illinois knew that this was not an isolated neighborhood problem, that these were issues that have impacted the entire country. the sub prime lending debacle may have started in the certain communities and. to say that you don't know someone personally who has been affected by what denney you don't have a neighbor or friend or son or daughter who will fill feel the impact of this crisis that was just started out as african-american women, latino

were targeted for talks clones -- toxic loans. i want us to build empathy but i also want us to understand how they are connected in these issues, and as you know, because of the crisis an entire financial global financial system was brought to its knees. so we can simply look at these things as isolated and unrelated matters. the matter to all of us. >> i'm profoundly struck by the degree to which this is a gender crisis that women were not only specifically targeted but single mothers of all racial backgrounds but substantially black and brown because of the economic circumstances and that there's been very little discussion of the gender dimension of this and how much the expectation was to be solved by some sort of two-parent household and a traditional way.

wondering if you can speak to that for the audience because it is an extremely compelling scene in the book. >> first of all, that idea of the two-parent family, the nuclear family is changing for everyone. that the one great one among adults who have never been married have increased over the last 50 years and they seem to be continually increasing so that idea that we are all going to be in these two-parent families is just to no longer the norm will necessarily any more so why do we have policies and why do we have our thinking focused on the world and problems are going to be resolved if that happened when that doesn't seem to be the way things are happening today so that's one thing we need to start to shift what our policy directions will be. but the other thing is this, it

is what happened was that the women on their own were gaining greater economic footing whoa. and in addition to the economic gains there were social games so that more women on their own were buying homes and. the statistics were in about 2005, 2006, that one in every sixth of the new home buyers were single women buying homes on their own what and not coincidentally that was the era in which subprimal lending escalated so we just create like a perfectly bad storm for an impact on those women not only their social gains but their economic gains and that is a story that isn't often told.

it will have on a believe a profound impact as the devastation of communities of color. our individual wealth will as single women has been set back and the social gains, the ideas that we can make it on our own has been set back and that is dangerous for us. >> i will ask one more and then invite questions from the audience but i want to return to where you close briefly to this question about obama as a leader on these issues as well as a symbolic leader but in particular, i am struck by how -- i couldn't agree more, it would be fabulous if he were to take a pure version and perhaps quote your own book that would be nice. >> that would be nice. [laughter] >> ensure that begin would like

that, too. [laughter] >> but i guess i want to sort out be helpful but with some caution which is to say i'm struck by how little addressing the the reality of the equality when it speaks to class and race and gender how little can be said about that in the public and in the moment you say that it's as if the conversation comes to a grinding halt there is enormous and sunday. certainly the right wing is an easy scapegoat politeness to the argument there is a metal that is highly uncomfortable with that kind of language, and so am wondering how could obama even if he had the goal which we don't know but assuming to take this up, this kind of vision of home and belonging to move from tolerance from empathy to structural change, how possible is that in this climate and in what ways can you imagine us creating a climate that would in a sense house your vision more

fully? >> she makes a very compelling case, doesn't she cracks were i not an optimist i might just pack up and go home. but i am a person who believes in change. and if you look at what has happened, if i think about what has happened in my family life and in the last 100 years, if i feel about what has happened in my lifetime as the beneficiary of brown v. board of education as the beneficiary of so many lawless and efforts to achieve gender equality, i have to be optimistic. now, understand that it is difficult for president obama to raise this issue, but this is to me a question about whether or not we can continue to believe in the american dream.

that's what this is about. that's what this book is about, or whether we are going to continue to price people out of the american dream what by putting it on the market and seeing that the only way that you can achieve it is to buy a bigger house than your parents had and certainly than your grandparents had. if that link between the american dream and the bigger home is 1i hope to disrupt what i would see as the american dream really is the devotee for everyone regardless of where one lives to have access to all of the opportunities that this country has to offer. [applause] that for me is the american dream and it shouldn't be determined by where we live. we don't give enough thought and having a conversation about

where one lives determines whether one goes to school and in many cases the quality of the education how one is represented in congress, and more basically whether one is going to have access to basic needs like food, transportation, jobs that will pay a living wage. so those are the things i think we need to begin to talk about. i hope president obama can lead that talk in real imagining a quality i tell him how i think it can be done. if he can't, if the political times are too tight and too tough for him to lead that, then we have to leave that conversation. [applause] and we can do it. and if i would just get personal

a little, i said i wasn't this is really going to go back there, but i believe that in 1991 personal conversations, public outcry, public engagement lead to change for women in the workplace. [applause] it happened because not because our leaders stepped up and said we must do something about sexual harassment it happened because we raise our voices and in quiet place for some respects by talking were in our homes with our mothers, with our daughters, with in some instances the first time with our spouses and about our who lives and experiences were like when. [applause] and that's why i made a believer

because understand the power of public engagement and discourse roi and that's why i think this conversation can happen. and i believe that if we do it from our very wise president will follow. [applause] >> you are listening to anita hill discussing her new book for the imagining ecology stories of gender, race and finding a home. now let's take some questions from the audience. please come forward as pat eliminated and line up the microphone to the right. i've been instructed to say please limit yourself to one well phrased question. at cambridge i think that's possible. [laughter] to allow as many people as possible. you can stand on this side and make a line of questions. >> remember you're supposed to

have your best side. >> professor i'm from michigan and in the city of detroit there is great poverty and great privilege, public schools have vast resources in that same poverty so the question is people would like to see change how you cut structural change because property values are tied into qualities of people say let's redistribute money at the statewide level which would be more fair than distributing it at the local level. how do you do that when people won't want their house values to decrease. wondered if you could say little about that because people would like to see change but in their own interests they are infected and how they hesitate. >> people have to understand their interests are already being impacted. when we don't raise the educated

population throughout, then we are all going to be suffering. and so, again, it is that connection that people have to make with the lives of others who may not have the privilege is that they have but we have to retrain our thoughts and many of those people in those very nice communities are suffering now so we have to ask are they willing to go back to put more money into a system that has put them at risk. i don't look at just how we regulate banks i look at how we as double transportation systems how would we make decisions about how the roads are going to be paved? how do we make decisions about where the jobs are we to be located so in trying to look at this conversation as a holistic conversation so that we can really start to disrupt our

thinking, that kind of thinking about this doesn't matter to me to make long lasting structural changes. [applause] >> hi, nice to see you again. i'm reverend and interfaith minister and i am also a disability commissioner. i want to thank you for the succinctly that you are putting in how we need to really deal our communities together, and we can't leave anyone out of that process either. and i wanted to add one more element into the discussion and that is persons with disabilities, children with disabilities who don't have access to the same opportunities, especially coming from communities where their resources have not been really brought in and i wonder if you can comment a little bit on that and how to bring into the menace

of how these to see this as a serious issue especially with young women of color who then have this added one hurdle to deal with. >> i've often talked about what happens with the laws protecting against disability discrimination, and in some ways in many ways a was a laudable effort to try to make sure we get access regardless of ability was granted to everyone but what we did in some ways was to simply look at structures, physical structures. the changes of putting in a

report later and then we walked away. we didn't really think about all the different ways and didn't think about the way people with disabilities are excluded, and some of those have to do with our own mind set about how we think of the capability of individuals and how we judge individuals who might have a physical incapacity, and that has never taken place. i think that is where the discussion had to begin. with our thinking about what the value of individuals are. wherever they are. and i talk primarily about race and danger because that is my experience. but i know have a lot to learn about things we need to change in terms of how we value people who may not have physical access to all the opportunities that the country has to offer. and so that, i agree, is not

something i talk about so much in the book, but i do think the principles still apply. and i would say that we have gone up adequate job of dealing with physical structures, but we have not even begun to deal with with the psychological barriers that we impose on people with disabilities. [applause] >> good evening. having a huge fought running around in my head and -- >> good. >> you've made me think of something. i'm saying some of this and spirit of the 99%. but the work that i've done is about creating the dangers of herbicides and pesticides because i actually got pesticide poisoning from the neighbors use of pesticides and it makes me think of the greening of the home, the why do my property,

the person who will be used pesticide have to make this huge mansion have to use lots and lots of resources why is it seamanlike in america there's a certain group of folks and maybe they are not thinking of this but it comes out that way that they need to have more and bigger and bigger and perfect can end up being in their home can be more important than somebody living next door, somebody living in another community to serve as a sort of inequality in the notion of homes and yet how it sort of become skewed in terms of some of these issues how we are destroying our larger home by some of the practices that we are doing as americans and when you go to visit other countries they look at this when i talk about these issues like are you kidding, you people have these the two communities with a perfect lawn and that notion of,

i'm wondering if you've thought about that at all and what you think about it if i raise it for the first time. >> i believe in that generation people have a new understanding about not only the earth will, but also about the connections that we have with each other. that's what i'm hoping that we can get to because we change in many ways how we think about the earth. imagine ten years ago i didn't recycle and now it's the norm. we can do that. people talk about we can't change people in that short kirker what time. ten years ago, 15 years ago why don't know about the church but in most people would come figure it and we have changed that. so we can change our thinking. i do talk about the role of the hole gated community.

and basically the gated communities, larger houses, more exclusive if you will neighborhood, and really the sort of individual homes that become forest, so whatever i do in my home is my business and it doesn't impact anybody else and i think that's what you're talking about. i really do believe that is not just sustainable. we believe that we can just move away from all of these old issues and of inequality and they don't have an impact on us but if anything proves that in what we do impacts everyone, the ecology does that. this whole breeding america brings that to our attention. and i guess if you what i'm hoping that we can have something like that when we think about financing and homeowning and even rental

properties. if we can think about the connection between a child currently living in a poor section of town, their ability to find a home and be in a home in america and the ability of an individual who has been living in a gated community that those things are related. if we can do that, then i feel we will of made some progress. it may take a generation for it to happen, but we have got to begin work. >> i did add the community garden or the home garden or the victory garden the had in the depression is just a lovely way to bring that notion of home and dillinger ship, not ownership but love of the earth. >> one of the things i propose in the summit's in the communities who would have an opportunity to contribute faugh

fifth and a understand that and that is the way we can start to understand how and why it is important for all of us. >> my question is or an observation i was making is is if we grant privileges on something as superficial as skin color, what we all have to lose is we are promoting a culture of mediocrity, and we are not advancing people based on their skills and what they have to contribute. we are using something superficial to judge people, and i see that in the mortgage crisis, to act to release all my own situation when you were talking on and a homeowner. i went to apply for a loan and the supply of mortgage for eight or 9%. i went to apply for a competing mortgage and the officer who want to help me said you need to

check off this box and it was ethnicity. and the box he pointed out was caucasian and he didn't say that. he said if you want to get this loan you need to check off this box and i had too much pride. i checked off african-american, and of course i didn't get the loan, so i totally related to what you were saying and i was able to be refinanced later on and get a better rate. i wanted to ask you what do you have to say to people who point to the individual success such as obama or yourself and say that racism no longer exists and we have arrived? >> to answer that question i would direct to chapter 7 of my book, read imagining equality

and one of the things i do is i look at the feeding in the case in illinois and maryland and memphis, and i see with the legacy of racism and gender bias and lending practices has resulted in that in 2005, 2006 you have loan officers according to the complaints you have loan officers saying that they would go out hunting looking for older women to sell bad loans basically were to give it to jot financially. you had a loan of lending officers referring to certain loans say that certain people who live in certain neighborhoods, to the communities of color didn't deserve any better, and so what

it says to me is that the racism may not exist for most of us to see that look behind the curtain just a little bit and you find that they exist there and that they are really in this case i believe have the capacity to bring down a whole financial system. thank you. [applause] >> professor, first come on the applaud you for being courageous today and in the past and for standing up because it's difficult to do that some days. i am and i italian-americans to my grandparents came around a 1905, and they came with an idea of seeking something better and made things better. my uncle was the last chief of police in this great city of cambridge and now they have commissioners.

but my question is, and i have a concern in this world we are in there are so many students that are saddled with loans of over 100, 180, $200,000, and they are basically what, working for the man? the answer to sally mae, freddie mac and the rest come and my hope as this president, and i voted for him, became president but some magic, some sort of fund that would be created to save the students so that the students wouldn't be paying these loans, they can't file bankruptcy because it's almost impossible to get away from a federally funded student loan. there's nothing they can do and if there was some way that someone came up with an idea to free them of these shackles, it would be such an infusion of wealth and spending that's my

comment, and your thoughts. i'm sure you've thought about it. thank you again. >> the cost of education, as you say he will of time students are few government programs to get out from under those debts or with whom they can get a grant of those have really been diminishing over the last few decades and it is a tragedy i went to school in an area we have pell grants some of that qualified financially my parents couldn't afford to send me to school i could get a grant and that is to be part of our reinvestment and education. again, you know, we've got to have a conversation though that includes those kind of realities of people. that's not this book but maybe it's the next one.

we can get their. >> i am one of the grandchildren of the great migration. because i do have this amazing inheritance i always closely identified so while we inherited this battle ratio asu we also inherited a gender jump, so how do you propose the to go to battle at home with this idea that whatever works for the st. able-bodied black man works for all of us? because i retired to being sought after for other people's movements and for my point of view not being heard as a black woman. how do you propose we continue to combat that? >> part of what we have got to think about is who is our representation? who represents us in the nation

that is making these policies? let's just take one example. we have lived forever with wage gaps for women but i guess before the recession 80 cents on the dollar come close to 80 cents on the dollar would have been made versus the dollar them and make. now the gap is narrow. the understand only because men are making less not because women are making more. but i don't believe that there's ever been an individual who in the office of the part of labour who is actually sat down and said every day i am going to get up and by going to think about this problem of the wage gap between women and men, and i am going to think about it and i'm going to work on it until something is done and i'm going to try different policies and

i'm going to promote legislation that will help to do that. supporters this presentation and who represents us and whether or not they think they are a priority. we can change that. it's not going to happen overnight. some of your thinking that's impossible, the politics are such today. but how many of you would have predicted that barack obama could be president? in the question that you were raising, i do touch on the imagining ecology when i talk about how we do not value work coming out of the home. and that is the kind of work the women in two or is done by women, not all but like child care, like school teaching even something like i raise it in the chapter i talk about a hair

dresser. we have to understand and see how we undervalue the women. there are policy changes that need to be made and we have to put the right people in place to readdress the policy changes so that we can change some of the structures in the workplace. there's some legislation from some equal pay legislation that's been proposed now that would help us begin to do that and i won't embarrass you by asking to raise your hand if you have called your congressperson to say pass the equal pay act but if you haven't, please do. that will be a great start. >> hello, professor how it is a great honor to be here and hear what you have to say and think and learn about your new book and i am sorry, the late have to

go back to history. i just think it's so interesting that you are here speaking to us today when clarence thomas is embroiled in a big controversy with money that his wife has received from the corporation and the conflict of interest, and i wonder when you thought about that. [laughter] and what was your reaction when she came out and demanded that you apologize? i can't help asking it. >> results speak for themselves. i didn't apologize. [applause] >> but i will go about your question in a roundabout way. he said you were going to go to history and i will go to history a little bit too. when i testified in 1991 it was because i cared about the integrity of the court. that is what mattered to me. the integrity of the individuals

who are appointed to a lifetime position on the court. that is what mattered then the. that is what matters now and that has been changed and i will leave the rest for you to figure out. >> will it be tossed out? >> i don't know. i can't speculate that. but all of these questions from any of the questions that go to the integrity of the justice of the court or concerns that we should have. >> absolutely. >> thank you. >> i'm going to close on one more question on your book and have a book signing and hopefully most of your purchase this terrific book. i was really struck by the separation of the american dream for, as he recently said here this idea of purchasing a home and moving and moving it to this home and belongings and sort of an investment in what i translated into a public space meaning our personal spaces and

families are also part of communities and part of the nation and i wonder what you thought of the occupied wall street idea it was of leggitt protest, it was like a neighborhood taking things up. >> how things are done, how things look. part of it that really resonates with me is the fact that just a handful of people for taking a stand and raising their voices and they are inspiring all of us to think differently than this to me what is so important about what is going on in cities all over the country. with all of that there are so many efforts. there is a journalism class here tonight. part of what i'm n