americans. this letter, here, you see somebody not clayborn's secretary, but in a later hand has written dual here at the top, and this was going to be -- it was supposed to be a dual between a englishman and frenchman that didn't happen, but they met each other later in the street, and this led to a taking of five in the city that had intensified because of the situation of the doubt about where the country was going, where the colony was going, and what was going to happen, so that was just one of the things he faced. ..

so in addition to the official correspondence that is in here there are also a few personal letters and this is a letter he was writing to us and lost telling him of the death of their son in the dual, march 23, 1805. >> the's volume is one of my favorites we have in the collection. it's fascinating to me for louisiana the that went back and forth, it became part of america and one day it's okay this is america but how did that really happen? how did that look whenever that change was happening in this

volume really tells us a lot about that change and what things were like on the ground in louisiana at that time. >> next on booktv, in his book, "black and tired," anthony bradley applies christian teachings to the subjects of race, politics and temporary culture, globalization and education. this is about an hour. >> good morning, thank you just for joining us here at the heritage foundation. i'm the director of the sumners and i would like to welcome you to our louis lehrman auditorium and of course welcome those who have joined us on our heritage.or web site on all occasions. we would ask everyone in house if you will make that last less last courtesy check that cell phones be turned off but we will be appreciated as we record the events. a course will allow questions from our internet viewers that they would 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. posting our discussion and introducing a special guest is jennifer marshall. ms. marshall a stricter public policy studies and are richard and helen dubois center or religion and civil society. she oversees research and education, welfare, marriage, the family and religion and civil society. she also manages family facts.org our on line catalog of social science research related to family and religious practice. prior to joining us here she was -- worked on cultural policy issues and empower an american before that she was senior director family studies at the family research council. please join me in welcoming jennifer marshall. jennifer. [applause] >> thank you john and thanks audrey for being here for our events on "black and tired" essays on race, politics, culture and international

development bite 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. the silver lining in that hurricane is that the delay of -- approach really extends our focus from dr. king civil rights legacy in the work of those who sends him have strife to make all of god's children truly free at last. dr. anthony bradley is one of those freedom seekers. as the title of his new book conveys, "black and tired," he is 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 -- anthony bradley is a scholar with wide-ranging interests. his academic pedigree shows that as well.

well. his undergraduate degree from clinton is in science and his masters from covenant seminary and doctorate from westminster seminary are in theology. today he teaches at the kings college at the 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 teaches truths about all humanity. our views of human nature he argues will shape our public policy. so it's worth considering what it means to be fully human. cleese join me in welcoming dr. anthony bradley as he helps us do that today. [applause] >> thank you ms. marshall for

the imitation. i'm honored and delighted to be at the heritage foundation for this event. for years, i often say because i am a nerd, growing up i would watch c-span quite a bit and would see people and think-tanks and sit there and wonder, i wonder if one day i will be standing in front of this backdrop? so i am honored to be here so thank you for the imitation. my connection to this foundation goes back twice. i have with great honor and boasting used a lot of the work of robert rector in my own research and in writing. his work has been particularly helpful for me in terms of my own attempts to think differently about both political and economic liberation for

african-americans. the united states 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 in my family reunion in escambia county, alabama, actually in the city of -- alabama. escambia county is the county that my family's plantation was and so i stand here before you azadeh defendant of slaves from the bradley plantation in escambia county, alabama. slavery reconstruction, jim crow, the civil rights movement, this is my family story of

struggling and fighting for humanity and freedom in a context, and a culture that was saturated with injustice and dehumanization. now what is so amazing about this narrative, this story, is that not only does my family know where the plantation is, 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 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 later actually owning the property they were

living on, they were being enslaved on? this makes this place absolutely amazing. yes, of course we noticed the progress -- progress in our country by having a black family in the oval office. there are not too many countries around the world where you can see subdominant cultures rise to the that level, that status just a few generations after movements like the civil rights movement. 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 herself to be a descendent of slaves, be standing in front of a group of people, having earned a ph.d., sitting in

front of the 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 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, as you can tell, and so i want to remain connected to the history of my own family, the story of rising to success in spite of incredibly semantic and wounding and painful experiences in this country. because the hopes and dreams and aspirations institutions, values and institutions that created the conditions that put me here

today are being sabotaged sabotaged and eroded by those who have good intentions but often do not think due to 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 fx of anthropology are not immediately seen, the long-term effects have been uniquely and partially 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 oppressed and, not last. 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. so, in fact i am black and tired because it seems that there is this movement, this energy, to reposition african-americans and such a way that a few people are making decisions about those masses. it has been exhausting to see the national campaign for the -- of blackness under the visionary leadership of those like martin luther king, rosa parks and -- he hijacked by the organizational narcissism that we find among politicians and government agencies, operating under the delusion that they have the expertise and capacity

to solve all of society's problems. it has been exhausting to see the politics of envy undermine this campaign for dignity which seeks to redefine what people deserve high pitting those of varying degrees of wealth against others, as if life is some sort of race, as if there is some competition. it's been exhausting to see zero-sum economics, which poisons the imagination of those who do not understand the the social implications of wealth creation, enough to believe that the only way to wealth is to exploit others. so i set them on the same political island with thomas sowell and walter williams, friendless, with the

understanding that 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. there is equality of treatment sabotage a day in a and a culture drowning in narcissism and entitlement. it is a narcissism that blames others for one shortcomings and justifies breaking the law and moral norms out of a sense of entitlement. you owe us say the entitled. but how did we get here? we see today the consequences of a few converging friends. one is the decrease in american religious life and secondly the erosion of and 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, 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. this was precisely the intention of the communist and a socialist, was to purge religion from society. human dignity has been in ways that have forced us all to embrace the vision of a few

elites who essentially planned and imposed their will on the rest of us. and the pursuit of the equality of economic results for all have created new pathways for justified in justice. today it is 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 blame. the goal of equality is 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 1980s 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. the size of homes, the 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 then creating results we want. one misstep in the movement

beginning in the mid-1960s on into the 1970s was not recognized that the most successful minority groups in america where those who pursued economic mobility, with the marketplace instead of politics. so when you look at asian immigrants, when you look at the history of in america, gives the other subdominant cultures 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. alexis de tocqueville cautioned the question on democracy in america that the pursuit of liberty would oust religion and her society because it quote, tends to isolate people from one another. to concentrate every man's

intention, every man's attention, upon himself and lays open the souls 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 recently said that every black person ever handed for robbing stores and a flash mob should have their court hearing not in front of a judge but facing a 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 angry when i initially saw the news footage of young blacks robbing convenience stores across america. i was actually brought to tears. we all need to take a closer look at kings chiseled stone face in the presence of his own tears, tears like the one shed by a native american actor iron eyes cody in the 1970 public service announcement about pollution. i'm actually old enough to remember those. it showed cody shedding tears after seeing pollution in an 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 kinks during the 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. will king ever have imagined a few decades after his eye have a dream speech that 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, we have young black people ransacking stores in groups. every time a flash mob loots, it is robbing king of his dream all over america from philadelphia to chicago to here in washington d.c.. young people can be contributing to the common good but instead are trading out their dignity for the adrenaline rush of

stealing from others. we will not tolerate such reprehensible behavior here says the district of columbia mayor vincent gray. he goes on to say, some news coverage of this incident has reported residents rationing 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. kings dream was one that harmonized morality and law. however kings 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 these mobs, loot stores because minority youth are still disenfranchised and marginalized from mainstream society and this fact may be true, may be legitimate feelings. what king taught us however is that political and social frustration does not justify breaking the law. perhaps if these disenfranchised youth were more familiar with life under slavery and jim crow or cared about the legacy of civil rights heroes like thurgood marshall and rosa parks and john lewis and others that i mentioned earlier they could tap into the imagination of a heroic

generation formed by the virtue, by the virtues of religion who pursued public justice by pursuing public virtue. enabling american culture responsible. in 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 foster the spirit of invading class warfare and 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. radical individualism and relativism defined the ethics of

our era and criminal flash mobs expose our progressive failure. as we celebrate kings 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 will 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 affects education success. a series of 2010 studies at howard university's journalist education, one of america's oldest continuous academics focusing on black people reported how church involvement increases education success in inner cities. in the article titled faith in the inner city, the urban black church and state educational outcomes, dr. brian barrett, an education professor at the state university of new york, describes the unique contributions black churches play and cultivating successful students in inner cities. he observes that quote, religious socialization

reinforces attitudes, outlooks, behaviors and practices, particularly through individuals commitments to and adoption of the goals and expectations of the group, end of quote. these are the things that are conducive to positive educational outcomes. in fact, back in 2009, barrett reported another article that for black inner-city youth who reported to religious services often, the black white achievement gap quote, was eliminated. i will say that again. the black white achievement gap was eliminated simply because students in low-performing schools in that neighborhood -- in bad neighborhoods were actively involved in religious life and in religious communities. 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 that members of the society would promise, with talents to contribute and from whom success is expected. church is also churches also affirmed inner-city youth as trusted members of the community that celebrate academic success and the practices that produce it. which overrides the low expectations at school. additionally barrett highlights the ways in which black churches, because they are equipped to deal with families, our effective at encouraging parental education involvement from the heart, as well as providing context where you can have regular contact with other adults for role modeling and mentoring. barrett is not alone. also in that same journal from

howard university 4273 black students were studied, and it was found that family and religious life, family and religious social capital are the most important predictors 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 is the second greatest predictor 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. we look for example at issues like the minimum wage and we recognize of course emotionally this is a winner. people love to think about the consequences of raising the minimum wage but i would like to submit that often 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 incented's. such an increase actually hurts minorities. it actually hurts teens and 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 in jobs -- few job skills. in the government forces employers to pay their workers

more than a jobs 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 just to cover the increase is not magically appearing. it has to come from somewhere. since americans love the best products for the lowest prices, businesses will not likely pass that cost to the wage increase on to consumers in the form of higher prices. they will instead reduce the costs by laying off workers with the lowest skills, relocating jobs or the entire business or skirting the law altogether by

paying employees under the table. or, by hiring illegal immigrants. university of connecticut professor kenneth couch estimates that a 1 dollar 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. 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, the elites say, the elites joy -- enjoy their own freedoms but do not really believe that others are capable of exercising the same freedom. yeah. so they position themselves as decision-makers for others who are not nearly as enlightening as they are. if blacks were consider people with equal dignity, a prospective employee would be free to negotiate her own ways for employment based on on her honest assessment of her needs and skills and capacity with a potential employer. offers and counteroffers would be made without the oversight or intervention of sarah gets third

parties because there would be the expectation of both the employee and the employer, that they know what is best for themselves. if black parents were consider people of equal dignity they would not have third-party elites who do not have their own children in low-performing schools tell lower income minority parents where they can and cannot put their children. at the elites with their magical capacity to process complex knowledge say, they always seem to know what's best for everyone. it is in fact patriarchal condescension. we know better than you people, so with the elites want to do is remove the decisions, excuse me, to remove the decisions from the hands of lower people into the hands of people who have greater capacity.

now, this caused the black experience during slavery and during jim crow was a 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. so political and economic empowerment will only come to african-americans in the underclass when we all recognize that, when we take the decisions from the masses and put those into 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 at the 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 stops tying their shoes for them, our nation is going to go bankrupt. the institutions that built this country are going to the road and be, and subside. so i long for the day days when

blacks are respected enough that their virtue drives the economic and political liberation, and what it means to be human, and what it means to make those decisions that 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 create a class of people as if they are perpetual children. this i submit is what the civil rights movement at its core was about, about liberating african-americans from the control of others who sought to make their decisions for them

and if -- as if they were children. said during the civil rights movement is on then carrying placards that read, i am a man. i am 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 family that leads to our own political and economic liberation. so until then, until that time, where those liberties are experienced by those at the bottom or their dignity is honored, i will remain black and tired. thank you very much. [applause]

>> we will take some questions or comments at this time. do you have any questions? >> my name is tina bass. i really appreciate what you have to say and i would imagine on most points i agree with being naturally conservative, a woman of faith as a woman from south georgia. i understand where you are coming from. my question is, where do you and pardon me with all the light in the room. >> this would be a chocolate conversation. [laughter] >> but in some things i feel like i don't want to give white america a task. i definitely recognized as a black american woman i have a personal responsibility for everything that i do and my mother raised me in such a way that i have home training. there are things that i will and will not do.

but, what i don't want come as we have these public conversations, don't want to give white america a pass. you talk about these flash mobs and i believe those are kids with no home training because there is no way on earth that my mom, even now as i approach 40, there are things that my mom wouldn't do and i just don't even think about it. i think that as a result of no home training. it's basically simple but there are kids in this world, little black kids in this world, who do feel so angry. they are black, tired and angry. so how do we have this conversation without giving white america a pass on things that they don't deserve a pass on? >> that is a fantastic question and this is where i emphasize the rule of law. but so important about the way in which our society has been structured is if you look at the constitution and you look at the bill of rights and things like that, we have to hold people

accountable to the fact that they are even applying the law equally, 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 are committing acts of injustice against human dignity which are against their own standards. that is hypocritical, right? where there is injustice, where humans are being treated with injustice, where their dignity is being undermined, we want to call that out and some have argued that one of the roles that african-americans have played in this country is a concept of this country, because when you are the dominant culture you have a lot of lines fogs and it often takes brown and yellow people to raise a flag or raise a yellow card and say wait a minute, you may not

realize this but some of your actions have actually hurt my own opportunities for success so we absolutely need to continue to speak about issues related to two white -- we need to speak about issues to what i call sometimes negativity. everyone else must simply conform. you will remember for example that ridiculous article that came out in psychology today on beauty but said that black women just aren't beautiful, right? that was a great example of this anglo-norman to be that says what is right missed normal and everyone else looks at. we would be happy to continue to address that because, because we

are all morally flawed ourselves and have our own blind spots and be canned as a group collectively have a blind spot together so we have to continue to talk about those things. i'm more than happy to do that, which means i don't have any -- so i get attacked on both sides because i'm equally concerned that in some ways, both ignoring the problem can actually expose some racist ideology. on the other side, you have the patriarchy of good intentions that actually undermines dignity by treating people like they are attached with their 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 in.

i want to teach a sermon now but i won't. these institutions that the family and church have really eroded in the black community particularly in the hip-hop generation. the hip-hop generation represents the most unchurched group of african-american since the plantations. so we have to begin to ask questions about where is the church? princeton university recently asked is the black church dead, because that institution that is so -- it's been on the decline in terms of actually influencing that generation because home training was brought. wasn't just at home. so anybody in church could smack you and tell you to shut up and tell until you to spit your gum out. so those two things are really important to thank you for that question. very good. >> anthony, good to see you

again. i want to follow up on something very important. my sister is black adopted into our family and she is 17 so going through significant questions that force questions in our family. these have been questions that have been addressed long before now but it's different because there is a draw in the hip-hop culture, there is a rap sheet now. my sister has been involved in some activities and i won't get into details of that other than to make the point of the draw to activities that are detrimental. it's hard to have a conversation at the level you are having because the initial categories aren't even there necessarily. it's not accessible. what can the dominant culture or let's just say to people of faith, christians are people in churches or people in strong moral categories, what can we do to make it easier to start from categories of dignity and freedom and bring it down to --

so it's more competitive to bullying and things that are very attractive young people who are just trying to sort of express their identity, be part of a group, that maybe doesn't look like something that their friends would have a hard time understanding. you can tease that out a couple of different ways. and maybe one higher-level question that is in the family context. what can the preacher do or what can a person who has that vestige of authority due to bring about the reform our bring about the question so that the hauppague received it i agree exists that performance needed back to sort of the standards of america's founding and how we honor freedom and what does it mean that all are created equal as given by god over rights so that is the dna of our constitution. how do you hold those values firmly in a church context inn

keep over the long term, pushing those forward so that these are conversations that are a lot easier to have because they become flash points in its hard to know how to cross the line. i don't know what help can be coming from outside the family but inside the family of stuff do they get there. does that make sense? >> yeah, and mean yes, of course. those are two very important questions. you know we have this tension because i am an academic. i like using big words because it makes me look like i'm smart and i get raises because of it. i love circling the clouds. but there comes a time where you have to talk to real people, sorry, sorry, academics. you have to talk to them on the street. how do you challenge people to think about these categories in ways that make sense? it seems like virtue and what we are 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 bill wayne's new song, in the context of that you turn it to slaves, how misdirected love becomes self sabotage, also at the job storytelling and thinking of the consequences of your actions. i think that we often forget about the power of story and narrative and in my own work, what i have seen is that people who have, who are the best that principle arguments are horrible at storytelling, and it's actually the storytelling that

draws people into the principles and actually embeds them, right, silly biblical narrative, two-thirds of it is story, so i wonder what would happen if we were better storytellers about these principles and actually presented them and actively. so people could actually see the full tapestry of what it means to be a person who lives in virtue or to do it a little -- like in the book of proverbs so people understand what that means. i can also give a lecture on you know, sloth and the consequence of that in light of a person's human dignity and vocation. you have to do that or i could say look at -- yeah, if you don't work, i get that. so we have to do a better job of putting these things in storage because it's actually 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, in the middle and on the way left, they invite you into a story, a utopian story of the way things could possibly be and a lot of people have these very principles 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, where can i read more about that? what is the principle behind that? now in terms of pastors and religious leaders, i mean, you know it's a multifaceted vocation. i would say this, that i'm 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 living in solidarity, the ways in which the social breakdown that affects all of us. but then also we have to recognize that people have stories and narratives that we actually have to know people's stories. this is one of the consequences of the one-size-fits-all approach, social justice work. everyone doesn't have the same story. everyone is and in that position they are in for the same reason and sometimes you have to unpack that story to know how to help them, right? of 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. to actually get to know your

neighbor and get to know their story. for example it is often the case that a lot of children in inner cities grow up experiencing a tremendous amount of trauma, family drama, and that trauma actually affects their brain. it damages their brain. they have increased learning to bissell these. they have attachment disorder so when they go to school but can't make it. so that has to be taken into account. you have to actually know people. so i am of the thinking that pastors need to continue to speak prophetically about the culture, prophetically helping people understand the ways to virtue is celebrated or not celebrated, 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, and turned to the ongoing of brokenness 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. i think those of us that began with good stories, good principles can actually help people walk into connecting themselves to a different narrative by offering a new vision for the person. we need to do more of that, more encouragement, more uplifting because that actually recognizes that a person has dignity, right? it's not determined, your faith is not determined in terms of your own political and economic life. so how can we actually inspire a new imagination so you can come out of bed and go on to this. those stories are incredibly important and i think in part it's a great tragedy of the current hip-hop generation with

the civil rights generation struggle, the boat lives of those those lipton jim crow in slavery. i grew up hearing the stories and i came from a family reunion and i heard the stories again. they get reinforced. we don't want to go back to the good old days, not for us. the good old days is the future. i'm not going back to the 1950's. i wouldn't be standing here if that was the case of i think that is the answer to your question. in the back. >> i had a couple questions. you mentioned that the church was able to close disparity in schools. what was the effective church on white students? was there a gap between church students and by the question is what you think there was a breakdown in the social

institution and was mentioned that i was a cause of a lot of the problems we are having now. but you didn't explain why that happens and when it happens. ellen bloom makes a similar point where he says that civil rights arguments were originally natural law based and after the death of king they became -- so which came first and why. >> to answer your first question, in the research, historians are saying for suburban white kids, religion really didn't matter. it really had little difference because the types of things that reinforce success are actually embedded in middle-class communities. so, the difference is 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. when you live in a community that socially reinforces those things that lead to success, those things being reinforced in the church don't bring nearly as -- sorry, they don't bring nearly the effect of when those things are actually out. now, in terms of which came first, the chicken or the egg, i am not an expert enough in those legal arguments to know per se, however, i will say this. that it had much to do with this understanding of justice related to outcomes versus process, results versus process, and when human dignity he came a line not

with peoples free participation to actually fail, there are free participation to participate in the process and compete equally, when it became about outcomes, it actually redefined what civil rights was so you see this today with this language of economic disparity. so what makes -- we determine equality on the basis of economic outcomes and immaterial manifestations rather than recognizing equality on the basis of human dignity and that chasm began to explode and expand in the 1960s. you can see this for example with the programs that were initiated by lbj in the so-called war on poverty which i think we are losing to some

degree. those programs initially began as a way of course to actually get people, to wean them off the great society burden. a lot of people don't know that. was intended of course to bring a quality within the public square and unfortunately, the paradigm, the measure of political and economic liberation and mobility because of those programs became reduced to those things that people have are those that do not have those things. so affirmative action, rent control, government set-asides in terms of contracting for businesses and things like that. so you know, i personally

believe that this process versus result understanding but it means to be living a virtuous life was the beginning of undermining this distinction between two home does the constitution apply and how and how do we measure that in terms of long-term results? thank you very much. [applause] ..