here since 1974 and have done a great deal of work in documenting the history of the region. we are the only institution in this area that fills this mission. .. >> harvard professor, randall kennedy nerd is selling book company and/or time of the strange career of a troublesome word. you write about violence by speech. what do you mean? >> guest: that book is about the word nigger and is a word that is triggered lots of violence and to some it is the final word in another cells. what i wanted to do in that book was to give a history of this word that has been covered with

blood literally and sometimes figuratively and wanted to show the way in which this word has wrought havoc in american culture. of course that is not all it does. one of the reasons why it was both worthy is because of the complicated word. it has a terrible history, a history of insult, history of terrorism, a history of intimidation, but of course it has been put to other uses, too. it's been made in an ironic and a term of endearment so the word nigger as a complicated word and has biomass space, but other aspects as well. ..

she was a seamstress. she would say to not stay. she was a strong-willed lady who raised a slew of kids, spent most of them through college and absolutely great person. i knew her for a good portion of my life.he she used a whole lot oft different birds.she she referred to but people sometimes as color people, but she also sometimes seduce the infamous and she has been a perso word example and whose wisdom has been with me

all my life. >> host: is it illegal to use the n-word? >> guest: generally speaking, no, although -- well, i take that back. if you use the n-word in an employment setting, for instance, if you or somebody supervisor and you refer to your work to a worker as a nigger, where you refer to black people as niggers, you may be in violation of the law by creating a hostile workplace and thereby make yourself subject to a liability under state law or new the civil rights law of 1966 -- 1964. so, under certain circumstances, you can do things which would make yourself -- which subjects

yourself to legal liability, or another way. if you commit violence and in the indication of a -- the commission of a violent act refer to people using the n-word, you might be subject to hate law legislation, and thereby not only be prosecuted for assault or whatever violent act you have committed, but you might subject yourself to an enhanced penalty by running afoul of state hate laws. so, under certain circumstances, yeah, you would be in violation of the law. generally speaking, though, because of the strong shielding power of the first amendment, people, for instance, comedians or writers, can use the n-word and not have to fear the law, though you might have to fear a

public opinion which itself can be a very powerful force. >> host: is that the near word versus citing word? >> host: the law of homicide, all sorts of different levels of homicide, and one big divide is between manslaughter and second degree murder. so, for manslaughter, the law gives you a little -- if you kill someone, but you can make the argument that you killed somebody in you were in the grip of passion. the classic example of manslaughter, you come home and you find your girlfriend or your wife in the arms of another, and you kill that person. you've committed a violent act, but the law will give you a little bit of a break because

you were in the grip of passion, and the law says, we give you something of an excuse. not a full excuse but we recognize that you couldn't control yourself. well, there's some people who have made the argument that they were in the grip of passion because somebody called them the infamous n-word. they strike the person, maybe they kill the person. and the argument becomes, can you or can your lawyer make the arguement to a jury that you were in the grip of passion because this person called you this particular word. now, in some jurisdictions, like washington, dc, you cannot even make that argument. washington, dc, the jurisdiction that has the "just words" doctrine, and the law says no matter what the word, no matter what somebody calls you, that's no excuse for using violence. but other jurisdictions say, we'll let you make that argument

to a jury. >> host: professor kennedy, you write in the n-word book, there's nothing necessarily wrong with a white person saying the n-word, just as there is nothing necessarily wrong with a black person saying it. what should matter is the context in which the word is spoken. the speaker's aims, effects, alternative, to condemn whites to use the n-word without regard to context is simply to make a fettish of the word. >> guest: yes. the best example to illustrate that point is mark mark twain'st novel, huckleberry finn. anythinger appears in that book over 200 times. i think huckleberry finn is a wonderful novel and its impulse is antiracist. antislavery, obviously over the years there have been many people who wanted the book banned or wanted to erase the

word. i'm not for that. you have a white author, but he is using the term "nigger" for purposes that are clearly antiracist purposes. there are others. lenny bruce. lenny bruce was a great social sat -- satirist. he had a number of times when he used the word nigger, not to insult black people, but to turn the table on people who were antiblack in their feeling and he used the word nigger to laugh at them. using the word nigger as a mirror on race simple in order to combat racism. adore used the word anythinger in some of her short stories.

she wasn't using it to be a racist. rather, she was using is as an artist to de-legitimate race simple. that's what i meant. obviously there are black people, too who have used the term nigger in ways that in my view, are completely unobjectionable. dick gregory titled his first autobiography, "nigger "an autobiography." and richard pryor with two great albums, "that nigger is crazy" and bicentennial nigger." >> host: when you wrote the book, it was published in 2002. what reaction did you get? >> host: when i do.

>> guest: when i wrote the book i got a lot of reaction, some positive and some negative. and continue to get some positive reactions and negative reactions. some people took real offense at the title. if there was one aspect of the book that probably got me the most negative reaction was people who complained about the title, and who thought that i was being sensationalist, i was exploiting this term by putting it right there in the title, right there on the cover of a book that would appear in your book stores all across america. and what i said to people was -- and i still say -- and i say this unapologetically -- if you write a book you want people to read your book. there are thousands of books in any book store. there are hundreds of thousands of books in any big library, and

you got a lot of competition. the first thing you want to do, if you're an author, is to at least have somebody pick up the book. and so when i was thinking of a title issue thousand what i can title this book that would get somebody to take a peek, read the first paragraph. and i thought, well, nigger. nigger is a strange career of a trouble self-word. and i thought that would -- just think hard about words, think hard about examples, get the readers attention. that's what i was trying to do with the title. and it certainly succeeded in getting people's attention. >> host: in 2008, you published "sellout. the politics of racial betrayal." what's a sellout? >> guest: a sellout is a person who is viewed as being a traitor

to his group. and every group creates boundaries. every group has a notion of who is inside the group and who is outside the group. and so every group has sellouts. in the united states of america, as a law of treason, and if you do certain things which are deemed to give comfort, give aide to an enemy of the united states, you make yourself subject to being called a traitor, being called a sellout if you're taking money for it particularly. every group has this, and i wrote this book to focus on this phenomenon in the context of black america. just like -- every group has this notion of insiders and outsiders. therefore, every group has a motion that if you are an

insider, and you do certain things against the perceived interests of the group, what do we call these people? we call these people sellouts and that's what wanted to write about. >> host: with the pop exception of athletes, you write, blacks to attain success in a multiracial setting will always sooner or later encounter whispered insinuations or shouted allegations that their achievement is attributable, at least in part to selling out. >> guest: yes. sure, that's true. so, for instance, there are some people -- fortunately not many but some african-americans, for instance -- who would call the first black.a sellout. there are black americans who will say that if you're black and you're the head of a fortune 500 company, you're necessarily a sellout.

there's a real anxiety within -- substantial part of black america when confronting black americans who are successful in the wider society, because there's this anxiety that, to be successful, especially if you're in a predominantly white setting, to get the backing of white people. get the trust of white people. what do you have to do to get that backing? what did you have to do to get that trust to get that recognition? there's this fear that one of the things you had to do was to betray, in some form, your community, and that's what i talk about. >> host: good afternoon, welcome to become tv on c-span2. thisser is our monthly in depth program where we have one author on to talk about his or her body of work. this month it's harvard law professor randall kennedy, who has written five books.

here are his books in 1997 he came out with: race, crime, and the law. 2002, the n-word, that strange career of a troublesome word. interracial intimas sunday came out in three. sellout in 2008. and 'his most recent book, the persistence of the color line. professor, when did you start teaching at harvard? >> guest: i started teaching at harvard in 198 4. summer of 1984. >> host: what do you teach? >> guest: i teach contracts. i teach courses on race relations law. i have taught coreses -- courses on the first amendment and criminal law. but nowdays it's really two courses. contracts, and my race relations law courses. >> host: if you want to participate, here's the numbers.

202-624-11 -- wasn't sure what numbers we're use. if you want to send an e-mail you can. twitter slash become. i got all that mixed up. >> host: in your most recent book, the persistence of the color line, racial politics and the obama administration, you write, at opposition to antiblack race simple generates protectiveness. even blacks who vehemently disagree with obama on important matters subordinate their misgivings out of the onotion that -- >> guest: yes. there are people who are critical of the president with respect to various issues.

who have to make a calculation over and over and over again whether they want to publicize their criticism. on one hand they have a real dispute with the president and want to relay their disappointment or their disagreement to him, and to others. on the other hand, they recognize that the president of the united states, barack obama, is going to be facing opposition not so much based in an authentic disagreement with this or that policy, but, rather, an opposition that is fueled by antiblack racism, and people, even if they're critical of president obama, don't want to do anything that will help the cause of those who are against the president, at least in part

because he is black. >> what is a race man? >> guest: a race man. a race man is a term that refers to black americans who have a sense of camaraderie, have a sense of solidarity, have a sense they should use their gift, their talents, their resources, not only to further themselves but to uplift the race with themselves. it's an honorrivic term to be a race man or race woman is to be a person who has a sense of group responsibility. >> host: in sellout, the politicked of racial betrayal, you write, as a justice, clarence thomas is very much a race man, by which i mean a black person who seeks self-consciously to advance by his own rights the interests of african-americans. >> guest: yes. now, you know, when you write a

book, one thing about writing books is that you do the best you can at a particular point, but sometimes you want to revise things. and, frankly, this is -- what you just read is a sentence i would probably not write again. if i were redoing that book i would revise that sentence. what i meant to say when i wrote that, was that clarence thomas is a person whose politics are at variance with most black americans. strongly at variance with most black americans. he is conservative. most black americans are not. but he does in his own view see himself as pushing a political

agenda that will, in his view, advance the fortunes of black americans. and that's what i meant by, in his own mind, he sees himself as a race man. i think in certain ways i would still -- i think that's an accurate portrayal of the justice. i think i get -- when i wrote that, i was being rather generous, though. i think that if i were revisiting that territory, i would be more critical of the justice, because, frankly, in the way in which he has not only taken positions but also voiced the positions he has taken, i think that there is -- i have now more questions than i had then of the degree to which he sees himself as someone who has obligations to advance the

fortunes of black americans. >> host: where did you grow up and go to school? >> guest: i was born in columbia south carolina in 195 4. september 10, 1954. i spent me first few years of life in columbia south carolina. but in -- at a young age, my parents left south carolina. they were refugees from the jim crow south, and they moved to washington, dc in search for more opportunity. i grew up here in washington, dc. i went to public schools for a good long while. i went to tacoma elementary school, and then i went to paul junior high school, and then i went to st. albin's school for boys. it's on the grounds of the national cathedral.

st. albins was a formative influence for me. st. albin's cool was probably the most influence sal school -- influencal school i attended. >> host: why? sunny learned the rudiments of expository writing, and so anytime i write an article, anytime i write a book, i, quite literally, say, thank you to my teachers at st. albins. i think of ferdinand rda who taught class of on writing. i think of mr. willis, i think most importantly of my high school history teacher, john f. mccune, who introduced me to

history, introduced me to the study of history, the study of historical writing, historiography, very important figure in my intellectual development. >> host: how much african-americans attended that school when you were there? >> guest: not many. in my graduating class of 70, there were probably seven black american students. when i began there were fewer, but more came over time. so there were not that many -- there are more now, but when i was there, there were not many black students. it was an extraordinary intellectual environment. absolutely extraordinary. the st. albans inculcated a

motivation of public -- mindedness. we debated all of the public issues of the day. there was a wide range of ideological positions that peek took. we were encouraged to speak out. we were encouraged to write down our views, and to this day i have very fond feelings toward st. albans, and again, very fond feelings towards my teachers. >> host: princeton? >> guest: i went to princeton university in 1973 and 1977. again, a wonderful experience. i think, again, just a host of teachers. several of whom have become very close friends of mine. one of my teachers at princeton

was man by the name of stanford levinson. >> host: university of texas. >> guest: a very distinguished, very interesting intellectual in general, the legal academic, i had him for politics. in fact i had him for a course on constitutional interpretation at princeton. he gave me my lowest grade at princeton. we had been life-long friends ever since. he reads -- he has read all of my books in manuscript form. always gives me wonderful feedback. at princeton, james mcpherson, the great historian of the civil war, was my thesis adviser. one of my teachers at princeton was a visiting professor, eric phoner, the great american historian. >> host: columbia now. >> guest: at columbia.

my senior thesis was a biography of richard hover stater. he has been eric phoner's dissertation adviser. eric fopperies now the dewitt clinton professor at columbia. and i've known eric for decades now. he, too is a person who reads all my work, gives me feedback. so princeton is a school -- i'm an the board of trustees princeton. i have very fond feelings toward princeton it, too very influential in my life. >> host: ten years after you were there michelle obama attended princeton. didn't seem her experience was the same as yours. >> guest: my sense is, from what i read in the paper, she did not have as positive an experience as me. i'm sorry about that. my experience was very positive.

and, again, i feel lucky in that way. i've been a lucky person with my associations. i feel absolutely extraordinarily blessed. at every stage of my life, i've enter -- interaberdeen with people who have been encouraging, who have been supportive, starting, of course, with my parents. my father, henry kennedy, passed away. my mother, rachel kennedy, is alive. my father was school teacher. my parents were deeply invested in education. i have an older brother. i have a younger sister mitchell parents deeply invested in our education. nothing too precedence over education in our household. they were supportive. they sent me to schools that, as

i've already indicated, were just tremendously supportive. i have been lucky enough to fall under the sway of wonderful teachers at every institution i attended. indeed, again, i've had wonderful -- i've met friends along the way, but at every school that i've attended, since high school, some of my very closest friends have been my teachers. >> host: you write in your n-word book, about the first time when you came home from the playground and related to your parents you'd been called the n-word and got different reactions from mom and dad. >> guest: i did. the first time -- i don't real mayor the first time i heard the infamous n-word. probably goes so far back, it's a word that has been around me all my life. the first time i got in a fight

over the n-word was when a little white boy called me nigger at recess, at tacoma elementary school. and we fought after school. and i came home and i remember at dinner my parents asked me, how was school today? what happened at school today? and i just related to them. i said everything was perfectly fine but this kid called me nigger at recess and we had a fight afterwards, and my parents had completely different reactions, with my father saying, yeah you did the right thing. if somebody calls you nigger, you can fight 'em. you have my permission. my mother, on the other hand, thought that was absolutely ridiculous. that what you should do is recognize anybody calling you that word meaning to assault

you, is really just a stupid person and you should ignore them in my book i talk about that -- i focus on that episode to show the way in which we do have a choice in terms of the way in which we respond to symbols and words. and frankly, over time, although i've followed both pieces of advice at various points in my life, over time i think that my mother had the better of the argument. >> host: well, we're going to start our conversation with our viewer with an e-mail and this is from pigeon. peter and professor kennedy, please, please say the n-word. note e not the n-word. when people say the n-word, they think that word. so why not avoid the extra syllables and awkwardness of that stupid phrase? the book tv audience is, i believe and hope, knowledgeable not to not think every use of

the n-word is racist and somebody beyond the pale of decency. i find the n-word much more offensive than that word. and you write about that. >> guest: i do. i use the term as we have already seen, i saying "nigger." i also sometimes say "n-word" and i do not objected when people use the term "n-word." there is such a thing as euphemism. we do cover up certain facts with euphemisms. and i feel woe for that, too. so i differ with the caller. i do not get angry when -- first, i have friends, very good friends, who, as a matter of just principle, never say the term "nigger." just never say it. and they never say it because to them this word is so horrible it has wrought so much have vac, it

has created so much pain that in their view, it's a matter of principle, they never say it. and obviously i don't follow that myself. but i think that that's the perfectly understandable position to take. so i don't object when people use the euphemism "n-word." sometimes i use it, sometimes i don't. >> host: i want to thank mr. pigeon for his e-mail and i choose not to use it. in "sellout" ever had the word directed at you? >> guest: oh, yes. when i wrote the book "nigger" some people said i was sell ought for book sales. that that itself was a politically irresponsible act. that was basically exploitativetive and, therefore,

i was showing insufficient racial loyalty in naming my book "nigger." and other position is have taken in my academic career have prompted people sometimes to label me a sellout, and is a indicate in my book, i've been very fortunate, i've been extremely privileged in my life. i mean, i'm a professor of harvard law school. very privileged position. and there's some people who look at that and presume that to attain that position, i have had to compromise my principles and engage in various forms of racial betrayal. so, to answer your question, yes, that is a term that has been directed at me.

and i'm quite sure that is one of the reasons why i wanted to write a book about it, in order to grapple with that part of my autobiography. >> host: when you hear the term "post racial" what do you think? >> guest: post racial. it's something of a blur. it's a word that has become rather popular. i don't use it. i mean, i know it's a word that is out there. if i use it, i usually put quotation marks around it because it's not altogether clear what it means. i suppose that maybe it means a society in which racial consciousness has withered away. perhaps that's what people have in mind. it seems to me if they were -- if it's to be used profitably, needs more definition. so it seems to me if one is going to use the word, one should probably define rather clearly what one means by it.

when i hear its, it's a blob word which can mean most anything and i steer away from it. >> host: in your 2003 book "interracial intimas sunday" you write, i myself aposematically of if not hostile towards claims of racial kinship, politics organized around concepts of racial identity. i am a liberal individualist who yearns for a society in which race has become obsolete as a significant social marker. >> guest: yeah. it's interesting. you are picking portions of my books which -- this is another one i think i would probably revise. when i wrote that, i was -- i believed what i said. and basically when i wrote that book, i was in a very strongly

individualistic mode, allergic to notions of group responsibility, group solidarity. and that's still a part of my persona. i don't think i would write that sentence again, though. i mean, i'm conflicted. i have strongly individualistic aspects, but i also am a race man. i also am a person who feels a -- i do feel feelings of racial kinship. and racial responsibility. and racial solidarity. and that is something of a struggle within me and within my writing, and i think that when i wrote that, i was actually

minimizing the race man aspects of myself. if i were redoing it, i would probably -- i would probably be clearer about the way in which -- i'm conflicted. i'm conflicted. and in some context i push further in one direction, and in' some context i push further in another. but both of those impulses are very much with me. you mention the book "interracial intimacies." that's one of my favorite books. one of the reasons -- it's probably my favorite book, and one of the reasons why it's my favorite book is because i have gotten more letters and e-mails

from people who have expressed gratefulness about that book than probably any other, and the reason why people have expressed gratefulness is because there's a big chunk of the become that has to do with adoption, and the question -- there was a legal question that was on the table when i wrote that book, and that legal question was, should the legal system in any way discourage interracial adoption? and i took the very strong position that, no, the legal system should not discourage interracial adoption. the legal system should not privilege same-race adoption at all. i took the position that what we should want to do is to encourage adoption, and adoption of all sorts is something that seems to me should be encouraged

there should be absolutely no privileging of same race adoption over interracial adoption. and over the years there have been many, many people who have written and who have said that this particular book gave either solace, comfort, encourage: the book has been used in legal briefs. and so in that way, my sort of individualism is coming out. what we should want is youngsters to be brought up by loving people. forget about the race thing. let's just have loving adults bring up children. and i still believe that very strongly. very strongly. at the same time, in other

contexts, am i a race man? yeah, i'm a race man. if we're talking about the montgomery bus boycott, it's very easy for me to get quite emotional in talking about the greatness of the black people of montgomery, alabama, in what was an extraordinary instance of community solidarity, banding together, to create one of the great moments in american history and, indeed, world history. so, do i have tensions within me that i work out through my becomes or i'm attempting to work out through my books? yes. >> host: can white people be race men? >> guest: sure. the history of the united states is white people being racist. thomas jefferson was very much

of a race man. ben franklin was very much of a race man. andrew jackson was a strong race man. in fact -- that's a good question you ask because they're -- there in a sense you have -- i'm brought face-to-face with, in my view, the ugly side of being a race man. some of the great people in the history of american statesmanship, white race men, john c. calhoun a race man? yes, he was. and we are the the worse off because of that. i guess i would -- you know, make a distinction. race man for what purpose?

do i embrace all blacks who are race men? no. no, i don't. so, if you are a race person, of whatever race, and your aim is to institutionalize the superiorworth of your group, am i for that? no. am i for that -- no. am i a race man that wants black racial superiority? no, i'm not. no, i'm not for that. i'm a race man that wants to use sentiment of racial solidarity to create a justice society for all people. so, i guess i'm a transitional race man. i'm a race man strategically.

i'm a race man that wants to create a cosmopolitan society that one day actually would see the withering away of racial consciousness. i'm a transitional race man. >> host: randall kennedy is our guest, harvard law professor, author of five books: sellout in 2008, and his most recent is the persistence of the color line which came out last year. hampton, virginia, you've been very patient. go ahead with your question or comment for professor kennedy. >> caller: good morning, i would like to ask what black authors whose works focus on cultural and political aspects such as amos wilson, -- and then also i

want him to explain on the argument that the advancement of the civil rights movement of the '60s and the brown vs. board of education decision -- the argue. it had more to do with the damage of black interest and economically and culturally because it took away from the ability of blacks to control their own social structures in their communities, because before that the communities were more established and functional. >> guest: i'll take the questions in reverse order. i think it's profoundly mistaken to believe that black americans were better off before the civil rights revolution. i've heard people say that. it seems to me that's right a segregation nostalgia.

black americans are better off after the wonderful civil rights revolution. people forget the degree to which segregation, not only involved white supremacy excluding blacks from various forums in american life, but how segregation also involved putting black institutions under the thumb of some black people who were themselves under the thumb of white supremacists. for, for instance, if one takes a look at the law of student expression, some of the classic court cases that validate the notion that students in public institutions have free speech rights, where did they come from? they came from black institutions, in the age of

segregation in which black principals or black college presidents, at the behest of their white bosses, threw black kids out of school, and opressed them, suppressed them, and a lot of people have forgotten that. a lot of people have forgotten the way in which, during the age of segregation, black entrepreneurs would take black customers for granted because black customers were essentially a captive market. segregation was a thoroughly evil system, and we should not in any sense rue its passing. black americans today are undoubtedly better off than they were 50 years ago. if we think about symbolism -- i

think symbolism is very important. you might say that sitting at the back of the bus was a matter of symbolism. in a certain way it was. if you're on a bus, everybody is going to the bus and getting their base place at the same time. did it make a difference that you sat at the back of the bus -- we don't have that today. we have problems today. i'm not saying we don't. we have massive problems today. it's still the case that with respect to any index of well-being, whether we're talking about about expectancies, income, education, incarceration rates, people of cor and in particular black people, are still getting the

short end of the stick. that's true. that's absolutely true. but as compared to 100 years ago, as compared to 70 years ago, as compared to 50 years ago, as compared to 30 years ago, black americans have come a long way. it's a tribute to black americans, tribute to american society as a whole. it's an absolutely extraordinary thing that as i sit talking today, the president of the united states is a black american. the voting rights act of 1965 -- 1965 is not long ago. as recently as 1965, there were part office the united states where black people could not vote because of, in some instances, sheer terror, or in other instances just out and out fraud or out and out just legal

chicanery. that has changed. we have a black president of the united states. we have a black attorney general of the united states. and one could go on and on and on. so, obviously from my statement i am not at all -- i'm hostile to the view that black people have in any sense gone backwards. no. black people have to their credit -- again, the credit of all of us -- to the credit of american democracy -- have advanced and have advanced in an absolutely extraordinary way. now, with respect to the first question, i recognize and have read some of the authors that were referred to.

those authors are not the authors that i have relied upon in my work or that i have taken inspiration from. the authors -- the people who have written about african-american culture over the years, who have most deeply influenced me, would be people like w. b. deboies. john hope franklin, the authors who i think -- the black american authors who have had the biggest imprints on me intellectually. >> host: this is book tv on c-span2. this is our monthly in depth program. randall kennedy is our guest, and this e-mail came from by

freda of al ban, california. why have previous attempts at achieving reparations for blacks in the past failed, such as randall robinson's attempt. please give me your thoughts on the possibility of a massive state intervention that would build strong health, educational, and good living conditions with a sustained focus on black inner cities and rural areas. >> guest: the reparation story is a complicated one. on one hand the american society has been quite allergic to any talk of reparations and has very strongly reputated claims for reparations. i think wrongly. i think reparations would be -- i'm for retch -- reparations, but as stated as reparations, black americans have not gotten them.

and that's not going to change anytime soon. why is that the case? a number of reasons. one reason is just ignorance of the american past and ignorance of the degree to which black americans have been opressed in american -- opressed in american society, not only informally bit by the state apparatus, and i mean the states of the united states. and the federal government. the federal government of the united states, both when it was the leading force behind slavery, and then after the abolition of slavery, a leading force behind segregation -- the united states government as a government acted terribly towards black americans, and the way in which it acted terribly

continues to reverberate in our society. after world war ii, there was a state policy of governmental policy, united states policy, to help people own homes, and a lot of the wealth of americans is in their homes. they that didn't work out so well for black americans because of a formal policy taken by the united states government that influences the black people, and influenced my family. and so ignorance is part of it. denial is part of it. many white americans are extremely allergic to anything that smacks at the accusation of the sort i just lodged. and that's -- and so reparations -- at one level has not borne fruit, but we live in

a complicated society. there's another way in which reparations in fact i think has borne fruit and that is through, for instance, affirmative action. affirmative action -- the main motive, power, behind affirmative action, is as far as i'm concerned, repertory justice. it's a type of reparations. it's not been packageled that way, partly for the reasons i indicated, this allergy to reparations. so we package affirmative action all sorts of other ways, diversity or something else. but the real motivation of what we refer to as affirmative action, is trying to make amends for the past. i think that as far as i'm

concerned, that's correct. we haven't made nearly enough in terms of amends for the past. but to the extent we have made some amends, that's a good thing. will we in the foreseeable future have a more powerful, more frank reparations policy of the sort that the caller suggested? no, we won't have that in the foreseeable future. i think unfortunately, but we won't have that. >> host: you write, i amenemope with leapt about the continuation of racial affirmative action programs. they have performed a great service but they do draw racial lines, a toxic activity that should be avoided absent compelling arguments to the contrary. >> guest: yes. this is the third time in our conversations that you have focused on a text which i would

revise. in fact, my next book, a book i'm working on really hard now, on -- is going to be a book about affirmative action. i'm going to turn in the map -- manuscript at end of summer. i'm a proponent of affirmative action. for some time i was fairly ambivalent. i was for it but i was very ambivalent. i was torn. now i'm not so torn. i'm for affirmative action in a much stronger way than i have been in the past. i do think it's true that in american life, when you use racial distinctions to allocate things, i do think that almost inevitably there is going to be a toxic effect. there is going to be the

exacerbation of resentments. so whenever you allocate things along racial lines, there going to be some negatives? yes, there are. so, there are going to be some debits, but i think with respect to affirmative action, the pluses have, over the past 30 years, way outweighed the negatives, and so on the affirmative action front, i'm a considerably stronger proponent now than i have been in the past. >> host: ahmad in new albany, indiana. you're on with professor randall kennedy. go ahead. >> caller: yes. the first question i have for you sir, is the transitional race men you spoke of. i would like to say i'm somebody like that. i wanted to know if you thought the work of john ralls would

help us move in the direction. i'm an arab american and a post-9/11 v.a., and my experience, since i've been back and while i was in, was that we kind of experienced some of the bad parts of the race man's kind of thing because the bad aspects of that is that we kind of rank which one -- which races are more important, which discriminations are worst, and in my situation african-american in the work place and outside the work place have casually used epithets towards middle easterner and terrorist, and i wanted to get your views on that, and i really appreciate your work and thank you very much. >> thank you very much for calling. >> host: can black people be racist? answer, yes.

and. >> guest: be've seen that, frankly, seen that throughout american history. black people have participated in terrible acts against native americans. black people have participated in american imperialist ventures. black people today, some, unfortunately, have participated in the racist taunting of people of middle eastern ancestry. black people are people. and so, you know, black people have done wonderful things, just like people of all backgrounds have done wonderful things. black people have done terrible things, just like people of all backgrounds have done terrible

things. and that's -- seems to me that is a point that needs to be underlined and when black people act out badly, mistreat people, act in a racist way, enact a way that shows disrespect for people based on sexual orientation, when black people act out badly, everybody aught to call them out, including other black people. ... act mac

..speech, first speech as a civl rights champion in announcing the boycott, he talked about the calls on black people to band together so that when the history books were written, historians would talk about the greatness of black people as a people. he was speaking very specifically. at the same time he was a cosmopolitan person who, at his best, recognized that we are all brothers and sisters, and should embrace one another as brothers and sisters. so i think that martin luther king, jr. himself is what i would call a transitional race man, and insofar as trying to get one's bearings in our

complicated racial environment, i can't think of a better person than martin luther king, jr. not that he had all the answers. not that i agree with him about everything, but he certainly, in spirit, had a wonderful spirit that still very much inspired me. >> host: next call comes from st. george, utah. go ahead, ron. ron, are you with us? last chance for ron. >> caller: can you hear me? >> host: go ahead with your question. >> caller: professor, i wanted to ask you about sellouts. how would you view a person who was, came to prominence basically as a voice in the inner cities, and then was given

a job, and he then ceased to continue to be that voice, or he a rather jaded the major part, in my opinion, of his rhetoric which was action. it's kind of like in the movie i'm going to get you, sucker, what he said but after all the brothers, they gave them jobs. i kind of understand that. you know. but this is a person that came to prominence as a voice of people of the inner cities. and then got a job ceased to be a voice with action. i think that your colleague, cornell west, confronted one such person who now is on msnbc, i don't know if i can say that, but he confronted him and called him a sellout. and actually told him, you

haven't done anything anyway. how do you do such person? i will take it off the air. >> guest: thank you very much for the call. i think people ought to be very careful when they use the sellout label. you know, we all do things for all sorts of reasons. we have different phases of our life. let's take the example that you just gave, the person who's in the inner-city, maybe a community activist, they needed to job and you don't hear from him. well, have to ask a lot of questions. one question i would want to know is, is he doing this strategically? is he, for instance, biding his time? pc taken the distinction that well, i've been giving -- i've been given this job, maybe i will be quiet for a while, be quiet for a season or two or

three, get seniority, get knowledge, get position, and then later i will attempt when i've got, you know, more power, to do things which i think i could not do now. now, people say that all the time, and you know, oftentimes when people say it they are just rationalizing their accommodation to new circumstances. they just are rationalizing their quiet since, there brought quiet. so that happens. but sometimes it doesn't happen. and so i think we need to be very careful before we say that somebody is engaged in what we call racial treason, selling out. do i think that there are people who sell out? yeah, i think there are people who sell out, but i want to live

to come to that conclusion. i want to know a lot about them. i want to have real clear proof before i call somebody a sellout. >> host: from the book, "sellout," you mention the montgomery bus boycott a couple times. you write this, the boycott is typically portrayed as an entirely voluntary enterprise, which the heroes of the story wage their struggle against racist villains without soiling their hands at all. the reality, however, would considerably more common to the the boycott was mainly animated by the commitment of many blacks to reform, if not a race, patterns of racial subordination that they rightly support. is a port to note however that the boycott was also reinforced i the knowledge that any black person caught riding the buses would face ostracism from his peers. he or she would be denounced as a seller, or words to that effect. >> guest: yes.

when the things i wanted to point out in my book is that again, we're all part of groups, and whenever you're part of a group, a group creates boundaries. and if you wander far enough outside the boundary, the group is going to sanction you. the united states government has a wall of treason, for instance. that's a nation state. every group has its boundaries, and from time to time a group will use coercion to whip people into shape it every time, for instance, there is a strike, when there's a strike, you know, the union calls the strike. somebody, a union member who crosses the picket line is going to be ostracized. that person is going to be called a scab. they will be all sorts of coercive, they will be all sorts of coercive force brought to bear on that person to try to with that person into shape.

now, that's just a fact of collective action. and i've are indicated my great admiration for the mahmoud bus boycott of -- montgomery bus boycott of 1955-56. was that a coercive aspect to the boycott? yes. there were some black people did want to ride the bus. if you had to go, if you had to go walk for five miles, if you really needed money, to support your family and you thought that you needed to get to your workplace, you might very well have been willing to ride in the back of that bus, even if most of your black neighbors took a different position. well, to make the boycott effective, word had to go out that listen, we as a community mean business, and if you cross

the community on this, we didn't you will have to pay a very steep price. that is what comes with collective action. and you know, just be realistic about it, that's what comes. unit, the united states of america when it goes to war as a draft. if you don't submit to the draft, then the powers that be say that you ought to, you go to jail. it's a game. collective action always as an aspect of coercion surrounding it, and that's one of the features i talk about in my book. >> host: robert in atlanta you on with author and professor randall kennedy. >> caller: thank you professor. i appreciate the opportunity to ask you a question. i was actually struck by your comments about your parents in that i think would've been a bit of a parallel universe. i had about 40 years ago experienced something similar

coming home from school, explaining it to my father who just returned from vietnam. he mentioned to me how that was unacceptable to even stand by and see that. as i returned the next day, with a bloody nose that result from standing next to the young man, my mother explained to him that was not the best approach or advice. she then took me out for ice cream. it's interesting how two different people from two different areas could have different -- my question is, the first is how media bias -- [inaudible] i'm struck by how allen west and justice kennedy are referred to by the community, and even in your examples, you mentioned president obama and the attorney general, but not justice kennedy.

around the dichotomy of how racial bias is treated where it seems that the african-american community has voted for president obama almost as a model block. and yet when others disagree, regardless of race, with some of his policies, they are often, too often regard as doing so out of racial prejudice, which really freezes the argument in its place. because short of being called a pedophile, being called a racist is probably the worst thing that you could be called into life committee. thank you, sir. >> guest: the are a number of interesting points in your comment. with respect to president obama and the african-american community, in my book, "the persistence of the color line," one thing that i was very keen

to recall is that president obama have to work awfully hard to get the african american community on his side. remember, early on in his campaign, many african-american activists and elected officials were in the camp of his rival, hillary clinton. it was only after barack obama won the iowa caucus and did well in some of the other primaries, and only after he really worked hard to get african-americans on his side, the african-american community went for him. it's true that black americans, especially in presidential politics, overwhelmingly favor the democratic candidate. i don't think that they are acting with a herd mentality. i don't think they are acting by

a hundred didn't of brainwashing. i don't think that they are acting unthinkingly. i think that the great mass of black americans size of the candidates and make a thoughtful decision about which candidate is going to have policies that, on balance, are going to best serve their interests. and i think that the great mass of black americans made up their minds that barack obama, and his policies, we do that. with respect to your comment about the term racist, i agree with you. racist is an interesting term. it is a word, an idea that fortunately has been, it's an idea that is highly stigmatizing american life, especially if

you're an intellectual politician but you do not want to be viewed as a racist. and that's a good thing. i mean, after all, there was a time not so long ago when politicians frankly didn't care. indeed, upon was a time not so long ago when some politicians would have liked the virtu as a racist. that is no longer the case, and that's a good thing. ironically, there is a flipside to that. racist has become such a stigmatizing term that sometimes people are afraid to use the term, even when it fits. because if you use the term and then somebody calls you on it and says well, i don't agree, why are you calling somebody such and such a person a racist, it turns out that if you cannot give a good persuasive reason for why you called such and such

a person a racist, then it flips and you become stigmatized for having called the person such a stigmatizing term. and so sometimes now in american life, we have actually gone to, you know, people don't say so-and-so is racist. they say so and so is racially insensitive, or some other a leeward. because you don't want to be caught out calling somebody a racist and then not be able to persuasively back up your claim. so, it's an interesting word. it's probably a word that could stand a book. >> host: in your nearly 30 years of teaching have you run across students they have determined are racist? >> guest: i have had a few. and very few very few, but have there been a couple? yeah, there have been a couple. but i see very few. you know, one of the great,

again, i have been so privileged in my life, i spoke earlier about the associations i've had with respect to family, with respect to france, with respect to colleagues, with respect to teachers. with my students. all of the books that i write are tried out on my students. we have these things -- we have these captive audiences called classes, and in my classes i tried out my books. and my students respond and give me great feedback, which i put to use when i, you know, in rewriting and rewriting and rewriting these manuscripts. and my students have been just

wonderful in terms of helping me to put together the book. i have students from a wide range of ideological positions. some of the students with whom i've been closest personally have been very conservative students. and they gave me their feedback, just like students who were closer to my ideological hopeless the situation they give me their feedback, and it's a wonderful thing. but students, too, are part of the reason why i feel like i had been a very privileged person. >> host: michael in fort mojave, arizona, please go ahead with your question or comment for professor randall kennedy. >> caller: yes. gentlemen, this brought back to

my mind 1965, shortly after johnson signed the civil rights act, the watts riot broke out. and some comments that johnson made that, i'm paraphrasing of course, that he felt very dismayed that after all he had done for the black people, that they are writing in watts. well, i kind of look at those, a point in my life where, on my own inside of my head i looked at mr. johnson exit, civil rights act are passionate you didn't solve the problem. and maybe you've got to put on the attention on the. but the real reason i'm calling here is, i see a source of violence in all communities that is extreme in our communities. and that is, a violation of two

constitutional provisions. to me it says that they mean it when they say congress shall not pass any bill. now, as i understand, it's a law that targets an identifiable group for punishment without benefit of a trial. so, if you find somebody with a choice or a hash pipe or some controlled substance, he's in the court. he hasn't done anything -- >> host: we will leave your comments there and get a response from randall kennedy. >> guest: well, the color makes two points to which i want to refer. when you speak of lyndon johnson, it's quite a striking thing. 1965 voting rights act, marks in a way the high point of the civil rights revolution, and as

the caller indicated, within weeks you have this outbreak in watts which really did show the way in which the civil rights revolution, for all of the good that it did, left untouched important injustices in american life. injustices that have not gone away. the watts riot, followed by the riots in new york, philadelphia, other places, showing the way in which particularly inner-city america still suffered grievously under a combination of racial oppression and class injustice. the civil rights revolution really did not transform that

problem. and, indeed, nothing has transformed that problem. we are still grappling with that problem. and the caller is right to bring our attention to it. with respect to the question of black people and the interaction of many mike people with the administration of criminal justice, that was the subject of my first book, "race, crime and the law." that is still a very sore point because with respect to virtually every aspect of the administration of criminal justice, we have a race problem, in every aspect, in every area in america, whether it be the west, whether it be the northeast, whether it be the southeast, everywhere in america we still have a real problem

with respect to racial discrimination in the administration of criminal justice. that was the subject of my first book. it's probably a subject to which i will return. and it's still a big problem in american life. >> host: , randall kennedy wrote maybe the crack powder distinction and, indeed, the entire war on drugs is mistaken. even if these policies are misguided, been mistaken is different from being racist and the difference is one that matters greatly. >> hostgreatly. >> guest: yes. let's talk about the crack powder distinction because there's been a lot of talk about that. in fact, there's been legislation the last year or so.

the governor country and government passed a law. after a certain amount of crack, if you're a certain amount of crack, you are punished much more harshly than you get a certain amount of powder cocaine. there was a so-called 100 to one ratio. that is the diminished somewhat. now i think it is 18 to one ratio. there are many people claim that the crack powder distinction in terms of punishment was racist. the stories are as i detail in my book and assisted believe is quite complicated. it's complicated in the following way. when i was writing my chapter of out race and the war on drugs, and i did the following. i went to the computer, and i went to the congressional record. and i typed in crack cocaine.

i wanted to see who was the first person that really talk about crack cocaine. and who were the people who were behind cracking down on crack. because i thought, representative charles rangel, and other mayors of the congressional black caucus, their position when they went to congress, they said listen, they were in congress and they said listen, our communities are being ravaged by this new form of cocaine called crack cocaine. now, when things happened that ravage white communities, there's action, people are concerned about it. but when things happen in black communities all too often there is a difference. we want to crack down on crack. the congress did crack down on crack. and i think the congress crack down on crack in a way that led to, mind you, tragic results,

but if we're talking about the crack story we can't forget the role that black representatives played in it, thinking that they were helping their community. now, i think that they were wrong. i don't think that they were trying to be wrong but i don't think that they were ill intent. their intentions were good intentions. but it miscarried. i think frankly that the whole war on drugs has miscarried. again, not out of bad content but sometimes people make mistakes. and so my purpose in writing that sentence that you quoted is to say that when we go back we need to recognize that there are all sorts of motivations that people have. sometimes when people do something that we think has led to bad results, it's not because

people intended the bad result. it's not because people were malevolent. people make mistakes. and it seems to me that this is important, not just as a matter of analysis, but it's also important as a political matter. because if you are confronting somebody and you think that day, you disagree with what, you know, some policy, there is a big difference between saying that policy is a racist policy, and that policy is a distinctive policy. et say that that policy is a racist policy, what consequence may be caught in part because racism, let me get back to the earlier call, sometimes, you know, a politician has been in favor of policy, you say i'm against that policy, it's a racist policy.

that politician may be very defensive. no, i would never have voted for a racist policy. how dare you call me a racist, how dare you say that i will be in favor of a racist policy. that person might say, i'm not a racist, i would not be for a racist policy. and he might in fact entrench themselves, they might embrace that policy out of a human instinct, which is a defensive instinct and i'm not a racist, i know i'm not a racist, how dare you say it. i'm really indignant. i'm going to double down on it. that is a new number one. scenario number two, i think that your policy is mistaken. you might have had good intentions with the. in fact, let's assume you have good intentions, but we studied it, it's have the following effects, we should change it.

very often, not always, but very often, a person confronting that will have a different attitude. because after all we all make mistakes. we all make mistakes. if you tell me i've made a mistake, i will revisit that. you know, more of a mind to listen to you. you know, fine. i made a mistake. i made a mistake, thank you for pointing that out, now let's try to reform the. that's what legislation is about. so i think we need to be very careful with the racist label, and with respect to the crack cocaine-powder cocaine distinction, is raise part of the? i think race can be part of it. so for instance, you might say which legislators have been more willing to revisit the issue if the crack powder distinction had

gone to white communities, what it had done to black communities? i think the answer is probably so. so is there a race of distinction made in the way congress has reacted? may be so, but still i think we need to be very careful in labeling action as racist, when it's possible that they were not racist in their origins. they were merely mistaken. >> host: this is book tv on c-span2. go ahead. >> caller: good morning, professor. first of all, the first question i have is about reparations. i want to offer to the, you said affirmative action was part of reparations. well, affirmative action did not have anyone that was affected. the families that was affected

-- if you put it into a monetary value, it would also help the american economy because this money would go back into the economy, buying businesses, homes, stuff like that. my question is, my first question is this, do you think the president obama as a black man should apologize for slavery for united states of america? and me being a black man and a muslim, what you think about louis farrakhan and his teachings? >> guest: a couple things. first come you're absolutely right in your comment about affirmative action and the type of reparations when you make the comment that affirmative action helped some people but other people. one of the criticism of affirmative affirmative action has been that as it works itself out, it usually helps those who are better off in the black community. those who actually probably bear

fewer scars from slavery and segregation. that's one argument has been used as a criticism of affirmative action. and it's a good criticism. it is true. it is true, but sometimes you have to get, you know, what redistribution you can, and that's why i am basically a supporter of affirmative action, even with its deficiencies and its inadequacies. but you did put your finger on an important inadequacy about affirmative action as it usually plays itself out. now, you asked the question about the barack obama and the apology for slavery. it's an interesting question. i think that there should long have been, long ago have been an apology for slavery.

one question that people have with respect to apologies though is the problem of the hollow apology, the problem of the former lake apology. one hears apologies all the time in life and in politics and in our culture. you want an apology to mean something. and i think that it would be worthwhile thinking about how society could craft, you know, whether we should. maybe we should have, maybe there should be, i don't know, commission about this. i know that representative conyers has for a number of years saw to the commission to discuss just this issue. one of the point on the reparations point, there was a wonderful teacher at yale law school and number of years ago named boris who wrote a book called the case for black

reparations, still a book very worth reading. and one thing that boris said, when people talk about reparations, in his view people talk about slavery too much. as soon as you talk about reparations people immediately talk about slavery. and one problem with slavery is because when people talk about slavery they think about it being so long ago. and when you reparations, people say there are no more slaves, no more slave masters, that happened a long ago. so boris said, as far as he was concerned it was much more useful to talk not about slavery. but to talk about segregation. there are millions of americans alive today who were the direct victim of segregation in the tranny. my brother, my dear brother i'm sure is watching right now, citizen of south carolina, could

she go to university of south carolina? know she could not. she had to go to the south carolina state. she got a good education at south carolina state. she's proud she went to south carolina state. they could not go to the university of south carolina. when my mother graduated from south carolina state university and wanted to get higher education, a master's degree in education, the state gave her money to go out of state. she went to nyu to get her masters in education because no such degree what was offered for black people in south carolina. she was in direct victim of segregation, and she's living just like millions of other black americans are living. so it's a discussion of reparations and whether this should be reparations. we should not think that, we should not have our minds to

focused on what happened prior to 1865. in the united states, we had a formal hypocrisy that lasted far later than that. like i said, 1965 voting rights act, and it comes closer, formal racial discrimination and victims of formal racial discrimination are all around us. and i think if we talk about reparations we should remember that. >> host: patrick, miami, good afternoon. >> caller: thank you for taking my call. i was struck by your concept of the sellout. it is a word that has been put against myself before. i think it's there and not, that

concept is sellout weathers a lot of ground to be covered. i'm wondering what your thoughts are on how we begin to shift the paradigm so that the achievements that we associate with selling out are not viewed with a pejorative way i'd like to me at large, but as we deny the concept that you talk about so adequately. thank you. >> guest: it's a complicated thing. and again, we have to remember that black america is tremendously complex. there are all sorts of positions. we just finished with black history month. and all through black history month, this month and historically, a lot of pride is expressed about black american first, black americans who have succeeded in all spheres, you know, business, law, inventing things, medicine. and so, people in the audience

should not think that all black americans look askance at black americans who have succeeded. there is a very strong tradition in black america of applauding black americans who have gone out in society and proven their mettle. at the same time, there is this suspicion that is still there, and you know, even in places, even in places of privilege, in "sellout" i talk about why i wrote a. the one reason i wrote it, in glasgow, harvard law school clearly a place of tremendous privilege, there's still a certain anxiety. i have students who come to me, we'll be talking about careers,

and there will be a certain sort of anxiety expressed, almost a feeling of express with people saying things like well, i really don't know if i want to pursue this sort of career because if i do this, won't i be a mere assimilationist, won't i be selling out, won't i be distancing myself from my people? you know, my response is, listen, we live in a huge society, there are people needed all over the place. do your thing. if you want to be a great tax attorney, be a great tax attorney. you are not going to be selling out the if you want to be a merger and acquisition attorney, if you want to be a corporate attorney, do it. do your thing.

that's what i tell students to do. just like, just like thurgood marshall did his thing. i worked for thurgood marshall, it was a great expense of my life. always been a hero to me. but sometimes i get the feeling that people think a person like thurgood marshall, they speak as if he was, you know, a martyr, that he was being a civil rights attorney and that it was all a matter of drudgery for them. it wasn't a matter of drudgery for them. he was doing what he wanted to do. he loved doing what he wanted to do. that's one of the reasons why he was so excellent at doing what he did. and i would say that if you want to be, whatever kind of lawyer you want to be, defense lawyer, you want to be a prosecutor, knock yourself out, grabbed a passion, and do it. and don't be worried about this

notion of, you know, am i doing enough to help my community? to tell you the truth, i would very much subordinate that way of thinking. if you are a good person, acting within the law and advancing yourself, you, especially if you're a black american, if you're doing those things you are probably inspiring others, and that is a good thing. don't worry frankly about the sellout concern. do your thing. that would be, that's my advice. >> host: this is "in depth" on book tv on c-span2. this month, professor and author randall kennedy is our guest. every time we have an author on we always ask for some of the

influences, favorite books and what they're reading. we will show that to you now, along with a little bit of video from professor kennedy talking about interracial intimacies, and we will continue taking your calls after this.

>> a couple of reasons. the question was, why a book elationshi >> host: go back to rsons. interracial relationships. think there's a variety of reasons, one is i think that interracials intimacy, these sorts of re relationships which i'm most re, concerned, sexual relationships, marital relationships, familial

relationships, our understudy to. a l i teach at a law school, i teaci at harvard law school. inteach on race relations, law, in such a course there is no, sa people expect for you to spend t long time talking about the lawn rce wgulation of race at the workplace, the regulation of face with respect to housing o markets, the regulation of race with respect to education. spent a lot of time on that. people don't think about spending a lot of time on the rt regulation of race with respect to marital intimacy, sexualut intimacy. now, if you think about it, if you think about how people get jobs, if you think about how yot people conceive of themselves, everything but heoow people lean about the world relationships ae incredibly important.

friendship as an institution, dating as an institution, is incredibly important. and one thing that drew me to this subject was the extent to which people actually did not talk about it and actually thought >> host: we're back live with professor randall kennedy, and "interracial intimacies," professor, you write that you wanted that book to provoke readers to rethink their casual reliance. on racial distinction in their private affairs. what does that mean? >> guest: so, for instance, in friendships, in dating, in marriage, i think that for many people there sort of habitual, just by how the, you go to someplace and are looking around, who are you going to talk with, we race coded.

and we go to people who, our society has told us, we should go to. and i am saying that the self-conscious and recognize that frankly we need to undo the habits that we have inherited. and we need to self-consciously seek out other sorts of people. there's nothing wrong with that. people are people. let's go outside of our expectations, let's go outside of the normal bounds, let's open ourselves up to people that we would not have normally open ourselves up to. that's what i would say. encourage in interracial intimacies. >> host: we're talking with randall kennedy who is also the author of five books. these are his five books.

his first book that came out in 1997 was "race, crime and the law," followed by the inward book. "sellout" came out in 2008, and finally the persistence of the colorblind is his most recent book but it cannot last year. professor kennedy indicated he is working on a six book, which is due when? >> guest: it will be published early next year. it will be published in the spring of 2013, and it will be a book about affirmative action. >> host: does it have a title? >> guest: you know, it does not have a working title. it's going to give up the law and politics of affirmative action. one of the reasons why my publisher wanted me to expedite the book is because the supreme court just decided that it would

review and affirmative action case involving the university of texas law school. so my publisher is assuming that next spring, that's going to be an issue very much on the front pages. and they want to have my book out around that time. by the way when i mention my publisher, i said earlier in our conversation, i feel so fortunate in my associations, and one aspect of that has to do with the people who actually produced my book at in legal academia, most legal academics sort of make their mark through writing, writing articles for long reviews. i read for a number of years law review articles and enjoy doing it to one of my longer bootable articles -- an article about the

administration of criminal justice. and a fellow read that article by the name of errol mcdonald, he's an editor at pantheon books. he called me up and said this was an interesting article, you should make it into a book. and i said, you know, i've been thinking about writing a book, and fine, we talked a few minutes and the next day i had a contract. and i have been with them ever since. he got me into writing books. he's been my editor ever since, pantheon has been my publisher, and i must say i feel tremendous sense of gratitude and gratification through my association with errol mcdonald and others, and the people at pantheon books who helped me put out these cultural productions. >> host: we'll put the numbers up on the screen in case you like to participate in a

conversation with professor randall kennedy. you can also contact us electronically. ote at c-span.org is her e-mail address, or twitter, twitter.com/booktv if you want to leave a comment there as well. in "the persistence of the color line," and writing about the 2008 election you talk about the clintons and the race card, but you reference an article you wrote for the atlantic in 2001 called the triumph of robust tokenism. what is that about? >> guest: the atlantic magazine wanted an article, they asked a bunch able to write articles about the legacy of bill clinton's presidency, and he wanted me to talk about bill clinton and african-americans. and basically what i said was that bill clinton got an extraordinary recession from african-americans, a lot of applause from african-americans.

i thought that african-americans frankly gave him too much applause, had credited him excessively. i thought that much of what he had done fell under the rubric of tokenism. .com and here's where the title came in, i said, you know, it was robust tokenism and i don't see your tokenism. tokenism can be imported. oftentimes tokenism is used as a put down. merely symbolic. but i think symbolism is, you know, can be very important. and i thought that bill clinton had done certain things which furthered the overall project of inclusion, the inclusion of black america at the highest

levels of american government. he furthered that, and i wanted to give him, you know, he is due credit for that. not too much credit but do credit. and that's what that article was about. >> host: next call for professor kennedy comes from haiti in lakewood washington. go ahead. are you with us? are you hearing anything, professor? >> guest: no. >> host: we have to move on. we will go to milton in philadelphia. high, milton. >> caller: hello? >> host: go ahead. >> caller: i have problems with black conservatives is this, i understand that you issues with president obama and his policies, right? but this criticism of him about the fact that he has to produce his birth certificate, and these comments that he is not one of us, he was raised by his father from kenya, he's a socialist,

and all these attacks against him, you cannot help see that it is racially motivated. and then you have references from florida like west and all of these other black conservatives, what are they out there denouncing this criticism of president obama? >> guest: okay, first of all agree with the caller that some, not all, not all by any means, but some of the criticism of president obama, as far as i am concerned, is certainly fueled by racial animus, racial resentment. some of it is just out and out, some of it is out and out racist. some of it is a little bit more subtle, and so i agree with the caller. i agree with the caller that there has been an insufficient

criticism of the racist attacks on president obama that have come from conservatives. now, there are two other aspects of the caller's remarks that i would like to note. one has to do with the whole issue of president obama, you know, was he born in the united states. clearly he was born in the united states. one point that i don't think has been paid much attention to, however, is the wisdom of that part of the united states constitution that says that the president of the united states must be born in the united states. i think that part of the united states constitution ought to be, ought to be rescinded. we out of a constitutional amendment that removes that part of our constitution. there are at least seven perfect people who have won the

congressional medal of honor who are naturalized citizens of the united states. there are thousands of people who are buried in arlington national cemetery who paid the ultimate price on the half of the united states, who are naturalized citizens of the united states. there are millions of people in the united states who were born in some of the country. why shouldn't they be eligible to be president of the united states? we have at people, we that's estate who were born abroad. we've had supreme court justices who were born abroad. i think that's, frankly, it should be no law to be born abroad. the president of the united states, barack obama, was not born abroad, and many of those who have raised that as an objection to him, i think our inability in a sort of code language. they don't want to be viewed as

racist so they come up with some other reason to oppose the president. i think that is going on just like the caller indicated and i think about to be criticized. what i did want to put in there that the whole idea that shattered a natural born citizen of the united states to be president, it seems to me that that is an antiquated and mistaken notion. >> host: no wonder you like sanford levinson are. >> guest: i do. i am a big fan. >> host: this e-mail, i've not read any of your books but now i want to. my question, among the sellouts in your bookmarks and actually talk about politics in the gop and the persistence of the color line. >> guest: yes. they can be. they don't message of have to be at all. the fact of the matter is that black america is ideologically varied, just like latino

america, just like white america, just like the asian american -- just like asia america. nina, there are black people who are quite conservative in various ways. there are black episcopalians but there are black religious groups of various sorts. to claim that any of these people are necessarily sellouts? not at all. and i again am loath to use the term sellout. in my view, you have, i want to define it very, very, very narrowly. and so i think, for instance, there are relatively few sellouts, period. i want to have a very narrow definition, because that term, that idea, that notion of

traitorous, it's a complicated notion, it's a tricky notion, it's a notion that he is quite destructive. instead of calling somebody a sellout, and by the way, it should be remarked that sometimes, sometimes people who are sellouts our heroes. think about, for instance, think about a white person who grew up with the ku klux klan's been for neighbors, who turned against the claim. and their neighbors said oh, you are a sellout. yes, they were sellouts. they were traitors, god bless them. so any, the fact that coming in, the fact that you are a traitor is not even in itself -- a traitor against what? what about germans who turned against islam? with a traitors yet, they were traitors. god bless them. so the term, you know, still has

a coveted one. it's not even necessarily a bad thing. it depends on what you're selling out. and can one be a black conservative and not be a sellout? yes. one can be a black conservative, not be a sellout. i'm not conservative. i think it would be better to challenge people based on their views but if you disagree with somebody, you think this, i think it's wrong for this, this and this reason, let's talk about the substance of the issues, not turn, you know, not turn the discussion into what is often just a nakedly ad hominem discussion about who is a traitor and who isn't. it often doesn't take in where we should want to go. >> host: and in "sellout"

randall kennedy rights to use a black spies to maintain surface of black activists was ongoing, systematic and extensive. in 1967 the fbi launched a ghetto informant program aimed at enabling officials to monitor the tenor of public opinion in black communities. .. >> guest: has had to deal with this problem. let me get back to the

caller's -- can't -- have there been people who have quite literally been paid to infiltrate black organizations, um, at the behest of, you know, white supremacist organizations? the answer is, yes, it happened in mississippi. the mississippi sovereignty commission paid black informants to, you know, tell on their neighbors. and that is a part of black american history that has not gotten, frankly, enough attention. it's an interesting part, a very disturbing part, um, but a part of history that ought not be surprising. again, every group has had to grapple with this. um, the episode that you mentioned, especially with respect to the black panther party, does show the way in which when you start trying to find out who's a traitor, sometimes the very effort to do

that is worse than just having a traitor amongst your midst. because it does lead to, you know, paranoia and headaches groups very -- makes groups very often vulnerable to outside manipulation which is one of the things, unfortunately, that they sell, the black panther party. >> host: franny lee tweets in, my understanding of sellout is someone that made it with help from others, a group, but tends to forget about them, doesn't give back. >> guest: well, that's the definition that some people have. many people use it like that. i would be a little bit more or demanding given the harshness of the term, and the consequences that flow from being labeled, um, a sellout. but it's true that, you know,

some people just view it as, you know, people who sort of made it up the ladder with the help of other people and then show selfishness thereafter. >> algiers lady tweets in to you, professor, in the structure of black classes, have you ever ventured in the average black life by living within? the book, "black like me." >> guest: i'm sorry? >> host: have you ever ventured into the average black life by living within, is what it says. for example, or -- for example, black like me. >> guest: well, you know, this is an instance in which i didn't have to do what the guy in "black like me" did. i guess i could write a book like "black like me," but the journalist had to do a whole bunch of things to make himself dark so that he would be taken as a black person. i don't have to do that. i can go to practically every aspect -- any place in the

united states and given the way i look people will assume that i'm black, and, you know, and i've traveled pretty widely. i've indicated in the past that i've lived a very privileged life, as i have. um, one of the aspects of that privilege is that i have, i have had the benefit of seeing a wide range of black american life. so my parents were not wealthy people at all. we were, you know, just i'd say, you know, working class folks living this a working class community in washington d.c. spent a lot of time growing up in the deep south with, with my aunts, with my grandmother, big

mama n south carolina. so i've seen a pretty wide swath of black american life, and that, i think, has stood me in good stead. as i've written these various books about race relations in america. >> host: t. murphy e-mails in to you, professor, please comment on michelle alexander's thesis in the new jim crow that today's system of has incarceration is a reinvention of the under caste of slavery and jim crow. >> guest: yeah. well, i think that professor alexander's book has been useful to, in publicizing and in highlighting the problem and the injustice of mass incarceration

and hyperincarceration and hyperpunitiveness in america. the united states imprisons a larger percentage of its population, by far, by far than any other advanced society in the world. and it does this, in my view, needlessly. i think that, um, we are creating needless misery in the way in which we are just wasting lives by putting people in prison who ought not be in prison. and be so i'm glad that she's shone a light on that, and i think her title, "the new jim crow," has focused people's attention on that. on the other hand, do i have

some criticisms with the title? i do, because, you know, the system of jim crow segregation was a very specific system. it was a function of explicit white supremacy. what we have now in america is more complex, and i think that we need to start working on creating new vocabularies. i mean, the new jim crow? the united states, who is the top official overseeing the united states prison system? i mean, who is the ultimate boss of the united states prison system? the boss of the united states prison system is the attorney general of the united states. eric holder is a black american.

well, that doesn't fit with the new jim crow analogy. i mean, in the jim crow system you didn't have black attorneys general. in jim crow you didn't have a black chief executive of the united states. in the, you know, jim crow you didn't have black officials in the cities. i mean, how many black officials do you have with, you know, chiefs of police, black judges. the fact of the matter is that you do have black officials, strategically placed, who are also implicated in this terrible system that we have. and so i'm, i mean, the jim crow analogy does capture attention, but i also think that it

obscures important new features of our society. so i want us to develop some new words, new, a new slow cook lair -- vocabulary to deal with issues that are truly new in american life. >> host: daniel in wood judge ridge, new jersey. thanks for holding, you're on with author and professor randall kennedy on booktv. >> caller: hello, such a privilege to talk to you. i have learned so much from your books, particularly the race, crime and law and the other books. i consider you in my tradition a guru, so it's such a great privilege to be able to talk to you. i'm also an add jupt professor -- adjunct professor at john jay college of criminal justice, and the question i wanted to ask you was about the criminal justice system. and it seems to me, and i'm in

the process of writing a new book called "the last plantation -- >> guest: "the last plantation"? >> caller: the criminal justice system and blacks in the united states. it seems to me you also had a question, a discussion little bit earlier about the injustice of crack and cocaine study. for me it seems the more fundamental question is about really the racial implications of the war on drugs. the war on drugs if you look at historically, and i will be very brief here because i want to listen to your answer, has been compared historically to the black -- [inaudible] immediately after the imemancipation. >> guest: see -- first of all, thank you very much for your

compliments, and i have tremendous respect for your institution and the person who heads it, your president, jeremy travis. um, i think that do we have a race problem in the administration of criminal justice at every level? answer, yes, we do. so i'm not saying that we, you know, that there's not racial discrimination in the administration of criminal justice. there is. and that's an important feature of it that we need to continue to attack. still, there have been important changes. you mentioned the war on drugs. i mean, there are very important sectors of black america that are, you know, invested in the war on drugs. some of the people who are the most hawkish of our elected

politicians on the war on drugs are black politicians. so it's not simply just a white/black thing. i think that, for instance, on the war on drugs, i don't think the best way of attacking the war on drugs is, frankly, to racialize the issue. i think what we need to do is ask what do we think about the war on drugs on its merits? you know, there are lots of white people that are in prison, i think wrongly, because of the war on drugs. um, i think that the war on drugs is misleading, i think it's mistaken, i think it is, um, cruel in certain respects, i think that it has fueled a tremendous violation of civil liberties in america. there are lots of reasons outside of the racial context, there are lots of reasons to be against the war on drugs.

i think that there needs to be more attention, frankly, placed on those. i don't want to forget about the race issue. it's there, but sometimes it takes up, actually, too much attention. and i think that people haven't heard enough sometimes about some of the other reasons, nonracial reasons why the war on drugs, in my view, has been a real disaster. i would urge you, too, in thinking about your, you know, your upcoming book, there are some people, professor alexander, there are others who try to analogize older racial regimes to the present system. again, it has certain benefits, but i think it often obscures more than it illuminates. >> host: professor kennedy,

christopher tweets in to you: since you are now an opponent of affirmative action, how do you prediction the supreme court will evaluate affirmative action when it hears fisher this fall? >> guest: yeah. i think in the case fisher v. texas which the supreme court said a few weeks ago it's going to decide in the next term, i think it's highly likely that the supreme court will limit racial affirmative action more. it has already limited it, it's allowed it, it's allowed it some breathing room, but over the past ten years, fifteen years the courts, including the supreme court of the united states, has increasingly limited the scope of racial affirmative action. i think in this coming case, the fisher case, the supreme court will limit it more. i don't think that the supreme court will say that race cannot under any circumstances be taken into account in selecting students. i think it'll give it some

breathing room but less breathing room. i think, by the way, that that will be an unfortunate step that the supreme court will take, but i suspect that that is the step that is forth coming from the court. >> host: this is an e-mail from keith williams in homewood, alabama. professor kennedy, you admitted your feelings of black racial solidarity have grown over the years. what is your opinion on similar feelings growing in the american white community as it transitions in numbers from majority to plurality and even minority status over the next several decades? >> guest: uh-huh, it's a good question. um, and here's what i say. i recall earlier amending my comment about racial solidarity. i'm, i guess i'm only for racial

solidarity if it is on behalf of some other wider, um, goal. so i'm not for black solidarity merely for the purpose of black solidarity. i'm for black solidarity in circumstances, in a political struggle where black solidarity is useful to change things that we'll have a more just society. i'm not for black solidarity just for black solidarity's sake. i'm not for black people, you know, just because i'm black and i just, you know, want black people to do well. i want a more decent, just society. and so if people are banding together in a particular moment to create a more decent, just

society for everyone, okay. that's all right with me. but if people are gathering together narcissistically or tribal listically, you know, i'm against that. whether it's white, black, anybody. >> host: when you think about the history of race relations in the u.s., where does the case of henry louis gates, your harvard colleague, where does that fit, and how significant is that? it's what you write about -- >> guest: so when you said the case of henry louis gates, you're talking about when he was arrested in his own home? >> host: yes. >> guest: first of all, henry louis gates jr. is a university professor -- there are not very much very many of them, it's the highest level of professor at harvard university, he's

certainly one of the most well known professors in the united states, probably the world -- he's a very privileged character, a very impressive person. and he, you know, one of the leading, most influential intellectuals in american life. he had at his disposal in america what the great w.e.b. duboise could only have imagined to have had. so when you say henry louis gates jr., you know, the trajectory of his life is an illustration of how american life has opened up tremendously over, you know, the past 100 years. at the same time, here you have this guy, a university professor. he takes a trip to china, he comes home, he finds that his

door won't open. is so he and the man who drove him home, you know, cab driver or livery driver, they jiggle with the door. a neighbor says, calls up the place and says i don't know for sure whether there's a break-in going on, but there's two guys who look like they're, you know, just trying to jigger with the door to get in. i don't know what's going on. police officer goes over. by this time, henry louis gates is in his house. the police officer comes in, asks him for identification. professor gates is not too happy about that but, ultimately, shows him identification showing that he lives in the house, it's his house. they have words, the officer essentially lures him outside. professor gates is screaming at the officer, the officer arrests him l for disorderly conduct. now, in my view the officer was wrong in arresting professor

gates. even if it was the case that professor gates was not being deferential to the officer, even if it was the case that professor gates was hollering at the officer. police officers carry around weapons, they should be very well trained. they should have discipline. they should have enough training such that they don't get unhinged simply because somebody is giving them lip. so, you know, i don't think that somebody should be arrested for giving a police officer lip. that's essentially what henry louis gates was arrested for, i think that's a bad thing. but it doesn't end there. we're talking about the issue because there's a presidential press conference, and somebody asks the president of the united states what do you think about this police officer arresting henry louis gates jr.? well, here we have a situation with a very famous professor,

and who does he ask? he asks the first black president of the united states. well, again, this, too, is an illustration of our remarkable moment. the president is a black president of the united states. he gives an answer that a lot of people don't like, he says, well, i don't know, you know, i'm not saying that this was racist in anyway, i'm just saying it seems to me it was a stupid thing that the police officer did. now, some people interestingly enough made it seem as though barack obama had accused the police officer of acting this a racist way. he did not. all he said was that the police officer acted stupidly. i agree with president obama on that, but the president backed off of that. he had sort of the famous beer summit. i think here we have an interesting clash of things.

on the one hand, we have many black men who are not as privileged as henry louis gates. they didn't get out of jail immediately. there are many black men who would probably have languished in jail for a good long while. not having done anything worse than henry louis gates jr. he was protected by his privilege. but again, we will have a race problem in american life but, wow, have things changed. wow, have things changed since the time that my parents left south carolina fleeing jim crow segregation with their young kids. things have changed quite dramatically, and, you know, we should be happy. however you feel about barack obama, whether you were for him or against him, we as americans should feel happy that there has

been substantial progress on the racial front in these united states. >> host: katrina in detroit, thanks for holding. you're on with randall kennedy. >> caller: thank you so much. mr. kennedy, i've never heard of you before, but i do promise to go out and read as much of your material as i can. >> guest: thank you. >> caller: i want to respond to the veteran, um, the arab veteran saying that african-americans are racist. i would just like to ask you a question as where do we draw that line? african-americans have thefer -- never in all of our history had any kind of hate group that just went out and targeted different groups and made cartoons about them. what i believe what he's trying, what he's misinterpreting is that when they come into -- every foreigner has come into

black communities, we've always accepted them, and then once we note that the products are not as good, their smell, they don't hire anybody there the community, then once we voice those opinions to them or those concerns to them, all of a sudden we are labeled as racist. finish and i want you to say is that, is that attitude of voicing your concerns about businesses in the community being a racist? >> host: got the point, katrina, thank you. >> guest: okay. now, here's what it's saying. of course if there is a business in a community and you think that the person is selling bad goods or overcharging or refusing to hire people because

of their race, of course those concerns should be voiced. and i have no objection whatsoever to raising such concerns. that's perfectly fine. but i don't think, actually, that that's what the previous caller was saying. i think what the previous caller was saying that, i think what he was saying was that he had seen or experienced instances in which black americans had objected to, let's say, a business not because the business was doing anything bad, but solely because of the background of the business person, whether the business person was a person from, you know, from the middle east or a person from, you know, from korea or something else. and the person was saying isn't it a bad thing when black people object to people or mistreat people solely on the basis -- or

all on the basis of their background? and i would simply say, yeah. that's a bad thing. black people say that, you know, i'm against this business because this business person comes from, you know, i don't know, iraq or saudi arabia or from whatever, that's the reason why i'm against this business, then i think that's a bad thing, and i don't think that we should be at all, um, apologetic about skewing, repudiating that sort of thing. have i seen, you know, black people act in a racist way? yeah, sure, i've seen black people act in a racist way. i've seen black -- i have seen black americans speak disparagingly about black africans. i've seen black americans speak disparagely about black people from the caribbean. i mean, you know, um, these things happen within black

america, and it seems to me that we ought -- and when i say we, i'm talking we black americans -- ought to be very forthright this saying we're not -- in saying we're not going to stand for that. and by the way, we ought not to stand for black americans acting in a racist way toward white americans. and have i seen that? yes, i've seen that too. we ought not stand for black americans acting in a way that is unjustifiable towards other people based on, you know, sexual orientation, religion, um, race, any characteristic that is an unjustifiable basis for, you know, being against people. >> host: this tweet from deborah dickerson, from your former ra -- is that research -- >> guest: research assistant,

yes. >> host: what do you think of the black intelligentsia's occupy movement while occupy the hood embraces it? >> guest: well, it's good to hear from deborah dickerson, absolutely, former research assistant and student. thank you very much for sending that tweet. it's good the hear from you. um, i want to argue with the premise of your question. i do not think that the black intelligentsia in a wholesale fashion has rejected the occupy movement. there have been some features of the black intelligentsia that, unfortunately, have, you know, sort of pooh-poohed the occupy movement complaining that too many l white people, i've heard that. i think that's a very unfortunate response. but i don't think it's fair to say that that's the black

intelligentsia. that's part of the black intelligentsia. i think there are wider parts of the black intelligentsia that have been, frankly, very supportive of the occupy movement and its concerns and be its aims and its goals. >> host: about 30 minutes left in this month's "in depth" with professor and author randall kennedy of the harvard school of law. five books under his belt, one more coming in january of 2013. here are the five that professor kennedy has already written. "race, crime and the law" came out in 1997. "the n-word, the strange career of a troublesome word," in 2002 which was a bestseller. "interracial intimacies" came out in 2003, and professor kennedy has indicated that that of his five books is his personal favorite. "sellout" came out in the 2008, and his most recent, "the persistence of the color line in

2011." and in the persistence of the color line, professor, you write: obama is determined to avoid venturing beyond what he perceives as the comfort zone of a majority of voters. on no topic is his caution more evident than race relations. because that topic remains volatile: >> guest: yes. so here we have the first black american president. he gave a speech during his campaign, his most -- by far his most celebrated speech, "a more perfect union" in philadelphia in which the immediate impetus behind the speech was to quell the controversy about his relationship with his pastor, jer high ya wright.

but -- jeremiah wright. and in his speech he said race relations is a very important subject, and we're going to have to, you know, talk about it beyond, you know, just one speech. well, during the rest of the campaign you didn't hear any more speeches on race, and certainly as president of the united states you have not heard, you have not heard one spring l speech -- one single speech devoted to racial relations in american life. i'm not putting him down for that. some people do, but i don't. he's an electoral politician who has to play by the, the imperatives of electoral politics. the central imperative of electoral politics is to get enough votes to win. he is not going to do anything that is going to turn off voters who he needs. and, you know, talking about

race is not going to be helpful to him. and so he's a very good politician, and so he's not going to talk about race. and he hasn't. we were just talking about the issue of the very bow discuss arrest of -- bogus arrest of henry louis gates jr. he said, you know, he thought it was a stupid arrest. there was a big reaction to that. within two days the president had backtracked, he said he wished that he hadn't poured fuel on the fire. he invited the officer to come to the white house, president gates -- professor gates to come to the white house. that was an end to it. you did not see the president talk about the larger racial questions around the administration of criminal justice in american life. you're not going to see it.

and one reason you're not going to see it is because the race question -- an important question in american life -- is not a good issue for this president and is especially not, it's especially not a good issue because he's black. there would be more room, frankly, for a white president with his ideological background to talk about race than him. he's black, if he, you know, people are going to be viewing everything he says with hyper sensitivity. and so he's not going to talk about it, and like i say and like i said in my book, that he doesn't talk about it -- he's obviously concerned about it, he's obviously a person who's thought much about it. take a look at his memoir. take a look at what he taught when he was, when he taught at the university of chicago law

school. he's a thoughtful person, a well-read person, a learned person. i'm sure that this is an issue that matters to him a lot. but, you know, the electoral imperatives tell him stay away from this issue. and as a disciplined politician and as a politician who wants to succeed, he is going to listen to those imperatives. >> host: next call for professor kennedy comes from betty in houston. go ahead, betty. >> caller: hi, it's debbie. >> host: debbie. sorry about that. >> caller: yes. thank you for taking my call. i would like to object to president obama being constantly referred to as black and the first black president. his mother was white, he is of mixed race. he's always acknowledged being racial and of mixed race. he's done a wonderful job of

trying to include and be inclusive in bringing all people into the process. i think he doesn't want to be taken hold as, you know, the first black. he's obviously the first mixed race president we've had. >> host: okay, we'll leave it there. you write about that -- >> guest: i do talk about that. i think that it was a very important thing, the way in which barack obama termed himself. barack obama as an adult has referred to himself consistently and unequivocally as black or african-american. there was, for instance, the latest census there was talk, and they wanted to know, you know, which box did you check? he could have called himself all sorts of things. there are hundreds of thousands of americans who have a parent who's white and a parent who's black who call themselves, you know, multiracial or mixed race or something else. he could have done that.

he did not. he referred to himself as black, that's why i call him black. and i think that as a political matter that turned out to be a quite important decision on his part. so, you know, he's saying that he's mixed race, i suppose, although frankly you could say that we're all mixed race. very large part of the american, you know, there's been a lot of mixing and matching in american life. and then if you globalize it, there's been even more mixing and matching. the question of what we decide to call ourselves is, you know, a political decision, a political choice. i don't think, frankly, that we have to be any particular thing. we don't have to call ourselves any racial name. that is something that we do as a political matter, and this

person, barack obama, has decided to call himself black, and that's why i call him black. >> host: professor kennedy, you say that you are currently reading a book called "defending white democracy" by jason morgan ward. what is that book about? >> guest: um, that is a book about segregationist thought in the 1940s and 1950s. in a sense, before the outbreak of the sort of full eruption of the civil rights revolution. what professor ward talks about is, you know, what were, what were white supremacists saying in the '40s and '50s? how were they seeking to hold back what became the civil rights revolution? and it's a very fine book, and i've derived a lot of knowledge,

a lot of information and knowledge from reading it. >> host: and another book you are currently reading, "body and soul: the black panther party and the fight against medical discrimination." >> guest: yes. well, um, alondra nelson who is a very distinguished professor at columbia university has written a new book about the black panther party. one of the things that i like so much about this book is that it presents the black panther party in a light that's unusual. and, you know, when you say black panther party, people immediately think of race, they think of leather coats, they think of people brandishing guns, they think of fiery rhetoric, and they don't think of -- and that's it. that sort of exhausts, you know, the knowledge base of those people when they think, when you evoke the idea of the black panther party. well, this book talks about the

way in which the black panther party sought to, um, assist black americans with medical care. it talks about the way in which the black panther party created clinics, the way in which the black panther party, um, criticized what they viewed as inadequate ro vision of medical care -- provision of medical care, the way in which the black panther party actually nudged the overall society to democratize the provision of health care. and so what professor nelson does is shine a light, a very intelligent, a very bright, a very vivid light on an aspect of the black panther party that nobody else had paid hutch attention to. much attention to. so that book is certainly one of my favorites. and, again, i learned a lot from

that book. >> host: john in sacramento, good afternoon to you. >> caller: good day, gentlemen. um, my question is a real quick one. you have the chinese community in which in every city in america you can find a chinatown. the chinese community takes care of the chinese people, you know, doctors, lawyers, dentists, anything you need in the chinese community, the dollar circles in their community. the jewish community are the same way. the jewish community dominates in hollywood and in banking, and they assist other jews to the point where they created a whole other nation. and then you have the irish community in which, you know, the police, fire department, nursing has a large number of irish people -- >> host: john, we got your point. what's your question? >> caller: my question is, should not the black privileged elite help the black poor and underpoor as other communities are helping the people in their community? thank you. >> guest: okay. i think it's a wonderful question, and i think two things

about it. one, yes, because i think people who are privileged with education, privileged with resources should help those who have less just as a general matter, and i've said the same thing within black communities. and, frankly, i think that that has been done. has it been done enough? no, it hasn't been done enough. it's never done enough in various communities. listen, in, you know, the boston area, you know, a locus of immigration from ireland, you have clash relations within the irish community. those who were, you know, successful did better, moved away from the old neighborhoods just like, just like, you know, you have class stratification within the irish community just like you have class

stratification within black communities, just like there are people in the irish community who complain about the more privileged irish having moved away and not paying enough attention, not sort of giving back enough just like you have in the black community. i think these various communities, same thing could be said about chinese community, japanese-american community. these various communities act in very similar ways. people talk about jews. you know, you go back to the early 20th century, poor jews complained bitterly about the german jews who looked down their noses at them. so i don't think black americans have acted, you know, any worse than any other community. and, indeed, i would say that in certain ways there has been considerably more solidarity

within black communities in part because of the force of just an overall white supremacy that forced black americans to show more racial solidarity than was the case and other sort of ethnic communities. >> mud stick tweets in to you, professor: will there ever be a time when the affirmative action lottery tickets can be given to poor instead of minority? >> guest: it's a great question. it will certainly feature as an important part of my book because there are people who are saying, listen, you know, why should black middle class or affluent people get a helpful push when there are poor white people who don't? now, to tell you the truth, if i were king and could do whatever i wanted to do, i would be, i would turn in, i would be happy

to turn in racial affirmative action for a full-throated, comprehensive redistribution of opportunity and wealth in society that paid no attention to racial lines. i would be absolutely willing to make that trade. but guess what? that's not going to happen in america. at least not for the foreseeable future. so i'm in the position of either accepting racial affirmative action for all of its limits or no redistribution at all. and, therefore, i'll take racial affirmative action with all of its limits. of one of the things that people ought to think about when they, you know, hear people criticize racial affirmative action and some of the critics say what we should have is, you know, class not race, we need to ask some questions. so you're saying class, not

race. okay. now, how much money, how many -- how much this terms of resources are you going to be willing to dedicate to class? because we have to be very careful. there are a lot more poor white people than poor people of color in the united states. and if we're not willing to allot enough for all poor people, you could easily have a situation in which poor white people get the huge share of the benefit, and poor black people are left out almost entirely. that's one thing that we need to be concerned about. we also need to be concerned about the following. i know people who say, you know, class not race. they say that on monday, but then if racial affirmative action was gotten rid of on tuesday, where would these

people be on wednesday? they said on monday that they were in favor of class, not race. would they be saying that on wednesday when it was time to, for instance, raise taxes? no. on wednesday they might very well say, well, you know, in principle i'm in favor of class, not race. but i certainly don't want to raise taxes for that. and having gotten rid of racial affirmative action, they would be fully willing to lead the status quo alone with racial affirmative action gone. that's one of the things that i'm very concerned about. >> host: just about ten minutes left in this month's "in depth." our guest is randall kennedy. lauren in atlanta, go ahead with your question or comment. >> caller: thank you. and thank you for a fascinating conversation. i would like to add a different viewpoint to it, then get your learned opinion. i believe that the medical community should recognize

racism as a form of mental illness. because racism greatly diminishes a person's mental and reasoning capacity. l and some of these side effects of racism such as debilitating ignorance, low self-esteem, a false sense of superiority, an erosion of the heart and the mind ask a spiritual -- and a spiritual hypocrisy that defies logic. these things debilitating, they need psychiatric treatment. >> host: i think we got the point. thanks, lauren. >> guest: i think it's an interesting idea. um, well worth thinking about more than i have thought about it. one caution that immediately comes to mind is if you call something, you know, a mental illness, you immediately take away from the person who's suffering the mental illness. you know, we, we relieve people who have a mental illness of

respondent. i mean -- of responsibility. if you have a mental illness, you have a mental illness, and we don't condemn you morally for be it. do we want to take that position with respect to racism? maybe the answer is yes, but on the other hand maybe the answer is no. i'll have to think about that. a bit more. but thank you very much for the question. >> host: scott in tacoah, georgia. did i say the name of your town correctly? >> caller: yes, you did. northeast georgia, just about an hour from atlanta. dr. kennedy, thank you for taking my call. about a decade ago on this very show i was introduce today the author or stanley crouch, and i was just curious your thoughts or reflections on his work as it relates to the conversation on race. >> guest: yeah, well very quickly, and i know stanley crouch, and i agree with some positions that he's taken, and i disagree with other positions that he's taken.

he has a, he has a style of presentation that's different from my style. i mean, he is a, um, he's a columnist, he is self-consciously a pugnacious polemicist who, you know, who takes a position and just zeros in on that. um, as you've heard over the, you know, my time on this show and others, i mean, i take positions, but, um, i also always make sure to acquaint the reader with other positions. and i'm perfectly happy in telling a reader the other position has some good points to it. and, um, i'm perfectly happy to tell a reader that i'm ambivalent. i'm happy to tell a reader that i'm unsure. so, you know, there's just

different styles of presentation. my style, i think, is one that i think some people see sometimes as insufficiently militant. with respect to certain issues. but my style is my style, and, you know, he just has a different style. that's one i respect, and, you know, i get a benefit from reading his material. >> host: e-mail from justin in pittsburgh, pennsylvania. it's not fair for be professor kennedy -- for professor kennedy to reduce his being called a sellout to being simply a response to his being a harvard law professor. does he not think he is playing part in certain sections of his books? the role of an embedded reporter for a largely white audience. >> guest: um, i think descriptively there's something to the, that statement. i am a reporter to an audience. do i think my audience is made

up largely of white readers? sure. i have lots of black readers, i have lots of readers of all sorts. that doesn't bother me at all. and so, you know, i don't feel bad about having readers of all different sorts. nor do i feel bad and there's some people criticize me because they say, gosh, you say things people are going to talk about in bad way, aren't you concerned about that? well, you know, frankly when you write a book, anybody who writes any book should know -- especially if it's about a volatile political subject -- you write a book, it really goes out of your hands. it goes into bookstores, it goes into libraries. people are going to take the book, they're going to run with it. there are some people who are going to take what i've said and go on a completely different direction than i'd intended,

than i would want. i accept that as one of the hazards that comes with writing. i accept it, i try to make myself as clear as i possibly can at a given point. i recognize that everything i say is to some extent provisional. i send in my manuscript, the book comes out, i have that great pleasure of seeing it. i read it usually within two weeks i'm already revising. in our conversation over the past couple l l of hours there have been on at least three occasions when i've said, you know, if i was writing that now, i would tweak it here, i would tweak it there. that's what comes with writing books. and i'm not inhibited by it. it doesn't really, it doesn't bother me in a big way. it just comes with the territory as far as i'm concerned. >> host: where do you do your writing, and how do you fit that

in with classes? >> guest: i do my writing everywhere. um, i have three wonderful children, henry kennedy, thaddeus kennedy, rachel kennedy. as i, as i, you know, chauffer them around to soccer games or football games or parties and things, as i'm waiting for them in my car i have lots of paper, i can write anywhere. some people can only write one place. not me. i write all the time. i can write anytime, i can write late at night, i can write early in the morning. i'm always writing. um, i write all the time. when i'm teaching, i'm writing. when i'm not teaching, i'm writing. so, you know, one of the things that i like about writing is

it's something i can do, frankly, anytime. >> host: how old are your kids? >> guest: i have twins that are 13 years old, and i have a 17-year-old. so i'm surrounded by teenagers. they, too, are a great encouragement. today hear about, they live with these books as i write them. i test out various portions on them. they see the covers. they see the titles. they make suggestions all the time. and sometimes i take their suggestions, and sometimes i don't. but they are very helpful collaborators in the process. >> host: your first book was dedicated, for my darling wife, yvette love matory? >> guest: yes. i've said many times this our conversation that i have lived a very charmed life.

there is one great exception to that. and that was the death of my wife six years ago, yvette matorey was a wonderful cancer surgeon. she succumbed to a skin cancer, a disease on which she had done quite a bit of research, and, um, of course, that was a terrible tragedy. and, um, and, you know, it's still very much a part of my life, and i did dedicate that book to her, and she's still, you know, very much a part of my thoughts and the thoughts and love of me and our children together. >> host: richard in laredo, texas, your on with randall kennedy. >> caller: well, god bless.

i figure we need all the god bless we can get these days. but my suggestion is i have a word that might help p pour out the real problem we're dealing with, with racism and ethnoschism of all kinds in america. the words from the spanish word -- [inaudible] which means bureaucracy. we trust too much in the system, and the -- [inaudible] is going to drag the cart with all the people in it whichever way it decides to go. so we hay think we're in charge -- we may think we're in charge, but whichever way you pull, we in the cart follow. >> guest: well, you know, i think i probably differ with the caller. i think forchew that itly -- fortunately we live in a society for all of its problems and there are many, does provide

space to influence our faith. and, in fact, one of the ways in which our society gives us space is through permitting people to write what they think and disseminate what they think. it's one of the most important ways in which we have some l influence on our surroundings. and i'm very grateful to that. i don't think it should be taken for granted at all. we need to be very on guard as to any force that encroaches upon that. but as things stand, one of the great, one of the great glories of our society is the space given to people to express themselves and communicate with their fellows.

>> host: sandra in albany, california, we have exactly one minute left for your question and for professor kennedy's answer. go ahead. >> caller: thank you, mr. kennedy. mr. kennedy, president obama addressed apec today and be tomorrow will be meeting with mr. netanyahu of israel. what does it take to have our president, obama, lead with and talk to the black community who are suffering so badly under our current recession with the same seriousness, respect and accommodation? what can we do ourselves as a group to assure our civil rights? >> host: we're going to have to leave it there, sandra. >> guest: i think that the president on an ongoing basis is, um, meeting with various sectors of the black community. i think it's a mistake to think that he is, you know, indifferent to the black community. i think he is very aware of

various problems the black community faces and that, in fact, he's doing what he thinks he can to help black americans along with other americans. do i agree with all of what the president says? no. and in my book i'm critical of him in certain ways. but by and large i think the president of the united states is doing what he can to advance the interests of all americans. >> host: and that'll have to be the last word. our guest has been harvard professor and author randall kennedy. "race, crime and the law," "the n-word," "interracial intimacies," "sellout" and "the persistence of the color line" is his thinkest book. and another new book coming out on affirmative action in early 2013. professor kennedy, thank you for being on "in depth." booktv continues on c-span2.