>> in sports? >> in sports. >> i think that's huge. i mean, frankly, there are huge spectacles, more homo erotic than an nfl game if you look at it honestly. your don't want to say that but, dude, anytime you got tight ends bending over you're going to have questions, and curiosities, and i totally think that homophobia is an outgrowth, particularly in football -- like homophobia is an outgrowth of men touching and rolling around. the phrase, sissy, in our vernacular, one of its origins is teddy roosevelt because he was promoting football as a way to teach boys to be men and sissy is a way to define people who wouldn't play football. so goes back to its earliest days, leak this idea of football as manhood, and no discussion of

anything that has to do with home oerot simple with football. this is one of these decisions that does not make me popular with other sports writers. and i'll never forget probably the most home oerotic sport is mix it mart what art -- martial art and i asked a prom inept mix ed martial artist you look at the positions and touching, submission holds, and it's like -- it's kind of homo erotic sports, and he thought about it for a long final and he said, look, we have this thing we say in the locker room. it's only gay if you make eye contact. and i felt like, wow. what a cultural indictment of our world. it's only gay if you make eye contact. and on that, we'll call at it

night. thank you very much everybody. >> for more information. visit the author's web site, edge of sports.com. s

>> next, from the recent "los angeles times" festival of books, larry elders sat down to talk about his latest work, "dear father, dear son" in which he discusses his troubled relationship with his father. during this hour-long segment mr. elder was interviewed and took questions from booktv viewers. >> host: joining us on our booktv set is radio talk show host, columnist and lawyer, larry elder. his most recent book, "dear father, dear sons, two lives, eight hours." mr. elder, who is randolph

elder? >> guest: my father. you heard the term, tiger mom? my dad was a junkyard dog dad. one of those monster point marines, the first black marine, and i knew my dad was a marine, and because of his gruff exterior i thought that marines were mean, brutal people. my brothers and i could not stand my father. i mean, we couldn't stand the sob. we thought of him as cold, uncaring, as unloving, as unlovable, and whenever he came into the house he would always change the atmosphere in the home. when i was 15 years old, my father and i had a furious fight and didn't speak to each other for ten years, and the book is all the about the conversation my dad and i had when i was 25 years old, a conversation that would last maybe ten minutes, lasted eight hours, and that period of time morphed from being this mean to kind, caring, man who i misunderstood my

entire life. so it's a 270 page apology to the man. >> host: you right that your dad felt during that conversation that he hadn't done anything wrong in your childhood. >> what i planned on doing when i was flying into l.a. to meet with him bass to be very calm and talk about all the things he had ever done to me and my brothers i thought were abusive, mean spirited, bad things for a parent, and so i promised myself i would be calm. i sat down and unloaded on hi butt for 20 minutes, very angry. my father was very stoical. he sat there and said quietly, was afraid of my daddy, too. my father never mentioned his farm. kind of a no-fly zone over talking about my dad's life, and in his conversation i found out that my father did not know the name of his biological father. the name elder was not the name of his biological fare. he never met his buy long cam father. never knew that until this conversation. my father had an abusive

relationship with his mother. his mother and he quarreled. my tad came home from school one day, 13 years old, had a fight with the mother's then-boyfriend, the mother sided with the boyfriend, throws my father out of the house, never to return. we're talk can bat 13-year-old boy, jim crow south, athens georgia, a fewer years before the beginning of the great depression, and he never return home. on the front porch of the home his mother stood there, his real mother, and she yelled at him, you will be home or you'll be in the spencer area -- in the cemetery or prison, and my father went next door and then to another house to get a job, and my father literally went door to door to find a job. he became a pullman porter for the trains. they were the largest private employer of blacks and my father visited california at the time. and he thought you maybe i come back to california. so my dad comes out of the service, goes to tennessee where he was living to get a job.

he walks to an unemployment office. he woman tells him he has gone through the wrong door, he has go through the colored only door. he tell mist mom this is b.s., they don't have this. i'm going to go to california and get a job as a cook. he goes to california, goes to restaurant to restaurant and they say, i'm sorry, sir, you have no references, which is their way of saying in california, we don't hire black people. when we was in chattanooga trying to get a job they said, we don't hire n-word. he goes to the unemployment office, there's on one door. they have nod jobs he asked wham title tie opened and christ and the dad was there the whole day, until 5. the next morning he was there at 8:30. lady says i have a job for you. i don't know if you want it. my dad is a seem sure i want it. she said it's ajob cleaning toilets he said i want it. he worked at the job for ten years, took a second job for ten years, as a janitor, cooked for family on the weekend, went to

night kool to get a ged he never got because he left home when he was 13. you ad his work ethick, how much of how much time the spend working, how little sleep he had, and had three rambunctious boys. and my dad hit me will a belt. when i was having a book tour i mentioned and it the interview says did he hit you with a telephone cord? and i hospital got then yet. this is how people disciplined kids in those days are especially if you came from a background where you had a mean spirited dad, quote in your own life. the man my dad is named after, elder, was abusive, an alcoholic, who physically beat him and his mother. again, all of this my dad spills out in this eight-hour conversation, and i realized that my dad did the best he could, by his definition, his way of punishing me was kinder,

gentler and more sensitive than the way he was punished mitchell dad felt i put a roof over your head, food on at the table, what's your problem? i want edward cleave. my dad was not ward cleaver. i gave him a mulligan. >> host: jo said your dad was there and stayed with your mar. >> guest: that's the other point. here i am thing thinking my dad was not a lovable guy. he got up every day, worked hard, came home, wasn't an alcoholic, wasn't abusive. he and my mom resolved things in an intelligent way. why i thought he didn't love me is beyond me, and one of the reason is wrote the book is to tell people, many who have had bad experiences with their own dad, boys and girls, often there's no manual. these people had no better experience. they did the betts they could. if they were there they did their jobbings, the role model, and as long as the old map is above the ground you can still reach out and perhaps repair the relationship, which ills what i

did. i was living in cleveland and met my uncle mitchell uncle lived with my dad before my dad empty my mother. none of which i knew. so imagine growing up with a man who had no friends, when the phone rang it was always for my mom, and fast forward. i meet a man who knew my father before he met my mother, and my uncle lived will him for a year, when i became friendses with my uncle, he said i lived with hill. i i know him better than you do. one of two things happened. either he change, which i doubt, or you misjumped -- misjudged him. i didn't have an epiphany and thought it would be a wonderful discussion and we would get back together. figured i'd tell him off and at least we would understand our positions. that's what my uncle i induced me to do. about it was luck and i want people to know, development rely on some chance encounter to reconnect with your father.

if he is still rained, maybe you like i different completely misled read the old man and until resolve your relationship there will be something missing. i held kind, happier, lighter when i reconciled with my father. made everything bet and are always going to be an itch that needs to be scratched if you don't resolve that. >> our guest, larry elder, the numbers are on the screen. >> we're talking about his most recent book which is a memoir. he writes a lot of pot ticks -- politics. >> we are on the campus of usc. mr. elder, chapter two, normal was hate. my hatred for my father was not the kind where you do something bad, get a spanking, seethe for

a bet and thing goes backdroppal yaws you understand he punishes you because he loves you. no. normal was intimidation. normal was tense. normal was not knowing whether you would say something that would set him off and that could be anything. normal was hate. >> guest: when people come across that passage and i smile, they wonder why is it that i'm so sort of nonchalant about it. it isn't that i'm nonchalant. i'm writing from the perspective of a child and when you're a child everything seems dramatic and awful, everything seems brutal. the fact of the matter is once you have perspective and realize my dad was doing the best he could, he punished us for things we did wrong, i thought it was excessive and another parenting model would have been more appropriate for me, but within the bounds of acceptable, certainly was. my father, as i said before, was ill tempered and partly because he was so tired all the time. imagine averaging four and a halfire hours of sleep a

day for a two or three decades. then you walk into a house and you have three rambunctious kids. one of the things i said in the book ex-my brothers and i would have our toys on the carpet, he would kick them so hard that the toys would break. i thought that was just insanty, and one time when i got older i mentioned it to my mother. i said, why don't you say something? he said, he didn't kick my stuff. and it turns out when they got married my mother had a pair of shoes in the floor. before we came along. and my dad came home and kicked her shoes so hard they flew and hit the wall. he said you do that again, i'm gone, and he never dead it again to her but he would kick our stuff. >> host: your dad was a republican. >> guest: he was. my father always felt that the democratic party offered you something for nothing. my mother was a democrat, and at the table the two of them would have battles and i would go back and forth, and i sided with my mom when i was younger but when

i got older, my dad made more sense. he had a few simple rules. hart work wins you get out of live what you've put into and you well always have bad things and how you responsibility will tell whether we raised a man. i would always say, not too much pressure, dad. >> host: you recently wrote a column about asking american -- african-americans and fatherhood. and patrick moynihan, in the 1960s, said there was a national tragedy because 25% of african-american children were born in unwed household, today that number is 75%. >> i was freshman in college in 1970, and daniel patrick moynihan wrote a book called, the negro family, a case for national action pi and -- action" and he says this is a neutron bomb dropped on the community, and if something isn't done this could be horrific and lead to crime, lead to greater up employment, lead

to greater depep dense sis -- dependency so more white kids are born outside of wedlock than the number that triggered they'd book, and i believe that the direct link between not having a father in the house and all sorts of social problems, up to and including murder. i was on the piers mortgage gab -- morgan show, and i told him the violence is not from suburban kid, it's from a brown or black kid. if you look at chicago, chicago is on track for two sandy hooks per month, and 0% of the murders in chicago are exit bid black people and usually against another black person but chalk says erred the, a third, a third, white and hispanic. why so many murders in the black student so many kids come from familys without fathers. there was a documentary that my

dad and i discussed the back called resurrection. it was about tupak shakur, and he said, white people may like hearing me say this but i know for a fact, if i had a father in my life would have some discipline and more confidence, and the talked about the fact he joined a gang because he didn't have a father. he wanted structure and protection, and he went on to say in a way that maybe a conservative right winger might say, it's important for a boy to have a father in his life. a boy needs a father. tupak shack cure said this. also a poll that "the los angeles times" took where they asked poor people and nonpoor people the following question: do you believe that young poor women have children to get additional welfare benefit tuesday? most nonwhite people said. no but when poor people were asked the same question, do you believe that young poor women have additional children to get additional welfare benefits 4% of poor people said yes. so, what i'm saying is we are

financially incentivizing women into engaging in behavior that is counterproductive and allowing the man to abandon his financial and moral responsibility by allowing the woman to mary the government. -- to marry the government. these are policies, both parties, with the best of intentions and are a negative on our society. so we're blaming high capacity magazines, racism, win we ought to look in the mirror and recognize we have abdicated policied that haveline antithetical to the formation of a nuclear, intact family. >> host: where can people have your show? >> guest: i can be heard on kabc here in l.a. also on the web, kabc.com. my web site is larry elder.com. i'm on twitter, facebook. >> host: do people go online to listen you how to? >> guest: yes, you can hear my show in bangladesh. it get phone calls from abad bad -- not really but you hear

my show anywhere. >> host: one of your previous books, what's race got to do with it. we talked earlier on this program with eric deckins whose newest book is called race batterie. he got that name because bill o'riley called him a race baiter, called it a culture of victimology among some african-americans. >> guest: i have a word and the word is dic tocrat and at it somebody who blames somebody else for their play. i don't believe racism is a problem in america. i apply the elvis factor, 10% of the american people believe elvis is still alive. 8% believe if you send hem a letter he'll get it. so 10% of the m. people have to be written off. is there racism in of course, is there the kind of racism what can stop a person who has god some education and is willing to work hard and has a little luck?

no. america is the greatest country. that is why most of the world's 7 billion people want to come here. >> recent column, we're going to go to calls. rg iii gets uncle tom treatment. >> guest: that's about a sportcaster on espn who criticized rg3, the quarterback from the washington redskins, who talked about the fact that the criticism was that rg3 may be a cornball brother, and the reason rg3 cornball brother becausely might me republican. he talked about his family. he doesn't think of himself as a victim or a trail blazer, as far as his race. he's trying to be the best rg3 he can be and for a lot of people that means he is a sellout and uncle tom. that outrageous. a sports guy north -- not a

politician, and wins and losses ought to be the way we eevaluate rg3. >> host: was this a difficult book to write? >> guest: it mite have before after we got our relationship back together but i was 25 years old when we reconciled and i wrote the book a while ago. and we have had 30 years to work on the relationship, and he died a couple months after the book and we were probably close are than my mother and i are. my mother and i are very close. so it was an apology, a 247 payment apology to the map if was anxious to get it out before he died and i was able to do a o so. >> we're on the cam pulse of -- cam pulse of -- campus usc. >> guest: is was born in pico union, which is now hispanic area, a lot of gangs in the area, and then my dad moved uptown to south central. the second black family on he block and within five years the

whole block was blah. >> larry elder, there's a picture on the front of your book, and then we gallon calls. what is that's picture of? no my dad's restaurant on south valencia, and you can see my dad leaning over. one of the rare photos we have hoff my dad's cafe. i was born in that little house. my dad tore it down after the place was zoned for lighting industrial. the food was so good. they found their way. >> you've hated working there. >> i couldn't stand working for him. that's when we had the fight when i was 15 years old. he cursed at me. would get volatile when things got busy and start yelling and screaming. you see how small it. everyone would hear you. i told myself the next time he cursed me i would say, see here, buddy, and i walked out and went home and i didn't have enough guts to confront him but we had the conversation that lasted a few minutes and then we didn't talk for ten years. >> host: i'm done talking, it's

your i.t. larry elder is our guest, henry in bay shore, new york, you're the first caller. hi, henry. >> guest: i can't hear. >> host: last chance. we're going to move on to ohio. toledo, ohio, anthony. anthony, you're on booktv on c-span2 with larry elder. high, anthony. >> caller: hi, how are you? >> host: please go ahead, sir. >> caller: i was wanting to ask what mr. elder, does he have any plans on having another talk show again? >> guest: well, anthony, thank you for the question. from your lips to god's microphone. i'd love to have another talk show, a show along the lines of o'riley on hannity type show, you call in and fifth your opinions and i'm looking around to fine that. hopefully that can happen. >> host: is radio the only thing

you're doing? i'm turning dear father dear sanson into a play. sonny pictures has given me some optimism that this could be a movie some day and i'm going to make at it play first along the lines of what tyler perry did and then taken it to a production house and maybe get it made. >> host: would you star it in like tyler perry. >> guest: i'm not a actor. >> host: are you still a lawyer? >> guest: i am not practicing but still a lawyer. i haven't been disbarred. >> host: john, west lake village. i have no idea what your state is, john, tell us your state. >> caller: california. >> host: thank you, sir. >> caller: i guess i have three questions. number one, do you have any children? number two, do you treat your children or would you advise treating your children the way your father treated you? and number three, does the way

your father treated you affect your relationship with people and the way that you approach political discussions? in other words do you consider the use of people when theytive agree with you? >> guest: thank you for that. i think the first question was, how do i feel -- >> do you have children. >> guest: thank you. no. i don't. and people have asked me whether or not my not having children had to do with the way my father and my mother raised me. i think probably so. i remember watching them when i was kid in the kitchen, watching them discuss something financial, and i remember saying to myself, this doesn't seem like a whole lot of fun. and i really thought that fathers were mean, task masters, and i never wanted anybody to feel kurd me the way i felt toward mist father. when i got into college and i had classmates and was invited to their holmes saw their homes were very different and they

felt very differently than their father than i did towards my dad so i realized my house is not necessarily the way it had to be. i think it probably made me understand how hard it is raising children, what hard work it is, and how labor intensive it is, so i wanted to be a writer, and to do a lot of traveling, and i think i felt probably that i didn't want to make those kind of sacrifices. i have enormous appreciation for what my mother and father went through, and all of the sacrifices, financial and otherwise, when people decide to raise children it's the most important decision you can make, maybe short of going into combat. you can't send them back. they don't turn out the way you want them to turn out. they get angry at you. it's a thankless task but the rewards are there and now that my friends are having kids my age and have grandchildren, i see why they put in the work. if i had to do it all over again i probably would have kids. >> host: has it affected your

relationships with people as the call are asked? >> guest: i think probably so. when you don't feel loved by your father, it makes you a little less warm and a little less loose, and as i said, when my dad and i reconciled my friends thought i was funnier, happier, looser, more accepting of other people. so i think that early on this imprinting might have made me have decisions about family and that sort of thing. >> host: patrick, new hampshire. >> guest: thank you remembering the questions. >> caller: hi. >> host: go ahead. >> caller: thank you very much. i would like to ask mr. el elder -- first i admire and impressed if you your courage to confront your father and go through the -- working things out with him. i couldn't think of the word. and -- but i grew up with a very

loving father. however, my mother was an alcoholic, so they had all of these fights when i was really young, and i was never aware of what was going on, and so i never -- i always wanted my father to tell me, you know, why he was so angry and stuff, and later on i figured it out. my question is, how open do you think, from your experience, how open do you think a father should be with their children or child as to how -- what his feelings really are and how -- his most intimate feelings as far as things that might be dealing with within himself, his

own issues. >> host: all right, patrick, we foot the point. thank you. >> guest: i think this is the $64,000 question. what you're asking is to what extent should your father be a friend as opposed to being parent and the answer is simple. he should be pavement whatever stories they parent has that could give a lesson, life lesson to child the father should use, but again, as i said before, there's no handbook here and my book is written from the perspective of my dad. we often talk about how we are raised from the perspective of a child but we don't think about how our fathers feel about disciplining us 'my father told me he didn't like doing but he had to because he wanted us to turn out okay and was willing to go through the necessary years, in my case, of being the bad guy in order to achieve the objective, which is to have three well-grounded boys which my mother and fathered anded in doing. >> who are kirk and dennis. >> guest: my two brothers. dennis was wayward and kurt was

much more solid. el both vietnam era vets, dennis in the army, kirk in the navy, and dennis and i could not stand each other. we fought night and day, day and night, 24/7, the way a lot of boys do, and my little brother and i think had problems with me because i was such a good student, and in those days teacher's are so insensitive they i would woo say toy my -- say to my brother, how come you're not larry? and a school schools would be able to intervene and we would be able to intervene and deal with him better but in those days kids often compared him to me and my little brother wanted to be the antilarry. >> where are they today? >> guest: dennis died about 15 years ago. my old are brother is still around. he is a forman with major oil company, happily married. both my brothers married wimp women with two children and had

very long marriages. >> host: talk about your brother's tune comparable your mother's view and your view and what actually happened at the funeral. >> guest: dennis' funeral. the brother i didn't get along with. and my brother dropped out of high school. he did a lot of drugs. the military straightened him out but he got out some still fairly wayward and when he died i said to my mother, we'll just have a small service because dennis' friends are scattered here and yon and not the the kind of people you can reach on the phone and show up. she says, you don't know him. we need too have a big church. his friends will be here, it was one of the largest funeral is had been to. it was like margaret thatcher died. home coming from everywhere. that how beloved my brother was, he lived in arizona and other parts of the country and people came from all over the country to pay their respects to him, and when i would hear them talk about him it was almost like myi

would hear things built brother that i didn't know, and things he said and done i didn't know, and he was apparently a better friend to other people than he was to me in many cases. my brother and i shortly after he died -- he was in the hospital and we had a very long conversation and i found out he did respect me and did look up to me and i told hem the same thing, and it was a nice moment. >> host: larry elder, do you have any res -- reticence about writing a family hit and pout are your life out in print. >> guest: i would not have written that book had my mother still had been alive. there's a story how my mother got my brother in the service. some would not have liked me to tell the story but tell mets everything about my brother. my mother was gutsy, my mother was tough. and the book is a -- an ode to her as well and stories she would have been embarrassed

about. >> host: it's worth it to get this book to read about his mom. please go ahead, you're only larry elder. >> mr. elder, i appreciate what you said, but i want to ask, have you read a wonderful poem by robert hastings, a bunch of sundays. it fits very well what you're saying about your father. and it's a short, wonderful poem. it agains than on sundays i got up early and put his clothes on and the blue striped coat, and from then made man's fires blaze. then he says in the poem, when the room was warm, people called me, get up, and soon -- this he

says later on,. [inaudible] what did i know? of love, austere, and lonely officers. so, the point is -- in your talk, your father did love you, but you didn't know that love austere and lonely officers in father and i never got along together. he was 104 years old but never got along together but i love what you said and i'm glad you wrote it. whether you're republican or whatever you are. >> host: thank you very much. and you're absolutely right about the old man getting up and going to work every day, not liking it. and that was his role modeling, and you didn't realize it when you were a kid to watch somebody get up, they complaining and grumpy and don't want to go to bork watt the do it because they have obligations.

that's what you learn by having a father in the houston, and one thing i talk about it also affects the girls. a girl will immediate a map and if the man shows some sort of affection she embraces the guy and if he is a bad guy, too bad for her so it affect girls as well. >> host: larry elder worked for a laundry room and this next call froms from ohio. hi, bobby. >> caller: hi, mr. elder. i have a question for you. regards to the comments you made about rg3 and the article about him being called an uncle tom. why would you say the person saying that would be republican. wouldn't democrat says something like that? i'm a republican and i don't feel that way towards rg3. i'm curious why you said that. >> guest: you either misunderstood what i said or i said it badly. what i said was the espn guy criticized rg3 because he

thought rg3 was a republican. you said there's a rumor he is a republican itch don't know about that. he was a white fiancee. he called him a cornball brother hawse baas he expected he was republican but rg3 had a white fiancee. that's why this black caster called him a cornball brother which is a racist thing to say to a black person, so i'm sorry if i misexplained it. >> host: go ahead, bobby, you're still on the line. >> caller: i appreciate that. agree with the same way you do. it's tote lay racist comment also. >> guest: absolutely. >> caller: thank you. >> republicans dope like being called racists, and with good reason, they shouldn't be called racist. >> host: larry elder, is this an african-american story? >> guest: no. it's an more than story. a story about a guy who struggled, who overcame, who endured the great depression,

who joined to fight in the second world war, was part of what tom brokaw called the greaters generation, guy who did not know his biological father, became an entrepreneur, started a cafe, ended 'buying that little piece of property and he house next door. plus the house that we have in south central. my father is an american success story. >> host: linda is in winthrop, massachusetts, this is booktv and larry elder is our guest. >> caller: hi, larry. i have a question for you. very impressed by your story, and i know there are a lot of people out there that have a hard time forgive, whether it's their parents or their spouse and in some cases even their children. did you find that you were able to have this kind of forgiveness after ten years because you turned your life over to jesus and you gave it to him?

i'd be interested to know. >> guest: well, i've always been a christian. my mother taught sunday school so going to church was not an option. i spent my 21st birthday in jerusalem as part of my junior year abroad in israel. i've always been very religious. that had nothing to do with it. the rope i suppose the ten-year relationship held so quickly is during the eight-hour conversation because of my father's demeanor. when i unleaded on him he was like, that's all you got? you're mad at me for whipping you with a belt? that's it? my father, the man named elder did to me and my father would tell me what he went through and it was horrific mitchell father was like, is that all you have? >> host: larry elder, did your fare father go to church? >> guest: he did not. he was a religious map but did no go to church. my father fell that organized religion was partly a scam. my father thought there was something wrong about the man in

the south who was a pastor during the great depression, having the biggest house, driving the nicest car, wearing the nicest clothing. he thought a person who is a man of god should be poor. and should be wearing holy clothes and not around in his sudden best. there was something wrong about that. when hi came home, my dad said his mother and her neighbors would be gossipping about what was going on in church, and my father thought that going to church for people in the south, anyway, was a big dressup thing, a big thing to gossip, who is doing what, who is sleeping with whom, who is taking money, and i father thought it had little to do with god. so he would often watch televangelists on tv and would read the bible but my father felt that organized church is a ripoff. my mother didn't agree with him, but one of the many differences they had. >> host: you also say that your parents never went anywhere together. they lived separate lives. >> guest: my father and my

mother slept in separate bedrooms. after a while. they never took vacations together. i never saw them kiss or hold hands until after my dad and i reconciled, and then i ban talking to them both and i think i improved their relationship a little bit and they met some friends who live in arizona, and they actually packed up the car and drove there together. i was stunned. and they stayed in hotels along the way. i presume they had to sleep in the same bed. but i think my relationship with my dad, opposite it held, improved theirs as well. >> host: that couple in scottsdale, a white couple? yes. >> host: they went to grand canyon? >> guest: yes. they say when the went to the grand canyon, at the ticket place the person said, i need to know who your family is, and the man said, here they are, and all these black people with these white guys, and the ticket guy goes, okay, let them through, and they all went through.

>> temple city, california, hi, bob. >> caller: aim really on or no? >> host: you're on, bob. >> caller: okay. mr. elder, you're the best. i've been listening to you for yours. you're talking to 38 years army, three wars, blown up in iraq, 32 years lapd. that's not my question. my question is, when are you going to stop playing around and run for president? >> guest: two things would happen if i run, one is i could win, the other is it could lows and both of them are bad. i've given it some thoughts' i came this close to running for senate against barbara boxer, and i flew to d.c. and met with republican senators and if they endorsed me i would have run. i could have lost by ten points

points,. >> host: larry elder what do you think about dr. ben carson? >> guest: i like dr. carson. i it was gutsy for him to say what he said in front of the president, advocating use of health savings don't deal with medical issues and i'm not a big proponent obamacare issue think it will hurt this country, but for people who are touting him for running for office, please to go from being a practicing physician to being president of the united states in one fell swoop? not going to happen. you have to do something along the way. i understand how people can get with certain pipe, like with donald trump. i'm not a big -- let's find somebody who i think embodied what i want and has never run for office and try to stick them in the presidency. >> host: what do you think about republicans' efforts to outreach to african-americans and hispanics. >> guest: you have to reach back as well. republican party are not racists. moe voted for the pass yang of

the civil rights in 1964 than did democrats and all of those politicians stood in front of school doors were democrats. george wallace was a democrat. and not all of them became republicans once the civil rights act was passed. the idea that republicans are racist is not, it's not fair. you look at the history of the democratic, a party that voted against the 13th, 14th, 15th amendment, and every major civil rights legislation passed, the democratic party was against it. he republican party was stopped to stop slavery and the first successful candidate was a ganymede abraham lincoln. republicans have a major story to tell but people believe that republicans racist and shut their minds to it. this is not your grandfather's republican party. republicans are very sensitive about reaching out to blacks bld hispanics but they often say somethings thick, i know somebody whomarked with king,

somebody who picked fruit live chavez. but i want a government that stays out of me wallet and stays out of me bedroom and whatever politician delivers that is the poll that get mist vote. >> host: why due you think mitt romney lost? >> guest: most americans believed that the economy was so messed up by george w. bush, two unpaid for wars and tax cuts for the rich, that obama struggled mightily to overcome this situation. the second reason is most americans believe republicans only care about rich people and those are branding problems of the republican party and it's hard to overcome because cow you have obstacles. hollywood, and our major media. all of which are overwhelmingly liberal. so when you saw something it's interpreted through those entities and it gets distorted. >> host: larry elder is our book

on bob tv. lime from the cam pulse of usc. mike in ft. worth, texas. >> caller: how is it going, larry? my i agree with one of the problems with the african-american community is the lack of fathers in the house, but i think, larry, when you say that, you kind of come off harsh on black people. what is the reason behind a lack of fathers being in the house? engaged in terrific organize prison? back in -- this is my belief. back in the 30s and 40s, black people were lawyers, they had their own businesses like your father had the restaurant, they were dentists, they had -- we had a lot of grocery stores because there was segregation and we had to become our own dentists and doctors and plumbers. for the last 56 years there hasn't been -- haven't been able

to go to black dentist -- to a grocery store owned by black people or to a physician that is a black doctor's office you get my point? i'm trying to say the lack of being able to -- the gangs and the -- the lack of black businesses and for youngsters to say i want to own a grocery store, be like that mechanic or doctor. ...

were unemployed during the great depression and you had jim crow, wear wear a seat on the de facto segregation didn't find the same criminality. you have to look at the financial incentives. please $16 trillion since 1965 on poverty and would destabilize families. that is why when a kid is a gang banger, he doesn't have too say this is not the way to go. give the books to hard hours today. don't have a kid before your two years old. if you do that, you will not be poor. you have to ask yourself, what policies are we doing that give people the incentives but the

formula. >> host: do and your mother beginning with your mother. her father thought small. don't make the same mistake here that's unfair. here you go again defending him. he's not donald trump. he was a wimp she said. >> guest: my mother is in a bad note at the time she said that. i didn't think i was a fair criticism. i thought my dad did the best he could. most restaurants fail and they have a restaurant that remained open until my dad is 80 is an achievement and i thought my father belittled his achievement. again, my mother was not the most warm fuzzy things. i didn't take too much to heart with that statement. >> host: she's been a little time at a radio program, didn't

she? >> guest: probably the most feature of the whole show. she didn't pull any punches. if my mother didn't like something, she would say so. people let her candor. postcode area, what your mother been ben witherington? >> guest: is the first year law student and a bunch of law students that were taken in iraq and iran to iraq talking about what should be done to one guy said we have to perhaps while and freeze assets in august and not. i sang up my mother would do. 48 hours and bomb the out of them. so i picked up my phone, called my mom in l.a. i said mom, the hostages in iran. what would you do about it? hung up the phone. they said for eight hours? is that now, she's out. given tha 72.

>> host: katrin hanna come to utah. good afternoon. catherine, we're listening. he is coeditor? comment for larry elder. >> caller: sorry come i didn't hear my turn. thank you so much for sharing a personal story. at 30 years old, but he's an amazing man doing everything and anything not to be late that. so what kind of reaffirming or things you want to do for him to say no, you can be a great dad actually. >> guest: i would tell him again not to try and be his friend. recognize there's a period of time for the kid about mike u.n. maven hate you and you have a hope you done your job and at some point will be a realization you've done your job to the best of your ability.

every kid i know i've sooner or later has an epiphany. every parent recognizes that an good parents really sooner or later the kid will thank them for their sacrifice. >> host: cnes merino valley, california. >> caller: hi, larry, thank you for taking this call. very interesting story. you mentioned earlier the breaking point was when your dad used certain language to you and you left the restaurant and hadn't spoken in for 10 years after that. so i think you live in the house with your dad for 10 years as a teenager without saying anything to him i was not that drastic? >> guest: we don't have a big house. the houses you can see was on the same plot where the restaurant has come a soap was in a big house.

i then witnessed in the house we have now was not much bigger. my dad retired, came home late. i'm a teenager 15 years old and so i left college when i was 17. two years of avoiding him. he would come in late and i would you sleep. it is really easy to avoid not talking to him and once i left to go to college, i went to rhode island and went to law school in michigan and then i went to practice law in ohio. it was quite easy to avoid him. by the way, one right thing. the caller who said it seemed harsh about what i said about not having a father. he was the head of the naacp and i said estoril gourmet, between the presence of white racism of the absence of black fathers, which poses a greater threat? without missing a beat he said the absence of black fathers. there's a movie called poison that in the directories john

singleton. if you pay attention to the movie, he talks about two families. and oneness of ice cube, no father in the house. the other was across the street and i was the family that was cuba gooding junior and lawrence fishburne was his father. he turned out very differently. john singleton to second one called baby boy with the predatory behavior. he's talking about the centrality of fathers and lack of fathers be the central problem in south-central and in my opinion of america. >> host: next call we have about seven minutes in our program. dennis and sharon, massachusetts. hi, dennis. yes, can you hear me? >> please go ahead.

>> cor92.r: i was his first son. when i was born he was 60 years old. he left macon, georgia because the site black man being earned in downtown macon, georgia appeared to point out that to make and i really believe the father in the household is a nice service to the children without a doubt. most important like, i believe there is something about mind power. having the focus in order to be able to have a discipline to achieve your goals in life. and the other thing is the psychological and depending in which people aspire to be the anti-antihero. so a lot of the outburst we see is really by doing something

that quote unquote a soup or that better than being good. people want to do the contradiction in that sort of at the underlying literature in the culture. >> guest: i think you are made. if you don't have an appropriate role model in the house, now, trying to get attention is what often people do. one of the things my dad and i talked about was the so-called black leaders that don't emphasize the real issue and that is the lack of fathers in the house. a lot of people emphasize racism, racism, racism. in my humble propane and it's no longer the major problem in america. jesse jackson's mother was a teenager impregnated by the man who live next door and jesse jackson was raised in south carolina and was taught by kids seem just ain't got no daddy.

it seems to me he had to be talking about the important of a father in the house. farrakhan's mother had a boyfriend, what about the father, so she tried to abort three times with a coat hanger. sharpton let a middle-class life until his father abandoned the family and to the gato. what are they talk about more than anything else? as opposed to the centrality of fathers come even in their alliance, they had a very profound impact on how they view the world. and i'd argue one of the reasons they're so angry is because they didn't have a father in the house. instead of talking about fathers and policies that encourage people to get married before having children come in to talk about racism. they're doing a disservice to the black community. i think they are being leaders to the best of their ability. i think they have to to rethink what they're doing. >> host: the way, hampton,

connecticut. you want the tv. >> caller: i would like to say i agree with what you're saying about a strong father in the home. my thing is i was raised in four different foster home and the fathers were strong figures. there is never any love. go to school, do your homework and be good. the thing that really bothered me if they never knew love from a father. all i knew is discipline. it did teach me want thing. working be successful. without love i found that out. the last foster home i lived to not let that an. he died before i had a chance to tell him. that's why i'm so glad you had a chance to sit down and talk to your father. one thing you said that she did the best with what they know.

they raise my children have been a corrupt they told me the same thing. you're the best for us because he did the best you could. i just wanted to share that. postcard thank you, leroy. >> guest: if you can imagine the lawsuit on the way he'd raise me, i could've called 9-1-1 and had somebody come out and take away based on how kids are disciplined in those days. >> host: larry elder come in your book you talk about graduating from crenshaw high school and also going to fairfax and outlay for some other courses in the difference between the two. >> guest: one of the reasons i'm so adamant because i went to an inner-city public in a graduating number seven in my class and i had exhausted all the spanish we had.

we had a program called apex for area program in which an exchange, an experimental program about half a dozen high schools participated in. if he didn't have a chorus but another school day, you could be passed. it was almost 100% jewish for one semester. i took spanish in physiology and i was funking out those courses. i never flunked a course in my life, but it turns out each untrendy scant threat much higher standards. all of the kids spoke fluent spanish. the kids are expected to speak spanish and i learned the expectation is far more different in the inner-city high school than the suburban high school and it made me angry and i was determined i would make sure i would advocate the power parents should have come and take a kick out of it that's school and put them in a better school. >> host: what time is your radio show one? >> guest: 3:00 until 6:00 monday through friday time.

people can on junior tbc.com. i'm also on facebook and twitter. >> host: larry elder's most recent work is "dear father, dear son: two lives... eight hours". are you working on another book? >> guest: of course. >> host: does a come back to politics? >> guest: is a younger time that i who grew up with a father that had a voice every bit as good and use the voice to scam people. he would do a concert in old ladies that come talk about the biopic and it takes their money goes to the next town. this is the father that a friend of mine had. he's got all this music and i tell you, this guy was a wonderful singer. some of the great singers like caruso. >> host: sounds like you're venturing out away from

politics. >> guest: i want to read about incentives and politics. every one of my books as a political court to it. >> host: we've been talking on booktv with larry elder. "dear father, dear son: two lives... eight hours" pick up the book to find out how his mom got his brother dennis into the military. thanks for being with us. >> guest: my pleasure. thank you for having me