excited about, but you have to survive in the real world and ai lot of this is timing. so think ahead about wanting to do a project and i've been thinking that i've written a lot of the anthologies and i know pj this corner backwards and forwards and i'm been a speakere hook nings like that. ando so the because of that i thought now would be a pretty good time. so my editor got on board and nt got very excitedo about it in o timeline needs to be quick in terms of this attention, i'm trying to do a substantive story reconstructed of the real peoplm

that inspired him and all of them are buried in it is veryunl cool. and so my goal was christmas and i have until next spring is ae t very bad enabling sort of thing. so my goal is to come out next fall. so if anything there is a way that has been checked to see playing the older retired sherlock holmes next year. so things like that.

>> this is one of my famous variations and yes, also i will mention his bicentennial is three years from now and then it gold stamps and so you have to survive in the real world bu. the timing for things he already wanted to do. litt and it could be mondayret afternoon, probably nowry originally it was there having r

lunch and watching the fireworks and they're going like this forc nine minutesha or whatever they are trying to get the dog in of this picture which is a ghostlyn canines where that's changing very quickly. refo and it happened in the early sot 1842 and not quite three years >> ie the announcement of theov invention. so was moving incredibly quickly. >> they are talking about the book. of >> that is a great question. and i wanted to give a reasonable amount of substance particularly to this one, didn't iange the talk, but a little ot less and a few things that we

have this setting about. it's very high-tech. so i tweaked it a little bithat with the day before yesterday in madison, connecticut, that kind of thing. i amevery single time i sit down and think that was a dumb joke g oroi whatever. but occasionally i say i like that and i'm going to add it. >> one more question. >> maybe the question is can we all go home. thank you very much. >> thank you, michael.

>> someone run up and randomly hug her for me. >> we greatly appreciate it.book if all of you could purchase a book, it is wonderful. it's such a wonderful book. >> oh, boy. >> is it to you? i once started writing it and so

we had to sort of a part of that book that was assigned. >> or special book programming continues tomorrow night with highlights from book fairs and festivals beginning at 9:30 p.m. eastern. the tv in prime time is here on c-span2. >> one of the stories that resonated with me is the moment when they are dithering about whether or not they need to inject sea water into this. and it is a matter of the clock

ticking and they are just about down to the why are and i think that the win and would have to make the final call knows that it's desperate and they need to get water in there very quickly. and so meanwhile everybody wants to say to the officials, they are all part of the supervisors that the government has to hold off. and he has already solved it. but he basically calls them since people over and says, okay. and he said we would call this when in fact they did them. and in japan it is where they

are ignoring the rules and kind of acting on their own and here is a guy that knew that if he didn't act, things would go even worse. >> more about this nominee and resulting meltdown saturday night at 10:00 a.m. eastern on "after words." part of booktv on c-span2. >> now on booktv a student at the university in berlin. firsto from labyrinth books in princeton, new jersey, this is one hour and athcomin half. few [inaudible] >> thank yinou ftrodor being ht it is an honor.

i'm just going to say a few introductory words about our guests and also about lines of descendents.r i would like to ask them to tell us a little bit about the book and then we will go on fromcouni there. so with us to discuss this today, they talked here from 2002 until just the end of the last year. his he is now a professor of philosophy at mom and this

2012 includes those that are far too many and they received a president obama award medal. this includes extraordinaryal influence.. we all know that the west, as oi one of america's premier social. justice, both inside and outside of the academy, he is the authos of many books on democracy

matters becoming a professor ofn philosophy at the seminary. and so what an honor that the publ publication is part of this. isa if you think i'm looking at thi that it is a intellectual rebiography of one ofco the giat taman who lived through' s reconstruction and it traces thd big questions that the boys and asked all their a lives. who am i to know what is at nation, what is race.ngful

what about the history and the collectivell imagination. how is it possible to form and sustain a meaningful opportunity and what is the specifically black contribution to culture. you may remember one answerheart [inaudible] he writes mainly it is impossible not to hear in this perfectly expressed those with lines of dissent and the general lines of specificity tond

encompass this as cosmopolitans and romantics. his many it refers us to this and this book of the very influences of the many teachers ranging from those important years in berlin where he studied political figures lnd philosophy with intellectuals that were also reported public figures to suchs other figures in america.ies and this, to me, is what is most compelling or moving as far as this in the very political in situation for americans in what you have to remember and

throughout lines of dissent we have struggled to define the race not merely in terms of injustice but to articulate something other than or in addition to this bit that the black is to be made to feel like you are upset. and perhaps it is wrong to see the risks at all is a conflict rather than a group of contradictory forces and facts and tendencies. it's marketable as we have this intellectual light with sas and cultural anthropologists with statement of complexity with a

descriptive failure to insist on such complexities when it istimd descriptive and conceptual with political triumph.ncludes and to have the long and comple stories in the words of the subtitle in the emergence ofhe o identity this includes himself and his people and as we today think of it. imagining the trajectory tof ths encompass all of this, it seems to me no small conceptual feet. [applause]

>> i want to begin by thanking everyone. it is great that there are few bookshops left and i feel very well after that introduction. so thank you sowo much. we have both been young and it's so great to be here this evening. and so i was asked to sayth g something about how the book came about, as you have gathered and you could say that what i'ms trying i am trying to do in the book is to recover how he was ao german intellectual and not just an american one african-american and other traits that we alreadd don't. and as was mentioned he didn't

get the degree because he wasn't able to stay long enough, but he did write a thesis and later publish it in his journal and it's very well referenced about the development of the american settlement lie different forms of labor including sharecropping was a response to the challenges of the disappearance of this one was emancipated. so it is just brilliant. but he didn't get the phd because he wasn't able to do the oral exam. and so this time it is a pioneering study of the subject but he was a first harvard author to be published.

so part of it is the contingency of life as someone who wanders around the world and i was asked to speak by the americanists which is the university and so i thought maybe i should say't kn something aboutow much it.e nev and i read a biography about this discussion and says what

classes he went to and so on. but most of the people that he studied with, i had never heard of. so how many of you know works of this influential scholar. but, you know, he was known as one of the most influentialtical individuals and he was one of the founders in germany and bott a his itorical comments, anking political economist and heavily viewed these philosophical ideas. so we got to think of him in in thist way.e but he also studied with historians even though when he was attending this and they fool

themselves in theory. this is but i think it is a measure and this is praise and he referredjt to him in so we should know that

just to recover this, because the temptation thinking of that is to sort of push this and that is all there. i don't think part of this is was embedded in the framework. and however much we try not to do, everything, for example

about nations and culture, whena we read god about the holocaust, that is a terrible thing toprpou think about in a backwards way to think about you and preposterous survey uses a them using this word in the originale sense and so again there was a resistance that is an interesting and a good thing that would just show the dangers to some extent he grew out of.

and it was a point that was madt by monica and they're working on this great book in the archivesm nearby in the nationstate and this is actually true and this was profoundly because of thisw following sense among what nations had a destiny worth pursuing. the course of humanity and if wn

don't contribute us, we can't hr make am great harmony that is te human harmony. so far from thinking of it that was against us, it is distinct and it is special and it may even be from my point of view better. but it's not necessarily opposed to this nation, as i said. so we need all of that to make r history work until it makes the d he point that this is central to 19th century and they make this point and he is against it. he thinks that this is a probled because he is part of the 20thud century form of b german

nationalism. an you have to understand the philosophical ramifications asf one that can be an insult. because it was the natural way of thinking. it was combined with a growing sense of the importance of thpar nations. and in part it proved that htions as a whole or part ofany this and that cultures are contested and the parts all fit together and it all fits together. but what i don't think you canof complain about is that it's kind of xena phobic.

and so when they said that he was a german writer he was partly joking. it can absorb and always something and yet he is one oftc the first people to articulate a sense is a distinct individual. so i think this is a very important part of it and this is deep and rooted in the theory of relations among nations and this includes the famous essay that is the key term and he is not

using it innocently but in a relatively precise sense.up, when he talks about it in this m way h e is using a well honed thing to talk about the problems and that was the thing that i had tried to discuss in the book in a way that didn't require you to know any more about this than i did when i started, which was basically nothing. which includes laying out where he is coming from. >> we have tried to use that with the notion of striving and so we will get to that first as we acknowledge the fact that i

have to be in this place and that's one of the great bookstores and let's just be honest about it. and this includes that we do have people that are part of and s this backo in new york and they are following you and you're following me and many others. but leta me begin first with thd question.n we talked about this

cosmopolitan view through and through. my question is that if you havea been one of the grand promoterse and i think it is very subtle and nuanced, but what is the difference between being a cosmopolitan and an internationalist. especially as it is working and political practice that internationalism seems tothinkts capture something. >> i think of it as mores part politicalof than it is moreent a broadlynd cultural.hat and so the sense in which it is the m is evident in scene things like, this fact that we celebrate thi

a great german author and he thinks that that is a way to talk about the things he wants to talk about. so when he talks about this he never does talks about racism. and if he connects jim crow with the racial dimensions of colonialism. so this is kind of political. so it is a way of thinking in which you never have even about a local problem. and so this is something that isn't really possible in this

includes and the way in which we live with the political dimension, to work in the space of nations where the nations are together. and this includes the cultural dimensions as well. so let me just say that we have this sort of slogan in every human being matters come i may be have been this to anybody and

so this is that we understand that the world as is part of this. so we understand the differences and you could be in internationalist from this situation. so i think it's very natural for them to be in internationalist in this way. and he can't respond to this is

that people in this matter. and this includes they share it with everyone and they differ and that is how they think about this difference. and so when they have finally given us, what we do they go to china and the hangout and they have a national holiday in china towards us. and then he goes to ghana. and there are african hunting countries -- and we went to his

state funeral which was the first great one of the modern century. >> [inaudible] one representative, the government there or here, none of them attended this in the 20th century. as we make that point with this text. so let me push you a little bit on this. so you agree that they have poor chauvinism, nativism, albeit things. and what about nationalism? how do they deal with the nations. >> i think as it is sort of written on its face, internationalism sort of presupposes this. and there is a tendency -- it's a very old position and i know

some that were citizens of the world and it was a very old thing. >> so he has to go through and it's a very long tradition. another favorite is dominantly, it's not a tradition that takes the metaphor of global citizenship makes it a part of it. that is they don't say we should have a single state. they are recognizing this because of the value of difference and you need to have everyone in one kingdom from the republic. and so we have the right to live

in this matters to us. >> so the challenge becomes important as we make the connection. because we all come out of particular things and we have particular bodies and particular colors and cultures and then you take this relative to the roots and we have to be dealing with this which is how do you do that. so this includes the voice of becomes one of these figures. >> and so the standard slander against this, it was a slander between them with a very wide

range of enemies. and so i think that is actually the deep misunderstanding. so these few things that people should be able to live in this way, otherwise what would be the point of this? and so you should be careful because many of it was going back along my and it comes from another one of these individuals that one of the ways in which we have a concern for humanity besides doing our best for the local branch and we can actually do something.

so there are reasons and at not just that the local people matter more common objective point of view. and this includes your people and so on. and so on. and so i think it does this in this wonderful way that never allows you to forget and he seems angry at america in the way that only in america can be. and he's angry as an american. and so he did that is at a place

in the world as every person does by the recent group to which he belongs in a way that allows you to be what you are while recognizing what else they are and that is how you do it and so than my father left us a letter as i was instructed in this way. so part of that was i don't care where you go and he would be

worried and he said that he is part of the way to live the obligation of humanity with the local obligations caring about this in which we live. >> universal obligations and acted and we would like to end on a note on how these are some of the most influential forces in human history. and we have the courage and empathy than the one that we live in and this includes not being confused with parochialism. so it allows you to be routed

with not a difference denying this as well. >> and so this has been a part of the culture. >> yes. so i think that the language is so beautiful and that the concept of race it might be a unicorn, but it's one can draw blood. and so by unicorn you mean scientifically with no

substitute whatsoever to legalize on the grounds and those more and more pc is institutionalizing it in against supremacy and toss more about that here. >> when i was a young philosopher i had a job in african-american studies and i'm not sure there were many people that have that combination of

things. and i thought the we are, we are thinking about this and also about how we talk about race and these are the ideas that we didn't actually have a shared sense of this and so now i think that we are happily sold and they have recognition almost

more so than anyone out and this is becoming a more centralized concept in some cases. but not just in the german homelands but in the german colony is and they are some of the first people to grasp the significance of this is we've discovered this although he only discovered this in some ways himself to see that it has any particulars and away and so he

saw all of this. but nevertheless he remained committed to view this which seem to presuppose it with some kind of independent national reality. and so i can't speak specifics or i can get in a lot of trouble. but this is one of the things related to it and they had many years of this and they know that

he says very early on that it is a social conception and yet if it were this that he said it was, but one of those things and there are certain presuppositions that once you see and recognize them we think oh, i don't know how i got that and it's completely socially made and sometimes it goes back

to what most people have been so this is some kind of natural reality here. so one example is that it's very hard to explain this is an identity that includes both this and that that is a purely negative. and so [inaudible] there is no lack of might. we get having recognize that, when he arrives there for the

first time he said he is an actual representative of the independence and he sort of feels this thing that shouldn't be there. and so goes back to this and i never think that he quite liked any of the accounts that he gave

in so i think that he means that it is actually not true in any interesting way. and so one of the reasons it is possible to have that is that it's actually sort of a common denominator. so i'm with another human being and i'm standing there and we didn't have any leverage in common and so there's not necessarily any question at all.

but the point is the concept is not the same. and so you can have this connection without there being any thing you can share with every member of that and that is why we have this. >> this is true from 1920 with the people have these gifts to give to the larger human project. and i think that is the other we have certainly had that way.

and so it's one of those great mistakes because it amounts to thinking that there really is some kind of essential thing that is shared by the organization of the nation they don't share with anyone else. so it's a kind of spiritualize version that they are rejecting. and so once you see that individuals have this, each has this as well. and so what does that mean?

it means that each is held together in the sort of way that i am held together with this in my mind. so that means there is a coherence that derives from principles and so on. and that means that everything that is done expresses this. and that is why it's not just part of this but an expression in this way. and so she is expressing a as well. in some sense they are

expressions of the same thing. and that seems to be wrong. this includes world literature and the weight is talked about as well that we americans didn't have and we are enjoying a little bit but not too much it will go on and on. and this is part of the genius of the situation.

and this includes some the ride russian novels. and there are those who take these through the national cultures and they had historical expectations and some of them have to do with just the fact that there is common language. and the common language gives you a kind of intensity of shared experience that means in the world of literature you things in common so as it were

part of that and so, yes, they can produce that. so there's a lot of french and russian novels. and a lot of generally speaking things as well. and that is part of their politics. >> i would say that i can't think of a great moment which isn't built around language and nations.

in the narrative that shakespeare wrote comes from this as well. and so if we sort of go backwards and i think that they have the inner linda. and i think that they are thinking about this when they went there and i don't think that this is the only type of

situation that we have discussed in german. so they have connections to have to do it this shared community of interaction. but i think that this is what makes it interesting and we should always bear in mind that the interesting people that we are thinking about it and draw the conclusion in that way.

and we get a sense of the beauty of the name. and they have this character that is our duty to develop a special contributions and so it could disappear without harm and the very course of insisting that he also remarks of this character and we agree that as well. >> is that true in general that if we were to ever reach that

space when we have justice and freedom. what a disappear or what it have a present so that people would be able to embrace this without based on this difference. and we had a lot of comments on that. we believe that we have to maintain that that we had a practical possibility.

and this includes for what we have now. >> right. >> and i think that here the cases are different. and that is just about possibility. and so we know that we can and

so this seems to be that while we imagine this world with a range of biological differences we attended to this bill and i don't think most of us would wonder if these were disappearing altogether. [laughter] and that is something that they

have given forms of this and that will continue to be the case in this includes one natural response and i think that they can perform this and

this includes the form of identity as a member of this. but it is faded away and that is fine. and many people who have a would be appalled. and that would be fine. and this includes other forms of identity that sort of drop away. and we have this in the modern world and i think that we should

see what we would like to do. and so as we struggled with this it is bound to change. and in particular i think that we have insistence on the boundaries and that, i think, will go away. and so my nephew, at the wedding, they are armed in this way and there are nigerians in the region. and at one point his brother was

named after me, anthony, he was part of this, and he said to him until you asked me this question, is a marriage between april of this ancestry marrying the son of a norwegian, who is also the grandson of [inaudible] so i think the situations happen more and more in the world. and so i think sometimes you have to answer the question and we have to manage the system and he cares deeply to bring some of

this out there and to the history of as well. and so you and i grew up in a world like this where there was no doubt that that was part of it. [inaudible] [inaudible question] >> and yes, i would say that she was a wonderful person. >> yes, she was out.

and so we don't live in that world and what is going to happen is i don't know. but it seems clear that he could go away this includes how time goes on. this is assigning a different topic to the matter, but

[inaudible] >> yes, you have talked about foreign agents, handcuffs, the u.s. government coming down on it. so what were they trying to do. and so we are going on as well. >> we do have to get in mind for this. so maybe we can make a little time. >> oh, absolutely. >> so if you do have a question and he won't come over to this microphone to ask it, the

questions can be taken from here. so maybe as people are making their way here, i was due a quick follow-up for now and ask what you're asking about the disappearance. so perhaps it's something that was politically at stake you want to articulate for us a little bit as people line up. >> that's the level that you want and as you can see the endpoint that might be difficult and i think that is very much a part of the sentiment. to that is what we had in mind. >> in a wave to people looking

back, it may be hard to distinguish these hypothesis with a racial identity being equalize and democratize and made for something other than hierarchy. and so it's pretty different. so we are terribly prone on the basis of our strongest identification to understand people of other identities and some of the things we are always at risk about. and so one has to be very vigilant and celebrating mass.

>> yes, this is very important. we have this going forward as well. and the visibility is increasing >> yes, it's increased in china and russia and other places as well. >> as much as we talk about this, one thing we have not heard as much about his patriotism and i'm wondering about the role of it in the next 20 years to come and how that's going to work with something

like defusing this conception of racial identity. >> you talk about nationalism. >> salida say what i think this is. i think if you read my last book, as you should have. [laughter] >> there's a reason [inaudible] [laughter] and i think that one of the packages, i do not think that's terribly helpful in this way.

that pacifism is a concern for the country. and yet therefore they are the pride and shame. and i think they make us part of this, it's the shame of guantánamo that understands as part of aclu and all that. but this terrible fate is being done. ..

but as a friend of china as someone who cares about the fate of the future of china i think it's my job to tell them just as it's their job to tell us what are you doing as the home of the brave in the land of the free, what are you doing with 24% of the worlds incarcerated people in your country? i want them to help us but i want to help them and my way of

helping them is to celebrate the fact that they have taken people out of poverty in the last couple of decades and a willed historical achievement because it's about people having enough but also our friend is in prison for nine years because he advocates among other things respect from the chinese constitution that says you have the right to free expression so i think in the dialogue between people of different nations and the dialogue a fellow citizens patriotism is equal. >> we just had 300 people most of whom were patriots at the hancock air force base this sunday outside of syracuse the largest demonstration against drones dropping bombs on innocent people in the name of the american people. it was a magnificent patriotic witness based precisely on this notion of honor. we are dishonored when over 200 children have been killed in the name of the u.s. government chasing terrorists but their

collateral damage and so forth so the dissent itself becomes a form of patriotism and the legacy of henry david thoreau and barred with the king and the very rich tradition. a beautiful smile. >> i'm not sure if this cole, i'm not certain if it's the proper one but the quote is if you don't understand white supremacy than everything else that you thought you knew only confuse you. i would like to find out first if you could explain that in second is that relevant today or how is it relevant today? >> i think that question is for you brother. [laughter] >> i don't honestly know. it sounds like something that he would have said. >> the white supremacy was so central and if you missed not

just the fight against white supremacy that how it shapes so much of our modern world and our economy and their nation-state and so forth david brion davis and denzel rogers has allowed us to see just how deep the cuts and to bob courses part of that. >> did say and it's a passage he said many times that the problem of the 20th century is the album of the caller line. you don't understand unless you understand the role the lack supremacy place. there are things you can understand i suppose perhaps but >> a lot of blues in beethovebeethove n. if opus 131. >> but in general if you are trying to understand the social world it just seems to me sort of a nonstarter review and the section that i was born and it's

a nonstarter. one should say that you know there are moves forward and there are steps forward and steps backward but clearly it is spending towards justice and things are getting better although they get worse in various ways. >> equipped point before we move to the next question. dubois has this in mind. the four questions he has been wrestling all of the five hottest integrity face oppression and how dishonest he faced deception and how does decency face insult? if you want to see some of the greatest examples of integrity honesty and decency in virtue you will see the black freedom movement frederick douglass sojourner choose -- sojourner truth curtis mayfield's john coltrane. unbelievably honest integrity.

if you want to keep track of integrity keep track of the best in the country. they are going through some hell and they still are. they been hated and intense ways but they still have a smile on their face. that's also what he had in mind. that's another reason why you don't want to use the effects of the difference. a world with no jobs. no rhythm and blues. no emotions no main ingredient no whispers. i would have been insane a long time ago so the positive effects that these people who are questing forward in achieving that integrity and it's open to everybody and i think that's a positive. brother you have been very patient. >> first of all i have the

different enunciation. i spent 45 years of my life in poland but for me it's an unknown fact. we have different problems. now my question is what do you think would be most important factor to get rid of racism not only here but all world's? money or education one of two choices. thank you. >> a wonderful question. a powerful question. >> i really think the key thing is call habitation, doing significant things together. if you had done significant things together in groups of black and white and jewish and

gentile and so on christian atheist whatever it's very hard to hold onto bigotry especially if you do it when you are young. and no amount of preaching at people is a substitute for bringing them together to do significant things together. so i suppose i'm advocating something that costs a bit of money but it isn't education. if by education you mean the transmission of propositional motive. it's about habits of living together which our segregated world make it very difficult and if you live with a kind of person represented in your everyday life and you depend upon them and you are doing things together it's very hard. it's not impossible because i just described something that's like the situation of many of

the jewish of germany in 1920. so things can go backwards. but i think a background a world in which we are constantly striving to engage in significant activities across all the boundaries that is a world in which not just racism but all kinds of you treat will be harder to sustain. the most obviously example of this in recent times in our country has been the consequence of large-scale coming out and people. 30 years ago many of you wouldn't have and it's just hard thinking to people who have a deadly love each other who know shouldn't get married it's easy to think about two people who were there and all you know is

that there are engaging in homosexuality. i think we have seen it happen before our eyes at a faster rate than i myself would anticipate. i think one of the great challenges we face as a country, this country is that we are still too much a country of segregation and that means and by the way what i'm saying is just classic contact hypothesis of psychology in case anybody's wondering. this is just a piece of routine social psychology i think. i think we have to take it more seriously than we do so the fact that people sometimes say the fact that the forms of segregation we have now are voluntary which i myself police is a bit of an exaggeration. >> schooling. >> even if it were the result of

choices people make their choices that are having a very bad effect and we have to think about whether we collectively can do things to stop them to that effect. now of course there are costs. >> absolutely. >> there are costs to losing that space but i think they are worth paying because in and that i do think -- this is a topic of which dubois got a great deal and he started out thinking which is why an early part of the 20th century he started out thinking that bigotry was a question of ignorance and so the solution was knowledge. maybe knowledge helps but it's not, because bigotry isn't the result it's not going to be sold by knowledge. i'm in favor of knowledge and i

have no objection to scholarly projects but i don't think they are substitute for the social experience of cohabitation which it is i believe the basis. >> i would answer that quickly in terms of the sharing of power from my own limited vantage point i think the fundamental problem of poor people in general is lack of people in particular is too much poverty and not enough self-love. you only respond by the sharing of power because its privilege and power at the top and of course that is the conclusioconclusio n that dubois reached the move from an enlightened point of view. he read karl marx always the book of fire for her which one must pass. it's not a question of discipline. you have to and gauge plutocrats

corporations big banks profit-making and that's the kind of society and world we live in. that is what marx was talking about and you might reject his conclusion that he's talking about how can we reach a point where everyday people share power as opposed to being dominated. and what it means to be dominated instead of subjugated and that's true for women and and and transgender and so forth but it's certainly true for black and brown and red. it's an issue of money and education absolutely important but how do you end up sharing power? you can have all the money and education in the world can still reproduce either. the question is how does that money and education how is it used and deployed in such a way that provides democrats have

been pushed to the margins. that is part of dubois' great vision even though he was too silent when it came to domination and the communist world and i'm glad you pointed that out in terms of his silence >> thank you so much for your patience. >> thank you very much to both of you and my question is for both of you. something i've been troubled by is what i feel like i have been seeing a lot of in the united states among public discourse and that is a fetishizing of choice identity not just as a simple fact that it exists but as emblematic of our progress in the path towards our progress in taking the contact theory and exploiting it and part of my concern is that i come from a latin american paradigm of race where the use of multi-issue out

he is a way to produce hierarchy and operation of white supremacy that forms my concern. so i was wondering if both of you could reflect on if you are perceiving this as well and what insights you might share about how can we civically and otherwise resist the use of it while at the same time celebrating that people can love who they want to love and form families that they want to form. that we respect all families in whatever form they come together in but at the same time not this choice of something so exceptional and better than monoracial bike i have seen used. >> it's a great question and.

>> you mean ascribe national powers to it. >> and a superiority to it to this inherent racial knowledge that his helper for all of us. >> look i think from the point of view of dubois' analysis once you see how racial categories have been produced to thought is that were that now we have the black essence in the widest sense and now we have a brown essence but this is all preposterous so yes it's a fact that it is the sign of change in our world that you see more visibly white and visibly nonwhite people in the public

space behaving as couples but there is pushing a -- are just holding hands. this is the sign of something good and the fact that in many places in the past they would have been locked up as it were and it's one of the scandals of our history. that's the great thing about scandals is they can be removed. it isn't as if when that happens what is produced is necessarily a new identity. you have to decide to -- you can't do it on your own. a couple declares themselves to be a multiracial republic so we have to decide whether we think the habla louisiana doctrine is this a helpful thing to do and i say my review is it's not.

i was actually against multiracial because i didn't know what the point of it was. the census is the government instrument which is used to to collect statistics but useful for governmental purposes. i don't know what the point is of keeping track. they are our vast number of distinct reasons which have no uniform explanation whereas i do want to know whether in the labor market worth 13% of people are black 13% of people are getting jobs and there's a reason the government should be interested in that. and discrimination if that's going on. it's fine for me. i know what happens. here's what happens. it's a perfectly decent thing. kids said i don't want to have to choose between my mother and

my father in deciding who i am. i want to be able to claim them both and the parents wanted them to be able to claim both as well. that's fine but we don't need a new social category. we need to have the idea that you can can claim with the one identified -- identity and that is one of dubois' central idea since the late 19th century in works of dubois. >> what i would say briefly to the question is i speak as a christian and i want to see the flowering of forms of self-love and love of neighbor in a friday different ways across a variety of different boundaries and borders that hits of the human level. i think our problem this country is that we still have the white as a standard so for example we see a couple walking down the street and it's a black and white couple and then another couple that are black in black,

somehow we get more excited about the black and white as oh my god that's just so wonderful. isn't that good? that's love. it's got the same status. but the problem is that white normative will put more value on inter-racial to the point of it being human all the way down and not only that but then this motion like a mullato and others have powerful for treats but these human beings who are a result of this relationship and therefore they provide a precious child. usually the mullato is associated with being highly successful and that's not true. i'm teaching a course right now and this bookstore is providing 150 books plato's apology dustin's -- lorraine hansberry raising of the sun.

it is the truth. free books in that class on friday night. in that prison and it's true they are brothers but they have some mellat those in there too. just like the only mullato in the white house. that's not true. mullato's catchpole. they are in poor schools and they have guns and drugs and so forth. to human thing with all the other structures of domination operating. if we can reach the point this is how it's revealed in other places. multiracial democracy as a way of reproducing white supremacy because -- even in brazil with all those beautiful black and brown and african people. we are now going to buy my

brother's book. that's what we are going to do. [applause] >> thank you. [applause] bohemians.

from city lights bookstore in san francisco this is 45 minutes. >> i think we are ready to start. i would like to to welcome y'all to city lights. we are delighted to have with us ben tarnoff a native son of san francisco returning with a new book, "the bohemians" marc twain in the san francisco writers who reinvented american literature. this is a densely layered highly nuanced portrait of the literary scene of the late 1800's. we follow the lives of marc twain been a cool breath -- ina colbrith to leave a literary canon. bends complexity of the relationships to cheney authors and offers a look at post-civil war west coast and provides the perfect medium for the

development of bohemia. the bohemians is a rich feast in history. it unwinds many different threads both of the writers and the city that helped host their exploits. ben is the author of another book for counterfeiters. ice which is published by penguin press and he is writing his appeared in the "san francisco chronicle" and he is also worked at lafon's quarterly. it's a delight and a pleasure to have them with us. welcome ben tarnoff. [applause] >> thank you for that introduction and thank you all for coming out tonight. i should tell you i'm a little bit of a flu so if i get a little warm or my voice gets a little froggy you will have to forgive me. marc twain actually when he was here in the 1860s in san francisco wrote a funny sketch called how to cure a cold and one other recommended cures was to rub mustard all over your chest so if things get to that

point i might send someone after mustard. [laughter] this is my book, "the bohemians" and it tells the story of four young writers in san francisco in 1860s. they were marc twain bret harte charles warren stoddard and ina colbrith. one of the things i really loved about this project is it gave me access to kind of an under known part of twain's life. i think when we think of twain they think of the man in the white suit chomping on a cigar with the white hair and the grandfatherly façade. that's really the twain of the last decade with his best work behind him. he's in his 60's and 70's. the twain of my stories the twain of the 20s and 30s when he hasn't really learned to conceal his extreme emotions under that grandfatherly façade. it's extremely ambitious. he's vindictive and angry.

he is vengeful and competitive. he is filled with anxiety about money and fear for the future. he's convinced he's going to end up in the poor house and he is surrounded by these other young writers in san francisco who really form him and mold him to maturity. san francisco is a great place to be a writer in 1860s and there are a few reasons why. it's very peaceful so the civil war is tearing apart the rest of the country. san francisco there is no fighting it reaches the coast and the draft is never applied west of iowa and kansas so it's a great place to set up the war. it's also a rich city. it's the industrial financial and commercial center of the far west and that prosperity finds a range of print publications that sustains classic sessional writers including twain. it's also a very urban city. it has more than 100,000 people which makes it by far the biggest city west of st. louis and that population is very

cosmopolitan which is a legacy the gold rush. you have chinese, europeans from all different countries south americans mexicans australians you name it. the last reason san francisco is so conducive to the literary scene is its isolation. it's pretty hard to reach san francisco from the eastern united states and that gives a kind of buffer to the culture and lets the city incubate its own idiosyncratic cultural spirit that really guides plane and the rest of the bohemians. so i thought i would begin at the beginning and read a little bit of the introduction and introduce you to these four characters. the civil war began with an outburst of patriotic feeling on both sides and the belief that a few battles would result in a swift victory.

it ended with the death of 750,000 soldiers and a nation shaken to its core. the wise men of an earlier era found themselves entirely unequal to the crisis. the great political and military leaders of the past eminences like john crittenden and general winfield scott both born in the previous century when into forced retirement while younger more modern minds like abraham lincoln and ulysses s. grant were up to the challenge. the civil war destroyed old challenges and rewarded radical thinking. the cultural upheaval comparable to the one brought a century early by the vietnam war the trauma to meet an older generation suddenly obsolete and demanded novelty innovation and experimentation. the 1860s was bloody bill walder in and if you manage to survive the magnificent time to be a young american. if america belongs in his future when the youngest place in america the far west the

pioneers who settled that were overwhelmingly young and untethered from traditional society they built a new world without the benefit of their parents council. if aaron camas often reeled with postadolescent excess they offered opportunities unlike any that might be found in the colleges and accounting houses of these. these new americans were the tanned face children of the vanguard of democracy. when wittman looked west he didn't see a place. he saw an idea rooted in a mystical tradition as old as the country itself. thomas jefferson had been an astounding profit. he and his disciples believed the americans would march toward the pacific in the continent's limitless supply of land would be settled by farmers who embodied the nation's egalitarian spirit. of course the reality was often more complicated. the region contains land they were assisted cultivation and indians who resisted

extermination. as the line of settlement's move steadily forward past the alleghenies the mississippi and the rockies the jeffersonian dream of a westwood empire of liberty began to look like prophecy. even henry david thoreau when departing for his daily walk in concord felt drawn in a westerly direction. the future that lies that way to me he wrote the earth seems more unexhausted and richer on that site. mark twain was born in 1835 and reach young adulthood at the best possible time just as the country embarked on the most extraordinary period of change in its history. he was a westerner by birth raised on the missouri frontier. ..

the two of them sam clemons as he was known and orion his

brother got on the stagecoach and went west. and then in the spring of 1863 twain visits san francisco for the first time. san francisco is the place to spend money in the west if you have it so he is coming to the big city from the mining boom town and is looking for a good time. what people remember best about him aside from his grandly red brows and rambling gates was a strange way of speaking a drawl that spun syllable slowly slowly like fallen branches on the surface of the stream. printers transcribe it with and dashes trying to render rhythm so complex that could've been scored of sheet music. he rasped ventrone lapsed into long silences soared in a slain tenor inherited from the songs of his childhood. he made people laugh while remaining dreadfully serious. he makes the sincere and esoteric the factual and the

fictitious and proportions to obscure for even his closest friends to decipher. he was irreverent ambitious vindictive personality as impenetrably fast as the american west and is prone to seismic outburst. he was emile clemons before he became mark twain and in the spring of 1863 he made his decision that brought him one step oser to the famed he craves. on may 2, 1863 mark twain boarded the stagecoach town for san francisco. the trip from virginia city nevada to the california coast promised more than 200 miles of jolting terrain sleepless nights spent cork through the sierras and alkali at dust so thick it kate the skin. these discomforts didn't deter him who had 27 had interesting memories than most men twice his age. he had piloted steamboats on the mississippi roamed his native missouri with a band of confederate gorillas and has the civil war began in earnest

taking over lang route to the territory of nevada or after local indian tribe. now he fell in love with the first and only metropolis in the far west. after the sagebrush and alkali desert of washoe he later wrote san francisco was paradise to me. its grandeur and festivity exhilarated him and he gorges himself with abandon. he drank champagne in the dining room a palatial haunt of high society modeled on the banquet hall of versailles. he toured the pleasure guard on the outskirts of town pretty met a pretty girl named jeannie who snubbed him when he said although and said hello when he snubbed her. he rode to the beach and listen to the roaring surf and put his toes in the pacific. on the far side of the continent he felt the country's vastness. he hadn't played to stay long but a nonstop of eating drinking sailing and socializing kept him too busy to bear the thought of leaving. in mid-may he wrote his mother

and sister to say he would remain for another 10 days, two weeks at the most. by early june another letter announced he was still in san francisco has switched lodgings to a fancier hotel and showed no signs of slowing his demonic pace. i'm going to the dickens might be fast he wrote a tone named squarely at his mother. the city offered many after dark amusements. hi tone saloons and i.v. dance halls gambling dens and shows and twain rarely relearned -- returned home before midnight. he was never at a loss for companionship. ..

the. >> in exchange san francisco would mold him into literary material and what an fire his evolution from a provincial scribbler into a great american writer from samuel clemens and mark twain. so mark twain continues to visit san francisco and then he decides to move their permanently in the spring of 1864. so what he does, he comes into contact with the city's leading literary figure and the two of them are going to form a very complicated love-hate relationship that will continue in the coming years beyond san

francisco. so bret hart likely look at. he might be seen in this stylish overcoat with a splash of color and a crimson necktie that set him apart from the rest. every folded fabric of the young man's outfit would be carefully arranged like a brilliantly plumed bird. if your eyes happened to meet his, he would smile. if you spoke a few words including summit would be agreeable, but there would be no yarn spinning or anything to remind one about the macho wildland mark twain. he preferred to be admired and there was much to admire. at 26 years old he had become the literary light of the pacific coast and no small feat in the state were even the shabbiest minor aspired to him,

including cheering crowds of public gatherings. hart had a rising reputation and a wife and infant son and his evenings been involved drunken romps come and they centered on more domestic concerns like how to keep baby griswold from disturbing his studying or his wife from drugging him into house chores that he might have a couple quiet hours to write. this soft-spoken dandy must've seen like an odd choice for the literary spokesman. he didn't we'll an actual revolver but he retold the churchmen of the cult of the pioneer. he hated sentimentalists and hypocrites and felt that california had an abundance. where others saw progress, he saw decline. few things escape the corrosive touch of his irreverence as his friend was a part of this, but he wasn't just in this case.

..

and sure enough the palm of years in the next edition of the golden era. so here is stoddard. the shop on montgomery street sold mostly religious books and baubles. inside the clerk was constantly distant, not because he cared much for cleanliness but because the money of the motion made it easy for his mind to wander. as he sank into is daydream the fed the duster in his hand became a palm tree. he had fallen in love with the tropics the years earlier while crossing across or in california and remember the syrupy taste of oranges and lemons the spray

when brokers can be among the bright plumage of birds of a crane against the relentless green of the jungle. most of all, the natives to adorn their nearly naked bodies with necklaces and reeves. one day california's most famous feature. the door with cutting his reverie short. celebrities have been in the shop before, but never one whom he held in such high esteem. in my youth he was a hero worshiper, and the most heroic. after a probing glance came true a scrap of newspaper from his pocket. he read these lines? he said he did. the minister responded by reading aloud. he added words of encouragement and invited stoddard to visit him. tickets to the up coming lecture series on poetry and where he would be discussing distinguished newfoundland

politics. then he vanished. i was left speechless with wonder and delight. at first glance they are employed by have reminded king of heart. but where's lender and delicately build with large expressive lines. serbs stood down the page, often illegible. he kept most people at a distance but a lot for dear life . we will people love best was his vulnerability. is your earning for success, dread of failure, pain he felt when criticized in the pleasure one praised. these are the emotional undertow of many writers live. twink concealed his insecurities with bravado and wait. he hid behind his studious exterior yet airing passions in

public, and their loved him for it. this was the true source of what would be called in wenzel charm. there was one part of this personality they could not quite understand. he endured abuse from schoolyard bullies. he pursued close relationships with certain boys for whom he felt an especially deep devotion . these chums and bowser really reciprocated his affection, and as a child came to respect their objection and even take a kind of pleasure and. he loved being in love. for someone who found solace in their written world he lived in a word with no words for what he was.