>> this week on q&a, new york-based artist and writer molly crabapple talked about her career, political views and how she approaches her work. >> host:

>> cspan: where did you >> cspan: what do you do for a living? >> guest: i write about conflict zones. >> cspan: why did you go to gaza? >> guest: i was in palestine for a literary festival. i didn't plan to go there at all. but i met an amazing journalist who walked me through the bureaucratic process in which a journalist can go. i had the opportunity to go and went. >> cspan: where were you in gaza?

>> guest: i was staying in gaza city. >> cspan: what did you see? >> guest: i wrote about a subdivisi subdivision that was decimated. it was like nothing i had ever seen before except in syria. in syria it is done by bombing campaign but here it was followed up by a ground invasion. the whole neighborhood was gone. you saw people living in ruined houses surrounded by the smashed rubble of their former lives. you saw a lot of poverty and people living in an open air prison. >> on the screen now is one of your pieces of work from gaza. what are we looking at? >> guest: that is the ruins of a hospital that was a

rehabilitation facility for adults and children. it was shelled. and luckily there were no cas l casualities. >> cspan: when did you do this piece? >> guest: i did it when i got home. there are messy liquids that don't travel well. i go around with my i-phone and sketch book and take thousands of i-phone photos. a draw from life. i can draw really fast. it is a good way to build relationships. then i get home and think about what images i think distill what i have seen. what are the most dramatic shots? what shots boil down the essentials for the viewer?

and i chose those images. >> cspan: what is more important? the art or the politics? >> guest: i think the art at this point. we are defiant by nature, right? >> cspan: how would you define your politics? >> guest: i am a leftist. >> cspan: what does that mean for you? >> guest: what does being a leftist mean for me? i have an old fashion definition. i believe in the individual and in inalienable rights. and i believe the best way to insure those rights is a social democracy perhaps more socialstic. >> cspan: where did this all start? your mother was jewish and your father was puerto rican?

>> guest: is. they are very much alive. >> cspan: your mother was an illustrator? >> guest: toy packaging was something that was artistic. she did stuff for the cabbage patch kids. she raised me in a house where art wasn't something that was far away from us. art was a way my mom made a living and what my great grandfather did. >> cspan: what about dad? >> guest: he is a professor. >> cspan: where did you get your views? >> guest: i was influenced by my father. he was a marxist. he told me i had two rules and that was challenge authority and be interesting. >> cspan: let's look at -- you have people can get on if they

want to see your art and video and all they can find it at what places? >> guest: my website is mollycrabapple.com. they can go to vice.com and see my illustrated journalism as well. >> cspan: what did you do for fusion tv? >> guest: i did a series of five animated essay for fusion tv. they were team efforts. i did them with a friend who is a director and a friend who is a designer. they used stills to talk about the prison complex and industrial police force. >> cspan: and we will talk about locking up immigrants. talk about that. >> guest: these detention centers are very expensive and more important they are taking people who are accused of a

criminal offense and they are looking them up in conditions that are in brutal and we would put a convicted criminal and without the rights we would give to someone who is accused of a criminal offense. >> cspan: let's watch a little bit so you can explain more about how you do this. on march 31st, 80 mothers announced a hunger and work strike. they were undocumented migrants in prison with their children some up to ten months. they were demanding freedom for their children and themselves. the united states puts immigrants behind bars every day. they are locked up in a patch work of government run facilities, for profit detention centers, and local jails. the vast majority of the

immigrants are not criminals but are kept in conditions that are as brutal as those prisoners and fewer rights than if they were charged with a crime. there are 3400 people in these facilities now. communication with the outside world is limited. they are subjected to punishment like solitary confinement. >> cspan: have you ever visited one of those detention centers? >> guest: i haven't. i have visited prisons.

i thought i would have them behind the fence. i do a story board. there is a series of sketches that show every image happening in this. then after the story board which takes three days, i would say, it is time to shoot. the way we shoot is we have a ladder over the stool and on the step stool is whoever the camera man is perhaps jim or someone else. over the next 15 hours the person stays on the stool with the camera pointing at the table while i draw every image on the story board. >> cspan: how long does it take to do one of those? how long are they for that time? >> guest: everything is between 3-5 minutes and the filming

takes 12-15 hours. >> cspan: where are they seen? >> guest: fusion's website and on youtube. >> cspan: anybody can watch them? >> guest: anybody can watch them. >> cspan: how many have you done? >> guest: i have done five of them. >> cspan: we have a video of a place that means a lot to you you said. this is a place in paris. explain your relationship with that place. >> guest: i am getting drunk with nostalgia. when i was 17 i was in paris and heard about shakespeare and company bookstore and i thought maybe i could meet those people. i was shy at hat time. i started drawing and this old man comes in and -- >> cspan: that is a bad end. >> guest: this is so beautiful.

i love that place. george whitman, the owner, i met him and he invited me to stay there. i lived there for a month and came back for another month and came back over the years, back and forth, sleeping in his books in between the stacks and we would work at the cash register. and that was, i don't know, that is like, i guess my little heaven i return to. this place where i guess i felt the lesson that george gave us was if you enacted your generosity and dreams with rigor and practicality you can make anything happen. this is a place where anyone can stay. in the center of paris, as long as you wanted, and have a successful business for 52 years.

>> there are not that many beds. >> guest: i do know the upstair apartments have changed. >> cspan: why do you think you believe -- >> guest: why do i think i believe in what i do? >> cspan: what part of the world don't you like? >> guest: these are very broad questions. >> cspan: you have molly crabapple's 15 rules for creating success in the internet age. find that on your website? >> guest: that is on bong-bong which is a successful blog that highlights things about technology and generally wonderful things.

>> you have stuff on here that i am asking you about. you said they are not loyalty. perhaps a small business, i mean i have a few employees and i am motivated by loyalty to them. but nothing like disney or like nbc can be motivated toward personal loyalty. it is a corporate charter. >> what have you done because of that? how independent are you? >> what do you mean? >> cspan: vice is a corporation. >> guest: did you read my whole rule? >> cspan: please never believe a company has your back. they are a moral.

ask other free-lancers what they are getting paid. and don't by into a suit. >> guest: exactly. that is the full thing. watch you realize they are immoral by design you are in a position where you can deal with them. where whereas if you think they have loyalty they will take advantage of you. >> cspan: you said you are sick of social media but addicted to it. you said i don't know if the future is going back to big money platforms. what do you think of the situation to regulate the government? >> guest: which one? >> cspan: the most recent where the fcc decided on how they will regulate under title ii. >> guest: i have been in the last days of copy editing my

book so all events are over my head. >> cspan: the question is would you rather the internet be the way it is now or the government regulate it and keep close tabs on how people can use it? >> guest: i think they are questions upon themselves of distortion. do we mean the government is controlling what people say on the net? the government enforcing net neutrality? >> cspan: that is what we are talking about. >> guest: are you talking about the government preventing corporations from spying on you. what are you talking about when i say what do i think about the government regulating the internet. i don't think the government is -- i don't think that the government is any less or more evil than a large corporation like facebook necessarily. they are utterly in bed together. do i think the government should regulate free speech on the

internet? no, never. dear god no. do i think the government should enforce net neutrality. yes. >> cspan: you are in many industries so if the bottom falls out on one you are not ruined. how many incomes do you have? >> guest: i write. i have a gallery that sells my paintings. i have a book coming out with harper collins. >> cspan: are you afraid of being successful? >> guest: afraid of being successful? that is an interesting question. i don't know what that means. i mean i suppose very often when people become successful they get swadled and stop seeing things clearly. >> cspan: let's go back and look at more of your art. >> guest: that handsome

gentlemen. >> cspan: when did you do this? why? what are we seeing? >> guest: this is based on a picture i did in dubai. i was doing a piece about western workers building museums there. i went to dubai because i knew trump was going to be there because he was building luxury housing and golf courses. i got into the press conference and trump is at this press conference and he is saying the world is so full of failure. here in dubai everything is perfect and why can't new york be like dubai. trump would never dare say that in america. it made me somewhat angry. also, i have been doing investigative journalism there and i knew the guys building trump's golf courses and houses were getting paid $200 a month

even though they were sweating in the sun 12 hours a day doing construction work. at the end of the press conference, i got up and said you are making luxury buildings here in dubai and your guys are getting paid $200 a month and because it is dubia, it is sensitive, it went dead, i got yelled at, the security guard looked like he wanted to throw me down. and once the story calmed down they told me they wish they good do that. but the others had to tell trump how good he was. >> cspan: were the security guards with trump? >> guest: i cannot say for sure

but my impression is they were with the dubai firm. >> cspan: this is solitary confinement and we have a shorter version of your clip on this subject: >> in july, 2013, 33,000 state prisoner went on a hunger strike in california that went on two months. the prisoners were protesting solitary confinement. in solitary your world is a gray concrete box and you spend between 22-24 hours a a day alo in your cell. three times a week guards shackle you and take you to the showers for 15 minutes. for exercise you pace around another concrete box and sometimes a little ceiling is

uncovered. this is only time you you can see the sky. the use of solitary confinement is arbitrary. nearly 3,000 people are held in pelican bay prison and over a third are in solitary. most of them, because of quote unquote gang affiliation. that is a meaningless phrase as it might mean reading a book by a black panther, or having a tattoo. pelican bay isn't alone. around the country you can land in solitary confinement because of your reading, art, beliefs, jgende gender, sexual other than or your friends. >> cspan: should we not have solitary confinement at all? >> guest: it is hard to say if there is someone that is incredibly violent that they should not be solitary.

solitary is like a lego inside the prison sentence that is being used to lock up people because they used the phones in a way the prison didn't like or they said they got a tattoo. once it is stopped being used like that we can devote our mind to a new cases. it is torture. it destroys people's mind. shane bower when was implies in iran spoke about how when they put him in solitary it was the most brutal part of his entire ordeal. since solitary first started being used they knew it was torture. no, i don't think it is appropriate to torture people to enforce minor rules, probably rules that are being enforced against people who should never have been in jail in the first

place. >> cspan: did i read that somewhere when you were travelling you were put in prison? >> guest: i wasn't put in prison but i was detained. i was detained when i was 18 and traveling in eastern turkey right after the cease-fire. in turkey they have a draft and a lot of the police are military police that are young and i think they saw an american girl and wanted to hang out with a girl and didn't realize how scary they were being. >> cspan: how do you feel when you travel? when did you go to syria? >> guest: i went last summer. >> cspan: why did you go and how did you get in? >> guest: i was doing a study about a camp over the border. >> cspan: there is some of your artwork on the screen. >> guest: that one is not from that project. that is something i did in collaboration with a young syrian man who unfortunately lives under the islamic state

right now. i am a western journalist so i cannot go. i went over the border with another freelance journalist and we went to a border town that was being repeatedly bombed. when i was there the islamic state had just been kicked out and i think the most touching thing i saw was local residents took all of the islamic state murals and painted them in pink and orange and put quotes about tolerance. it is rather beautiful. >> cspan: when you saw the situation who is right and wrong? >> guest: how can you say that in a war? define who is right and wrong. >> cspan: when you are were there you must have come to some conclusion on what was going on there. who started it, is one side more

dominant than the other? when you were there did you ask yourself should the united states be involved in any way? where did you go with that? >> guest: the syrian conflict started when the assad regime cracked down on protester asking for basic liberties or protesting because a family member was killed. the conflict is brutal, sides are fragmented and it would be very difficult for anyone to say there were armed groups in syria and while if this was 2011 i would feel very comfortable saying those protesters were right. at this point, you know, the thing is the biggest humanitari humanitarian and i would not be comfortable saying this person

is good and this person is bad except that the assad regime is hideous. isis is hideous. and anyone who committed war crimes in syria i hope they are brought to justice and i hope the conflict starts. >> cspan: what role should we take? >> guest: we should take more refuges. this is a israeli-palestine conflict where millions of refuges are in turkey. one out of three people in lebanon is a syrian refuges. you cannot have populations of women and children going up in tents. you cannot have kids growing up in tents. not just because it is wrong, you know, it is morally reprehensi reprehensible but it threatens to destabilize the country it is happening to. i have to say for all of the racisms that syrian refuges face

and the violence in turkey and lebanon and in jordan and the camps there i cannot imagine america allowing refuges to flee here at all. i think what should america do? they should ease the burden on the states that are bearing the brunt of this. >> cspan: how many hours a day do you work? >> guest: it depends on what i'm doing. i think lately i have been getting a little bit more burnt out. but when i started out i worked from the time i woke up to the time i fell asleep. i tend do that that when i am doing any major project. >> cspan: in syria or gaza do you do any artwork on scene? >> guest: i go around with a sketch book and draw. and that is not always to show the finish drawing but to build a relationship. when you have a camera it puts a

divide between you and the person. you are taking images they cannot see what you are taking. whereas when you draw it is vulnerable and they can see what you are doing. if you suck, they can tell you so. it is more of an interchange. most people haven't been drawn and are delighted to be drawn. i draw people a lot of times because i like to and i like talk to them when i do it. >> cspan: do you work fast? >> guest: very fast. >> cspan: do you sketch first? we are seeing the way you to it on paper. i don't know anything about art but watch and look at it. >> guest: something like that is a finished piece that took ten hours. let's say i am doing a quick sketch from guantanamo bay. i would have like a marker with a fat tip and skinny tip that would be light gray. first i would draw this crazy

loose sketch that no one would be able to understand it except me. it is like shorthand. then i would take the fat tip and shade in the dark. and take pilot pen which is a cheap pen you get at the drugstore and i would start making lines. one thing i learned is it is better to make the wrong line confidantly than the wrong line tentively. people want to follow the sense of vitality. you do it as best as you can with as much rigor and belief as you can. >> cspan: how many times have you been to guantanamo bay? >> guest: i have been twice. >> cspan: why? >> guest: i did two features for vice and a number of other features for other places. >> cspan: here is art of your story on gitmo.

explain this. >> guest: guantanamo bay is one of the most censored place on earth to make pictures. if you are a photographer there you feel like you are playing a game of twister. they would be like you cannot take a photograph of anyone's face, any doors, multiple buildings. as an artist, i had an advantage because when there is something i cannot take a photo of i can draw it. when i was in guantanamo bay it was at the height of a hunger strike by the prisoners. a number of them were being force fed at the time. military made up a special term for that. so that piece that you just showed has military nurses force feeding the prisons and then

there is a place that we enjoyed eating at. >> cspan: how much access did you get? >> guest: almost none. i was at a pre-trial hearing the first time and the second time i went to a prison tour. you don't get to speak to any prisoner except on the day i was there i got to see prisoners while they were playing through a two-way mirror. >> cspan: here is a piece you did of the supposed mastermind of 9/11. what are we seeing here? >> guest: you know, he is the alleged mastermind of 9/11. he is in court all day, and board, and messes with his be d beard. he is wearing this hunting jacket.

he died his beard orange in an attempt to look military. that is a traditional thing they do but i am sure he doesn't have henna so it is most people's theory he died it with the artificial fruit juice they have. that is him hanging out. >> cspan: how close were you to him? >> guest: quite far away. the way they do it is there is like this room divided with layers of sound-proof glass. there are video monitors that run a time delay. that is so the cia and other agencies cannot stop the video if something is being discussed. when i first went in, i brought in opera glasses but they were taken from a prohibited optification. >> cspan: vice is what? >> guest: vice is a magazine and

has a tv show on hbo. >> cspan: they have 30 minute episodes? >> guest: yeah. >> cspan: who reads vice? >> guest: i would say young people. >> cspan: how young? >> guest: 18-34. >> cspan: what do you do for that audience? do you think about that them? >> reporter: no, i am an artist we don't think like marketers. >> cspan: what do they expect you to come back with? >> guest: certain word count and certain amount of pieces. >> cspan: how often do you work with them? >> guest: two major print features and an article a month. >> cspan: fusion -- who watches fusion? >> guest: it is more latino

oriented than vice but same age group. >> cspan: are you worried in this process you are getting too close to corporation? >> guest: every day. what can you do? span >> cspan: this piece is on how police profile and shame sex workers. what is the base of this one? >> guest: there is a law called manifesting prostitution law and what it does is enable fleece arrest a woman for prostitution without witnessing her to offer exchange for money instead they can arrest her for if she has condoms or what she is wearing and/or where she is standing. very often it is if she is tr s transsexual and black. i saw so many arrested for who

they were. >> monica accepted the offer of ab -- monica wasn't arrested for exchanging sex for money. if you wave someone by, or ask if someone is a cop you can be arrested. this isn't just happening in arizona. in january of 2013, new york city police arrested this woman for talking to three people within a span of 20 minutes and we wearing jeans that were tight on her legs.

police sometimes place fake ads on websites where sex workers find clients and then they arrest the sex workers. and some police departments allow cops to act like clients to convince the workers to sleep with them and after sex the cops make the arrest. >> cspan: what do you rely on for information about this world? >> guest: it is community that much of my activism comes from. i know many sex workers. i spent a lot of time in the human trafficking court in the bronx. and other things like the felicia mcguns thing it comes off the police website. >> cspan: you described yourself as goth, dorky and hated when you were younger. why did they describe you as

goth? >> guest: i described myself as gothy. i wore all black, studied french. >> cspan: what is the black part of being gothy? explain what it is. >> guest: oh, dear, i am explaining what goth is on c-span? >> cspan: that is what you are doing. why do people go there? >> guest: i think being a smart kid who is into literature but felt a little alienated feels sophisticated at that age. >> cspan: what was your favorite subject matter in high school? >> guest: i loved literature, art and didn't study french but taught myself french. >> cspan: you describe yourself as dorky? >> guest: i loved books. >> cspan: is that what a dork is? >> guest: someone who has an interest in a subject and not as

much with socializing with friends. >> cspan: does that bother you that someone else described you as a dork? >> >> guest: no. >> cspan: what about hated? >> guest: i was the outcast because i was the girl who dressed funny and was obsessed with books. >> cspan: does it bother you? do you still do that today? >> guest: dress funny and love books? god yes. >> cspan: are you still a dork? >> guest: no, i think that is something you get out of the age at young age. >> cspan: are you an only child? >> guest: i am. >> cspan: what impact did that have on our life? >> guest: hard to say. my cousin was orphaned at 15 and lived with us. i don't think you can talk about

different ways you can be. >> cspan: explain what molly crabapple's week in hell was? >> guest: i was 27 and did what was viewed as the same work for too long. i wanted to do something where i drew so much and so intensely i got my cliches out. so i covered a hotel room wall with paintings and drew all over them for seven days. and i drew and drew until i got to the bottom reservoir and ran out and came across something else. >> cspan: did you ask for permission to put the paper up? >> guest: we should have. but we didn't. >> cspan: let's watch the beginning of this so weibull people have a better idea of what we were talking about.

the clock? >> guest: it was five days like a business week from hell. >> cspan: are you going to do it again? >> guest: no, not going to do it again. >> cspan: what was the result at the end of the five days and what was the result? >> guest: i was exhausted and broken. but within a month of that i

started doing a different sort of work. i started doing work in politics. that is when occupy wall street happened. i think it served the purpose of clearing out the cliches. >> cspan: you say occupy wall street is when you started being political. >> guest: no it is when i started allowing by work to be political. >> cspan: explain the difference. >> guest: somewhat might be political by donating, marching, volunteering, all sorts of things like that and expressing it as a private person. but work is political when you write books about politics or artwork to support various movements. so before this, i was political as an anonymous participant. i would donate money or raise money or march in protest or vote for people i believed in. that kind of thing. but after occupy that was the

first time i felt like i could allow it to go into my work as well. >> cspan: so what did you do as a result? what kind of thing did you start doing that was political after occupy? >> guest: i got frustrated by the media portrayal because i live down the block from the park so i was seeing it every day and seeing construction workers, veterans, grandmas, union guys. but then when i would see occupy on tv they would find this, i don't know, one dumb hippy with tie die leggings beating on a drum without any rhythm. and i was like why are you focused on that guy? he is untypical and nothing to do with what is going on and the purpose is to trivialize it. >> cspan: was occupy wall street

worth it? >> guest: it is a hard thing to say. we have in a society with such a short time frame. we think this has been going on for three week and the world hasn't changed. what was the point? but then you look at civil rights and how long between one event and another and you this can we lost our patience. i think occupy did fail. drum circles are terrible and everyone hates them. but i also think occupy radicalized a generation. so, yes, i do think it is important. >> cspan: back to fusion tv. this is about ferguson. when you first heard about ferguson what was your reaction? >> guest: i had a lot of admiration for the people in the streets that were having vigils for mike brown even though the

cops were bringing dogs against them. >> cspan: what was your reaction when you found out they didn't indict the police man? >> guest: i cannot say i was surprised. i think the police are the ground level enforces of the state and the state doesn't want to indict police and police unions are very powerful and also police work hand and hand with prosecutors. these are all three reasons why police don't get indicted. i think the only reason police are getting indicted for murdering black people is because of the militant protests. >> cspan: protest works? >> guest: protests work, yeah. >> cspan: here is some of your artwork. >> lawyers and medics came from around the countries. activist from palestine tweeted tips for dealing with tier gas. protesters risked arrest and violence. one local woman gave out water all day to protesters and that

night police maced her. she said it felt like hell on fire. protesters in ferguson are extraordinary. the u.s. government doesn't even put a number on police killing. the fbi said the police commit 400 justifiable homicides a year. that number is way too low. the facebook page killed by police documented 1400 deaths spanning three people killed every single day. >> cspan: how do you do and i know going back and forth between politics and art. but how do you do that when you have a piece of work on your board and when you blacken it in? >> guest: i pour black ink on it. >> cspan: that is not saved? how do you know when you are getting through, or do you know when you are getting through to a public that is looking at what

you do? >> guest: that is a really good and hard question. i mean just from the notes people write me or the conversation i see happening around it. when i am doing it, i am not thinking i must get through to this public. i am not someone who does seo enhancing for a living. and what is most meaningful to me is when people i am involved in are writing about me. let's say i am doing a piece about abu dabi and if a local writes something their opinion is important because they live there. >> cspan: how do you hear about that? >> guest: twitter. >> cspan: what impact is the online having? how is it changing the world?

>> guest: one thing is does is it makes certain things that would have been ignored previously really hard to ignore. ferguson is a perfect example. it blew up on social media and that is what drew the media to cover it. that can have a distorting thing where things that are not big in life look big online. it creates the potential for things that are not having a form to get equal attention to those that do and i think that is important. >> when did you notice with all things you do you speak to groups, do artwork, write forking vifor vice, television r fusion, when did you notice people talking about you more and being more interested in what you do? did you notice a big change ever?

>> guest: a big change? i think the time i started -- well i have been in the industry for a long time. i think that the time that my career started to feel the most meaningful to me was after i went to guantanamo bay and after i did a big archer called shell game which was the first time i had ever done this big ambitious painting that was six-foot tall. i had to show that drew attention from all over the world where participants came and were involved. it got a lot of media attention. >> when did you see the price going up and what people were willing to pay for your art? >> guest: right around them. >> cspan: has it been a big jump? >> guest: yes. >> cspan: buying a molly crabapple is a lot more valuable than it was ten years ago? >> guest: maybe? >> cspan: what do you mean maybe? and i asked you something like

this earlier are you worried if you start making a lot of money it will change your life and what you are interested in? >> guest: i don't think it is about making the money but the things that come with money. as a non-employee of anywhere, and i have no desire to be an employee of anywhere, despite a few titles that don't bear power, i work for myself. that is the truth. i am ultimately beholden to me. as long as you can maintain that that is what is is important. as long as you have to ability to tell anyone to bleep off. can i say that on c-span? >> cspan: you just did. you write never trust some silicone valley d-bag who is flushed with investors money but

telling creators it post for free or potential crumbs of cash. >> guest: something you see a lot now is where there are people who have sites that are obviously the point is to get them to have a bunch of money invest and sold fast. to do that you need the user base. so, they will try to attract a user base maybe of artist, journalist to get them to post on it and do work for me. it is not just the posting. it is like if you tweet and it takes 30 seconds that is one thing. but if you write a whole article for potential money that is different labor. these sites sell the we are scrappy and independent and in this together. the site will close and people will get lots of money and you the creator will not take part. >> cspan: your number 10 is be a

mercenary for people with money and a good steward for people without it. >> guest: if you are talking about raising money from some kids broke fund you want to do it because it is the right thing to do. but if you talk about weather an aurous wants something for her tea room. >> >> cspan: working for me is only worth it if it is worth fellow -- free -- artist and you have the same beliefs. >> guest: people tell you to work for free. i have had fortune 500 companies want me to work for me for them. i probably work for me more than

most artist but i don't believe in doing it for someone who is already rich. that is their job to hire people. people give them money. i do it for people who you know might need my help or where my thing might have an impact on their lives or raise money or attention for them. i would say it is important to do it where you have creative control. >> cspan: drawing blood your memoir. what are you 31? >> guest: yes. >> cspan: early for a memoir? >> guest: look how much we had to talk about. >> cspan: what is the book about? >> guest: being on artist in new york and doing work and doing an artist about prisons. it is comes out in december.

it is about 100,000 words of prose and a hundred illustrations. >> cspan: we have one more video. this is called broken windows policing. before we look at it explain a little bit. >> guest: this is the theory that if a window is left broken in a neighborhood people will start smoking crack and jacking cars and murdering people because of the little sign of disorder. however, the name is rather misleading because when i hear that the first thing i think about is are you fixing the broken window? it is not about that. it is about arresting poor black and latino people usually for minor thinks like hanging out on the street. >> cspan: let's watch it. >> social scientist james william and george kelly

introduced the broken window series in 1982. according to kelly and wilson, if a neighborhood had broken window, other windows would be broken out and crime would or. william bratten became the police commissioner of new york city and applied their theory to the city introducing a zero policy. a new yorker could be arrested for selling art on the street under his leadership. the idea was to find folks with outstanding warrants. broken window policing means poor people getting arrested. it focuses on crimes done by the powerless and it is about controlling people of color.

arresting people for non-existing crimes and funneling them through court and prison. there is no evidence that broken window policing makes you safer. being questioned by the police is intrusive and demeaning. >> cspan: what should the police do? >> guest: there are two things there. i think cops need to stop getting quotas. in new york police have quotas for the number of people they need to arrest and that results in preverse incentives where people are arrested for doing things that are not bothering people. i think a lot of things should be decriminalized like standing around. people shouldn't be in jail for drinking booze from a back or putting up graffit. i think it is possible to look at the broken windows where the police are targeting black and

latino people. i am a hundred percent sure if police went around wall street and searched people they would find a lot of cocaine. i am sure if they searched their computers they would find tax evasion. but they don't do that because wall street is filled with powerful people. the reason it is done in crown heights is it is filled with black and latino people that are criminalized. >> cspan: what is on your dream sheet? what more do you want to accomplish? could you be any freer than you are now to do what you want to do? say what you want to say? >> guest: i suppose if i had a dream of what i was going to do i like going to conference zones

and drawing them and -- conflict -- and drawing big pictures. >> cspan: if president obama invited you into the oval office and said you had two minutes to tell them what you should do with the united states what would you do? >> guest: i don't think i should be invited in for that. >> cspan: what do you want changed in the world? >> guest: what i do want changed in the world in two minutes? i don't think they can be fixed by appealing to someone who is so tied into power structure that it is causing so many of these problems. >> cspan: as you look at the future are you optimistic?

pessim pessimistic? >> guest: i think guessing what happens is not the best idea. >> cspan: do you have any instructions on what to tell people watching that want to be like you? >> guest: it is not that you have art or you don't. it is that you have the love of art or you don't. i look at my work from ten years ago and think how did anyone hire me? but i had that stubbornness and knew this is what i was going to do or i would die. i did it and put in the work you need to do become good. i think that, yes, train like hell, work to the limits of your ability, work with discipline and vigor and passion. then you will not be an artist. it is that wanting that makes you an artist. >> cspan: if somebody wants to see your work now, what art

gallery in new york? >> guest: post masters gallery. >> cspan: online? >> guest: mollycrabapple.com. >> cspan: and your book comes out in december? >> guest: december with harper collins. $25 for a hard cover. >> cspan: you work in new york and work for fusion sometimes and vice and anybody else? vanity fair? >> guest: i have done a few for them and i have a few pieces out of a friend from syria sent me what life is like under a barrel bomb there. that is probably the next piece coming up. >> cspan: molly crabapple, thank you for spending an hour. >> guest: thank you so much.

good afternoon everyone. i like to thank everyone here for coming out to politics and prose. as we mark on on another wonderful reading, i would like to take care o