this to my wife. even though we were experiencing a joy of watching president obama in chicago at hyde park i said were in for some dark times they're not only question hp use , but they're going to question any attempt to speak to the suffering of black communities. what we've witnessed over the last eight years and you've seen this in your work is how difficult it has been to give voice to the suffering that has taken place. >> at the time, i immediately believed that the post- racial was a spin move being infected

that was false and overblown. historically, the ascension for the advent of the first african-american in any institution, whether it's jackie robinson in baseball, the first african-american in the class that my father was in, it never meant that there was this immediacy of changing. in fact i think the issue that all of the advances are followed by backlash and an un- irrational fear by some that somehow things will go to hell in a handbag. i thought it was not only false, but i also thought thought that the objective for america should

not be post- racial but should be a multicultural democracy that functions to everyone in the division and somehow you can kind of get past some aspect of history without a real clear sense of what you're absolutely trying to create. so in that sense though, you have to concede a couple of things. when the president took over in 2009 no matter who that would've been in 2009 in january, they were facing jobs being lost, banking debacle in a financial crisis which was more extreme than any in american history. the almost demise of the american automobile and in many respects, black people were

suffering, but black people were not the only people suffering but all people were suffering and black people may have been suffering more. so in that context, with those facts, how would you evaluate the president's performance? : washington journal continues.

t is back atl wrigh our desk. >> host: crystal right isb. back at our desk. want to get into in the title of your book but i wish to begin with this y quotation reading, real racism still exists and hurts real people. they are quick to label every incident racists. to the shooting of black teens, it diminishes the rightful attention that true racism should receive. whyhat is true racism and are some of the issues that you bring up in that example not for racism? guest: i actually devote a chapter in the book to true racism. it is in the appendix.

it is my family's personal story of being disseminated against. when i was a little girl and they applied to a country club and were told that they didn't want my parents to be members because they were black. that case went all the way up to the u.s. court of appeals. 1980, the u.s. justice department filed an amicus brief because they said 13 years after the civil rights act had passed, this is not what america was about. so that to me is true racism and discrimination. i would say, when someone is denied access to something, that is true racist discrimination. when people are called the n-word out right by white supremacist, that is discrimination. ,leve and bundy, the rancher the incendiary things he said about black people, that is racism. what is happening now is you

have this industry where people like al sharpton and cornell west are getting rich off of calling everything racism, jumping into racial division incidents in the united states and profiting on it. jesse jackson is another one. that to me is not being a champion for ending discrimination, that is a champion for making money. host: you say it is something the democratic party is trading off of. guest: it is trading off that. you see the narrative playing out on the democratic side. we have hillary clinton and bernie sanders, which are the democrat front-runners. -- only one fine for the only ones buying for the democratic nomination. they are pandering to black lives matter. we saw last year when bernie sanders is that an event, he didn't give what black people felt was an appropriate lipservice to black lives matter and he h