the director for arts and culture it gives me great

pleasure to welcome you to this particular conversation this evening. the center for arts and culture teams up with the new press for "pushout: the criminalization of black girls in schools." this conversation is deeply meaningful to restoration and the press as we share the marginalized voices and stories. we want to thank diane and the new team for their incredible partnership in tonight's conversation. thank you so much. a round of applause. [applause] i also want to note books are for sale following the conversation to my left and you're right. gloria steinem asked to this writer and journalist wrote about "pushout," if you ever

doubted that the supremacy crime, those devoted to maintaining hierarchy are rooted in both race and sex, read "pushout." she tells us how the schools are crushing the spirit and talent this country needs. guiding us through tonight's conversation of cheryl harris,, executive director of field support from new york schools she will be speaking with the author doctor monique morris. please join me in giving these women may well come. [applause] tonight's conversation wouldn't be complete without hearing some of the voices of the young women from doctor morris's research. to bring up the voice is actress colby christina from the

academy. academy. ladies and gentlemen, we present "pushout: the criminalization of black girls in schools"." [applause] >> this was the cry of the 14-year-old who in the summer of 2015 was thrown to the ground physically and verbally assaulted by after she refused to leave her friend in mckinney texas. a video that later went viral showed them pushing his face into the ground as she come a slight framed bikini clad teenager who presented no physical threat danger screamed for someone to call her mother to help. they showed him grinding the

knee into the skin and restraining her by placing the full weight of his body onto hers. the incident went silent and reeked of sexual assault. overtones that were later deemed inappropriate, out of control and inconsistent with the department policies, training and articulated press. though they've redesigned in response to the outcry and internal scrutiny associated, the image of the helpless body under his has become one of the snapshots that call the public consciousness to examine the policing and criminalization. though the media and advocacy efforts focused on extreme and intolerable abuse cases involving black boys such as 17-year-old trayvon martin to reveal what many of us have known for centuries black girls are also directly impacted by

criminalizing policies and practices that render them vulnerable to abuse, exploitation and under the worst circumstances, that. for example, a team-year-old chinese -- shaniqua died in alabama even in high-profile cases involving boys we often fail to see those are right along the side. after the shooting, the officers tackled the 14-year-old sister to the ground and handcuffed her not only did she watch her brother died at the hand die ate officers that she was forced to grieve his death from the back of a police car. addressing these narratives have proven difficult in the current social and political climate one that embraces those of dissent and increases the surveillance of the home where our families live, the communities where our children play and the schools where our children are educated. >> welcome, everyone, to

"pushout" a conversation with monique morris. sisters, brothers, communicators, leaders i know that we are excited to engage in a thoughtful and powerful conversation with doctor morris. as we examine the injustice black girls experience in school and beyond, and also have the opportunity to hear her thoughts about how we change this narrative, it is my true pleasure and honor to introduce doctor monique morris. doctor monique morris is an author and social justice scholar with more than 20 years of professional and volunteer experience. doctor morris is the author of african-americans by members of the 21st century.

she's written dozens of articles, chapters and other publications on social justice issues and lectured widely on research policies and practices associated with improving the juvenile justice, educational and socioeconomic conditions of black girls, women and their families. doctor morris is the cofounder and president of the national black justice institute. she's also a former vice president for economic programs, advocacy and research of the national association of the advancement of colored people and the former director of research for the anderson center for social justice at uc berkeley law school. her work has informed the development and implementation of the improved cultural competence and gender responsiveness continuum of services. in the gender and justice to

explore the ways black communities and other communities of color are affected by social policy. i think i speak for everyone in that room when i say thank you for writing this book and for beginning this very, very important conversation. so tonight, we are going to have the opportunity to ask doctor morris some questions about the book. i will engage with the conversation and then at the end of the program open up to the audience who i know also has a lot of questions they would like to ask about the book and love the thoughts on how we begin to change the narrative. >> welcome. >> dereferenced the 2007 study

is found that black girls in the classroom are perceived as unladylike and plowed trumped by her thoughts on combating the stereotype of the loud black woman. much of the discussion about push out is centered on the critique on the way in which there is the identity that has been presented publicly. when i talk about "pushout" i talk about the practices into ae prevailing consciousness that underlines how we approach girls in our spaces. that study is a profound one for me because it does begin to agitate much of the consciousness how we understand

that these identities as they have aligned with historically constructed stereotypes and needs especially in this age of thsocial media where they domine our understanding of what is occurring. we see this way that the identity of black girls and women is presented. it's been consistent with being emasculated gingrey persons and also a combination of all three we have referred to as ratchets thabut can also be interpreted n many different ways. the way we've misrepresented and misunderstood the identity plays into our subconscious biases. that's when girls are

questioning materials it is often perceived as being an affront to the authorities in this space. it's in their true intention and some ways again given the legacies and. it's what prevents us from responding to that, and that is very problematic. >> just curious those in the audience, how many of you have had a similar experience, does that resonate with you? >> absolutely. and again, we had a great conversation even before this session about these are the conversations that have been happening outside of the meeting and now hopefully this book will be a platform for those conversations that happen in the places that can affect the policies. so thank you again for that.

it talks about girls with their hair and how it violates the dress code. how should we address the resister dress codes from punishing curvy women and how should they dress? >> this is a tricky question how girls should dress it's always interesting when i talk about this and when i revisit how i used to dress and when i think about my two daughters and their presentations and how i recognize that much of the way in which adults enforced dress code is what they receive to be a spirit of love. they have dress codes that disallow natural hairstyles to be worn if you are of african descent. so, no afros, cornrows, locks.

many people in the room wouldn't be able to go to school with our hair the way that it is. so obviously, and i say that's pretty explicitly in the book, the policies need to be removed. there needs to be a regulation of the individual cultural practices around here. it has nothing to do with how individuals learn and it impacts girls. the dress code is an interesting piece that has a component to it because not only is it about whether girls are showing up in short shorts were half shirts or spaghetti strap tank top. it's about the policing of girls bodies in different ways. much of what i discussed in "pushout" shows the implementation of the dress code. it's not that it exists in many spaces but it's how they are enforcing it that renders them

vulnerable to the policing of their bodies, not necessarily their clothing. so there are girls that tell stories about arriving at school in short shorts and they have a counterpart wearing the same and she is sent home and when the girls protest the differential treatment the way that many are inclined to do, they get an additional reprimand. so that to me is critical for how we come to understand what the dress code is intending to do versus what they are actually doing and how we have viewed the dress code to determine who is capable of entering the space of learning and use it as a way to turn certain populations away. i had a research project at my organization was working on in the georgetown law center.

so we went to begin to conduct some research and many of the police officers and schools talk about how you're asked to intervene in the dress code violations and engage with girls and interact around whether they are dressing appropriately some administrators will say i will turn a girl away if she doesn't come with a pink shirt or dress code is pink, not blue. so what are we emphasizing here? we lost the learning and have come to prioritize enforcement of the rules and dress. that's taking us away from the true intention of schooling and the function of an institution. i talk about what the schools are capable of being in the life of young people and critical to the conversation from me is the understanding education is a critical protective factor against contact with the juvenile and legal system.

when we are doing this and having the conversations about the dress code that's reason for her to leave we have taken the conversation about the true intention of schools and turn it into many ways. to critical examine function with the schools are. and the societal norms where they can engage young people in the practice of learning schools to combat their own and in turn allies. many schools that have critical thinking and that are instilling the knowledge that they need to be productive members of our society and spaces.

there are particular nuances around but because a black girl might show up what they had on because her hair is in the process of being created and for those of us that are single window that can be a process. so if you tell her you have to take the hat off she will opt not to be in class because that is an embarrassing situation. we don't have the conversation arabout the cultural competencis as well as the unintended or it won't even see unintended because we have enough information to know this is how we should be operating in the consequences associated with implementing the dress code the way that we have been doing.

thank you so much for starting the conversation. in the section asking the tough questions you mentioned that we lived in a man's world and how this oppresses strong women. it talks about white society that's what role do black men play in the systematic oppression of black women? >> you heard that. [laughter] >> led me back up as i answer that question. i was in the detention facility while researching and before i could say much of anything i came in contact with this girl in the book and that was her opening question to me so she

said you know that song it's a man's world? she said i don't like that song and i said i don't like it either. what does that say to a strong girl like me, and i processed that for years thinking about what she's trying to tell me. i processed it with my friends and one had an interesting perspective you know she was trying to tell you to recognize your strength. i have a feeling the uc. once i acknowledged i saw her. it's about the locus of power and control. and the ways the public discourse have even embraced

this idea. there has to be a male presence. they had intentions around that and so i think for her she was processing a lot about her identity. one of the things that i intentionally do is engage an intersection to use the term to understand that there are multiple experiences diving one's engagement with the systems and people and that for this girl, having to sit in that space where the conversation was about the condition of males and the prioritization and the community and programming around the condition of males and the absence of men and conversations

was also present in her life. what about the girls, what about the girls? it's met with silence and there hasn't been a robust engagement among men to engage in that space. they are quiet while they prioritize. it was a necessary investment.

i will remain until the bridge conversations about the communities that we share and the institutions we share and surveillance that we share. it's along the genuine continuum and similarly the impact is different and our responses have to be tailored to those impacts. they have to be gender responsive and engage in the functioning of the intersection out of the. i say in "pushout" i intend for

this to be the beginning of a robust conversation and engagement around these issues but one of the first things that needs to happen is they need to be able to engage. at the root of this is the victimization and violent victimization of women and girls. of those that are most at risk are experiencing multiple forms of oppression and until we engage the full community in the conversation of how we find them for their own victimization into yards and school campuses to how we come to engage them as scholars and learners. we have this dichotomous narrative in the way that we see black women as being super successful.

they haven't been in school for years in some cases. it's the narrative discussion about the continuum. >> that's why everyone is here. we are so thankful that you were courageous enough to open up this dialog with "pushout." you are the one we have been waiting for to open up that dialoguthedialogue and that's wk is so popular. it wasn't even in print yet that we had orders of the book

probably three or four months before it came out because we agree with you and we are so thankful we are having this conversation. before "pushout" i was involved but as a community we were engaged in conversations and policy forums that produce the publisher of the paper that i wrote in 2012 that was on the race gender pipeline expanding the discussion and also the national law center into the legal defense fund issued a paper on the critically examine the issue and that human rights georgetown law center on poverty and inequality and the foundation also produced the report on the pipeline so there are lots of folks that have been

trying to engage and academics that have been able to do a little bit. but there's still an absence in the resources and materials and a way to send her than any conversation about the full continuum and the way in which we begin to assess the risk and response. >> there are other studies and things that have been published but i would encourage us all to read and research. i think another piece that is powerful of the stories that you told us about the girls and i would love to hear a little bit more about diamond. could you tell us more? >> diamond was a young teenager who was in a relationship with a much older man who she called her boyfriend. he wasn'she wasn't her boyfriens her pimp.

she was commercially sexually exploited. i met her again and the detention facility. this was a girl who had a problematic relationship with school and have been moving in and out and haven't had the kind of critical response to her victimization she needed that was in desperate search for it. what happened is that she responded out on a street by some of her classmates who leader in school started to tease her about seeing her out on the street. the response was one of conflict and the school failed to recognize the way that she had been bullied and instead captured her as a problematic person who was always fighting. when she had enough, she engaged in an act of vandalism and wrote

on the wall that resulted in her expulsion so by being expelled from school she was now in violation of the conditions of probation that required her to go to school, so there was a cycle in her case where not only was her victimization not addressed by the mandatory reporting agency that should have recognized her engagement as the function of her need to -- her of use, but the system response was to criminalize her and pushed her to help her heal so far when i met with her and engaged with her she was in the space of i need out. i haven't been in school. others that are experts working with girls to get them engaged

in the space and work with her around the, but i asked her finally what she needed to be in school and she said i need people that care and so finally i asked aside from a counselor that would be there how do you think the schools in general could respond in crisis? >> let's take a listen. >> usually the teacher's life will only connect with certain students tha but think they dese more because they got straight a's. there's a reason why they are getting straight a's, because they are fast learners. teaching them more, they learn more and are getting more attention i than the other kids. like the kids at home, we don't get that much attention. our mothers and dads are working, our sister is taking care of us. our grandma is taking care of

us. we don't have that attention that we want from our parents. that makes us disrespectful in class and feel like i don't care. i see my mom, i don't see you. you are not my mom. >> i wonder if we see that in our girls. >> it's interesting because when she responded that way instantly i was like of course they are involved in their children's education but they don't show that they are engaged in asking children about homework and checking homework they may not show up at the school the way we might traditionally envision but i'm sure many people in the room are doing what and that's piloting experience. it was important to include

narrative and the book because for many of those that have experienced school push out or are at a hig higher risk, they e not in the stable home environment where they do have the parents are continually intervening. if there is a caring adult who is checking on her and asking her and when an adult presents in a provincial way when you haven't established that important student-teacher relationship it is just seen as fake. the one thing about the piece of this on how we have come to understand the cultural competency element of connecting is this space around intuition and then much of my work. it's how we engage in this notion of intuition and cycling is that it cannot be lost. girls will describe responding to energy and knowing if

somebody is real. they use language that might on the surface appear to just sort of be this girl have an attitude which is my other favorite word, but really they are expressing that they are connecting or not connecting at a very difficult level as one that is associated with how they are proceeding you to bperceiving itto be authentit authentic. that you are not my mom is about her saying i want this mother, first of all, but second, it's about saying you have and build trust with me. you haven't connected with me. that takes time for us to fully explore but it also takes time for us to deconstruct a little bit among those that have been commercially sexually exploited and are having relationships

>> for the behaviors to be present or should the topic be brought up regardless? >> one of the things i want to acknowledge is there's no such thing as a teen prostitute. there's no such thing as a child prostitute. these are these are

children being commercially and sexually exploited. there is a lot of language adjustment that we are engaged in now as a community to better understand what the conditions are for these girls. that is important here because in the lives of many lack girls, in in particular given the legacy of hyper sexualization and the notion of a jezebel, people will read them as choosing to participate in this light instead of seeing this as a victim. so schools, educators may not know that there is a young person who is at risk or who is actively engaged. particularly in my experience many girls do not actively identify. they're not not going to be like hey guess what. there is a way which you can have conversations about healthy intimate partner relationships. the girls are asking for that. it's interesting because there

is a lot of debate about whether there should be sex education in schools, there's debate about who controls the conversations in those places. when girls are having an opportunity to engage with each other and safe spaces about partner relationships and about how they should be engaged in school, and boys are engaged in conversations about healthy intimate partner relationships, then, then you start to see different outcomes. there should also be segments of the district code that really do guide educators on how to engage if they suspect there is a girl or boy mayor environment that is

either being commercially sexually exploited or is at high risk of commercial exploitation. we know from data that children were at foster care are at increased risk. we know that many times in our education system we capture those kids as chronically truant. new data from new data from the u.s. department of education talked about more than 6 million children who are chronically truant. my immediate reaction to that was, take a closer look, it were talking about chronic truancy, also talking about other risks. as an education system we can't just say there truant, therefore out of our care and that's how we record them. we also have to have the critical partnerships in place with other agencies to make sure we are getting those kids back inches when they are in school there at reduced risk of harm. that's not to say the harm doesn't occur, there are local cases, national cases that involve girls look that have experienced commercial sexual exploitation. physical, physical, sexual exploitation and violence in schools. where there has not been equal protection place for them. in a critical way for the community to address the issues.

some of the cases have been covered up. there is a routine way in which there is a dismissal of the sexual victimization of black girls that we must confront. these are questions, important dialogues that have to take place in their space of learning because it impacts their learning. we can no longer afford to say that is not my issue, in other words. it's really everyone's issue. >> just thinking about working in the school department, we have a lot of work to do and a lot of questions that we need to ask that we are not currently asking so i think you for that. i think you for the check on the phrase, teenage prostitution. i think we have to be courageous to check each other on language and then recognize how powerful that is and the impact it can have on others. so thank you. >> no thank you. i say that knowing that we are in a moment of transition. the associated press just agree to use of the term commercially

sexually exploited youth instead of child prostitution. when you look at the headlines, just months ago that is what you would see. in france our consciousness. it feeds into the prevailing consciousness that i was talking about early on. >> yes. so going back on the conversation about disappearing parents again you brought up in too sexy for school. does the media play a role in overly sexualizing a black women, if so should we limit children's exposure to over sexualize representation of black women, music videos, reality tv, or limiting exposure is that a form of shaming? >> there are two spaces where the conversation is happening. it's interesting to to me how those are playing out. one is, as a mother i absolutely believe in censorship.

and i also believe in processing where there is no sensor -- censorship. i think is up for that we tell the story, talk. there is a is a lot of shut off, turn down without discussion. that cannot be. you're not giving it, we all know it's going to get collected from someplace else that we may not want to be collected from. it is it is important to have conversations about that. at an age-appropriate level. so at a a certain age i believe in censorship. after's a certain age i think it's important have discussions about what it is. and what it is feeding into. the media does play a role and the girls the girls in the book and elsewhere describe their own frustrations with media representations of their identity. they feel powerless in many ways to engage in a reconstruction of that identity.

there are a lot of possibilities, a lot of organizations, there's youth radio organizations, global girl media, like organizations like organizations that are actively trying to work with girls to help them shift the narrative and really engage in a critical examination. the level of media literacy needs to improve if we are going to have conversations about the sexualization. also. also the age compression that occurs in that space. there are younger girls that present as older girls or women in these public spaces. or women who are called girls in a way that negatively impacts young women and girls ability to see themselves along this continuum and inappropriate way. we have to have better conversations with them about that if we're going to engage in conversations about whether or not they are too sexy for school.

for me, that term is used somewhat facetiously. i don't think little girls are sexy. there is nothing sexy about a little girl. so when where talking about girls and how they present in school, to call something sexy is really a comment on her body. and we have to call ourselves out for that and we have to talk about ways of getting around that. one of the things i recommend is really to engage in co-constructed processes around the development on standards and norms and classrooms. the places where there are conversations that are happening with girls about what norms should be in place in school, for them to feel safe and for them to not be punished for being perceived as a distraction to other members of their school community, those are the places where girls feel safest to represent and boys are and boys are most respectful.

it's really important to have these conversations as i started with the narrative because we have to engage in having conversations with young people about what kind of climate they need to feel safe. it may be inconsistent with what we believe to be true. it just may be a hot day so they need to wear a tank top. >> i think it's something i'm taken away from just a response there is also the charge for us to educate ourselves about alternatives. what are other other resources, images, videos, things like this that our children would be interested in, but also make sure that we are aware of them so that we can offer them as a counter narrative to what they are seen. >> yes. we have to acknowledge that a lot of the ways in which we see young people engaging in our schools are a reflection of what is happening in the community. what's. what's happening in schools is not separate from what's happening in communities. we cured on the trains, see, xenon buses, thinner spaces.

just on my way here i heard a group of boys talking about some girl who is doing some sexual acts in the bathroom at their school. the way that they were talking about it i resisted the urge to intervene, but the way that they were talking about it was illuminating to me because no problem really talking quite loud on the train about some girl who is doing something and there is no ownership at all about both how they were framing that relationship and that exchange. or how that might negatively impact her because they were naming names. i was like i hope that girl is not on that strain or any of her friends are not on the train. that will result in something that could happen on school grounds that could then lead to some other conflicts. to me that's partly the result of not having the kind of conversations we need to have about how we are engaging with each other and what is

appropriate in learning spaces outside of whether or not a person is dressed appropriately. there are other ways of demonstrating to people what is appropriate for time and place. schools have have active personal field trip days, they have themes where you can dress appropriately, they can can see the role modeling occur among individual when they do career days. there are ways in which other schools that do not have dress codes emphasize this is how you dress in these conditions, as as opposed to saying, you do not have a belt on. like these are the cases i'm talking about. you don't have have a belt on, go home. your shoes have a swoosh, they shouldn't, go home. these are things that are turning girls away that they describe that to me are just unconscionable. >> thank you. and struggling to divide, you talk about it was common for

black women throughout history to rebel against authority and discipline. but how do we give modern contacts and keep things in perspective for black girls when it comes to oppression versus routine discipline? when do we tell our girls, punishment is just outrageous. >> i think it is very important have conversations with children very early on about oppression. i come from the school of audrey lord that challenges our thinking around oppression. one of the things she said is that there is no hierarchy of oppression. but many times in the lives of girls they are asked to prioritize their oppressions, they either have to be black first, female second, second, or they have to be females first and their sexual identity second. there is some way in which we asked them to prioritize their very complex identities to fit what we need them to be. we're talking about these

conditions and when were talking about facilitating conversations that are really ultimately going to produce new outcomes a new narrative for girls, we have to get them to understand there are consequences associated with behaviors but those consequences can be healing. those consequences to not have to be about punishment. they can learn from their mistakes. they are worthy of that. that is not a message we routinely engage with our children. that is not a a message that black girls receive, specially therein high poverty schools. when they are in the schools we have structures in place that really emphasize discipline partly because those leading the schools believe that discipline and punishment is the way you respond to these conditions. i had a very spirited conversation with folks on an interview in

the south recently. there is this belief that -- the rod spoil the child. there's -- one of the callers for one of the station said we need more corporal punishment which i was like wow. the issue here is not just that we have the structures in place, although i do believe that corporal punishment has no place in schools. we also see a differential impact. black girls are disproportionately represented among those children who are receiving corporal punishment which means we are more inclined to beat black girls then we are other girls. we are more inclined to beat black boys. and so where does that come from? how do we unlearn that you must be abusive in your response? violence in response to negative student behavior and then get

mad later on in life when they use violence in response to conflict and question where did you learn that, it was the parents, knows the school. so we need to think about how we are routinely enacting and either reinforcing social and cultural norms are actually engaging in confronting and deconstructing these things. >> thank you for that. i was struck by that concept of healing, throughout the book, did you want to say more? >> what i talk about developing a new ecosystem for girls, particularly for black girls to feel whole in school, i emphasize healing. we talked in our practice more publicly about restorative approaches. we tend to brace restorative practices and talk about the circle practice in particular as a way engage young people in conflict resolution.

all of that has a place in the healing process, there are other ways to in which to construct healing spaces and i talk about it. one has to do with the development in the healing of formed responses to negative student behavior which does include restorative practice but also involves mindfulness and having cooperative discussions with young people and the development of co- creating climates. there's also the healing informed classroom. in healing inform classroom spaces, that is really about how you center education as an active social justice and really critically engage the well-being of black women and girls in conversations about building democracy. in in conversations about curriculum, in conversations about what it is to be a whole learner and who needs to be in school to make that happen. the college and career readiness is a component of it

particularly for girls most at risk for school push out because for those girls, including those have been commercially, sexually, sexually exploited or operating in underground economies that put them in touch with the criminal juvenile system, they need money. they have to see the connection between their education and how they will earn money. we money. we have to be very transparent about that. in many spaces we say just learned, and for some girls that freedom to just learner the ability to trust the process enough to just let go is not there. they have to to see the connection between what they are learning today and how that is going to result in their economic well-being in the very near future. and then the learning component is also critical there were there has to be a deconstruction of the internalized but also the implicit biases, what tools are we using, how are we structuring this so that we can have a conversations that need to be

held so that we can assess risk and appropriate, so that we can engage in conversations about whether a child is actually a threat to public safety are we just don't like how she talked to me. so we have to figure out these pieces and then work within that structure to develop a new set of norms. sometime it it just begins with asking different questions. just ask him a set of that have to do more with whether their assumptions to deal with how were engaging with girls, whether our structures have considered their life experiences, and what processes are in place for them to be a part of the construction of a new narrative. >> we could say on the whole healing thing probably all night. the healing for the gills but also the healing for the teachers and the healing for the educators. i think the book also gives us an opportunity for those discussions as well. another thing i really loved about the book was the 3-d

experience for the girls and also the diversity. it wasn't just one type of girl, not just one walk of life are one type of challenge, so i, so that to hear little bit more about destiny and struggling to survive. could you tell tell us more about destiny? >> destiny is a black, latina who is a high performer. she was someone who i met, she had taken ap courses, she had an interest in robotics and engineering, and she had an addiction. the justice system responded to that addiction by incarcerating her. she talks about her experiences with school because she understood on one level the importance of school in her life but she was also discouraged from engaging in her school because of her interaction with some of the teachers.

in our conversation she just kept emphasizing the importance of schoolteacher relationship when i talked about the various relationship she had, she kept going back to the student-teacher relationship and whether she had it or not. finally i just asked her, what did did they say to black girls? let's take a listen. >> i feel like, because there are so feel black people on campus, i've noticed that other races get more like special attention in class. if they're struggling nor if they want to see the teacher after class, i noticed that the teacher will be more than willing to help them after class. usually they'll say something like, well you can stop by for like ten or 15 minutes, but you know i'm not going to wait an hour just for you. but you know it's like, shoot, they just they just did it for the asian girl.

there is a lot of like indian people there, they'll stay after school to like five doing extra work or working on an excerpt project that the teacher gave them to do. then everybody else will be there for ten or 15 minutes, just to talk. i try to talk to my geometry teacher after school and she really just rush me. she didn't even have anywhere to go. she just wanted to rush me to hurry up and get me out of the classroom. i was i was like, well nevermind. i will just see you in class. >> thank you for that one. i think we had a similar experience just in our own home the other evening with my own daughter who had almost the identical experience in school and what that really did to her. she comes home from with two educated parents and she really didn't want to go to school the next day.

so i mean this is real tall of us. hominid people in the audience have had an experience like that either as a child themselves or with your own child? i think we're all finding ourselves in the book. at this time,. >> i think it's important, we tend to construct a single identity about black girls and for that reason it was important for me to engage in the narrative of the girls to talk through girls who are african-american and also afro caribbean, black latina, and to get us to a place where we can understand the diversity of experiences but how there is a common theme associated with the lowered expectations that we have often seen, that informs the lens through which we see black girls. to use the term or phrase that we have used in the way in which we grant them permission to fail.

that is a critical piece for us, again, i don't believe that i've said this in many public spaces, i don't believe in throwaway children. i. i definitely believe in the promise of black girls. so i think we tend to construct these narratives as if they fight their problematic, they talk back they have an attitude, if they wear short shorts, they are another worst i don't not use. it's important for us to check ourselves on how they're constructing their own identities and how they need to be a part of the construction of a new narrative. i wrote to push out largely because i am not number 1i saw the absence of girls in the national conversation about the well-being of black communities and there's no way we could frame a racial justice initiative without talking about black girls. also because, again my my interactions with girls in the

juvenile legal system informed how he wanted to work backwards and talk to girls before they get to the criminal and juvenile legal system. in order to do that you have to go straight to the source. there is a way in which we can go to the source as a practice in all of our engagements that will inform how we engage in not just girls in school, but girls on the subway. girls in our own families, girls down the hall. ourselves. so that to me is just part of the call to action is to really begin to think through alternatives. >> before we open up for questions, you did, i just have one more. you talked about this a little bit, social economics and poverty. i just had one question there. push out states that one of four

black woman lived in poverty. how can we as a community work with young black women to change and challenge this statistic? how can women can women who already live in poverty improve their quality of life, especially in the cases where they have children to care for? >> black women have always understood the value of education. it's not that it just result in you being out of poverty, we know that's true. but it does open up the field and scope of the possibility to differently. i remember having conversations in brooklyn, in this building, we have some focus groups with girls who talked about the frustration that they felt after not being in school and trying to get a job. clearly understanding that there are some very real barriers

associated with that. in my other work with formerly incarcerated women there's often a discussion about things they did not get as girls in the ways in which they found ways to live in the conditions of poverty that did not include education that cemented their position in poverty. so one of the things i include in the appendix that is the q and a, is a discussion with girls about how much earning potential you gain by having specific degrees. the way in which your earning potential does increase with every new degree that you get. so it is important for us to continue to explore that with young people just so they understand that some people may become the star, some people may play the sport, but the but the vast majority of us are going to have to work in a different way. we can follow our passions and work in a different way through understanding what it is our challenge and experience in applying the. the conditions of poverty that i find most problematic are not the concentration, i've always believed that having a

concentration of one particular ethnic group is not necessarily bad. it's the concentration of the absence of resources that is bad. and the absence of infrastructure that is bad. so when we talk about making sure that our communities are whole and safe, we tended to talk about that as we must have integration historically when what we really must have is an equal investment. sometimes that does come, it should always come with the ability to choose where you want to live so you are not relegated to a specific community. so i'm not advocating for segregation. i think support breast understand that ethnic enclaves can exist and not be ghetto. and that we can have spaces where there's a consciousness about uplifting community, not about exploitation and hustle. so the concept of exploitation and the way that fuels our

consciousness both historically to fuel historical trauma as well as contemporary conditions that might inform how we move and where jobs are located and what resources are available for schools, and what they are able to do with her children are pieces we need to continue to examine. we tend to have conversations about schools as if they're separate from housing policy come and that's not it. we have got to have a much more coordinated discussion about how we fund education in this country, how we are moving forward with the development of culturally competent spaces and

what partners need to be in space with schools to actually engage in recommendations that are both in the policy papers that are being produced last two years and in this book. >> like a b cell fishing keep asking her sister here questions all night, i didn't even let her have a break when she came in, like i'm ready. i want to learn as much as i can in the time that we have. i do want to open it up. i know you would love the opportunity to ask questions and engage with the author in a conversation about the book and about our girls and how we do change this narrative. so we would like, i, i think we're going to set up a microphone here. if you would like to go to the microphone, thank you so much. >> hello. my name is leslie, i work in the office of equity and access at the department of education, so one, i am the one saying what about the girls, what about the girls. two, been pushing work like this and then there like she's going to be here, just couple of be here, just couple of things. when we started launching a young woman's program at the central office i could not find

the work to support what i was trying to do, i met joann smith, i met the professor which led me to britney cooper, which led me to. it feels good, feels like were on the right path. i've been path. i've been thinking a lot about teacher preparation and how the universities are preparing teachers. in the city like new york in particular were descending upon thousands of people with bright lights in their eyes who say they want to teach. i'm wondering, have you, have you come across any university or college program that are getting added, and who should we go visit? who's doing it, are there any best practices for new york city to go take a look at? >> good questions. first i think you are uplifting names that should be uplifted in this conversation because there are some action work that is happening here in new york. and i think that is very promising and that deserves greater uplift. i'm glad that your touch with girls for gender equity, that's very important work they are doing.

schools that train teachers have not emphasized to the extent possible or the extent which it should be emphasized, the importance importance of caring and leaving with love. when i talk to girls about what they are needing most, is less judgment, more love. so often in these conversations folks will say what is your recommendation and i'll say probably the most radical thing i say is say is that. lead with love. see the whole person, engage her. that said, think emergent practices are happening. districts are having conversations about developing collaboratives. oakland is one that i'm working with that's working on building out a collaborative with girls. and bring them partners in having critical direction for that work.

i am also working with a host of organizations, we have partnership with the local community college, an organization that's works with commercially exploited girls in a mentoring center, and our county office of education to develop educational pilot reentry program for girls. in that space were constructing pedagogy that is really rooted in liberation and deconstructing oppression. it feels radical to say that as a space with education but that is what we have to do, engage in these conversations that young people feel connected to what they are learning and how they are learning. understand what they are learning and how they are learning connects to their well-being. to actively engage in this healing process as they learn. that that is one thing that the girls will tell us. one of them said, the school school feels like the foam mattress that is tailored to

you. your body gets in it and you're fine. but i took that to mean is that we are wrapping ourselves around her in a way that it feels like her education is tailored to her specific needs. that's what young people are thirsting for. other districts are having a series of conversations about a series of ways to interrogate their own, internalize oppressions and implicit bias. so there are different districts around the country that are not only engage in the fall continuum or the development of a continuum of responses to problematic behavior, but they are also the kind of faculty engagements around to understanding implicit bias that i find very helpful and useful. >> thank you. it seems like -- [inaudible] >> good evening. thank thank you for this really important book.

i think his report that were having this conversation in front of a black woman in front of the central office of the new york city department of education. and it breaks all the stereotypes of what allegedly is. my question is around the concept of sexuality, and specifically for those of afro caribbean dissent. because as a caribbean person we grow up being exposed to what most americans conceive as sexuality in terms of carnival and whining and working up and then you come here and things that are not necessarily always sexualized in our control become very sexualized here. things that - mac there's a lot of discussion going on in places like barbados, jamaica, trinidad

and about this, but the tension that evolves in terms of how you step into womanhood and celebrate your culture and at the same time maintaining modesty and where all of that meets here and you see it played out like a rihanna versus beyoncé conversation. what are your thoughts on that and then time that into the historical racial slavery of how black women have been sexualized? >> i think that is a deep question, very complex. but i think is important about that for this discussion is to think through the ways in which we have not as black women and girls largely been responsible for the framing around her own

identities in the public domain. so it is very important for us to develop new spaces for us to take that conversation back and to have the kind of critical dialogue that a lot of hip-hop, lacked feminist scholars are having around these very same questions, around how bodies are presented, how are we receiving bodies, how are we interpreting dance, some some of which have roots in traditional african dance, and forgetting that it comes from a traditional african dance were dances really, there's a time and and place for it all, but there are definitely young people who are activists in the space were trying to reclaim and engage in a challenge to some of the

normative for the ways in which our construction a black femininity has been to black middle-class standards. how that plays out in our conversation about risk and worth. there is a space for us to continue to have conversations about these things because i do see very young girls who want to embrace their own sexuality, want to celebrate their cultural roots and who want to participate in that to me in ways and with people that place them at harm. they are harms as a result of them doing it, because we have not had the critical discussions about how it is received, who you are with, how you're doing it, all of those things. so again, on the healing power of the narrative suggest that we tell our stories about those stances and i think beyoncé does

do a good job about doing that, she does show, you think i'm doing this but look at the dance. if you travel more, then you see it. you have these kind of exchange programs then you will understand that it is not about a constructive about black women who were deeply oppressed under conditions of slavery that we still continue to live about our bodies and about its presentation and use and functionality in society but also how we are perfectly human and can embrace our sexuality as a part of that. >> good evening. thank you for your voice and for your activity in the world. the really pressing first question, i have a couple but the first one, where were you in

1997 and i'm going to explain that so nobody gets the wrong idea or anything, that was when i was hired by the new york city department of education to work as a teacher. everybody said you said you will never get a job because you are an actor and you have a drama performing arts license, nobody needs that, and i said i bet you i get a job. when i went when i went in and met the superintendent, i said he said would you want to work, like i wanted to work and i said i want to work with the kids that nobody else in new york city wants to work with. and he sort of laughed at me and he said are you sure? and i said absolutely. he. he did not know that i grew up in boys town. i want to work with the kids and he said well, how would you like to work at a school called rosewood. in my

first job was at rosewood high school on rocker's island. then i worked there for three years with girls and women between the ages of 16 and 65. and everything that you just described was what was presented to me without any backup preparation, highfalutin teacher training program, all all it was was me showing up for work happy not to be a struggling actor anymore, having health benefits and all that, and engaging with the stories, every single story you say people don't want to talk about, they all want to talk about prostitution, violence and i was deconstructed. it was like like a death process. i went home crying every night shaking in my bed, but i kept on wanting to come back because i knew something really important for myself is happening. and the glue was that i think we identified with each other because we identified with each other's pain and loneliness.

i think maybe i'm asking a kind of question there because it's connected to one of my questions as a white male who came out of there and started working as a principal and started jump up in the middle of meetings with superintendents, some who came from all walks of life but they didn't seem to be willing to talk about any of these issues. and what's my role, how can i help without having my head proper without having someone tell me the only reason i can say this is because i have an entitlement, they don't don't know where i came from either. and like where do i fit in in this dialogue because for me it's a very real world, that if you could talk a little bit about, because i think you coined this term, we've been talking about the school to prison pipeline but you talked

about the school to confinement pipeline and that rings very true with me in terms of what the girls taught me about confinement. >> thank you. so couple of things, first is, there is, there is a body of growing researcher people who need that about the value of empathy and schools. among teachers, educators, working with children. working with children. stanford has produced a series looking particularly effective working with black boys and girls. so engaging through empathy as opposed through punishment is a new emerging direction and a place where all of us can enter. the ways in which girls respond to the question about who they want to lead them, it's important to have people around you who look like you are come

from similar experiences. i think we should never undermine the opportunity to engage in a diversification of all professions and exposure to individuals who can demonstrate new paths. at the same time i think what's most important is that the educators and individuals were interfacing with these young people show that they care. that is what the girls do and i say that over and over again because that's where the girls enter. do we care, and we believe they can do it, can it, can we give them the tools to do it? it's really simple, in so many spaces girls check out when they feel there is no one there holding them accountable for the coming engaging with them in a way that can reinforce their promise and empathizing with the oppressions that they have engaged. i talk about school to confinement pathways as a way to prison to school pipeline because of my own work it became very clear that school to prison pipeline was too narrow a framework to capture the

multiple pathways to confinement the girls were experiencing. we talk about school to prison, while it is an urgent framework that certainly engages all of us in a need and desire to respond, they have not experienced prison but they have had multiple confinement. confinement in homes, confinement in detention facilities, confinement in schools. there are ways in which we have talked about this phenomenon of criminalization that do not -- >> would you talk about early motherhood as a former confinement? >> not necessarily. i don't apologize early motherhood are single mothers. i think it's impervious to think about this identity that many girls do have, once they have children and there are lots of young mothers who are fighting against the stigma of being pushed out.

because they've had a child should not impact whether or not they can continue to go to school. there should be structures in place to account for that and the many districts there are. girls continue to finish, they are legally not supposed to be discriminated against because i have a child. there are legal advocates were working with districts to ensure that happens. but making decisions and searching for love and trying to form relationships with individuals that do impact mobility and do impact opportunities to move freely, though certainly flavorful in this conversation. so i think what's most important again this to let girls be a part of constructing their own narratives around these issues and working with those of us who are engaged in policy discussion about what they actually need to be successful. rather than us assuming that certain conditions are going to

define their full trajectory. >> thank you. >> just to be conscious of time as well, we're just just going to take the last three questions and then unless someone has a burning question. our friend over here was actually next, did you need a mic? [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible]

[inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible]

[inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible]

[inaudible] [inaudible] >> i think it plays out differently throughout the country and we are still building out the research that can answer that with some degree of integrity. there is a constant narrative that has been following black girls in rural and in urban spaces, not necessarily that they are hypersexual, but the dichotomy around to the high performer who is fine and the girl who is not worth our time. so there is this way in which that renders both groups invisible that is counterproductive to our conversation about uplifting all of our children.

what i'm seeing and recognizing in our work now is that in many spaces, because because schools are more segregated than they were those two decades that you named, fact the '80s was sort of like 88 was the height of integration and now there's a separation occurring where many of the children for black girls are being educated in spaces that are also very black. so there's not necessarily the kind of cultural dissonance occurring between educators and children or youth among themselves. there is a way in in which a reinforcement of internalized oppressions occurring that does not allow girls to fully explore their own identities in ways that are more constructive. so that to me, again it speaks

to the prevailing consciousness that all of us want to deal with it. the ways in which were talking about pies, the ways we are talking about sexual oppression, racial oppression. i start a conversation in the book by anchoring it into voices double consciousness narratives that is about the way in which black people have had to deal with the consciousness of being american and black and it's really for women and girls, because never at any point, no matter any other variable do they stop being black, female, and american. so we have to confront these identities and the ways in which it plays out. the question about policymakers, i have had varying degrees of access. i think the competition again is just beginning. i certainly welcome the access and think that there are opportunities for us to talk through. i have received a lot of invitation from superintendents and from some elected officials at the national level want to explore their policy and its potential impact on addressing some of these issues as they pertain to girls of color, black girls in particular. i feel like we're at the very beginning of that. there's a lot more to be done.

[inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] >> thank you very much. >> i want to thank you so much for your work, it's a much-needed conversation.

my question is, as a black male, how can i properly engage my fellow brothers and homey's on these issues, specifically our contribution to the hypersexual is eight of our girls, and also how can i engage my brothers on becoming better advocates for younger sisters and the needs and the current school system. >> that is an important question. had to follow-up on that spirit, is to actually just do it, engage. there's, engage. there's a fair amount of learning that needs to occur, and on learning that a sticker. i think healing work that i talk about talk about with girls is also necessary with boys. much of how we talk about our engagement with boys has been around how we create a culture of masculinity that sectors the

in some ways if you don't address the patriarchy and sexism that occurs, we will reinforce those elements of our engagement with each other. so one of the things i recommend in recommend in the book and that i talk about in general is the need for us to have the talk with boys and girls. the talk needs to be more about safety as it is framed in our current construct around violence, particularly at the hands of public spaces but also the violence that occurs behind closed doors in the ways in which we are participating in that violence in our speech, and are construction of norms, and in how we engage with each other. i'll give you an example, in schools their boys the programs occurring in the school and one

boy says to a girl, see nobody cares about you that why you don't have a program. he was mad at her so i said that's why nobody cares. issues like oh my gosh, camp leavy said that to me. and he said nobody wants to hear about your problems, and what hear about your problems, what kind of problems you got. we got problems. in many ways it was harmful for him to internalize this idea that we're the ones with a problem. it was problematic for him to say nobody cares about you which was traumatic for her. what she did in response was to create a girl school and create a program for yourself because that's what we do. that's a a black woman do. so she went to fix it. but that was a very micro way of engaging around this. there has to be new communication, new ways of understanding relationships and honoring of our partnership and shared experience in this work. i am hopeful that with push out and with other projects emerging will have more bridge spaces where we can have conversations about communities and shared experiences and also the things that are different in those spaces so that we can be supportive of each other.

the first thing is when information is circulating on social media or stuff is coming out, engage. oftentimes i see a hands-off a hands-off approach. i can talk about that. i've heard many cases i can't speak on the girl. and i say you must speak on the girl. women are speaking on the boys. we must have you speak on the girls. we are in a shared community. this is a shared experience. >> experience. >> thank you so much. >> last question. >> good evening, my daughter quincy, i'm a housing authority, authority, i had a question for you but. [inaudible] summoned to get my hugs out of the way. [applause]. >> to we have one last question

okay it is your turn. seize the opportunity. [inaudible] >> please go to the mic. >> it good evening. i currently work in a media literacy organization. we teach students how to comprehend, create, critique and challenge media. so and the only one if you know i'm saying, in my organization. so i'm very, i used to be an advocate for two years so i worked as as high school student, primarily girls, a lot of them dealing with push out

situations. so i wanted to know when you said you want the media literacy to improve, what exactly do you mean, because i'm trying to be a crusader and doing that. >> such a beautiful thing. i want there to be a critical examination of imaging, symbolism, i think there has to be discussions about how bodies are presented on television and in ads and -- i think we have to get our young people to understand what is constructive and what is rooted in stereotyping what is real. and to understand the conditions that underlie that. that support the narratives that are harmful in our communities and that we can actively take a role in reframing. there is an absence especially among girls i have noticed and being able to see images of themselves that are not very sexual. and that see images of themselves letter not angry and

sassy and to see themselves in ways that do engage their voice and their loud voice as a positive thing. u.s. me a question before before about this defiance and have historically we have sustained our well-being and understanding that as a critical part of our resistance and that and many spaces, just or act of being in those station space is an active resistance and justice. so girls don't see themselves in some spaces and only in others than they have to understand that being in the space is where they are constructed as absent makes their presence, their more being an active justice. but they don't necessarily have that critique if they have not engaged in the critical thinking activities about narrative. about deconstructing norm about

understanding where these ideas and historical roots what is the process up for the storytelling to occur. where's the breakdown. so inking about these and understand how others reenact black femininity which is inconsistent with our experiences or how we or how they are insulting and others they have to be able to differentiate. so any any curriculum that you're developing, any ideas for ways of talking to people about those things are very valuable. the other thing that's important that other programs are doing is teaching girls how to construct their own narrative based on their own experiences. how test questions they feel are

being asked, or if they look at something say what's missing from this analysis. what's missing from this presentation. how would you approach this issue but from a different experience. the more we center the lived experiences of young people especially with black girls were often not involved in this construction of stories, the better we are able to build the capacity to be engaged another spaces in the same way. >> think you. >> i would really love to allow you to have the final word but i would like to just express my gratitude. i'm so tired when i came in here today and i am so charged up and inspired right now. it also makes me think about my favorite quote, to who much is given, much is required. then i want you another gift you have given to me and we are not going to take that lightly. i'm inspired to do greater work and

thank you for that gift. we also would like to thank -- yet we want to thank her and mickey johnson and everyone who created the space for us to have this very important dialogue tonight. thank you everyone for coming out and being so engaged. another great work that you do moving forward. we want to hear from you as a final thought. >> my final thought is really simple. i'm actually going to ask you to engage me in this. it is that one of the things i hope black girls take this entire discussion and that we develop a robust agenda around is that they are sacred and loved. i'm going to ask everyone to say out loud, as loud as you can, black girls are sacred and love. >> black girls are sacred and love. >> please join me in thanking doctor morris for being here. >> [applause]. please join us if you'd like to

get a book and have that sign. thank you. [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] >> this is to be as he spent two and we want to know what is on your summer reading list. send us your choices apple tv is our twitter handle. you can posted on our facebook page at facebook.com/book tv. what is on your summer reading lists, book tv wants to know.

>> what are some books that are coming out. >> i'm very excited about the word detective which is a memoir on the form editor-in-chief that has been there for about 40 years until his retirement 2013. in that time in that time he oversaw the complete transformation of dictionaries or -- for anyone who has read the professor in the madman you can remember the descriptions of what it was like to assemble a dictionary in the 19 century. it was like that in the mid- 70s as well. there were readers all over the world who it to index cards with usages send send it in and they will be putting card files. eventually those usages whenever the dictionary was revived which was about every 80 years would make it into the next round. it took an incredibly long time to

update new meanings of words are new etymologies they have discovered. now it is all online. instead of readers all of their world you have crowdsourcing and you have people reporting tweets or websites. it has led to this massive democratization of language in this interesting way. it's led to having to go back and having to relearn whole words with all the newspapers online you can discover news usages known have possibly heard of the last time the dictionary was revised. it it is an extra ordinary revolution in language. along the way he introduces us to all of the fascinating histories of words. my favorite is the word serendipity. that was introduced in the language based on a story he had read called the three princesses of serendipity and serendipitous a historical name of sri lanka.

so your -- i also didn't know a word to describe a place on the dogs back where he can't reach to scratch. there's all sorts of things on every page that you learn about language. i language. i think it's the perfect book for word nerds, where anyone who loves between you and me, anybody who is interested in books and words, it's a fantastic fantastic read. >> host: is mr. simpson in favor of this democratization of language? >> guest: absently. one of the thing that's great about the memoir is the description of himself coming, he was an outsider, you was not from that class without worlds -- in realizing the extent to which the dictionary had been shaped by upper-middle-class readers. of course the kind the people that have a lot of time to read and send in words on index cards

are people who do not necessarily spend a lot of time working. so the dictionary had really been shaped by people who had read milton, tennyson and maybe occasionally a middle detective model. it is very male, male, very white, very british. he really forces, the dictionary into the modern age. he gets interested in magazines like popular mechanics and gets interested in reggae in the language and there's this wonderful passage that brings a man into his office because he's trying to figure out the definition of skanky him but he find it written anywhere so he makes this man to it in front of him so he can take notes. this is the kind of language that is an old gentleman sitting in his cottage in the company never would've found.

this part of a mission to open the dictionary to new readers, two new writers and eventually to the whole world by putting it online these great accomplishments as the editor-in-chief. >> will he be going on book to her? >> you better be. he has done a lot of public speed speaking as the editor-in-chief. we are gearing up to have him do a lot more. >> how important is the book to selling it? >> i think it really depends on the kind of book. i think it remains very important. for certain kinds of nonfiction it does as well. i don't think it is essential. i think a lot of use in history and politics were driven by a pr another radio. i think we have seen tours in smaller and smaller factors in the way in which we publish and promote books. there's other ways to promote books to like social media or people can do enter into peoples homes and book clubs through these programs they know nothing about. youtube, et cetera. so i think the physical

traveling of an author traveling from town to town is less important than it used to be. >> will stand coming up this fall? spee2 i have a history history of the caliphate coming up which i think is a book that is particularly important right now. i think the work caliphate is not one we spend a lot of time talking about publicly before 2001. and then suddenly it enters lexicon for all of us, first i'll cut and, first al qaeda and then isis to talk about restoring the caliphate. kennedy is an expert on the history and he commanded our sources at the university of london. he commanded a number of books in middle eastern history. this is his effort to establish the caliphate both as it was in the history of an idea. there's an obvious reason while the caliphate holds such an enormous appeal for so many young muslims particularly because it was a time when islam ruled the world. baghdad had half a million

people during this time when london and paris had may be a few thousand. this was a muslim world at the height of its power. i think what he is trying to show is that they caliphate was this incredibly -- there is no one caliphate. i think people glorify the idea at a time when islam was., when the quality was led by the worship of god, but of course like any political structure is much more than that. you can find justification for almost anything or any form of political action in the caliphate. i think this is a necessary corrective to this rhetoric of a caliphate is a pure and better time. >> what other books you have coming up? >> guest: there's an interesting book called locked in by john

who is a law professor criminologists instead of titian which is about why we struggle so much an american with american incarceration and high everything you think about it is wrong is not about the war on drugs or private prisons, it's really about the role of prosecutors in our criminal justice system which i think a lot of people have not really acknowledged as a major factor behind these high level of in prisons in the united states. one of the things that's fascinating about the book as he said the crime rate is dropping. there's a there's a surge in the number of prosecutors who are working for the u.s. government. as a consequence you start seeing this incredible surge in prosecutorial asking for much longer sentences. prosecuting at a much higher higher level than they would have before. it's actually crucial factor in creating what we call the car's allstate now, not necessarily issues of race or private

prisons which i think people think of as a conventional wisdom behind where we are now. >> host: what kind of books does basic publish? spee2 nonfiction by expert authors. so 90% 90% of our authors are academic, handful of journalists, statesmen and politicians. pretty intellectually high-end books. >> host: where is basic? is it independent or part of a larger corporation. >> guest: that's a great question. it it was until two months ago, an independent publishing company. every mains part of that group but we have just very recently, about one month ago been bought by another company which is the fourth largest publisher in the united states. >> host: so how did that affect what you do? >> guest: so far, not much. i think i think i need to learn new computer systems. but i think it's a really good fi