[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] b if i can have your attention please, we will get started. thank you everyone. i am pleased to row here. i am lawrence mone present at the manhattan institute. thank you. [applause] it's a pleasure for me to introduce jason riley today.

as most of you know jason's a senior fellow at the manhattan institute, regular columnist for "the wall street journal" and a commentator for "fox news". in his new book, "false black power?" jason offers a critique of civil rights leaders and their prioritization of pure political power which he argues us fail to produce significant results for african-americans. the book also includes responses to jason's arguments from two leading black intellectuals john mcwhorter and glenn lowry. so slender book but it packs a powerful punch. as one blogger noted what makes this book shine is the clarity of its logic and accessibility of its writing style. just as fred astaire dance that is rarely expressed his mastery so natural that it seems effortless. how did you get him to write this? there you go. it's available for just $10.

$6 on kindle. jason may not get rich with this book that hopefully he will open a few minds. please join me in welcoming the fearless jason riley. [applause] >> thank you for that very kind interaction larry and i'm glad you told a few jokes. i was going to start with a joke about c-span where i appeared recently and then i found out c-span was going to be covering this event and my wife advised me. this will be a joke for a presentation because that's really all i have. thank you, larry. false black power, what am i talking about? in a nutshell what i'm saying is that barack obama needed black voters far more than the voters

needed barack obama and that's not a personal attack on the former president. you could substitute in the name of any black politician in the statement would still hold true. that's what i'm trying to get out in this book. started out as a column and it grew into a longer essay and eventually a short book that was recently published. my intention was to make a fairly simple point which is that lyrical activity is not the most effective way of advancing economically. a racial ethnic groups political success is not automatically lead to economic success. one does not flow naturally from the other. it's hardly an original

observation but i think it's an important one and is regularly ignored by civil rights leaders and black political leaders who practice identity politics urging blacks to vote as a bloc and favoring candidates of their own racial or ethnic background and so forth. i thought the end of the obama presidency was the time to reiterate the limits of the strategy which has been in place for more than 50 years now. since the 1960s black leaders really prioritized the integration of lyrical institutions and they have had a great deal of success in doing this on their own terms. by the early 1980s major u.s. cities with large black populations cleveland detroit, chicago, washington, philadelphia had elected black mayor's. between 1970 and 2010 the number

of lack collected officials grew from fewer than 1500 to more than 10,000 in this country including of course a black president. in addition we saw the liberation of black police chief school superintendents and councilmembers and state legislators. racially gerrymandered voting districts were created to ensure the election of blacks to congress and so forth. the problem with all of the political clout never paid off economically for the black poor which is what we were told would happen. if you look at how black underclass fared in marion barry's washington d.c. or newark is my manhattan institute colleague noted these black mayors created these unbeatable political machines in the name of helping the poor yet the poor became more -- on their watch.

they continues to have one of the highest black party rates in the country. there have been case studies in places like atlanta in the 1970s and 80s for example. the city implemented -- for electing black contractors. those places became better off but average income for blacks were left behind and the poor lost ground. that has been the story nationwide. in an era of increasing black political clouds not to mention affirmative action, the black underclass has lost ground both in absolute terms and relative to their white counterparts. the 1970s and 80s and even to the 90s the poorest 20% of

blacks saw their incomes decline at more than double the rate of comparable whites. this history thing should have served to temper expectations for the first black president. without taking away anything from barack obama's historic accomplishments are the country's widespread pride in the racial progress that this election symbolized the reality is there was little reason to believe that a black president was the answer to racial inequalities are the problems of the black poor. i think the expectations were set way too high on the racial front in other fronts. i read an article over the weekend in "the news york times" , which counted as a failure the obama administration's inability to and income inequality.

i said wow he was supposed to do that? they expect patience i think were off the charter many fronts but particularly on the racial front which his presidency would be able to do. sure enough black and white gaps in household incomes, poverty, homeownership and other measures all widened during obama's term in office. the job situation for blacks improved towards the end of his second term but lacks did not see their average unemployment rate fall below double digits until the third month of obama's seventh year in office. so now we have more evidence that they have proliferation of black politicians which now includes the twice elected black president has done little to narrow racial gaps in employment

and academic achievement in other areas. this is not to say of course that blacks should stay out of politics or not run for office or not engage politically. that's not what i'm saying. what i'm questioning is whether gaining political influence should continue to play such a central role in the strategy of lack leaders when it comes to blacks economically but whether their focus should be on other things. that's because most groups at an american elsewhere who have risen economically have done so with little or no political influence. groups that have enjoyed early political success have tended to rise more slowly so it's not that you can't take the political route. you can but chances are you are going to rise more slowly than with other routes. germans, italians, haitians are

among those who saw economic gains precede political gains in america. that's happening internationally with the chinese in southeast asia and the english in argentina ended in britain are examples of prospering economically while shunning politics but even if the group have the ability to wield political influence they did nice choose to do so. german immigrants to the u.s. in colonial times were not lacking in numbers. in fact there were so many of them that benjamin franklin complaining about how many there were in pennsylvania as far back as the 17 50's said why should pennsylvania funded by the english become a colony of aliens who surely would become so numerous to german ice us instead of us with them. nevertheless germans many of

whom arrived paying off the cost of their voyage had other priorities. it's a trait they brought with them to this country. german immigrants everywhere from australia to brazil followed the same pattern basically shunning politics and establishing themselves economic wafers. ..

of all european emigrants to america. the political power of the small number of officials had little impact on the economic progress. it wasn't until the political machines started to decline and influence tha to resolve the swelling of the irish model class. they all exceed the national average. viewed against this history many were expecting to deliver more prosperity and political clout tends to deliver for a group in the u.s. or anywhere else. the experience in america i should add is of course different from the irish

experience. we can't even generalize because they have patterns that differ from black immigrants from the west indies for example or africa. but that doesn't mean that because we can't make perfect apples to apples comparisons but we have nothing to learn from what other groups experienced or that no comparisons can be made. many different racial and ethnic groups have varying degrees of hardship all over the world and i think that how those groups have dealt with the circumstances is something to study closely and draw lessons from going forward even if the only lesson is to manage expectations.

a racial ethnic groups culture and habits and values matter more, much more than people that look like them. and that helps explain why they fared at the way they did not only in the obama air other than the preceding decades. prior to the 1960s in the first half in the 20th century in developing the human capital. we saw a racial gaps merrily in incomes, educational attainment, representation and the skilled professions and elsewhere. they are also gaining at the progress was slow but steady and happening.

pursuing the political cover more fervently they saw the gains slow. it was the end product of the civil rights strategy in the political power in false power in my view and eight years later we once again learned the limits of that strategy. [applause]

[inaudible] [inaudible] the debate 100 years ago. over the decades there were more similarities than differences.

they did not reject the type of industrial learning they wanted to focus on the you do see the fees they are of something that blossomed of the civil rights period when the choices like martin luther king jr. wanted to make and the choices that the militants must wanted to go in particular. but, the real difference i think between the old school old-schol leadership and today's leadership is there's also a mindset that is brought to the task. i think everyone from king to washington and the naacp we have

to succeed notwithstanding. that mindset has won the day. at the political leaders play off of this and that is also hampered by the progress. >> in the political clout, to what extent would you specifically state the greater political clout.

it is the way in which you might differ. >> on the first question, what tends to happen when you get a leader the precedence you can see education as an example, school choice is hugely popular in the community. barack obama gets in office and tries to shut down the.

the. many of whom are minorities and try to shut it down and the political need to satisfy some people that helped him get elected to a. on a group that sends the person off to represent them politically so in terms of the criticism, part of it surrounded he thinks the racial debate in the country shifted more to the deindustrialization of the

country and how he says the less concerns to his mind are focused on blaming social pathologies on the absence of the factory jumps and that is what led to the current state of affairs and he thought i should have done more to talk about that in the book. and i think that it is a fair point people had been making this point for decades i don't buy into the argument. i didn'i did and they get the se wrong when they say that in other words the social breakdown in the 60s and inner cities preceded the flight. detroit didn't riot after the factory jobs left.

the riots came first. so that is my problem in the argument. but that is some of what john was arguing in the book. it is a more personal one and i'm interested in the reactions you get and receive in the community to your work. >> it depends.

it really depends on who you're talking about in a the community if you are talking to a clergymen or churchgoer or talking to students or amherst talking to members of the black student union will get three different actions, so it just depends on the audience i would say. >> if you are speaking to people that are sympathetic to the naacp point of view and their method is to trying to help then you get a negative response because a lot of what i write about makes a lot of what the

naacp is writing about irrelevant. if the problem facing blacks today are not primarily racism per se then there's not much use for them in a position like that to continue saying things they want to say and to the extent they are going to be out there advocating against the charter schools. but they are doing more harm to a. of feeling i suspect he had in his campaign is where they are

going to go. a member of nonwhite people have made the point that after the obama years, there will be an awakening that black power isn't all that it's cracked up to be and politically there must be other ways. what do you think the republicans and independents need to do to attract black voters so that they can have better integrated parties and that the country as a whole can be less divided? >> favored him off this boat for many years. you can quibble over why that is, but political expediency, they didn't need the vote to win. some of the party may look at the success and think we still

don't need this vote to win. a lot of people in my camp will see the country is diversifying. they won't be able to win national elections and trump proved everyone wrong on that. there's an argument that he proved everyone wrong. if republican candidates want to do better they need to spend more time. they need to go to barber shops and grocery stores and run political ads on black radio stations and during shows on television that black people watch or visit. i haven't seen that kind of concerted effort. you see it from time to time among individual candidates. chris christie in new jersey in 2013 went into some of these and

you see people now doing pretty well on that. steven goldman in indianapolis and paul ryan traveled the country with people like community leaders have been around for a long time visiting the neighborhoods. rand paul has gone to black colleges and giving speeches. i think those are good that you need a much larger effort on the party effort and the party if you remember that autopsy report after romney lost, the party said this is what we need to do going forward and we have this political earthquake. >> question back there. >> to what degree is there an elite and the private sector to

try to mobilize the black community to get a recognition of your view to disseminate the message? >> there is a role. many members of that group have become convinced that it is the government that put them in the position that they are in today. i've spoken to groups of black professionals who are convinced for racial preferences and class of blacks would not exist so we are still fighting a mindset that the democratic party has done a brilliant job of pushing

not just encouraging dependence but even middle-class and upper-class have just attended mindset that we wouldn't be where we are today but for the big government, so it is a challenge. >> charles murray wrote in the 80s about the impact of welfare on them in the '90s about the impact of family disintegration. if you look at the situation as it is right now, have you thought about what we can do policy wise to resume the progress they made in the 50s and early 60s.

>> it is a question of what i would like to see the government stopped doing. it's not that the new program needs to come along. it stopped doing things that we know don't work, so we have welfare programs and government assistance programs that used to be safety nets but now have become doors and traps generation after generation. we need to think about the incentives that have been put in place. if we have kids trapped in failing schools, where the school models that we know work, stop tapping the growth of.

if they want to start their own hair braiding store, cut the red tape and eliminated these requirements that hamper the growth of black businesses, so there are things i think the government can do that play a role but mostly involved revisiting some of the programs that are out there and some of the programs that have been tried and taking a more humble approach going forward. >> one more question and then we'll wrap it up. you may recall ronald reagan got in trouble for going beyond when you said he shouldn't. they actually want the situation to remain bad or gets worse because without the anger and resentment they are out of a job, so did ronald reagan go too far in suggesting any leaders have a vested interest in keeping the situation as it is

and the second, are thus a or te programs good or bad? people at least get minorities angive minoritiesand women get e tour for the first time and they can take it from there so would you keep or do away with the satisfied programs? >> i don't think that is the history of the programs. i think they are better off if you get the case studies to places like atlanta for the city contractors and so forth, that is what happened. the idea that the programs are being used as a myth. they are sold that way but that is and how they are played out in practice. in terms of the incentive of black leaders, there is some truth to that that they benefit politically by keeping them

riled up, angry, racially paranoid and so forth and that's part of the reason why you saw obama indulged the group like black wives matter, but it was politically useful for him to do that but the costs are not driving and police shootings are not driving. i was his fault and expedient for him to say okay you have some points here. he wasn't going to shut them down and call it the nonsense that it is. so there is some truth in that. i wouldn't take the argument too far. i don't think -- i don't want to psycho analyze these folks and say many of the groups are

trying to help in the ways they think were and i think many of them are sincere in thinking more government will help so they pushed the government policies are they believe that until racism has been eliminated it can serve as an all-purpose explanation. they may believe that. i don't think it is true and i'm not going to put them on the couch and say they don't believe that they are just pushing for this reason. >> we are going to be doing a conference which will elaborate many of the things discussed today but in the meantime i wish him good luck with this book and thank you all for coming. [applause]

[inaudible conversations]