i want to be free so that's why i have to stand. i'm thinking about how do you hold your peers, black academic males accountable in their scholarship as they continue to write another book about mlk

like another one needs to be written, and study, right, to the degree they do and how with people, black scholars, public intellectuals who are often quoting a limited group of black males but not bringing black women into the story and they are our age. so it's like i thought you went to school with me and you would understand to bring us into the narrative. i particularly think about coming to talk about angelina cooper and ida b. wells in the book and with all you talk about the blackbody and that was ida b. wells life, the blackbody. and particularly black man's body in the anti-lynching campaign that she is the mother of the revolutionary, and she doesn't get her dues. those are statements, but i'm wondering how do you push your

peers, black male public intellectuals and scholars like dude, where we at here? you should know this, i shouldn't have to be the one to continuously say -- >> yeah, no, thank you for the question. i agree with you. look, it makes me so mad that black men are like the only people want to talk about our w.e.b. du bois, james baldwin and in okay, like they have triumph for it and act like every year we got of another book about those dudes. meanwhile, in the academic enterprise, you write one book about angelina cooper and folks alike this book doesn't say anything new because we already know who she is, and it's like what new thing are they saying about the boys? cooper lived to be 105. w.e.b. du bois led to be in his '90s. they both wrote and work for over six years. first of all, i want to know how

they live because i'm trying to live to be 105, like that's my first question. how do you live to be that long as as a black person living in the midst of lynching, living in the aftermath of reconstruction? it's real question. so they do these lifetime schoolwork and the people like we're an amorous of du bois because it shifts and want to document all that. but yet they want you to write the one book about the black woman in it when it's like you're noticing anything is because it already know her. it's like until i write a better for the next hundred years than i have said enough yet, right? part of that is just have to have some boxy and think the black women, professors who trained me train me for this fight. the martha jones of the world, the professor here at baltimore, johns hopkins, these folks trained us to go in it and be prepared for that fight. black men are enamored with this

meant because many are like of those men. those men, w.e.b. du bois got great ideas about books he should write from angelina cooper. never gave any credit. ida b. wells was like i meant toward that what they needed give any credit. so these young black men were following in the footsteps are following in more ways than one. i'll be a little shady and say that if you think about freddie douglas and w.e.b. du bois, a lot of those dudes were womanizers and a lot of these young black male intellectuals are -- someone should set so i'm going to sit. they are following their model. what i'm saying more directly, and i'm not talking that any particular but many current black intellectuals are my friends, some are not. but when the ticket gendreau i will say to them. i challenged by fellow intellectuals but waited like to take on ida b. wells because she

talked about black men but they don't think better as a feminist. i'm published. you can google it. i will call them brothers natively because not trying to be messy. i'm willing to have the fights with them but i'm also saying that they are drawn to those brothers for the same reason i'm drawn to the women because they see in them and intellectual legacy set a possibility. i'm not mad. i think the engage in sexism and they should see the intellectual traditions as more expansive, but there's so, so much fighting that i'm going to do. i'm not going to fight them to do. i'm going to do it and show them how it's done and participate with other black women scholars who are doing the work of recovery and putting forth black women. i think we're talking about something more broad than the academic conversation, and the conversation i have come in this book i talk a lot about what a soldier glittering like me and black women look like.

i go hard at brothers. some brothers tweeted me today and said you took my whole black male life but i love you for. i was like that's not what i was trying to do. i was not trying to kill you. i was trying to say there's a way thing happening in black feminism were women are like we're not feminist because white women are racist. and unlike sure, but black men are sexists and that the feminist very often and yet you don't have a problem doing black politics fighting for black freedom showing up for black men. why would you let white women's races and kiki from the fight against patriarchy? there is a way that black men, black solidarity with black women just seems to not always be visible to black women. i like to ask this question. lack women get killed by the cops, too. i'm in baltimore.

two black men march for us? do blackman organize marches? are the outraged collectively when black women he killed or harmed by the cops, or when black men kill black women and a black woman dies week mostly from violent encounters with black men? we don't have a national conversation about that. when you bring it up it's like why are you hating on brothers? it's now look him all these brothers that been killed by cops, a lot of my national writing career came into being after trayvon martin got killed and about about that and spent several years writing in the press weekly about the things happening to black man. my commitment to black "men in black" men in black men's lives in black men flourishing is on paper and i got voluminous receipts to show for it. everybody who says that to me i switch no where his receipts are because his receipts don't match mine. i'm a black feminist because

black women have the right with the scent of center of her own story. because our priorities matter. with a black man sometimes feel entitled to take up all the racial space in the room is a problem and i think it's black women who most consistently say we are trying for everybody. we want to bring the women and the children and the dudes, everyone to have place. i think there are real problems because i think that it becomes easy to go hard at white women for the racism. i want to be clear on not a fan of white women and the racism, and i demand of white women it will have any solidarity and yet be willing to have an antiracist analysis. if you are not committed to that and what are we talking about? then we're not talking to each other at all. so this is always the question. when young black women say i'm like let's think about the harmed youth express in your life and who is done them.

so yes in my book i had a white girl call me the n-word when i was eight. i that white girls disinvited the parties because their parents are racist. i had a white lady boss fired me or my first job because i challenge her racism. so harm, but i have seen black men, my mother is a a survivorf gun violence advance of the black man. my father was shot four times in my lifetime. and killed the fourth time, all by brothers. my father was also abusive. you can read more about that in this chapter that i called the smartest man i never knew what i talk about extreme levels of violence i witnessed and experienced as a kid. i watched black men do all, all of that violence.

lethal, traumatic, harmful forms of violence. how do i square you call me the n-word against you be my mama, or you shot and killed my daddy, right? all of it has to be part of the political analysis, and no one side of that holds that white girls don't do a good job holding it because, look, here's the problem. what this freedom as the ability do everything white men get to do. that's black men's problem, too. that they are mad as -- that he'll get to do what white men get to do. they want to be men. they want the power the white minute. they are not committed ultimately to black women's freedom of what it looks like. they are like freedom is being able to move to the world like

wightman and that's what we want to be able to do. that's a terrible freedom vision because look at the things that white men have done, exceptions not withstanding. settler colonialism, imperialism, war, capitalism, like come on y'all. is that the things we want to do? we needed more expansive freedom vision and i think black freedom doesn't is what sets us on the right path. [applause] >> i'm very sorry if this is not like fully formed. i'm kind of in process. so very intrigued with like the idea that you talked about that

like making it out to something that is, like, kind of almost like a dirty word sort of. like what you make it out really you should go back. that's ever intriguing concept to me, and i wonder how that, so there are some people, racist people for sure, who would say that like making it out is almost like making it closer to like whiteness in a sense. i don't know if that makes sense exactly, but like if you make it out, like you are coming closer to like what is like acceptable unlike what acceptable in our society is like held by whiteness. and so like, i wonder like how like that i do you have also like the dichotomy that we see, so like him baltimore there's

areas that are being gentrified and white people coming into this, and to take the place of people of color. i wonder how those two ideas, like, it's okay for you to -- i'm sorry that it's okay for you to want to get out of that space and to seek safety while there are these other forms that are invading that, you know what it means? because then it's like a space in the people who are living in that space are kind of laughed like defenses almost, do you know what i mean? >> i think i've got it. here's the thing that i really saying. ultimately what we need to be committed to is making sure any place that people this is place.

that's real talk, actually with the freedom vision has to be, that we have to think about how to projects and get us get formed. those are structural projects that get impose some black communities, answer me talking making it out, making it out is not, i don't understand that to be freedom. i don't understand the fact that like my mom and i were able to make it out of the projects to be freedom. that's one of the things of fighting against. it's an exceptional narrative. what i'm saying is by the same token telling as that just going back to the hood is the revolutionary thing to do is also deeply limited. but in my making it out it is not about, or any person making it how come i don't think it's about aspiring to whiteness. we always think black folks want proximity to whiteness, not interested what black folks want is good schools, good jobs, good grocery stores, bookstores. that's the thing we want.

turns out typical white people live in places where those things are because they are white. and so, yeah, i don't, what i'm fighting against is in the book, in very woke spaces look, this might be the wrong reading but my read is that i have run into a lot of middle-class black kids who are like, feel angst about having had middle-class privilege so they preach at everybody about how the hood is so revolutionary. i just want to challenge that notion by saying if the folks on the block had figured out what was revolutionary, which we already about a revolution? because most of her folks are not middle-class. the . the preponderance of our people living in conditions of -- to me it's disingenuous to make it

into privilege spaces and then romanticize the hood. that is not serving anyone, that's what i'm saying. having your critique of being in academy is what i'm supposed to do, but look, i like being a professional nerd. i like my academic job. last spring i got tenure and is able to call my dad and say to them, they can never take this job for me. i can pretty much that what i want and they cannot take this job away, even though i know there try to challenge. they're not doing it at new jersey because we have union at rutgers and they cannot take the job way for me. he said i do not understand. i said i cannot be fired. guaranteed paycheck for the rest of my life. say that again. what do you mean? so when i see young middle-class people being your elitist because you're an academic, it's like no, no, no no. that's not it. i know what it looks like for the folks who sacrifice for me to be here. i saw them hustle and work for

me every day for my belief to be in this place and i will tell them it doesn't matter. and i will tell them that what i have is not materially different from what they have. because it is and it's a lie. i'd like to performance of woken us. i don't like folks using their angst and then acting like you get access and all of a sudden, so it's like this. he goes all the matter my folks back over my whole life it would like they become go to school, get your lesson. make something of yourself. be everything you can be. as soon as i got a phd, don't think that because you got a phd that you are better than anybody. what you talking about? you told me to get this. like you know, you knew it was hard and soon as i got it does all the stuff about you think you're better. what are you talking about? or you get educated folks like get educated, just because

you're an education doesn't mean you know everything. no, it doesn't, but i might know something. i've been reading books for six years. shit, i might know something, something that could be of use. the problem is with folks if you like that are better than everybody because they have degrees or the degrees made them, but i had a clear sense of myself before i got a degree. i didn't get a degree because is going to make a somebody. the reason i was able to get degree is because it's hard. i went in knowing i was somebody and even folks try to take my system away, i had a sense of somebody, because i know i'm somebody. i've known that. that's the thing, and so that's more what i'm writing against is like the way all of us sort of try trying to enact our angst with each other when, look, none of the stuff is freedom. what you need is a total structural overall. so at any point in time you start advocating for what individuals just need to do,

then probably you ain't nowhere near what revolution actually looks like. and look, it is hard to watch white people gentrify things. it's hard to watch it because, for an think it's like white people don't, you know, white people, gentrification is colonization. white people don't just move in. we need you all to stop drumming and playing your music after 10 p.m. because too loud for us. then go somewhere where it's not loud but on this block its loud, right, and the residents haven't find the of the better part of 40 years. so why should everything change to suit your sensibilities? that's the issue that it's a colonizing impulse. white people gentrify because they are being -- literally white people run of the property done so what they can't even afford places like you are too expensive for yourselves. such an interesting problem to have, right?

sometimes i feel like maybe i would love some day to write a piece about the surplus, like the surplus site of white lies. i think all life is invaluable, but i literally say this church vacation thing is like white paper so expensive that you can't afford yourself. that means if you live in a system where black life is undervalued, then necessarily white light is overvalued in the system. all lives should be held equally. all life should be valued but the problem is we placed too much value on white lights. white people are paying the cost that now. you are moving into gentrified area because that's the only place we can get light and space. i'm like at some point y'all will see this is problem with capitalism but now as long as there are black people displaced then you don't have to reckon with the way capitalism is ruining white folks lives, too. black people came into these places from the great migration,

built up a the spaces and 50, , 70 years later now the white people decide they are moving, black people getting displaced. the inability, let me make it more plain. i make good money. i'm solidly middle-class now, and none that should translate to me, like i'm thinking about buying a house right now. i can't afford the houses that my white colleagues who are similarly placed can afford. not even a little bit. i'm solidly in the middle class and what middle-class means for me doesn't look anything like what it looked like from a white tenure colleagues, not even a little bit. because i'm not quite if anybody's net wealth to rely on for a down payment on a home. it's going to be whatever i can scrap for myself. that's just what's true. i'm looking at that and literally thinking about but i did everything right. part of what i was working

through in this book was i made all the choices, impeccable academic credentials. proud of those things by the telly you to get the sings because it gives you partake of access. i did all this things. what i have two mining is a lot of degrees. that's what i have. all of the things that come with those, none of the things happen. the marriage rates to work that way for black folks. i'm past prime childbearing age and i live in a weird place because i'm an academic and we go where the jobs are. i'm saying that not as a sad -- i'm happy with my life. one of the reason i'm proud of it is because of feminism. because feminism gave me the tools to redefine where i am come like the fact i'm not living some suburban heterosexual fantasy, feminism gave me the tools to redefine that as a failure. to say this is the life i've chosen for myself, i wouldn't do

it differently, proud of the billy to put a film together in the way i want. proud of the billy to have the tools to own property and put my name on it. like feminism helped me to see there were many other ways to imagine a life, and that is what i'm thankful and that is the conversation i wanted to have. that when the structure each you a life and do everything you write and you look outputted like it all the things and you still can make it happen in the same way, as you white colleagues can, or white counterparts can pick what you then so you don't feel like a failure? it's like because maybe that wasn't the thing to want in the first place. what are the other things i can build for myself that are not about me maintaining censored nuclear structure that none of us can maintain that's becoming more and more unattainable. what i want this conversation around gentrification and whiteness is about how the entire structure is becoming unlivable, unsustainable, that

it's the serving any of us particularly welcome and white folks think they are doing well right now but it is getting worse and worse. and what i care about is how black folks are doing, what i know is white folks need to think that whether or not all of this, whether they should be gentrifying all willy-nilly, because it is the marker of a system that is designed to eat as alive from the bottom up. that's the conversation we should be having, and so yeah, that's the thing i'm talking about. [applause] >> i'm ruth, and i have a vocal disability. bear with me.

i've been aware of most of these issues most of my life, starting at about eight years old. [inaudible] there are many white women and men who would like to do something, but are not involved -- [inaudible] i believe this. [inaudible]

i would love to see some change. [inaudible] and i, myself, i'm trying to figure out who to talk to. [inaudible] [inaudible] it was the campaign of black folks. it involves all of us and i think that would be wonderful. [applause] >> thank you. i'm with you and i agree with you. i think the hard part, and this is what i was saying, is so i'm

here for unity and at some level. we've got to build some trust, some bonds of trust because, you know, two things. one, part of the challenge that i think white people have is that you grew up, even if your liberal you grew up in a committee with conservatives and you want to humanize their very bad behavior. we'll talk. i mean, the way that white men get humanize in the midst of them think about all these white male shooters and the way they just get cast as troubled young man going through something, what we are quick if they're not white to call them terrorists, you know, even the kid, the man, the domestic terrorist who committed these bombings in austin. terrorize communities of color there for several days, and the first thing he said was he was having some problems, working at home. who is not having problems? i mean real talk. so the move to humanize bad

behavior is the thing that white folks really got to think through, is that there is a deep, one of the reasons democrats, look, i understand the way they are morally bankrupt, politically bankrupt one of the reasons they are bankrupt is because they still see republicans, they don't see republicans engaged in a white supremacist project. they see their angry and have economic anxiety. so they see that as a deeply human that they're not pertaining to the destructive nature of what that means, and the rest of us don't have the privilege of seeing, i've seen that kind of brazen whiteness as anything other than a form of racial terrorism. because we are living with the impacts of it. the other thing i think, white people got to go get the people. this is the thing i be saying to white people. i'm a black feminist. most black people are not feminist and like what you talking about? i like holding aloft a banner of feminism. patriarchy is terrible for black

women. we've got to get under this thing, we've got to fight. i feel like i've together my people and help them to think more critically about the politics. i feel like i access to some tools that would be useful. white folks, it's like you all to think about your people. nope, , i got it, i woke, i'm liberal. i'm not like this. that's the wrong approach. those are your people. here is why they are your people even when you don't feel like it. because white people as a group, if you look at them politically continue to vote in ways the meeting white supremacy. white people are missing as a group, as an identity category to maintain white dominance. that's with a 2060 election was about. you can say was about anxiety, about white desire for change, we want change. black people are like hillary is an option but we will take her. if this is what -- we don't need

a radical change just for the sake of radical change. right? white people make those choices so those expeditions they fall flat on your face when what is more true is the country is browning. it is going to be majority-minority country in a decade and some change. white men feel every type of way about that. here is where these things like that. white people feel some type of way about the change in categories of race. lightning in particular feel something. i say feeling because the phillies are not factually rooted. white men still run everything they have more wealth than everybody, more than everybody. they are still on top. solidly. but they feel like they are slipping. and because they feel that way, they are terrorizing the rest of us. so part of, and patriarchy is the thing that tells us about the way that feelings and fax go together. when you are white your feelings

get treated as fact. and when you are black your fax get treated as merely feeling, right? that is what is true and is also true for men and women. when your men you treat your fears feet as fact. when a woman if he can escape you talk with ms feelings. that's what got to the political analysis that helps us get at the root of this thing. what i'm saying to you is that we see white people as a group moving in ways that maintain white dominance and that's what white women did in 2016. they become race women. i talk about black women as race women's. we are going to back our brothers. will not let this sister taken center black women, that's what wheels march and doing. the difference is we didn't see white women as being racial. we saw that as being racist. black feminist love to talk about racist white women. it's too much sometimes but white women move in ways that

maintain racial categories of dominance. white feminist, the ones who got it in sexual analysis, the ones who know something about the relationship of race and gender can you got to go get your people. if you see the moving en masse in way that is going on everybody, why are you talk about but i'm not like this, but they are you. that's your safety, your cousin, your church lady, your yoga friend. those are your people, go get them. look, i feel like i'm a sister to a black woman and when i see black women having feelings about trans black folks from i feel like i to go gather this agenda black woman and say look, we are not going to fight with trans black women about this category of womanhood. we will not fight because of the fight white women with him to even refer to us as women in the first place, and so why we going to battle for category we had a fight for them to make so what else have to fight for access as a category? that's terrible. aye gather my people, and i'm

not like well, i have no problem with trans black woman so i'm not like the others. yes, i am. because if i don't say something to black women and black woman who get the problem still say something, then you will? so if you're a white feminist, a feminist who is white and you know that your folks are not right, have conversation. it's so hard, they're so committed. i know. i'm very clear about how hard it is. i talk to brothers about being a feminist. i feminist who wants to partner with a man, a black man. and i'm a feminist. when you are a committed feminist, dudes are like, what are you talking about now? look, my partner is a man and he's really great, but mostly he's just like that feminist think i don't know, what i'm

going to treat you right. he's like look, women are cool, i i'm not trying to harm women. this is a sidebar, like that's the thing if it out when i was younger and trying to date, i'm a feminist, trying to date. i was like i met a dude who has read bell now folks. those dudes are terrible. they are horrible people. like, all the dudes who read collins and can talk about you in death or whatever, either they have so many feelings that they can't get out of them to be useful to you, or they are just using it to mask you that they don't know worse. the thing that i figured out is the dudes you want, for those you want dudes, the dude who likes women as people, who is like maybe has some women who are friends, like has actual real sensitive conversation with women and doesn't just see them as people have sex with. when you meet that duty, then

there some real potential. mostly they look at you strange when you go off on a feminist rant but they also find interesting. they are like it's weird, fine, but that's how my dude is. that's how he thinks about it. just fine the dude who likes women as people and you pretty much be at the core of the project. that's also sort of the outline of eloquent rage which is weakened all of the local stuff, can have great intersectional analysis, we can talk about neoliberalism, talk about gentrification, decolonization, all of her huge buzzwords but we talk about that and we still treat people like trash. we throw folks away. we don't allow people to be a process. that's why when we get well, i can talk to nobody who don't think like me or whatever, and so if we really say that we don't have politics, i've been talking to my girls about this a lot. we don't have politics with disposability but when folks

don't have it right we throw it away. i'm not telling you to excuse that the folks were just in process, if you admit me 20 years ago, i mean, my 20 year old, my 17 jeweled self does not recognize this girl because the 17th i was running around howard with the wwj keychain, evangelizing people on the street and talk about how at best maybe i might be a woman but i was a feminist. that is what was 20 years ago. so we can use 15 years ago. what i had any opening story that i don't and his book is how i am at howard, running around campus like white women shit. i had not read anything but i've heard somebody say it and i was like yes, that's right. and one of my home girls was like, what now?

that's crazy. here's something for you to read it. read it and stop talking crazy. like that's how, the journey i would on, what in my girls at your talking crazy, stop, inform yourself and do better. we are still friends to this day. she's still the homey to this day. she helped me get the right analysis. i didn't become a feminist community but she is like here's a way to do better. we don't have any sense of being loving with each other. i think a time, you need to do better and you didn't read all these things i read so you don't know anything. it's like, what now? and so i'm just saying to you all, like, we got to do better. we got to be more loving and that's the through line. it's not having the right analysis. it's can you be in conversation with people? can you build real authentic relationships with people? that's a wounded in the

revolution and revolutions break apart not because the people don't have the right political language but because we don't know how to treat each other. [applause] >> we have about enough time for one more question before closing remarks. >> first of all, i want to share

with you that your book has helped me on my own journey. i teach a social change program in a baltimore city public high school and i allow my young people of agency over themselves through their performance, and the caveat is that which you speak in what you do can impact and elevate and applet humanity and yourselves and your people. what i've been battling against an realize that my own journey as a educate myself as a heterosexual 55 year old african black male is that i have a lot of the building that the permeation of white misogyny is so deeply ingrained, even unconsciously within myself as i try to keep myself woke, the particularly when i'm talking to

other african black men and boys in my classroom today, i was struggling with a 15-year-old incredibly talented brilliant young lady, and i teach about micro-aggression, to cite a racism, assad to meet and sexism, i got into the current term for trap or slot within the hip-hop, and i said there's no such thing as a fight, no such thing as a b term and had my rules of the classroom as a be an inward freezone. she swore me up and down. there are some girls who are -- coming out of her 15-year-old mouth and that i went into the different aspects of your writing and some other brilliant african black women's writing, and also within my troop i had an incredibly talented transgender young woman. i think young men who have come out to me even before the parents about their sexuality of being gay.

but what is so permeating is that the refusal of calling this incredibly talented brilliant transgender young woman the dignity of the pronoun of she, and the fact that in january outside of a high school basketball cannot our school but another one, she was assaulted by ten african black boys that beat peter to the point where she received a concussion and goes to the hospital and charges were pressed and everything else, and went to court. but because of a young person who witnessed it would not say that a young man there actually was involved in it, the case was thrown out. so everybody know something was done. it goes back to the lack of respect for the african black body regardless of any gender or sexuality. how can that be combated when it also, i'm a teacher but i also do standup comedy. i was writing material and i got in a battle with other friends

of mine about how ridiculous it is for you to know the strategy, the budget, the injuries, the personal challenges of a basketball, football player but you don't even know your child's school schedule high school? it's ridiculous. you don't know what's going on with your partner in july, but you can read down about this multimillionaire man who don't even care about you. you know everything about him. then my crack jokes about perpetuating gangster types, like suspect anything, they got livid about, like i i attacked their masculinity by saying this is ridiculous for them to idolize sports. how can that be combated to patriarchy and misogyny among african black folk for us to elevate ourselves to make our community and world better? >> wow.

i want to hold space or the trans-young women who was assaulted. trans black women have a life expectancy of 35 years in this country. let me say it again. trans black women have a life expectancy of 35 years. that's a crisis. we've got to do something about it. what i want to say is that, brother, what we need is folks who are committed to struggle but not folks have it figured out. what is great is your in the trenches committed to struggling and figured out. here's the other thing. you are working with kids so you model for them another way to become a know what you think and they may not exceed not see a u but sometimes that's that doesn't click with them until much later. the model matters. the folks who were transformative to me, it never clicked immediately when i was in person. it sometimes took usually before i was like right, this is what

ms. such and such whistling. this is what mr. so-and-so was trying to come and help you understand. so being in the trenches and embodying that there's an mode of some reflection, that even is a 55-year-old person, that you can still grow change, adopt new language, adopt new framework. being that model really matters. i think you're right, the problem is not masculinity, it's an intense and enduring problem. what i would say is the most transformative change comes in building relationships and you're only doing that. that's what it looks like. continuing to educate yourself and being willing to grow, and what i love is your time to enter the work. that's what a real revolution happened any sustained way is a commitment to realizing like i am internalizing misogyny. going up like a deep south

christian like i internalized lots of homophobia, trans-ob. so learning how to not be so heteronormative is an ongoing daily project that have to commit to because really want to sell what all black people to be free, i really mean that. so i think you're doing the work and i think with the young lady struggling with thoughts or whatever, look, young girls have categories can i cut it even though to be honest with you i don't know i would fight the battle. not that one. what you have, maybe a better conversation is around, like, what are those categories do what is she trying to name at the heart of them? what's wrong with girls who own their sexuality? because du bois -- some were asking question about what to category two for and whether the useful for the think she's talking about, and whether she

wants to land at those conclusions. is she comfortable with conclusions that she is drawing based on how she is to point the category? that's more the thing. engaging in people and dialogue that is rife with questions rather than answers and assertions is always a good thing. giving young -- just as a pop-culture example there's a great episode of queen sugar where in the second season with the character ralph angel has a trans young man for a friend. i love this episode because these are real regular black people and episode renders it regular, that that is his boy. he's a straight gender black man and his boy is a trans black man and have solidarity because he knew his boy was trans when they were in school and always respected him when he was in the mist of transition. it might be worth having a talk about that episode because sometimes our kids just need to see that there is another world that's possible and it isn't

apparat apprehensively to embrace folk, however they are. the last thing we got to do, the reason thing men are assaulting young women is because we have taught the masculinity to doing this violence, sexual everything to we got to have real forthright conversations, about respecting bala bottle dignity. www.deep conversation with young men about consent but we got to ask young men by getting sexuality is about violence rather than about consent and pleasure. much of it is because it's in one place with if you like to have some notion of masculinity being attacked. and so look, you got to put the question on the table. what kind adamant you want to ? you want the kind man who goes with assaulting women? is your manhood so fragile you can't understand or coexist with someone else living out the truth? that's no manhood who was or anybody. so be combated and forced him and then the a model, because

don't look at you and be like you ain't no man. so embody the model even if they think you don't know what you're talking about, and body for the anyway the cousin clicks at some, it really does. [applause] >> i appreciate what you're doing. you've mention racism several times and white women racist, and i wonder if the work of jane elliott, blue eyes, brown eyes, exercise is one of the things that you think might help? because that's when the things i've been working on is trying to bring that not only to teachers and teacher candidates, but to police and to any other organizations, whatever. what do you think? >> i like jane's work just fine. i'm done for any white person is deeply committed to antiracism. i like her work.

i like robin angelos work. i like this new book called, they want to talk about race, a black woman who talks about the resources for white folks to talk about race. anybody committed to the struggle can come with us in the revolution. all right? but at the same time i'm also come want to hold this truth. anyone committed to the struggle can come, but the revolution is not just for the people you like. for everybody. that's it. [applause] >> brittney, thank you so much. >> thank you. >> everybody, brittney cooper, "eloquent rage." we have the book right now at a book desk. we will be around for a little bit longer for a book signing and more conversations. thanks, everybody for coming out. once again, brittney cooper. [applause]

[inaudible conversations] >> booktv takes hundreds of other programs throughout the country all year long as look at some the fence we will be covering this week.

>> that's a look at some of events booktv will be covering this week. many of these events are open to the public. look for them to air in the near future on booktv on c-span2. >> so you are probably wondering how this all started. i mean, writing a bunny book about the life of a vice president. so charlotte will take it from there. >> thank you everyone for coming. this is really cool and really special. definitely been a dream of mine since i was there very small to

have a book out, especially a children's book. especially about -- and with my dad. it's really fun. i wanted to talk all of it about marlon in general because a lot of people asked how long we had him, how old he is in when we got him. always -- i i want to introduce you to them since he that here tonight. he's resting. he had a lot of press interviews this week. [laughing] so we thought we would let him rest up. what i got marlon when i was studying in college at depaul university in chicago. i was studying digital cinema in english, as was said, so i wrote a short film. and so i had a short film and it needed a bunny in it. and a lot of people told me change it, , change it to a ture or something that's easy to find. i don't know what a turtle would

be easier to find than a bunny, but i thought no, it really needs to be a bunny. it was really fate that i was going to happen across marla. and so i looked online, look at pet stores, and i found it on craigslist. [laughing] he's a craigslist bunny. no price was listed, asked the owner how much for the bunny? he said, making an offer. and so it became this godfather joke with my friends pics of the said we should name him marlon brando. and i said no, we have to name him marlon bundo because got to get the bunny hunting. naturally how marlon king into our family. he lived with me in college in the dorm for only likely because has an actual allowed. and he lived at home with my parents and then lived in my

apartment in college. he's really a part of our family and is one of our pets. >> so then lo and behold, you know, we got kind of thrust into this new role after the election. and we were moving to d.c., as of course with all of our pets with us on air force two. we were not going to leave them behind, and some stuff people were helping us unload marlon in his cage. i don't read some of you saw the picture, because it seemed to go viral. and all of a sudden the bunny was famous, and we really didn't understand why he was so famous, but that kind of started whole thing going. >> yeah, so right after the inauguration, actually think was on inauguration day we had moved

into the naval observatory which is where martin lives now, and my mom and dad lived there, too. [laughing] >> we are just an afterthought now. >> and so we thought, i thought okay, we should get an instagram handle, just get an name, marlon bundo. because i think twitter was taking, somewhat took it when used all over the news that one day. we got the instagram handle for marlon and the first post we put up with marlon in his little cage on our second floor of the naval observatory which is where we live, and he hopped out of his cage and so i put up a post that said marlins first step in the naval observatory. and my sisters boyfriend dan actually get credit for saying he's the botus. so he is botus, bunny of the

united states. [laughing] that's his official role, and yeah, so instagram is and where it all started. he currently popular on there. >> sorcerer steps in the naval observatory, that's one thing we wanted to talk about in the book, it's a just to let you know, we keep saying naval observatory, but a lot of people don't really know what we are talking about we say that. in 1974, the first vice president to live in the naval observatory was mondale. actually, rockefeller was the first one who could have lived there, but he decided to come he decorated it and entertained there, by debbie vice presidents family since the mondale said have lived at the naval observatory. the naval observatory actually is a naval base. there really is a working

observatory right across the street for us. the whole property is 72 acres, but then there's 17 acres that are like gated off where the actual house is where we live. the naval observatory is kind of like a victorian home, is what it looks like. it's on the cover of the book. it has a big wraparound porch. it's very private right in the middle of washington, d.c. because there are no tours at the naval observatory. so the white house there are tours. people come there all the time, but the naval observatory is a little more private. now, , the way that story got started, started years and years ago when charlotte first learned to talk. because from the moment she learn how to talk, she became a

storyteller, and she would line up her stuffed animals outside and she would tell them stories, and she would regale them with all kinds of adventures. at night she would tell her little sister stories for her to fall asleep. they shared a room, and really, almost really into high school years, i mean, audrey would say tell me a story, charlotte, i can't fall asleep. charlotte would start a story, and then the next night she would continue that story. and so we were not surprised when she went to college and major in digital cinema and english, because we knew someday this book was going to happen. >> yeah, so to get to the book really, when people ask as how did you come up with the idea, we always say it all started with marlon. it really did. it started with this instagram page. we had no idea what anyone even

follow this page about our bunny? >> how many is yet to know? >> like 27,000 27,000 followerh is like way more than me. [laughing] i'm like and what? >> and i don't even have instagram. >> so he's a very popular. i mean, it makes sense to us that marlon is so adorable. he's fun to take pictures of. he has a very real personality. he will follow us around the house when we let him get his exercise outside. we like him, he will kind of pose for pictures when we're taking it. people asked us all the time, like how did you get him to do that? how did you get him to sit in front of a fire, or open the book? he just does that. we don't do anything. he starts doing it. he really has a little personality. my disorder with the instagram page. we felt we should do a

children's book on this. it would be really fun and it was always really a a partnersp i feel like it was always going to be my mom did the watercolors. she's so talented. so we decided to do it together, and when we wanted to do, to pick a theme for the book, and made a lot of sense to me to make it educational. so it wasn't just a story about marlon but also we teach about the role of the vice president, whoever he or she is. of the vice president has very specific official duties. and i didn't really even know about a lot of them until my dad was vice president. so that's kind of where it all started, we wanted to help kids and adults and teachers and educators have a way to teach about the vice presidency. >> you can watch this and other programs online at booktv.org.

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