yes, sir, sorry. >> can you hear me? change of focus. you described the hierarchy of the kennedy brothers. what was their relationship of john and bobby to teddy? >> so in the

so i particularly think about and with all that we talk about. the black body. that she is the mother of the revolutionary and she doesn't get her dues.

i'm just wondering how do you push. i shouldn't had to be the one to continuously say. i agree with you. it makes me so mad. the only people we want to talk about. every year we have to have another book about those dues. what do new thing are they saying about the boys.

how they live. but also. they want you to write the one book about the black woman. we arty know her. until i write about her for the next 100 years i have not said enough yet. they got it.

they trained us to go in and be prepared. many of them are like those men. they were also womanizers. what i think they get that.

i have said in print. i'm willing to have the fights with them. there is only so much fighting that i'm going to do. i'm going to participate with other black scholars.

we talked a lot about what solidarity the looks like. you took my whole black male life. that's not what i was trying to do. a lot of young black women are not feminist because white women are racist. and yet you don't have a problem doing that. my would you let the racism keep you from the fight against patriarchy. i just always like to ask that question.

do black men march for us. are they outraged collectively. or when black men kill black women. we don't have a national conversation about that. and then when you bring it up there like why are you hating on brothers. all of these brothers to have been have been killed by top i spent several years writing in the press weekly. my commitment to black black men's lives and blackman a flourishing is on paper and i have the receipts to show for

it. i'm a black feminist because they have the right to be at the center of our own story. because our priorities matter. the way that they sometimes feel entitled to take up all the racial space in the room is a problem. i think it's a black women who most consistently say that. we want to bring the women and the children and everybody to have a place. it becomes very easy to go that way. i demand the white women that afford them have any kind of solidarity you have to be willing to have antiracist analysis. if you're not can it --dash committed to that what are we talking about at all.

>> this is always the question. young black women say this to me. think about the harms you had experience in your life and who has done that. i've had white girls dissipate me from birthday parties -- and invite me from a birthday party because their parents were racist. it's hard. but i've seen blackman and my mother is a survivor of gun violence. my father was shot four times in my lifetime. and killed the fourth time all by brothers. you can read more about that in this chapter that i had called the smartest man i never knew.

i watched black men do all of the pilots. the harmful forms of violence. have i square that way. you beat my mama. where you shine killed my dad. all of the has to be part of the political analysis and know one side of that political analysis holds is. here's my they have the white women problem. as a black man's problem too. they don't get to do what white men get to do. they want the power white men

had. freedom has been able to move through the world like a white man. look at the things that white men in the aggregate have done. war, capitalism. come on y'all. is that the thing you really want to be able to do. i think black feminism is a thing that sets us on the path. i'm very sorry if this is not fully formed.

so very intrigued with the idea that you talked about of canada making it out of something that is almost like a dirty word or something. that you should go back. that's a very intriguing concept to me. i wonder how that there are some people they are making it closer to whiteness. i don't know that makes sense exactly. like if you make it out you're coming closer to what is acceptable and what is acceptable in our society. i wonder if that idea that you

have. also the dichotomy that we see. in baltimore for example there are a lot of areas that are being gentrified. and white people are coming into this to take the place of people of color. it's okay for you to want to get out of that space and seek safety while there are these other forms that are invading that space. because then it's like, the space and the people that are left there. there is left defenseless almost. here's the thing i'm really same.

ultimately what we need to be committed to any place that people live is that a livable place. that is actually what the freedom vision has to be. that we have to think about how do they get formed. those are structural projects that get imposed on the black community. so me talking about making it out and understand that to be freedom. i don't understand the fact that my mom and i were able to make it out of the projects to be freedom. it's an exceptional s narrative. by the same token telling us that just going back to the hood is the revolutionary thing to do is also deeply limited. in my making it out it is not about it's not about aspiring to whiteness. what black folks want is good

jobs and schools. that's the thing we want. and typically they live in the places where things are because they are white people. so what i'm fighting against in the book. i'm critiquing a very particular thing. and very woke spaces this might be the wrong reading but my read is that i run into a a lot of middle-class black kids who are like they preach at everybody about how the hood is so revolutionary in the things people on the block and figure and all that kind of stuff. i just wanted to challenge that notion. if they've figured out what was revolutionary what we have already have a revolution. the people are living in

conditions. it is disingenuous to make it in again to places. that is a thing i'm saying. having a critique of having it in the command of the -- academy. i like my academic job. and last spring i got tenure and i was able to call my dad and say to him they can never take this job for me. say that again. what you mean. when i see young middle-class people say that.

that's not it. i know what it looks like for the folks that sacrifice for me to be here. i saw them hustle and work for me every day for my ability to be in this place i won't tell them that what i had is material different from what they have. i don't like the performance of weakness. i don't use like them using their tanks and then you get access and then all the sudden it's like this. my whole life they were like baby go to school get your lessons. be everything you can be. don't think because you got a phd you're better than anybody. you know it was was hard. and as soon as i got it.

you get educated. just because you have an education doesn't mean you know everything. but i might know something. something that could be of use. they're better than everybody because they have the degrees. but never really clear sense of myself before i got my degree. i know i'm somebody. that's more what i'm railing against. is the way that all of us try to enact our angst with each other. none of that stuff is

freedom. at any point in time you start advocating for what they just need to do you are nowhere near what revolution actually looks like. it is hard to watch white people gentrify things. for one thing it's like they colonize. they don't just move in. now we need you all to stop drumming. in planar music after 10:00 p.m. because it's too loud for us. then go somewhere where it's not loud. and the residents had been nine with that for the better part of 40 years. why should everything change to suit your sensibility. that is the issue. literally they run of the property value.

they can't even afford the place. i would like to use the marks. i think all life is invaluable. why people are so expensive that you can't afford yourselves. that means if you live in a system where black life is undervalued. the necessarily it's overvalued and the system. all off should be valued but we place too much value on white lives. you want the land and the space. that's actually what happening.

you can see that this is a problem with capitalism but right now as long as there are black people for you to displace fetal head to reckon with the ways in which capitalism is ruining the lives too. but what it means is they came into these places from the great migration. and now that they had decided that they're moving. they're just getting displace. let me make it plainer. i'm solidly middle-class now. and none of that translates something about buying house right now. i can afford the same one as my white colleagues that are similar to me can afford. it doesn't look anything like what it looks like for my white tenure colleagues. and i can have anybody's net wealth to rely on for a down payment on a home.

it's it can be whatever i can scrap and save for myself. that's just what's true. part of what i'm working through in this book. i made all the choices. i'm proud of those things. it gives it particular time to access. what i had two my name is a lot of degrees. all of those things that comes with those degrees. i live in a weird place because i'm an academic. i'm very happy with my life. i'm very proud of it. it gave me the tools to read the fine where i am.

it gave us the tools. this is a life that i've chosen for myself. i'm proud of the ability to put a family together in the way that i want. they help me to see that there were many other ways to imagine a life and as why i am thankful. that's a conversation i wanted to have. when you do everything right. and you still can't make it happen in the same way. what do you do then is he don't feel like a failure of the american dream. maybe that wasn't the thing thomas in the first place. what are the other things i can build for myself. that are about me maintaining some nuclear structure.

what i want this conversation around justification. it's not serving any of us particularly well. white folks think they're doing while right now. but it's getting worse and worse. and what i care about is how black folks are doing. they really need to begin to think about whether all of this is there. it is the marker of a system that is designed to eat us alive. that is that conversation we should be having.

i have a vocal disability. bear with me. i've been around most of these issues most of our life. the fact that there are where they have asked. [inaudible conversations] there is a movement.

[indiscernible] [applause].

this is what i had been saying to white people. we have to build some truck some bonds of trust. even if you are liberal. the way that they get humanized in the mist. the kid who committed the bombings in boston's. terrorized communities of colors .

there is a deep desire. in the way that they are morally bankrupt. one of the reasons that they are bankrupt is because they still see republicans as engaged in a white supremacist project. that they're angry and had economic anxiety. they see them as so deeply human that they are not attending to the destructive nature of what that means. i've seen that kind of brazen whiteness we are living with the impacts of it. most black people aren't

feminist. nope it's terrible for black women. we have to get under the sink. we have to fight. i feel like i have together my people and help them to think more critically about their politics i feel like i had access to tools that would be useful. that is the wrong approach. white people as a group if you look at them politically continue to vote in ways that maintain white supremacy. to maintain white dominance. we could call about anger. white desire just for change. they're like look. hiller is not her top option.

we will take her. why people make those kind of choices. those explanations they fall flat on their face. is gonna be a majority country. white men feel every type of way about that. and here is where these things lineup. white people feel some type away about the changing categories of race. they feel something and i say feeling because their feelings are not factually routed. they have more wealth than everybody. they feel like they're slipping. and because they feel that way they are terrorizing the rest of us.

patriarchy is a thing that tells us about the way that feelings and facts go together. that when you're white they get treated as facts. it's also true for men and women. that's why you have to have a political analysis that helps us get at the root of this thing. and so what i'm saying to you is that we see white people as a group maintaining that. that's what they did in 2016. they became race women. that's what they did in 2016. working aback her brothers when i can let the system take our down. that's what we always march to do. we can see them as being racial.

white women moved in ways that they moved in racial categories. if to go get your people. on a way that's can harm everybody. where you over here talking about it. they are you though. go get him. i feel like i'm six gender black women. i feel like i have to go gather them. and say look. what i can a fight with them where we get a battle for a category that we have to fight

for. i go gather my people and i'm not like while i don't have any problem with transit black women. yes i am. because if i don't say something to black women. and they get the problem. then who well. and you know they're so committed. yeah i know. i'm very clear about how hard it is. but i talked to brothers about being feminist. i'm a feminist who wants to partner with a man. a black man. they're like what you talk about now.

my partner's a man and his dope is really great. he's like look. women are cool i'm not trying to harm women when i tried to date. those are terrible. all the dudes who read that. they can talk to you about it in depth. they had 70 feelings that they can't get out of them to be useful to you. or they're just using that there. the thing i figured out is that the dude you want is a dude who actually likes women as people. maybe have some women who are friends.

when you meet that dude. there is some real potential. mostly they might look at you strange when you go off on a feminist rant. it's weird, it's fine. that's the thing i think. and you will pretty much be at the core of the project. and that's also sort of the through line of ella kent rage. you can have a great sectional analysis. all of our huge buzz words. we throw folks away. we don't allow people to be in process. that's why when we get woke. if we really say that we don't

have a politics in or disposability. when they don't have it right we throw them away. actual emotional arm. i'm not telling you to excuse that. but folks that are just in process. if you have met me 20 years ago my 20-year-old, my 17-year-old does not recognize this girl. i was running around with a ww jd keychain evangelizing people on the street. what i head in the opening story is how i'm at howard. i have heard someone say.

one of my home girls was like what now. here is something for you to read. read and stop talking crazy. you're talking crazy right now. do better. we're still friends to this day. she's still a homey to this day. and she didn't throw me away because i didn't have the right analysis she help me get the right analysis but she was just like your girl. we do have any sense of being loving with each other. you didn't read all of the things i read on tamar. so you don't know these things. is just so absurd. i'm just saying to you all. we gotta do better. and that is a through line.

it's can you be in conversation with people. not because they have the right political language. it just because we don't how to treat each other. >> with about enough time for one more question before closing remarks. [inaudible conversations] i

want to share with you that my book has -- that my own process. allow young people to have agency over themselves. what you speak and what you do can impact and elevate and uplift humanity and yourselves in your people. what i had been rattling against. in my own journey as i educate myself as a heterosexual 55-year-old african black male is that i have a lot of that. but the premonition of white misogyny is so deeply ingrained even unconsciously

among micelles. particularly when i've been talking about other african black men. and boys i was struggling with a 15-year-old incredibly talented brilliant young lady within the hip-hop community. there is no set thing as a b term. and she swarming up and down they were coming out of her 15-year-old mouth. and then i went into that different the different aspects in your writing and some other brilliant writing and also within my troop i have an incredibly talented transgender young woman.

i've had young men who come out to me even before their parents about their sexuality. what is so permanent is that the refusal of calling this incredibly talented transgender young woman the dignity of the pronoun of she and the fact that in january outside of the high school basketball game not our school but another one she was assaulted. i get men there was actually involved in it. but the case was thrown out. everybody knows something was done. it goes back to the how can that be combated when i'm also

a teacher. i do standup comedy. i got on a battle with other friends of mine of how ridiculous it is a for you to know the strategy the budget the injuries the personal challenges basque line football player but you don't even know your child's school schedule and high school. it's ridiculous. you don't know what's going on with your partner in your life. but you can read down about this multimillionaire man who doesn't even care about you. and then when i crack jokes about that. that they could be suspect. they got livid about that. title is sports. how can that be combated through patriarchy and misogyny among african black

folk for us to elevate ourselves and make our community and world better. i want to hold space for the trans- young woman who was assaulted transit black women have a life expectancy of 35 years. transit black women have a life expectancy of 35 years. that is a crisis. and we have to do something about it. what i want to say is that what we need is folks that are committed to struggling. not folks that have it all figured out. you are in the trenches committed to struggling and figuring it out. you're working with kids. your modeling with them sometimes that stuff doesn't click with them until much later. but the model matter.

and never clicked immediately when i was a young person. it sometimes took it years later before i was like this is what they were saying. so being in the trenches in embodying the model. there is another way to be. there is a move up mode of self reflection even as a 55-year-old person that you can still grow, change and adopt new language. mean that model really matters. i think you're right. it is intense and enduring problem. what i would say is that the most transformative change comes in building relationships with folks. that's what it looks like. continue to educate yourselves. i'm trying to do the internal work. we have not really done the internal work.

that's what a real resolution happens in a sustained way. i'm internalizing misogyny. yes. growing up like deep south christian. a lot of that. it's an ongoing daily project that i have to commute to when i say i want all black people to be free i really mean that. i think with the young lady struggling. yet let young girls had their category. maybe a better conversation is around what is wrong with girls who own their sexuality. more asking questions about

what they do for her. and whether she really wants to land those conclusions. is she comfortable with the conclusions that she is drying. rather than answers and assertions in assertions is always a good thing. and giving those. just as a pop-culture example there is a really great episode of queen's sugar. in the second season where the character has a trans- young man for a friend. and i love this episode because these are real regular bracket -- black people. his boy is a trans- black man. they have solidarity because they knew he was trans- long before he was in school. has just modeled the regular.

it might be worth having a talk about that. there is another world that is possible. it's not aberrant. in the last thing we would like to do. the reason they are assaulting we really had to have deep conversations with that. what kind of man do you want to be. living out their truth.

be combated. and force them to divide the terms. and then be a model. no one would look at you and be no man. even if they think they don't know what they're talking about. you had mentioned racism several times. white women racist. i wonder if the work of jane elliott. as one of the things that you think might help. that's one of the things i've been working on. not only to teachers and teacher candidates. but to police and every other organization.

i'm down for any of that. this new book. so you want to talk about race. it's a black woman who writes about resources for white folks to talk about race. they can come with us in the revolution. at the same time i also want to hold this true. the revolution is not just for the people that you like it's for everybody. [applause]. we will have more conversations at the book signing.

[inaudible conversations] they recently visited capitol hill to ask members of congress what they are reading this summer. we have come through some tough times. i know that it is inspiring and i can't wait to read it.

with the university of virginia. when i was a little boy i have the honor of meeting dwight eisenhower now one of the best presidents in american history. i think that chris matthews has done an excellent job in this regard in course these are three books of the top at the top of my list this summer. here is a look at some books being published this week.

fox news host defense of at present trump against many of it. paul collins arrives. harvard medical school in 1849. and the succeeding trial. mike scardino recalls his time working on a new york city ambulance. it's coming to an end in life after google. they recall of the 19th century.

watch for many of the authors in the near future on book tv on c-span two. i note that they believe it. that's how i live my life. they just write down the thoughts. i used to get mad at my mom. why are you here. in the middle of know your pure -- nowhere. god is with us.

why are we going through this. we kept going. i wrote my book my sophomore and junior and senior year. it was really hard. a lot of math classes and exams. after memorize my had to memorize my lines and do plays and step. i get very very skinny.

i can survive getting there. i went up to my friend. with only one measure. i'm going to do two. it's only four years. i'm just can a second and do my best to get a couple degrees. in two days later i drove to california which is like a 20 hour drive. i'm in a good la.

[indiscernible] it got me. i drove. i drove 20 hours. going down. and i kind of lost my way a little bit. where i came to do that in la.

i ask for a friend. a friend of mine. we went to the same college. when i first moved to la he was there. the team put him in a hotel. and after he left my place. and now they never respond.

i have to figure out how to survive it. i have to use delivering food in people's houses. and look at someone's eyes. without saying. whenever i go out. because i know why they want to that. i'm bringing your food.

i was embarrassed. no. i give my all. this is just how i am. i used to call my dad. can you help me i need some money. one thing they told me. you do take one setback to take two steps forward. i need to try to figure out and then go back to la.

we have to win back to houma. and it was the end of 2014. at a phone call from a friend. for the cowboys in oklahoma. she wanted the small talent agency in oklahoma. abc network is looking for a tall guy who knows how to play basketball.

you're watching book tv on c-span two with top nonfiction books and authors every weekend. television for serious readers. .. .. >> c-span, which history unfolds daily. in 1979 c-span was created as a public service by america's cable television companies. today we continue to bring you unfiltered coverage of congress, the white house, the supreme court, and public policy e