entirely. putin says this is my country. you calm, calm. so to me i think it is a really power move there. [inaudible conversations] >> good evening, everyone. welcome to mcnally jackson. we have a wonderful evening ahead of us. arjun singh sethi is a lawyer, community activists are now first-time author based in washington d.c. he is on the faculty of the law school at georgetown and vanderbilt and it works closely. his book, "american hate" survivors speak out chronicles testimonials of people affect that i hate in this climate. the book has positive reviews by

npr and publishers weekly. welcome arjun. he will be here to answer questions -- [inaudible] so, welcome. [applause] >> okay, do we have found back there for c-span? okay, great. i will admit that i don't have a lot of experience sitting on a highchair breeding from my book to a café full of people, but i'll do my very best this evening. thank you for joining this important conversation. i'm going to start out by talking a little bit about -- i'm told i need to project. i'm going to start by talking a little bit about my journey and why he decided to write this book. and then i'm going to read from some of the survivors

testimonials because ultimately this book, this moment isn't about me. it is about survivors in communities across this country who are experiencing hate in all its forms. so why i wrote this book. first things first, the united states of america was built on a hate crime. the destination and genocide of native communities. and it was furthered on additional hate crimes, including slavery, jim crow, mass incarceration and the like. get, it is nevertheless a fact that not withstanding that dark history, hate in all its forms has spiked in this moment.

assaults, cybertrolling, vandalism, houses of worship, hate violence sometimes leading to murder. i'm a community act exists. that is what i do. i will close with muslim, arab and south asian across the united states. and what i was hearing during the 2016 presidential election was that he was spiking in every facet of american life. and so i decided to travel the country and meet with survivors in their homes, houses of worship, community centers and document these stories. and "american hate" you will find neither voice has come up a lot, jewish, trends, persons with disabilities, muslims, jewish, asians can the southeast asian, but not, undocumented. these are all of the communities

that are experiencing hate and grief in this moment. so the last point that i want to make before i delve right into a reading, leaving plenty of time for questions at the end, is that there is indeed a lot of pain, grief and suffering across this country. but there is also plenty of reason to be optimistic and to be hopeful. those who have lost so much, survivors of hate violence, survivors of the worst atrocities you can imagine continue to rebuild, continue to endure, continue to organize and protest. and i will bring some of those excerpts tonight. i'm going to go ahead and jump right in and read a little bit of friendly introduction, which lays out a little bit more about

my journey. the suffering and pain in the stories is sometimes hard to bear and i experienced many moments of outrage and sadness and gathering them and editing this book. but alongside the grief, you will find stories of survival and resistance. you'll even find unexpected and stirring examples of reconciliation and forgiveness in the most trying and painful circumstances. a simple hateful act can reveal the worst in humanity's and the response the most compassionate. there is no better way to tell these stories than in the words of survivors. for too long, the stories that those who have lost so much i've been told by others. when the media produces content about vulnerable communities, david tend to marginalize and exclude us. our experiences are described

and depicted a people we do not know their pain and hurt are and hurt or reduced us and hurt are reduced to us and grabbed mine and found that. in the trapped air in particular, it has become almost trendy to speak right, deduce and direct direct material about marginalized communities. but when the purveyors of contents that down and speak length with survivors. rarely do they see how hate has impacted their everyday lives, their communities and those around them. the survivors in the spoke repeatedly expressed that concern. later on in the introduction. reading the stories that follow is an extraordinary honor and privilege. consider it a gift from survivors. they want to leave the world a better place than he found it. as they traveled across the country, come to realize in many ways the purpose of hate is to

silence. it seeks to subjugate and exterminate with different uniqueness. the individuals whose stories he will now reproduce to be silenced speaking out is the most basic and vital form of resistance. so the first testimonial that i'm going to be reading from his tailor thing. the first african-american woman to ever be elected student body president at american university in washington d.c. and the very day that she took office, nooses were found hanging across campus. at 13 years old the first time i heard someone say the word nigger. all of my classmates had gathered for a school assembly. a black student inadvertently put a white student with disney.

she turned around angrily and called him a nigger. later in class she asked me if i was not connected yet she should have used the word. she started crying and said the white student consoled her. the teacher then told me to get a dictionary, look up the word nigger and read the definition out loud. the first definition was a lazy person. as i read it, the teacher interjected and said perhaps that was what the student meant. my teacher ignored the discriminatory and derogatory meaning of the word and humiliated me in front of the entire class. this is just after the first inauguration of president obama. i was 13 years old and one of the only black student in my class.

next, i'm going to read from the testimonial of hype, but torre and ronnie chavira. a little bit of background. an arab-american who lived in tulsa, oklahoma and he was murdered on his doorstep in august of 2016. he was murdered by his next-door neighbor. next-door neighbor who it previously harassed in terror as a family. he had called them dirty muslims, dirty arabs, i says in before he killed khalid, the next-door neighbor also ran over his mother. he was arrested for that crime, put in jail, but when a new prosecutor was appointed to the case, he wasn't familiar with the history, allowed this man to return back to the home next door to the family he terrorized and months later killed on the

front doorstep. this is a conversation between the torah, remembering their fallen loved ones. when i think about it today, when i met most is his laughter at heart. every jabar a family joke was his. he was so good at impersonations and accents. he was so loving to my daughter. i also note that he struggled a lot, and i'm sad he didn't get to it. five. he didn't get to enjoy it the way he deserved. i'm married and one have kids someday. college will never get to meet them. he was so unique and charming and everyone loved him. he always tried to help others. even in a sign of minutes he

kept a mom, father and neighbor away from near certain death. i know that he is gone but i see them everyday. i see him all the time. on the couch enriches city, in my room. i don't want to believe it. i can't believe that. my sweet brother had a heart of gold. the next story i'm going to read from his chin madness kora, and undocumented mother of four and she was one of the first undocumented immigrants in the united states to take sanctuary and a house of worship during the trumpet and its duration because she feared being separated from her family and deported. this is the beginning and the end of her testimony. in early february, 27 team, my children and i gathered around our dinner table.

i told them that many uniform might come to our home and take me away. the talk of a reported 10 surrey with debbie. they knew we were different from other families. i'm undocumented and they were born here. the only way i could stay safe was to take sanctuary at a local church and trust a government would honor the sanctuary of a house of worship. their father in the oldest daughter, tanya whose 26 with take care of them. i gave the children explicit instructions. if someone entered, roberto should run to the refrigerator called the first person on the community contact list. bowser should run to the bathroom and closed the door. i feared for their safety. i didn't want to leave my family, but i was care that immigration send customs enforcement would tear us apart.

you know, sometimes state violence and hate violence intersect. so what i just described was fearing an immigration raid would separate her family. lots of people in this country experienced a violence like the muslim band, like the separation and caging of families, like state-sponsored forms of hate. but many cases, state violence actually leads to hate violence. so when her story, jeanette actually talks about how when she took sanctuary at the first unitarian church in denver, people threatened to blow up the church because they had given her sanctuary. this is the end of her testimonial. as they continued this work in the years ahead, i know that i will experience racism and hate.

but i will press on because i want a better future for my children. i also know that one day i may be forced to leave this country, but it won't be without a fight. i will protect what i've earned and built. i will protect my family and the loving community we enjoy. and if i am deported, i will hold my head up high for the day i arrived more than 20 years ago, i fought for what i believe. my children will continue despite long after i'm gone. this is our home. the next story i'm going to read from as alexander brodsky. alexander brodsky is a civil rights attorney who was viciously cybertrolled just days after inauguration on account of being jewish and on account of her work with gender violence survivors. again, this is sort of the book and of her testimonial.

in the days following the election, i stopped at national hot line run by the women's law center in which students at them as good report incidents of discrimination in school. we heard a similar story time after time. growth in the playground by a boy is claiming that if the president could do it, so could they. over at 2017 report, they reported that nearly one in six girls ranging in age from fort team to 18 had experienced harassment is trump's election. women are safe in schools, work faces, public life or online. and then later, when i was in school, i remember survivors of violence expressing trepidation about coming forward because they feared that their abusers would retaliate. the abusers were wealthy, white

boys or young men whose parents could take legal counsel and quickly attack and discredit her story. they feared speaking out because their abusers could be the congressmen, senators can, senators, ceos or presidents of tomorrow. the campaign of the paris of donald confirmed there were suspicions. so there is no one size fits all solution to responding to an active hate violence. for those of you who read the book and i hope all of you do in that you find it informative and empowering, you will see that every survivor and every community has their own response based on their own next year in prison based on needs of the community. the next story i'm going to read from is survived long, the executive or of an organization

called the providence youth student movement in providence, rhode island. in november 2016, their offices were vandalized. the passage i'm going to read from this that the organization decided to do after the hate crime. and how was the office vandalized? knives were stuck into a desk. we decided not to call the police. we are an abolition organization and belief in the abolition of the police and military. think of it this way. we came to this country because of u.s. militarism is a cambodian refugee. then we got here and were targeted by state violence like surveillance, police brutality, mass incarceration and even

deportation back to our home countries. the police and military post at greatest threat to our safety and dignity. so why would we call them in our time of need. if abolition was one of our values, we had this tape to it in this moment. that is why calling the police wasn't an option. in that sense, the hate crime gave us an opportunity to reaffirm values and principles, and opportunity about who we are and who we stand for. we use the anger and frustration of the hate crime is motivation to do just that. in june, after a grueling campaign that spanned five years, the city of providence past most comprehensive integrity shall legislation in the country. the safety act was modeled after its namesake in 2013. the bill has 12 key provisions

related to profiling, data collection, video reporting by police, video reporting by traffic stops, surveillance, the privacy of youth and in the grand, language access, collaboration with law enforcement agencies, accountability and enforcement. it is not just a lot. it's how we got there. lawyers wrote the bill but the people in our community. those most impact did. -- impacted. the next story i'm going to read from his tanya kirch. a jewish american realtor and wedding planner who was viciously cybertrolled in whitefish, montana. i'm fighting back by bringing a

lawsuit against andrew england, the publisher of the daily stormer. we filed suit in montana federal court claiming invasion of privacy, intentional affliction of emotional distress and harassment and intimidation. i truly believe what they did to me isn't protected by free speech. they targeted me and that is against the law. nothing could then more full than giving up. the surviving and fighting back has brought me a sense of peace and justice. as long as i'm alive i want to fight and make sure that nobody else endures this again. i remember telling my children when trump was first the president that there would be no trump jokes in our home, that he was our president whether we voted for him are not and we needed to be respectful. when asked about president trump in some of the early interviews, i was respectful and sad no

comment. what did he have to do with what happened to me. even when he was slow to respond to the desecration of synagogues and mosques, i gave him the benefit of the doubt. terrible things happen in my country every day, but charlottesville, obviously the anniversary is coming up, changed everything. when i watch the television coverage of the white supremacist march in charlotte and saw torch wielding extremist yelling will not replace us in blood and soil, i saw in their eyes the same people terrorizing my family who called, message to an e-mail address. this was done in living breathing form. i can forgive a president for suggesting a moral equivalent between white supremacists and protesters. that is a moral failure. i encourage my children to have open critical conversations in our home because it is clear this president doesn't have our back. tanya kirch between

november 2016 and may of 2016 received more than 800 menacing phone calls, e-mails, we can really every other form of harassment you can imagine. time check? okay, thank you. so i am going to read for one more testimonial and then read a passage from the conclusion. the last testimonial will read from his first hopkins. werth caulkins is a native lawyer, judge and writer and she was born on the standing rock sioux indian reservation in experience police violence they are an october 2016. natives living today survived

genocide. some tribes were completely wiped out. manny had a population decrease of 90% or more. i knew a few tribes who consist of only one family. when you look at our history, the mere fact we are still alive and holding onto her cultures, language and identities is resistance. resistance takes many forms for us because we're under attack in so many ways including government and corporate encroachment, environmental destruction, dismantling, police violence and disappearance and murder of native women. allies can help you boost a native voices follow us in radar work. buy our goods and services that support native businesses and partisans. pictures health from the real history and supporter causes, don't wear ridiculous stereotypical indian costumes. they are degrading and disrespectful. believe in climate change in fight against it.

by corporate abuse and success, especially when it targets mother earth. teachout and stand up for women. call your elected officials and don't vote for politicians who want to exterminate and destroy our way of life. cs, here as, make sure we are included. don't speak over us. every time another one of us can expect to the sacred, we win. finally, i am going to read one passage from the conclusion i authored called resistance and reconciliation. despite it all, survivors and communities remain resilient and optimistic and are finding ways to resist. we are seeing that they are debunking hatefulness about refugees in extreme betting that the morgue close to -- stronger protections for crime but a

spirit organizing a community defends to mass deportation. fighting for gender violence survivors at passing police accountability measures. educate others about muslims and arabs. taking on organized white supremacy, proactively combating bullying. building communities with the families of people who have stood up to hate. telling the stories of people with disabilities. fighting for the rights of vulnerable students at universities and advocating for the sovereignty and dignity of native communities. the most vulnerable among us are not retreating for abandoning hope. they are educating, organizing and advocating. they are on the frontlines combating hate and coming together in neighborhoods, schools, work places and community centers. so many survivors are willing to reconcile and talk even in the wake of unimaginable grief. they want accountability, not richer bhushan.

they are living and practicing restorative justice in the most personable state in modern history. i just want to conclude by actually saying what i decided to spend so much time reading from the book. i know often there are conversations like this involved a people up here, but i wrote this book because i want everyone to read these stories and really any opportunity i have to amplified and highlight those who have lost so much is really an opportunity. so at this time, i think we can go ahead and open it up to questions. i have been told that our friends at c-span, because there is only one microphone, won't be able to capture the question you are saying, so after you say or question i will repeat it so that our listeners later can hear the question.

i would also say that if somebody has a question that they don't feel comfortable raising for whatever reason than they would like to do so privately, there are index card that are available i believe. pass them out. you should feel free to use that. >> thank you. [applause] >> please, go ahead. [inaudible] >> said the question was about tanya kirch and how did it come to be that she received hundreds

of menacing messages online and the like. there's a lot of information online and what happened to her. she's been represented against the untrendy with armor, a white supremacist anti-black, anti-immigrant balk. she had some type of what is perceived to be a disagreement with richard spencer's mother and it seemed like everything was fine, but according to his mother, bell was not the case and richard spencer's mother published an essay, encouraging people are basically saying that tonya had tried to extort her in the daily storm or jumped on night and said there is a jewish realtor and businesswoman who is trying to extort, the mother of which is spencer, who many of you likely know is a white

supremacist and that led to these threats and sort of the culmination was a proposed march that was actually going to be led by white supremacists and on her doors. did you have a question? [inaudible] >> a couple questions. [inaudible] >> so folks have a son at how many incidents. i've been asked, what's the question. sorry. thank you for the reminder. the question is how do i choose these stories given the prevalence of hate violence in general and over the last two years.

so folks have a sense as to how much hate violence actually happens in the united states. according to the fbi come in 2016 for example, there was roughly 6000 hate crimes that took place. if you look at the national crime victimization survey, there are as many as 250,000 hate crimes that happened every single year in this country. the reason there is that gap is when the fbi report the number of hate crimes, they realize on voluntary reporting by local law enforcement, not mandatory reporting. ..the stories by focusing on ensuring that i had a diversity of perspectives. so native voices, black voices, jewish, muslim, etc. making sure i had geographic diversity. making sure that i captured the spectrum of hate initially,

what i set out, i and thought for a moment i would have certain examples but i thought it would be a disservice to the communities i was working with. because it manifested in so many ways. which is why you will find so many stories in the book of bullying, cyber trolling, vandalism and arson of houses of worship and finally murder. the other point i will make is that my gateway to survivors was local community organizations.they do this work every single day. and when you travel the country and to meet with survivors, long after thmedia long after the media lose interest, but after the public loses interest there go to partners always community and local organizations. [inaudible]

>> the question was was anything that surprised me during my work on the book. really just the resilience of survivors. i was often left speechless and i will give you a very concretei examllple. family room andfamily room they were telling me about the loss and the death of -- ten feet away from where he was murdered. toward the end of the interview, i'm going to tell you something just because i feel like i should. and she says that one day not too long ago she received anan em e-mail from a man who identifie himself as the cousin of the

murderer. and in the e-mail the cousin said i know this might notusin i want you to but know that the man who killed your brother did not have a community. his parents abandoned him.ity. he didn't have a home. he grew up in a car. he had no support mechanisms, a. very, very difficult childhood.. a and victoria says to me, you know, that's the problem. he never had a community. so even in that moment she was thinking about how to move forward and how to make sure that everybody in this country has a community. and that shook me to my core. others. yes. [inaudible]

>> thank you for listening to the podcast. he listened to a podcast in which he talked about -- the very first testimonial in the book. she is the first syrian refugee to ever be resettled in the state of idaho. and she talks a little bit about how things have changed for her being a syrian refugee and every time donald trump gives a speech, about refugees come about banning the syrians and muslim she fears being attacked. she also talks about how in downtown boise, went to her son was walking on the street and

someone came up to him and said, are you muslim? and when the young man said yes, he was punched to the ground. she talks about how later when she was in court, the judge asked her if she had any thoughts as to what an appropriate sentence would be? she responded by saying, i do not think the suspect should go to jail. because it is not clear to me that the suspect will learn about syrians, refugees and muslims in jail. the judge did not really care what she said. and sentenced him to time in prison. but it speaks to a broader issue. which is, many survivors feel that the criminal justice system is not in service to them. and that is one of the reasons, for example, i read the story and why that organization decided not to call the police. and even when there are survivors that work with law

enforcement, often law enforcement do not bring hate crime charges. often they do not investigate the way they need to. others? [inaudible question]

>> the question is how i chose the title, "american hate". i chose the title, "american hate" because there is a myth of american exceptionalism. and that myth is based on the fiction that this country wasn't built on a hate crime. and for me, hate is as american as apple pie. and truthfully, we need to be having difficult conversations about our past, about our history of racial persecution

and that is why i decided to choose a title, "american hate". you know, on the point of free speech, which was the other question that you raised. has been a lot of conversation about the limits of free speech and to what extent hate speech should be protected. i did have time in this moment to sort of expand on my views but here is what i will say. what is striking to me about the conversations about the limits of hate speech is that those conversations almost never include survivors. and people have been directly impacted. and if you speak to survivors, of cyber trolling, of these things they will tell you overwhelmingly, that hate speech hurts. in the case of tanya gersh, she describes in her testimonial how she suffers from posttraumatic stress disorder. on the basis of being trolled online. right? but tanya gersh and others that

were trolled online are not part of these conversations. so i firmly believe technology companies should take a stronger stand against hate. they need to be checks in place. if someone is removed from one of those platforms, there should be a mechanism to repeal the decision paid we would know how many people are being removed. practices of shadow banning i do not think are helping our democracy. but i do that we are making incremental progress in that way. others? yeah. [inaudible question] >> the question is, what am i hoping will come from this book? first and foremost, i hope they survivors in this book found this project and this process cathartic. and so far, that has been the

overwhelming consensus among them. they refuse to be silenced. they want to come forward and they are proud to be included in this book. and one of the things i'm also doing is that i am trying to organize community conversations across the country that feature the survivors in the book. so it can remain connected to those stories. and those will be an opportunity for other survivors to come forward. for other communities to come forward. so really, the entire conclusion is about best practices. anybody who is interested in building a better america, i think will find this book helpful. and will find ways to support survivors and support impacted communities at large. yeah? [inaudible question] >> i'm happy to hear. [inaudible question]

>> i appreciate the suggestion, thanks so much.

yeah? [inaudible question] >> that is a very difficult question and i will repeat it for the camera. the question is about survivors and targeted communities always having to shoulder the burden of education. and that sometimes is not fair for them to shoulder that burden. it is hard and there is no right or wrong. i think for me, the answer is making sure that survivors and impacted communities have the resources they need. creating opportunities for them to tell their stories if they want to. one of my criticisms now, as i feel that the mainstream media

is often more interested in understanding and humanizing white supremacists then they are interested in humanizing an understanding survivors of hate and donald trumps america. anything else? yeah? [inaudible question]

>> what were they shouting? [inaudible] [inaudible]

[inaudible] >> yes. thank you for the question. the question is about my prognostication of the next few years. for me, i am in many ways, intensely focused on this moment and ensuring that survivors and impacted communities have the resources they need ensuring that we rally, organize and vote real liberal politicians into office in the november election. i think it is difficult because i think when we look too far ahead, it is easy to become jaded. if we focus on what we can do in our backyard. you know, progress is not just immanent, it is inevitable. yes? [inaudible question]

>> you know, it really depends on the survivor and the local community that has been impacted. some things that have come up that have been successful, community defense programs, hate defense zones. lots of impacted folks are taking self-defense classes. making sure they are protected. we have seen folks leverage technology. there is an app called you can downloaded and you can put in information like basically,

put information at the bank account information, went to pick up the kids from school, for the next of kin is. in the event that you are separated from your family in an immigration raid. there is another technology application that actually allows activists and journalists to see where immigration raids are happening in real time. based on crowdsourced data that is being input. you know, the program, don't want to make it sound like it is like completely fully sophisticated and has a living map of every immigration raid happening across the country but we are saying technology being used. we are seeing community programs and i will also tell you that for survivors, it is important for them that we have hate crime laws.and in a hate crime laws are often controversial.an adult that they need to be. and here's why and hopefully one minute. the reason we need hate crime

laws is not because we want to add time to already lengthy prison sentences. we need hate crime laws because the definition of a hate crime, it is a crime that would not have occurred absent the victims identity. and as a consequence, a crime that is on account of someone's identity impacts the more there is a recovery. over hate crime is twice as long as any other. and we have seen after incidents of hate, judges say, learn about the community. take a class, asian-american studies. do public service for the community. also, the moment that we actually call crimes hate crimes, is the moment we are allowing ourselves to see the intersection among them.

so that they are not just random crimes, right? on a map. instead, there hate crimes rooted in what? white supremacy. antiblack racism, xenophobia. that is why we need hate crime laws and communities it really rally around having strong hate crime laws for that reason. [inaudible question] >> i am in regular touch with the survivors and each of the survivors has received a copy of the book. and as i mentioned earlier, one of the things i'm trying to do is actually hold community conversations across the country that feature the survivors. because is critical to me that they remain connected to their stories. so jeanette, for example will be participating in a conversation just like this alongside me in denver, colorado and i was in touch with the jabara family and we will be doing event in tulsa,, potentially at a library that is named after khalid jabara.

[inaudible question] very familiar with hate in the us. epic is part of the immigrant story itself. what do you want people like me or people like us, what you want us to get out of this book besides just hearing about this in everyday life? >> so, the question is, you described yourself as >> child of immigrants. >> a child of an immigrant and what to the child or children of immigrants hope to get out of this book? i think in the conclusion and throughout the book, you will learn a lot about how you can

support people who are directly impacted. i mean look, there survivors across this country don't even have healthcare. there are local community organizations across this country who don't have the resources to do this work every day. you can support those organizations. you can make sure survivors have the resources they need. people love to think hate does not exist in our backyard, right? here we are in soho and i was focused on the book and someone is yelling, lies , coming down the street. so hate is ubiquitous. i think focusing on your backyard is important. if you feel that your backyard is taken care of, you know, figure out what other folks are that need help and reach out to them. i will tell you, every act of kindness matters. after the mosque in victoria was burned to the ground, may actually say this. some people think that rhetoric doesn't matter. right? policies matter but so does rhetoric. let me give you an example why. the day donald trump said he was going to ban muslims in the united states in december 2015. a pigs head was found outside of a mosque in philadelphia. the day that donald trump

actually signed the first muslim man, a mosque in victoria was burned to the ground. right? that mosque in victoria described how they received, they were acts of kindness from all over the world. and every little bit matters. taylor talks about how she is as positivity thought struck filled with beautiful wonderful things that people sent her an email and voicemail. over text, etc. that help her get through the trauma that she endured. i think maybe we have time for one more question. [inaudible question] >> the question was, what inspired me to start this

journey? i think there was a few things. i am a sick american peer sick americans, many of us can be identified by our articles of faith. in my case the long here the cover with a turban and a beard. sick americans have always been acutely vulnerable to bullying, violence, hate in many forms. and after the election, i felt like i needed to do something from a sort of spiritual level. from a religious level. but also from a community level. and this was just sort of the intervention i wanted to make. and i feel proud of what i have done. but i will also say, and i say this in acknowledgment, this book took the community. i actually wrote some of the book, the reason were not downstairs because the ac is

broke.but the irony is that, normally when i come to new york i stay in an apartment close to here with a close friend of mine. and so sometimes i would come here and write the book.i say that because so many people have been so supportive throughout this journey. i went to portland, oregon. there was someone who has, they were traveling at the time they opened their home to me. people pick me up from airports, drove me on infinitely roads, answered my calls, connected me to survivors. people who i was able to turn to when i was experiencing you know, great sorrow and grief after these meetings and after these complications with survivors bid this is absolutely their book too. one more question. [inaudible question]

>> the point, the question is how do we explain the rise of donald trump and how is it different, how is the politics different from that of his predecessors? again, there are entire books that have been written on the spear what i will say is that

in some ways i do agree.i think hate was previous to donald trump and it will endure long after him. but what makes the presidency different is that this is the president who openly courts white supremacists. he is a president that i believe, is a misogynist, sexist, white supremacist and racist. and i think his actions and policies show it. i will also say that i do think that we need to have a more serious conversation about economic disparities in the country. and there is a gap, broadly speaking, between what some call the cities and i went to some of these places during my travels. and i don't know if they look very different than they did 15 years ago. because technology hasn't hit them. and amenities that we enjoy and take for granted haven't quite reached there. i don't think that blaming immigrants and vote for donald trump is the answer. but i do think that anybody who

has committed to social and racial justice needs to be having conversations about how do we ensure that the economic pie in this country is more justly distributed. i have been told that we need to wrap up. so thank you all for coming. i have family here. [applause] i have family here, i have new friends, old friends, colleagues.i see someone in the back that have not seen in 17 years. it is just really extraordinary and i can only hope that everyone in this country enjoys a community like i do. thank you so much. [appe] [applause]

>> i'm going to be signing books right up here. i'm just going to move my chair over. [inaudible conversations] >> booktv visited capitol hill to ask members of congress what they are reading the summer. >> i have a lot of books on my ambitious list for this august recess. i'm going to start with a book that it just received this morning when i heard our former ambassador to russia during the obama administration. i heard them a breakfast this morning and really intrigued by his new book, from cold war to hot piece, telling his story about serving as ambassador. i also have on my list a lot of nonfiction but not exclusively, madeleine albright former secretary of state recommended a

book called special providence. special providence, american foreign policy and how it changed the world. anything recommended by madeleine albright is on my list and certainly one had a lot of respect as well. of course madeleine albright book which is been recommended, "fascism, a warning." so really interested in that. i respect her a lot in her work. that's part of my nonfiction list, foreign policy and united states and the world. i also have a lighter nonfictin book called the canon that are ready to read about science and sort of tour called a whirligig tour of the beautiful basics of

science, supposed to be a wonderful book about the sciences. so that's my nonfiction list and i know it's really ambitious but it also like to read fiction. i get really great recommendations from my children who are avid fiction readers. and so my daughter recommended that kind of mother, which is a fairly new book about a woman, i don't know the time yet but she's married to a british format and it's about parenting and race relations and privilege. some really looking forward to that. and finally exit west, which is quite timely book written by a pakistani author about a couple from an unnamed country who go through greece and end up as refugees in the united states. and it is by machine hamid. with all the conversations were having on immigrants and refugees i think that's a very

timely story. it's supposed to be the reviews are wonderful and i look forward to diving into that. there's apparently a magical aspect to it that was reminiscent of language and wardrobe going to magical door. >> some really intrigued by that comes to try to balance nonfiction with the fiction. >> booktv wants to know what you're reading. send us your summer reading list @booktv on twitter, instagram on facebook. booktv on c-span2, television for serious readers. >> now on booktv want to introduce you to julia reidhead was the president of w. w. norton company which does what and what is it that you do? >> well, the company publishes trade books, live right, countrymen which is lifestyle publishing and professional books. we publish