>> good evening, everyone. welcome. thank you very much for coming out tonight. we have a wonderful evening ahead of us. arjun sethi is a lawyer, community activist and now a first time author based in washington, d.c. he's on the faculty of the law

school at georgetown and vanderbilt. and he works closely with immigrant groups. his book, american hate, survivors speak out, powerful testimonials of people affected by hate. the book has received positive reviews by npr and publishers weekly. welcome arjun. he will answer questions and then sign books. welcome. [applause] >> okay with the sound back there, c-span? okay, great. i will admit that i don't have a lot of experience sitting on a highchair, reading from a book to a cafe full of people, but i will do my very best this evening. thank you all for joining this important conversation. so i'm going to start out by

talking a little bit about -- i have been told i need to project. i'm going to start by talking a little bit about my journey and why i decided to write this book. then i'm going to read from some of the survivors' testimonials because ultimately, this book, this moment isn't about me. it's about survivors and 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 decimation and genocide of native communities, and it was furthered on additional hate crimes, including slavery, jim crow, mass incarceration and the like.

yet, it is never the less a fact that notwithstanding that dark history, hate in all its forms has spiked in this moment. bullying, sexual assault, cyber trolling, vandalism, and arson of houses of worship, hate violence, sometimes leading to murder. i'm a community activist. that's what i do. i work closely with muslim, arab, south asian across the united states. what i was hearing during the 2016 presidential election was that hate 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. in american hate, you will find

native voices, black, jewish, trans, persons with disabilities, muslims, jews, southeast asian, undocumented because these are all of the communities that are experiencing hate and grief in this moment. 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 because those who have lost so much, survivors of hate violence, survivors of some of the worst atrocities you can imagine, continue to rebuild, continue to endure, continue to organize and protest, and i'm

going to read some of those excerpts tonight. so i'm going to go ahead and jump right in and read a little bit from the introduction, which lays out a little more about my journey. the suffering and pain in these stories is sometimes hard to bear, and i experienced many moments of outrage and sadness in gathering them and editing this book. but alongside the grief, you will find stories of survival and resistance. you will even find unexpected and stirring examples of reconciliation and forgiveness in the most trying and painful of circumstances. a single hateful act can reveal the worst in humanity 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 of those who have lost so much have been told by others. when the media produces content about vulnerable communities, they tend to marginalize and exclude us. our experiences are described and depicted by people we do not know and our pain and hurt are reduced to a single headline or sound bite. in the trump era in particular, it's become almost trendy to speak, write, produce and direct material about marginalized communities. but rarely do the purveyors of content sit down and speak at length with survivors. rarely do they visit them in their homes. rarely do they see how hate has impacted their every day lives, their communities, and those around them. the survivors in this book repeatedly express this concern. later on in the introduction, reading the stories that follow

is an extraordinary honor and privilege. consider it a gift from survivors, who want to leave the world a better place than they have found it. as i have traveled across the country, i have come to realize that in many ways the purpose of hate is to silence. it seeks to subjugate and exterminate and to do away with difference and uniqueness. the individuals whose stories you will now read refuse 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 is taylor. taylor was 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. i was 13 years old the first

time i heard someone say the word. i was in 7th grade and all of my classmates had gathered for a school assembly. hundreds of us sat on bleachers and a black student inadvertently poked a white student with his knee. she turned around angrily and called him that word. later in class, she asked me if i was mad and say i had yes and that she shouldn't have used that word. she started crying, so the white student consoled her. and told the teacher. the teacher then told me to get a dictionary, look up the word 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 was just after the first inauguration of president obama. i was 13 years old and one of the only black students in my class. next i'm going to read from the testimonials, 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 had previously harassed and terrorized the family. he had called them dirty muslims, dirty arabs, isis, and 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 khalid jabara on their front doorstep. this is a conversation between victoria, rami and his mother remembering their fallen loved one. >> when i think about khalid today, what i miss most is his laughter and heart. every jabara family joke was his. he was so good at impersonations and accents. he was so loving to my daughter. his niece that he won't see grow up. i also know that he struggled a lot, just trying to be, and i'm sad he didn't get to experience life. he didn't get to enjoy it the way he deserved.

that was victoria. here's rami, i'm married and want to have kids some day. khalid will never get to meet them. he was so unique and charming and everyone loved him. he always tried to help others. even in his final minutes, he kept my mom, father, and neighbor away from near certain death. i know he's gone. i see him every day. i see him all the time, on the couch on which you're sitting, in his room, i don't want to believe it. i can't believe it. my sweet brother had a heart of gold. the next story i'm going to read from is janette. she's an undocumented mother.

she took sanctuary in a house of worship because she feared being separated from her family and deported. this is the beginning and end of her testimonial. in early february 2017, my children and i gathered around our dinner table. i told them that men in uniform might come to our home and take me away. my children, 12, 10 and 6 looked at me and listened. 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 that the government would honor the sanctity of the house of worship. their father and my eldest daughter, tanya, who is 26, would take care of them. i gave the children explicit instructions. if somebody knocked, don't open the door. if somebody entered, luna should

film. roberta should run to the refrigerator and call the first person on the community contact list and zuri should run to the bedroom and close the door. i feared for their safety. i didn't what to leave my family, but i was scared that immigrations and customs enforcement would tear us apart. you know, sometimes state violence and hate violence intersect. so what i just described was janette fearing an immigration raid that would separate her family. lots of people in this country experience state violence, like the muslim ban, like the separation and caging of families, like immigration raids, state-sponsored forms of hate. but many cases state violence actually leads to hate violence. later in her story, she 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 i continued this work in the years ahead, i know that i will experience racism and hate. but i will press on because i want to 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 have earned and built. i will protect my family and the love and community we enjoy. if i'm deported, i will hold my head up high, from the day i arrived more than 20 years ago, i fought for what i believed. my children will continue the fight long after i'm gone. this is our home. the next story i'm going to read from is alexandra. alexandra is a civil rights

attorney who was viciously cyber trolled 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 bookends of her testimonial. in the days following the election, i start the national hot line where students and families could report dis -- could report incidents of discrimination in school. there were 2017 report, the national woman's law center reported that more than 1 in 6 girls ranging in age from 14 to 18 had experienced harassment since trump's election. women aren't safe in schools, workplaces, public life or on-line.

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. their abusers were wealthy white boys or young men whose parents could seek legal counsel and quickly attack the reputation of a survivor and discredit her story. they feared speaking out because their abusers could be the congressmen, senators, ceos, or presidents of tomorrow. the campaign and victory of donald trump confirmed their worst suspicions. so there was no one size fits all solution to responding to an act of hate violence. for those of you who read the book, and i hope all of you do, and that you find it informative and empowering, you will see that every survivor and every

community has their own response, based on their own experiences and based on the needs of the community. the next story i'm going to read from is from the executive director of an organization called the providence youth student movement, in providence, rhode island. and in november of 2016, their offices were vandalized, and the passage i'm going to read from is what the organization decided to do after the hate crime. and how was the office vandalized. a noose was hanging from the ceiling. we decided not to call the police. we are an abolition organization and believe in the abolition of the police and military. think of it this way, we came to

this country because of u.s. militarism, he's 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 posed the 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 to stick to it in this moment. that's why calling the police wasn't an option. in that sense, the hate crime gave us an opportunity to reaffirm our values and principles, an opportunity to remind the world about who we are and what we stand for. moving along, we use the anger and frustration of the election and hate crime as motivation to do just that. in june, after a gruelling campaign that spanned five

years, the city of providence passed the most comprehensive, antiracial profiling legislation in the country. the community safety act was modelled after its namesake, passed in new york in 2013. the bill has 12 key provisions related to profiling, data collection, video recording by police, by people, traffic stops, consent searches, surveillance, the privacy of youth and immigrants, language access, collaboration with law enforcement agencies and accountability and enforcement. it's not just the law. it's how we got there. lawyers wrote the bill with the input of young people from our community, those most impacted by state violence. the next story i'm going that read from is from tonya.

tonya is a jewish american realtor and wedding planner who was viciously cyber trolled 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 infliction of emotional distress and harassment and intimidation. i truly believe that what they did to me isn't protected by free speech. they targeted me and that's against the law. nothing would have been more hurtful than giving up. but 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 first -- was first elected president that there would be no trump jokes in our

home, that he was our president, whether we voted for him or not, and we needed to be respectful. when asked about president trump in some of the early interviews after the incident, i was respectful and said 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 our country every day. but charlottesville, obviously the anniversary is coming up, changed everything. when i watched the television coverage of the white supremacist march in charlottesville and saw torch-wielding extremists yelling jews won't replace us, i saw in their eyes the same people who were terrorizing my family, who called, messaged and e-mailed us. this was them in living breathing form. i can't forgive our president for suggesting that there was a

moral equivalence between white supremacists and protesters. that was a moral failure. i now encourage my children to have open and critical conversations in our home because it's clear that this president doesn't have our back. tonya between november 2016 and may of 2017 received more than 800 menacing phone calls, e-mails, tweets, and really every other form of harassment you can imagine. time check? okay. thank you. so i'm going to read from one more testimonial and then read a passage from the conclusion. so the last testimony i'm going to read from is ruth hopkins. ruth hopkins is a native lawyer, judge and writer. and she was born on the standing

rock sioux indian reservation and then experienced police violence there in october of 2016. natives living today survived genocide. some tribes were completely wiped out. many had a population decrease of 90% or more. i know a few tribes who consist of only one family. when you look at our history, the mere fact that we're still alive and holding on to our 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 of tribal sovereignty, police violence and the disappearance and murder of native women. allies can help by boosting native voices. follow us and read our work. buy our goods and services. and support native businesses.

educate yourself on the real history of the u.s. and support our causes. don't wear ridiculous stereotypical costumes, they are degrading. fight corporate abuse and success, especially when it t targets mother earth. reject police violence and stand up for women. show up at our rallies, call your elected officials and don't vote for politicians who want to exterminate and destroy our way of life. see us, hear us, make sure we are included. don't speak over us. every time another one of us connects back to the sacred -- we win. and finally, i'm 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 have seen that they are debunking hateful myths of refugees and extreme vetting, building more inclusive communities on college campuses, securing stronger protections for crime victims, organizing a community defense to mass deportation, fighting for gender violence survivors, passing police accountability measures, educating others about muslims and arabs, taking on organized white supremacy, proactively combatting bullying, building community with the families of people who have stood up to hate, telling the stories of transpersons and 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 or abandoning hope. they are educating, organizing, and advocating. they are on the front lines

combatting hate and coming together in neighborhoods, schools, workplaces, and community centers. so many survivors are willing to reconcile and talk, even in the wake of unimaginable grief. they want accountability, not retribution. they are living and practicing restoretive justice in modern history. i just want to conclude by actually saying why i decided to spend so much time reading from the book. i know often there are conversations like this and there are multiple people up here, but i wrote this book because i want everyone to read these stories and really any opportunity i have to amplify and highlight those who have lost so much is really an opportunity i want to seize. 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's only one mic, won't be able to capture the question that you are saying, so after you say your 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, and they'd like to do so privately, there are index cards that are available, i believe, pass them out, and you should feel free to use that as well. >> thank you. [applause]

>> please, go ahead. >> so the question was about tonya, and how did it come to be that tonya received hundreds of menacing messages on-line and the like. so there is a lot of information about tonya on-line and what happened to her. she is currently actually being represented by the southern law center against the daily stormer which is a white supremacist anti-black, anti-immigrant blog. tonya 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 richard spencer's mother, that was not the case, and richard spencer's mother published an essay encouraging people -- or

basically saying that tonya had tried to extort her and then the daily stormer jumped on that and said that there is a jewish realtor and businesswoman who is trying to extort the mother of richard spencer, who as 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 end on her doorstep. did you have a question? >> [inaudible]. >> sure. so a book like this can never be complete. so folks have a sense as to how many incidents -- oh, i have

been asked, what's the question? sorry. thank you for the reminder. so the question is, how did 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, there are -- in 2016, for example -- there was roughly 6,000 hate crimes that took place. but if you look at the national crime victimization survey, there are as many as 250,000 hate crimes that happen every single year in this country. the reason there is that gap is because when the fbi reports the number of hate crimes, they rely on voluntary reporting by local law enforcement, not mandatory reporting. so as a consequence, american hate can never be complete -- and i went about collecting these stories by focusing on

ensuring that i had a diversity of perspectives, so native voices, black voices, jewish voices, muslim voices, etc., making sure that i had geographic diversity, making sure that i captured the spectrum of hate. initially when i set out, i thought for a moment i would only include the most searing examples of hate violence in this book, and then i felt that would be a disservice to the communities with whom i was working because hate manifests in so many ways, which is why you will find stories in the book of bullying, of vicious cyber trolling like tonya, vandalism and arson in houses of worship and finally murder. the other point i will make is my gateway to survivors was local community organizations. they do this work every single day. when you travel the country and you meet with survivors, long after the media loses interest, long after the public loses

interest, their go to partners are always community local organizations. >> second question. [inaudible]. >> the question was was there 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 concrete example. so i was in the family room of the jabaras and they were telling me about the loss and death of khalid jabara, 10 feet away from where he was murdered. and towards the end of the interview, khalid's sister victoria looked at me and says

arjun, 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 an e-mail from a man who identified himself as the cousin of the murderer. and in the e-mail, the cousin said i know this might not matter to you, but i want you to know that the man who killed your brother didn't have a community. his parents abandoned him. he didn't have a home. he grew up in a car. he had no support mechanisms, a very very difficult childhood. and victoria says to me, you know, arjun, 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.

yes? >> [inaudible]. >> thank you for listening to the pod cast. he listened to a pod cast in which i talked about the story of 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 how every time donald trump gives a speech about refugees, about

banning syrians, about banning muslims, she fears being attacked. she also talks about how in downtown boise, one day 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. and 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 and she responded by saying that i don't think the suspect should go to jail because it's not clear to me that the suspect will learn about syrians, refugees, and muslims in jail. the judge didn't 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's one of the

reasons, for example, i read her 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 don't bring hate crime charges. often they don't investigate the way they need to. others? >> [inaudible].

[inaudible]. >> the question is how i chose the title "american hate". i chose the title 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's why i decided to choose the title. on the point of free speech which was the other question you raised, there's been a lot of conversation about the limits of free speech and to what extent hate speech should be protected. i don't have time in this moment to sort of expand sort of on my views, but here's 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 who have been directly impacted. and if you speak to survivors after cyber trolling, of bullying, they will tell you that overwhelmingly that hate speech hurts.

in the case of tan tonya -- in the case of tonya, she described how she suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder. and someone else like taylor, who was also trolled on-line aren't part of these conversations. i firmly believe that technology companies should take a stronger stand against hate. there needs to be checks in place. if somebody is removed from one of those platforms, there should be a mechanism to appeal that decision, we should know how many people are being removed, practices of shadow banning i don't think are healthy for our democracy, but i do think we are making progress in that way. others? yeah? >> [inaudible]. >> so the question is what am i

hoping will come from this book first and foremost, i hope the 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 this book. one of the things i'm also doing is i'm trying to organize community conversations across the country that feature the survivors in the book so that they 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 i mean, 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, impact the communities at large.

yeah? >> [inaudible]. i have a suggestion for your next book. >> i'm happy to hear it. >> that you interview people who are intervening and supporting their neighbors who have been victimized. [inaudible]. it is a heartening experience that there are people out there like that -- [inaudible] --

things that are happening. there is a antidote or counterpoint to that, maybe that would be an assignment for you. [inaudible]. >> i appreciate the suggestion, thanks so much. yeah? >> [inaudible]. >> that's 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 it's not fair for them to shoulder that burden. it's hard. and there's 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. you know, one of my criticisms now is that i feel like the mainstream media is often more interested in understanding and humanizing white supremacist than they are interested in humanizing and understanding r survivors -- survivors of hate in donald trump's america. anything else? yeah? >> what concerns me is children. [inaudible]. it's a tough situation where you

have -- you look after people, [inaudible] -- the whole scenario is kind of like more -- where kindness has disappeared. for example we had somebody shouting -- >> what were they shouting? i couldn't tell. >> lies, lies. >> i couldn't imagine this happening in our country, but it is happening. that's what gets me thinking. [inaudible]. this is great that you have written a book and the survivors, i mean, their stories because we don't hear about them

that much. [inaudible]. we hear about a shooting or a hate crime and then everybody goes back to their jobs and doing things. [inaudible]. >> yes. thanks for the question. the question is about sort of my kind of prognostication of the next few years. you know, 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's easy to become jaded, but if we focus on what we can do in our backyard, you

know, progress isn't just imminent. it's inevitable. yes? >> [inaudible]. what might be a direction forward on kind of a national policy level to kind of address something that is obviously a nationwide problem? >> you know, it really depends on the survivor and the local community that's been impacted. you know, some things that have come up that have been successful are community defense programs, hate defense zones,

lots of impacted folks are taking self-defense classes, making sure they are protected. we've seen folks leverage technology. there is an app, and you can download it, and you can put in information like -- basically put in information like your bank account information, went to pick up your kids from school, who your next of kin is, in the event that you are separated from your family in an immigration raid. there's another technology application that actually allows activists and journalists to see where immigration raids are happening in real-time, based on crowd source data that's being inputted. you know, the program -- i don't want to make it sound like the program is completely fully sophisticated, but we are seeing technology being used. we are seeing community defense programs. i will also tell you that for

survivors, it's important to them that we have hate crime laws, and you know, hate crime laws are often controversial, and i don't think they need to be, and here's why, and hopefully in 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 is a crime that would not have occurred absent the victim's identity. and as a consequence, a crime that's on account of someone's identity impacts them more. the recovery period after a hate crime is twice as long than it is for another crime. hate crime laws also allow judges to prescribe restoretive sentences which is why we see judges say learn about the community, take a class in asian american studies, do public service for that 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 they are not just random crimes, right, on a map. instead they are hate crimes that are rooted in what? white supremacy, anti-black ratism, xenophobia, that's why we need hate crime laws and communities have rallied around having strong hate crime laws for that reason. >> have you kept in touch with any of the survivors from the book, and if so, have their life changed at all after sharing their testimony with you? >> i'm in regular touch with each of the survivors. each have received a copy of the book. as i mentioned earlier, one of the things i'm trying to do is hold community conversations cross the country -- across the country that feature the survivors. it is critical to me they stay connected to their stories.

janette will be participating in a conversation alongside me in denver, colorado. i was in touch with the jabaras a few days ago, and we're planning an event in tulsa, oklahoma, potentially at a library that's named after khalid jabara. >> as someone as a child of immigrant, two immigrant parents, very familiar with hate in the u.s., i feel it is a part of the immigrant story itself, what do you want people like me or people like us, what do you want us to get out of this book, besides just hearing about hate that we've encountered, you know, in every day life? >> so the question is, you described yourself as -- >> a child of immigrants. >> as a child of an immigrant, what would the child or children of immigrants hope to get out of this book? well, i think in the conclusion,

and i think throughout the book, you will learn a lot about how you can support people who are directly impacted. i mean, look, there are survivors across this country who don't even have healthcare. there are local community organizations across this country who don't have the resources, right, to do this work every day. you can support those organizations. you can make sure survivors have the resources they need. you know, people love to think that hate doesn't exist in our backyard, right, and here we are here and i was focused on the book and someone is yelling lies, right, coming right down the street. hate is ubiquitous. i think focusing on your backyard is important. if you feel like your backyard is taken care of, figure out where other folks are that need help. reach out to them. every act of kindness matters. let me say this, some people think that rhetoric doesn't matt

matter, right? policies matter but so does rhetoric. let me give you an example. the day that donald trump said that he was going to ban muslims from the united states in december of 2015, a pig's head was found outside a mosque in philadelphia. the day that donald trump actually signed the first muslim ban, a mosque in victoria was burned to the ground. right? so that mosque in victoria described how they received -- there were acts of kindness from all over the world, and every little bit matters. taylor talked about how she has this positivity thoughts jar that's filled with beautiful wonderful things that people have said to her over e-mail and voice mails, over texts, etc., that help her get through, you know, the trauma that she endured. i think maybe we have time for one more question?

>> what inspired you to -- [inaudible] >> the question was, what inspired me to start this journey? i think it was a few things. many of us can be identified by our articles of faith. in that case that means i have long hair that i cover with a turban and a beard. we have always been acutely vulnerable to bullying, to violence, to hate in many many forms. 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've done, but i will also say, and i

say this in the acknowledgments, this book took a community. i actually wrote some of the book -- so the reason we're not down stairs is because the ac broke, but the irony is that normally when i come to new york, i stay at an apartment close to here, with a close friend of mine who is here, and so sometimes i would come here and write the book. and i say that because so many people have been so supportive throughout this journey. when i went to portland, oregon, there was somebody who was traveling at the time who just opened her home to me. people picked me up from airports, drove me on unfamiliar 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 consultations with survivors. so this is absolutely their book too. one more question? >> in your book, have you

considered the impact of what's happening in technology? what i mean by that is a lot of people say that donald trump -- [inaudible]. -- go back to nixon, bush, reagan, they all did it. have you looked at the historical perspective on how presidents -- this guy is just a little bit more open -- [inaudible] -- >> so the question in some ways is, you know, how do we explain

the rise of donald trump and how is it different -- how is his politics different from that of his predecessors? >> again, there are sort of entire books that have been written on this. what i will say is that -- in some ways i do agree -- i think hate preexisted donald trump and i think will it endure long after him. but what makes his presidency different is that this is a president who openly courts white supremacists. he is a president that i believe is a sexist, a white supremacist and a racist. i think his actions and policies show it. i do think we need to have a more serious conversation about economic disparities in this country. and there is a gap broadly speaking between what some call the cities, and i went to some of these places, you know, 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. amenities that we enjoy that we take for granted haven't quite reached there. i don't think that blaming immigrants and voting for donald trump is the answer. but i do think that anybody who is committed to social and racial justice needs to be having conversations about how do we ensure that the economic pie of 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. i have -- [applause] >> i have family here. i have new friends. i have old friends. i have colleagues. i see somebody in the back who i haven't seen in 17 years.

and it's just really extraordinary. and i can only hope that everyone in this country enjoys a community like i do. so thank you very much. [applause] >> if you want to buy books, i will be signing books right up here. i'm just going to move my chair over. [inaudible conversations] >> tonight on after words, former obama administration education secretary arnie duncan on his book how schools work. he's interviewed by former chancellor of the district of columbia public schools. >> i don't know if voters make the connection between what politicians do and what happens in schools, and so how do we draw that line a little more

clearly? >> we need voters to understand if we want more access to pre-k, if we want to pay our teachers better, if we want to reduce dropout rates, if we want to make college more affordable, we have to get there by challenging and holding accountable our elected officials who we put in office. :: >> when my law clerks heard about this, they said, well, do you know who where it comes from? and i said, of course, i do.

[laughter] >> the notorious big were born in brooklyn, new york. [laughter] >> you can watch this and many for the past 20 years online at booktv.org, click the author's name and the word book on search bar at the top of the page. >> heather mcdonald's latest book, corrupt the university and undermine culture, heather, mcdonald, you spoke at claremont college, how was that? >> well, i spoke to an empty room. there was a massive student blockade outside. i had to be escort intoed the room through police through the kitchen and throughout my speaking to this empty blockaded