>>. >> jason riley author columnistt contributor to wall street journal and fox news contributor prickle among your books please stop helping us i want to begin where your book concludes. liberalism in convincing blacks to see themselves as

victims. >> yes. i believe thatths is a big part they have been at it for somee time. to plate - - paid to blacks primarily as victims defined by their victimization first and foremost and that we have a government with the great society was that a success? >> if you look at the actual track record and the goals and what was stated at the time it's a failure.

and by that i mean the black war. if they have not significantly improved. but you talk about historically black colleges who was mason and why is he important in terms of trying to merge historically black colleges and use of diversities that were forced out quex. >> since the civil rights act and more integration because black students had options from the 20th century with

those historically black colleges. so schools are struggling our stay viable economically and with higher of education and those and this has been resisted by some to maintain their independence. so mason was pushing. >> are they still relevant if they are producing the results they should maintain that.

and they are kept afloat primarily through federal dollars. and if a school is failing then it should close it doesn't matter if it's all lack and the value added in recent decades is where they do an excellent job to educate kids in engineering with a preponderance so i do think they do so with that vital purpose with higher education but that's not to say all of them are performing that duty at the same level. >> this is a cover story and

one of those headlines calling the longest war your reaction? >> there is a tendency to view black history at large in america is a history of what whites have done to the blacks. there are various reasons why various groups once to keep that alive but i don't know any reasonable person who would say otherwise and to see america vanquished. but i do think black history is more than that and the more relevant question what can be

done in the face in the past in the face of racism. that is the relevant story to tell today and my fear is that by perpetuating the notion it'sua all about racism it sends the wrong message to the next generation. and the police are out to get you. and with that set of message are not helping that child. >> i have experienced racism i have been called names i have been pulled over by police for no reason that i couldes

understand. >> what happened washington dc and where were you quex. >> i was doing an internship in the early nineties interning at usa today and i was on the sports desk we didn't leave work so it was quite late at night and i was driving to and from my uncles house where i was staying in usa today headquarters in my car had new york plates that i was driving in dc and driving home after midnight i see sirens blaring in the police pull mee over and order me out of the car at gunpoint and

they said i fit the description of somebody they were after. >> what were you thinking? >> i was terrified. i remember getting back into the car after i left because they were gone as quickly as they came after they realized i wasn't the right person and just sitting in my car shaking. i rememberr i couldn't get it out of gear because my hand wasi shaking. it was terrifying. >> three black men 16 years old 36 years ago convicted of a murder they did not commit they were just released from jail. what does that tell you about america's criminal justice system? >> you would be hard-pressed to find a black person of my

age who has not experienced. i think the criminal justice system is an improvement that may be my father or grandfather experience in this country. but it's still not perfect. but to take these examples with these exceptions to say the reason criminal justice system has evolved. i don't have the evidence for that and often times we had discussions with prisons and jails but we don't talk about the racial makeup of people who perpetrate crime. >> and to have one discussion without the other. >> as imperfect as the system

is. i still think there are behavioral differences that lead to some being over representative and others underrepresented. >>host: one title is please stop helping us. >> that was a look back at the great society program put in place under linda johnson expanded under nixon. i wanted to say what is the track record? these were put in place to help the black poor in particular. welfare, housing, expansion of minimum wage. what has worked and what hasn't and why. that is what i was attempting to do with the book my second

book the false black power book is about the track record using political power that essentially is the strategy of the civil rights movement with economics we need to get her own people in place but if we look back by the early eighties we have major cities and those that have black mayors. in addition black police chief and school superintendents

look at the track record of area barry or the 19 nineties under these black regimes there even more impoverished. so that's a very good one. did so to engage in the political process and the white police chief and congressmen but to say that connection we were told it is essential between black political power that is not proven to be as strong as people hoped it would be. >> have they helped or hurt

african-americans quex. >> by a large they hurt it away what the underprivileged need of any staff development that has to occur it's not a political solution they are cultural changes that need to take place they are referred to as human capital that inhabit the need to develop in america. and to the extent a government program it does more harm than good. and then to interfere with that self-development.

etperson or a group's work ethic will not improve if they think the government will take care of them you cannot replace the father in the home without government check if you have a system in place if you have an additional child we will send you more money. you can imagine the perverse perverse incentives we corrected some of this in the 19 nineties but not entirely. >> a regular contributor from the wall street journal.

>> that was a book written about immigration. and the person at the paper got a new position and asked if i wanted to take ove the beat. i'm not the child of immigrants but and studying history is fascinating and as you write about it for so

long. and writing editorials for the newspaper i expand on the arguments the editorial page has made about immigration over the deck grades is very pro- immigration editorial page which sometimes upsets conservatives in particular but it's interesting what happened with that debate because the immigration view on the right in the trump era is very different from what it used to be. we always had the isolationist protectionist strain on the right going back to the view of the 19 nineties. >> but the dominant view on the right reagan was extremely

pro- immigrant emplaced amnesty in fact george w. bush and his daughter were very pro- immigrant and the republican nominees like mccain or robbie were still far more pro- immigrant than you had and donald trump. >> this is a newhi development on the right with faction and has never been dominance over in a new era. >> should the rules be any different for immigrant versus refugee quex. >> yes. there are two different groups traditionally have been taught and considered these day they are more conflated but the people generally will tell you somebody was forced out of their country and would rather be back home and will behave

someone that willingly leaves to start a new life in a new place. so what i'm writing primarily are economic immigrants and not book and the case that i make we would do better to put them in guest worker programs orth other programs with supply and demand to determine the level of immigration right now made by politicians or policymakers who try to think of the needs of the economy will fill this demand but that just doesn't work soviet style central planning that's with document fraud illegal immigrants that are in the country i think we would be

better to put in place market mechanisms to allow us to regulate. >> your current book quex. >> and intellectual biography thomas it was based at the hoover institution i have known a little bit over the years and whose books and writing had a huge impact on me in college it's a project i'm looking forward to. >> how do you define your ideology? >> i guess i define myself as a free-market individual somebody that believes smaller government is the waygo to go. someone that believes in individual freedom.

>> the silver rights movement has become an industry by who? in name? >>th for everyone from individuals like al sharpton and jesse jackson to like the naacp may have effectively monetized blacked one - - black victimization in different groups have done it for different reasons. i thank you are a civil rights organization like the naacp it's not in your interest to acknowledge things have improved for black i people and that what you're trying to do is you're trying to stay relevant if you're an organization like black lives matter you want to raise money so you will play up certain aspects of what's going on out

there on the racial front whether or not they are relevant you will play that up because it's in your interest to do so. we were talking earlier about the victimization that democrats in black democrats in particular used to be reelected. so there are different incentives but it's part of an industry. >> because again that does not serve their purpose they want to stay relevant or raise reelected so they will keep ray stand victimization front and center debate whether or not it's relevant. >> where do you do most of your thinking and writing quex. >> at home. i have a home office.

>> are you self-discipline to do that quex. >> disciplined enough i've been in office for more than two decades it took a little adjustment but i find it more productive now. >> j said miley book tv in depth but first let's ask about your father your parents separated when you were young but your father was in your life as a child. >> yes. it made a big difference he was a role model my mother was very religious and we attended church two or three times a week and the congregation was full of black men who took care of their families and dressed a certain way and spoken behave a certainbe way.

i was very fortunate. i grew up around solid role models and it made a big difference. today part of the problem the noblack underclass faces that stability of the lack of role models in the community or the home given the high illegitimacy rates it's a problem. >> born and raised in buffalo. >> and from yonkers new york welcome to book tv. >> hello. s,e republicans especially black republicans why have a

failed history politically? so what do democrats think? actually with voter suppression. may be 60 million blacks but no we don't have power to the black. you should have me on the radio discussing this. so i'm asking you to go through history because when i ran for the house in florida as a republican when jackie robinson was my hero for

martin luther king and we are called racist especially me. that's terrible. in fact i asked them what democrat help the schools in the south. but one of the first objections i could go on forever and that's what you should be teaching. >> thank you. i would agreeth with the caller there is a lot black history that doesn't get a lot of attention from civil rights organizations of black politicians because again it doesn't serve their personal interest what has to do with what's going on in the black community in between the end

of slavery and the beginning of the modern day civil rights movement in the fifties and sixties the progress is remarkable with widespread racism in this country. and these are the days of jim crow look at the rates leaving poverty and educating themselves this is a period of tremendous progress that actually slowed after the civil rights legislation passed the decades that followed the that legislation we saw many trends either slow down or stall or even reverse course. it doesn't get a lot of

intention right that poor blacks especially in the absence of government was schemes of affirmative action. >> why scheme quex. >> it's half a century now we have a lot of naturalists that we can look back on and see if in fact these programs were effective. back in 1996 the university of california system ander did race-based affirmative action with admissions throughout the entire system and what we saw after that took place is the number of black graduates from the university off california go up by 50 percent hispanics increased by more than 50 percent so programs put in

place to help increase and expand the rights in practice was resulting in fewer black doctors or lawyers or architects or social workers in the absence of the policy. we don't have to guess or speculate we can look at the track record of these programs that have been in place over thee years. >> welcome to the conversation. >> good afternoon i'm a big fan of yours i have been reading human the new york post. i agree with everything you say but it doesn't make a adifference when you have the mentality to be the victim or you are comfortable with the victim the democratic party

their favorite word is racist or racism too many people are attracted to that it is about feelings and emotions and that's what the democratic party is banking on. they say fax don't give a damn about your feelings no matter what you say or what i believe no matter what. i didn't vote for trump but i will 2020. i'm starting to see it but when you have been told you have been told. we don't need that. chgeit will never change the democratic party that's that they are banking on. i promise you. police shootings or something likeg that in black folks will

get their feelings and emotions up and vote democrat i didn't vote for trump but i'm voting for him now because like youia said what if you got to lose? look at the facts of unemployment and employment but it doesn't make a difference. you know what i'm talking about. is not going to change. >> i appreciate the call. i think he makes a lot of excellent points the strategy of the democrats and he's right. it is a tough road to hoe.at the democrats have been very effective at pushing victim

mentality and government programs as a solution. in so it is very difficult to change minds out there. the caller but he does make excellent points. >> so if the restriction list misist they will hear but to take care of the magnetic program so why do they talked disproportionately to benefits of the poor quex. >> that's one question i often ask my friends on thehe right who see immigration as a problem. the idea that immigrants arelf coming here is just not borne

out by the facts. but we can look at the situation we have today. we have 15 million people in the country but yet you have unemployment rates at a 50 year low. the wall street journalil reported one.2 million more jobs available for people looking for work. we have a labor shortage in this country notwithstanding the fact we have 15 million people herewe illegally. so again the other argument is they put downward pressure on wages but i cannot tell you how often others that say jason as a black person you should be especially wary of these folks coming because they are going after jobs that are held by a lot of blacks.

and again what does that situation say we are at generational lows and wages have been rising for the people at the low end of the pay scale more than management immigrants are coming here and stealing jobs where's the evidence. >> you write about jesse jackson that 50 years ago he was fighting jim crow today your fighting relevance. >>g absolutely. the civil rights what you see now is a search for relevance even among the activist groups with their pushing for or where they want the emphasis placed within the black

community is at odds with the reality it's hard to know where toto begin of the previous callers mentioned police shootings any shooting is tragic whether happening by police or anyone else but is at the problem today? we are here in new york one of the few places that is kept detailed records of police shootings going all the way back to the earlyly seventies and in 1971 the police in new york had 300 people the most recent stats from a couple years ago show that is down to around a dozen. that's a 90 percent reduction in police shooting fatalities and we haven't activist movement out there based on some sort of academic one - -

epidemic of police shootings new york is not the outlier. it can make up 2 percent going on there are bad cops root them out to somebody breaks the law to hold that position of authority they should face the penalty but the idea that's what we should be emphasizing folks responsible for 2 percent of the shootings it is completely ridiculous. >> so you write we must begin that blacks are responsible for astonishingly disproportionate number of crimes the past half-century. >> blacks are responsible with

over 12 or 13 percent of the population that we have to speak honestly about. and to have the racial makeup of the prison system these have nothing to do with one another. and if we want to reduce the number of people we have to do something but that we need an honest conversation we don't have that. >> look at the poverty rate what of those are african-americans quex. >> they are three times higher but i will say among married

blacks they are in the single digits and have been 25 years so the idea again the poverty rate again is at odds with the facts. >> nobody will notot discriminate against you if you are black because you're married so look at the totality of the situation is that a function of racism or family formation? so why are blacks marrying at the rate of others? because when they do it goes a long way to address the poverty issue.

but these are not the discussions we have we jump to a racial disparity. that's not the other factors driving these outcomes other than racism. >> to have this conversation you have to deny but to what extent iss racism ask. >> to your point the poverty rate. >> it has a lot to do with that. >> at the extent of these programs that have interfered with that family formation to keep the fathers around it hasn't help at all. >> going back to your father who was separated but wanted to remain a part of your life.

>> he never lived more than a couple miles away he coached my little league teams my sisters and i spent holidays in a couple days a week so he wass very involved but the other part is that is not typical that's atypical and that's the problem. to the sixties two out of three black kids raised at with the mother and father now 60 percent or not so that statistic alone goes a long ways of the gang related violence in the criminal justice system why they are shooting each other there is a

lack of male role model. >> did you ever say thank you quex. >> i'm sure i did not think my father enough. but yes i think both of them know how much they meant to me. >> so how to utilize the statistics to support the position and statistics for example black families if they are married they are in a better position at a time and those that end upd in divorce

but when he cites for example by that analogy if there were 900 rapes of women now there's only ten so we don't emphasize that we don't rape women? but now you talk systematic but then talk about people using the civil rights movement to their advantage. i would guess you have been in a situation throughout your professional and educational career you were the first are thear only black so therefore at the wall street journal they are happy to have an educated black man like yourself thatuc espouses theories that are not supportive of black people.

>> so you have done the same thing in your position in your professional life you are accusing jesse jacksonng another's of doing and i will make my final point. the g.i. bill because black people were not allowed to be in the war the v.a. was also affirmative-action and then you can go to any college and then after the economy starts to boom all businesses left the urban areas so the factories moved to the suburbs sanctioned by the government gave the white the loans then

they hire the black even if they could get out there and then the higher the whites and then where the blacks were with the other federal government. >> now we will get a response. thank you there is a lot on the table. >> with my personal background i have not accomplished anything what other black people have accomplished before me. in fact i wast recruited as senior editor there for a number of years in terms of the g.i. bill there are blacks who attended college on the g.i. bill.

in fact the gentleman that i'm writing about is one of them he is quite thankful for the g.i. bill for allowing him to do that also with the industrialization as a source of problems in the inner cities and he's getting the order wrong the factories left after they had already fallen into disrepair but the riots of the sixties happen first then they left these areas so you have to get the order right when you talk and sometimes people don't.

>> one viewer says police shootings are down because of protestsng and demonstrations. >> that's not what the record shows. in 1971 the police shootings but 20 years later in 1991 that has fallen by more than half and fallen to about 100. twenty years later again it has fallen a down into the teens it is a long-standing trend.e with these protest we have seen in the last few years it is not something new. and particularly use of force against minorities. roland fryer published a couple years ago and then

expected and those that were less likely than white suspects to be shot at. no this is not a function of these protests but what it has done or what they risk doing is to force police to scale back to stay in their cars and not patrol on foot to take their time answering the 911 calls if they have the politicians and activists breathing down their neck and my fear is that the people that are harmed of the most are law abiding blacks who of course are the majority.

they will be harmed because the criminals prey on them first and foremost. and so to the extent the police pull back you are hurting the black poor. so that is what i fear the activists will be doing policing a problem. >>host: how much criticism do you get from friends and colleagues when they see you on fox news? [laughter] >> it depends which friends and colleagues. i have friends of all political persuasions but when people see you on tv they are more likely to tell you how moyou look at how you sounded. [laughter]

>> good afternoon. thank you very much. i will just start off by saying happy holidays. that was a lovely christmas story that you shared. i don't have a problem with your view of howw the democrats dissatisfied but as far as politics go but i believe ed bernie sanders and to challenge the democratic party i'm 35 i'm a black male i am very dissatisfied with the democratic party. they are doing enough so why here in new jersey?

we have no trade schools they are private why don't we have public trade schools electrician or welding we are not doing enough with education. out of our system. are primary is all the way in june so now i have to declare re that gives me a couple of reasons of the examples of dissatisfaction. and then to vote for the republican party. they don't spend dollars on our community for some reason that our force or against us

lindsey graham doesn't speak to us at all on the federal level so bernie sanders is the way forward your views are very toxic that you have the right and to suggest our way forward but to please the gop. >> so to separate bernie sanders a second from the rest of this the caller is right when he talks about the lack of interest that republicans are showing in the black vote. we can speculate whether that is racism but on a very practical level and politics

is about numbers and going after a constituency is time not spent on people you thank you can get. that can be one explanation right there. jack kemp and house speaker paul ryan. and then you had another politician even chris christie as governor of new jersey because he went into camden and trenton and asked for their vote. the problem with all the people that we just named they are the exception and not the rule. you don't see the republican candidate in black neighborhoods at the barbershop or the grocery store the community center. you don't see them advertising

on black radio or black television programs. when it's allowed for the democratic candidate to paint them as a monster with no pushback. so i do think republicans ought to do a better job and they certainly don't blame blacks who have the attitude now. >> last month you wrote black voters have shown little interest in either black candidate or for kamala harris of california. >> if you had asked me about cory booker and kamala harris five years ago i would've had very positive things to say about both of them. they are both democratsth and liberals but we can start with cory booker.

he was very education reform minded mayor. before he became a senator. he believed in school choice and charter schools also very tough on crime. he came in and hired a proactive commissioner and was going to model on what giuliani and bloomberg did in new york. kamala harris was a prosecutor you can look up youtube videos of her saying things like yes there may be racism in the criminal justice system but that's not the reason why. she was a very tough-minded prosecutor when it came to protect their rights of black people in those communities the law abiding by people that were targets but they have

abandoned that. walker - - booker has walked back a little bit on charter but now they've decided they need to become more progressive so they had to put aside what i would consider very sensible policies as my problem of where they are today from where they were t vbefore. obvious also bernie sanders essentially my problem with bernie sanders is his socialism which amounts to wealth redistribution in a way to help the poor and help the black poorth in particular. and again talk about the great society programs it is redistributing wealth if that solves poverty we would've solved it a long time agoo it doesn't. what these folks need is the

development of human capital they need wealth creation and the progressives are too focused on redistribution it is not going to be the sosolution and bernie is all in. and that essentially is my problem. >> former mayor michael bloomberg who apologize for stop and frisk in you said to me want to go back to treating criminals like victims and police officers like criminals. >> yes. i have some problems of michael bloomberg to and i also did with him as mayor of new york city but one of the things i liked was his stance on policing he did have the backing of the police and let them know that. basically he d o continued the

policies of his predecessor giuliani who put more cops on the street in these communities and by the way. [laughter] talk about the tension about the police in the black community but nobody calls the police more than black people. [laughter] that is where they originate and mayors like bloomberg and giuliani were responding to those calls. and i appreciated that. bloomberg was walking back and apologizing for i would argue saved a lot of lives. if you go back to the early nineties in new york city 2200 or 2300 homicides a year in the early nineties. 70 percent were black people being murdered fast forward to last year you were down a couple hundred if we had

maintained the rate of homicides from the early 19 nineties for the next quarter century how many more black dead people we would have today? i was appalled that he would apologize for a policy i would argue saved not only black lives but kept a lot of people out of prison as well but he's walking that back again because that's where the party - riheis. if you want to run as a democratic party you have to talk about policing is the problem. >> we are in the second hour of our in-depth conversation with jason riley. who is your role model? >> my father first and foremost. no one has really replaced

him. people who have influenced me intellectually throughout the course ofut my career and i would name people like walter williams or glenn lowery these are people i started to read in college and agreed with a lot of what they wrote. >>host: are you at today where you envisioned we would be as a student? [laughter] >> that's a good question. i haven't had a lot of job since college. ii got interested in journalism after joining the school paper the editor said joined the staf staff.

and that's what got me interested in newspapers. after i completed that internship at usa today i knew that i wanted to be a journalis journalist. six months after college i found myself at the wall street journal and stay there for more than two decades continuing to write for the paper. i can say i still look forward to getting out of bed every morning and getting started whether i write on a column or book or speech or prepare for interviews so i'm still very much enjoying his. >> your wife is also one - - also a journalist. >> i don't burden her to edit me but i do hit her up for ideas. >> now from detroit mission - - michigan. >>caller: how are you. . . . .

for instance between 1940 and 1960 the poverty rate in america so by 14 percentage points in this country so if you are talking a 40% decline before the civil rights act of 64 to the voting rights act of 65. in the decade of the 60s

alone, black household incomes doubled in this country so that is prior to the era of affirmative action that receives the credit for increasing the income. if you look at the period between 1930 and 1970, you have the number of the professions, social workers, teachers, lawyers and doctors and middle-class professions onquadrupled during this period. the point is what is going on in the rest of the country during this period. i would argue that folks that were making those games were experiencing a great deal more racism and yet it wasn't able to stop them then the question becomes what did stop.

why did we see a slowdown. rgthe government interventionist policies of expansion in the program is one thing that got ii the way that got to see the disintegration of the black family and we started to see all kind of other government efforts interfere in the development that wasas taking place and we saul a political shift in the civil rights arena. we saw a shift from the focus on the development of the human capital that we saul in the king air a to focus on the officials into that became a primary focus. and i think that proved problematic in the long run. >> host: we got your e-mails at book tv at mac c-span.org.

would you say we've made progress? >> guest: of course. progress? >> guest: of course. we have ase black president twie elected, senators, congressmen, mayors and all the rest. on a certain level he would be proud but interim there's quite a bit of work to do. a situation that in some ways has regressed since the days of king, and it's really sad that i think that is wheres we are and that is where he would be most disappointed. as the voting rights act required for the majority minority districts should be kept in place?

>> guest: people have been willing to cross the racial lines to vote for some time. the problemem with keeping it in place is the polarization. you get candidates that don't need to make an appeal outside of the ethnic or racial group and i think that only fuels the polarization and probably hurt the candidates that aspire to run statewide at some point. of course with the congressional district you are just running in one area. but if you want to be a senator or governor and spend all your time making these narrow appeals andow then you want to run statewide, that is a much more difficult leap to make. i think it puts in place progress incentives and it

ignores the fact that we have come a long way in terms of the willing is. >> host: this is from a viewer in los angeles with a very simple question. who is responsible for racism in our country and why? >> guest: i don't think any one individual is responsible. it predates america and is part of the condition. it's not about one group being responsible or one group being able to end it. if predates all of us and it onll still be here when i'm long gone. it's part of the tragedy of the human nature. >> host: you are next. welcome to the tv. >> caller: thank you so much. i appreciate you stating the facts and want to project a

statement. everyone is entitled to their own opinion but not their own facts. the callers that like to bash him and all he's doing is stating facts, i am a whistleblower in an article back in 1983 that triggered an investigation that eventually led to the resignation of jim wright from the speaker of house. that's all done on factual information. the article is offered by jonathan quickly. i don't know if you are aware of who he was. the people are the greatest asset of any country. let's get it together and stop the racial baloney. we have indigenous people on the concentration camp resignations

but these are held and it all starts with stopping arguments and bringing forth solution. thank you. >> host: thank you for the call. >> guest: thank you for the call as well. >> host: an individual by the name of john, who is he? >> guest: he died recently, he was an eye doctor from michigan who also was a political activist and started out as an environmental activist. he then moved into reproductive rights and maybe the first or one of the first is not the first of planned parenthood in michigan. he was unsatisfied and this was part of his environmentalism he

worked in tandem with his concern about population growth in the u.s.. he was concerned there were too many people into those detrimentale to the earth and so forth which explains his interest in abortion but also explains his interest in immigration ultimately that america is becoming overpopulated and so he started in the number of organizations to fight for lower levels of immigration and they expanded quite rapidly and some of them have become pretty popular. the federation for immigration reform, center for immigration studies is another one. the reason i wrote about it in the book is because many

republican restrictionist joined by common cause with these organizations over the years for many different reasons so you had people there got back together even though they camehe from different places ideologically they joined forces to reduce immigration and what i tried to explain is the history of some of the groups because i think there are many republicans who didn't realize who they were. >> host: in the first two years of the trump administration, he's a candidate that viewed immigration as a key issue in his campaign and brought it up again in 2018 when they ultimately lost control of the house of representatives but that the white house, house and senate said he had a chance to get something on immigration on an issue republicans ran long. what happened?

>> guest: ke key ran into the same problem obama ran into when his party controlled all three branches for the first two years in office. it's a complicated issue even within the party there are different groups on immigration. most republicans are not with the president when it comes to his more extreme views. more recently, we've had the dreamer -ish view, people that were brought here illegally as children and what to do about them and the majority of

republicans want to give amnesty to the dreamers and not support them so there you have ann issue where trump is at odds with members of his own party and they are not at expanding the wall that he wants to do. it's hard to get all of one party to act in agreement on something level of bipartisan. >> host: and you took the asesident to task on the issue. >> guest: i wasn't a trump supporter mostly on the grounds of temperament and whether he was fit for the job of some of the policy issues. one was immigration and another was trade. those were two issues i disagree on. i have written on them approvingly. i like the education policies

and choice. i'm a big supporter of school choice vouchers, charter schools and all the rest and she spent her professional life supporting those causes andha i like the ft trump appointed her and has been supportive of the education choice. when people talk about where i see the country going heading forward, it is going to come down to getting a decent education for kids in these communities and it is going to be at the root of everything. i have no faith that the traditional schools in the country can do that because i don't believe that they are acting primarily in the interest of the children these days. i think they are acting in the interest of the adults and public education has become a jobs program first and foremost, not in db2 and education

problem. whether it is alternative public systems like public charter schools or vouchers that allow people to take their kids out of school to send them to private school, but i think the public education system needs competition. it isn't going to reform from within. so for me he has been a mixed bag. i do not reflexively criticize or praise him if he does something i don't like i will say something nice about him. we welcome the listeners on c-span radio and you can listen to this and other programs on the app. the next call from california. you are next. good afternoon. >> caller: thank you for taking my call. mr. riley, where i live there's a lot of poverty primarily

overwhelmingly white. a lot of people in the area are descendents from the dust bowl area in the 1930s and there seem to me as i look at a a lotf systemic poverty it's been here for generations now.we is there a fundamental difference do you think between what we see in the communities and blood poverty versus white poverty? i've also seen examples of the police and sheriffs. basically it's not so much color, its poverty and that is why people are discriminated against if to a large extent. what do you see as the difference or similarities and any fundamental spare?

>> think you. i don't see fundamentally a lot of difference. i see the same human capital. authors more recently have written very movingly about the situation and white america. i think that it has received less attention. it's what they need to do to change their situation. >> host: and about you write one reason the returns have been so eager is because they often ndt in ways that benefit themselves but do not represent the concerns of most and that is not unique to the politicians.

it seems like a generalization. i would argue there are enough examples to make it an accurate generalization. politicians act in the interest of getting reelected. i will give you an example. president obama comes into office and blacks have overwhelmingly voted for him there. one issue that bodes very well and long has this free choice. both charter schools and vouchers have done very well. one of the first things obama tries to do is to shut down the dc voucher program that is

disproportionately helping blacks. why would he do this? y. would they take an issue that is overwhelmingly popular and try to shut down the market? because now he is president and part of the reason that he is president as the teachers union helped make him president in the special interest group. they don't like the school vouchers because many of them are not unionized. so they've got to make a decision to buy act in the interest of the special interests that helped elect me and he made his choice and other publications have made a similar choice. that's what i mean by looking to

the politicians to address some of the basic needs in the community. the politicians have their own political interest to stay occupied with and they are not always going to align with theo interest of left. >> host: charles. good afternoon and welcome to the conversation. thank you for taking my call. would you say that there is a silent majority within the black middle class, and if you think so, how would you describe them? >> there is an interesting book written by a political scientist at the university of new york called black silent majority, and she makes the argument they had always acted in the interest

even the majority and i think that he makes a pretty strong argument. if you take somethinghi like c crime, when they ask people in the community whether the criminal justice system is too easy or too hard on them they go too easy on the criminals. that isn't what you are going to hear coming out of the mouth of the politicians or activists. that is what your average person o the street is going to tell you. i mentioned the example of education where they differ from the interest and that goes all the way back to the days when the naacp supported a proposed blacksks did not so there is a long history of what will

advance someone's political career versus what they actually want and what a lot of people are counting on him and this goes back to something an earlier call them should they will vote democrat or stay home but they do not hear that they will go vote for the republican oud that is what they can't count on happening and that is an example of it is often said they take it for granted that's what they are talking about there. one way to fix that would be for the republicans to make a play on the road and that way they can use the two-party system the way other groups in america use the two-party system to get what they want. but right now you don't see a lot of that happening. >> host: do you look at the divorce rate among black men

versus poor white men and is it saying similarly where we were in the 1960s and where we are today? >> guest: i don't know the numbers off the top of my head. if i had to guess, i just don't know. i don't want to speculate on that. >> host: those that grew up in single home is is that just part of society? >> guest: the sociologists and others that have looked at this think it is in the best interest ofof the child, but that would e my guess. when you control for family

breakdown, you often get different results. there was a study done by a political scientist at the university of virginia that was looking at a school suspension rates broken down among the kids and he found that when you control for broken families, they were suspended at higher rates than blacks in the schools which is an interesting finding because again this is one issue where liberal activists have looked at racial disparities and attributed it to racism and here we have someone that looks at him and says its control the home environment. >> host: from the book, let me put numbers on the table that blu recite some of the census

data among nearly 5 million children live with them either mother while 12% of the households have two parents present compared to 41% of the poor hispanic households or two parents and families. >> guest: it gets back to attitudes towards marriage and again this is all post-society in terms of trends. this isn't what we were seeing prior to that. it matters, the nuclear family matters and it has become almost taboo to say out loud that it matters and when you have a child coming from an intact family, all kinds of outcomes improved. the chances of them getting

involved in the criminal justice system and becoming teenage parents, the chances of them graduating from school all increase and go into a direction. we don't have honest discussions about the importance of the family. >> host: norwalk connecticut. you are next with jason riley. >> caller: good morning, good afternoon. thank you for the dialogue that you are having. this u is right up my alley. i'm an african-american will be 40 very soon. i was a sociology student back in 1998. i grew up myself in the criminal justice system. i've got so much on my mind right now that i want to share with you.

i was raised to believe and respecyourespect authority. the bible says god has been a place for reason and we are supposed to respect. voting for obama i became interested in politics for the first time when i cleaned up my probation, parole custard reintegrating into society and getting back to the beginning i wanted to do when i was a kid before i got thrown off and distracted by everything. education was big. one thing that sustained me growinsustains megrowing up in m is in the education.

my mom was an educator for the school district and is very well known. she was very strict and always came home and instilled in me with my education. my dad worked for mcdonnell douglas in the industry in the 60s and what not when they were rolling out so but when i went to school i had my own struggles. it is hard t was hard to get thn that i needed so i have to figure it ou that out on my owns kind of a class clown wanting to be seen and heard and do things for attention. i am also an aspiring journali

journalist. such fast forward to today. i've heard and seen it all as far as the past and what our ancestors did to pave the way for where we are today. it's a beautiful thing where we contribute to the society and i see poverty and crime. as you mentioned earlier it's just very key and teachers need to pay more attention to the students.he there are many issues in the communities. every community, every issue a f past presidents didn't'r get a chance to get to i've always been the underdog.

through all of the adversity with the peach with inquiries -- impeachment inquiries. my question for the gentlemen here is from your perspective, i admire and respect the way you think. we don't get to see that much of that here. i want to know from your perspective for the black sommunity, do you believe donald trump is out of best interest at heart and, i am a democrat.

i voted democrat with -- >> guest: you put a lot on the table so let's give him a chance to respond and joi to join in oe conversation. >> guest: i think donald trump has donald trump's best interest and i think that he always has his own best interest in mind. the question is whether that matters in terms of black progress in the country. can a president who doesn't have the interest or who is in different facilitate the upward mobility in the policy? there is no doubt that that is true and i would point to the advancements that they've made

under previous administration. when the person on the whiteng house was interested and we saw the games that we cited earlier on the first half of the 20th century, so blacks can prosper under donald trump. i have no doubt about that, but that doesn't necessarily mean that it's because he has their best interest to find. >> host: what was your take away from his story? >> guest: he seems to have turned his life around. that's very heartening and he seems to think that education had a lot to do with it and he didn't take it as seriously as he should have when he was younger but now he understand how important it is. i would agree with you that. that's why it is so painful to

listen to the civil rights organization into some of the politicians running for president to turn their back on the charter schools which has a tremendous record of success particularly in helping low income poor inner-city blacks. we have example after example of kids in schools that are 90% plus block. all free and reduced one should in terms of income. help scoring kids in the suburbs and the idea we would not be replicating these education models is absurd. here you have a bernie sanders and naacp and elizabeth warren saying they want a moratorium on

charter schools thatheir chartee producing these kind of results in the black inner city. and this guy i think is a test thatestament to that in my casee idea that there is a t connectin in these inner cities between the high dropout rates and test scores and social ills going on tin the communities. there is a connection. they are not full of college graduatesre or even high school wgraduates. so the way that i hear some of these attacks. good afternoon go ahead, please. >> caller: gentlemen, good day to you. they talked about the leaders appealing to the age of the

higher nature and the change the current occupant rightly coming down the escalator he talked about the immigrants coming across the southern border and murders and rapists and then during the time in arizona therefore do not be fair to him. it's obvious that some politicians including the president are not appealing to the nature of immigration among other things.in so, the question that sort of went through my mind is these

evangelicals so-called 81% i believe that support him, and i'm wondering because they've got to know the statements where it is just the opposite. what is your opinion on that on how people claim to be christian so blatantly racist, and that is my question. >> i think an evangelical would turn around and point to a reverend al sharpton. both sides play the game and obviously what is going on as they are voting on another issue

and if you ask people in the evangelical community why they support this president and the personal baggage that comes along with it to talk about his pro-life stance into th and to e judges that hee' has appointed, they will say those are the litmus tests i use and i'm going to let everything else go to you are not going to get the candidate that likes everything you like and you have to pick and choose your issues. (202)748-8003. this is from chuck in highland hills ohio with record to the 60 ntnutes interview in which he interviewed morgan friedman saying what can stop racism and the response was he said stop

talking about it. what is your reaction to the? >> i agree to some extent. for the civil rights industry that i t mentioned earlier keepg the race front and center is good for business and means that it gets dragged into discussions where it doesn't really belong or is at best a slight issue. maybe that is what morgan friedman was getting w at is everything isn't about race and racism and get that seems to be the direction that we are going to often these days. >> host: and vinny in pennsylvania. welcome to the conversation. >> caller: hello.

i've seen mr. riley several times. i can tell he's a conservative and the positions held. [inaudible] he knows quite well statistics pertaining to the numbers that have entered the professional schools and graduate schools. it hasn't been expanded as much. they made progress but nothing with affirmative action. it comes from groups as it relates to the politicians who don't serve the community as well but there are many that do.

what he says about schools for teachers unions most of them don't have the same kind of standards but i respect with reference to affirmative action it is wrong and he knows that that is not true. thank you very much. >> host: anthony in pennsylvania. your response? >> guest: the track record isn't something we need to speculate about. i mentioned the situation that the system in terms of what happened after racial preferences you could point to florida and texas and see the same results they were put in place.

in terms of the data and what was going on in the first half of the 20th century, that is sensitive government data that isn't coming from any quote on quote conservative organization. that's looking at the data that is widely available. i understand it isn't well known but that doesn't mean that it isn't true. they are increasing the rate at which they are entering middle-class professions. all of the rates were far higher po the pure coke fire to the 1960s than they were immediately following. before affirmative action policies were put in place, but in terms of higher education, we have particularly strong data to show what's going on here.

harvard was recently taken to task by a group of asian students that sue because they said that w it was putting in place quote us on who could enter the school. of data on the people that have entered it so forth. affirmative action is harmful in another way as well. you can talk about the equal protection clause and whether it's reverse discrimination. you can talk about whether it just makes sense to be pickingns and choosing favorite groups or you can say does it work as intended. have we experienced with the proponents said if we put these policies in place t place, it wa study done at mit some years ago

about blacks that have been admitted to the school, highly selective schools and they scored in the top 10% on data portion. so you are talking about some very smart kids that they were in the bottom 10% among their peers at mit. as a result, more of them were rropping out research into easier majors. you have taken some extremely smart kids and set them up to fail. kids that would be hitting it out of the park were struggling because mit wanted to make the class look like america regardless whether or not they were actually graduate. so, affirmative action has had these harmful byproducts that

very few people foresaw that someday. it's interesting reading going back to some of those articles. but by and large, it's been accepted as a universal good to increase the class. but that isn't the track record. >> host: one person you write about is daniel patrick moynihan that worked with nixon and before that in the johnson administration. what is his legacy? >> guest: he wore several different paths and later became a senator. there's the so-called moynahan report that he released in the 1960s and the trends that he saw in the situation. he was looking at increases and he said this wouldn't bode well

in terms of going forward in the communities. he came under a tremendous amount of attack for his conclusions. but by thby the way they were bn the work of sociologists like fraser. it was the consensus view among the people that looked at this material. that he was attacked as a racist into somebody blaming the victim. you have to remember at the time we were trying to pass the act and he was getting in the way of the rhetoric. it was a a distraction and what ended up happening is the way he was treated that didn't go unnoticed by the sociologists and scientists and anyone else that wanted to look into the

situation. they were scared for many years. it didn't make some to go digging around or you would wind up like moynahan. there was a long period of neglect or what was going on socioeconomically in this area. more recently, you had some sociologists but decided to look into it in the more recent decades and they said we have to talk about this culture stuff. it's the elephant in the room. yes it plays a role and we need

to talk about it. but for decades many sociologists pretty much were staying clear of this area and went to the detriment of people >> host: the books of jason riley in the following please stop helping us on how liberals beget harder for blacks to succeed and also, let them in the case for open borders and false what power. i want to follow up on the a cot that you made earlier. president trump did in fact allow about 800,000 to become permanent residents or citizens at he tied it to building the wall to prevent uncontrolled

border crossings. he didn't just can't allow the president obama's executive order. that is the way that i see it and made a new citizen here that is i came and gotw educated here and got naturalized. they tied the ball to say it didn't seem unreasonable to whyy this is not a good thing.

>> he tried to tie the fate of the dreamers to funding for the wall. the democrats considered it a place in so they were not going to compromise on funding the wall into the president knew that they were not going to budgewe on that issue. the problem is that he could do this as a stand-alone measure and i think he would have enough democratic support to get this done. i think it would help him politically as well given that there is such bipartisan support for doing something about the leamers into taking them out of the limo.

the president brings anim interesting subject which is why we are explaining the statistics in terms of economic outcome in america. notwithstanding the fact we have so many people here illegally. it meansme one fewer job for you and me which is and how the labor markets work in this country but that is the mindset president trump brings to this issue. whether immigrants are having too large an impact on the culture which is a time-honored tradition in the country. every new wave of immigrants get the same reaction.

this is an old concern and german immigration they were coming at a much higher rate and to a much smaller country than the mexicans would be years later and at the same be true of the irish and many other groups so this is a time-honored concern and one of the reasons it is difficult to get things done. for the economic problems that

we have today but now that we have come out of it no now and e then growth and increasing the wages and so forth. whether or not it makes economic sense rally after rally he thinks it gyms of the basic helps him at the pool. so i don't expect him to change his tune no matter how many are put before him. >> host: what will it take for democrats enslaved in the mobility to use the 1% in other words to get to the wealthy? what will it take to leave the

plantation for upward mobility to reach 1%? >> guest: again, if republicans want blacks to stopp voting in such by percentages for democrats, they need to know they can play for the vote and today too few make that effort so for whatever reason you are still something of a republican outlier when you venture into the city and actively go after the vote that's got to change. if you expect the black voting patterns to change.ch >> host: richard, you are next. >> caller: lying or more comments. i can understand why they made progress from 1945 because the

programs of fdr in the 30s and the industrialization everybody improved. it's all kinds of rights not just to civil rights or afro-american rights and black rights, workers rights, union rights, gender rights all the way around. you've got to remember that's what happened and at that point when they were going towards civil rights, they all went republican as they were segregationists. so my idea is if you look at who has been supporting the rights

for everybody it's been the democratic party all a long. no matter what the cost to other ieople. i don't think that many other people in the class have. >> host: you begin your book by remembering what lyndon johnson spoke to the class in washington, d.c.... >> guest: yes. it was an argument for affirmative action.

he's right both people did do better but not at the same right. for the incomes and levels and so forth inn other words they were closing the gap. gey were not just making gains in absolute terms but that is a distinction. some rose higher than others and they made significant progress in catching up.

and again they would later slowdown or sometimes islowdowns reverse forward. >> host: you will get the last word in the conversation go ahead, please. we were just talking about the games that were made. i grew up in baltimore in a place called cherry hill. the only community that the federal government built. and i wrote a book about it called raising successful black children in baltimore. now, mr. o'reilly states that he feels that the johnson programs to our progress but progress bo comment on how did the budget cuts affect our progress?

>> guest: i don't think that it was benign neglect. these were huge government expansions. we spend trillionse of dollars n the antipoverty programs, literally trillions of dollars. the war on poverty and housing programs and so forth. i think what this shows are the limitsts of the government largess. largess. there's only so mucthere is onle government can do and we also know what it can't do. if you take away the good chpolicing and the schools and stable homes is nothing the government can do to replace those things. >> host: on the other side of the title, how can they succeeded to a? >> guest: two things need to

have been. we need to have earnest conversations about the problems that we face. we need to talk about black crime rates and incarceration rates. so for basic thing like that, honest conversations about what the studies say and the importance of the outcomes later in life and so forth. second, what i want from the government is to stop doing things we know don't work. affirmative action in terms of higher education isn't working based on the track record of affirmative action. the anti-poverty program that disincentives highest work means a group will not develop whatth they need to get out of poverty and to stay out of poverty. don't keep kids trapped in schools that are failing. let them attend schools where we know they can be successful in teaching from the most difficult backgrounds. let those models proliferate.

don't put a moratorium on them. so, it is more about what the government should stop doing than what it should start doing. in terms of the commentary and intellectuals and academics and the rest, let's just have some 'shonest conversations about wht is actually happening out there and h what are the causes and wt are not. >> host: what are you reading now, what are your favorite books? >> guest: a biography of johnny rockefeller comes to mind because it shows not only how wealthy he became at how he improved the society in the process. whether it was building w schoos like spellman or making things

like kerosene so everybody can enjoy them. you don't have to stop working when the sun went down that night. and i really enjoyed the history lesson i got out of that in addition to learning a lot about rockefeller. that is taking up a lot of my time, but i'm also reading of a former "new york times" reporter who wrote about black migration out of the south. my wife recommended. >> host: and the viewers and listeners will do for you on social media how can they do so? >> guest: i'm on twitter at #jasonrileywsj.

i'm not on facebook. >> host: author, columnist at the manhattan institute. thank you for joining us. we think you for the conversation. >> host: thank you. booktv "after words" university of virginia history professor discusses the political history of tobacco in america and is interviewed by former fda commissioner david kessler. "after words" is a weekly program of relevant guest hosts interviewing top nonfiction authors about their latest works. all programs are also available as podcasts. >> host:gr