of cars are working at their districts because of the coronavirus pandemic. please enjoy booktv now and also watch over the weekend on c-span2. >> good evening. thank you, everybody for coming. i am tim carney, a visiting fellow at the american enterprise institute. i'm also the commentor editor at the "washington examiner" and we have great discussion tonight. we brought here chris arnade, the author of "dignity" which came out earlier this year. it's an excellent book.

i read it. i love it. we will be selling it afterwards. you should buy it. it's beautiful. and i said beautiful because it's also a photo book as well as a great collection of stories that really reveal america. chris is the first guy i've had on stage at a guy who has a phd in physics. then he used a phd in physics to go into finance, then when he had this job in finance, he started going for walks during the day, i'll a bridge destroyed because it's in the book. his walks got longer and longer he ended up at hunts point which if you know your geography is not terribly close to the financial district. at hunts point he was exposed to what he called the backdrop of america. and this is drug addicts, drug dealers, prostitutes. it convinced him he needed to figure out what was going on in this background across the country. so from lewiston maine to

bakersfield california, chris traveled the country, talk to people and again he wasn't doing the same sort of going around the country trip a lot of people do. it was visiting the back row. it was drug addicts introduced, the prostitutes, the homeless, the formally homeless, the veterans, immigrants, the people who have had the immigrants anl of that. but then recently if you follow twitter you will know chris has visited the most deplorable group of all, which is conservatives. he's here at 80-prostitutes and tax collected. chris has gone far lower visiting the tax cutters. but again i do recommend this book but i want to start by what hit me most in your discussion here was introspection into the mindset of the front row. here we are at aei, where almost all of us scholars have fancy

degrees. here we are in washington, d.c., the wealthiest argued with the wealthiest region in the country, and definitely the most educated region in the country. so i want to start with, i'm a catholic. the homilies i like best of most directed at the obvious. you talk about the denigration by the front row of what you call quote forms of non-credentialed meaning. in other words, people finding meaning outside of degrees, outside of jobs, outside of income, outside of a nice house, in other things. can you talk to us about what you found around the country in that regard. >> is first of all thank you all for coming and thank you for having me. tim also wrote a book by the

way. and you should read that. yeah, so i guess what -- what i say is i divide the world in front and back room. the macro is the people you'll be seeing on the screens here, people i took pictures of, people who live in the bronx, people who live in north side of milwaukee, people who live in portsmouth. ohio. its people, it's not defined by geography, not necessary by income although it is very much income. it's not defined by race. it's people who don't go to college or if they go to college they go to state schools or community college. the contrast of that is my prayer life i have a phd in physics. i spent 20 years as a bond trader. that's what i call the front to which his people who look very different, come from all over the world, come from all of the u.s. but share a common theme in that their life pretty much since 16 has been through the

same institutions from harvard, princeton, yale, postgraduate degrees, internships, maybe moving to new city, 80 moving to d.c. but only certain neighborhoods in new york city and only certain neighborhoods in d.c. and we run the world. to be kind of blood, the front row sets the rules. we make the rules. we run the politics to we run banking. we run the law firms. we run a database, universities. one of the things we've done is we've defined the world very nearly in my mind. we defined a look at what i didn't this article positive way which would only get material things and in particular how much material things you get, which economic capital you get is a function the wrestling is. the resume, it's a credentialed economy. the things i found traditional

ways with things you don't need a resume for to place the value of the friendships that you form in that neighborhood. i always laugh when i think about and just talking and talking and interview them at our number telling somebody wrapping up an interview they were born 20 miles down the roa road. and so you live your whole life all your life? he said no. i said what you mean? he said i was raised 20 miles down the road. [laughing] like, he wanted me to get it right. or those women in cairo, and

african-american town in missouri who i said you are from cairo, write what she said no. i'm from a mile outside of cairo. so those things matter. place matters to people. there's a lot of value in place. another, and another thing that matters that also does this require credentials is religion, faith. the third which is dangerous one is race, racial identity. these are things where it effectively you can walk, things that give you meaning, give you value that we can't quantify, we can't measure but also i think we over time the front row is assumed don't have value because we can't measure it. we just tell people just move, go from a to b.

what's the cost of that. the cost is immense. so the way we think about the world is a very narrow framework of one of one thing mattering at that thing that matters is a resume, education, and how much money you make. >> its immeasurable and that's a really, or it's hard to measure where you are from community bonds, faith, et cetera and that's something that i've seen admitted. one economist speaking here said that when she saw the book "hillbilly elegy" she really didn't like it. none of her friends did because it was emphasizing things that were so vague and every, like 95 and they were looking for other ways to measure success or value or anything like that. but also i think it strikes a lot of people as arbitrary, which is to say you see articles. there was an article in the

"washington post" that had in headline loyalty is dumb. people will cause a talk about the accident of where you were born and we can say it's unfortunate the accident were oe you born to determine the outcome. but i could of where you were born doesn't seem like an accident or something to be swapped off like change and become a peer or anything. it seems to actually matter to a lot of people it in the front row it seems arbitrary and that clinging to it seems unwise, imprudent, inefficient and backwards. >> right. so that's why say we devalue them because we can't measure them. we are genuinely a quantitative bunch of the front row. that's the way we think about policy. when i think back, the whole moving thing, when i think back to where i disagree with a lot of conservatives is i don't like free trade. i think it's awful. the way we think about free trade is it's a trade-off.

it's a positive. it will be winners and losers and more winners than it will be losers, game over, we're going to do it. but we don't know what the losses are because we can't measure the losses. on a spreadsheet the losses look like a factory gone in milwaukee but in real life it, a factory gone in milwaukee which destroys community is which destroys families which destroys kids being born out of wedlock which brings in drugs. but often more than that it takes way peoples meaning. like that was the center of the universe, being able to live in milwaukee, stay there. >> i think you can measure it. besides hitting an all-time high, it's the way to measure the fact that the effects of free trade have not been distributed evenly across the country but have been very uneven and the places you talk

about have not experienced a slight decrease in the equilibrium wage, but when the factory shutdown of lot more happened than just less money was flowing in. >> exactly. the other thing was the iteration to the solution was just move. it comes from the right by the way. the whole u-haul thing which is so offensive. .. chris: you and i both moved to places where we have best job opportunities. new york and for me it was dc is hard to say, if you care about this person, when there are no

jobs and friends are running rampant, it's unlikely what would you tell this. timothy: further, i've never told anybody not to move. but who might and speaking to is to the policy people. they also said the moving has no cost. references all of the time but there's a woman the book who is a prime example that this mexican-american woman i met at mcdonald's dc late it was staying in east la to go to the to the local community college by passing go to different school because she was angered the her mother's translator. her mama's first-generation like a lot of older immigrants. she does documents for her mother. like why, do we think and should we think, that that is right decision in my mind friday and in many ways, why should we expect people just to be to tear the bonds or the family bonds at

low prices. and also, getting back to the meeting, list of value to people. they don't require money to have those, the really in the latest. those are things that were gifted everything to take those away from people, is essentially, extraordinary elitist. so i am here and people know me and recognize me in part of it is, 20 years i have put in work and i've had jobs and have been a boss, i have written a book. that helps you get these credentials and get meaning. if you're still in your hometown, you are known in your conditiocredentials and maybe fr having's bedroom for 20 years and maybe help people mover for whatever it is. again to talk about what is valued, one of the words that become really negative is tribal of his unfortunate tribalism has become so negative.

we know that it is politics, what side you are on not thinking for yourself. but after brexit read this column by felix who help travelers take the fisher men are whatever hurt wanting to leave and just caring about them. then he described his group of friends in hermiston going to lose because they were all, and his friends were constantly traveling to the rest of europe. and they were enjoying the food from the rest of europe. as you described it, you talk about your group and the shared experience and roles necessarily to succeed. and we have dedicated to knowledge and learning as much as we could but almost as much as we could from books. the tribe seems to think that it's above tribalism. and that tribalism is actually

necessary which is my argument. i don't if you agree with this but people need to belong. they need to be a valued member of something larger than themselves. is that a church group, is that, a law firm, is that a bowling league. but people need to be a valued member. i think the front row, you talked about and i think the better grip is the end group, the cool kids. and we set the rules of what is cool. and as such, we don't necessarily, no one in the universe like to see them selves as part of the group. what you talking about. i don't have that because is not privileged. what you talking about. the title of my book is dignity because when you taking these

things away from people and you taken the non- meaning in place and you make people feel like they're in the rat race. they can build a resume to make money to be a widget to be moved out. that is looking for dignity. the dignity, is a double-edged sword. the search for dignity can be positive. i've seen this in the bronx in creating art and being a member of your community while raising a family there's also undignified and there's ways we would rather try to not find it. i think part of that is going to the racing which you can find dignity tribalism and racial identity. chris: i think people when they're humiliated, they search for a way to find the dignity. there is negative consequences

of that. i think that some of you are seeing politically these days, a tribe trump rallies are truly. very much eight non- resume, non- traditional meeting. come and join the election thing and let's have fun rated in the argument i make in my book is the big part of the trump phenomenon is people seeking. meaning and dignity are part of it but the framework that i uses belonging to something or did in my argument is that in the really suffering parts of america, what is lacking. i looked in a lot of these places most of the swimming pool that had closed down the church and close down the factory that is goes down and yes you can still get the disability the

unemployment whatever that is up to, it doesn't even come close to adding up to belonging to this workplace the labor union that shut down. and that alienation is what it needs to. largely his people looking for other things that you want to sometimes it's isis, sometimes it's white nationalism. sometimes just wearing a red hat. these are people who don't belong to anything or seeking to blog something the bitter irony i think for a lot of the political left and a handful of liberal writers who have written this, they said i thought that we would all get along better because he wouldn't have these religious divisions. if you fewer people belong to a church. and more people are going to belong to things that in one way or another will cause more

strife or not lead them to happiness and the good life. that is my argument. i don't know what you think. timothy: i was a similar but i think the both of our books talk about this. in the left explicitly, the lust of the job has cascaded everything. and so in that sense, i would guess very much of the left. the loss of all of these other forms of meaning, the original sense was the loss of the factory. not provided people with stability divine all of the things that you said that once were there to join, then started dissipating. and i'm less comfortable talking about cultural issues only because it is not my strong point. it is not where i come from.

but i think the right does have the people on the right do of the that i'm certainly uncomfortable i say this is somebody is not valid agnostic the loss of faith has been huge. absolutely huge. so think you would to salt lake city to book. in one it was even contrary to my thesis was utah. does not have the levels of despair that the other places have. very central role, provides both in the classic both regulates and provides people a sense of place. so i say this is a leftist diagnostic in the solution to whatever we have going on in my

mind is the fall of the church, has been a big loss that in many cases felt capitalism in check. in this tug-of-war, we don't go too far as a catalyst, your neighbor because you get those religious rules there pretty capitalism without religion is an absolute disaster. timothy: and jerry was the man because he put it as he did know his abcs and he never felt he had meeting and as he put it, was not the way that i as a catholic whatever credibility said that i got saved and it changed me. i never felt worthy before i was saved. have students and now i understand i am worthy of the lord. so that's me, is the most noncredentialed form of meaning. like you literally just become

worthy. in a modern culture and economy does not grant that. if you cannot read, if you have the wrong views or whatever, it is hard to find meaning. i want to move on and i will come back to make it uncomfortable for the right and a little bit but i want to pick on the left for a little bit. you have the same experience. i think surprisingly being a bit ignored in her book by the left and specifically, use a phrase that people have been left behind. and dignity. there is an interview on fox .com where there was a professor arguing something similar to what i would argue in the interview your interjected and says, these people have not been left behind. they have chosen not to keep up. which would've been a shocking thing for someone in the left to

say before donald trump existed. so think something about the white working class, voting for donald trump especially the pub republican primary has fitted the situation were a lot of people who otherwise it would look at people who are suffering, especially if they lost their jobs due to free-trade and absinthe even now people are saying that you are responsible for your own suffering. which by the way, is a lot of what you would hear from the right about urban bliss. chris: so the way i frame it, i believe i am from the left and one very important way which is that this group of people suffering the idea of it, social ills, i will never blame, i will always believe the political structure in which they operate in. i will call then we could dump. i will call them racist.

i think you have to look at the political structure that people operate in. both an individual levels and a group level. left has always rightfully done that about urban neighborhoods. when the right says, and the welfare queens and all those things. laziness, just get a job and addicted to having kids. violence, crimes, and the left is always succumbing to look at the situation. they find themselves in it. they find themselves in neighborhoods with immense obstacles because of susan. let's stop calling people names. timothy: so i would think that the left would do the same to the working class white neighborhoods. in some cases they do but in many cases they don't. where when they look at the

problems for the choices made in white working class neighborhoods, there is a kind of, we'll just like these people have privilege. they can't possibly and part of what my book dead, while i started this in 2011 before the trumps of avid and only became political because it taken place because i was in these towns during the election. i remember being an one in west virginia and true part. a lot of things were going wrong. the family the download wrong in their lives. i remember the context i basically said a lot of people would say the working class guy,

you have a lot of privilege. like they thought they were but i was messing with them. and compared to working-class kids evacuated milwaukee, and the trailer park, maybe privilege perhaps but he something told that by the working-class freebies being told that by the sociology student from cornell on twitter. and just mind boggling. but this is where i will criticize the left. it goes back to his think there's a believe that of the left, that misunderstanding of how much privilege in education provide you and i think that slightly uncomfortable because it makes people in my party feel a little bit like they have more privilege than what to admit.

timothy: when you see education, one of the big things that actually means is connection. and it is to say, i in college red homework, i learned greek. lots of things that i absolutely love. and you met some of my older brothers and who one of them went to a much better college than i did maybe he learned calculus or computer programming or something. but what helped him as he went to yell. he had friends who went to yell. an education is not just remain in college but also learning the code. how interact and how to speak how to not to get things and they aren't explicitly cost you but you absorb them through the education and estimate to learn in the classroom and which are

able to pass on standardized tests or something pretty is a code of behavior and its connection. that is the nature of our privilege. as accessing that i think that is uncomfortable. chris: where the cool kids. we set the rules both culturally and economically. with that comes lot with any club comes all these memberships that you don't really know that you have. i think to be the bigger issue thereto them. one of them us we tell them about the connections. there was african-american gentleman, really interesting event in cleveland but gotten a full scholarship to vanderbilt back in the 70s. he literally said using tagore derogatory, he said my mama was a welfare queen. all of those things. thirty years later i asked him we think about now. i so wish someone had would have

told me, going to college is not about studying, is about making connections. i spent so much time, in use the words he did have a cultural capital to know what to do in school and when he got there, he studied. any outside makeup, and lesser education at a gap to prepare him for this. so he spent all the time hitting the books while everybody us was forming friendships. and they all came out with rolodex is making out with peace. but to me what is most frustrating about where an education divides people is it really allows, the use it now to silence the voice of the working class. because they don't know the right language to speak. some of it is political correctness but a lot of it is this whole idea and are very much contrary to a lot of people

in the right which is the school finance expertise so you're not allowed to speak on something unless you have a resume. it allows you to speak on it. and you're not allowed to speak and let you know the proper words to use. investors silence of the working class. they can do it. can't speak. sir frustrating. a lot of the issues that are particular topical right now very language sensitive gender and i have found that the working place classes let's say about it is not nearly as negative as the education life would assume. the pretty understanding of getting to this new place where the left wants to go.

but they don't have the language to express that in the minute they start and put their foot or the use the wrong word, they are going to be pounced on and called an educated and called don. and racist and sexist. they just give up. so to me it is very frustrating. education provide you, language but is very important that it provide to the language in which is an entry habit of being heard. as a part of my project was that they actually lets people speak in their own voice. so i turned put as much in the book in their dialogue to let them speak about me jumping in and correcting them. timothy: and again i really enjoyed that part of the book. apartment and wish you had trolled down on more was what at first seemed like a contradiction between your book and alienated america which was i wrote about how real

affliction of the suffering parts of the country with a lack of things to belong to a lack of places to get connected to predict connections to your neighbor and a sense of belonging more than connection to your boss. a lot of your book was writing about how sort of even the rebel people were finding these connections. whether it be a picture of a bingo night, an amazing site. at mcdonald's printed a bible study. in a house right. and you say that if you shot the crackhouse, you belong. it is something to belong to. some are if i am arguing that is selected things to belong to, just because i didn't look in the right places or is it a different sort of thing. do they try to scratch together to find things to want to. if you look at my book, if you know much about me, i'm i am a mcdonald's guy. i go to mcdonald's a lot of times.

it doesn't show physically. [laughter]. when i started this project i would not going to mcdonald's the same as in a lot of people would not go to mcdonald's. but then i started hanging out with different people they were doing mcdonald's all of the time. free wi-fi, the use the bathrooms. the most importantly you can just hang out there worried so i started spending a lot of time hanging out in mcdonald's. i started seeing friendships form and a community there. their morning groups. there are people who, who go there before the wedding. and carrie devastated placing indiana, it is basically the town center. it's one of the few places open

operating. it is town square. the old medieval town square. people playing dominoes, they are romancing, their reading, they're doing everything. it was really funny when i started this project because i would literally meet people at mcdonald's. i'm say i could not believe and say so much community there for it to was in denial but i was actually take a photo of them. like i can't possibly have met you and mcdonald's) and then i realize, mcdonald's is a story. i'll reframe it differently than you did which as i say the think about when mcdonald's was formed aspirated entirely for transactional and out and yet it is the community center. so the way, to me that is the evidence of two things. one thing is that people are that desperate for community.

they will form it in mcdonald's. so if you give people the world of franchises, they will find meaning within that community. i don't see it necessarily different from what you saw but what i see is that i think it may be if we went to different places where i went to places with her was not anything but some kind of mcdonald's. it was the last thing standing read and then going back to my title, that belonging to him that desire for dignity, engulfed me as evidence of that. people have romantic relationships at mcdonald's. timothy: part of my argument is a suffering is a lack of trust of the neighbors.

you go into a town in west virginia and then we'll talk about the outsiders, whether beat immigrants our political class or china. destroying the town but then i also think there is less social trust and a lot of these places. different places will be different. there was to be poor places where people leave the box in the front yard when you're talking about guys protecting their strict orders with guns and talking about guys getting shot. not getting shot by outsiders. the problem is not the police dogs. the main threats of the lives is not police dogs. it is going to be the fact that social fabric has broken down so much that with their engaging in force and submitting is going to

be warfare and drugs. chris: i think i have a view on this which is, and i spent a lot of time in drug places. around drug dealers. i saw a lot of bad things to down but i also spent 20 years on wall street and saw a lot of things go bad. to me, and simply their legal system. you sue me on wall street, the little lawyer up and sue you. you screw me over and tried, they don't have that option. so that is their legal system. they can't trust the cops because they can't be trusted. they're working in the black

economy does the illegal economy is indelible. spent a lot of time around drug dealers swinging drugs and vied grown up in one of those neighborhoods, i would be a drug dealer. entrepreneurial, it is the option you have. she go with the option you have. so i'm not framing people to go do that. i'm just looking at it as a functional system believe it or not. it is working because the system, the outside system is not functional for them in the create their own functional system. timothy: i find fascinating is actually the opposite that even in the most destitute situation, people

form rules and order. so you be in the drug place and there are rules. there are unwritten but they are there. and so i find fascinating that people actually self organize. timothy: and they form communities. when people are deprived, sometimes it will be drugs, sometimes it will be something that we might think is better for them. fifty-two more things. chris: i want to make one point that. there's also something of what i call owning the statement read begin accused of being a dirty drug dealer and have all of these negative consequences, you'll say yet that's me. you coming this all of the time, i might as will be it. that is what attics do. the only addiction. you call me at dirty attic, that's it man, they're

deplorable. you start owning the stigma. timothy: couple more things than go to the questions. something close race, you talked about you state that you're sort of allow the one privilege that african-american has, that you're allowed it to have ethnic identity racial identity and defined and to find meaning in that. i wonder sometimes if the right to identity comes from loss of ethnic identity. we didn't about ourselves white because of our irish american essay that we have more in common with the italian kids than we did with the black kids in the korean kids was sort of laughable. what did we have in common with them. so if you look at places where people were more likely if you're african-american, they say i am american, i'm not african-american or native american, not my nationality is

american but what is your ethnicity. for example, are you doctor african-american this and no, i'm just american. mostly white people who frankly are scotch irish. another think were going to find high correlation with that with opioids. with high trump supporters in the early primaries. that lack of ethnicity. it's kind of their lack of religion in people then seeking some other form of identity which might be white. chris: i don't think i'm a really good person to answer the question but what i would say is how i saw it flipped on its head in a negative ugly way was why are blacks allowed to be proud of the race and i am not.

somebody's explicitly said that to me. new sitting in a bar in applebee's at two in the morning. in the next person says that to you after a beers and you talk about privilege rid of mac were in several different searchers talking about altar capital and talk about the majorities minorities. we visibly to say, it's the right thing to do. timothy: and my answer would be if you identified as foolish, nobody would hold that against you. i think we still have difficulties because people will say where the irish kids would beat of the kids or the polish kids. but that white max is placing other identities. french-canadian american. chris: they would most likely be trump voters. but i will say to this point is

when i go back and go back to my faith place and race. i will say materials resumes. so you have to choose one of the four. one of the forms will be chosen by people because people of nothing will choose something. so it's kind of like the rug in the room. he turned push one down and it pops up someplace else. racial identity is the most dangerous one for the people us seeking meeting because all of the obvious reasons. but my warning is always been to the left and you keep the value place. you keep upping the ante in this rat race the building resumes and universities. we going to get a backlash is

going to happen very quickly. so what frustrates me sometimes is that racism can evan flow. lewiston, i don't know if you know lewiston, is it down and a name that is 30000 people lost its textile mills to tech downtown was emptied 99 percent white. french-canadian americans. in the somalia americans came. they replaced their family there 98. then some others americans came free choice for some time there. i was talking to a professor of anthropology who talk about racism and she said, racism, she studies this issue. one of the things you will see is when someone visually is different, seems to be jumping

the line. that's when heated big upswing in racism by the majority. that night, keniston has a truly wonderful, they have what is called members only clubs that were organized around mills. went to a snow shoe club. it was organized run monthly snowshoe races. when all the mills will go empty into the clubs. the membership, that i joined was 1 dollar. but back and for those who think the membership was there to keep african-americans out, there were african-american members and social club. anyways i'm talking to the guy next to me, the center of life. in his mind, it was a vietnam vet. i can't vouch for that but he alcohol is in section eight housing in and out of section

eight housing through the end of the publicist. is been drinking. silly my cigarettes. getting really drug. because often the tirade and really nasty. the bartender who was a trump supporter actually stopped him. he said i'm going to three routes. the sky, and when we spoke, he literally started complaining about somalian americans for getting free food. like his light was literally double. and he saw these people in his mind there were newcomers who he did not believe that they didn't fight for his country. three times as long for them to

wait. why i don't approve of what he said it all, you got understand why he might have gotten there. sweet if we want that not to happen, we need to provide someone like him opportunity to find the scapegoats. timothy: we have time for a new questions. please wait for the microphones. it will be brought to you so where ever you pick, it will be to you. just quickly identify yourself and ask a question. guest: i am from louisiana. i can relate to a lot of those. first thing, we see her and it came as. how do you describe the you're not a journalist because you don't check, you listened.

you've done this for eight years. you've met america really pretty so what is your end goal here. is an awareness, is it passion is an art form. i'm just curious as reminders that pretty and secondly, wears people anger directed at. when you asked them and interview them, is anger directed towards the local senator, like the state senate counsel, is a broad national issues printed. chris: in terms of the first question, honestly the project was haphazardly done. no intended rubble. at some point it got motivated by political anger. i saw people who are routinely disparaged and depressed or

stereotyped as being worthless hookers or what have you. people who are actually wonderful people. one of the project was to let them tell their stories as i saw them. as worthy as as valuable and worthy as they are. what was the second question again. okay the anger, it's diffused. sometimes it's angry at whoever, perceived wrongs and things that won't get fixed. sometimes it is a net immigrants. there is a tendency to want to punch more frustrating you are, the more you want to punch in the you are more you want to punch. i think the anger is that the elites. this is broad sense of the feeling like you're being

patronized all of the time pretty are being scolded and told you are dumb. you're not worthy, you're being left at, is this real sense of that they know, and they're convinced of this, the people make fun of them. the new york times, the washington post, they would rather not spend time with them. a few things. sometimes it don't know where to punch. in his because it is hard to know is hard for me to know who to punch them in your that removed from the process, it is so hard to know the adventure doomed to be mad at. it. timothy: i would say that i was surprised at how easy it was to get people to talk to me about their life. emma political partner in

washington dc and i thought that i should share with them the where i'm coming from and they're worse always a little reluctant. but i would say what's it like around there. and soon they would tell me about the mother simon rehab etc. chris: you have to get them to stop talking is what i find. it would be at two in the morning. a hearing for the fourth time about the wrongs the truck to flip. people want to talk. timothy: abstract maybe. chris: i think the general dominant story others wrong is this idea that they hate the rich. they don't hate the rich.

they're kind of frustrated that they are not there. they view it as aspirational. i think when the prescott trump wrong in particular is this form of wealth is really understandable. i don't like how trump made money i can make marking articles about how he's really a business guy then be the s&p hand herded. the guy put big buildings in the air man and for a lot of people, they understand that. that is what money is. trade bonds. i do this little silly thing and the financial times are used to cancel something that calls a monthly sample of how to spend it. and i've been these drug dens and forget that it how to spin it was in a car van these people literally shooting up over how

to spend it. so then i eventually said, i did this project where i would say what do you think about this and have them looking at it and talking and they all loved it. there was this kind of like, what you see on twitter. oh my gosh this is outrageous. there's us $50000 rolex watch pretty would say i would love to have that, it's really pretty. i think the people get wrong the people don't hate the rich. i don't particularly like the wealthy but they don't hate it, it's more like i wish i could do that. timothy: another question. overhear. guest: i'm also for my finance background. seems to be a gap in your awareness of what is happening in finance. if you're working with finance you should be aware, broker dealers, not as many on trading

jobs, relocating out of new york. you're actually in this situation pretty just more educated to the different brackets. if you don't seem to be aware of that. this seems to be a gap. for example, people walking in the coal industry in west virginia, they had long-term jobs. if you going is bond trader coming at 20 are basically markets and your outs. they will know you for everything your work when you're 20 or 22 years old and is 20 years he will do this and then you will be out for adult student the bank and you can't just lawyer up. you are the same person. the two i am not saying there's a lot of problems are nonblood proms the making industry. read the front office the back office. guest: [inaudible]. chris: 's was a very different industry in the back office. and they treat the back office

like crap. it's not nice industry. i'm a journalist. i think the basic and main privileges and belonging i think that i got laid off and there are no jobs in journalism, their people with money and other things so i could turn to at least try to land on my feet. that is a lot harder when everybody you know is in that town. now lost a job. timothy: my banking experience was at the very very top at the elite talk, the very nasty group. timothy: upfront here.

guest: what's post surprise you but your with people that you talk with. your experience. what would you say most surprised about them. chris: their openness. honestly, don't take this to try to do what i did necessarily. but i spent most my time in african-american neighborhoods. no one ever tried to rob me and no one ever check something for me. and i was walking around with a 5000-dollar camera. a less popular than this. and differently dressed $5000 camera. the drug house at two in the morning. i would walk into abandoned buildings at three in the morning. just a lark because of a said i should go there. nothing bad happened. people treated me right.

it is very different, very entirely different world out there. but in terms of the safety issue the trust, there is this woman by the name of millie the way met on the streets until the market ignoring, she was a worker. think back your thing were people tell you things. she told me her whole story not notes. three years later, she passed away. i located her body. if you die new york without papers, you're putting the something what called heart island is one of the worst things in the world. one of ours is there. i think 1 million people are buried there.

it's been are silent since 1865. they put you in a trench in a very you. so she died over six months i finally located her. she was dx 66. sixty-six deaths in the bronx at that time. they put our heart island. through his whole process of getting her exhumed and properly buried, i learned a lot about her past. i'm not a journalist, i just needed to get paperwork done and it's really fascinating to me. so three years later after this happened, everything she told me at two in the morning, complete stranger about her life, was right. actually fact checked it. her whole story she told me, she did not like she didn't even exaggerate. and again, the honesty telling a stranger. and it was not a good life,

nothing to be proud of. i would say in an individual level, people descends. so that has always been my for the u.s. paradox, north is an aggregate friendly and individually not. in the south is friendly guest: are you still traveling to interview people in my second question is, have you ever found the one from a community who found a way out and followed them in their life. i'm really curious what you said about not having the right language to fit in with the front row.

chris: i know a friend of mine in my past life who done that. but on the streets, after three years of our project in the bronx, wrote a piece saying that basically, nobody got out. that was a lesson learned. there were no happy endings. shelley is in jail now. i've got text messages from her. so beauty is doing what beauty does pretty shelley and ramon are still at coming in a van somewhere. since the very lowest of the low, i did not find any success stories. then again, i was at the very lowest of the low. one of the things that was uncomfortable to me to think

about is why do some people succeed and some people don't. some people just make out. and you meet them, there's a young girl in a miniature chair temperature will make it out. i hope she will. but you just could tell that separate, she was going to leap every hurdle. she would do what she needed to do to get out. and i have met people like that on wall street, who came from nothing and succeeded. they themselves can't really say so it would say and do it for years old that i wanted to do blank. so don't know what that it is i don't know if it's teachable or whatever but to the question, i've been doing this but

informed countries except without a camera but with no drill hole for the juicy intellectually. timothy: let's talk again how it reminds me with the conversation that i had. this man said that he has is horrible almost self contradiction of that the people showing up in his community are going be most likely to go out and actively go to the neighbor. i care about the place. and that to some extent, he is from, success is getting upgraded no management perspective from a pastor who has planted his wrist there and he's there for life. it is one that brightest girl to get out. he wants her than to be a leader in that community. but he faced caring about her individually, he doesn't want

her to get out. and is this whole paradox of red. in 1960, the girl is more likely to stay there to be the principle of the public school. and now if she is going to do anything to worker talent and energy, is going to be getting out. chris: and people do ask me advice when talking to them. i always tell people that if they want to leave, leave. if you want to go to college, go to college. even though i don't necessarily believe that, it's not my place to tell them what to do. but what you say if you didn't go to college, don't get into debt. do not cheat and go to community college programs. do scholarships.

people don't want to leave. if they don't want to, you can't stuff that they do. timothy: again were selling books outside and chris will be signing them and for someone thank much for doing this work. it is changed the way that i see things printed at the beginning i say i'm a christian a catholic and our duty is to love our neighbors and care for the least of these. in the book that you have done and told their stories is a great example that's thank you. and everybody think chris and joining as. [applause]. [background sounds]. you're watching a special edition of book tv, airing out during the week while members of congress are working in the

district because of the coronavirus pandemic. tonight and afterwards, first new york times magazine contributor peggy examines sexual culture and young male masculinity and former deputy national security advisor macfarland, details are time and the trump administration. later new york times reporter jennifer chronicles the first year of the largest class of woman ever elected to congress. please enjoy book tv now and also watch it over the weekend, as he spent two. "c-span2". >> good evening everyone i'm the executive director for the studies of democracy here at the museum. thank