2012, obama sold black america, the snake oil of hope and change, he joined bill clinton and jimmy carter, other confidence men who presented themselves as people who would challenge the racial order of things ". >> guest: i know we are running short on time, i'm gonna fall back on my southern roots, going back to ãbwhen i think about president obama now the only thing that comes to mind is that we been there and done that. been there and done that. >> host:, the author of six books, his most recent just published this year "begin again", james baldwin's america and its urgent lessons for our own, we appreciate your spending two hours with us from princeton. >> guest: thank you. >> host: any of this in-depth program re-airs right now. oh. >> up next, booktv monthly in-depth program with author and princeton university professor eddie glaude, his books include "democracy in

black" how race still enslaves the american soul, the recently published "begin again", james baldwin's america and its urgent lessons for our own. >> host: professor glaude of princeton, your most recent book "begin again" james baldwin's america and its urgent lessons for our own". you compare contemporary times to the civil war reconstruction and the civil rights era, what is that comparison you are making? >> guest: in each of those moments there was an opportunity for the nation to imagine itself otherwise. where the country had an opportunity to leave behind the reality of white supremacy and how it organized our society. each of those moments the country doubled down on its ugliness. we saw what some scholars like ãbi think that's too

deodorized, i think we saw weinstead was an ongoing betray and when we think about the post reconstruction period and the lost cause and the kind of sedimentation of the ideology of anglo-saxon is on and what it meant for the united states and the world that's the moment of betrayal. think about the mid 20th century the black ãmovement. the tax revolt in california, the hardhat rebellion and the like can we double down on our ugliness and here we are in this moment again facing a chance to reimagine ourselves and of our history is any indication, we have a steep hill to climb. >> host: has there been a narco progress? >> guest: of course. my life isn't what my father's life was like. his life is not what his father's life was like. what does it mean to suggest

that we live in the afterlife of slavery or the afterlife of jim crow is to suggest that there has been some indication of change and progress but you know as baldwin says, america has always changing. the true live american history is what i call my book democracy and hiblack ãbthat's a disbelief that white people matter more than others and that's the. >> host: what should we know about james baldwin, or as you call him jimmy? >> guest: oh my goodness, it's a bit humorous for me to call him jimmy, he's been in my head for almost 30 years now. what should we know, there are couple things. is an extraordinary example of

self creation. anything about being born in harlem, not sugar hill but the ghetto of harlem, coming-of-age in the aftermath of the catastrophe of the great depression and willing himself into becoming one of the world's greatest writers, that's an extraordinary story. as he put it step outside of the orbit of white america's expectations of ourselves we are talking revolution. and that's the embodied that insight, that's the first thing, the second thing is courage. his willingness to not only speak truth to power, to bear witness in such a way to make suffering rail, which is an example for me. i think has courage to risk self-examination in public, to risk vulnerability. when i interviewed angela davis for "begin again", she said in

so many ways he was out there all by himself. you can imagine a second novel giovanni writing a book "same-sex love in the 1950s" after go tell it on the mountain. embracing even though it was critical, black power, continuing to bring critique to bear on american society the black middle class was entering "the age of the cosby show", his courage is something we should take from it, also his commitment to craft, discipline, all of those things. >> host: what's the importance of his self exiled from the. [singing]? >> guest: i wouldn't call it self exiled. he called himself a transatlantic commuter he was going back and forth. i think on one level it's hard to live in this place. i can imagine it was particularly hard for him but daily experiences of disregard and the need to acquire the

distance from it also you could say something substantive about it. i think the way in which i render it is not so much exiled as baldwin seeking elsewhere, a kind of space that gives him the requisite distance to understand the complexities of the american ideology. when we are caught up in it it's very difficult to say and act in such a way that allows you the elbowroom to bring serious criticism. i think baldwin needed that distance and although some of us can't afford to leave the country, we still need to acquire and establish a relevant distance from the operations of f power so that w can say something significantly unserious about its devastating consequences when it's in operation. >> from "begin again" here's a

quote " as i look out into the ruins and thought of the election of donald trump and the ugliness that consumed my country, i asked myself, what do you do when you have lost faith in the place you call home, that wasn't quite right neway to put it, i never had faith in the united states, the strongest sense of the word", what you mean by that? >> guest: i'm not a patriot, i've never been a patriot and a strong sense of what that word means. i've always had this uneasy relationship to this place, has something to do with the tradition of which i come. understanding the sojourn of black people in america, places at a particular angle with regards to america's self understanding so, at the same time, there is this type of aspiration that animates the black tradition, black radical

tradition in some ways, the aspiration for a more democratic way of life or aspiration for more just a way of being together in this what happens when that shapes it, that's one's faith in america as an idea but one's faith in the possibility that this country would ever change. that deep-seated, when you see that when you begin to feel that kind of rage and pessimism joining with a deep-seated doubt it becomes very difficult to hold onto any kind of faith and a struggle for democratic oi possibilities. i was trying to give voice in that moment, i never felt at home in this place outside of being at home in mississippi with my family but to feel on housed in one house ãbto come

to the realization that maybe one is being perceived as a ghastly. [indiscernable] h>> host: when you pick about web duboise, malcom x, carmichael, where you place yourself in that? >> guest: have never been asked that question, thank you. i'm always dealing with my rage, it's always on the verge of spilling over in some ways. then there is this love, i guess this is why am attracted toto baldwin as a figure becaus he seems to suspend in that space where rage and love exist

simultaneously. so i think there is this, where i stand is not so much between a kind of black nationalism or ãba kind of black liberal position the typical way in which we render after politics in some ways i stand in between, i'm not a liberal but there is a sense in which malcolm gives voice to my rage and my desire to be courageous. doctor king gives voice to my hope that i have a leveled heart, somewhere in between. >> host: in your 2016 book "democracy in black" to write "obama was supposed to be more, obama was supposed to be different, we should have known better, nothing obama said actually confirmed the belief that he was some progressive savior, he is what he has always been".lw

>> guest: i got into a lot of trouble for that one, right. [laughter] i was trying to say that ãbwe made him what we desired most. we made him the antiwar candidate, we made him in some ways this avatar of progressive politics and in some ways he jumped in front of a range of grassroots movement where the black lives matter the, the early stages, occupy wall street, there was a sense in the antiwar movement, there was this sense that barack obama became in some ways the object of that organizing. we displaced our hopes and aspirations on him and he told us in his second book who he was. he told us exactly what he would do. he was very explicit that he

was, in some ways, a liberal in the vein of the clintons in some ways. we wanted him to be more than just the symbol. i know i did. i remember listening to his speech in iowa and thinking, this could happen and what that might mean. that we were confronted with how he governed. >> host: eddie glaude, what was the importance of mosque point mississippi to your philosophy, to your being? >> guest: oh my goodness, it's everything. i found mmyself when i first left home to go to college in some ways trying to run away from it. trying to imagine myself in more expansive terms that my little hometown. mouth! is everything. the smell from the ãplant and

the paper mill, that were joined with the ãband how that all is now the school. fish fries every friday, i grew up catholic. we would eat seafood on fridays. listening to the blues every clweekend as we cleaned house, mother and father kept the blues on the radio on the weekends. being able to ride my bike and play baseball and i think in some ways the gulf coast, the saltiness of the year, the seafood, the rhythm, it finds its way on the page in the way in which i hear words, in the way in which i think, it took me a while to come to terms with that but i am a mosque point baby.

it's everywhere in my work in some ways a. >> host: in your book you talk about "running away" at 16 to go to college. why? >> guest: my dad is watching, i love him budearly, but it was hard, he was an exacting presence in some ways. i looked just like him. i have his hands, i have his smile, i have his anger. i felt like i needed to get away in order to survive. i think i'm really sensitive and my dad could scare you with the glare stair, he could freeze you. i think i needed to get away.

he understood in his own way i remember when i asked him, can i go to college because i had to get his permission and we were sitting at the kitchen table and he said i know what you are doing, don't ever think you are not going to need me. low and behold, i lost my scholarship to morehouse in my sophomore year and without question he took a second mortgage on the house to pay for my college. like jimmy, jimmy is very difficult, hard on his stepfather in the early days of his writing but by the time we read the later writings as we get closer to his death, he understands more, he's more generous. my father and i, our love is deep in so many ways. >> host: do you think that your parents share your political

and philosophical leaning? >> guest: i think so. they are constantly calling and telling me what to say on msnbc, that's hilarious. no, absolutely, intuitively. how i see the world was shaped by that household. this insistence on maintaining one's dignity and standing. my family my dad and my mom, they don't ãbwhite folks easily. to tell the full story of when they first bought our home in briarwood, briarwood circle and pmoss point. as we were moving in the police drove by in their cruiser and my dad jangled the keys and said, yes, i own it, it's mine. but when the neighbor decided he was going to go dig up the flowers he had given to the previous owner my father asked

what are you doing? he said these are my flowers. he said i bought this property, these are mine. when the neighbor in the back of our home shot out the back of our window and my dad responded in kind by blowing a limb off a magnolia tree or an oak tree, there was a sense in which growing up i had, i learned a lesson early that you protect your dignity and your standing at all costs. that you stand up for what is right no matter what. even though i felt scared at times, because of that glare that could come at you, my dad also instilled in me and insistence on being courageous in the face of injustice, at least that's what i want tell myself. >> has moss point changed?

>> absolutely. at one point some people would find it funny but bustling little town we produced we had this high hischool five a, we produced all these amazing football players and basketball players, i remember as a young high school student, ãb walking into our cafeteria looking for chris claus mel, our nose guard. we had the ones we brothers, generation of after generation of running backs who made their way to the nfl. now it's a smaller school, the town is quieter, folks have grown, a lot of folks grew up and left, there is the moss point ãas it were. but you can still smell the plant, still have the best seafood on the planet. >> host: eddie glaude got his masters in african-american studies from temple university and phd in religion from

princeton, professor glaude, three of your books are about religion, why? >> guest: when i left temple and went to princeton to work with cornell west and ãand jeffrey stout, i did my phd in religion. i've always been interested in politics and at princeton we have a subfield entitled "religion ethics and politics" when i was in graduate school most people thought of it as a kind of princeton's second political theory department ors i've always thought about religion as the kind of point of entry to the broader question of african american politics. so because i worked with cornell west and jeffrey stout and al gravatar and what's important about those two figures is that cornell west and jeffrey stout are

philosophers and al gravatar is an american religious historian. i found myself bridging these two areas where i wanted to think about philosophical questions historically, i wanted to think about politics with a deep and thick k historical contextualization so religion became my point of entry so my first book was about exodus and the exodus story and how it was used by early 19th-century black political actors or when i think about the very short introduction of african-american religion a very short introduction on uncommon faith, these are short small books that try to give some indication of my historic sensibility, how i think about e african american religion from a pragmatic and historical

perspective. it has everything to do with my training, it has everything to do with my training and everything to do with the tradition out of which i come where christianity in particular after american protestantism more specifically is so important to understanding african-american life in this t:country. >> is christianity! important to you personally? >> guest: sure. absolutely. i was born and raised on the coast so are you up in the archdiocese of biloxi, i went to saint peters apostolic catholic church. mission founded by the joseph fights on thejosephã all-black church parish for the most part i'm going to morehouse and listening to some of the most extraordinary

preachers and then trying to find my own way in terms of my own religious belief islam for a moment and the like, i came to understand that these stories that animate the christian tradition are critical to how i see myself as a human being. the stories offer wisdom and insight to what it means to be in a world that seems to be so loveless. i would say the tradition matters but i come at it in my own way if that makes sense. >> host: i think it's in your book "exodus" you identify yourself as john do do pragmatic tests.

>> guest: he's part of this classical group of ãbwho in some ways put forward a philosophical view that has us not being so attentive to so-called metaphysical truths or trying to look for foundations but really understanding the capacities of human being to transform their circumstances. there is a kind of skepticism are what we might call anti-foundationalism that's rooted in the thick historical sensibility that has everything to do with affirming the capacity of everyday ordinary people and determining their life chances and outcomes. i became attracted to john dewey philosophically because in some ways i was at princeton. we still had the legacy of the late american pragmatist richard gordy there and then

pragmatism shapes the way in which jeffrey stout ãbcornell west who wrote the american invasion of philosophy i happen to be a grassroots ãwhen he was working on the manuscript. john dewey was attracted to me precisely because he was still kind of critical of this western philosophical tradition in its same way. it's also confirming the capacity that everyday ordinary people to transform their circumstances and he was setting the stage for this philosophically. what i had done was in some ways to bring american pragmatism, john dewey and others, cross the railroad tracks, to bring that philosophical tradition into conversation with an african-american tradition of letters and the result has been my body of work. >> host: his body of work is what we are discussing with

princeton professor eddie glaude this afternoon, we want to include you in the conversation as well, first off, here are glaude's books 2000 "exodus" religion race and nation in early 19th-century black america, in a shade of blue came out in 2007, "african-american religion " 2014 "democracy in black: how ã ^ 2018 " uncommon faith: a pragmatic approach to the study of african american religion" and professor glaude's most recent book "begin again: james baldwin's america and its urgent lessons for our own " brand-new this year. here's how you can participate in our program this afternoon you can do it by phone, 202 ã 748-8200 for those in the east and central time zone, if you have a question or to comment

202-748-8201 for those of you in the mountains and pacific time zones, you can also participate via social media, our text line 202-748-8903, send a text, please include your first name and your city if you would. and all our social media sites here at booktv facebook, twitter, instagram. @booktv is our handle and you can post a comment there and we will look at those as well. we will begin taking those calls and comments in just a minute. professor glaude is the chair of the department of african-american studies at princeton. what is the importance of having a separate act african-american studies program at a university?>> guest: i think it's absolutely critical because african american studies is a clearly defined field of inquiry, it's a conversation that has been

had over generations where you have different bibliographies that shape a body of knowledge that can be transferred from one court to the next. i think about a field that in some ways engages in a kind of descriptive enterprise, it offers an account of the relevant subject matter at hand in a way from the vantage point of this particular tradition or people of african descent. and it has this kind of critical component aware insofar as we offer these descriptions that change our orientation to knowledge production it's bringing criticism to bear on the ways in which we think about matters or what we take to be knowledge. i think it's important in a world as diverse as ours, and a country of complicated as ours,

with its history as fraught and vexed as my colleague would say. it's imperative that we s understand this fragile experience from the example of people who are about to bear the brunt of this. when we think about african american studies in its expansiveness, not only as the critique of white supremacy but also the space for extraordinary literature and extraordinary set of reflections like democracy, a way in which we can think about the operations of power and social groupings, the way in which we can think about art and life, it became is this amazing space to do all sorts of work and broaden our understanding of knowledge production and such. >> host: princeton has had a few issues.

>> guest: [laughter] just a few. >> host: on racial issues in the past couple years, where you come down on them? >> guest: princeton is a complex base. this is the place eugene o'neill couldn't ãbthe place that felt suffocated in some ways. is the place that baldwin, right down here on route one baldwin worked in and around this area and he tells the story of not being served in one of the diners on route 1 and hurling a glass at the head of the white waitress and having to run for his life. princeton is of southern ãand bears the woodrow wilson of racism, there's a reason why paul ãdidn't go to princeton, princeton was a place that was not welcoming people like me, like my father couldn't have attended princeton, my mother couldn't have attended princeton. it has its history. stockton thought of as the southern iv. it's always grappling with with that undertone.

we are trying to in some ways make princeton their own and to insist that princeton stop approaching black students and brown students as if they are doing them a favor. we are struggling with it just like the country. >> host: the west college i believe has been renamed 20 morrison building, is that correct? >> guest: one of the things about this current moment is that, the built environment reflects its tracist commitment.

it often announces that those of us who walk these hallowed halls are latecomers or the recipients of chair, you don't see an environment that reflects the diversity of the population. the idea of west college, the place where students and parents come, that's where the dean of the college as. it's now named after toni morrison is an extraordinary moment. you have to change what you ma see, can you imagine black students, brown students, having to see woodrow wilson face and quotations, and wilson is clear about his view of our capacity. he didn't think we were capable and you have to navigate that

every single day. i think that's the changing of west college, it's a wonderful step on the part of princeton. >> howards woodrow wilson treated now it princeton as a former president of that college etc.? >> truthfully. i think that is the biggest shift. you gotta tell the truth. there is no way princeton can tell the story without woodrow wilson. woodrow wilson is central to modern princeton, princeton university it e is if it wasn't for that man. and what he did. but you have to tell the truth about who he is. i remember for my graduate school days woodrow wilson if all you heard was the high geographic stories basically walked on water at princeton y now if you tell the truth i do

understand the kind of values that you want to represent who you aspire to be as university, then you have to ask yourself the hard question, does woodrow wilson represent who we aspire to be? does he represent who we are? he is central to how we became princeton but the princeton of woodrow wilson is not the princeton. >> i think at the heart of it as the school is trying to tell the truth and grapple with the truth about woodrow wilson which is an important thing. >> host: this is totally off the subject but in my head i can't get it out, what was eddie f largestãbline of work? >> guest: he was a post-man, he delivered mail, over 30 years of delivering mail. i remember him fixing the same lunch every day on white bread,

bologna sandwich with mayo and mustard, every day. he didn't take one single vacation. he took his vacation days and spread them out over the year so each week he would have a day off and we use to dread that day that he would have, which would give him a long weekend because that meant we would have to clean up the house from top to bottom. anhe was a postman and during t heat of mississippi on the coast, it's an extraordinary kind of thing. to experience the mississippi summer even with the breeze off the gulf coast, he would literally sweat out his ^ then he became a leader of the local union, the second african american hired at the post office.os

>> host: tell us very quickly about your mother as well. >> guest: my mom is just amazing. oh my goodness. she worked from my early days she used to work at burger king then she got a job at ingalls shipyard, she was part of the janitorial crew and then became a supervisor of the cleaning crew at ingalls. she worked the third shift so she left home at 4:00 in the afternoon to go work and would not get home until 1:00 a.m. to 2:00 a.m.. i think my parents took that ãbthey got those work shifts of those times because my older sister is severely handicapped, anita is her name, they said to my mother and father because they had her when they were teenagers that she would not live past eight years old, she just recently turned 57 so my mother and father ãmoss point,

giving a shout out to all the folks at home. my grandfather i think gave my father the land which allowed him to build the home, not sure if that's right. we moved to briarwood when i first started the first or second grade, they are still there. absolutely. >> picking up socarpet and pain for the den right now. >> host: i hope they are watching, let's hear from viewers now, this is neville in cleveland, you are first up with professor glaude junior. >> caller: professor, i have a question, are there any themes or any aspects of african-american history which have been ignored or which do not get the attention they

deserve from historians? and the final question when you write african-american history, who do you consider to be your audience?os >> guest: thank you so much for those questions. in some ways when we think about african-american history, it is in some ways a kind of response to the willful ignorance of mainstream american historian. when i think about what carol hunter has written about in " bound in wedlock", this extraordinary book.i reach back to let everybody know the books are real. >> host: you can go ahead and hold that up if you want. >> guest: sure. this extraordinary book here, which gives us a very different

account of black marriage. of the importance of marriage in black communities and the historical narrative about its significance and what happened which opens up this kind of political discourse about black folks, single parents and the like. it's a very six-story with an expansive archive. i think only someone like carolyn hunter or only someone who is coming out of this particular tradition who knows this historiography would pay attention to it. my colleague umana taylor who wrote this extraordinary book entitled "race for profit, helping, real estate industry undermine black homeownership. ticket was a different story about race and real estate, not just talking about racial exclusion with redlining and the like but a kind of predatory inclusion the way in

which certain kinds of approach to black homeownership allowed for certain kind of racist extraction in some way. these are evident of what this particular approach brings into view. because i don't know if without their work whether or not historians would have taken it up in the same way. >> those are just two quick examples. i would also say that in terms of the second question, remind me of the second question again, i want to make sure i remember it correctly. >> i apologize, neville, if i'm paraphrasing it wrong but i think it was about teaching african-american history. >> guest: yes. >> host: let's go ahead and move on and one of us will

remember, i apologize i didn't write down. >> guest: i apologize too. >> host: i won't do it again. debbie in philadelphia, you are on with eddie glaude. >> caller: good afternoon. eddie glaude, eddie glaude, eddie glaude, i think our souls are kin, you are so profound, you are so deliberate. i've been watching you a while. i can't pronounce his name but is it tenant hasãbtallahasseeãb of how you feel about the scam that is going on around the black lives matter vision now and the scam of the defined the police meaning how they are

trying to set the narrative and also, how is your son? i remember when he wanted to go out and protest with the george floyd situation and ã >> host: we will get answers to those, when you say the scam about d from the police, exactly what do you mean? >> she's gone, sorry about that professor. >> guest: i think i have an idea what she means. first of all, let me just thank you for your kind words and thank you for asking about my son, he's driving, he's out in california working for the public defenders service out of the bay area. on his way to he wants to be a public defender, god bless him. i'm very proud of him, he's doing well. and he's happy, which is more important i think. the first question about the

scam, i think what she means is the way in which black lives matters is being scapegoated as the reason why democrats lost certain seats, the sloganeering " around the police in the country put conservative centrists democrats and conservative district against the wall and this is the reason why folk lost, we heard president obama refer to it as a snappy slogan that is some ways was antithetical to efforts to reach across or convince others to join in efforts to fundamentally reform the police. i think it's all part of an old frame we need to reject. that is to say deformed the police as it slogan we pdon't want to think of it as a slogan it's actually a policy initiative but has every thing to do with a certain kind of claim around we budget our

values. what does it mean for mina's ability to spend 60% to 70% of their budgets on policing and in carmechanics of the incarceration state. we have to build the bad face around the judgment of the statement. so folks can tinker around the edges.if we are talking about a fundamental transformation of how our communities police, we need to change that frame and move from law and order to what i call safety and security. every human being deserves to be saved, every community deserves to be secure, what does that mean in its detail? it has everything to do with investing in social service, it has anything to do with investing in mental health service. walter wallace's mom in philadelphia called 911 because her baby was having a mental episode. in a mental acrisis.

instead of health workers showing up, the police showed up now she had to bury her baby. when we think about d fond of bathe police, that's the crystallization of the argument but instead what we are hearing is folks trying to pull us back into the old frame and we have to resist that at all cost. >> debbie referred to ãbthe fact that he has spent some time living in paris, should we take anything significantly from that? >> that was a wonderful illusion to jimmy "between the world and me", there was this kind of moment in which he was trying to show the parallel. i think it had a different different political veiling.

what baldwin was trying to call forward baldwin was quick to talk about what happened, he didn't trade the american fantasy for the french one. i love that line. at that point he starts talking about the algerians and how the french truth of the algerians and their myths and the like. we don't want to trade one fantasy for another. white supremacy obtained inaudibly in this place but around the globe we need to be mindful of it how capitalism undermines ã >> host: a text message for you. this text message is "please explain the relationship between richard wright and james baldwin". >> guest: it's a complicated one. baldwin would not be baldwin if it wasn't for richard wright. he didn't make it through high

school, another mississippi native. can't ivimagine the kind of genius that evidenced itself where he willed himself to become a writer given the context of his formation. richard wright, when baldwin could barely find resources to put food in his mouth helped him find fellowship, there's a reason why baldwin would tell the story that he basically just turned the globe and randomly chose paris, that's not true. richard wright was in paris along with a vibrant community so and so many ways richard wright served as a father figure and baldwin had to engage, they at least that's what he tend to think, when you

read notes of the native son or the last poor richard, you can feel this complicated indebtedness there is a sense in which he wanted to, he disagreed aesthetically with richard wright, i think that this agreement is substantive but we cannot we can never say that baldwin is possible without richard wright. that's how i would describe that relationship. >> host: here's a text from coast, mobile alabama, how has the pandemic affected your classroom and, can use and emphasize the lectures and assigned reading for this week, assuming class is in session. >> guest: our semester is over, we just finished reading, i theme taught course with professor imani perry this semester. we finished we ended our

semester by reading ã [indiscernable] an extraordinary novel written by someone who is from the gold coast. we were delighted that mr. ward attended our class. what is it like teaching in the context of covid, you have the zoom experiences, we had about 80 students in our class. you can't see all of them at once, you can't read their body language, the kind of performance aspect of lecturing gets lost as it's alleviated by this medium but i think it was successful but you could see the weariness in our students eyes, he could see that some of them are struggling by reading their papers you can see the conditions in which they have to write. their families, some are struggling with covid.

it's hard. it's been hard. but students are making their way through. by the way, i love mobile, it's a wonderful place. used to fly into mobile in order to get home and back in the day. >> host: loretta is in cleveland, go ahead. >> caller: hi, we been asked to reimagine america and that's a tall order. and wondering how do blacks pursue happiness and liberty without the avote? there's been a lot of voter suppression going on. what would you suggest to rid america of institutional racism and white supremacy?

>> guest: that's a big question. first of all, let me just say this, our happiness, our sense of well-being ought not to be bound up with political realities, although they yare definitely impacted by it. i think to rephrase the question it might not be about our happiness but the question is, how can we flourish as a community when we have active forces trying to suppress ãb ci've said for black folks damned if you do, damned if you don't. if you don't vote at high numbers the nation ends up choosing someone like donald trump. when we do vote they want to throw our votes vout. the thing we have to recognize

americans our s power to in some ways to transform the country by way of our political engagement, not by just simply being herded to the polls every 2 to 4 years but understanding the power of our political organizing and really pursuing a more just america. that's the first thing. how do we transform the country? first of all, we have to tell the truth about the country. america is so willfully ignorant, and woefully ignorant because it wants to protect its ã^ as baldwin said. doesn't want to admit that it's not the shining city on the he hill. it doesn't want to admit it's not an example of democracy and somehow when we talk about the

wealth gap that it's not the result of black people just simply not being frugal or their inability to say that the wealth gap has everything to do with policy decision that at the very moment in which the boston american middle-class was created black folks were locked out. black folks went off and risked their lives in world war ii, cut off from the benefits of the g.i. bill, we could think about the ways in which housing emerged in this country going back to my colleagues wonderful book here, how housing was made available, how black people that.cut out of what we begin to think about this dual labor market how we were attracted particular segments of the economy. the reality of racial inequality in fthis country is not the result of happenstance or some character flaw in the part of black folks, is the result the policy, so we have to tell the truth. brian stephenson says, truth and reconciliation is quenching. first you have to tell the truth in order for us to

reconcile. if working to rid ourselves of white supremacy in this country we have to confront our ghastly failure. and then in 1962 he said we have to understand the trouble o is deeper than we wish to thank you because the trouble is in us so we have to confront the ugliness of who we are. >> host: here's a quote from "begin again", black people have to end up where the burden of compromise while white people go on with their lives. >> guest: i remember when i wrote that sentence i was really angry when i wrote that sentence.or it's important, i appreciate you pulling it out in this moment because it's important for us to hear. there is a wonderful book written by ãbwoodward writes in that book, and paraphrasing

him that black folks gain their rights to a falling out among white men, now they stood to lose their rights through the reconciliation to white, talking about the civil war which brought about the passage of the reconstruction amendment 13, 14, 15th amendment, slavery, due process citizenship, and then the reconciliation leads to the lost cause, jim crow and the south, beyond the haze held in compromise of 1877. we see the country doubling down on white supremacist and black folks have to bear the brunt of it.when we talk about compromise around the question of whether or not we still have a society predicated of behind the belief that black people matter more than others we have to bear the brunt of it. i don't want my son if he ever has children i don't want his children to go through what he had to go through, to go through what i had to go

through, to go through what my mother and father have gone through. we bear the brunt of our attempts to shall we say reconcile with those voters who believe that we are left. to keep asking this question, what do the trump voter want? what do they want? what are they lamenting? why don't we begin to delve more deeply into the world they desire? and ask ourselves honestly, do we want to compromise with that? that's what i was trying to get at in that moment. >> host: eddie glaude, 72 million americans voted for president trump's reelection, do you have a general thought about those 72 million americans? >> guest: i do. the obvious thing is that there are a large number of americans who cling to the idea that

america must remain a white nation in the vein of old europe. that donald trump's shenanigans, we don't want to separate trump from the republican party, that these folks believe that the demographic shift in the country fundamentally undermine any sense of america they are willing to be committed to. i think that's obvious. i also think there are other elements. it's not only the fact that some folks are racist. i think there's an epidemic of selfishness and greed in the country that you have some people who could not care less whether you are black, brown, yellow, they are only invested in their stock, their only concerned about their stock portfolios, the 401(k)s, the value in their homes, their jobs, they are selfish, they have given up any kind of steak in america outside their own

set of concerns, their own immediate fear of moral concerns. when you have racism, greed, you have a political class is beholden to not only wall street but to others like them who are just simply about extracting, extracting, then you have folks who believe that we are all self interested and only out to pursue our own aims and ends in that we don't have the robust conception of the public good, we have these three elements at work, the republic is in danger, democracy itself is in danger. what i think about 72 to 73+ million folks voted for donald trump, and thinking about how racism, how selfishness and greed to threaten the very

foundations of american democracy itself. it also now is a difficult task that awaits us and of course the biden/harris administration. >> host: eric is in auburn washington, thanks for holding, you're on with princeton professor eddie glaude. >> caller: thank you, it's an honor and a privilege to speak with you. the constitution and the bible, both of these issues can be interpreted to me anything from slavery, genocide, we go to the bible and the worst atrocity ever committed had been committed in the name of religion. i'm glad president trump was elected president because he exposed the constitution the racist white manifesto that can be interpreted to mean anything such as can he pardon himself?

this is a question for the scholars, if trump can pardon himself does that mean he can still trillions of dollars from the treasury, does that mean you can go out and kill joe biden and pardon himself? it makes no sense. >> host: eric, we are going to leave it there, we have a lot of callers on the line, thanks efor calling in, go ahead professor. >> guest: i think eric is outraged reflects this idea that trump believes he is above the law. that he's not the law.ble to he has some who holds the idea of the presidency. we call the imperial presidency at times, that exists outside of the framework of the law and we've heard from the mouth of william barr and others argue

in defense of that version of view of the executive. i hear the outrage but i want to be very clear, there is nothing to be glad about when we have over 270,000 dead because of trump's incompetence ...... the documents, this dogma, can be molded to fit any kind of ideology end. i understand that. human beings are complex creatures but there's nothing good that's come out of the last four years in my view. even the acknowledgment that the country is broken, i still don't want to see that as a good that comes out of the last four

years. >> host: professor glaude we have read quotes from the last two books, again begin and democracy in black, but u.s. presidents. did we spend too much time thinking about reflecting, identifying, with our political leaders? >> guest: i think so. i think that's such a great question. i think so. and one of my political and philosophical heroes is miss ella baker. key figure in the civil rights movement. helped organize the early part of the 20th century, naacp chapters in south. the executive secretary in the some southern christian leadership conference and went ton to open up space to allow for the formation of the student nonviolent coordinating committee, and miss baker had i

think a kind of radical democratic politics and the emphasis was not on the leaders it, it was on us. carries with it fundamental emphasis on the capacities of everyday ordinary people to make the relevant decisions that will impact their lives so have a say sew in how they're governed to have a sayso in the ways in which they work to make a living to have a sayso in the very fabric of society. often times because we are so busy working out our behinds to he bone we want to outsource that responsibility to others. i think we -- short answer to you question, i think we focus too much on leaders and in doing sewso we often absolve ourselves of the responsibility that democracy requires. >> halls in johnstown, pennsylvania, and posts on to

facebook, if you could meet james baldwin, what would you ask him? >> guest: oh, my god. if i could meet jimmy, what would i ask him? there's so many questions that just came flooding through. well, one -- there's a selfish question about just the writing. i we would have to have a conversation about craft. how did he get the ideas in your head on the page. how too you find the time when everybody is pulling on you? to get to at the page, to rite and craft the stories that are running around in your head. how do you do that when he it seems you have become the possession of others. that's one selfish question. another question from whence is

courage. theirs vulnerable qur black man or gay black man, he seemed as if -- when jimmy would walk from at the stage from speaking he would be shaking. didn't know how he survived it all, so intense, and baldwin is vulnerable andage jill, emotionally fragile but courageous, and i've been trying to prove to myself that i'm courageous, ever since i was a little kid. and i would have to talk with him about that in relation to fathers if that makes sense use what do you mean when you say you have been trying to prove to yourself? >> guest: i mentioned -- this is awkward because i know my dad is watching. mentioned that my dad could scare you with his stare. and he deposited in me early on

a kind of fear that resided in the gut, and i've been trying to prove to myself that i'm not afraid. i'm being honest in this moment. i think baldwin helped me too this because i remember being stuck in the writing and so i just pinged up jimmy and started reading him again and there was this kind of insistence that before you can say anything pout the country, you have to deal with you. you have to deal with the factor this vulnerable little boy. and i think in that lip cam out, jumped out at me. when you're afraid you don't run from the fear, you run towards it. you one toward it. and i think grappling with who i am and all of that complexity,

freed me up to write the sentences you're reading. so, yeah, that's what i mean. >> host: text message, gladys, robert langley's sister and brother-in-law, what baldwin say in this moment in time. they're from camden, arkansas. somebody you know? >> guest: yeah. it's my neighbor. that's really beautiful. i'd never tried to anticipate baldwin's words. that's the kind of hubris i try to resist. there were 7,000 pages of work, so i don't want to suggest what he might say. what i know to be true is that we have to tell the truth but who we are. about what we have done. in order to release of uses into the a different way of being in the world.

i remember as i was trying to write the book, i can just remember this in 2016, and i just kept saying to myself, damn, they've dutch it again. what could -- these folk have done it again. and trying to figure out how to bear witness to what that meant in detail. so part of the work we have to do, i think, in this moment, that you and i must do, right? is to detail the choice and its consequences. to not gloss over what we're seeing. to name the hatred for what it is. to name the selfishness for what it is. to really not allow america to retreat into it illusions and it comfort.

right? that's what we would have to do. what that will look like will look different all right, you're arguing around a living wage, arguing for medicare for all, whether you're pushing for an educational system or that's fair or just or pushing for a criminal justice reform, whatever we might mean by that phrase. we have to tell the truth about what we have done. that's the precondition for being released 'obeing otherwise. and that to me is a basic bald win insight i take from the rupees as he described it. >> host: i think sheila peyton is our new herine, she homes about envelope neville in cleveland. the second question is when dr. glaude writes a bang who is the audience he is writing to? >> guest: that's great. yes, thank you. thank you so much for that. see what the -- we can lift each

other up. that's wonderful. so, the audience. it varies. the early books, the audience, very narrow. so when you read exodus or in a shade of blue or you look at the edited volumes, is it nation time or african-american religious thought, it's a narrow academic community. the arc of those books, though, is toward a broader community, in a shade of blue, for example, was written while i was on tour withtavis smileey for the covenant with black america book, and the old state of the black union convention -- gathering that we used to have, that c-span used to air every january. but so one audience is a narrow professional concern. the other audience is my mama. i remember when i first

published exodus she said i cooperate get past chapter 3. or michigan like that. -- or something like that. so the idea is to write with a level of clarity, that allows her to access the ideas and to wrap -- to be able to engage with what i'm doing. right? so, i always tell folk, my mama is the center of my moral gravity. whenever i feel like i'm moving off center, i think pout her and she -- i can recalibrate, i can get back straight. i'm a mama's boy in some ways. so, she is the kind of general life audience that at the end of the day i'm trying to write the book as toni morrison would say the book i want to read. i'm writing for me. thank you for reminding us of

they question. thank you. >> host: norma in littleton, colorado and you're on with princeton professor eddie glaude. >> caller: yes. i was wondering if professor glaude was aware of a statement that mitch mcconnell made six weeks after obama cook office and i hope i can get this ought -- out because it's so upsetting. mitch mcconnell said on tv that the republican plan was to destroy the obama presidency, his exact words. they just burned into my brain and i thought it was treason, and nobody said anything. it wasn't covered in the news or anything and it's -- the only thing i can of maybe president obama heard it and couldn't believe that he couldn't find a way to work with the republicans, and it's just been modified and said, oh, make him a one-term president so fort and

he won't work with us and then some areas later i was channel surfing and there was a panel where a man said on january 2nd, 2009. during the inauguration, republicans including paul ryan and mitch mcconnell and other loaders came up with the plan to destroy the obama presidency and it's amazing that he could do what he could do and that is -- >> host: norma, i think we got the point. eddie glaude, your comments on that. >> guest: i we don't want to be naive and that is -- we need to under mitchell mitchell. for who he is. and mitch mcconnell has been one of the self-interested actor who has participated not only in my view the destruct of the vaunted and deliberative body

call the senate but he has ban central force in eroding the basic foundation of american democracy. obama unleashed all sorts of anxieties. his election, people talked pull out the tea party being a result of economic anxiety but the social signs data shows the economic anxiety was driven by deep racial anxiety. we know that over the course of his eight years in office, those demographic shifts spiked in interesting sorts of ways and saw the intensity of the spread of deep white resentment, it would grieve vans and white hatred mobilized by the tea party that resulted in the election of donald trump but also mobilized by the likes of mitch mcconnell. so, obama -- president obama can become an interesting source of rage, a point of entry to

understand the depth of what some might call the backlash or bee tropical, and mitch mcconnell's voicing of that -- in that moment of the destroy the -- the obama presidency, or to make him a one-term president, announced very clearly a political and policy agenda that resulted in, in part, trumpism. this is what -- we can't disentangle the two in my mind. these are intimately related, so i appreciate your passion, but -- not even but. i appreciate your passion. let understand it for what it is. >> host: pastor willie dean of atlanta texts in to you: dr. glaude, as scholar of religion what is your take on the division of the church split between -- pardon me -- split between democratic and republican camps. what do you see as the role of the church and it future?

>> guest: yeah. you know, frederick dug has says the church steeple was right next to the slave auction block. earn christendom has been shadowed be the holistic contradiction of slavery and white supremacy. africa christianity -- african-american christianity comes into existence in part to edeem the religion profaned in it myths. to understand white christianity as a form of idolatry. race not only impacted the way in which one experienced communion. the quote up quoter n-word pews where black people went. the civil war happened in american christendom before one bullet was fired and now we see,

fast forwarding to today, nat 2020, white evangelicals supported donald trump at extraordinary numbers, even with 40 yours of evidence of incompetence, of corruption and greed. and so what i think we need is to give voice to a much more prophetic understanding of the gospel, and this is why i always turn to bishop reverend barber, william barbber of the poor people's campaign and what he is trying to put forward and that is an argument on christian grounds for a more just america. part of what the short answer to the question, is that what we're seeing are the kinds of historical divisions that have always been a part of the very dna of american christendom make them is a parent and we have to be honest.

>> host: (202)748-8200 in the cease and central time zones, (202)748-1201 in the mountain and pacific time sewns and you can send a text message to eddie glaude as well, (202)748-8903. if you send a text, meese include your first name and your city. we have 45 minutes left with author eddie glaude. roy in seabeck, washington. you're on booktv. >> caller: hello, dr. glaude, it's really a measure to talk with you this morning, at least listen to you. my question relates to a strategies and position papers and so on. too you and other academics are very good explainers and i appreciate that, filling the history up. what put your influence and impact on political organizations like the naacp,

the civil rights groups. are they listening to you and are the forming strategies and are you giving them guidance so they can do their work to better the african-american community as large? because i -- it's questionable how well they've done to date. >> guest: thank you for your question. i'm not so sure they need to listen to me. but i think there is -- there are moments of connection between what we do in the academic world and what folks do in the policy world. the lines or the boundaries between these two worlds pleasure every now -- blur every now and then. there's an american deep suspicion of academics. rich hoff steader wrote a book entitled "antiintellectualism in america," we're often characterized as those folks

locked in the ivory tower who ha know sense of how power moves and operates. but that's just a kind of generalization. i think on the grouped their efforts to reach across the opinions. i know what i've been trying to do in my own work is to write for a broader audience to offer a frame. i'm not a policy guy. i think in moral or ethical terms and my task is to try to figure out how to put forward a set of values that may drive how we think about policy. off i might offer a description of the current set of problems, off language to describe the problems that will reorient us, give us a different angle on the problems we face, and so i find myself at times talking witness representative hakeem jeffrey, and conversations with william barber who is an intellectual or

talking to folk across policy think tanks and the like. so short answer to the question, it's happening, it's uneven but it's happening. >> host: from democracy in black from 2016, professor glaude writes: when i teach introduction to african-american studies at print princeton i me withwith a quote indication from tocqueville's democracy in america. tocqueville helps me lay out the stakes. what is that quote? >> guest: it's really coming from the chapter on the three races and it's the chapter where he says now that i talked-i leave matters of democracy behind i will turn to [inaudible] -- and this is the most insightful work we have on american democracy, and detocqueville -- my colleague who can take issue but i think i'm right. the in some ways separates the two issues. i dealt with the issue of

democracy and now turn to the issue of race. to my mind, race is at the heart of how we think about dem decrees in this country. this is what makes jimmy baldwin so important to me. he is the mees insightful critic owith. he inherit temperature of ralph wall to emmerson hitch takes emerson cross the tracks and i'm trying to get my students to sea that when you take an african-american studies class, you're not ghettoizing the subject matter. we're not kind of locked in this silo of identity matters. when you think but the issue of race we're thinking at the heart of the democratic project itself. and more importantly, and perhaps this has to be emphasized, when we -- when you take this class, in this moment,

you're gaining access to a particular vantage point of what it means to be human. just as when you're reading russian literature or your reading irish literature and you don't get the jokes, i don't get the jokes but i understand there's something about what they're writing that says something but what i means for me to be a human being in the world. so the same thing i'm trying to do in this moment but by telling my students, you're in this class and guess what? by thinking about race, the sew junior of thieves -- these folk you're thank you heart of the -- you're at the heart of this matter. not just coming in here to feel good about ourself or pat yourself on the back about your virtue. we're get to to get busy. >> host: professor flawed, wasn't james bald win criticized as bag hypocrite because he had an affinity to white men.

>> guest: you love who you love. this is when he was saying how we respond to folks talking about gee von any's room as -- gee von any's room as a same-sex. it's a book about love. you've love who you love and when we allow these categories to overdetermine the heart, to blind or to black one's self off to beauty of on human beings then you open yourself up to becoming as monstrous as the folks we're fighting. i find that to be nonsense. >> host: ken, facebook post, dr. glaude's evanningism 0 black victimization is based on an indictment the is systemic racism in the u.s. if is it to pervasive how do you

measure something like that. if it the unequal economic achievement of blacks howl do you explain the high adjustment level -- >> guest: this is wonderful to have this question because it becomes exhibit a of the problem. so, part of the challenge for us in this moment of how do we imagine ourselves otherwise, that we have to deal with a discourse that absolve thursday country of it get. so the probable -- can you imagine at the heart of that formulation, that's the condition of black folk in this country is in fact a result of their bad choices, and in order for that to make sense, empirically, you have to hold the view that millions of black people are making bad decisions generationally over time every single day. that makes no sense.

remember i just said, earlier, we have to tell the truth. tell the truth pout how the wealth gap happens, the truth about the ways in which policy has generated deep racial inequality in this country, and instead what we find or hear in response is the ideology of the lost cause. that very formulation has its -- has its in some ways origins in the kinds of arguments used to defend the lost cause, in interesting sorts of ways how much die respond that arguement? first of all we have to say it's nonsense, it's silly on a certain level. and on the other hand we need to go to the empirical evidence they refuse to acknowledge. so no matter what we do what black folk do, on our own well-'ll never close the gap, the achievement gap in terms of the televisions within education.

no matter how much money we save in this moment, we will have -- it will be almost impossible without direct policy intervention to close the wealth gap. and this is all the result of policy. let be very clear. asking but money parents. and my parents didn't go up in slavery. they're not that old. look, the nation, the last piece of major legislation designed to trace deep systemic racism was the fair housing act of 1968. deeply flawed in it implementation, just 1 years later reagan was elected to undo it all. but america didn't become a general wherein democracy until 1965 with the passage of voting rights act. i was born in 1968. my parents came of age in airdrop i designed to reproduce advantage for white folk and

disadvantage for those who were not. and to deny it is to become complicit in that. that's not to say that black folk are absolved of responsibility. not to absolve us of making bad choices because we're human beings. but you have to the truth. and i can tell you that position is not necessarily held by a loud racist. that position that you just raved is not someone who walks around perhaps with declaring he is a member of the kkk. that position is being held by republicans and some democrats alike. and that's what we have to address as clearly as we can and with passion, and if folk don't want to listen we continue to try to build a just america that reflects reflects the truth. >> host: do conservative students take your classes? >> i think so. some do.

most times my courses are self-selecting. so i hope they do. then we could have the kind of exchanges that i think the best of education makes possible. >> host: professor flawed got disbarn in political science from morehouse college, masters degree in african-american studies from temple and his ph.d in religion from princeton. chair this african-american studies department at princeton, taught the since 2002. and he is the author of six bookses, and we have another half hour with him here on booktv. richard in maryland, please in ahead with your question or comment. >> caller: good afternoon, gentlemen. first and foremost, peter issue had aens chance to tell you at the southwest book festival that you are one of the bess

interviewers in the' still. so keep if your good work. you opened up with trump and going to a better place or double down on the past. the fact is he gave himself speech in georgia reminding me of reagan when he gave his speech in mississippi. very twicesive and be know where we have gone since then. as i would just like to know if you have had a conversation with mr. coates as you both being contemporaries affection for mr. baldwin and how did it go and last the statement you made about mr. obama and you said you took some heat from it, it was a very pertinent statement and should have been made. could have been a little stronger because trying to obama had to see him through the lens of a kenyan american not an african-american because he didn't associate himself with slavery and so he had hopes and aspirations of making on to that great white boat with his oar,

to discuss it and step away from his mixed past or parentage, and lastly, i think that going forward, you said on morning joe one time we're going to go to a darker place and that stanes and dunk the primaries joe biden reminded move 0 woodrow wilson as a person who has a coalition from web dubois and all those other people and then in presidency his and his wife brought about separation of dining facilities and office -- >> host: you know what, rich, we'll leave it there. we have four topics on the board. president trump, tan sharkry coats, president obama and a darker place. >> guest: what donald trump did last night is very dangerous. he don't thing we have faced as a republic this sort of

challenge with regards to the transition -- peaceful transition of power in this way. he announced and we saw folk around him buy into kind of a caw consecutive any of law -- caw cough any of lies and whether eat success if with the lawsuits he is deepening the sense. that the bide-harris administration will be illegitimate and that does not possessed well to how we will move forward. [loss of audio] that trump presents and his enablers present to republic if want to make that very clear. in terms of brother coates, we have had brief conversations in passing

on line and by e-mail but never really set down and talked. i think we have a different politics. i would be -- that would be an interesting conversation to have, i think. about how we think about plunder, how we think but black culture and black politics. it would be interesting. that's the short answer. obama i don't look to talk but obama in terms of his identity and his politics. i don't want to attribute to him decisions that flow from his identification as a kenyan american or an african-american or the like. my disagreements with barack obama are prince by political. -- prince my political. to me he is a third wave democratic, centrist liberal and i dope think -- i'm willing to

have the argue. about it -- i don't think that clintonism or third-way democrats hough we want to describe them-don't think that's the answer to scale of problems we confront as a country. in fact i would go as far to say that the third way democrat contributed to the environment that produced donald trump himself. and we could have that argument. and the terms of the lapoint, let me get to this quickly. we've been talk about me being from the gulf coast, and as a result i've been through a few hurricanes. and what is so interesting but hurricanes the front end of a hurricane is dangerous and then you get the calm 0 of the eye, and during the eye of the storm i remember my daddy walking out of the house and assessing damage, looking at what is there, what is happening, but

then you know the tail is coming and the tail is as fierce as the front. we're in the eye of the storm. the tail is coming. the tail is coming. >> patricia, buffalo, please go ahead. >> thank you. it's an honor to speak with you, professor flawed. do you have a position on reparations and does james baldwin have position? i think we are owed reparations 'that's my question. >> guest: thank you for the question, yes, i believe in reparations but all depends on what form. itself can take a number of different forms. we need to understand racial inequality or racial injustice as a result of policy decisions. and that the remedy will have to be driven by policy. of course there's a moral and

ethical set only commitmented that come with it but in order to general winly remedy racial it justice we have to have toll by digitses that speak directly to that it equality. there's nothing that black people can do individually to close the achievement gap or close the wealth gap. has to be a much more concerted collective effort to do that and that can fall under the rubric of a discourt of reparations but like bistevenson said, identity all sequential. first you have to tell the truth, then reconcile and then you can repair. i with don't tell the truth, then the reconciliation will be on shaking grounds, and repair will never evidence itself in the substantive and long standing or long-term sense in some ways. so, that's how i respond to that question. >> host: the next call for professor eddie glaude from karen and karen is in detroit.

hi, karen. >> caller: good afternoon. thank you for taking my call, i've enjoyed hearing you speak on various news shows. i'm a big news person and my question is this. what were the factors that led to the formation of the african-american studies program at princeton university? i know that during the 1970s, a lot of african-american studies programs were formed. i was present at the formation of the one at indiana university and curious what do you think were the factors that led to the formation and how well have those programmed been sustained over the years. thank you. >> guest: african-american studies at princeton came some existence like men programs across the country, having everything to do if student protests in the 1960s, and has everything to do with

institutions feeling the pressure of a mass movement making their way to campuses. so you might talk pout this having everything to do with free speech out of berkeley but you think what happened at san francisco state, what happened at yale, what happened at cornell. a universities and colleges are beginning to open doors to black and brown folk and women, they're againing to experience pressure and these new 'constituents begin to demand of university spaces and curricula that reflect the complex experiences of human life. it's not just simply about old white men or particular western cannons and he like. we see different kind of institutional configurations of glad study across the country. some become programmed, some become centers, some become departments. princeton is late in the game0. -under department of african-american studies is very

young. we just practiced waited our first cohort of bas in african-american studies just a few years ago. and it had everything to do with the "black lives matter" movement and how it evidenced itself on our campus with black and brown and tie verse student bodies -- diverse student bodies and allies holding the university account able and demanding that the university in some ways catch up and it's in that context that african-american studies came into existence. >> host: to follow up on that, here's a text from. anita mitchell, member of the princeton theological seminary alum. dr. flawed, why didn't they name the woodrow wilson school at princeton after michelle obama instead of melody. >> guest: well, they depend name the woodrow wilson school of melanie hobson. one of the residential hauls has been named after melanie hobbs.

so, i don't -- i'm not invested in who they name it of. i just want the -- it to reflect the diversity of the world we live in and that's what is important to me. we'll see what happens, how the school eventually celebrates itself alumna, michelle obama. >> host: we have get an couple along this line, this is tina in bethesda, maryland. which one work by james appalled win would you most recommend people read? >> guest: my lord. that's so hard. i could cheat here and say this is the he library of america edition of his collected nonfiction and just read it from the beginning to the end. although that collection i think needs to be redone such that it includes the evidence of things

not said which is bald litsch's last book in 1987 about the atlanta child murders. the spine, the spine of begin again, is no name in the street, and i often teach no maim in the street-published in 1972 alongside of bald win's -- you notice i'm focusing on his nonfiction. no name in the street is so important to me beautiful it's the first book jimmy publishes after the assassination of king, and is it's very vulnerable place and he is trying to grapple with the country's betrayal. if the -- no name in the street is the reckoning and i think if you delve into that book at the level of form and at the level

of substance it will open up bald win's later work in ways that are just facinating. so it's an important look at the level of content and an important book at the level of formal innovation that will happen you under what he is dying in his -- doing in his fiction and isn't nonfiction work ihave that library series of bald win's work and i have been -- just finished the early book. those aren't edited are the? when they're in that library they're the full text. >> guest: full text. that edition was edited -- thed for is tone y morrison. isn't that wonderful? who said she found hawk in balled win's prose. this is beautiful. >> host: well, we always ask our guests on "in depth" what their favorite books and what they're reading and here were prove flawed's answers, james bald win the fire next time. and no name in the street are

the two. fab prell los angeles 100 years of solitude, tone morrison, beloved, legalow tolstoy think death of ilitch and other stories and sarah broom the yellow house, current live reading, desmond ward, sing unburied sing. and natasha, memorial drive. dedead are ariding the live of mall cop x. susan sontag. and joseph conrad, the heart of darkness. >> guest: i lore the yellow house. -- i love the yellow house just to connect to it the gulf coast. she's from new orleans. new orleans is always the big city. always over there. with us country folk from moss

point. at the level of structure it is absolutely gorgeous book and it's beautifully written, and so it's a memoir put it's so much more than that and how this house is the anchoring metaphor, just a beautiful book. and i think it's important for me to kind of reach for contemporary writers pause often times we find ourselves looking back to the giants and thinking we're just empty facts, put i've read my emerson too much to know we cant stand in a kind of deferential relationship to the writers of the past. like i didn't write a book about jimmy baldwin. i wrote with him and i want to lift up sarah broom and immap any perry and other -- imani perry who are doing extraordinary work and i'm reading heart of darkness with a

reading group i've been reading with them for the lasting since-seven monthed and we just finned kafka and now we're reading conrad. >> host: half' half fiction and nonfiction. have you thought but writing fiction? >> guest: absolutely. i have to get better before i let anyone read it because it's so bad. >> host: you have written but it's hidden in the office. >> guest: buried in the midst of this mess that only i know where it is. eventually one of these days i have a story about my grandmother that's in my head. someone who lost her children to south suicide and then lost her memories to alzheimer's and it's the kernel of an amazing story. have to public a better writer in order to manage it. >> host: begin again reads a little bit like a sermon.

is that a fair analysis? >> guest: well, you know, it is -- has elements of the black tradition, yes. and i think it is this eloquent form that i am comfortable in, even though i come out thereof josephite tradition i've heard the pest black preaching in the -- best black preaching in the world in morehouse and when you read jimmy, you hear the language of henry james and marcel priest and others, you hard the language of -- hear the language of the king james bible and the language of the black church and you can't help but have those moments evidenced in your own prose. >> host: i want to acknowledge thaddeus in newport news, his

text, his favorite writing about james baldwin is no name in the street. richards in little rock, arkansas, go ahead. >> yes, professor, i would just like to hear you talk briefly how students value education, in particular given some historical context, how they -- value inside in the past compared too today, whatever. just talk about that. thank you. >> guest: it's hard to say. i don't want to be too pollian eu. some students come to education instrumentally. i need to get this because i want to do this and get that. so education is a means to an end. and we see across higher yesterday an assault on the humanity, an assault on those

disciplines that are not kind of vehicles to making money, vehicles to a kind of profession as it were. so you have some student mod approach education transactionally. i want to say that up front. then you have folks who are just genuinely ininquisitive. their curiosity drives them and they're reaching for new wide seeing and knowing that makes them more expansive. they're actually trying to get the keys to universe's progress and their curiosity is infectious as we make our way -- i had a student this semester -- the first paper was full of all of this unnecessary jar gone and i was like do you talk like this? and she was no and then we work our way through it and then the revised version of the paper was

just beautiful and brilliant, and so many ways and that is-openness to growth, so i think there's transaction and then there's curiosity and then to the folks who are real -- this is only an politically distinguishable -- folks who -- analytically distinguishable, folks who understand their lives as the canvas upon which they can create art. they are engaged in the are duous -- education is a character formation, and so they are invested pause they are gaminged in this extraordinary evident of creating a self. that extended beyond their own provincial playgrounds or parochial beginnings. i find love the hell out of what i do.

>> host: rich inside little rock, arkansas, hi, richard. >> caller: hello. i'm a little confused because i was listening on my phone. what i was talk us about is for today professors have kids that listen to their cellphone during class, ate, -- it's, it seems to be degrading howl they value education, seems to be going down. >> i wouldn't make that generalization. technology is always impacted how folk learn. so technological innovation change the way you learn math, when you get a calculator. i remember we had to move those things across the thing, remember those little -- i don't know what they're called, the little marshalls or -- marbles now. students -- these babies growing up with these things in their hands and brains are required in different sorts of ways. it makes it more challenging as a professor to keep their attention. because they're behind a

computer screen and could be changing e-mails or looking attic talk or -- tiktok or instagram or whatever. that's appearing. but i don't want to draw a conclusion from the technological advances that somehow hey value education less if don't want to true that conclusion just yet. >> host: well in a larger sense, is higher education particularly going to be changing even more radically in the next five years because of technology, because of the information that is available? >> guest: that's always been -- has been a part of the transformation as we see digital humanities and a range of other shifts and changes in the landscape. i think more than anything, covid covid-19. there was precovid and then post

covid. and i think the landscape of higher education will be fundamentally different post covid, having everything to do with the resource disparity, everything to do with how these particular platforms change the way in which we interact with our students and the way in which -- to use crude market language in a way which universities deliver product to students and the like. so i think technology will have an impact as universities and colleges try to figure out how to fulfill their myself in a post covid world ghislaine in atlanta. hi, karen. >> caller: hi. doctor glaude, i was first i want to say thank you because you were with us at the people of color conference this week, and you were amazing. i led the book discussion on

friday, which had 500 people packed in there and there's one lingering question that those of us people -- especially people of color, working in independents who are really grappling, we want to know where you -- what is your stance in regard to our -- this aftertime we found ourselves in, particularly as it relates to our white colleagues who are many of them for the first time excited and ready to, quote, do the work, but are really still looking to us to sort of, i guess, carry them through that. if that makes any sense. >> host: karen, we'll get an answer in a much. tell us very quickly about yourself. >> caller: oh, yeah. i am the chief diversetive and inclusion off at the dalloway school in atlanta and i work for

nais in the summer with caroline blackwell the vice president of national association of independent schools and so we had dr. glaude who delivered the most amazing keynote opening address to us this week, and then also followed up with a very brief discussion on his book and have already started making plans to hope my do an eight or nine-part series powers there's so much interest and it is so relevant to what we do. but we are struggling because we know how bald win ended up. we all were kind of -- pocc is our elsewhere, and -- >> host: karen, what this gallaway school very quickly. >> gallaway is the only school in atlanta that acceptedded king

king king's -- martin luther king's children and founded on then principle of social justice and i have just been fired for the first time the school -- was found in the 1969 but i've been hired to be the school's first chief diversity equity and inclusion officer. >> host: thank you very much. we have to leave it there. professor glaude,after time is something a plays you use in begin again. >> guest: yeah. i get the phraseom walt whitman's democratic thesis, the moment as one world comes crashing down, new world is trying to be born and we fine ourselves in the between space. whitman was worrying but the guildded age meant for american democracy and he we are are in 0 second guildded em. but what do we too? i'm asked from white american citizens what can die to help and sometimes it's frustrating

becauseow think i have to bear the burden of doing da-da-da. so the third thing i say is that we have to shift our frame from viewing racial justice as a charitable or philanthropic speaker vice. racial equality is not yours to give anybody. you don't possess. it it's what you -- we have to build a different, a different way of approaching how we build a more just world. and that last formulation opens um i think an answer to question. whenever -- what can i do next, that question, i think we need to respond it to, what is your conception of or the most just world and bald win would ask what does the negro want. you know they're not thinking of us as human beings because we want the simple thing you want. what do you mean, your

conception of a just world. if you work 40 hours a weak you should foot food on then table if you do, fight for a living wage. you've believe everybody should be treated equally under the law, you've so fight for criminal justice reform and if you believe nobody should go broke because they're sake then join in the fight for health-care for all. what its your conception of a just world? and with you -- if you answer that question honestly, you're going to find yourself right dad square in the middle of racial injustice, so part of the task for us is to ask our fellowed, make a choice. choose whether or not you've going to be a person who happens to be white or just going to be a white person. and baldwin makes that distinction, and the evidence of things not seen. he says i happen to love 0 lat of poem who happen to be white.

and what does he anyplace those folk who are engaging in the ongoing interrogation of how race distributes advantage or disadvantage wrongly and understand that racism comes to them as naturally as hawk, going fall short but working hard to create a more just world and then folks who are committed to the idea that advantage and disadvantage should be vested on the line of who is valued and who is less valued. where are you going to stand? choose. and then act on it. and let action together to build a more just world. >> host: have you considered running for office? >> guest: oh, no. no, no. no. >> host: why? >> guest: i'm free. i love what i do. i'm in the classroom. i revel in the love of the mind. i get to interact with these amazing students every year. i get paid to read -- i tell

myself i get paid to read, write and run my mouth. my the favorite things. >> host: text message to you as time passes, we understand historical figured better and differently. is there any one you have changed your mind about? >> guest: say that again. ask that again. >> host: a text message, as time passes we understand historical figures better and differently. is there anyone you permanently have changed your -- personally have changed your mind about in history? >> host: you think but that for a minute. that's an on the spot question. and let go back to phones and -- >> guest: whitman. >> host: what walt whitman. >> yes. >> host: why. >> guest: bun moment of reading his editorials, i saw him

blatant racist, hip carrot and i had to -- him credit and i had to figure -- hypocrite and i had to figure out how to come back to him it and i did. >> host: yolanda in denver. >> caller: dr. applaud, this about obama's latest book and i was disappointed that in the light of the destruction of the -- of our 10 to 20% of black america's ancestors that this chaos and terrorism and this happened after the disruption of the libyan government by obama and he seemed to express pride in what he did to destroy the libyan government -- >> host: we're out of time. what specifically is your

question? >> caller: ... the snake oil of hope and change. we joined bill clinton and billy carter. see mac i know we are running short on time. i will fall back on my southern roots. when i think about it now. we had been there and done that.t eddie is the author of six books. his most recent just published this year is beginning again. and the urgent lessons for our

own. we ask appreciate appreciate you spending two hours with us. and tonight on book tv in prime time the american enterprise institute. weighs in on china's ambition to replace the united states as the world's leading power. historian catherine grace looks at the relationship between sarah churchill. who attended the 1945 delta conference. they report on the politics in everyday life. of the white american working class. and eddie