for years, about spilling the secrets that they kept. documents, notebooks and medals. >> to watch the rest of this, search for adam higginbotham and search for chernobyl at the bottom of the pain. >> professor eddie glaude from princeton, james baldwin's america and urgent lessons of our own. you compare contemporary times to the civil rights era, what is that comparison. >> well, 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.

and each of those moments, the country doubled down on its ugliness and we saw what some scholars liked to call a backlash, i think that's to e deodorize. i think what we was was ongoing portrayal and when we think about the reconstruction period and sedimenttation of anglo saxonism and the united states and the world, that's the trail. the mid 20th century, the black freedom movement and you think about calls for law and order, the tax revolt in california, the hard hat rebellion and the like, we doubled down on the ugliness and here we are in this moment again, facing a chance to reimagine ourselves and if our history is any indication, we have a steep hill to climb. >> has there been an arc of

progress? >> of course. look, my life isn't what my father's life was. and his life wasn't what his father's life was. so, what does it mean to suggest that we live in the after life of slavery or the afterlife of jim crow is to suggest there has been some indication of change and progress, but you know as bald baldwin says, ameribout america changing. and the belief why people matter more than others and it's still organizes, and distributes the advantaged and disadvantaged in this society. >> what should we know about james baldwin? or you call him jimmy. >> let me just say it's a little bit of hubris for me to

call him jimmy, he walks in my head for almost 30 years now. what should we know? there are a couple of things. if he's an extraordinary example of self-creation. you think about being born in harlem, not in sugar hill, but the ghetto of harlem. coming to age in the aftermath 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, you know, when we step outside the orbit of america's expectations of ourselves we're talking revolution and that's as he embodied that insight. that's the first thing. the second thing i think is his courage. his willingness to not only speak truth to power, to wear witness in such a way to make suffering real, which is an example for me. but he think his 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 by himself. you know, you can imagine a second novel with giovanni writing about things, same-sex love in the 1960's. after go tell it on the mountain and embracing, even though he was critical of black power, tennicontinuing to bring critique to bear, and entering the cosby show. his krft took place. and all of those things come to mind. >> what's the important such of his self-exile from the u.s.? >> i wouldn't call it self-exile, i with a call him a transatlantic commuter, back

and forth. and on one level it's hard and imagine it was hard for him. there are the daily cuts and daily experiences of disregard and the need to acquire a distance from it all so that you can say something substantive about it. and i render it not so much as exile, but seeking it out elsewhere, the kind of space to gives him the requisite distance to understand the complexities of the american ideology, you know? when we're caught up in it, it's very difficult to say and act in such a way that allows you the elbow room to bring serious criticism. so, i think baldwin needed that distance and although some of us can't afford to leave the country, we still need to acquire a relative distance from the operations of power,

that we can say something significant in theories about its devastating consequences when it's an operation. >> from begin again, here is a quote. as i look out to the ruins and thought about the election of donald trump and 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 the right way to put it, i never really had faith in the united states in the strongest sense of the word. what do you mean by that? >> you know, i'm not a patriot. i've never been a patriot in any strong sense of what that word means. you know? i've always had this uneasy relationship to this place and it has something to do with the tradition out of which i come, that understanding the sojourn of black people in america, with an angle and america's

self-understanding. and so, but at the same time there is that kind of aspiration that anaimates this. what happens when that's shaken and it's not only one's space, but the possibility that this country would ever change, you see and that deep-seated-- when you begin this feel that kind of rage and that kind of pessimism, you know, joining with a deep-seated doubt, right, it becomes-- it becomes very difficult to hold onto any kind of faith and struggle for democratic possibilities. so i was trying to give voice in that moment that i've never felt at home in this place outside of being at home in

mississippi with my family, but to be-- to feel up housed in one's house. that's like sam said. the metamorphosis, the realization that one is being perceived as ghastly, and it's hard to find hope in those moments. >> when you think about web deboyd, martin luther king, malcolm x, where do you place yourself in that spectrum? >> wow, i've never been asked that question. thanks. well, you know, somewhere-- look, i'm always on -- i'm always dealing with my rage, it's always on the verge of, you know, spilling over in some ways. and then there's this love, right? i guess this is why i'm so attracted to baldwin as a figure because he seems to

stand, right, in that space where rage and love exists simultaneously. so i think there is this up-- so where i stand is not so much between, you know, a kind of black nationalism and a black integrationism, a black rationalism, and the way that we render american black politics, in some ways i standard betwixt and between. i'm not a liberal, but there's a sense where malcolm gives voice to my rage and my desire to be courageous and dr. king gives voice to my hope that i have a level heart. so, somewhere in between all of those things. >> in your 2016 book democracy in black. you write, quote, 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. >> yeah, i got into a lot of trouble for that one, right? no, what i was trying to say is that we green screened it in the 2007-2008 election cycle p. we made him what we desired. we made him the anti-war candidate. we made him in some way this avatar of progressive politics. in some ways he jumped in front of, right, a range of grass roots movements, whether it was black lives matter in early stages or occupy wall street. there was a sense with the anti-war movement. there was this sense that barack obama became in some ways object of that organizing. and so, 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 ilk of the clintons in some ways. we wanted him to be more than just a symbol. i know i did. i still remember my reaction to listening to the speech in iowa and thinking, oh, my god, in could happen and what that might mean. and then, you know, we were confronted with how he governed. >> eddie glaude. what was the important of moss point, mississippi to your philosophy, to your being? >> oh, my goodness, it's everything. you know? i found myself, 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 than my little hometown. but moss point is everything, man. the smell from the plant and the paper mill that would join with a fall that would announce school. and every friday, i grew up catholic and we would eat seafood on friday, and listening to the blues every weekend as you know, we cleaned house, because my mother and father kept the blues on the radio on the weekends. being able to ride my bike and play baseball and you know, i think in some ways the gulf coast, you know, the saltiness of the air, you know, the seafood, the rhythm, right, i think it finds its way on the

inge pa-- page, right, in the way in which i hear words, the way in which i think. it took me time to come to terms with that, but i'm a moss point baby and it is everywhere in my work. >> in your book, you talk about, quote, unquote, running away at 16 to go to college. why? >> well, you know, my dad is watching and i love him dearly, but you know, it was hard. he was an exacting presence in some ways. i look just like him. i have his hand, i have his smile, i have his anger and you know, i just felt like i needed to get away in order to survive. i've been-- i think i'm really sensitive and my dad could scare you with

a glare, a stare, he could freeze you. and i think i needed to get away. he understood in his own way. i remember when i asked him, you know, can i go to college? because i had to get his permission and we were sitting at the kitchen table and very clear, i know what you're doing. don't ever think you're not going to need me, quote, unquote. and lo and behold, i lost my scholarship to morehouse in my sophomore year, without question, he took second mortgage out on the house to pay for my college. like jimmy, jimmy is hard on his stepfather in the writing. the later writing, as we get closer to his death, he understands more. he's more generous, and i think you know, our love--

my father and i, our love is deep in so many ways, yeah. >> do you think that your parents share your political and philosophical leanings? >> i think so. you know, they're constantly calling me and telling me what to say on msnbc. that's hilarious. yeah, absolutely, intuitively, i think how i see the world was shaped by that household, this insistence on maintaining ones dignity and standing. and my mom and dad don't suffer white folks easily. they tell the story when we first bought our home in briarwood, in briarwood circle in moss point, and as we were moving in, the police drove by in their cruiser, and my dad just, you know, jingled the keys and said, yes, i own it,

it's mine. or when the neighbor decided he was going to dig up the flowers he was given to the previous owner and my father asked him what is he doing? he said these are my flowers and my father said, they're mine. or someone shot out the back of our window and my dad responded in time by blowing a limb off the magnolia tree. there was a sense growing up that i had -- i learned a lesson early that you protect your dignity and your standing at all costs, you know? that you stand up for what is right and no matter what. so, even though i felt scared at times, you know, because of, you know, that glare, that could come at you, my dad also instilled in me a kind of

insistence on being courageous in the face of injustice. i guess that's what i want to tell myself. >> has moss point changed? >> oh, yes, absolutely. at one point we were this, you know, some people would found is funny, but a bustling little town. we produced and we had-- our high school was 5-a. we produced all of these amazing football players and basketball players. i remember as a young high school student bear bryant walking into the cafeteria looking for chris clausedale our player. and we had running backs that made their way to the nfl. now it's a smaller school, town is quieter. a lot of folks grew up and left. there's the moss point diaspora, as it were, but you can still smell the plant and

still has the best seafood on the planet. >> eddie got his masters in african-american studies and a ph.d. from princeton. three of your books are about religion, why? >> well, you know, i did-- when i left temple, i went to princeton to work with cornell west and rabitow and i did my ph.d. in religion. i've always been interested in politics. at princeton we have a subfield, religious ethics and politics. when i was in graduate school, most folks ought of it as princeton second political theory department so i've always thought about religion as the kind of point of entry to the broader question of african-american politics and so, and because i worked with

cornell west and jeffrey stout and ranitow, and cornell and jeffrey are philosophers and al is an american religious historian. i found myself bridging these two areas where i wanted to think about philosophical questions historically, right? i wanted to think about politics with a deep and thick historical contextualation. and when i think about very short intertux, african-american religion, very short introduction, these are short, small books that try to give some indication of my historic sensibility. how i think about

african-american religion from a pragmatic and historical perspective. and so, it has everything to do with my training. it has everything to do with my training and with the tradition out of which i come. where christianity, in particular, african-american protestant. >> is christianity important to history? >> sure i grew up on the coast and went to the archdiocese of biloxi, and the first missions of the josephites. i grew up in the josephite tradition and by leaving this all black church, parish, in

most-- for the most part and then going to morehouse and drenched in baptist water in morehouse college and listening to extraordinary preachers and trying to find my own way in terms of my own religious beliefs. you know, 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. all right. that these stories after a wisdom and an insight to what it means, to a world that seems intent on being loveless. but i would say that it matters, but i'd have it in my own particular way. >> i think it's in your book exodus, you identify yourself as a john dewy pragmatist. who is john dewy and what mean

when you say pragmatist. oh, john dewy is the towering american philosophical voice for me for the 20th century. he's part of this classical group of pragmatists. and john dewy, who 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 beings to transform their circumstances, right? so there's a kind of skepticism or what we might call an anti-foundationalism that's reading the historical sense built that has everything to do with the capacities of eve ordinary everyday people so i became attracted to john dewy

philosophically because in some ways because i was at princeton. you have the legacy of the late richard roarty there anding the way that jeffrey stout reads and cornell west, and i happened to be a student when he was working on that manuscript and john dewy was attracted to me because he was kind of critical of this western philosophical tradition in its own way, but he was also kind of affirming the capacities of every ordinary day people to transform their circumstances and he was setting the stage for this philosophically. what i'd done in some ways to bring american praguetism, john dewy and others across 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. >> and his body of work is what we are discussing with princeton professor eddie glaude this everybody an and we want tocle you -- want to include you in the conversation. here are his books, exodus, race and religion in early 19th century black america came out. "in a shade of blue" 2007. "african-american religion, a short introduction", 2014. "democrat in 2016, and then uncommon faith, pragmatic approach to african-american religion and professor glaude's most recent book, "begin again, james baldwin's america and its urgent lessons for our own" is brand new this year. here is how you can participate in the program this afternoon.

2 if you have a question or a come for eddie glaude and 202-p r 748-8201 in the pacific time zone and also participate in social media. number one, our text line 202-748-8903. send a text, please include your first name your city if you would. all of our social media sites, facebook, twitter, instagram pat book tv is our handle and you can post a comment there and we'll begin taking calls and comments in just a minute. professor glaude is chair of the department of african-american studies at princeton. what's the importance of having a separate african-american studies program? at a university? >> i think it's absolutely

critical because african-american studies is a clearly defined field of incline, it's conversation that had been had over generations where you have biblography that can be transferreded from one cohort to the next. when i think of african-american studies i think of it as a field in some ways engages in descriptive enterprise and an account of a relevant subject matter at hand. in a way from a vantage point for this traditional, shall we say, people of african descent. and there's a critical component, that we offer these descriptions that change our orientation to knowledge production. it's bringing critique or criticism to bear on the ways

in which we think about matters or what we take to be knowledge. and so, i think it's important in a world as diverse as ours. in a country as complicated as ours, with its history as fraught and vexed as my colleague would say, it's imperative that we understand this fragile experiment and democracy from the vantage point of the people who have to bear the brunt of this contradiction. when we think about african-american studies in its expansiveness not only as a critique of white supremacy, but also as a space for extraordinary literature and an extraordinary set of reflections on democracy and the ways we think of the orangeses of power and social groupings. it becomes this amazing space to do all of this work and to broaden our understanding of knowledge production and such. >> princeton has had a few

issues. >> just a few. >> in the last couple of years. where do you come down on those? >> well, princeton is a complex space, you know? this is a place that eugene o'neill couldn't suffer. it's the place that edward felt suffocated in some ways, the place that baldwin right down here on route 1. 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 the southern ivy. it bears woodrow wilson's racism. there's a reason that paul roberson didn't go to princeton, he went to rutger, because 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.

so it has its history and it's often thought of as the southern ivy as i said. and it's always grappling with that, shall we say, undertone and i think the students, you know, the students who protested in terms, i think you know, those students who took over the president's office, trying to in some ways make princeton their own, to insist that princeton stop approaching black students and brown students as if they're doing them a favor, right? to imagine itself as a place that was welcoming for all of americans, and i think that that's-- that aspiration is not only necessary, it's just. so, we're grappling with it, we're struggling with it just like the country and the west college, i believe, has been renamed the tony morrison

building, is that correct? >> yeah, yeah, one of the things about this current moment is that, you know, the built in environment of america reflects its racist commitments, right? it often announces that, you know, those of us who walked these hallowed halls are late comers, or the recipients of charity. you don't see an environment that reflects, right, the diversity of the population. and so, the idea of west college, the place where students and parents come, because that's where the dean of the college is. that's where the admissions office is, is now named after tony morrison is an extraordinary moment because you know, you have to change what you see. you know, can you imagine students, black students and brown students having to, you know, see woodrow wilson's face and quotations every day and

wilson is clear about his view of our capacity? that he didn't think we were capable. and you have to navigate that every single day. so, i think that's the changing of the west college. it's a wonderful step on the part of princeton. >> how is woodrow wilson treated as princeton, the former president of that college, et cetera? >> truthfully, i think that's the biggest shift. you've got to tell the truth. you know, you cannot -- there's no way princeton can tell the story of itself without woodrow wilson. woodrow wilson is central to modern princeton. princeton wouldn't be the university that it is if it wasn't for that man and what he did. but you have to tell the truth about who he is, who he was. and so i remember from my graduate school days, you know, woodrow wilson, that's all you

heard was kind of graphic stories about, you know, folks basically walked on water at princeton. now if you tell the truth and you understand the kind of values that you want to represent, who you aspire to be as a university, then you have to ask yourself the hard question, does woodrow wilson represent who we aspire to be. who we are? he is central to who-- he is central to how we became princeton, but the princeton of woodrow wilson is not the princeton that i work at, i think at the heart of it the school is trying to tell the truth and grapple with the truth about woodrow wilson, which is an important thing. >> eddie glaude, this is totally off the subject. it's in my head. what was eddie f glaude, sr.'s line of work? >> he was a postman, he delivered mail in mississippi

heat. over 30 years of delivering mail, i remember him fixing the same lunch every day on white bread, baloney sandwich with mayo and mustard every day and he didn't take one single vacation. he took his vacation days and he spread them out over the year, so each week, he would have a day off and we used to dread that day that he would have, which would give him a long weekend because that means-- that meant we would have to clean up the house from top to bottom, but he was a postman and you know, during the heat of mississippi on the coast, to different-- you know, it's an extraordinary time to experience a mississippi summer, even with the breeze off the gulf. he would literally sweat out his belts in some ways.

so he was a postman he was the leader at the union. he was the second african-american posal worker at-- >> and tell us about your mother. >> oh, my mom is just amazing, my goodness. she worked from my early days, she used to work at burger king. and then she got a job at the ship yard. she was part of the janitorial crew and became a supervisor at the cleaning crew at ingle. she worked the third shift. so she left home at 4:00 in the afternoon to go work and would not get home until about 2:00, 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning. and i think my parents took that work-- they got those work shifts, those times because my older sister is severely handicapped, ben nita is her name and they said to my mother and father,

they had her when they were teenagers, that she would not live past eight years old and she recently turned 57. so my mother and father have been caring for my older sister for 57 years. it's been amazing. they are heroes in every way. >> are they still in the house that you grew up in? >> yeah, absolutely. you know. i remembers-- my brother remembers the old house on east side in moss point. giving a shout out to those at home. and my grandfather gave him the land to build that home, i'm not sure that's right. but we moved to briarwood when i started second or third grade. yeah, second grade and they're still there. absolutely. picking out carpet and paint for the den right now. >> well, hope mr. and mrs.

glaude are watching. and hearing from our viewers. you're first up with professor eddie glaude, jr. >> professor, i have a question. are there any scenes of any aspects of african-american history which have been ignored or which do not get the attention they deserve from historians? and a final question, when you write african-american history, who do you consider to be your audience? >> thank you so much for those two questions. well, you know, in some ways when we think about african-american history it is in some ways a kind of response to the willfully ignorance of

mainstream american historians. so when i think about what hunter has written about in "bound in wedlock", this extraordinary book, and reaching back to let them know that the books are real. >> you can go ahead and hold it up if you want to show it to viewers. >> sure, 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 happens, which opens up this kind of political discourse about black folks, single parents and the like, right, and it's a very thick story with an expansive archive. and i think only someone like teara hunter, only a person who

is coming out of this, would pay attention to it, or my colleague to wrote an extraordinary book "race for profit" how banks and the real estate industry undermine black home ownership to give us a different story about race and real estate, not just talking about racial exclusion with red lining and the like, but a kind of predatory inclusion, the way in which certain kind of approach to black home ownership allowed for certain kind of racist extraction in some ways. but i think that these are evidences of what this particular approach kind of 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. so 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 and correctly. >> and i apologize, neville, if i'm paraphrasing it among, but i think it was about teaching african-american history. >> yeah. >> and tell you what, let's go ahead and move on and one of us will remember. i apologize that i didn't write it down. >> and i apologize, too. i apologize, too. >> i won't do that again. >> debby in philadelphia, you're on with eddie glaude. >> good afternoon, eddie glaude, eddie glaude, eddie glaude, i think our souls are kin. you're so profound, you're so deliberate. i've been watching you a while. i can't pronounce his name, is it tonhassee coates?

>> you're along the line as well. give me some idea how you feel about the scam going on around the black lives matter vision now and the scam of the defund the police, meaning how they're 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 how-- >> we'll get answers to those, but when you say the scam about defund the police, exactly what do you mean? >> debby? oh, she's gone. sorry about that, professor. >> i think i have an idea what she means. >> okay. >> right, so first of all, let me just thank you for your kind

words and thank you for asking about my son. he's thriving. he's out in california working for the public defender service out in the bay area, on his way to-- he wants to be a public defender, god bless him. so, i'm very proud of him. he's doing well and he's happy, which is most important, i think. about the first question about the scam, i think what she means is the way in which black lives matter is being kind of scapegoated as in some ways, the reason why democrats lost certain seats, you know, the sloganeering, quote, unquote, around the police in the country kind of put conservative centrist democrats in certain districts against the wall and this is the reason why folk lost and we just heard president obama call to it as a snappy slogan that in some ways was antithetical to efforts to

reach across or convince others to join in efforts to defund the police. this is part of an old frame that we need to regetting. it was defund the police as a slogan-- we don't want to think of it as a slogan, but it's a policy initiative everything to do with a certain kind of claim around we budget our values. what does it mean for municipalities to spend 60, 70% on policing and inkacarsincarse state. and we have to look at the judgment around the phrase and what folks are having us do is debate on the old frame law and order so folks with tinker around the edges. if we're talking about a fundamental transformation of

how our communities are policed and change the frame and move to safety and security. every person deserves to be safe, every community deserves to be secure. it has everything to do with education and investing. and walter's mom in philadelphia called 911 because her baby was having a mental episode, a mental crisis. instead of health workers showing up, the police showed up and now she had to bury a baby. and when we think about police, that's the kind of crystallization of the argument right there, but instead what we're hearing are folk trying to pull us back into the old frame, and we have to resist that at all costs it seems. >> debby referred to tonahasee coates. the fact that he has spent time living in paris, should we talk

anything significant from that? >> well, i think that was a wonderful illusion, elution, and he was trying to show the parallel and getting the r requisite distance, we can talk about that some other time than what baldwin was trying to call forward. you know, baldwin was quick to talk about what happened. he didn't trade the trade the american fantasy for the french ones and i love that line and he talked about the algerians and how the french talked about the algerians and the like. we don't want to trade one fantasy for another. and white supremacy not only in this place, but across the globe. we need to be mindful of it and

the way that capital continues to undermine the chances of people across the globe. >> the text message for you, reminder, please include your city when you text in. police explain the relationship between richard wright and james baldwin. >> oh, it's a complicated one. oh, my god, it's complicated. baldwin wouldn't be baldwin if it wasn't for richard wright. wright didn't make it through high school. another mississippi native. i can't imagine the kind of genius that evidenced itself where he willed himself to become a writer. given the context of his formation. and you know, richard wright, when baldwin could barely find resources to put food in his mouth, helped him find fellowship. there's a reason why baldwin will tell the story that he

basically just, you know, turned the globe and randomly chose paris, it's not true. richard write was in paris along with a vibrant ex-pat community and in so many ways, wright served as a kind of father figure and baldwin had to engage, at least that's what he seemed to think, in a kind of patricide when you read notes of the native son or alas poor richard, you can feel this, you know, complicated indebtedness, right. so, there's a space in which he wanted to-- he disagreed with richard wright, but he cannot-- we can never say that baldwin is possible without richard wright. that's how i could describe that relationship. >> here is a text from angela. i reside on the gulf coast,

mobile, alabama. how has the pandemic affected your classroom and can you synopsize the assigned reading for this week, assuming class is in session? >> well, our semester is over, and we taught a course, i taught with perry this year and african-american studies and the philosophy of race. and we finished our semester reading a book by ward, extraordinary novel written by someone from the gulf coast and we're delighted that ward attended our class. we had during covid, zoom classes and 80 at once and you can't see their faces at once

or read the body languages. and it's lost as it's by this medium, as it were. i think it was successful, but you could see the weariness in our student's eyes and you could see that some of them struggling by reading their papers. you can see the conditions under which they're having to write. their families, some of this em-- some of them are struggling with covid. it has been hard, but, the students are making their way through and by the way, i love mobile. it's wonderful. used to fly into mobile in order to get home. >> loretta is in cleveland. go ahead, loretta. >> oh, hi. we have been asked to reimagine america and that's a tall order and i'm wondering how--

how do blacks pursue happiness and liberty without the vote? there's been a lot of voter suppression going on and what would you suggest to rid america of institutional racism and white supremacy? and your response off the air, thank you. >> professor glaude? >> it's a big question. it's a big question. first of all, let me say that our happiness, right, our sense of well-being ought to the to be bound up with political realities, although they're definitely impacted by them. all right. so, 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 our votes? i've said before, black folk are kind of damned if you do, damned if you don't. if we don't vote at high numbers, the nation ends up choosing someone like donald trump. and when we do vote, they want to throw our votes out. the thing that we have to recognize is our power as american citizens, our power to in some ways transform the country by way of our political engagement, not by just simply being herded to the polls every two and four 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? well, first of all, we've got to tell the truth about the

country. america is so willfully ignorant, and it's willfully ignorant because it wants to protect its innocence, as baldwin said. it doesn't want to admit that it is not the signing city on the hill. ... 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 kind of emerged in this going back to my colleagues wonderful book. housing was made available, how black people cut out of that. we begin to think about this a

dual labor market, how we were tracked to particularrt segmentf the economy. in other words, the reality of racial inequality in this country is not the result of happenstance for some character flaw on the part of black folks. it's the result of policy swear to tell the truth. >> host: . truth and reconciliation is essential.tr if were going to win ourselves of white supremacy in this country we will have to confront our ghastly failure. in 1960 people to even more exponentially and says we have to understand the trouble is deep and a wish to think because the trouble is in us. in order to get tell the truth we have to confront the ugliness of who we are, if that makes sense. >> host: here's a quotero from "begin again." black people end up having to bear the burden of compromise while white people go on with their lives.

>> guest: i remember when about that sentence, it was -- i was really angry when i wrote that sentence. 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 complex creatures and we need to understand the message. but there's nothing good that's come out of the last four years in my view. even the acknowledgment thated e country is broke and i still do want to see that as a good that comes out of the last four years, if that makes sense. 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 >> i actually read the book discussion on friday which had 500 people packed in there. people of color working in independence were grappling with. we wanted to know what is your stance regarding the time we find ourselves in 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 looking to us to sort of i guess carry them through that. >> host: we will get an answer in just a minute but tell us about yourself. >> reporter: i'm the chief diversity equity and inclusion officer at the galloway school in atlanta and i work for an ias with caroline blackwell who is our vice president of our national association of independent schools. she delivered the most amazing keynote opening address to us this week and followed up with a brief discussion of his book

and started making plans to do an 8 or 9 part series because there is so much interest in it and it is so relevant to what we do but we are struggling. we know how baldwin felt that the end. >> host: what is the galloway school very quickly? >> caller: galloway is the only school in atlanta that actually accepted doctor martin luther king's children and was founded on the principles of social justice. i have just been hired for the first time, the school was founded in 1969 but i have been hired to do the school's first chief diversity and inclusion officer. >> host: after time is a phrase you use. >> i get the phrase from walt

whitman's democratic -- as one world comes crashing down a new world is trying to reborn and we find ourselves between states. whitman was worried what the gilded age meant for american democracy. here we are in our second gilded age but what do we do? i am always asked by fellow white american citizens what can i do to help? sometimes it gets frustrating because you think i have to bear the burden, the first thing i typically say is we have to shift frame from 0 racial justice as a charitable philanthropic enterprise, racial justice, you don't possess it. racial equality is not yours to give anybody, we have to build a different way of approaching how we build a more just world

and the last formulation opens to an answer to the question. what, when what can i do next that question we need to respond to it is what is your conception of a more just world? baldwin needs to say this, west coast is a negro want and would raise the hackles on his neck. when you hear that question you know they are not thinking about us as human beings. we want the same thing you want. the question is what is your conception of a just world, do you believe you should be able to put food on the table and keep a roof over your head, or everyone should be treated equally under the law you should fight for criminal justice reform. if you believe nobody should go broke because they are sick, join the fight for health care for all, what is your conception of a just cause?

if you answer that question honestly you will find yourself square in the middle of racial injustice in this country so part of the task for us is to ask our fellows make a choice, choose whether or not you happen to be white or an iceberg. baldwin makes that decision and the evidence of things i have seen. i love a lot of people who happen to be white and there is white people is what does he mean? folks who are engaged in the on coping - how there is an advantage in this advantage and racism comes as naturally as language, they are going to fall short that are creating to make a more just world and folks who are committed to the idea advantage and disadvantage should be distributed on the lines of who is valued at who lets out.

and 2. to build a more just world. >> host: have you considered running for office? >> guest: no! no! no! >> host: why? >> guest: i am free. i love what i do. i am in a classroom. i reveled in the life of the mind. i interact with amazing students every year. i get paid to read, write and run my mind. >> host: text message to you. as time passes we understand historical figures better and differently. is there anyone you have changed your mind about? >> guest: say that again?

>> host: time passes. we understand historical figures better and differently. is there anyone you personally have changed your mind about? while you think about that, that is an on the spot question and let's go back to phones. >> guest: whitman. >> host: walt whitman? >> guest: there's one moment after reading his editorial as blatantly racist. i had to figure out how to come back to it and that is one of my favorite books. >> host: yolanda in denver. >> caller: this is about obama's latest book. i was disappointed in the light

of the destruction of our 10% to 20% of black americans and sisters, this chaos and terrorism, this happened after the destruction of the libyan government by obama and he seemed to express pride in what he did to destroy the libyan government. >> host: we are out of time. what specifically is your question? >> caller: i was just wondering if you had any opinion about obama continuing to be proud. >> host: i will finish with a quote from democracy in black. in 2008 and again in 2012 obama sold black america the snake oil of hope and change, joined

bill clinton, jimmy carter and overconfidence men who presented themselves as people who would challenge the racial order of things. >> guest: we are running short on time so i will fall back on my southern roots. when i think about president obama the only thing that comes to mind is been there, done that. been there and done that. >> host: eddie glaude is the author of 6 books was his most recent just published this year is begin again, james baldwin's america and its urgent lessons for our own. appreciate you spending two hours with us. >> 5 pandemic response briefings first. first colorado governor jared polis will update the situation including the discovery of a new variant of the disease that has been found in colorado. that is live at noon eastern on c-span2.

later, governor roy cooper briefs reporters, discuss the effect of viruses on the tar heel state. watch that live starting at 2:00 pm eastern. you can watch both online on c-span.org or listen live with our free c-span radio apps. a look at the us capitol where the senate will gavilan at 3:00 pm eastern for speeches. at 5 there will be a live quorum call to bring senators to the chamber so they can begin work on the override of donald trump's veto of the 2021 defense programs and policy bill. watch that live on your home for the u.s. senate c-span2. >> the people and events patel the aman