opening prayers two sessions of congress. and also tonight frank chose discussing the career former democratic senators sam of georgia. he discusses the loss of his two brothers during the war in afghanistan. in history professor kevin books at the reagan administration through the critical lens on the punk rock movement of the 80s. complete television schedule on your program guide. >> welcome and jennifer and the faculty director for comparative and race and ethnicity at stanford university. in each year the center selects three faculty fellows to do the research to honor . today's top modern a new book by matt claire, an assistant professor. natural and was trained at harvard university. in addition to being an

affiliate of the comparative studies and race and ethnicity is also courtesy appointments and any stanford units including the law school, lab, urban studies program in african american studies. this list gives the sense of the reach of his interdisciplinary research. and his book privilege and punishment how race and manners. he came off a daisy go from princeton in our suppression. while likened the tap for this. the study follows descendents of that navigate the criminal court process showing how course have race and class and justices . while analyzing the inequities invented an attorney-client relationship, claire also provides humanized ideas often from the participants themselves. for transformation offering hope for change. we will begin today's event with a short interview and overview

from professor clara who will then engage with two. the first professor from the school of education whose own work on the pentagon see, and literature title in her recent book. intersects with claire's focus on incarceration and justice. second we will speak with professor rick. a professor of law who also has stanford racial justice center. please write your questions in the intended any time i will also see postings of full biographies of our participants today. and also survey to complete . we will have transcriptions of the event in the final recording i apologize we don't have them live today. in closing i want to thank our wonderful staff, doctor daniel and another.

this final event for the year and we could not be happier to be pondering professor claire's work. so finally want to note that this is the day of trance remembrance that i'm to you from northern california. we have a short break video. so thank you so much and i'll see you at the end of the interview for questions. >> the unseeded land of the tribe. >> for the successors of the solomont of alameda county. this land was and continues to be of great importance to native people did. >> we recognize every member of

the community has benefited and continues to benefit from the use and occupation of this land. consistent with our values of community and diversity, we have a responsibility to acknowledge and make visible the university's relationships and 80 people. [background noise]. >> thank you so much. for organizing this event. and for that land acknowledgment. and of course to the professors for being in conversation with me today and i'm really excited to share a book with everyone was here. so i wrote this book to understand and give voice and hopefully help to include the lives of people experience being processed as independent internationals into nations come apart.

so over the last 40 years of there's of legal techniques and punishment about 1 million people are arrested each other and with 2 million people are incarcerated more than 4 million are on probation or parole and in addition the courts process more than 17 million pieces a year. ♪ techniques are targeted at the core, people of color. in the specially black and latino men with low levels of education. their privileged groups have also been pulled into court freighted in the book ask him what is it like to be processed in criminal court today and how does it vary by race and class. so for over four years i conducted in boston where potentially thought to follow a diverse group of defendants from an investment consultant and nurses to construction workers and people during house and an employee to bring in the interviewed prosecutors and

public defenders and judges and i followed defendants to court and by the conversations with their lawyers. and the approach and focus on analyzing the attorney client relationship is a central feature of the experience of the court. in the primary interactions of the corner often mediated directly to their employer. i began by describing everybody's lives and i explained how people from vastly different social positions in my study nevertheless i'll end up being arrested and reviewed courts. so nearly everyone in the study rich and poor alike experience profound alienation and hardship to their adolescents. among the privileged, there alienation and the results in the criminalized behaviors were often overlooked by parents and framed as pleasurable diversion. often surveilled by police and

wasn't necessary way of coping with in dealing with disadvantages in the context of racism in the boston area. a bit at some point, everyone i was studied by design when up in court. which is the reason i selected them because they had this experiment the arresting court processing. what i found is that their experiences of alienation and continued experience of policing had profound perspective on the law and legal authority and that they often carried with them into the courtroom. and in different ways. so chapters to just for examines how these processes unfold. so what i found that was for poor black and brown descendents, the process is when we feel unheard. highlands, congress rarely afforded a chance to share your version of events or contest the police in their community.

meanwhile for middle-class and lights, they often experience stigma and are shocked by the court process. they don't usually share it. is also unfamiliar to them. the days. privileges. they also plan can often heard by their attorneys. either they fired them or have social ties in connection to. and respected by the judges and oscars to afford them the opportunities for rehabilitation in second chances because of perceived to be more compliant. so by comparing these two groups, reveal how they often have greater knowledge of their legal rights from prior experiences with law or shared in their communities . more actively engaged. yet their lawyers often feel caught between the power and expectations of the prosecutors and judges, cars them into an

silence him in front of judges and grow tired and they feel that they personally believe had imprecise mark knowledge of the court lofgren these dynamics are important applications for scholars to understand the basic belief blocks of inequality and interactions in american society. so much of what we know about the interaction dynamics of privilege in the united states comes from research on mainstream institutions . such as elite schools for real resource schools, doctors offices and scholars are showing middle-class people tend to be assertive, demanding and knowledgeable in these spaces. perez disadvantage people are often portrayed rarely making demands for accommodations. and the courts, it's the advantage you have greater knowledge and who seek to make demands by exercising their legal rights. the relatively first treatment

arises from the different unwritten rules and expectations and structural constraints that are unique to women just in the court system. much of this book was inspired by and alongside the black lives movement. as the graduate school i was motivated to study according after marching in schools following georgia senate zimmerman's acquittal. and i wondered what kind of legal system can allow a man to kill a boy out of nothing more than a tight black fear. let the same time continually sending young black men to prison every day for far less. and today, and after i finished writing the book, the killings of breonna taylor, george floyd and so any others. i think this book is contributing to work around transformation evolution is been going on for a very fun time. as he and adding to the

abolition movement and present. in the understanding and thinking and terrorizing through the court. so in the book, reflect on three levels of transformation required to bring about justice in the courts. from the level of the attorney client reactions. we must rethink the way that we deal with and prevent criminalized social harms. so with that little overview of the book, i'm really excited to be in conversation with you. >> thank you so much for that overview. that was really really good. it's good to hear about your mom and the others who had and typed

black fears and this is been happening for a while. in completely different contexts, schools and students, the book was so powerful. it has a unique focus of the process in court. in the analysis the relationships between attorney and client shaped and reproduced of injustice. in the social logical literature on punishment. and and two contributions in this book are essential for those who hope to understand how crime and social construct becomes legal. in the first, instead of focusing on an individual recognizing how the power of relationships between the individuals move this closer to understanding this process. in the second is how

interactions. she knew the research from the middle class people tend to interact with people in the class. in the book shows that this interactional styles typically associated with working class and poor are not perfectly transfer vulnerable across institutions . you claim this is about institutions. work in genuity is valued. i encourage the education and give the essential to understand to know less about the style and more about in other words thought about rich people, it is about who we enable as a society as we see the inequities and injustice. in an important point in your

book, was ablaze of the knowledge of the legal system anticipated was ignored up by lawyers who had formal knowledge. it was a silencing. and eventually the defendants withdrawal. the privilege differed to their lawyers and was awarded for that. in your conclusion, you note access to a lawyer is not in itself a form of justice which is a really radical thought. in the more joyous people and setting the record straight and sharing the experiences without injustices could be a form of justice. in a similar who work for the use of color that this is regarding their experiences of a constant through the legal process engine process.

and we see disadvantage people and of color with a huge uplift. with reproducing and that efforts to adjust to the way it should be. so thank you for all of that that i learned in your book. so want to jump into the questions. i've been wanting to talk about this forever. you do have it clear distinguished feature between poverty and injustice . can you tell us what that is why it was important to make it your work. matthew: i guess being a social allergist and being trained as a positive social scientist if you will . think often social scientists talk about inequality and differences between groups. but rarely often sort of the next step which is i think the moral critique of the difference between groups and with this means that whether it is unfair or not.

and so as i was writing the conclusion, the first time, i went through this book probably three or four times but as i was rewriting the conclusion, the second or third time, i really came to the conclusion that this was about injustice. speaking a critique about the differences between the groups is unfair. in this potentially remedy to side with the different social changes. i think that's my distinction here. and with philosophers, with others works . some sociologists. they have written about the distinction between the inequality and injustice. and that is really what it wanted to carry through is a rerun of of the book after writing that in the conclusion. with that i was making a critique about the equality i was suggesting that it could be

changed. >> think what you are saying is in some work they were saying the injustice and inequality have collapsed on top of each other. in fact the injustice and inequality informs the justice. so the mark. poverty the more you have injustice. sue and sometimes you can think about" inequality is something less than inherent like live. the were really shining light in focusing on what is it about the social dynamics that produce those differences rather than suggesting there might be something inherently wrong about the people. who had less access to symbolic resources her material. >> that's amazing. so the mentioned, one of the things that i think we both write about quite a bit is resistance. really shared that the cost of our work. in recognizing how sometimes it

is effective but how often is not. so so important to write about. so tell us a little bit about why you highlighted this through withdrawal. matthew: 's list of great question. so one thing i was dominant in the literature that i was reading with this assumption. said that they don't have much impact on the experience of the impact but it's very true that the being processed in court is a very concerning experience, social control and much of it is outside of your control even of a defense attorney. i write a lot about sort of the feeling that they have their being caught between the power of the judges and prosecutors and unable to fulfill the expectations and hopes of their

clients. so when i was thinking about and talking to people. i noticed a lot of resistance happening backstage and also in open court. and that resistance was more than just trying to alter a legal upcoming get a better result. it was often more symbolic and symbolically very important and powerful. so especially for the disadvantage defendants. sewage of the court process was an opportunity to set the record straight. so these are people as we know are living in communities that are filled with the police. there honestly facing injustices in their interactions. and the court and the idea of court system is that it really brings forth justice. i show that it doesn't. this hopes any people have because it's really no other institution is ideally set up today that. the resistance of these defendants who are disadvantage, sometimes it's about hope that

they get a better legal outcome. but often resistance would operate in the face of not caring at all with the legal outcome plans as long as they are able to share that abusive was happening. and articulate the differences in how they view the alleged criminal's behavior that they were engaged in. >> and back to that idea of silencing. if and when they're trying to tell what their experiences hard. and how they connect. if there being silenced through it. i see why this is so important to write about some thank you. what more questions you have. we can be doing this for a while yet. so my question is mainly, when

this particular movement in some ways the movement is getting through the public impression of the things that's really important moment. about defining and abolishing police. we've got the movement on into now for backtracking on it partied some wondering in his narrative prayed lola to say, as abolitionist. but a much more interested in how they work to inform your understanding in the legal system. how that relates to the abolitionist freighted to month so i really think, just so inspired by the black lives movement. and the 60s and the black panther party. with people starting in nordic

countries and talking about an abolition. angela davis work. dorothy robertson i am so inspired by the fact that it's reaching the center of conversations right now . and just five years or so ago, under the obama administration, very much about reform read the proposals, practices and investigations and things like that. and potentially with bias training. and were finding that those things aren't going to solve any of the problems of not just the people but rampant abuse does not get recorded. he gets recorded in the work they were doing but not necessarily the administrative data partied and so one i'm inspired think it a book with a really wanted to do with insert

the place of the criminal court throughout the conversation in prison abolition. it's a really trying to encourage and draw in an effort that are already operating around pre- childhood attention freda bell issues, and really expanding the conversation and then also expanding us that we have more of a conversation up as we reduce and engage been abolitionist. if what we going to do with the court and how are we going to deal with the fact that the courts are unjust and popping up with police and violence. so we really need to think about alternative way and not just as we reach for trance formation. for prevention and social harms and behaviors. housing and education and employment but also thinking about what do we do when people

harm others. which is a fundamental feature of human relationships in society. if although this planet. so what we do when people harm others. i think we do need some process of really inspired by restorative justice programs. and did indigenous methods that have been used in a silly used today in indigenous communities. so there are examples that in to, some in new york, court innovation and what they are doing in the work of others who been writing about this justice for a while. speaking of restorative justice. he could have problems if it is still tied to an existing apparatus. this supported to make sure that we really separate and contain those things as we work towards uniforms being able to hold people accountable when they tend to harm. >> this justice is one of those

things that was created by indigenous folks in hopes of color and activist really got taken up into the courts. and then it got taken up in the schools. we talk about this injustice. what are we restoring two. actually have a society that argues that has a piece of colb our sense of justice we can get back. so appreciate the potential of that work. so thank you so much. your conversation. matthew: thank you so much. >> and thank you madison, i think you have further having me as part of this conversation i'm delighted to be here. there was a fabulous book . so

great to read. it was gripping has well for unit there's a lot that i can say positive about it . and they also want to raise the questions about the book. as you mentioned, the recap is that for the criminal defense lawyers and defendants, you provided texture forums of these people, they come across as flesh and blood the people. we can empathize with them and understand sometimes even life with him. one of the interesting things about the project in this present decision you made i thank you so the state of institutions you would think the massachusetts as things go, would be better than any places in the criminal justice free business not new york city or chicago or or major metro metropolis of sort where we

might be less surprised to find problems. if this part of what made this both counterintuitive that split inside of the criminal justice system, they found problems, fewer problems. and also our intuitive in another way. this in the market a good good book that is counterintuitive. because matt found precisely the opposite of what i've most of the people would expect to find afraid emphasize the mentioned when he first brief overview of the book, you might expect it when we think of some of the defendants interacting in the system in a bureaucracy, we would expect the will educative affluent people would be assertive and speak their minds. and the disadvantaged people in contrast were more inclined to cower to be inhibited because no understand. but when was precisely the opposite prayed and that is like

the mind blowing pain. for the typically the white defendants and within the ones that defer to their lawyers whereas the more disadvantage defendants roi often the people of color, the ones want to play more active role in their defense . in part because they've been more involved with the criminal justice system and may in fact know more about how the system works or should work . so that's a wonderful counterintuitive hook for the book partied there was a revelation to me. and i would expect that it would be most concerned for only concern with their own take an sentence they will receive. they were concerned about their criminal sentence. any defendants were also very much involved with the system prior to the case. they were concerned about lots

of matters that would beyond rated they were concerned about the officers would be accounted for wrongdoings. concerned about the unfairness of the system and being able to call that out. there are concerns matt said earlier about being heard or sitting things straight. so that was very interesting. in fact it took me in particular places flaunting more targeted ... ...

>> and they are pay differently in the case of the court-appointed lawyers and public defenders they are paid a flat fee. they are not paid substantially by the client so they really don't by the hour and the client has no choice in which lawyers they receive and in that case traditionally the client does have the choice but have to pay for the lawyer who is paid by the hour so the more he works the more he is paid. 's this distinction between different types of lawyers with two of the central issues that come up in the book and one is that is there

throughout with the emergence of interest between the lawyers and their clients and in other words it was for the interest of the client ideally but they are people to whom they may not just perfectly coincide in the project were divergence across those different categories of lawyers that this was the issue in the book is trust. what sort of trust is the clan have a real lawyer do they believe they will do right by the client and that they are working in his or her best interest and conversely how much does a lawyer trust the client? today believe the client will show up for court? does he think the client will come back where is telling the truth ask there is issues going both ways so my first question is to hear your

reflection on those two issues that potential about divergence or interest in the lawyer and the client and the question of trust for the lawyer and the client's. >> that is a great analysis so as you mentioned there are three types of lawyers and among those indigent system there are the two types that are court-appointed that are private and public defenders. 75 percent of the caseload of indigent caseloads are handled by private attorneys that are court-appointed we think of indigent defense think of public defenders by really most people from boston or other jurisdictions lawyers follow that poor are private attorneys and in boston which

is unique, unlike in other places with a payment or compensation for these private attorneys that are court-appointed the number of client surveys by the hour which helps to deal with those disincentives that could be operating in opposite directions between clients and defense attorneys but there is a sense to get a bar advocate maybe they would be giving a little bit more time to private clients and the clients and then there is often conflation from the defendants perspective from the public defender and bar advocate because you don't really know what you're getting unless you have this person before and the in-depth conversation to the public defender office and he will he may not know if he is a court-appointed lawyer or public defender and then to

specifically expect if you don't trust them and you trust the incentives are there to defend you rather than the private clients then you may be less willing so that is one of the incentive issues that differ between the two types of counsel and that is something i really wanted to highlight in the book is the idea that is much as i'm focused on the defendants perspective and giving light to their forests because a literature i do want to center on the relational dynamics what is operating in happening is a reaction over time from the first time you are set up with an attorney and just meet them all the way through private meetings to taking a

plea are going to try this period of time not just those that are making sense of lawyers for those who try to make them and determine which i spend more time? whose really paying attention to me rather than relying on their own community-based expertise? so they can withdraw into the disadvantage relationship but also from the side of lawyers who are withdrawing from those disadvantage clients that they are not deferring to their expertise. >> and modest jurisdictions they could be paid by the hour which may not be enough to vigorously defend the case with n-uppercase-letter boston was that untapped or for that

context quick. >> that's a great question i don't know the exact answer have to look back i don't want to misspeak but when i talk to the bar advocate switch is crucial for getting the sense of how this matters thinking about the clients, anytime they are cognitive and aware there is a training level that happens between public defenders and are advocates together your often trade one - - trained with other defenders at the same time you have the same amount of training but what's really important is there are higher-level up make sure you are not handling too many indigent cases at one time. so even if there isn't a cap

to get into a situation where there are too many clients on average you could spend enough time with each client so they could give enough time to their clients but with a certain number it is unclear how many they may have it any one time that are private. >> that's my second question you could imagine many are good lawyers but not a specialist in criminal defense are they are not required to be and even if they are to have other clients who are paying clients for public defenders on the other hand this is what they admitted themselves to do so did you see any systematic differences between the other and their

feelings about bar advocates. there is a general sense that on average they are more interesting and have more resources and access to social workers and they are trained in a different way and for longer some of them went to law school and so they understand how racial injustice is in american society where bar advocates have a good bar advocate but unfortunately messy it is not paying attention when it comes to correlate that is in chapter four of it with this public defenders prior to those practices.

>> we have ten more minutes? we have a lot of questions we haven't got yet to may be time for one more question so let me get to my question. so what to do about all of this? the problems that you identify the idea the disadvantage clients are not able to get what they want from the system because the being heard or set things right, the healing of some sort things that were unrelated and they don't get

that. nobody gets that in fact. because that's not part of the system. so those harms are not bugs they are inherent in their procedural his own with that procedural expertise which makes a review possible by the higher court. so the very problems that you identify is the purpose of the system so what would you do if you were appointed by the governor of massachusetts for the criminal justice system reform, word you wish to wholesale restorative justice that would be mandatory restorative justice no

conventional process, less lawyer driven with perpetrators and victims coming together to repair the social fabric? is that what you push for? >> i think so generally i very much if they ran on this in boston while i was in the field it's the idea that we just need to start reducing the number of things we put in the court in the first place but is a form of abolition so people can get on board with even if they don't describe it to abolish certain criminal law and to make them not in the first place but there is a tension and in my thinking and these conversations are rethinking to transform these institutions or to abolish

them as they exist in the moment and do we really need to completely rearrange a whole new way of the core process? with that she's making program or something like that? there are ways we can transform right now that are partial abolition's such as allow a judge to really feel like they can contest police practices and really question whether the police had probable cause for arrest and a cultural shift for norms but maybe that would backfire in many ways. but i grapple with it in the book and another paper i found with a colleague her name is amanda she is hardly the way to establish a public

defenders office wish i didn't have in austin for a long time. i could go on and on but that is a quick answer. >> that's a great issue to grapple with us. >> thank you both so much. fms questions from the audience. thank you for getting a started. veronica talking about the client relationship also how race and power shape the current legal system. want to piggyback that onto a question from david johnson joining us from university of hawaii who asks about the way criminal justice is set up for both sides with that with the truth and justice so to follow

up on bricks last wonderful question what is that vision looking like and what is your opinion on the question? >> so they often chose their own names talking about the time that he was on and there was a stay away order issued and i talk about how she was saddened by the fact she just couldn't have this conversation back and forth and has some reconciliation about what she believed went wrong and what he believed happened and he felt terrible. if that line of defense was to deny anything happening or not at all to make any amendments to the person who felt like she was harmed and that the

court was very interested first and foremost if he did something wrong to her as a way to violate him on poor. more so than figuring out that she mean any services for any help in her lives? i think that's right. the system is very adversarial and set up in a way where they have no incentive to admit fact outside of taking a scripted guilty plea. and if you want to change the way to reconcile leading to restoration then we really need to think of a new way to set up a discourse system. >> that's a great suggestion. thank you. >> this will take us in a different direction. >> can you say more how gender and immigration status in addition to race and class have introduced the dynamic of complete compliance? >> immigration status and then

traded into the likelihood of the potential to be deported. that's what happened in the study where people are concerned and that conversation came up. with the attorney relationship with the county but how did not come up that there are many things that people may not be aware of as collateral consequences that the relationship with the attorney could harm them and he and not just the guilty plea itself with respect to gender in the book there are only 11 women in the study but it certainly plays i will and be on

(-left-parenthesis chapter three her defense attorney refers to her as a cute white girl in front of me explaining to me how she was treated throughout the process and enjoyed working with her as a client because it was easier and she could expect to get good things for the legal system that gender and race there were black women in the study on there is a scene where i am sitting in the gallery with several people at whereas defendants or family members and they were black women in the gallery and whispers the name of the client and they can't

differentiate with no sense of what the client is and how they have met before she raises her hand she comes back and says that was my racist ass away that's the difference between women and there are privileges among several women and then disadvantages particularly black women. >> earlier on one of the audience members asked how prosecutors differentiate between the advantage and disadvantage so can you talk more about how we think about the demands for performing deference and she says she is especially interested in the extent to what you think about with that degradation and historical function of the

court asking to dive in a little bit more these questions. >> thank you for the question may again. i think word is happening in the course is very much racialized and the turn of the h century racist corrupt institutions between having a civil court in a criminal court how that was emerging from the understanding to black and brown folks wealthy and often white people came to adjudicate their issues so it is rooted in a class biased history and at the same time i do think i am often asked if the agency and the resistance

response for prosecutors of silencing and corrosion is because of the act itself were because of the people that are typically doing those actions i think it's better and not either or it's very much racialized and they are worse when they are engaged by people who are racialized as black and latino and even characterized as resistance in the first place is very much racialized. so in the attorney-client relationships to be history and present. >> we have just a few more minutes of when to bring back on the original interlocutor and if there is any other questions from the audience it would be a good thing to talk about methodology.

but can you speak to that for just a moment that you conducted? >> sharp so when i started the project i was conducting interviews mostly and then a few clients invited me to join them and then my dissertation chair said i wanted to follow people through course i started to follow them. after a while and went back into the field and did even more data collection by the public defenders office following a latina woman and a black woman and a white man as they interacted with their various clients. i got to observe private client attorney interactions behind closed doors and open settings not only did i get those dimensions of data up

also i got to talk privately without the defense attorney and i got to see how they operated in "-left-double-quote i got to talk privately without the defense attorney and i got to see how they operated in "-left-double-quote frustrations and private frustrations occur behind closed doors and many of the things that they don't share with their attorney that they hide or obscure that i got access to do with the real true feelings but i also got access to go that is a little bit. >> we are almost at time are there any other questions? >> then you pointed out that it was interesting for me to hear you say that these are accidents bad features of the

system. let's way the procedure is supposed to work. so if you think about the fact the marginalize the disadvantaged but also for structural injustice was privileged to have for a harsher punishment and how do you feel about the idea that these farms are part of the system? >> that's a great point with that fundamental part of the book with privilege and punishment. with middle-class and white people and their interaction that is just so rare that they into the system. soberly when they are pulled into the system they have done something wrong and then they

need to admit they've done it for a period of time and haven't gotten caught as a talk about in chapter one. and poor and working-class communities of color and this is in the way in which communities to talk about honestly similar criminalize behaviors going on in these communities that they are pulled in to the core process getting treatment and rehabilitation and health thinking of abolition you should recognize if we look at privilege communities it is already occurring in many ways for them. >> that's a great way to conclude what we have to do before us but i hope everyone reads the book and enjoys it

and learns more about what we can do to create to fight those injustices in the system. >> what they did generally was followed his life or sometimes the political context they are

standard one volume during such a wonderful job and donald says in the contest because there wasn't too much conviction to the society he was the ultimate self-made man he entered the presidency the least. of any president we ever had. i guess i'm taking the opposite point of view of all the great heroes and history

one stands alone for embracing the entire world of experience and mentioning this just now from the highest to the lowest. and it is all the the scraps and link and early on speaking and popular humor sometimes dirty humor but also memorized very long poems by a shakespeare and others and and this is the latest on to get a memorized. in these passages meant something to him and once he read a passage a couple of times he had a memorized so in

the middle of the presidency he would pick out the soliloquy and the great shakespearean tragedies. and going from virginia to washington visiting grant and i guess today we want has said mission accomplished what he said rather talk about a shakespeare. and longfellow would say what? discuss seeing poetry about death with 50000 americans who died in civil war.

it wasn't mission accomplished i am the leader here. it is quite moving where the democracy comes from. all classes and all backgrounds. >> i am excited to hand things off with a conversation about the new book when rabbis bless congress