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powered by cable. >> thank you, everyone. welcome. welcome. thank you for joining us. i know this will be a stimulating conversation with our esteemed speakers that are eager to introduce you to today. i am victoria christopher murray is a "new york times" and "usa today" best-selling author of morepe than 30 novels, the personal library and the first t ladies, both novels were cowritten with a writing partner, marie benedict. victoria is also, has been nominated for numerous naacp awards for outstanding literature, and she won that award in 2016 for social commentary novel, stand your ground. the first ladies was targeted 2023, book of the year and five of -- seven deadly sins have

been made into lifetime movies produced by td jakes. with almost 3,000,000 books in print, victoria is one of the countries top african-american contemporary authors. kamala newkirk -- [applause] >> author, , journalist and professor, kamala newkirk is a multifaceted scholar who has published a variety of works within the veil of black journalists by mediacom above no less, and letters from black america, spectacle, the astonishing life of -- and a most recent book, "diversity, inc." the failed promise of a billion dollar industry. kamala received the pulitzer prize as part of new york news days reporting team for spot news for coverage of a fatal subway crash and in making any three she joined the faculty of nyu and continued contributing articles to numerous publications including the "new

york times," "washington post," "columbia journalism review," the nation, art news, essence, and the civil rights blog the defenders online. that is kamala. [applause] thabiti lewis perform double duty force during the conference. just a teaser does host for our virtual scholarly papers presentation and is back with us today to shares insights and depressive knowledge. he's a professor of english and interim associate vice chancellor of academic affairs at washington state university vancouver. he is also the editor of conversations with tony, a ballers of thed new school, race and sports in america. [applause] and last but definitely not least is historian khalil gibran

muhammad. he has served as director of the schomburg center for research and black culture in harlem. in late 2015 she joined the faculty of harvard b-school as professor of history, race and public policy. he has also come he was also hired as a suzanne young murray professor at thehe ratcliffe institute for advanced study. he released "the condemnation of blackness," race, crime, and the making of modern urban america in 2010, which was awarded the john hope franklin publication prize for the american studies association in 2011. his contemporary on the commentary on the racial past of the united states a contemporary policing and criminality was published in the "new york times," "washington post," national public radio, and others. please welcome our guests. [applause] also feel

so disconnected. okay, so thank you all again for being here. so the focus of our discussion today is writers letters to america how black writers texts may be viewed as letters that chronicle the history of america from what toni morrison calls black gaze. these texts provide insight into the monumental changes and pivotal events that have impacted the history palettes, civil rights achievements and of blacks in america the history. letter writing dates back to ancient civilizations. the earliest known letters were sent by, of course, the ancient who use hieroglyphs. a newsweek article written by malcolm james discusses how quote historians depend on the written record letters left behinds are invaluable evidence of how was once lived.

gaps in the historical records have always existed as. american slaves were often illiterate, often by laws, and sometimes by laws that threaten them with death. the epistolary record to free people. and in most cases that free white people. when reflect on how dearly we would cherish written by people in bondage or any people who through circumstances of history were voiceless, we begin to grasp the preciousness of the written word, end quotes. so to begin each of you personify the idea letters documenting, the changes, pivotal events, and courageous people offering, and a better understanding of experience in america. so my first question is will historians of the future be served by? our generation of writers and by

your work in particular? how do you give voice to the voiceless through your writing and research? and pamela, i'd like you to start us off because your work a love no less, two centuries of african-american love letters and letters from black america speaks directly to this question. and then, of course, i would like the rest of you to respond as well. i thank you, dana. and thank you for being here today. i first wanted to compile book of love letters. yes, i wanted to compile a book of african-american love letters because those letters had often left out of epistolary collections. are so many books, letters, and they almost always excluded the letters of african americans, and particularly letters that reflected romantic lives. and in that first book i began

with the letters of the enslaved, because as you said, it was illegal right, to write letters in when african americans were separated from their loved ones, those who could write and, even those who could not would someone to help them compose letter across, you know, plantations, states. and so they continued to communicate, kate, with their loved ones. so i it's an important a really part of our history. our our collective history to have the evidence of of that kind of bond. and it it does more than anything to to reflect full humanity because. these letters are not written for everyone. and to see their intimate reflections of emotions. and i think it's probably the

the truest reflection of of who we are and of about our desires. so i hope that answered your question. yeah yeah. so you like i said, you got us started and which is which is great. so you know i would like to, to toss that question out each of you. like how because you know the of letter writing is, is integral to our and is able to document our history our work the work that we do you may not be you dear john, but letters that we write are actually texts that we create and we look to preserve for our future. so when we think about, you know, our work in terms of the idea of which you led us off with so well, how do each of you, your work, give voice to the voiceless through your writing and research research?

i'll take a stab at this in in my book ballers in the new school race sport in american culture. i was really looking at the turn of the 20th century and depictions of african-americans in popular and in sport culture. you have this notion of heroes and people becoming familiar and the majority of people writing about and reporting and giving narrative are white journalists and. and so those notions are, what were, you know, violent thugs, you know these different figures. and so in ballers, as i interrogate this notion of white supremacy in a racial contract using charles mills's work and. how the you know, it functioned in all these different validity. i want it to have a moment in the book where i literally write a letter to my cousin very you

know, inspired by, you know, james baldwin's letter to nephew and really providing in a book that is very much in a hip hop ethos challenging and providing counter-narrative it's and very much the face of of of a lot of stereotypes and a false notions a real intimate conversation with my young and just in talking to him about the power of, education and what is possible and our family lives history and relaying my vulnerabilities but giving voice not only to him but speaking to i think especially in american culture, where there's so anti intellectual ism and there's

this nihilism and the thought that the only way to be successful is through sport, culture that you need not feel about your intellectual prowess. and i want you to really lean into and and so kind of having a conversation back with him revealing my own engaging my own vulnerabilities but encouraging him. but it wasn't just to him. it was it's also a letter to to young black women and men regarding these this false notion of of anti-intellectualism or sport as being the only way forward. and so and then just trying to outline to him. what are the challenges that exist and we can overcome that you can overcome that he was really struggling and this guy's done amazing but so that that was the the impetus was the book

itself is a larger letter but there's a letter within within the text itself. hmm. okay. yeah. so none of my books have the letters them. i write fiction. and so i just make this stuff up. but what i that's an interesting question because i think in fiction, i'm able to reach people in a way that doesn't feel as if i'm them. do you know what i mean? not telling you what to do. i'm presenting who we are. and so in my and the fiction and if you're talking about a letter to america the majority, although they won't the majority much longer, but the majority for now i'm my books show people who we are here we are this is who we are and this is how you can get to know. and i can give you an example of what i mean by that i took a class i took a lot of classes at the university of iowa's writing

program, and there was nobody else among the 500 students who had skin that looked like mine. and no problem, because went there to learn. so no problem. and so in one of the workshops i had written my first chapter of, my second novel, and it was about a black woman. and this is fiction so she's stuck in traffic and she's in her bmw down, writing down the l.a. freeway. and the first critique from one of the other 14 people in the class is in the class. her first critique was, i'd like to see a little less beautiful. and then does she have to drive bmw? because this woman actually i don't know people who have a bmw and i just couldn't believe she

sat there and said that to me. but then i realized that the majority is exposed to so little of us that our stories can be a letter them. and in indicating and saying this who we are. i am here now get to know us absolutely through. so my stock and trade as a historian is often letters and can be as as pamela's already suggested, a really evocative and expressive of both the intimate lives interiority the kind of literary space writers fill in for because we often can't know what people feel or think. and so they're very precious to historians if you're able to letters within the archive or the research that you're trying

do and i guess to maybe illustrate this. when i was working the condemnation of blackness, i took the approach that any archive that either a published material going back to the late 19th century or actual archives organizations or individuals, i would just sort of do a needle in a haystack approach. i was trying to make sense of something that wasn't obvious, and by that i mean we knew a lot about what was happening in the south during the era of chain gangs and convict leasing. but we didn't have much knowledge of what it meant to be a black migrant or a black person living in new york city at, the turn of the 20th century, when it came to criminal justice encounters, we knew some of. but i was interested in sort of what was what were the discursive ways in which black people encountered oppression. these are v their criminal

nature. so one of the biggest archives it turns out to really get at this the naacp records at the library of congress they we see the hundreds of letters from people who were encountering new york city's criminal justice machinery, either through policing or in the state around the country and in w.a.s.p., headquartered here in new york, which is why they were more prominently known at the time in this in this space and those letters were incredible for two reasons. one, there was back forth correspondence, and so you'd have people appealing simply help. i need help. i've been arrested on trumped up charges. i'm completely innocent. please send a lawyer to to assist me. others were i did it. but they're throwing book at me and the white guy i did it with is getting out scot free. so you can imagine the range of grievances that were appealing to the naacp for support.

but what was really interesting was the naacp response to many of these people and in that way, the story that you talked about, the future. so for me as a historian, the naacp unwillingness to help people were guilty of something because the issue was that innocence was the only currency that they were interested in investing limited and precious resources in tells us at this moment in our history and we'll tell future readers of that work the degree to which the oppression that we've experience inside has lasted longer in because of some of the choices that we made in trying to manage our people to be respect in light of the oppressions that we've experienced for centuries. and that was a period of black respectability politics, right? yeah.

on steroids, right on steroids, yeah. so so any case letters for me have always been incredibly revealing. and, you know, at the schomburg, we spent a lot of time only preserving such letters and the correspondence amongst people who are important to us as, our ancestors, but also making sure that we curated collections of letters that people could really dive into an intimate portrait of people. and i think that kind of exhibition and archival preservation work is essential for us. you as at some point none of us in this room will be here. but those who will come behind us can learn and it can just add. it's also a not only for institutions preserve these letters, but for us to preserve the letters of our loved ones. so many these precious relics get thrown away. you know, people move, someone dies and they kind of throw them away when they really should end up in a repository like the

schomburg or, you know, some other institution. they really are irreplaceable relics of of our history absolutely. thank you. thank you for that. so just expanding on what each of you have said so where you see your your work and your scholarship contributing to the canon of black history, do you see as or at all as do you see as all come at all as documentary? that's a trick question. >> i'll jump in there. i think, i'm thinking about the conversations with tony kaye lamarre work, as really capturing her voice, really important black feminist, women

figure and allowing the public to be able to hear her voice all in one space outside of my own commentary around what i think about these collection of interviews but i think absolutely it's important to the field. i also completed a documentary on chicago black arts movement coproducing, codirected just really capturing important, very important moment pics i think there's a trove of stories that need to be told that as scholars i think too often people are trying to come up with really witty and cute stuff, but the work is right there, you know, whether it's examining the national black writers organization that preceded.

i just think that chicago at that particular project and its worldwidee impact. and how so many people in black arts were coming to chicago and moving to other spaces throughout the midwest and the impact that chicago, for example, on the black dramatists, you know, organizations, et cetera. so i do see my work is doing in some ways engaging documentary. >> i mean, yeah, for me, i became a journalist to tell our stories, right, i i became a journalist to tell our stories and to share those unrepresented facets of our identity experiences. ..

>> it was to illuminate a chant aer of history in new york city -- a chapter in history of new york cityci and how black people lived in new york city and how it was that this young, beautiful boy from the congo ends up being display played bronx zoo monkey house with an orangutan in 19006 -- 1906. and how it became this international sensation that was praised by new york times. and so it shines a light on the history of black people at a certain moment in time. and helps explain a lot about where we are today as well. >> uh-huh, absolutely. >> and letters were a very important part of that book. >> uh-huh. do you want to add anything? >> i'll just add that i, i mean, one of the things that i've

become, i mean, as i've matured -- i turned 50 last year, so -- [laughter] new space. just a really rich appreciation for the different modes of expression in cultural production that we collectively have. and it's obvious, i mean, i'm not saying anything new, but for me in particular, i mean, my engagement as a his toirntion as an academic, i spend a lot of time, you know, with sort of socialhe science either formally or journalistic social science or my own attempt to make sense of certain kinds of facts whether they are past or present. and so it can be mind-numbing to a degree. but what i've come to appreciate is just how much those a facts show up in the work of creative, like novelists and dramatists

and musicians and artists. and i just, at this age of my life i've just come to appreciate that we're all engaged in the same work and that we can say many different truths through different means of which historians of the future and artists of the future will mine our words and our ideased and bread crumbs of our lives to make new meanings for future generations. and that's just very exciting. it's a way for us to know that our legacies will live on. >> uh-huh, yeah. because when we think about, when we look at any era, you know, throughout history, the history is documented by the artists. so that's where we go to find out everything. so the work that you all are doing in each of your capacities is so important to that documentary, you know, of our

lives. tony -- toni morrison famously opined that the lives of black people were viewed by the the mainstream as having no value in not centered through -- if not centered through a white gaze. so how do each of you in your own work reposition the vision to reflect the black gaze, and what does it mean to you? >> you know, that's interesting because, as a novelist, i'm known as a black novelist. as a historical fiction writer, i'm just known as a historical fiction writer. because with the majority -- what was the word you used? >> the mainstream the, yeah. >> mainstream. mainstream has a difficult time accept -- believing that they

can get anything out of our novels, what we write. if because it doesn't have anything to dony with them, and, you know, they don't want to know and they don't want to learn so -- and they can't learn fromct fiction. i guess that's what they believe. but as i'm writing historical fiction, i'm no longer a black writer. and i see that mainstream has totally accepted and enveloped me now. they're embracing me now, and i think it's because they can relate to black people in history better than they can relate to black people today. i have not figured that out yet -- [laughter] and the why. but you know what? i'm using it because now i can communicate with them through my writing. and i think what some of it is, is that historical fiction allows them to step back with. and so they're saying, well,

that's not us being racist. those wereac other people being racist. [laughter] but -- and i don't like them racist, but i can talk about them because that's not me. whereas when they read my contemporary novels, they see themselves in that mirror. and so i've been able to change the gaze through the genre. same stories, i'm the same writer i've always been. but now suddenly i'm just a writer telling black stories. i'm not a black writer. >> interesting. >> i think it's fair to say that we all engage in counternarratives, right? we're countering the history and the depictions of black people. if i don't know to what extent my writing changes because of my idea of the gaze.

as a journalist, i just try to tell the truth as i find it. and as a writer of nonfiction books, i think i've done the same thing. i've tried to document, whether it's history or more contemporary issues, without really being that mindful of the gaze because i think the gaze can kind of mess you up. [laughter] you're kind of thinking what someone wants to hear and the way they want it delivered instead of just telling the truth. so that is what i try to do in my work. i try not to concern myself so much with the gaze and more with just thet truth. >> uh-huh, uh-huh. >> and a lot of that, obvious, comes from -- of course, comes from your journalism background, that discipline of it all. yeah, exactly. >> i really like in this question because one of the things i very consciously did in

the condemnation of blackness was to to -- well, let me set up a framing comment. when i was a grad student and in the, i guess, mid 1990s and making my way through the history program and mentor was david lewis, chief biographer of, two two-volume biographer of the boys. so i was trying to figure out how to situate my voice within a field where black studies had entered a much more mature space. it, you know, was not new, but still growing and developing. programmings were still becoming departments and ph.d. grans and that sort of thing. but most of my colleagues were really invested in centering black resistance.

and the story of the structures and the ideologies of white racism receded to the background.. it was assumed. it was obvious. they were the targets of all this resistance, but there was no dramatization of the problem. and forme some reason i don't kw to this day why i made this choice,i but i made it quite consciously. i wanted to resituate black resistance in direct conversation with white protagonists. and looking black -- looking back on it now -- [laughter] from toni morrison's position, one of the things in playing in the dark that she calls out is the need to explain the distortions of racism on white seem -- white people. and to some degree, i felt then without having full consciousness of it that the valorization of our heroes in

the work of black freedom studies whether it was 19th century freedom fighters or late 20th century civil rights and black power activists, it was all about a celebration of that form of resistance that somehow we were letting white focus off the hook. [laughter] if because you could, you could read this resistance to some degree as, well, if they were able to pull it off a, then it couldn't have been as a bad with as it seemed. and i wasn't interested in that at all. i. was interested in actually showing just how systematic, just how thoughtful, just how innovative white racist intellectuals really were and the degree to which they were actually responding to the agency of black people. which you lose to some degree in the resistance. i mean, the state is always there, and you can see the back and forth in a lot of work. but the idea, the debate over the ideas, and coming back to

duboise. he was so tower thing in his -- towering in his intellect that was everywhere. i mean, when tony morrison -- toni morrison talkses about the presence of african 'em in white literature even though no characters are named as black and no one names race as this thing, the specter of blackness haunts american literature. and duboise haunted these white folks wherever they held court on our presence. same was true for ida b. wells as an activist, the activist-scholar. so in any case, for me, that's how i dealt with this gaze issue which was essentially to use black historical figures, voice, to point out in very specific ways the ways in which white people were active agents in the moment they were living rather than abstraction traction -- ab atracks whock were in the background. -- ab a tractions who were in the background. >> i don't care about a --

[laughter] trying to speak to a white audiencen' or -- i don't care. i'm speaking to black people, young black people, and i'm documenting a historical malfeasance as well as the contemporary responses that are the same thing. and i'man showing a history of liberation and resistance and then articulating and holding up the -- just think about in ballers of the new school, the very much maligned hip-hop cull which are -- culture, you know, post-civil rights, black power and then this hip-hop generation of representation that is not trying to be engaged in respectability, politics, right? say a guy who likes hip-hop who likes to wear suits, right? that would be me.

be true to yourself by being who you are. and whyt is that so fearful. but i'm really speaking to that generation and challenging them. but at the same time, if you are, if you are dominant, if you're in the white culture and you want to understand white supremacy and how it functions, i really pull down theories, here are some tools in which to understand the racial contract and how it's happening and why the way you're carrying yourself is seen as a lesser than. and who's framing, who's deciding, who frames the way, if you will. and so just creating tools and saying look how it's happening in film, the way we engage music and film and journalism and who tells the story. and so i want to arm people with that, with the tools to fight back against that and even if you consider yourself progressive and liberal, to be able to read that work and go,

mmm, i don't want toin be a participant in social-economic, you know, what have you that espouse these very things -- things. when i read charles melvin's work, i was like, i don't care about so much sport, but that we lives in a society in which ths is the vehicle is, like, right now what's going on, the basketball tournament, you know in it's a big deal. i'm just trying to use that to have this conversation because the myth is that this is the greatest place where we've seen progress. and i'm saying, no, it hasn't, and don't believe that myth, right?n' so, yeah, i don't care what they think. [laughter] i'm speaking to a different populace. i'm like langston hughes, if you like it, cool. if you don't -- [laughter] move on. >> what ive love about many of e letters that are compiled in my book and ore works is that the -- other works is that their, this whole idea of a gaze disappears, right?

i'm writing this letter the my mother, to my daughter.. i'm writing this letter to a friend, f to a foe. and so the idea of a gaze kind of disappears, and that's what makes it so profoundly intimate, right? so evocative. of course, you do have is those letters that are meant to be realize by the public. one of the most famous letters in african-american letters is letter from the birmingham jail, right? which he wrote in his cell on a napkin. and he knew that letter would be read by millions. maybe he didn't know it would be read forever -- [laughter] until the end of time -- >> right. >> -- but it was a public letter, right in and, you know, there are other letters like that, like the letter you cited, james baldwin to his nephew. he knew that letter would, would be read, was for public audience. but the idea of these intimate

letter, you learn so much about people because you don't have that self-of consciousness that you have when you know that there's an audience, right? it's just from your heart. .. >> can i say in this day and age a anything digital -- [laughter] can be discovered. so just be mind. that -- mindful that your private thought it is are not always private. >> exactly. do you wantt to the add? >> a funny story because i write historical fiction, andth wherei get most of the information is from letters that they left behind. the harlemshed the renaissance novel about the black woman who discovered jesse redmond faucet who was very much involved with w.e.b. dubois. and after reading some to his exchanges with other women, i told my daughter that she gets no money from me unless she makes sure that every e-mail, every text, everything i've ever

written is gone somehow. [laughter] some way, or she getsing nothing from if me. [laughter] because, like you said, they're very inti mate, but that's how i was able to write a deeper book. i just don't want anyone writing a book like that about me. [laughter] >> i'm with you there. let's let's talk a moment. just kind of really continue to expand the idea. the important means of excavating, you know, the pieces of who we are and the long implications of your work as an accounting of humanity. so how do approach that idea in your work or do you is it intentional or is it instinctual so? victoria, if you could, because you sort of straddle contemporary and historical

fiction, could you talk a little bit about intent? yeah, that's a good question because i wrote 30 contemporary fiction novels and i did not think about the characters in the people i thought about the story more and i do think every book i've ever written, every word i've ever written i do think of it as a legacy that i'm leaving that people read this 5100 years and what do i want them to see and what do i want them to know and how do i want to represent? so i do think about that. but writing historical it is i do think the people, all of the people who've been erased from history. jesse redmond fawcett was one that i discovered as a black female writer, another black female writer. let's about jesse redmond fawcett, who all of these poets and and i had never heard of her and i stand on her shoulders. and so i think it it's what i'm

not thinking about the future as i'm writing fiction, i'm thinking about raising up these voices who have been erased from history for various reasons. and then hopefully they'll stay alive into the and i think that's all is something that i think about i choose the women that i write about very. mm hmm. again, can i jump in? you said something that was a trigger for me, a raising of voices. you know, for me would be this this book black people are my business. toni, kate bombards practice of liberation. it would be i want people to really appreciate and pay attention to and toni kate bombards liberation impulse that you can't create that you that is very easy to create art that really teaches people how to

know and become this is a person who is a community and a writer and and is interested in cultivating relationships between women and women. many men, men and women youth and elders. right. and and so the legacy is for me, how she really know toni morrison made this quote she was talking how you know, she mentioned toni, who's a good friend as a writer who really in her works. she's she is literally cultivating and engaging a black culture and black people everyday people are so different levels and it's her first collection a short stories where she's interrogating you know conversation interactions with elder in youth or are young

girls with other girls and black women and black men? and you know how we how do we become whole? and it begins the self, right? she talked about with the self, the self. and then from there those relationships with others in the community and in nation building. right. and so it's so how, you know, found myself over these years in even writing this it really impacted me as to how i father how i was, you know, a partner, my wife and raising our children and, you know, really a model for what does it mean and how i the question here is like, how do we go forward? i mean, i think bombas work is really important in, that kind of way. and she's and, you know, and has this essay call on the issue roles that really shapes the entire tenor of all what you see her doing from you know her

first two collections of short stories the salt eaters to those the very long those molded not my child and so that i think. what i want what i what i see as a as a you know as a as a scholar, as a writer, is that that legacy of i think her her work provides a a model for us take a look at and think about how, you know we might use our our live our lives but also how she minds all of black culture, jazz, blues gospel, spirituals. you know, she even kawada and in a in a short story you know and in the senate those seven principles so it's this you know without saying without even worrying about who am i writing to. it's interesting because she has this mainstream appeal on many level. so mm hmm. which goes back to the whole

long term implications of her work. yeah, right. and what you do. you were going to say so. yeah. in minding archives like you i'm trying to shine a light on the dark crevices of our history rediscovering people who've been forgotten, finding people who we didn't even know existed. and also what found most interesting doing spectacle the letters going to archives of the bronx zoo you would see the officials saying one thing to the public and then in the letters they're lying there, they're telling the truth rather. and they're they're saying what they're doing. the older bhanga, how trying to get out of the cage. but then they're telling the new york times, oh, you know, he's they're performing for the people he wants. be there. so bye bye. mining the letters. you could get the truth in the in a way that if i just looked

at newspaper accounts i would not have been able to see that. so you see this tension between what is said publicly and what is said beneath the radar. mm hmm. i have said briefly, i mean, i was interested in two very explicit acts of excavation. one was a a contemporary history of our present histories change precisely because the present in our are like a kaleidoscope, just shifting in one direction or one degree. and the often exposes new insights, new new realities, etc. so for me, i was very, very interested in trying to make sense of the ubiquitous presence of punishment vis a vis the mass incarcerate fashion in country whose purported values of freedom and this sort of thing were in direct contrast that

reality after the civil rights movement. and although probably don't need to say it in this audience. i do have to remind people that mass incarceration wasn't always a thing. the distinction to be made between criminalization, which most certainly always a thing where there was the freeing themselves or the story of post bellum convict leasing. but but to put as many black people in prison was never the point of it all it was to extract as much labor so so i was trying to ask evade is what was the cultural and the ideological framework that allowed stop and frisk to exist in a much earlier period than what we commonly associate with an the era of mike bloomberg and, ray kelly in this city, so on and so forth. the other excavation was was a very particular attempt at an intervention, a writers or scholars intervention, and that is that people want to reform

whatever, enter into those moments with very little historical understanding of people who tried to make change the same space before. that's just the particularly, you know, in a world where we often have and thinkers and, the doers don't have time to do much thinking. and the thinkers often allergic to the doing. so you get stuck with impartial and it can be deadly in the absence of people really having a thoughtful understanding. and so what i was trying to excavate the second point was to show just how many black people had weighed in on these various punitive regimes and had actually found answers. but were systematically ignored. so while the of their being ignored is part of the analysis. so i was really interested in just over and over and over again that that black people

didn't saving because they didn't necessarily like they didn't have ideas they needed power in order to effectuate those ideas. mm hmm. so we are think about the excavate nation and the work that, you know, we we need to do in writing and our scholarship and making an accounting of black humanity. we have this onslaught of of banning our books our history, our stories being retold and. and how do you or we combat that censorship? well, we talked a little bit about this earlier. how do we combat the censorship and make the narrative about who

we as opposed to it being relegated to the untold story? and khalil, if you could kind of start us off. yeah, that yeah. i spent a lot of time on this problem in my. i think we this may be counterintuitive but and i explain myself i think we are in the worst we are facing the worst threat that we have faced as a as a set of legislative assaults in this country. certainly the civil rights movement. and i don't want to be too hyperbolic and to suggest and going back to the 17th century, but the reason why i think collectively we've not come fully to appreciate why this war on truth in education, which is also a war on democracy is so threatening, is because it's really the first time since

literacy was illegal in the context slavery that we are essentially rendering learning a crime and we can understand certainly in the context the transatlantic slave trade and the domination over people of african descent through of keeping them from reading to make that system work. what is peculiar this moment is that we all have this history of progress, that we're working from the scripts in our head about all things that we've done and accomplished and overcome we can't erase the history of overcoming. and so we so if we are literally going backwards but think we live in better time because we've overcome but we can't actually explain the dissonance and sort out the contradiction because that's a legal in many

parts of this country. i'm really at a loss for what the long term consequences of will be because to me, these already mentioned the the problem of ism, which isn't just, you know, a white people problem is it is it is a national problem it's a global problem and that and intellectual ism is also consequence of oppression and subjugation and divestment. so when you add that back into the equation, i worry that we are late fight for our right to tell our own stories. we are losing that right. i mean, i just let me keep saying it. we are that right. there are black teachers in this country right now in half the states who cannot go back into a classroom and say, what happened here right. cannot show whatever version of c-span the black writers

conference appears on television out of fear of losing their jobs. and this is kind of uncharted territory. black people. as my colleague jarvis givens has written in a book, wonderful book called fugitive pedagogy, have have often pulled out the black curriculum when white weren't looking. mm but the notion somehow that we are back in that space and that it's actually illegal and not just dangerous, i mean, it's two different things. one thing to pull out the black curriculum and is dangerous is another thing that is actually against the law. and so i think we have organize around this issue in ways that in some ways exceed or certainly match an urgency the voter suppression laws. i mean if you were to map on to the states where there's been legislative activity to ban knowledge of one kind or another on to voter suppression maps,

you'd see all the same places lit up bright red and and i can just say to finish that mobilizing today civil rights leaders around this issue of a war on education has been very, very, very, very i can't say too very difficult. and it's perplexing and it again, only adds to the worry that i am expressing at this moment. and and i think educate has always been the battleground for race in this country, whether it was, you know, black people fighting to have schools, whether it was fighting the government and its ideas around, you know what, black schools could teach or you know, we have to be mindful that all of black inferiority theories have taken

hold in this society. they filtered down from the top, from harvard, from princeton, from yale they were taught. right. and none of those schools have apologized, said, oh we we're sorry, we didn't mean it. and and all of consequences of those teachings still very much with us. and so in sense i see it as a continue education of race, in education, in country where it's never a safe space for african-americans and we've always had to fight to be able to tell truth share that truth publish. i mean black newspapers even. frederick douglass, who was the most famous black journalists and the most respected of his time, his printing press was burned down. idb wells chased out of town for telling the truth.

so this is this is a continuation of what black people have encountered throughout history when we have tried to tell the truth. but we can't do your so just kind of expanding on on that idea of you know the idea of of censorship ship across the board. do you feel or experience a sense of censorship when you approach a topic considering you know what the reaction to your work or maybe you don't and and why or why is that. well i don't know about them, but i'm every time i get a book contract, it's like, did they read my last book, i mean, i think it's always more difficult

for for us, but somehow those of us here have have found ways to to be published. so i don't feel that my work been censored. in fact, i'm a little insulted that none of my books on a book i said i might my books, except i said that the other night i can't i don't want my books to be banned feel a sense of censorship at all. i you know one of the things that but the reason we have contracts we do work in a more labor flow industry publishing is much more liberal than some of the other industries i've in in my time. so i don't a sense of censorship at all and i don't think they think if my saw something that she wanted scratch out i think she'd be too scared. say it to me. mm hmm.

can you can you. you mentioned earlier, you know, i'm sorry. yes. ahead. so i'm thinking about i wrote an essay with a colleague about tulsa in 1921. tulsa. and for any magazine. and we had a point where it was very contentious regarding whether this essay was going to get published because of a battle over using the term holocaust regarding this atrocity that took place and it makes me about so you about censorship. mm hmm. you know, i think in ways as i'm looking, how does how does intellectual bodies of knowledge are situated who's controlling the nih? who are the people that on that

editorial board? what are they saying? this is not going to you know, of course you don't know me. i was like, look, we'll have to do it. you know? you know, my position has always been i'll take my ball, go somewhere else, which is probably why i'm not some spaces. but that's fine. i'm fine with that as long as you know, the ideas make way and we my, my co-writer, he found a, a middle ground with them that was as as he was okay with it if it had just me you might not have seen the essay over, you know, this, this one word. and so i think. in a lot of ways censorship is real. i think that it is important that we're in these spaces where you're able to have an impact on the ideas. but in the words of walter mosley, we always outnumbered and always outgunned. and so just being one alone is

not enough, but really understanding, you know how these ideas have propagated and that that you know you and i quoting, invisible man, you cannot give up your gun africans. you know, we must continue to fight. so i just wanted to make that yeah, i just want to give three examples of censorship. so when in i wrote for the 1619 project, one of the most banned books right now to a class i teach at harvard on race and racism was called out by congresswomen virginia, fox and north carolina, who oversees the on education that has been subpoenaing harvard and held the hearing on december 5th that brought down gay and the pen president and and so that is certainly an attempted form of censorship i'm tenured and so my class i will be able to teach version of that class currently

it's a core class and it's quite possible that they will decide know we don't want this to be a core class. that's right. and then the third quick example is i've i've been writing more on this issue than normal and i've had a very difficult time being published in the times or the washington post or the atlantic, where i contacts and i published in all these places in that respect were all censored, yeah, it's always harder. but, but i don't mean it just it's, it's something else because topic touching on anti-semitism ism and the palestinian. are in opinion is no question is editors to shut down voices right now so in conversations yeah in conversation yeah. oh if i counted the number of essays that i could not get published, right? if i had any.

right, put it in a book. these are all the essays i couldn't get. that's a book. yeah. so and this be a you know, i think that somebody i'd like you to kind of tackle this one what do you say in your work that white audiences need to know or understand or not and you know was was it a choice? so i may be repeating a little, but, you know, you don't care. you talk realism. you get out there. but but it is if you want to understand if you also to understand. the polarities, you will right here. here's a here is an explanation.

and i also want them to understand that. you're creating these narratives historically and in the contemporary moment. and here's evidence. articulate where that has happened and continues to occur. right. and so so yeah. would that would be my, my what i want to understand here is the truth that you have to contend with. you know this is the truth that you have to contend and for me is correcting the historic record, particularly where many of the lies are. they're not mistakes. they're intentional. it's intentional deception. and often by people in institutions and really high places. so i like to put that on the record. yeah, that. i just got highest sign so but i

really want to ask question because my mentor is in the audience. so dr. greene famously or infamously coined question that i want to share with you. so as writers practitioner of history and just we are here in conversation with with each other who are you in conversation with in relation to your work, your inspiration and what informs what do. so if you could each do that quickly, we'll start at the end there mulling it over. yeah i always fail at these favorite questions even if they're packaged seductively. so i mean i would self describe as a bit of an intellectual historian i'm really i'm always motivated by understanding ideas where they come from you know the origin stories of those ideas and.

and to some degree i've been been really interested in a lot of conservative black conservatives. thomas right now is very much in head because if you in a dark abyss of racist ideas that, white people are making popular again right now. you'll find thomas saul's fingerprints all over many them. he's in some ways the godfather of modern black conservatism. and so while i'm not taking inspiration from a little piece of i am. i am thinking a lot about how from shelby steele to john mcwhorter or to glenn loury, george, skyler, george schuyler, a young guy. hughes right now is making his bones a recent columbia.

how so much of their popularity. which is they are remarkably in a kind of alternate or particular social media space. i mean, i remember in new york running the schomburg and seeing thomas soul and being read by straphangers all the time. and i always had this sense that this was like forbidden knowledge for white elites because it was like if you if you fill this with all of us there'd be that one. thomas all maybe not at this conference, but who the white people would be like. this is the black person you really need read. and so anyway, that's where my head is these days, because of the work i'm doing. thank you for that. yeah. so because we're kind of close time, i would just like to close

asking this question based on your own body of work and your contributions to scholarship what would your letter to america be? what do you see as a long term implications of your work and just a sentence. or two, if. when you put that word scholarship in that kind of know me. so i'm going to let the people who have scholarship answer it first and then i'll kind of my letter over pamela what would my letter. oh, i would just say letters black america like that's the fullest expression of. its its sort of myriad poetry out of black people that i had the good fortune to have opportunity to work with. reviewing thousands of letters

written over and be feeling even closer to to our people through that experience. okay. thank you, >> okay, thank you. >> gentlemen? >> i think as a scholar, my letter would be to, it's the okay to excavate and embrace the arcane, the familiar of black life and culture and don't forget the everyday people because that's what a really has an impact on, you know, the creation c of culture, if you will,an right? music, dance, artistry, etc. you go to i museums as you're reading work, that's what you

see. but also it would be to don't be afraid to just be your authentic self. and i think that is, is my -- yeah, that would be my statement, don't be afraid to be your authentic self. and don't bed afraid to take chances and resist. resist. >> yeah, my letter, i guess, is a continuation of a theme i've been talking about which is that ideas really do matter. and as a person who has straddled this world as a i've described of thinking and doing, i'm always struck by how impatient people can often be with ideas. like, what are we going to do the about it. i've heard you speak p okay, so now what do we do. and, you know, as a person who identifies as a writer and a

thinker, i'm often challenging people to remember that if the ideas are wrong, then you're running into a burning building and won't survive. so i like to model how important it is for people to the get their thinking together before they act. >> okay, thank you. >> yeah. >> okay. so i guess it's my turn now. you know, i think i would quote alice walker. i think i would quote her with the words that she gave to zealingly in my letter door to to sealy, and my letter to america would just simply be we're here, i'm here. [laughter] i'm here. i am here, see me, hear me. but i am here. and that's what i try to do in every single book that i write for people who are reading it as a contemporary work to black and

white because i do know that there are white ears that are open. and i want to reach those ears. and just, i'm here. >> okay. thank you all so very much. [applause] i think we are open now for questions from the audience, so if you have questions, there's a mic over here. is there one over here as a well? -- as well? >> thank you for this great dialogue. i just wanted to ask one question. for all the persons on the panel that said we have all these unpublishedded essays, why not come together and do an anthology? if challenge. [laughter] >> [inaudible]

>> we laughed, right? >> is i just wrote, i mean, technically, it's not my first post, but i kid blog recently -- i did blog recently just for thisis reason, because i've hada lot to say -- >> you have had a lot to say. you should follow khalil on any of his sites because you really have been posting only amazing material. >> thank you fork sharing. [inaudible] you spoke of folks not wanting to publish some of your work. and i wonder, why don't you self-publish? >> you know, i don't think any of us do this for a hobby. it really is what we do for a living. and i have nothing against people self-publishing, but i don't have time and i don't have the resources to spend -- it takes years usually to write a book, and i can't do that for

free. >> but pieces that they don't want to put out there, you could do that yourself. >> i think if there's something i really, really, really want to publish, i'd find a way to get it published either on a blog oa really hard time getting it published. it was finally published by "the new york times" after it was rejected by places that i thought would be obvious places to publish it. so i think if you're determined to publish something, i did a article about african-americans in paris and why it is that we're so celebrated in paris unlike any other place in the world perhaps. and no one wanted it x. then i sent it to the times concern they published it. so go figure. i think for all of us you have to sort of, like, just keep doing a work-around. it's not the easiest thing to

get work by african-americans who love african-americans -- [laughter] it's not always easy to get that published in the so-called main street. but -- mainstream. but i think we all find a way to platform that the will publish us. >> thankbl you. >> you know, i'm sitting and looking at miriam here, and i'm thinkinger about the fount of history, the project the history of black writing. so, i mean, these are important if platforms with where, absolutely -- and i'm not saying stuff that can't get published elsewhere. i'veve taken stuff there first - [laughter] because, you know, how do we continue to create a record of what needs to be heard. and, you know, the world we live in now people have blogs and, you know, all this other stuff. so is the restrictions aren't there as far as the ideasing being out there -- ideas being

out there. it's a matter of just deciding where you, where's it going to be, you r know? i remember meeting melvin van peebles, and he was talking about making that first film that he made, and he was, like r oh, i'm just going to finance it myself. that has been part of the tradition. we h have to do it for ourselve, right? so, i mean, my black arts work. that's, you know, that's the impulse, right? >> thank you. thank you. >> thank you for the talk. my name is phil. like my hampton sister the victoria, hey -- >> hi. >> -- about that experience at the conference as a screen writing fellow at american film institute, i was told by a professor darks who were middle class -- she said this would be perfect if for disney if we had people coming, but they're black.

and the middle class, they live in a nice house. and i'm like, yeah. [laughter] and then she said, well, if you're going to use them as black characters, then hip-hop them up. >> yeah. sounds like american fiction. >> right. [laughter] and she made me, she's, like, i can can make that connection for you. and i told that story, and it was devastating and i didn't have that meeting. and what i think about is what you guys are talking about is censorship, but it's also a really gatekeeping in a sense concern. >> yeah, but it is, yeah. >> and the idea that i believe that i have a sense of my authentic self as a writer. i've been out, i've had a proposal, i recently got a contract. i've worked for years. but i'm aware that even though i'mm facing black editors sometimes -- >> oh, doesn't matter. >> -- it doesn't matter. that they still are beholden to something else. so there's a couple of consciousnesses that we have to be ware of. the onee as an artist, as a writer, i was a professor, also as a scholar. butso there's also the business side. so the silence when you're asked

about self-publishing, that is very real that if you want to do this as a form of income, sure, it is the self-awareness in terms of your craft -- >> and publishing is one of the least diverse professions -- >> correct. >> right? in the t world. so don't be surprised. >> yeah. so when we talk about that, the i think it's important to maybe talk about sort of the work itself may be this thing, but as a business person, because that's what you are when you're putting something into the marketplace to be bought. you have to be ware of that level of gate -- be aware of that a gatekeeping and censorship and how does that perform in your work to be sold, not so much how you write? if. >> was that a question? if how do we -- i didn't understand the' question. [laughter] >> i thought that was a comment. it's a question? >> it's not a comment. you mentioned that censorship, you didn't feel it. >> okay, yes. >> right.

and then also the idea that i get to be my authentic self in my writing and i don't worry about gaze, i don't understand that. >> yeah. >> yeah. >> so when i say that -- i didn't say that i don't worry about gaze. i control my gaze. and the story i want to tell, i shift it. so when i want it to the reach a different audience, i just shifted genres. so i dory it. i self-published my first novel. and that's what got me in the door to other, to the mainstream publishers. and then i started a pretty good publishing company for probably about ten years where we published about 50, 60 authors. donna was one, so that was wonderful for us. but that's tough. >> that's a tough road. >> that is tough. the profit margins are small.

theok sell a book is hard -- to sell a h book is hard. [laughter] it's just -- no, seriously, to sell one book is hard. >> that's not for everyone. >> and so it's just tough. and so the business part of this is or hard because it'd be easy -- i don't want to say easy, is sitting at a home alone and writing. it's gettingin out there in frot of people and all the people, black and white, who are going to the tell you i'm not going to spend any money on this. the only thing i can say is if this is really what you want to do, just don't give up. i know that sounds like a cliche, and i know that you've heard it and you're like, come on, give me a better answer than that. but i've been writing for 25 years, and it took me 24 years for people to have known my

name. i always think about the times that i wanted to give up along that path. and if i had given up, i wouldn't have achieved what i achieved. you know, one of my favorite books is -- [inaudible]in and they talk about stopping three feetre from gold. and youou never know how close u are to that gold. and so i look at all the a things that i've, that have suddenly rain down on me that wouldn't have happened if i had given up. so i hate to say that -- >> i agree. my first book, my agent sent it, i think we got, like, ten rejections and then the leaven was -- eleventh was a yes. my second book, sold it right out of the gate. my third book, another uphill -- like, it's -- you don't know. i don't worry about the gaze,

but my books are not for everyone, right? so there are many publishers who would never publish my books. i just need the one that does. [laughter] so, right. so i totally agree with her, you have to just keep, keep working at it and looking at other publishers or other whatever you're trying to do. >> yeah. thank you. right over here. >> kohl. thanks. -- cool. one, thank you so much to everyone on the panel, especially about letters. this is actually a question, it'll be quick. i recently wrote an article tighten untilled an open letter -- titled an open letter to black and latino men who are voting for trump -- >> [inaudible] >> yeah, i know. [laughter] writing ithi was, like -- it was almost like writing to my angry uncle. anyway, the question is what are some of your strategies in addressing ourur folks who have internalized the white gaze and not just in the classic

duboisean concept, but maybe how you look at a others out in the world and it defines your ideology, your actions, the way you move through the world. are there strategies -- >> well, so that particular letter i would look for the platform where you think black and latino men go to, to read -- >> yeah, no, that's -- i mean, the platform -- we'll just try to get it viral. [laughter] it's a lefty newspaper, no one's going read it except, like, karl marx's ghost -- [laughter] you know what i mean? i'm not talking about the publi, i'm talking about the actual writing centrals, paragraph for paragraph, in terms of how do you set up, you know, our own folks who have internalized white supremacy but have done it in a a way that they don't even realize it? >> yeah. this is in some ways the book i'm working on, because that's why these ideas are so powerful. >> exactly. ..

>> we look back on social movements in forms of resistance in the past, and overestimated the levels of participation involved. and personally i am living through a moment of some despair because as i said earlier i'm not sure what people think oppression looks like. i mean, you know, we die from lack of access to healthcare. there's still way too many of us the hands of the state because of either police violence or the slow genocide of the criminal justice. like none of that is change, none of it. and yet our ability to mobilize

in the face of this is not only week, but we have documented evidence of people retreating to the enemies, which is like i mean we've always had people who have been traders come so to speak. and i'm not here, i'm not try to show, throw shade and call people ogle tom. there were always black folks who are were incentivized to literally tell our business and put us immoral peril, peril. but which is, like good old-fashioned polling data that tells us that black and latino men are voting for fascists. and that in some ways is a consequence of how weak our own ability to educate our own, to fight against colonized forms of education been over thede past r decades. i thinkin our leaders are

mainstream leaders in particular have failed us in this regard. we have bought hook, line and sinker this notion that all of the visits of inequality in america was largely a failure of the people that you were writing for, , that it was their own bad choices that have accumulated and led to these disparities. this was the dominant thread right up to the obama years. it's only in face of trump election in 2016 that people begin to talk much more strenuously about racism, , but whatever, diminished life chances. so the framework of ideas that hover overr the choice of remake is envisioned to decide how we use or agency, we fight externally, do we fight internally, you read saddle up to power? three self identify with the oppressor? we have been having these

conversations. we have been teaching these frameworks at scale, right? there's a whole bunch of teaching that goes on, schaumburg does a saturday school. i'm not saying it's a desert out there that we really dropped the ball. we absolutely dropped the ball andet we let the hype of the american dream ended the choice and all of this take off like wildfire. so we shouldn't be surprised that some of her own are like, i'm trying to get paid, and if trump is handing out checks, then that someone with. >> handing out checks and sexism, and nancy pelosi and the whole thing. >> thank you. right over here. >> good evening, everyone. my name is charlie rojas. i'm an air force vet, novelist and also a pastry chef. thank you all for your time. i dare not speak for everyone but i'm very i grateful for your intellect and you sharing it with me today. my question is, once we get

past, we got her agent, we got our book deal, we got out there and we're trying to get ourselves, how are you guys, are you encountering and how are you navigating kind of this phenomenon of outward critiquing? and what he mean by that is in the community i'm seeing from readers that they are putting reviews on our books, , our boos as black authors satellite, i couldn't identify and i'm -- and basically it's scaring the people that it's intended for a way of like old, maybe i shouldn't read this book, one girl was talk that it on tiktoker i don't know how you feel about that take on tiktok but you speaking about it as she okay,asically was like well, i'm just going to get it for myself.

she got and she said this book is amazing. what you talking about? when she went and saw the reviews she realized it was all white readers putting down this book. so i don't know, do you guys have like a recovery team? how're you doing that? >> if you find one let us know. >> how're you kind of sidestepping that obstacle of like, i knew the book was a for you in first place, step aside, how are you getting to that challenge? >> i have no strategy for that. in fact, i don't read those comments. i think you take a lot of toxicity when you do that. i just tell the truth as best as i can tell it and i move on. i don't read reviews. i don't read comics. i just don't. if someone writes me a letter i'll read that. so if you want to write me a letter, i will read that because that something that someonepr hs taken the time and it's probably a lot more thoughtful. but anyone can see anything, you

know, on social media, and i don't i just don't bother with it. >> can't buy into it. >> i don't read reviews at all because it will affect how you write your next book and everything, so i don't, i have heard of one situation like that. i have nott. heard that was happening a lot, but there was when those going around but it was the author who was sabotaging other authors. it was an author. but i hadn't heard about that. suggest you what you can't and stay away from that. >> i at one bit of practical advice on those probably not free to you. but i mean there are black influencers that can be contracted to promote your work, and so you can fight fire with fire, if you can afford it. >> awesome, thank you for your time. >> our pr recovery team. >> i love the idea, pr recovery

team. >> good evening, everyone. thank you so much for sharing all your wisdom and insight. it's very full, very, very full. this is like a question not strategy come something that was mentioned earlier. i had a conversation with a good friend when the weather was springlike and would talk about letters and i would both like to exchange letters when were traveling. it's kind of a lost art for the most part, most of more digital nowadays. we both started to wonder and i thought this would be the perfect people ask, like, how can we preserve the thoughts that we want to be granted, , le a facebook status stays forever. that's very true but eventually some of these platforms to fall apart, right? i'm wondering your thoughts in regards to like how can you make sure our stories are, what weor wish to share our don't wish to share, make it into the future? and had a question regards, so also synergy, about you sharing

your own university of iowa and chad a response to your and i was wondering for those who decided to go into masters programs for creative d writing, how do you deal with that? how do you strategize when someone is not getting what you wrote and you're like, it's institution now, you know? so my questions are about strategies for our our and e second one. whenever i go into a a workshopi go into knowing that i'm going to take the good and threw away the bad. have to learn to separate yourself from things. and it was amazing that she said it. and i was glad that she said it so that i had a story to tell, but it didn't affect. but i got some really good things out of that class that just wasn't one of them. so you learn to take the good and throw away the bad. yeah. thank you. and you should look the hurston

write writer's retreat in washington dc is excellent. thank you. and my readers here. yes. oh, is she? yeah, she's here. she goes. and in regards to maintaining our records of our work, like the things that we do, i think that's a good question for kaleo, because that is going to be a challenge for future since letters are such an important part of you know the retelling of of history and i think a lot of record is going to be lost in the digital space. i don't i don't. yeah, no, i've been out of the archive business for eight years now, so can't say that this is the state of the art, but archivists are gaining the ability to collect what we call born digital material and to some degree, even version of it that i'm aware of.

of course, was collecting people's hard drives. now, of course, they may now be collecting people's passwords as archives are handed off, particularly when people voluntarily give them away. you know, you can you can change your passwords to the things that are present to protect privacy in the present and give away a password to things that are the past because a lot of people do particularly writers will commit an archive. they're still alive, of course. it also happens that people pass away and the family has to deal with it. but there's no question it's a big challenge a lot of the written word is ones and zeros and it's not clear how much this can be saved. the other side of it is that. there's likely much more that gets captured because so much more writing activity for

laypeople in the public. in the public and the private letters. well, not the private. correct. in the public square in ways that people used to have phone conversations. so it could be a wash. it's just i don't know enough just to say what's happening. thank you. thank. yes. and a last question. racism, the the attack on black folks in this country, i believe in the attack on the course the book being is about the racial demographic changes in this country and fear. so i want you to talk about, you know, just look i was looking at chicago study of the folks who arrested january six many of them came from counties that voted for biden, but also counties that white people were becoming a minority. so can you talk the impact of a

demographic change and the attack not only on and book banning, but just overall type? because we don't talk about the changing and that's what we're living. that's my belief and professor, i like, you know if you could talk about another is especially it's called fear of a black planet right? yeah. yeah. i mean, i don't know that i think you are you've already laid essentially the out before us. we know that that the global majority of people of color that already exists will be a majority population here in the so-called united and likely many parts of europe will shift over the next two decade, two generations. that being said, i think we are seeing. so i would just say two things. one, a lot of the backlash we have now, if it hasn't if it isn't obvious more about the

millions of white people who stood up for racial justice, even a brief moment of the summer 2020. but the sheer the sheer scale of people taking some stance against, hate violence, suggest to the fascist republican us that they only have one last shot to control how these people think and behave, which is why they've basically said we've got to shut it down and i think what is more insidious, which comes to the question of our black latino men, is there is no guarantee that as the united states of non-whites becomes in utero, any population that any of this will change. exactly south. yeah, right. right. so and in the 20 largest cities have been minority majority for

years. right. and and so what. yeah, right and it doesn't change who the power the right you know so that that that is us right to to it to write about, to organize around it, to educate all of it and it is dangerous. i, i'm living, i live in portland, oregon. and so watching this, you know, whites are the majority, right? 93, 4% of the population. and watching those young people, young whites out there and, the conflict it response of the police around those white bodies was just really interesting to me going out and observing those dynamics and all within the throes of you know, i mean i about anti-intellectualism and what it is important that people

don't don't read that op eds are 500 words now right or that magazine or newspaper articles you know everything is short and quick so that people aren't questioning and challenging and. so when you don't have distractions entertainment, right, you don't football, baseball, basketball, hockey, you know, to keep the populace distracted and entertain then they actually have time to maybe think about what really. right. or what's going on i mean, just put those things together can't go be entert i mean, just but those things together. can't go be entertained, can't be distracted. so it is important to say okay, let's, i mean, it is, it is a new, it is a jim crow era, you know? that's what obamand get elected, people start asking' are we post

race? shut up. who's making this up? i just think you cannot i think the message is you cannot put down your gun. i do not telling the shooting somebody. just saying you intellectual down, you cannot put it down. you cannot stop organizing a move. we cannot, we cannot. >> thank you all so very much. [applause] thank you. >> if you were enjoying booktv then sign-up for our newsletter using the qr code on the screen to receive the schedule of upcoming programs, author discussions, book festivals and more. booktv every sunday on c-span2 or anytime online at booktv.org. television for serious readers. >> on saturday, august 24, booktv on c-span2 take you

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