you don't have to hide behind that thing. come on out. yeah, come on. come on. i know you coming. they wouldn't have he was i love i love my friend don. he was hiding behind a thing like i was gonna introduce him. like y'all didn't know he was coming. first of all on but on behalf of the book festival at tulane and my fantastic wife cheryl and walter isaacson who here today give him a big round of applause. they and and allison and lindsay and a whole bunch of bucket load of people been working on this for three years suffering with covid and everything, and i know everybody's overjoyed to be here

and y'all really celebrated the community of the last couple days and y'all have heard some fantastic people, but y'all are in for a great treat. our friend andy lack. that's andy. that's don in case y'all don't know. andy ran nbc and sony music and and he's now. yeah, go ahead don messing up my introduction. look at that. seriously, i got like 30 seconds. and and andy is now actually who moved down here came down from the northeast decided to get a life. he came he lives in new orleans now. all right, so give him a round of applause. for some reason he was like dancing on the street and mardi gras on like the y'all do that in new york. it was like, i don't think so. and y'all know my dear friend don lemon. i've been i've been he's been having me up on the cnn desk trying to opinionate about stuff. but he and i have gotten to be dear friends. he actually is a homeboy and he's about to leave here and go

see his mama. so this is his home. he's been reporting for me. he represents all of us extremely well, and so will you help me welcome andy lack and don lemon? yeah. yeah, how are you? i didn't know that you moved to new orleans. thank you. sure. that's amazing and you're moving from baton rouge honest moving. no. well. oh, sorry. i'm going to bed after this. actually my mom i my mom it made. crawfish bisque for me. she's like i had some heads in the freezer and some tails. she said not the same as when for easter, but i haven't you had a little packs and you're gonna freeze them. what are you gonna carry them in so i had amazon deliver a cooler backpack. and so she texted me when i got off the plane and she said your package just arrived and i said, oh, yeah. do you want me to come tonight or in the morning? said whatever you want to but then she said this. you can come tonight if it's convenient for you, by the way,

i'm cooking some red beans right now. so what does that mean? i need to come tonight. right? so i said i'm on my way and cornbread she just texted me and corn bread. so there you go. well that you're you're keying up this. great book of yours this is the fire what i say to my friends about racism, which we'll get to in a little bit. but let's start where you you just left off and i apologize for accusing you of moving to new orleans, and i know yeah, baton rouge. you're there you and and those where your family roots are going back to well you go back like i want to say four generations. is that right? i don't even well, i don't even remember from my ancestry. i know it goes back a lot more than that. i was able to chase trace my ancestry. i think at 2014 with ancestry.com and then professor gates the yes, you know renowned

professor. skip gates at harvard trace them year two ago. just when the book came out all the way back to i think sweden which is unheard of for african americans. and for the most part but was able to trace it through my the roots of the white folks from my white ancestry all the way back and then and my black ancestry. generations back where landowners and i keep you know, everyone keeps wondering my old boss kept wondering. why do you buy so much land because i own a little piece of property here in new orleans right on mandeville and decatur in the marinade i was in new orleans. just for i forget what i was doing here. i don't know for a weekend or whatever and i ended up buying a piece of property here. and then i did the same thing in florida and i did and then why do you keep doing it? and i realized it was in my blood. yeah. it's in my blood you you said something early on and i by the way, this is a very thoughtful and deeply personal wonderful memoir. so i'm just gonna do the thing is if i were your agent. hey, yeah.

we'll talk some more about this now, but it's out in paperback this week, by the way. cover a lot of ground and i love that the beginning when you said louisiana sticks to you. and how that feels to you. and and then you took it forward to really how this book got its title referencing. i should say, of course james baldwin and the fire next time. but it really started for you in a moment of truth as you described it with the death of george floyd it did we were all sitting at home with the george floyd happened. sitting our homes, and i don't know if you guys remember we're all in quarantine, right? we didn't know what tomorrow was going to be like, oh really the next moment. we know if we're gonna have a job. we didn't know if we were gonna live we didn't know, you know, we had loved ones who were suffering from covid. maybe we were suffering ourselves and we didn't know and then all of a sudden this thing comes across our television screen with this, you know guy

with this knee on the neck and i just remember the first time i saw it. i close the door went into the room closed the door and i started crying. and i was talking to the television and every time i see it now, i still talk to the television and i said that's enough. that's enough. okay. okay, that's enough. it's enough. and so we were all drawn to that moment because what else do we have to do? we couldn't leave our homes. and it was it's so profoundly affected me that i felt that i had to do something rather than just what i was doing on television. and i sat down and i wrote a letter to my nephew the way james baldwin wrote a letter to his. you and my future shot. and when that letter poured out the book just i wrote the book in like maybe three months. to just sort of came out of me and it was weird because you know, i had to i had to travel two hours each way to work every single day. because we were living in long

island and work was the city was basically shut down. and my fiance's family lives in long island, and so he wanted to be near them and i said, okay fine. my family's in, louisiana. can be near your family and it'll be fine. and so i thought like it was a terrible thing that i had to travel four hours a day for work, but it gave me the discipline to write the book andy because in the you know, and what at midnight? i would sit in the back of the car and write notes are call, you know, the editor and say did you get to see what i sent you yesterday? we would talk about it. and then the matter of months i had a book. people ask me all the time about when it comes to what you just described. it's such a how did you feel having to be on the air you led the coverage for cnn during that whole period how did you feel when you were really having to step up over and over and over again and talk about this story? it was it was a one foot in front of the other moment every single day.

that i remember the the most profound moment the one that took out stuck out to me the most was i can't remember what night it was, but it was a night. where there were there were. protests in new york protests in la chicago cities all over the country. there were fires in la i think something was burning in dc and people were pushing the gates to the white house and i was sitting there. and this was a night that i wasn't supposed to be at work. and being started to flare up and my boss called and said i need you to go on the air. you can't make it in to to the city. i need you to do it from your home studio. so i was sitting in my home studio in my house. without the giant support of cnn the big building and all the technicians and the people usually put the microphones on make everything work. the lighting is just so whatever and even if you haven't slept you look like a million bucks right none of that. so i just jumped in front of the camera, you know and started talking and it was i felt like i was it was don lemon.

i hate to refer to myself in the third person is you know some the verb former leaders do that's very similar names, but i i felt like it was don lemon watching don lemon do the news. and it was just the most bizarre moment and i said, you know is anybody listening? something i'm paraphrasing exactly what i said, but can you help do you see what's happening to our to our country? what is going on, you know mr. president helped the former president barack obama helped what our country is. we're tearing each other apart. i don't know what's going on and it's just reaching out to people names and hollywood's like help like do something and it was the most bizarre moment. i felt like i was standing on the edge of the ocean screaming into the void and but then afterwards in hindsight, i wasn't because people were watching and you know eventually the the verdict came down and in a difference was made, but it

was it was you described it at one point. i have the words right our dungeon. doesn't shook it. well, that was that was i said, it was a moment similar to what james baldwin said the very time. i thought i was lost my dungeon shook my chains fell off. so, you know we felt i felt that we were trapped. we weren't. we were not only trapped in a pandemic. but we were trapped in a conundrum of the third rail of american society and that's race. on the original sin of this country. and i think we're still trapped, but we're finding our way out of it. now where our shackles i do believe that our shackles are falling off. i do feel initially. i did not feel that change in the country. but as we move further past. the summer of 2020 past the

craziness of 2021 meaning the insurrection and so forth as we continue to move past that i have more optimism every single moment because change doesn't happen as you know, it doesn't happen quickly. when it does happen, it feels like you know, it happened quickly like what you know when like what happened with same-sex marriage like oh man, it's a it feels like it's always been there, but it was a long hard sloth that slog that we had to go through to get that as was this civil rights and what have you and i think that we are i think we were finally turned. well, let's talk a bit more about the it's the heart of the matter. yeah. it was the in many ways the centerpiece of what you were running about. what you called? the white supremacists business model which is a a fascinating way of looking at this social construct around racism.

and the white supremacist economy, yeah. talk a little bit more about how you found that yeah that center around from slavery to today. yeah, i know. i'm home in my allergies. kick up right the missus. the business model. i mean listen, i talked about how it's weird because i've just i was listening to my book my own voice on the playlist this bizarre because i was like, i haven't read this book in about three or four months and i should know what i'm talking about. right? because you know, i and so i was listening to it on the plane and it talked about and it talked about that and i remember writing about how the country caters to had always when you look at advertising when you look at the know what our economy was built on it was built on the blacks and backs of slaves. really slaves and poor people right the rich people as during

the pandemic did very well the poor people don't usually do that. well the people of color the people who are at the bottom society don't usually do. that well, but our economy was built on the black on the backs of slavery on the backs of black people. free trade and i think that is the business model if you look at any successful business now. that has gone back over time. has roots in slavery. yeah. yeah, any of our any of the you know? five fortune 500 companies exxon oil refined oil companies all in the backs of slavery and black people reaped. none of the reward was not able to none of the rewards and was not were not able to create generational wealth and i think that is what we need to figure out now. that is how you level the playing field that's through education and through allowing people giving people the

opportunity to be able to create generational you you devote. yeah, by the way, there's a great organization that i support him on the board. it's called oliver scholars and they take kids from underserved communities mostly black brown hispanic black latino children high performing puts them into great schools. if you're in new york, you know riverdale academy and spence and all of those william was a man. i forget the name of school our students horace mann. i don't have kids. so at all of my i have actually most of my gay friends have kids in school schools getting off the topic a little bit, but it's funny my fiance and we're talking about he says he said our gay friends are doing better with their marriages than our straight friends if you notice all of our straight friends have gotten divorces over the years and all of our great friends are like sending their kids to school taking trips in there. so i don't know what's going on, but there you go. so anyway, i should i'm

generalizing a little bit. but the organization helps kids. go on to ivy league schools. and raised so send your money check out oliver scholars. it's a way to level the point you talk about this in the book how the last chapter is how change happens how change happens and so if you drill down on that one of the things you talk about you just referenced it a moment ago. is first forging new coalitions of interested groups but then you get to and you pound away at this how this ends. how does where does change go in? in this a very rough patch that the country is going through right? and and you you start in a very familiar area and i wanted to push you on this is voting marching. yeah. supporting causes that you

believe in yeah, go water. there was what i just talked about. i think listen you have to have a sense of community, but the overall listen, this is the overall theme of the book and what you're talking about. is that as as mitch knows mayor knows and donna brazil, who is here. i i write about in the book. my mom would call me the united nations. when i was growing up i had friends of all different backgrounds. i went i initially went to an all black catholic school. in baton rouge, louisiana, and you guys know when i was growing up and i don't know if it's still that way but the best education you could get was through that through private school, but what was through a catholic school you wanted your kids have a good education in baton rouge you sent it to and if you were black you sent it. you sent your kid to saint francis xavier. then they went on from saint francis xavier and they either went to catholic high school or saint joseph if you were a girl or and catholic if you were a

boy and then or redemptress which was you know coed. um, and so and that was the best education so my parents by the time i came along had the opportunity to me to a catholic school. but the catholic school was all black because the black schools you didn't necessarily get the great education in because they weren't getting the money. but when i left that school, i went to a public high school and my whole world opened up. and all different backgrounds majority white school ended up becoming the senior class president. the best personality one of the most popular people at school because i was like an animal that had been caged and let out and i had seen the world and i was like wow, but i wasn't it wasn't i wasn't always treated the best way. by my new friends who didn't look like me. but it was a challenge to me to get to understand. what was behind? the eyes of those folks. well what behind the actions of those people?

why they thought the way that they thought and if i could had an opportunity to be able to change their minds or to be able to educate them about what black people were about or who black people were then? i use that opportunity and i did it. and then i eventually went on to lsu and did the same thing. so i think my overall theme what i write about in the book and what i say on television and what mitchell andrew and i talk about on tv is find a friend who doesn't look like you if you see miss landrew he walks around he knows everybody black white. it does. it doesn't care who you are. he knows every i'm the same way. and i think we spend too much time in our own little bubbles. and our own little worlds with people who only look like us. with people who are only from our social economic backgrounds. and we cannot. continue to live together and to thrive and to create and to make this place that it's supposed to be a more perfect union. not a perfect union. a more perfect union if we continue to operate yeah, you

know, so that's the overall thing we have to do we have to give each other grace in those moments to be able to disagree to learn about each other without canceling each other. you you put one of a line of what you were just saying together in a way that i hadn't seen. you said we've got a we've got to talk about. black complacency while we talk about getting white people to reject the entitlement of their privilege. and bringing those two. the intense where there's such tension, yeah. is where the healing begins and when i talked about black complacency was talking about myself as well because we were i think we were all sort of living in a bubble after the obama administration. although we knew that it was just beneath the surface like black folks knew it, you know, i think a lot of my white

counterparts and friends were like, oh my gosh, especially after the last election and all they were like, oh my gosh, i can't believe this happens. this actually happens. well, george floyd was a very vivid example of racism a very one of the harshest examples of it and and what i meant by complacency is that we have to at every single moment realize not not only how far we've come but where we to go because if i feel that if people like me. who were doing well, and people like my parents who gave me every opportunity is that if we had fought harder? if we had pushed back harder i felt guilty. is one of the reasons i wrote the letter to my nephew. i felt guilty watching those young people out there fighting. and protesting george floyd that i hadn't done enough for them. that i even in you know being the big anchor on cnn that i

hadn't. fought enough that i hadn't protested enough that i hadn't spoken out enough that i hadn't used whatever economic power that would ever celebrity power that i had to move forward and there they were out there fighting and here i am sitting in a studio. i feel guilt about that. and so partially that's what i meant about black complacency. but also within that i have the responsibility. and the duty to tell and to show why people it's only going to change. if you change if you make it better, right it's not incumbent upon the oppressed. to pull themselves out of oppressions incumbent upon the oppressor to be able to do it. to be to be aware of it to be aware of it. yeah. no, i i think that's very well said i don't know how much time we have left. i want to make sure that yeah for questions you want to just any anybody got any questions so far. we just oh sir, go ahead.

former events that i guess from the except for him or me. no, i for you. i'm sorry, i remember. oh, okay. the question was the conflict that we're looking at the difference between reporting on you said european countries and other skirmishes or other wars in atrocities that deal with people who are darker people, right or maybe people or maybe africa what have you listen? i suppose that question a similar question. it wasn't specifically like that but free to faree zakaria and others on the network talked about that as well some of the generals and some of the experts

that we have on so, let me just say that yes, there's a double standard. we know that in medium when it comes to reporting for on all sorts of issues when it comes to reporting to issues that involve women and and people of color and so on and so forth so we get that i think that this particular conflict is different as it as it was explained to me by fareed zakari and i do agree with his assessment the difference here is that we have two countries. who are have a country? that is perpetrating this who can blow. the world apart who can in the world many we can both the united states and russia can blow up the world many times over with nuclear weapons. and so i think the big difference is here is that this is a matter of world war three a war for the whole world. and ending the world the skirmishes that happen in other places regional conflicts are very important. but it does not have the geopolitical complexity and

importance. that this particular conflict has doesn't mean that they are not important in their own right but this is something that rises to a different level that has not been seen before since a world war two a world war one and now this and you have a very irrational actor. vladimir putin who we don't know what he's going to do. who may use chemical weapons on his own people or people in his own people will be involved because he his troops and soldiers over there. um, but then the conflict could end up coming here as well. so i think it's you know, it's not just about this was not just about we're paying more attention because these are europeans and whatever i hear all those arguments, i that there is there is some importance to that and there's some truth to it, but i don't believe that it is. you know, that's the only reason that we're paying attention to it. this is this could this work could end to us meaning all of us. go ahead.

versus oppression and so you not only have exactly what but we also have western. under assault yeah, if you could any questions you got please walk on my mic runners a mic right right here by the camera stand. so it's a good way to get your steps in today. there you go. thank you. building off of what he asked and how you answered our entire just education for going into iraq though was that they had weapons. destruction we invaded. why is it different now? we know he has what why? well because iraq can't blow us off the face of the earth, but we were but hid weapons of okay, but listen, i'm not here to talk to have a conversation.

i'm not a war expert. i'm not a general. i'm not a military. i didn't even serve in the military. my dear departed sister. did she could probably answer these questions better for than i could but yeah, i mean there is a difference and i listen i understand there's hypocrisy in all of it. and it is my job as a journalist to question power right to speak truth to power and to question authority so i can't give you all the exact answers that you want. but this one is different because it is russia if you just google nuclear weapons russia has way more nuclear weapons than us. they will kill us before we kill them. and so iraq iraq does it didn't have that power and and it's it's different. there's a difference in you know, what happened. also. remember ukraine is not a nato country. and so i think this will escalate to something different if they indeed attack a nato country the attack for 9/11 was on a nato country, which was the

united states of america. i want to get just a few more questions and one maybe that's off of ukraine for the moment. yeah, the subject no, but i i'm glad you guys are watching. it's a very important for the reason what i the reason i have military experts on cnn is because i'm not an expert in military and geopolitical. politics that's not me. yeah, i understand. walmart is we are and the reason i'm telling you this i wish i had better answers for you, but i'm not the person to answer those questions. i sit there and ask them of other people who have way more knowledge than i do. oh, yes, sir. hey, how you doing? how you doing? what's your name? my name's is paul. nice call. yes. i guess my angst and my fear and they can it can blend off of that or it have to blend off of. was happening in in europe right now. as a father as a father has the hue that i have it's difficult.

in anxiety comes with me. trying to prepare my sons to venture outside of a because we get it on both sides. you know, we have black on black crime and we have racism. and we have to and that's but black on black crime. it's kind of self-imposed racism on our self you know, so we dealing with this and the ability to try to protect our children. at the end of the day because we don't know what's going to happen. is no guarantee. supposed to be in a free society. but we have all these borders and boundaries that we have to try to prepare our children. and that's my difficulty. what's your question? my question is how do you see that? i know i understand. you you don't have children, but there's no, no, you can adapt children. i just don't know the names of

schools. i can understand i have children. i have people i love just as my i love my nephews just my great nephews and my nieces just as much as if they're around. i feel like they're my own now because my sister died and i feel like i feel ownership in them, but let me let me just say something to you and i don't mean to i don't i don't want you to take offense to this. because we can get stuck on media narratives in terms that we hear in the news a lot. i don't believe in this concept of black on black crime or that because crime is proximity. so most people most white people are killed by white people because they live near white people. most black people are killed by black people because they live near black people most hispanic or latino. people are killed by latin because it's all proximity crime is proximity and if it's easy to get it's about opportunity. so it's not necessarily that, you know, black people killing. of course, they are white people are killing white people as well. so the problem the issue is is just with crime in general and i think the the issue really is a socio-economic issue and it comes also back to how people of

color especially it happens to be people in this of color in this country. how they were placed in society. true how they would place into those into the neighborhoods that they live in what we have to look at the history of the country. so absolutely the answer to that is you must get involved. you have to go to the polls. you have to make sure that you have ownership in your community. to people who are going to take care of you in your community. you have to take ownership in your in your own community and where you are. in order to be able to change the situation that you're in so show up to the polls not just for the presidential election, but for midterm elections for local elections, the real important elections are in your own local community. it's not really the presidential politics are local at them to do all politics are local. so that's the that's the difference owning your own community. owning your own community and taking pride in your own community. that's it. and i would say that for black people for white people for any kind any kind of person. but the struggle is going to be

harder for people who are at the bottom in of society and especially on the social economic. yeah, i guess and i understand what you're saying. and and i guess it's visible with us because of the population that we make up states but, you know at the end of the day the world is global. but the reality is we are extremely aggressive toward. each other greater nature than other demograph in other areas we have a tendency to be. horror on each other at times and i grew up right down the street from here. i grew up in the 13th walk. i grew up at 2124 caters. you know, and i saw it every day my mother taught at woodson. for 15 years and then she went from woodson to fantasy williams. and she went to dallas. i used to have to travel.

on the napoleon bus to the broad bus to get to brother martin from i went my brother martin. he's had friends who went to brother martin. i listen, i appreciate it. i but what is your question because and i want to have other people have the opportunity to ask the question. but which what's your what's the question? you know, how we go about? you know and understand, you know going to the polls and voting. but we see these things happening on a day-to-day basis, but my again it is taking ownership in your own community you have to do you have to elect people who are going to look out for the things that you want them to look out for who are going to legislate in a way that you want them to legislate if you look at new york city look at the example now. know you had not a lot of progressives with people are progresses around the country not necessarily the biden administration saying to fund the police. now we have a black police commission in new york city. he's like no don't define the police. black people in new york city wanted more funding more and better policing just not police

who would who are going to abuse him. so what new yorkers did they looked out for their own community and what they want how they want their city run and legislate it and they voted for someone as mayor. who who is going to do that and that's what you have to do. i i'm seeing the line starting to form back there and i want to make sure everyone gets a chance. ask their questions. go ahead. thank you, paul. hey bless you all. thank you very much voice and i am broadway and i'm gonna attempt to frame a fat one fat question based off of some of the things that have been discussed. i heard you say that. that much of the the economic system that we have was built on. the backs of the dispossessed specifically enslaved people and poor people i also heard you talk about a program where? you help?

marginalized youth get to private schools and good schools. and then i heard the other person when we're having a brief exchange about ukraine talk about democratic values and i think we're all to some degree or are less or more involved in this democratic project. my question is how do we get? to access to education for everyone without reproducing this kind of elite structure system like go to harvard or go to the elite private schools in order to get a foothold in the society. um, i'm asking this question from a very personal pinpoint viewpoint. my daughter's in the room. and we're having a discussion about oh god is in the right doctor your daughter's in the room. i didn't hear she's in the room, and we've been having a discussion about is it better to go to the private schools are the private schools better?

even when here in louisiana the highest ranked schools for generations the highest rank school for generations has been a public school. and there's a few of them in the state. i'm not rushing. what's your question? because i want other people. how do we get to? this space of that you're talking about of improvement of improving the democratic project. without reproducing that same elite structure where you have to go to certain kinds of spaces to even have a stake in the system. well, the i spoke i spoke about in my own region. i was very specific about when i was growing up in baton rouge if you wanted to it's different and it may be different where you are. but it's still i go back to the same thing is that you you have to take ownership in where you are and that means the educational system and that is on a local level. so that that is it that is incumbent upon you to be able i think people don't realize the power that they have themselves. because the only power that i had is to give someone like you a voice. i don't but the power that you

have is you have the power to elect people and to affect change in your own community. and there's nothing wrong with people going to elite universities the question is, how can everyone have access to be able to go to elite universities? there's nothing wrong with that. that's all good or go to a great hbcu or go to southern university or go to xavier or go to to wherever there's nothing wrong with that. but that starts on the local level. not that doesn't start. you're not good. you're not going correct that outside of that. that's the only bets of power that you have. is to be able to elect people in your own communities. that can shape your communities in the way that you want your community to be shaped. let's see if we can squeeze in two more questions here, and that's actually thank you. thank you very much. hi, my name is femi. i'm a college. here hi, you're a big

inspiration to a lot of the ipoc students. so i wanted to know what is like one big piece of. eyes are like kind of like a guid. would offer can you say again? because i'm yes, i want to know like what is one key piece? now you're speaking my language. i'm like, i'm not a politician you're asking me all this stuff. i can just give you my point of view about it. here's what you said. femi, right? okay, so femi come here. let me tell you something. let me tell you something come over here. this is my language. are you in you're in college? you can't come up here. so i'm just talking to you. so you're in college. here's what i tell people because i love speaking to young people. i have interns that come in every year. i write about it in my book and i give speeches to them the interns that come in every year and they say to me regardless of where they're come. it's come from. how can i how can i make it in this business as a strong black woman? how can i make it in this business is a proud member of

the lgbtq community. how do i how do i navigate this business? and as as a jewish person as this and you know what i tell them it's very easy number one you work hard right number two, you don't worry about those things. you worry about being excellent and then you bring those issues that you might have as a black woman you bring them to a don lemon who has been in this business forever the old heads right and we will take care of those problems for you. i want you to worry about excellence. be excellent as someone who ran an organization a news organization a company. he will tell you the cream always rises. especially and especially for those who have had a harder because you had that in you that you you must succeed. okay, so work hard. don't worry about being i don't look at yourself as other number three again number three is work hard one and three work hard and

number four is the biggest piece of advice to give to people don't worry about what people think about you. you don't need anybody else's backing. you don't need anybody else to believe in you, but you my one of my mentors td jakes has a sermon that that i think has helped propel me into whatever success that i've had you don't worry about it the entire system or bosses or mentors you don't worry about if they're behind you. he says in church. i want you to look at your neighbor and say hey neighbor. you don't have to believe in my andy lack you don't have to believe in my dream you don't have to believe in my dream. and then and he says now i want you to look at if you have a dream if you are if you believe in something that's crazy impossible or insane insane and you look at your neighbor and say hey. neighbor you don't have to believe in my dream. you don't have to believe in my dream. so i want you every day that you wake up.

to say to yourself look in the mirror and say i have to believe in my dream. my momma doesn't have to believe in my dream. my daddy doesn't have to believe in my dream. my aunt doesn't have to believe in my dream. my boss doesn't have to believe in my dream. no one has to believe in my dream, but me. and guess what? here i am and there you will be and mark my words for me if you come to me to you if you believe if you do that. if you believe that way come to me in 10 years and you're gonna be in awe, i'm gonna say oh my gosh. you are now my boss. hahaha. am i i was just happy you got a job out of this. i think you're doing real good. that is my advice to young people. don't think about being other at all. yeah, you gotta i think don really said it. well don't be discouraged. don't be or defeated by the rejections. you're going to get.

just keep pushing. don't that's my motivation. i am going to be an honest broker of information. i'm gonna be around 10 years from now. i hope i'm gonna be able to report on what you just got from this gentleman, mr. lemon real go for it, but go go with that advice and i think you'll find yourself in a very good position from that anybody who's ever told me. no, i could make it. you know what i say. i'm gonna show you. that's what you have to do. good luck good luck best of luck okay. last question, sir, please. well, first of all, i want to say thank you for that uplifting advice. i'm a social psychologist at harvard and robert keegan who's in the education school with characterize that as moving from a socialized mindset to a self-authoring. mom said where you're right your own story so kudos to that, but my question is about a comment that you made about your experience of moving from a predominantly catholic catholic

black school to predominantly white high school and you characterize it as sort of leaving this confinement. i think you said, you know an animal cage to being led out to see the world. and i was a bit intrigued by that because i went to a predominantly black high school and i didn't see it that way at all. i mean we took trips to paris with the french club. we took trips to mexico and costa rica with the spanish club, but i guess my question is about whether you see a symmetry. between black folks forming social relationships with white people and white people forming social relationships with black people the way you described it was as if it were a symmetry, but i just wanted to ask you if you think there is a symmetry because you know, there's research that shows that it's almost impossible to be a black person in america and have any level of success without knowing how to deal with white people. it's very easy to be a white person, especially in certain

parts of america and not have any contact with people of so, i just wanted to what it depends on. what do you mean by asymmetry? what do you set asymmetry or no? no i said do you see it as being symmetrical? you described it as if it were symmetrical as if you know white people have to make an effort to watch around themselves with people of color but people of color have to also surround themselves. i think it's easier for people of color to surround themselves with white people because look i'm often the only black person in the room right? i'm not in this room. we're new orleans is very diverse here. but i'm often the only white person the only black person in the room and if you look at what happens on cable news as you know, and in prime time, it's me early prime. it's joy reed who i think you are the only african american only african americans in prime time on cable television. and so i get that so is there no it's it's this is a symmetrical. okay, so it is asymmetrical, but i do think that i still believe.

that especially young people. i was in an environment. listen this i came at this is 1960s and 1970s. the world is a different place now. you know, there's still similarities, but it's a different place now. for me my world of because i lived in an entirely black neighborhood and then i moved to white neighborhood and i got called the inward for the first time. i was like, wow, what is this? i had never that had never happened. i moved to an integrated neighborhood. and then you know went to an all black school and then ended up going to a school as i told you then going to lsu. so it was for me. it was like wow, this is a little bit crazy my family went all went to hbcus. right and you can say what you want. i didn't go to an hbcu. i do feel like i missed out on an experience at many african americans have so i'm a little bit jealous of people who had the black fraternity experience and all of that. i didn't have that, but i also made a choice that i wanted to go to a school that was more representative of america if i wanted the hbcu side i had that

with my family my sister went to grandma the system went to southern they bought all the time my parent my my aunt and my mom went to southern university their husbands when the grambling university they fought all the time and it was great for the bayou classic. we all had fun. yeah, so i happen to have that experience. i know that everyone does but i am speaking in this book of my experience. and so that is for me but it is asymmetrical. listen, i think it is incompetent incumbent upon most white people not all to make more of an effort. to have friends who are diverse have friends who are black or of different ethnicity or who don't look and think like them who are who, you know, aren't in the same social circles as they are. i find that happens a lot more so in white communities. community so it's not symmetrical. no, right and i just want to add to that i think even today because you talked about your experience in the 60s and 70s. when black people tend to surround themselves with black people. often for self-protection when

white people choose to surround themselves, but it's often for status right to protect status or just because it's time difference. it's just because of comfort and it's a certain degree. it's that way for black people. but also when i was growing up in the sixties and seventies, i write about it in the book. this was a wb du bois society that lived in in my neighborhood park vista. we moved from a black neighborhood. that wasn't you know the upper middle class to a neighborhood. that was the upper middle class and this neighborhood called park vista where all of the my neighbors were southern university professors and engineers at the chemical plants in blah blah and it opened up my world in a whole different way and those people all came out of black universities. and we're very smart and put a premium on education in a way that i don't necessarily see today. so there was good in that but also the world is changing and we have to remember we have to live together if we're gonna if we're going to solve the problem as much as we could of the

george floyd police brutality and so on it is going to be white people being being familiar and knowing black culture. that's it. and so we got to do it. i think that is a grace note to end on thank you don give it up for don lemonade and gentleman. hey, man that you guys we counted your dad look at i 0 0 0 and bye. people randy a couple just brief comments andy lack and and a number of people are starting an organization called mississippi rising where they're starting a bunch of local newspapers that are going to start covering things that maybe the mainstream media doesn't so, it's with thrill to have him in new orleans in the south and doing that and before we leave to tell mom my friend on who i love just to remind you at rita hit. and everything in cameron parish got wiped out that wasn't a building stand in the first person down there. was don lemon who was covering lake charles remember that?

and every every time although he's on that national desk. he never ever it gets us and the thing that i love the most about him is every time we call him. he comes and oftentimes when he and i are talking on tv. we invoke his mama and so i just want you all to know y'all heard him say he didn't know whether he was going home or not until his mama told him that she was cooking red beans and rice. so, you know what? he's gone. so don head's home. tell your mom what we love her and thank you guys so much for being here appreciated by the way, donna. i'll stay a sign in his books. so if you go downstairs and then he'll be there for you don. thank you. we love you. appreciate it. thank you. i was make sure y'all tune in 10 o'clock eastern nine central. i thought all right.

we have a fantastic one speaker. this is a real treat to welcome dr. bjorn lombard to steamboat institute dr. lomborg is the president and founder of the copenhagen consensus center. he is the author of the best-selling false alarm how climate change panic costs us trillions hurts the poor and fails to fix the planet. he will be