we are honored to have you here honoring your father's legacy. please join us on stage, sir. [applause] you thought i was joking about the coordination of the ties. as i pretend to play the role that she normally plays moderating this up here tonight, we are very pleased to have gwen ifill, manager and moderating editor of the popular pbs show him. please viciously she served as moderator of the vice- presidential debate in -- previously she served as moderator of the vice presidential debates. she has also written a book on this topic, politics in the age of obama. ladies and gentlemen, gwen ifill. [applause] now i will take a seat. [applause]

>> i did that get the memo. >> we have to work on that next time. to make sure everybody gets tweets. thank all of you for being here tonight, as i get my notes are arranged in my drexel university folder, a shameless plug. but they pay me, so i have to work that in somehow. somebody said that is right. i figured out i would start with a story that has been in the press lately that i think time is a lot of this together. maybe i am wrong. that is walmart. know if you have been following that story about wal- mart. i thought initially it was much ado about nothing. you've probably heard that over in jersey, the wal-mart be a system -- p.a. system, there

were remarks made about all black people leaving the store. have you heard about that? i did some research and uncovered a couple of things. i realize that wal-mart has been pressed a lot about these issues. you heard the fact that the wal- mart stores have discounted some of their dolls, their black barbie dolls, the price of the barbie doll was $3, and the price of the white barbie >> was $5.93. >> we finally get a break. [laughter] [applause] >> and trying to be like you come gwen, i did more research and i found there recently wal-

mart paid $11.7 million in back wages because of a class-action suit that some are threatening to bring against them, and that was for women. and then a year ago, wal-mart paid $17.5 million to sell of a class-action lawsuit accusing them of discriminating against african-american drivers. at first i was thinking it did not mean anything and maybe it still does not. i am going to throw it to you. >> thanks. it can mean something and it doesn't. i had a question about post- racial america -- obviously we're not even there. we have not heard the word until barack obama made his run

for the presidency and then we heard about it. post-racial, which assumes that we do not need to talk about race because we are past that, it assumes that we can get past it without going through it, and it assumes that if you do not want to talk about race, there's something negative about race. if you thought it was a good thing, you would want to talk about it. and we need to talk about it. we can come up with stacks of examples where there are still these holes in our social fabric, where bad things happen, where insults' are still there. and i would not lay it all at wal-mart's door anymore at the door of the bus driver who took off from black passengers, at any other examples you can come up with. what i have discovered -- the last time i was in this room was because of the speech.

i thought that i needed to be there and not just watch it. i got on the train and ran and two minutes before the beginning of the speech. it was an amazing event. i just wanted to say i felt very -- [laughter] i thought i was writing a book about politics and it turned out to be about race. and that is what everyone wants to talk about. it is where we can get to help the spot, where rather than calling everyone names and saying you are a racist and you are not, we can get past the thing that shut down the conversation we want to have and move on to open the conversation with people who do not normally have these conversations. that is the crossroads that we're at now. >> i am not ignoring you

tracking these questions coming in on the laptop from facebook and twitter. i think you're going to generate some. anyone want to add to that? >> i may be wanted to add something. >> much ado about nothing with wal-mart and the barbie dolls? >> i would like to start sharing their perspective or a definition of racism. i think as the world community, maybe we are prejudiced -- that basically means pre-judged. in this nation, racism is institutionalized, in a structural, it is all throughout our society, and until we have a

serious conversation -- not pointing fingers -- but serious conversations at the highest levels in at the lowest levels, in fact we need to start in can the garden and nursery school with diversity, human relations, and exposure for our children now many of our children today do not have the same issues that we had, but in addition to raise, we still have not addressed gender issues, we have certainly not addressed the issue as it relates to sexuality. we have a lot of issues that we need to address, so we need to start. that's basically what i would say. we want to think -- we certainly are better, and the height of what my dad -- my dad, by the

way, have predicted that we would see an african-american president earlier than this, and so did robert kennedy. but that does not of solve any of us in our society, -- absolve any of us in our society. but we have made great strides. my father talked about a couple of evils in our society, poverty and racism. we've made great strides in race, but we're not there. but in regards to poverty and militarism, we have not made any strides. >> in thinking about the wal- mart question, the most serious question isn't that differential price on the dolls or the random comment on the system. yes, we have racism in america. their plane of people who will

characterize him and african- americans. but this serious issue that comes up in your question of the lawsuits that wal-mart has been involved in, but ways that the economy, an issue central to dr. king's message, still unfairly disadvantage as african- americans and other people of color. looking out on the economy today, african americans have 1.5 times the unemployment rate of white americans, a little bit more. that is a sadistic grimly consistent since the 1950's -- that is a statistic grimly consistent since the 1950's. discrimination in hiring and who gets hired and what kind of jobs they get, a problem we have come some way as results of two generations of civil rights activist, but we have a ways to go. many employers continue to

relegate african-americans and other minority workers to the bottom rung of the latter, to jobs that do not provide that upward mobility that was provided for people coming from my background to a much greater extent. to economic issues, they need to be front and center. >> you must have been reading my notes. that is exactly where we're going to the next point. wal-mart, speaking of cheap things that we do not need and spending too much money -- let's talk about the economy. most of us have heard the statistic that the unemployment rate is about 10% for most americans and over 60% for african-americans. -- over 16% for african- americans. tavis smiley and others said that part of that is

institutionalized racism. so given those two different numbers, 10% for the average american, 16% for african- americans, how does that relate to this discussion about a racial divide in real terms -- economic terms, material terms? >> i taught english, so i always feel uncomfortable getting into the statistics, but you cannot today not be struck by the numbers, especially if you are involved in education. behind the statistics, those who were punished the most in this terrible economy are those who have the least education. this is an unusual recession in that it is a recession work the college-educated have been harmed.

typically it is about half what the unemployment rate would be for non-college educated. interestingly, though, african- american males with a college education have a significantly higher unemployment rate than white males with a college education. so you could argue -- and i think rightly so, perhaps -- that there is a racial dimension here. they are being punished not because of lack of educational attainment, but because of racial identity and gender. what i would say about the economy and the unemployment, the big take away from a -- for me is that we have to urge and encourage educational

leadership. the future economic opportunities in this country will be for those who have the skills and the credentials which reflect the attainment of those skills. we are and knowledge society. it was nice to go to college in 1944, but you did not have to go to college. you could leave the south and moved to detroit or pittsburgh, go work in a ford factory or gm factory or a steel mill, you could earn a good living, raise a family, buy a home, and be a pillar of your community. today those jobs do not exist. and where there is manufacturing, it is high skilled manufacturing, and you have to work a computer. there are still indications that race -- racial friction

exists -- and have a company like wal-mart which has a very explicit and aggressive diversity program. there are african-americans and people of color in leadership positions throughout that country, but you can still have an instance of an employee or someone who will stand up and make an and toward racial comment. we are going to find that. we have to ask how we ensure that people who have been kept on the outside because of race and low education have the opportunity to overcome through education. >> does anyone want to add to >> does anyone want to add to >> just thinking of the disparity between the unemployment numbers as it relates to the african-american population, even among college educated african-americans, people had asserted because of those numbers and that data,

there is a need for a specific program for the african-american community. do you agree with that? is that a way to address this divide, this material to find? where does it further divide us? if president obama were to go on television tomorrow and said, you know what? i have instructed senator harry reid and nancy pelosi to meet, we will put together a plan for black america. >> and with the health care vote. [laughter] >> no, he cannot. that is the answer to your question. partly because it would divide rather than bring to take -- rather than bring people together, but that is mostly because that is not who barack obama is. he is a man who made a very

thoughtful, aggressive internal search of who he was in a way most of us never have to, to decide and identify as being an african-american man. i have heard people say, why don't we call him biracial? i say, he calls himself black. why would you want to identify as black? that is who he is, but he has never been someone who is an outline on matters of race. -- who is an outlier on matters of race. leaders are not those to identify primarily by race. they believe -- and i am not saying this is right or wrong -- if i get a health care bill passed, and african americans suffered disproportionately

from lack of health care, who is going to benefit? if i begin a program against childhood obesity, and i know that young black girls are more likely to suffer from incidence of childhood of the city, who is going to benefit if i make our food healthier? there is a salty to the obama approach to raise which is more than a beer summit, which it had to do again, he probably would not do. they may have come away saying that it was going to be an ongoing race-specific conversation, and there has not been. and i would not expect this president to leaded or that he is necessarily the best person, because of the decisive -- the divisive nature of having an african-american president. in order to get elected across racial lines, if you have to convince people with the first interest that you are on their

side. and if you only speak to one subset of your audience, the other subset thinks you're not speaking for them. it is not a game for sissies. [unintelligible] [inaudible] >> it seems to me that the african community -- african- american community has given him permission to lead in that way. 90% of african-american support him strongly and support his leadership. but there is a 10% that is critical. >> is the only 10%? >> the polls do not show that there are an overwhelming number of african-americans to

criticize him. >> when you said 10%, thinking of the barbershop, and we all understand the barbershop dynamic. some of us do not even have to go anymore. [laughter] some of you have heard that african-americans spend an inordinate amount of time discussing social, paul, and other issues in the barbershop. we talk about things that you do not talk about in public or the workplace. and what i've been hearing in my barber shop tores, it is that people are upset that president obama does not have a black agenda, or an agenda for black america. if you can argue that we're

disproportionately left out in education and in economics, and we will look at the issue of the media later, why wouldn't there be some if this is placed on the community? >> my dad was a preacher and he never got over the fact that people would speak for him. he did not understand why people needed to be led. this idea that black people feel a certain way because tanned guys on the barbershop on saturday say it -- >> what about tavis smiley? >> does he speak for me? we've got 10 people here. my point is just we have to be careful in generalizing about what white people say to my any more than saying what many people say. [applause]

>> i think that is a good point but you're not off the hook. there is still a group of people out there, a significant number of people who feel that there is the need for an agenda. >> how do you know that? >> because we've heard that. >> candidate obama and president obama made the calculation that putting a racial agenda front and center would be political suicide. in fact, the very slightest hint of racial issues during the campaign, his offhanded comment about not looking like anyone else on the dollar bill, led to days of commentary. it was a diversion from the press conference that he raised that, health care. all bomber realizes that focusing on those issues is a political third rail. on the other hand, it should be

said that there is a venture could work on central -- on civil rights issues below the radar of the national media. and that is in the department of justice civil rights division. for the last eight years, the civil-rights division starved away. it was staffed with a partisan appointees, largely moved away from its longtime agenda to work for racial equality on many irina's, and under president obama, he has been done to move those issues quietly behind the scenes. one is the administration joining of very important lawsuit calling for the the segregation of affordable housing in westchester county, new york. it is a very well to to suburb, access to good jobs and good schools. the second is the administration

signing on to the affirmative action case in the new haven case, one that was lost in the supreme court, but the administration cigna goal -- signaled its commitment to pushing that agenda as well. these things are not appearing on the front pages of the papers or the talk shows, but they matter. >> i was going to throw in my two cents. unless of movement again occurs, and going back to my father and his team, in the early 1960's, they asked if he had in the civil rights legislation that he would propose. the president said, i am impotent. i have sympathy and i sympathize with you. i have some other domestic things that i've got to do. i cannot do anything right now.

what my father and his team were able to do was precipitate a nonviolent crisis. my point is that if the african- american community comes together and precipitates -- and i will qualify, nonviolent -- crisis, then any political officials has to respond. but as long as we the people said that and talk in the barber shops -- the street committee always has an opinion. sometimes it is interesting, but it is not exactly -- it does not memorializes self into a real issue. >> i want to japan quickly here. i think that is part of my job. i think we are letting the obama off the hook. not too long ago there was an issue that came out, i'm sure

you know of this bank -- this book called the "game change." senator harry reid, the majority leader in the senate, said that, and that quote, "obama could be successful because he has no negro dialect unless he wanted to have one." are we saying that because of these social realities, it is ok that he has to switch it -- can i get the question now? let me get my question now. [applause] is there a sign here this set of "washington week tha?" >> old habits die hard. >> i will be watching tomorrow.

there has been a sense -- and these guys a little longer that i have -- there was a need for people of color, particularly black man, to appear nonthreatening in order to be successful in many realms, politics notwithstanding. and that means switching dialects, toning it down that means not, some people would say, showing your color, and maybe even adopting some of the mannerism of what they considered the social psychology of the other group. some people have argued that to a certain extent, people of color in this century, african- american man, half to do that more than probably any other group in order to make other folks feel comfortable with them and feel like they are not a threat. are we saying that because of that reality, that we should conform to that and keep moving?

>> may i at turk -- return to my original question? >> as long as you can answer mine. >> i do not know -- he can be african-american man or someone from kentucky, it can be someone raised in hawaii whose father is from kenya, but if you want mainstream a septums, you have to find a way to make yourself mainstream. if there is anything that harry reid said that was not true -- >> that does not make it rate. >> harry reid did not say anything the black people have not said themselves. [applause] maybe it was not polyptych thing for him to save but i don't think anyone would say that it did not ring true. i went to morehouse college, and have a program -- an induction program. you went there once a week and you would talk -- you are taught

how to speak, how to address, how to behave. it was assimilation 101. it was intended to take you from the country to the city, from the minor leagues to the major league, and i was happy to do it because i was sitting where martin luther that is part of what it takes living in this multiracial diverse society. we have to find a way to fit and, but that doesn't mean we lose who we are. >> so you are saying there is no negative side to that, it is just the way it is? >> i am saying that there are certain expectations. if you want to be president, i don't think it would be [inaudible] that is not the job, that is not the presentation. >> you say that president obama

is not a down brother? >> i am not a down brother, how what i know? [laughter] >> i think you are very down. [laughter] >> thank you. >> maybe this is a generational thing, because i know that for me -- i am a moderator but i will throw my 2 cents in. amongst my peers we have this discussion that we feel like we have to turn down this, whatever it is, more than any other group in order to appear less threatening, because the stereotype is there is some reason for some folks to be afraid of us. >> of course you do. that is the way it is. there are so many things -- >> should we work to change that? is that why we are here tonight? >> i go back to