mos. and after that, theresa may takes questions from the comments. and following that, interpreters in iraq and afghanistan. ♪ >> this week, heather mcghee, president of demos. she received a call from gary civic hello, a white man from north carolina. heather mcgee talks about the -- heather mcgee talks about the , her subsequent friendship with him and what he has done to change his views. >> heather, what is demos? heather: demos is a public policy organization dedicated to the idea that each of us should have an equal say in our democracy.

and an equal chance in our economy. what we've been thinking about is the root of our name. demos is the root word of the people, which is the root word of democracy, and right now it feels like figuring out who belongs in our nation's demos. host: i woke up on december 10, 2016, picked up "the new york times," and saw the headline, "i'm prejudiced, he said. then we kept talking." i want to show you the video and then ask you to explain the whole thing. [video clip] >> good morning. i was hoping your guest could help me change my mind about some things. i am a white male, and i am prejudiced. the reason it is is something not that i was taught but something i learned.

when i open up the papers, i get discouraged with what young black males are doing to each other and the crime rates. i understand they live in an environment with a lot of drugs. you have to get money for drugs. it's a deep issue that goes beyond that. i have these different fears. i don't want my fears to come true. i try to avoid that. i come off as being prejudiced. i don't like being forced to like people. i like being led to like people through example. what can i do to change, to be a better american? heather: thank you so much for being honest and opening up this conversation, because it is one of the most important ones we

need to have in this country. host: you said more, but i will let you tell us what happened after that. heather: that was a remarkable moment. i didn't realize until i stepped off the set. there were more calls after that. we just had to keep rolling. how powerful it was. there was something in his voice that touched me. you can hear it. it is so authentic as he searches for the words to say something to a national audience of many of us won't admit in our homes, i am prejudiced. the way he ended his question saying, what can i do to change and be a better american, reached right in and grabbed my heart. i had to just pause, and it felt like the set fell away and i was trying to communicate with his person who reached a hand out to me. yes, he said some things that, as the sister of a black man, daughter of a black man, were

painful to hear, and i knew there were many more layers of stereotypes underneath what he said, but at the same time, i know we are all swimming in a sea of racist stereotypes. the media only represents black crime, and it's become the aim of a lot of politicians actually to make people distrust one another and particularly distrust people of color. could i blame him for absorbing that particularly when he was asking for things to change? i had to thank him. host: what happened next? heather: i work in law and public policy. before the call, i have been talking about student loans and trade policy. yes, i have been talking about race relations, but as an instrument to talk about public policy. i could tell that gary really wanted simple answers to his

questions about how he could integrate his life. off the top of my head, i said, get to know black families, and if you are a religious person, join in interracial church. join in with people of different races in a sense of common purpose. i did tell him to turn off the nightly news because we know there is a warped vision of who commits crimes in this country. that comes in many media markets. i asked him to read about black history. i got a sense of who he was talking about was black people, stereotypes against immigrants, muslims, but with his question, he was asking me, the black woman on his television, to tell him how to overcome prejudice against black people. host: then what? heather: then i kept going with

the program. i walked off the set, and i had a text message from my colleague gwen, and she had watched it. she was there with another one of my colleagues. she's a young white woman from the south. he's a young african-american man from the south, as well. they looked at each other with tears in their eyes and said, something special just happened. a few days later, they put it on facebook. by monday, it had about one million views. a bunch of different other sites and video aggregators picked it up and put different headings on it, and it became a "racist is c-span caller asks of this black woman a question and here's her response," and it went viral. you had comedians and public figures talking about it.

demos is an organization that works in public policy. the people who follow us online our wonks and nerds, people who care about the specific issues we work on, like debt-free college or democracy reform. this was getting out there. my sister-in-law's hairdresser said, i saw that. it was starting to really break out of the bubble. this is august. we had a racially charged summer with donald trump's campaign with black lives matter and the police shootings and the tragic events all in baton rouge and dallas. it was a time when people felt like all they were seeing on tv about race was bad news, and here was first, a white man admitting that he was prejudice, which, for people of color, we

all just said, finally. you had donald trump saying that mexican immigrants are racist and saying, i don't have a prejudice bone in my body. here was this everyday guys saying, yeah, i have these prejudices. >> we found this video on your website. tell us how this happened. [video clip] >> i went down to north carolina, and i met with gary. we furthered that conversation about race and asked each of their hard questions. it was amazing. >> when you get to know people, don't let it go by. you have 8 million people responding positively to my insecurities, they must have the

same thing. if you don't practice in taking that first step, it's the hardest thing. host: how did you find gary? heather: gary found me. as i now know, gary, a few days later, was watching tv. he was watching cnn. i went on cnn and had an interview about the fact that this clip went viral, so he heard my voice again. he had never seen or heard me before the c-span show. he heard my voice and ran into the living room and saw me talking about the clip, and at the bottom, it had my twitter handle. gary went on his computer and went on twitter for his first time in his life. his first tweet said, how does this thing work? he entered in my twitter handle and said, i'm gary from north carolina. i wanted to know.

the way those shows work, i gave my answer, and then we went onto another call. i didn't know if he brushed it off. i didn't know anything about who he was. there's no way to know. he found me and said, i'm gary from north carolina. i sent him a direct private message and said, gary, i would love to talk to you about what you thought about my answer to your question. i gave him my phone number. a few days later, i got a phone call, and he was sitting at a burger joint having a lunch break, and he decided to call me. he was very nervous. i was very nervous. he said, what you said changed my life. to which i was shocked. i thought, sure, when asked a pretty hard question off the top of my head, i gave decent answers, but i didn't think it was going to be something he would take so seriously.

he explained to me that he is now on a path. he wanted to get right about this before he died. he said he was inspired by the fact newspapers across the country, it went viral on social media, and it was picked up in the normal press. he said, there are probably a lot of other people like me out there who have these fears and prejudices, and are worried about what will happen to them if they admit it. host: when did you go down there and why? heather: we had a couple phone conversations. the first one was so good, he thanked me, i thanked him for his courage. he said some version of what we said in the video. he said, i don't know what you want to do with this, but it seems like a big thing, and if you are willing to keep talking about this, he said, i'm willing

to talk with you about it. he said, use me to keep this conversation going, because the country needs it. i kind of took that to heart. i didn't know exactly what would come of it. then i got married, actually. then my life -- i went away from my work for a while. i talked to gary once more before i was getting ready for my wedding. he told me the books he was reading. i gave him some ideas. he told me a funny story about going to the bookstore to get some african-american studies books. he sent me a video of himself and the heading for the african-american studies section of the bookstore to tell me he was in the bookstore, and then i got the invitation to go speak at wake forest university with melissa harris-perry. my new husband and i said, let's call gary and see if we can

drive and meet with him. we did that. gary and i were very nervous to meet each other. we had no idea what would happen. my husband is a documentary filmmaker, so i said, gary, i think we should record us meeting. he said, absolutely. that footage was filmed by my husband. it was a really beautiful conversation in person. it exceeded my expectations. host: where is that you go heather: he lives outside of asheville, north carolina. he wanted us to meet in asheville. we met outside in downtown asheville. it was a beautiful fall day, changing leaves. it was about a week before the election, and we didn't talk about the election much. we didn't talk about politics. he told me about his life.

we got to know each other, where he's from, the experiences he has had. host: how old is the man? heather: i think he is mid 50's. host: where is he from? heather: he was born in connecticut, new haven connecticut, but he was in the navy and had a heart condition and went to asheville. this is one of those beautiful things that happens in american peoples' stories where the same things he was afraid of in terms of the media stereotypes of africa america have been part of his experience in connecticut with gangs, drug addiction, and when he got his heart surgery,

he fell in love with asheville and the slow pace of life. now he's mostly retired. host: is he married? heather: no. host: no children. how often in your life have you heard -- you can't quantify -- how often have you heard the things he said as a white man? heather: it is a pretty innumerable count. in terms of someone saying that to me personally, probably not so many times. in my career, i started out as an economic policy person and would go across the country in my role at demos and in other

jobs talking with people about the economy. a lot of times in church basements, union halls, talking about, what has happened in our economy so that working people are finding it so hard to get ahead? i could tell that story without talking about race at all. i could talk about globalization and technological change, corporate power and trade rules and tax rules and workers rights. i felt if i didn't mention race, i was not telling the whole story. some piece of the puzzle was missing. how was it that my grandfather's generation, you could have a working-class job, didn't have to go to college, and you had a great job with benefits, retirement security, and public schools were well-funded and you

could go to college debt-free? something changed in the late 1970's. yes, there are lots of reasons for that change, but something also shifted in our politics where the very idea of a government that invests in its people and supports working-class folks and supports investments in mobility has become tarred, racialized. the conservative vision of government carries on these stereotypes. it felt to me like i was getting drawn into more and more conversations about race even when i was supposed to be talking to a laid-off worker about the economy. i learned to talk with people about race to see their own self interest in it.

host: tell us where you were born. heather: i was born in chicago. i was born and raised in the south side of chicago. host: your parents did what? heather: my mother come at the time i was born, she was an holistic health practitioner and ended up moving into more social policy. my father was an artist and photographer. host: were they together? they were together. heather: they got divorced when i was young. i lived between both of them, had a great community i grew up in, the michelle obama southside that people know. my grandparents on both sides had come up from the south and worked in the public sector as a cop and social worker. it was a great way to grow up. host: what about the people in your high school?

how many white people were in your high school? heather: i grew up in mostly all-black schools until i went away to boarding school. this was a decision my mom made in seventh grade, pretty early. i went from growing up in chicago to virtually all-white, rural, new england school. host: what school? heather: it's called the mint. very small school. i was in western massachusetts and one of two black children in the entire school. that was a pretty phenomenal adjustment. i was young. i was 11. young for even seventh grade. in some ways, being that young helped. it helped me be a child and have a sense of adventure about this incredible cultural shift i just experienced. in my high school i went to, it was a diverse but very elite

prep school. most of the kids of color were ones who came in on scholarships. host: where was that? heather: just outside of boston. milton academy. host: how were you treated when you were 11 years old by the white girls? heather: it was hard. we were kids. in some ways, we were just young enough to have a little bit of that childhood innocence. some of the harsher status concerns that come in high school, we were before that, but there were a lot of moments where they just didn't understand some of the basic things about being black and young. i went from living with my family to living with all white people, white dorm parents. little things about the way i had grown up compared to how

they grew up came up, but i developed wonderful friends. i flourished in the school. it was also going from a big public school to a tiny school where they sat around with five teachers and a book -- i'm sorry, five students, a book, and a teacher. in some ways, it was very fortunate. host: were your parents wealthy? heather: no, but they were able to use financial aid. it was a big leap that my parents made to say i wasn't getting the challenge i needed in public school. host: one of the things people noticed when you answered gary and the show, there was not an ounce of anger in your voice. when did you learn how to do that? and were you ever angry about race?

heather: i am angry about race every day. host: but i mean in the way you treat other people, how do you get this even temperament? heather: i went to the obama school of race relations. [laughter] i'm kidding. host: what does that mean? heather: there's the joke about the obama anger translator. he has to do it all the time. the amount of disrespect thrown at him, the amount of vitriol, he has had to rise above it. that is what it means to be president of the united states. host: how do you do it? you've obviously done it. heather: there has to be, to be a person of color in a white-dominant society, you learn how -- at least, i learned how to have empathy first. gary's question was

extraordinary. it's different when someone is racist to me in the line at a store. he was saying, i am prejudiced, and i need to change. it comes back to this idea of, is racism and prejudice something that is an individual evil, or is it something that is baked into the fabric of this country and that is communicated in subtle messages every single day in our media? if we believe as most racial justice advocates do that it's the latter, that it's not the story of evil sinners and good people, but rather a system that was set up to communicate a belief and hierarchy of human

values, then is it any surprise that values, people absorb that belief. i'm not saying that takes the blame away from everyone, but it means when someone identifies and is willing to admit they absorbed a bunch of pretty racist stereotypes about our fellow americans, should we answer that call? i think we have to. i think we all have to. one of the big mistakes with the way this culture has shifted over the course of my lifetime once the voices of the civil rights faded is we stopped , talking about race and admitting that in fact prejudice is far, far more common than we want to acknowledge. host: how many times have you been with gary? heather: i talked with gary on the phone about a dozen times. i've met with him in person now three times. host: what is the future of the gary-heather relationship? heather: i don't know. he is on this incredible journey that i am from time to time sign

posting for him. he created this system on his own where he forced himself to interact with people of color he normally would not have. he started it in the waiting room at the v.a. where a black man sat next to him, and he created a system for himself where he said, my assumption about this person on a scale of 1-10 is that i'm not going to like them. we would have a bad interaction. i'm afraid of him. i'm anxious. we put it low on the scale. he would rate the person in number then he forced himself to three. say, really bad traffic on i-91 or whatever, some kind of opening salvo, and after the interaction, he would rate how he felt about him afterwards. there was always a 5, 6, 7-point spread.

that was gary's system. definitely not something i would've come up with and chosen to do, but in some ways, it is disarmingly simple. the basic spirit of it is come -- the basic spirit of it is, if you've got to the point where not only do you consume a lot of stereotypes on television but in your life, you are finding that it's affecting who you feel comfortable sitting next to or talking to, sending your children to school with, paying taxes to support their education, living near, we've got work to do. host: i want to talk about class, because this may be an example. when you look at your background, what happened after high school? what did you study? heather: american studies. then i went to law school at uc

berkeley. host: how did all of that happen? that's an expensive ride. heather: just debt. host: why were you interested in going to yale and getting a law degree? what was moving you? heather: i've always wanted -- that community in chicago. where i grew up. there was a sense growing up that you pay for living on the earth. everyone had to do something, whether it was work in the public sector, work in a nonprofit. that was how i grew up. i never questioned the idea that in some ways making this country better was going to be the work of my life. host: after law school, where did you go then? heather: i started working at demos just after college. i was an entry-level position in the economic opportunity program.

i was 22 years old. the organization had only been around a year and a half or two years. i got a job. i had some jobs during college working, doing research for a small public policy organization. that worked on issues of low income family and children. i was able to get this job working on the issue of debt. at that time, we were working on how the issue of credit card debt and payday loans have become this plastic savings plan for working class americans. this was early on, way before this became a dominant understanding of the economy. and i worked on that issue at demos for number of years and decided to go to law school. host: the reason i bring up class, how much education did gary have? heather: i don't think he finished college. if he went. host: and he was in the navy.

he must have had interactions with people who did it look like him. heather: i did talk about that a little bit with him. that surprised me. we think of the military as the most integrated institution in our society, but i think -- that was a long time ago for him. since then, he has in many ways just lived the life of a working-class guy in the south. north carolina has a very diverse political landscape and everything. it became clear in conversations that among friends, racist jokes were just part of the way they communicated and entertained themselves. host: tell us about demos, the organization. how many people work there? how much money do you spend a year?

heather: demos is 16 years old now. we have about 60 staff. from a handful of people working on democracy and economic issues until now where we have 60 folks. we are i became president three years ago. took over from miles rappaport who went on to become the president of common cause. when i took over for miles, he is a mid-60's, white guy. i grew up with the organization and i came back in 2009. there was not a ton that i wanted to do to change it. i did want to raise the understanding of all of our staff, from the economist to the political science and the

lawyers of how race affects us all. the biggest thing i did to transform the organization was to embark on a three-year racial equity organizational transformation process. the organization is predominately white or it it was much more so when i took over. that conversation about race with white people was something we took on head on at the organization. host: what is the most offensive thing a white person can say to you? heather: can say to me? host: you say to yourself, there he goes, that is the signal. heather: the most pernicious lie about people of color -- i say it is the most pernicious because it is pervasive and core to undermining the sense of social solidarity and a shared

contract that is essential for our country to thrive. the most pernicious lie, is the lie that people of color, black people, immigrants are, in some ways -- do not want the same things that everybody else wants. that we are lazy, not intelligent. that any kind of -- not deserving of any kind of the same kind of support that made the white middle-class flourish in the middle of the century. it is that idea that -- for example, we see it in health care today. there is so much of this prejudice undertone in the

conversation about taking away from medicare, which is seen by many folks, particularly white folks, as something that older white people have earned and put money aside to give free things to undeserving people who just do not deserve it, basically. the communities of color that i grew up among, that i know are so seldom in the popular imagination among white people. particularly those who watch a lot of conservative media. where there is a very clear racial narrative. the stories that are cherry picked-in some ways, it is donald trump's vision of black america. you have nothing to lose. people shooting people every day, families are broken, all of the immigrants who come to the

country are rapists and criminals. that idea tears at the fabric of the country. how are you supposed to hear that message about communities that you do not live near, then say, yes i think those kids should have health care subsidies. i think we should raise all of our taxes so that college is debt-free for those community college students. it is a very slippery slope from a stereotype that is at an individual basis to tearing apart the sense of who we all are as americans. it comes back and affects white people too. host: going back to the video from our call in show, it was 8 million at one point. you know what the number is now? heather: it was 8 million before "the new york times" got there. i am sure it is much more now. host: what has happened to you

as a result of this? heather: it was a rough fall. i was in north carolina meeting with gary the week before the election. in many ways, for me personally, and for many other people who dedicated their lives to social justice, racial justice and economic justice, the election of a billionaire who spouted a lot of disdain, distrust, and disgust for many members of the american community was a pretty rough, and continues to be a pretty rough proposition. my relationship with gary -- who should be a trump voter by demographics. he is not a democrat, as he told he did we first met, but not vote for trump.

he has become someone who recognized his own stereotypes. almost gets a little bit of joy shiftinging them and his consciousness to a more generous idea of who americans are. that has given me hope. host: i guarantee you people are watching this right now, it will affect them. you know why, and you will know immediately. who is the chairman of your board? heather: i thought you were going to say you are prejudiced. [laughter] say, we are all prejudiced. we all have stereotypes and hold beliefs -- for some people it may be about muslims. for some people it may be about immigrants, women, or obese people. host: you know why i asked this question? when you tell us who the

chairman, people listening will go, one way or the other. heather: amelia, who is the daughter and collaborator on a number of books with elizabeth warren, the senator from massachusetts. it is her daughter. not only is at her daughter, but they actually work together on a number of books, including the two income trap. that is how i got to know elizabeth warren when she was a professor. this argument we were making about credit card debt and how the rules had changed and was drowning working families. it was one that she and amelia are making in the early 2000 , and that is why we got to know each other. i have always been a fan of senator warren. senator warren and i have had a number of conversations about race.

about how you talk about the economic populism she delivers so compellingly, and also told that missing piece of the story of how race has been used as a weapon in the war to drive people who have common class interests. host: if president donald trump called you and said i would like to meet with you, would you? heather: that is so interesting. when i was in north carolina and i met with melissa harris-perry, we had an interview. she said if hillary clinton called, would you work for the white house? i said no, i love him doing that demos. then she said if donald trump called and said i want you to lead my racial reconciliation, would you do it? in your hypotheticals, i don't know why he is calling me. host: he is calling you because he want you to come to the oval office, by yourself, he will have nobody there and you get to sit with him, no drama and or

cameras and he will say tell me , why it is black folks dislike me. and what can i do about it. heather: i would have a lot to say to donald trump about the story he holds in his mind about people of color in this country, and how dangerous it is for demos, for our sense of being a whole people in our country. i have a lot to say to donald trump, i would be happy to say. host: you look him in the eye, you will tell him things. let's just assume he is saying i'm not prejudiced. i can't say this out loud, but this is part of the act. heather: i would tell him that he has created lasting damage.

his incredible megaphone that he has used to reify some of the worst stereotypes about immigrants, muslims, women, people with disabilities, african-americans. host: how deep is it? heather: it is so damaging, here's why. he was able to connect one of the most significant crises of our time. the decline in living standards, particularly among people without a college degree. the gulf in wealth and inequality in this country. the fact that you cannot work your way out of poverty today. he was able to connect that to scapegoating people of color. that -- particularly for those of us who have dedicated our whole lives to trying to call the country's attention and call the elite's attention to what

has happened to the working and middle class in this country, making the solution to that, a, voting for someone who says i alone can fix it, as opposed to saying it is about collective action. it made the middle class in this country and transform dangerous factory jobs into good jobs through collective action and collective bargaining, which he is opposed to. and b, the fact that he made tied the concern about the decline and good jobs in america to violent encouraging scapegoating.

anti-democratic litmus tests for coming into the country are based on religion. it is devastating and it will last longer than the donald trump presidency. host: why are most black folks so anti-a black person who is a conservative? the anti-ben carson, they do not speak for me, it is a big negative on them. heather: in some ways i feel like it is similar to white folks who are against elizabeth warren. it is about the politics. i wish the conservative ideology was not so easy to create a division among racial lines. racism has been so central to the policy solutions, and the stories about the country. it is really hard.

when you get an african-american, or a latina, or any person of color who gets into political life and wants to gut the enforcement of civil rights, wants to abolish the minimum wage, wants to bust unions, which are even more of a ticket to the middle class for working black folks and latinos because the job discrimination is so strong outside of the union. it is not about race, it is about the policies and the ideas of what they have done and will do to the communities of color. host: bill o'reilly talked about race on his show december 20, 2016. it was about white privilege. i want you to hear it and react to it. bill: very few commentators will to you that the heart of liberalism in america today is based on race. it permeates almost every issue.

that white men have set up a system of oppression. that system must be destroyed. bernie sanders said that. hillary clinton did. the liberal media tries to sell that all day long. so-called white privilege, bad , diversity good. heather: sure. privilege based on race is bad and diversity is good. racial and ethnic diversity is the source of american exceptionalism. the fact that we are a country that -- we were not to send it -- we were not descendent from one ethnic group as european countries were. our immigration laws have created a place where there is someone here in the united

states with ties to every single community, it is the thing that makes us exceptional and extraordinary. yes, diversity is good. and yes, privilege that is based on skin color is not democratic, alitarian, and it has been baked into the fabric of our country. host: are most white supremacists -- heather: those are two very different questions. host: what do black people say about white people when we are not around? heather: that is a good question. so -- i am trying to think of an actual example. host: there has to be things you say -- heather: sure. our country -- we have this very strange, kind of double sense in

-- kind of double consciousness in this country where we admit -- usually on martin luther king day, our country was legally racially segregated up until recently, but the footage is black and white. we really do not want to actually admit that that has some effect on all of our systems and beliefs which were predominant. it really is about the beliefs. there is this idea that white people who were racist before the civil rights movement, maybe they were just bad people. we know that is not actually true. we know the vast majority of white americans tolerated a system of apartheid in our country and does that mean that they were evil and would literally kill a black person before they would sit next to them? obviously not.

if that is the truth, how can we help but understand that the tacit beliefs -- and they have different justifications now. it may not be biology, it may be that black culture is inferior. of course there are some good black people. i really want to make sure that we don't fall into that trap. it was very easy to do so when you had an african-american family in the white house. it is not all black people, it is just the culture of so many, and too many black people. host: i want to go back to more video, this is from april 30, 20 15th at the white house correspondents dinner. i will ask you more when you

hear what larry willmore says. >> to live in your time mr. president, when a black man can lead the entire free world -- [applause] -- words alone do me no justice. so mr. president, i will keep it 100. -- yo, barry, you did my n-word. thank you very much, good night. [applause] host: i will just add to this, i recently saw that movie "fences." the n-word is used a tremendous amount along the black folks in the movie. what should white people react to this use?

when black folks use it, bad, when white folks use it, really bad. heather: one of the difficulties of understanding race relations is the need to understand the difference between equality and equity. different communities are situated differently. there is a power differential among the communities in this country. i personally do not use that word. my family grew up and we did not use that word. at the same time, i know that a lot of people have defended it because it is reclaiming a word that, when used by white people is used with hate, division, , disrespect.sion and when used by people of color, the intent, as you can

tell by larry willmore saying it to the president was not hate, derision, and disrespect. what is the meaning behind the word? what is the intent of the word? it is obviously very different. so, that kind of thinking -- the understanding that if you are going to be in a society that has a lot of different communities, and frankly that has communities that have different power differentials. you and i may not have a massive power differential, except for the fact that you are asking the questions and i am answering them. as a young african-american woman, as an older white man, -- i did not say old. [laughter] there are power differentials there. host: you're the one with a law degree from uc berkeley. heather: there will always be exceptions.

but you look at the median wealth of a white man. white households have 10 times the typical wealth of an african-american household. that is still the case when it comes to white and black families of equal education, because of the history of racial segregation and wealth stripping. the thing that is challenging, but not so challenging, and gary has been able to really understand it and make it a part of the way he now sees the world. there are group dynamics. you and i are incredibly idiosyncratic, individual people with our foibles and stories. if you lay all white men, african-american women, latina

women, etc. out, and look at the way they have access to power who's represented in the senate , and the congress. 90% of the elected officials in the country are still white. 2/3 are white men. if you look at the difference of wealth and income, the ability to walk into a room to get a job and call back if you have an african-american sounding name but no criminal record, you are less likely to get a call back for a job than if you are a white person who has a criminal record. does that mean that i cannot get a job, or that any white person will always get a job? no, but it does mean these group dynamics still exist and we have to acknowledge them. host: are your parents alive? heather: yes. thank goodness. host: what do they think of your success? heather: they are proud of me. my mother has dedicated her life and career to racial healing. she is particularly proud of me. she lives outside of maryland.

my grandfather is not still alive and he was a chicago police officer. was very close to harold washington -- first black mayor of chicago. i wish he were still alive. he would have a lot to say. my dad is in sacramento. host: so, where did you meet your husband? heather: i met my husband in high school. host: and his name is? heather: shepherd. he is a perfectly american story. his mother was a foreign exchange student from pakistan and met her husband, my husband's father in school. they have this incredibly unlikely love story. he was a white american from denver and she was a pakistani woman.

he grew up in this interface, intercultural family. host: so you have a mixed marriage? heather: yes. host: any of your own black folks resent that? i hear people talking about that they don't want whites to marry blacks. what is it like from the black community? heather: there are prejudices in every community. i would just say that prejudice in the white community is backed up often by the force of law and the economy. that is why it matters more to the state of black children that white people are prejudice. more than if a black woman is prejudiced against white people. i will say that i fortunately -- my marriage has been in brace -- has been embraced very much by my community and his

community. host: those who may have tuned in late, gary is who? heather: gary said he was a white man and prejudiced. that is how he opened up his call on c-span. he lives in rural north carolina. host: he changed since that call with you. heather: tremendously. on a personal level, this is someone who spent most of his time watching tv and did not have many interactions with people. he has really pushed himself to interact with people of different races. he has been flown to d.c. and new york to meet with me. he has been interviewed for the new yorker magazine and on cnn last week. but more importantly, he is taking it on himself to learn about the truth about race and racism in the country. host: here is a little bit from that cnn.

the fellow that is interviewing i believe is on your board. heather: van jones, yes. van: how are they reacting? >> i think they are curious. i think they are wondering what i have gotten myself into. i have a few friends that i can count on my hand. i don't make a big thing about it. i told them i was doing this thing and had this new friend who mentors me. it was a long time ago, i had a different kind of conversation with them. host: is there more to do on the part of demos with the story? heather: i think so. for about a year now i have been wanting to write a book. i started working on the book

proposal before the facebook call with gary. the idea of the book is to really catalog the different ways that racism is actually bad for white people. host: will you write it for whites or blacks? heather: for white people and people of color who are trying to find common cause. gary was in a lot of pain. the degree of anxiety and fear that he had, coupled with the sense of moral guilt. one of the things that really shook him this year was them -- the murder in charleston. roof's murder of innocent people in mother emmanuel church. that really bothered him. he lived in the south and never

really noticed the confederate flags everywhere and it started to notice it. he thought about his own prejudiced views and racist jokes he told. he said, if i don't do something about this, i will have a stroke. it really caused him pain. i do not think that any of us, as americans, get away scott free with racism still being the cancer that it is in our society. host: heather mcghee, president of the demos organization. www.demos.org. host: thank you for joining us. ♪ [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] http://twitter.com/cspanwj

--[captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2016] announcer: to give us your comments about this program, visit us at q and a.org. q and a programs are available at c-span podcast. announcer: if you enjoyed this week's "q and a" interview, here are some other programs you might like. "newsweek" contribute editor talks about his career and writing about race issues. author and lecturer nathan mccall discussing race relations and his collection of essays on social issues. and bruce gordon, president and ceo of the naacp talking about race relations in the u.s. you can watch these anytime, or search our entire video library at c-span.org.

announcer: c-span's "washington journal," live every day with news and policy issues that impact you. coming up monday morning, real clear politics white house correspondent will give a preview of the week ahead for the trump administration. american action forums's sam talks about the trump administration's efforts to overhaul the federal rulemaking process and reduce the number of and cost of regulations. times" reporter danielle ivory discusses what faces the trump administration as it proposes fortifying the barrier along the southern border. be sure to watch c-span's "washington journal" live at 7:00 a.m. eastern monday morning. join the discussion. on wednesday come upwards prime minister theresa may discussed her recent visit

to the united states and meeting with president trump and his executive order on refugees and immigrants entering the u.s. she also discussed brexit and the government's decision to posthumously pardon lgbt persons convicted of sodomy crimes. this is almost 40 minutes. irish government over a range of issues and i know the specific point he raised with me this morning. >> questions for the prime minister. >> question number one, mister speaker. >> thank you, mister speaker. i am sure the whole house will join me in offering condolences to the families and friends of those who lost their lives and were injured in québec city. also in paying tribute to our former colleague who died last friday. he was an outstanding parliamentarian. i'm told our thoughts are with his friends and family. i