would be to say when comedians of any race or any background can make jokes about the latino community, and i actually think right?es are hilarious, no matter what the joke is. i think that would be great. would also like to be in 2050, and i think this echoes what some folks have said, where if i am having a discussion or i am part of a debate and there happens to be disagreements one , of the fallback positions may not simply be a go back to where you came from. even though they do not know where i came from, they are making an assumption because of what i look like in the color of my skin. lastly, i would say that every time i watch the news or i hear a story about about someone doing something wrong,

the first thing that comes to my mind is please let it be the -- a latino, black, or muslim, because these communities are going to be indicted for sale -- wholesale for the actions of an individual. right? so i am hoping in 2050, we will not be there anymore. i want to build with what has been put here, at the end of the people -- and we are certainly seeing right now coliseum politics, like the best example of coliseum politics one could witness in the weaponize enough divide and conquer. at the end of the day, divide and conquer and eating division

-- seating division between people is a form of control. thatnk we have seen division. when you are trying to divide people, designating a scapegoat and an aggressor is an important part of the equation, and i think in our country there have been some communities that have borne the brunt of that demonization for a very long time and it has been also institutionalized and systematized in many different ways. but i bring up divide and conquer because i think that the purpose of that is to present equally situated people with equal concerns from coming together to hold accountable those who actually are inflicting those conditions, right? so i do see how class play the role there -- plays a role there, because in some ways

i am more of an advocate than intellectual. i think part of me is focused on rather than debate which one is more important to understand that both play a role and we have to break through that, right? and so the one thing i sometimes, the only thing that gets me through is to take the long view with the understanding that i am very inpatient -- inpatient and that does not mean waiting for things to change, but play the maximum role in changing them. i the long view, i mean our country has had a very tortured history with many groups of people. and we have not learned our lesson. there is a reason why divide and conquer comes up again and again, because we fall for it so foringle time, right?

oz, one of the things we were thinking about is how these narratives in the divide and conquer politics are used to scare people about other people, and then that place of fear creates an environment where people are willing to go along and condone policies and violations of rights of other people. is massit incarceration, whether it is the separation of parents from children who are coming to the right?to ask for asylum, in a series of things like that. the fact that people at some point are willing to look the other way because they have been made to be afraid of those folks or to mistrust their to becomens, and/or numb to that, because we are in a scarcity. scarcity gets compounded upon us every single day until we start believing it.

so that sounds pretty dire, thet? the good thing, longview tells us that eventually, if we come to our senses, we do not get quite where we need to go, but we do eventually get shaken up and start to redraft and adjust course. thathe other good news is these 80% of americans are concerned about the tone of politics today. they are concerned about division. diversity isthat one of america's strengths. this is research that we did last year, and frankly i was very surprised. because of what we have been seeing. the reason i mentioned that is i feel that our country right now is the equivalent of that child or home, andchool

everywhere he or she goes, he hears you are stupid. you are not going to amount to anything. happeningd or what is is bad, or the people around you are bad, and you know what happens to that child. even though there are more children that look a certain way that get told that, it affects the child no matter what the caller of that child is. and that is our country today. people are hearing every single day that the way our democracy is changing or the way that things are happening means that we have to make this country great again. because it isn't and we should be afraid of what if. the positive thing for me is even in this toxic environment, which is not new and not the creation of a single man, that this administration is a result of years and decades of building up to this point.

that is the moment of reflection, right? so to me, the positive is even with all of toxicity,ity, intense an overwhelming number of americans believe that america strength that -- think it is a strength. if we do not do something about that, they will end up leaving. -- believing that you are stupid. that is the point of intervention for all of us and i think we can all do things and i will leave you with this very tiny sample. as you mentioned, we are highly segregated. as you know, the less you know about something, the more that the wrong perception about that thing can take hold. the reality is we live in a very segregated country where stereotypes about others can we dotrongholds, because

not come into contact with people. we decided -- because americans believe that diversity is their strength and they are concerned with what is happening, they want to do something about it but it is hard to figure out what to do about it. so think about small things all of us can do while we continue to do the big things that have us exhausted, and that is creating spaces where people can break bread together. can share stories and create shared experiences that allow us to be on entry points to learn more about each other. it was in that spirit that organizations we work with -- settingstart at an example and hosting recipes for unity events where they employ a diverse number of people in their communities to come together, break bad, and actually talk about food with actuallybread, and talk about food and what food means for them and their families as a way to engage in conversation. i think that is something all of us can do.

you can do it organizationally or as individuals. you can do it with partners. again, it is both ends. it is individual and it is institutional, and a big policy in a small action. thank you. >> before i go forward, i would like to go back. i grew up in a small, rural town in northern california, about three hours north of san francisco. it had an extremely high unemployment rate, fewer than 10% of my high school class went to college, and i was a young republican. i bought in to all the small-town conservatism. i thought that welfare bred dependency. and i did not understand what my -- why my parents did not cross a picket line.

and my dad had a gun in the closet and i thought that made sense at the time. my world was a world of racial stereotypes and i still recall and hold this very vivid, painful memory of talking with my mexican-american boyfriend do our otherm, friends know that you are mexican? he responded with, mexican is not a bad word. that is who i would have been if i haven't had the opportunity to learn from others and experience more about race in america. it was not until i was a sophomore in college that i began to really understand the mechanisms and meaning of race and how laws and policies make race. inequality.ial so race, in my view, was the

social meaning that people attribute to our physical features. and lifeis so powerful chances are determined in many ways by that social meaning. worlddmit, i see the through a racial lens. read a report before and i wanted to be convinced about how we balance class and race but i would just tip the scales a little bit more towards race. when i look at these differential test scores in college admissions, i don't just attribute -- and i know you don't either -- but i don't attribute those differential test scores just a poverty and economic differences. i also think about implicit bias, and that is something that a class-based policy can't do a

good job with. i have asked my students at the university of maryland, how many of you, your teachers thought you were really good at math. maybe half of the of asian american students raise their hand. how many of you, someone, a teacher implied that you are not good at school? every black student always raises their hand. i see travel across d.c., neighborhoods, yes, divided by icd racialalso segregation that i understand to be a function of slavery, jim crow, redlining, and now, in the last five years, racial discrimination in mortgage lending. and that is not something that is in the past. that is today. when i see statistics on the workplace, yeah, i see that

asian americans overall have a higher income than even whites in the united states, but i also know that if you look within categories,conomic if you look at people who have the same education, than whites make more than asian-americans. so class alone can't absolve that. as it has been underscored, i am not drawing attention to innate racial differences or susceptibility to particular vulnerabilities based on physical features. i am drawing attention to differential weights -- rates of exposure to racism. so in my view, the future of race relations in the u.s. really depends on our ability to talk about race and racism now and every day, and it means for

me, being assessed with race to some degree. i would like to see a world in which we acknowledge as a society the work that racism continues to do to create inequality so we can get to the heart of the problem. does this mean that we cannot also consider class or gender or immigration status? no. people who talk about race all the time are always in my world the first to talk about gender and class and immigration status. they do not think race is the only thing going on, but they think it is a really important fundamental part of the problem. so we have seen explicit, legally sanctioned racism change and really decrease over our own

lifetimes. what will it take to make further changes in the future? research from the pew forum shows white millennials have more in common in terms of their ideas about race with other white people than they do with nonwhite, other nonwhite millennials. be anhas got to intervention, and it is not just generational change. i think that intervention is explicit racial policies that address racism. that was a fantastic panel. thank you, thank you so much. [applause] it really exceeded the expected in terms of really hearing your clear and authentic voices.

i am not going to let you off so easily and i'm going to ask just one question and invite the rest of you to join the conversation. but forgive me, because it is going to be a difficult one. i think you are more than able to handle it. >> race relations is an easy one? [laughter] >> all right, give me a minute. i wanted to ask you, what are you going to do about all of those whites? and what i mean by that is you ofk about major reallocation wealth and power. when you talk about reparations, you are not talking about five dollars, you are talking about trillions. and when you talk about wanting to change the admission so class becomes more important, it means less races will be admitted. so on and so on, but everything

you said implies a major take. beenthey have not accommodating. you see already a backlash. all kinds of irrational fears. when you read the book, the one thing they all agreed on is when she asked them, is your life like you are climbing up a hill , it is a very steep hill and people keep cutting in front of you? is that what you feel? that is how the majority of white people feel. now, before we got all of these reallocations, we can do without that because here's the point. whites like to talk about equality and opportunity, and

that means everybody should participate in the race. but if you start from different starting points, those who are disadvantaged are always going to lose the race. so to put it a little more technically, you need some equality of results before you can get a meaningful equality of opportunities. so, how are we going to get their? -- there? >> a lot of people think about reparation as kind of this impossible project. but when most evil are talking about reparations, they are not talking about a for dollar dollar transfer. they are talking about expanding social safety nets. about providing more robust programs to support this people -- support both people of color and poor people. it is more of a metaphor and an

-- i think, rather than an actual transfer of wealth. so that is one thing. i think it is less of a possibility -- less of an impossibility than people believe, because it is about expanding governmental services. and i know for my own research, let's say asian-americans. asian-americans have a lot of resources in terms of economics these days but they are actually one of the groups that is most likely to be ok with raising taxes on the rich for middle-class tax cuts and they endorse a bigger government with more social services. so i know that it is not just about self interest, it is about social interest as well, and i think we can get there. what are we going to do about whites? not every white is racist, and that is something we also need to take into account. i know many whites, and i am sure most people in this room know that there are many whites withill get on board

equality and social justice, and we cannot write them off. we do not win anything without winning progressive whites, so i think there is a cap forward, a coalition of people of caller and progressive whites -- people of color and progressive whites, and that is a path forward in the future. i think you actually reveal part of the issue with the question itself. times, welot of attempt to have conversations about race relations. we attempt to have it in a , they, us versus them divide and conquer again. what i mean by that is almost invariably, when people talk about multiculturalism or thatsity, there is a sense that means people of caller. -- people of color.

but diversity and multiculturalism means everybody. about the both ends and actually living to realize the country we aspire to be and build an accurate story of that isntry that we aspire to be one that has a place for everybody. and i think that the problem with these issues is that we in ways thatthem reinforce the division the antagonism to actually tackle them. that was sort of encapsulated in the question. in order to get to this better vision of what race relations are going to be in this country, what is going to be done with whites? but that is part of the race relations issue. we're all in it together and me, it reinforces this notion that

this is about people of color, not about whites in that whites are simply a problem. i think we need to get past that. also, i think we need to figure out -- to me, how do we inoculate ourselves better to the manipulation that is ? the majority of whites in this country actually find themselves facing economic and social challenges that bears some similarity to what people of caller in high percentages in those communities are experiencing. there is an incredible amount of obfuscatetrying to waysso people do not find

to partner or work together. i am not being dismissive in any way, because the structural things have been put in place to make this real are incredibly strong. the way to preserve the structural racism is by making people complicit in that equation. and so i think that the partnership has to also be in how do we stop being complicit? for folks -- in the white community, folks who are suffering the same inequality of power and economic conditions in their own segregated, poor communities where this is happening, but at the same time, sometimes too willing to go with the demonization of other folks. to explain that away. end of the day to me, we need to look up at folks who are creating these conditions and

why they are so intent on distracting us from coming together by turning us against each other. and at times, it has been now, we see a majority of republicans willing to be complicit are doing it, but i am not going to write either party off, or of salt -- or absolve them completely because i also think that they both have to be held accountable. again, one is definitely leading the charge right now, and i will be the first one to say it, but i am not going to write people off because they identify with one party or another. i think we need to create a bigger space. my first thought when you asked the -- stion, >> my first thought when you has to question, the transfer full at the history of this country, has been one way.

it has been a one-way street. it has primarily been white men who have benefited from that transference of wealth. when the united states was first for becoming we invited folks to emigrate to this nation, i mean, the, the,t this -- great britain established a system in the colonial period called head rights in which land was granted primarily to white men based on the number of people in the household, so that was the way many families have been here for centuries and centuries, gaining land and wealth. it was given to them. not only that, but through the tax payer system, everybody paid taxes and contributed to a system, in which we armed

militia to go and take property and land from some people to give it to others. we did that as a nation. so, we have been transferring wealth, when the head right , andm, then transferred rolled over into the land-grant system, then rolled over into the homestead system combat rolled over into the sha system. so, throughout the entire history of this country, we had been transferring wealth. but it has not been transferred in a way that benefited us all. the largest, biggest transference of wealth was after the third closure and financial crisis when, we the taxpayer, bailed out wall street to the tune of trillions of dollars. one of the things we have to do is figure out a way to educate

the populist and to get the populace engaged because when you talk about these issues, i mean, if i hear one more time that the community reinvestment act, or the affordable housing goals caused the foreclosure crisis, i think i'm going to scream i had off. thethat was not what caused foreclosure crisis. wall street greed is what caused the foreclosure crisis and the. housing crisis but we build out to the tune of trillions of dollars, and a lot of people don't realize that when we established that bail out program, that money that was and all goldman sachs of those wall street players, do you know that they just basically paid each other off with that money, with our money? after the foreclosure and financial crises, the wall street powerhouses were

.perating in the black they were fully profitable because we transferred wealth to them. so, i do not think that we have a fundamental problem with the concept of transference of wealth, but we have a problem with who is getting the wealth once it is transferred? and that is a paradigm we have to change, and that change comes policy changes, education, advocacy, and it comes from holding each other accountable. i have to hold you accountable, and you have to hold me accountable. the other thing that i think we really need to do is to change our system because, now this is to -- let's say we did have reparations where we actually transferred money, teri assets,

, two peopleassets underserved in the united states, and in five years, all of that money would be transferred back to the most wealthy and the nation? and that is because -- will begin the nation -- to the most wealthy in the nation, and that our systems are designed to funnel wealth away from some and to others. it is awaiting entire system is constructed. look at system, the financial system. the criminal justice system. the educational system. just go through and look at every system in the nation. the apparatus is designed and constructed to strip wealth from the masses, and funnel it to the few. and that is something that we have to actually change, and

fundamentally overhaul all of the systems and apparatuses so that we can have more equality and equity in our society. >> two brief comments. >> i will try to keep my brief. i think you said it there he well is that we actually do this on a regular basis and our country. we call it reparations, but you can call the corporate welfare or would ever you want to call it, it is the same idea. when i'm talking about reparations, i am talking about the legitimate repair of damaged communities. and we know we have done this, right? we know that we denied black farmers loans. we know we did that and what that caused. that caused black families to lose property, to lose wealth. we know the wellington race riots, there were majority of black cities. , and that is because

black people got out of town. japanese interment, that was a real harm that we said we have to repent. -- that we have to repair. it does not necessarily have to come in a cash payment. there are a number of ways that we could get creative how we do this. the rosewood community in florida thought creatively about how to repair their city. form of education for us, right? we can do this a number of ways. we do not lack for a lot of creative solutions combat what we lack is the political real -- we do not lack for a lot of creative solutions, but what we the political will. in part, changing people's minds is the most difficult part of this. you want people to think about this. you're taking from the ticket to somebody else? that is the conversation we do not want to have. when i say reparations, nobody else is taken about doing money to native american people who

have had their land stripped or communities destroyed. nobody is thinking about black people. nobody is thinking about native americans, they are thinking about that. that is one of the most fundamental relations and the country that needs to be worked out. it does not have to come in a direct cash payment. that is not how any of his works, we all pay taxes. even if there were reparations in some form given, we have all paid to them. black, white, native, latino, asian -- we have all paid into the system. i do think people have to be, i do not know if it is just ignorance. but we certainly have to do a better job i think of thinking through this sort of, as a kind of restorative justice. right? and i don't think begin that part of the conversation -- and i don't think we give that part of the conversation.

there are communities that do not have proper dental care at all of these the things. i do think in the case of talking about something like reparations for whomever, the color conscious and how we did that because we all face these kind of economic hardships differently. how communities are different. that is not by accident. what works for one community will not work for another. color consciousness has to be a part of the conversation. the country has never had an issue with making policies and hoping the country goes with them. they make the policy in the -- they make the policy and the

country follows. i do not know that we are going to win the public opinion debate on this issue, but i think that there are a lot of things that we take for all of the time that maybe unpopular that we do. i don't see why this couldn't be another one of those. >> i think your challenge to me was a little bit different in terms of how we get to class-based affirmative action, in college admission. let me make it concrete and there are a lot of obstacles. -- and there are a lot of obstacles right now, according . to william, what counts as college admissions? the biggest preference is given to athletes. increase in likelihood for admission if you are an athlete. the second, 20% increase for minorities. third was legacies, of children of alumni.

i have a book called "affirmative action for the rich." an 8% percentage increase. lower income students got no bump up whatsoever. the universities do not consider class in admissions, so the question is, how do we go about getting some change on that issue? voluntarily, i do not think universities will do much on their own because they have incentives for racial diversity because race is a lot more visible than class to the naked eye. and there are interest groups that are pushing for racial diversity, as they should. and because it is not that expensive to bring in wealthy students of all colors. faces on the other hand, all of these obstacles. visible than race,

and it is much more expensive because you have to provide financially to the students. and so, the only lever for change that i see making a real difference is in the states, where usually by boat or initiative, people and said, you cannot use race in admissions. then suddenly, universities discovered class, not because they are interested in class diversity per se, but because it is the next best way to get racial diversity. and so, we did see, in state after state after state, where affirmative action was banned by race, that universities and administrators did not simply give up on racial diversity. they said let's find new ways to , get there. and they make sure that they provided new preferences based on class.

to my mind, there is this bizarre situation where a conservative decision to take away race ends up with the progressive result that we finally pay attention to class. >> thank you. those were a lot of good points. contribution. my i want to make a record, and i have good data to support it, then that everybody agrees with you. [laughter] let's leave it at that. i will turn it to you. there are two microphones, i believe, so if anybody wants to comment on such? well?

sir, i cannot see you, so let's take turns. one from here and one from here. would you start please? >> i want to thank all of you for a great panel. i work at the george washington university. lastly, there was a lawsuit filed against columbia government for perpetuating a series of economic development policies over the years that had discriminated against people of color and in privileged white people in an effort to create a class for the district and it meant bringing in a lot of wealthy white and displacing a lot of poor blacks. now, it is better when we have people who want to invest in the district, but my question is, what can be done to take advantage of this kind of desire to invest in the district so we get more equitable development, rather than what some people would like to call revitalization?

others: gentrification, and others call it ethnic cleansing. what is the key to more equitable development in the district? >> thank you. the thick one more. >> my name is claudia faris. i think the conversation is about to change. we are moving into an american plutocracy. and there are all kinds of movements underground that are radically changing the structure and relationships in our society, where everybody is going to be affected by this concentration of wealth. and i think it order to get beyond, we have to get ahead of these kinds of movements. and i don't know how you do that, but i think it is to be incorporated into how we define the problem. >> we can take one or two back here. >> sure, i will tackle the first one because there are fair housing issues woven in, but there are all kinds of strategies to making sure that economic development can be done

in a more equitable fashion. for example, under title iii, particularly, if there are any federal funds that are involved in the development, you can require that underserved groups theactually employed in development, or the construction of the buildings, or that underserved communities are going to be employed after the that retail are constructed and set up. you can also make sure that you are giving -- that you are getting opportunities for small businesses to have an opportunity to be a part in the development. there are all kinds of programs. some people may refer to them as "minority enterprise business development" programs, that require that minority-owned

businesses have a shot at taking part of the development. how --n you talk about me talk about housing development programs, you can make sure a slice of those new houses that are developed are affordable, and that the residence who formerly lived in the neighborhood or the community, have a first right of refusal at those new housing units that come on the market. the problem is, and the district of columbia does have these programs that i just mentioned -- the problem is enforcement. if you don't have enforcement of these good policies and programs, then you are just going to end up with the same result, right? and i think that is one of the district didthe not have a good compliance and enforcement program. >> can i jump in real quick?

>> jump? . >> greg and lisa know a lot more about housing, claudia, you put your finger on something really important with this concentration -- with these concentrations of wealth. i had a piece in "the new york times" about robert kennedy's 1968 campaign for president what -- where he brought together african-american voters, and working-class whites, including a lot of people who ended up voting for george wallace. and he did it in the time of great, economic prosperity and equality, the genie index that measures inequality was at its low point. inequality has grown much greater. and so, the question is, whether and concentration of wealth concentrations of poverty will finally open the door to bringing back the coalition of

bobby kennedy was able to put together? because from a logical standpoint, it would be much easier to do now than it was 50 years ago. everyone want to thank of the panelists for all that you contributed to this discussion, but this question is for ms. carter. you opened up your discussion with such urgency of, about our black men. you, dayt is killing by day. i want to go back to that with the racial issue. problem have the system , and this problem is killing people, and at alarming rates, it is killing our black men. sitwe just had a mother before us said, day by day, the

system is killing her. i would like for you to speak a little bit more to that because it is not something -- it is not about repairing the system. it's broke. america is not working. it is not working. people are dying because of it. one is because america has not out of the people allocation of land. you just think, you know, what is the question for america? the question for america is, how do you really think about black people? people of color? that is your question.

because all of your system and everything you are navigating around is the answer to that question. >> so, i mean, thank you for your question. i am sorry i did not get your name. notit is urgent, and it is just killing black men and boys. it is killing women and girls. we are in the city were black women are much likelier to die giving birth. serena williams most died giving birth, and she is rich, right? so what does that mean for me? you're right, the system is broken and i meant protecting the people because i do not know we can repair the system. we did not build it and i do not know whose job it is to fix it. but i do think, the psychological and emotional parts of this, the stress of this, does kill people. i mean, there is a level of brokenhearted nests that i do not -- there is a level of broken heartedness that i do not

think we given a credit to. melancholy, depression, stress, and obesity, and high blood pressure, and diabetes -- these things kill people. maternal health. they have even suggested that you can pass stress on to your baby. this is intergenerational sickness that happens. i will say, i don't know if i'm being coherent, but was brought up like most people. you make the right choices, you make the right decisions, and life will open up for you. i did all of that. i went to college. i do not have children out of wedlock or young. i went to graduate school and i got a job, and i'm employed and i pay my taxes in my student loans, right? and here i am 40, and i am still like, where is all of this other steiff -- where is all of this other stuff in life that was supposed to happen to me?

i delayed having children. is it possibility in my life? that is not just an issue that i am having, that is a lot of other women like me. i do not buy my first home until i was 40 because in the city, buying a home even for a middle income person is difficult, and that is being nice, and i had good credit. i did all of those things that you are supposed to do. point i guess i want to make is, i feel it, i feel it talking to you right now. it is all over me. as much as i can intellectualize it, as much as i can put it into pretty words, the truth is, white supremacy kills people every day. and i feel like from smoking to drinking and all of the things people do to cope, it is a major public health concern. racism is a public health concern just like gun violence, diabetes and health, they're all

connected. [applause] >> thank you very much. >> thank you all very much for everything you have shared. my name is joe psy a -- my name is josiah on the street, i , and i am a resident on the street, i wanted to ask about a compelling vision or example we can look to what we talk about this. i think often times, it can be immobilizing and paralyzing because we talk about what we are running from. we know what isn't working, but who can we look to as an example, but pockets of society? where the vision of what you guys are talking about is working? raciallytries that are diverse that have a high trust index when we talk about people being uncomfortable with transferring? there is a low trust index. people like trust as an ideal, but they do not want them right

next to them. who can we look to? >> another question, please. >> a great panel, but it is totally lopsided door one-sided. with then't mind, three elephants that i thought were missing from the room here, one first of all, obviously, the more diversity society has, the less social cohesion. the japanese are doing great, ok. eventually, if anything, societies are fractured due to diversity. another one, there are differences within groups. however,distributions,

there are realities and cultural differences between groups. black values are different from my values. 400 japanese people on a similar desert island, come back and see what happens. then do the same with 100 african-americans or africans. anyway -- see what kind of society you have. the second and last name, i must addition. that is my second thing. statisticiani'm a and i looked at trends in 2015. if cultural views do not clean up their act, i will say what happened -- i will tell you what will happen in society. thank you. >> i'm exhausted by that

question, quite frankly. it attempted to be provocative in the worst way. look, i can't. i just can't. i can attempt to be nice about it, but that question is loaded with so much garbage that it doesn't need to be unpacked. and i am not going to do it. and this is a civil dialogue and i am being a civil as i can be because i think we give too many is as -- like this legitimate question, and pretending like it is. 100 that point -- throat people on an island and see if they can make it out -- throw 100 african american people on an island and see if they can make it out. what does that mean? youroment we decide cultural values makes you a lesser person, then we are at the end of a conversation, and

not at the beginning. i am not going to do that. somebody else can, but i am not going to do that. >> we have a question here. >> sorry, he had a question about countries doing it well. i don't know countries that are doing really well with diversity and social things. i don't know. to jump in with a couple of things. agree withl, i do one part of that comment in particular, which is the panel is lopsided. i can't agree with it. -- i can agree with that. i do think that some of the comments that were made kind of are the example of the things that people buy into. --ook,, line and

and sinker.ok, ine, there were some circular arguments in that, right? that the longing to a particular group or any given group means they are a monolithic thinking of that group, so i am not sure why we have to have a debate about that. coming from the latino community, which many people regard as a monolith, and it is actually very divers, i would be the first one to, you know, to challenge it. but let's take the latino community as an example. latino, by the way, is an american construct. folks of latin america, or latin american, latinos are only u.s.-based people like me, who

are of hispanic origin from a number of different places. class, language, spanish, english, you name it. from beforeen here this generation, others came here yesterday. the overwhelming majority of latinos are united states citizens, even the many think that latinos don't belong. let me take that as an example. those are the narratives that are woven for us to bite into. we are not born thinking that because you are black and i am latino, or somebody is white, that we are different and there is less cohesion. we get led in that direction. this notion that diversity leads to less cohesion would argue

that cohesion is an organic thing, but it isn't. >> just one quick optimistic thing. this otherwith you, question does not deserve response, but there are 100 school districts in this country that are trying to bring kids of different backgrounds together, looking at economic status and race, and talking periodically with the students in those schools gives me a lot of hope. there is a real effort to support diversity and it is student-led. ezra get my optimism -- that is where i get my optimism. thelad you mentioned about

multiculturalism of being latino. but i don'ttino, speak spanish at all. [laughter] i wanted to ask about the idea of culture as a commodity. southwest, and we are currently experiencing economic and social change, something that could become political change as well. there is this idea that if you express these different attempts at urban development as cultural tourism, that can be a word synonymous with communal development. at the same time, you can have a free shuttle in the southwest areas which are completely missing the areas of lower economic value. whole idea is this ease of

accessibility. isthe same time, point a this hotel at the smithsonian museum. yeah this idea of cultural expression, you have these cultural values, you can think, wow, i'm really in the city, i'm with everyone, we are so diverse you'res area, but actively ignoring the people who live here. you can look around and see the people doing the physical labor, they are not white. you can say this is diverse, we are getting back to the community, but it is very empty. thise same time, there is continued feeling of gratitude of having this intellectual conversation but you're not actively practicing these ideals. so how can you market just

having better racial relations without creating minority culture as a commodity? >> we have time for one brief comment. >> the question is, we're at the arena stage. we are talking about diversity but what have we done to foster true access to this kind of conversation? that is a hard question and i think it is a very good critique. i will leave it at that. it is a good critique and we need to think more about how to integrate. it also answers the other asstion about diversity social cohesion. have been critiques of that work and how we define social cohesion. >> before we close, let me say

that this conversation has to continue. future stations is called "they are not deplorables." we will bring both trump supporters and progressive people to see if they can have a conversation. we heard the worst -- that it was binary. the question that we need to showback to -- how we respect to everybody, even those disagree profoundly. i think the country is moving to the right. inneed to be able to bring many more people than we have, and we have not exhausted this subject i think you will agree. we will get together to talk

about artificial intelligence which is allegedly about to kill our jobs. thomas make weapons of said that it will kill -- autonomous, so that it will kill those who make them, and computers will enslave us. august 12join us on to have you all in one location. [laughter] thank you, panel. ♪

this week you are watching c-span programs in primetime. at 8:00 p.m., actor and activist kirk cameron, attorney general jeff sessions and cory gardner speaking at the western conservative summit in colorado. we are hammering criminals and violent groups, especially ms 13, that vicious gang is one of the most violent and inhumane groups in the world. their motto, get this. kill, rape, and control. justice anthony kennedy's retirement brings a significant change to the supreme court. story on c-span from president trump nominating a

replacement to the senate confirmation hearings to the swearing-in. on c-span.org and the c-span radio app. will announcep his choice for the supreme court monday night at 9:00 p.m. eastern. we'll will have live coverage of the president's remarks and afterward we will give you the reaction. >> book tv recently visited capitol hill to ask members of congress what they are reading. >> i just finished reading this pulitzer prize winning book called the sympathizer by a vietnamese refugee. to talkperfect book about for world refugee day. i am now reading his second book called the refugees. they are remarkable books that capture the complexity of a refugee's life, and also the

refugees that end up in the united states. he does a nice job of capturing both pieces of that. >> book tv wants to know what you're reading. our recommendations on twitter, instagram, or facebook. booktv, television for serious readers. >> next the inter-american dialogue forum about legal challenges facing immigrants to the u.s. under the trump administration's zero-tolerance policy. they also took questions from the audience during this 90 minute event. welcome to everybody. welcome to the inter-american dialogue.