the watch tonight at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span two. >> tomorrow, the anniversary of the september 11 terror attacks. on c-span, we will have remarks by president trump in pennsylvania. that is expected to start at nine: -- 945 eastern. that is due to start at 8:10 eastern. on c-span3, we will take you live at the pentagon starting 9:10 eastern time. we will re-air all the 9/11 memorial services tonight on the c-span networks. ♪

>> this week on "q&a," zachary wood, assistant editor at the atlantic discusses his book, "uncensored: my life and uncomfortable conversations at the intersection of black and white america." brian: zachary wood, before we talk about your book, "uncensored," tell us where you are at in your life. zachary: a graduated in early june and i have it on a book tour and i have done a few cities. i am based in new york city but soon i will be moving back to washington, d.c. and will be assistant editor at the atlantic. brian: how old are you? zachary: 22. brian: what was your major at williams? zachary: political science. brian: in your book, you talk about various places. talk about stanford. zachary: i was basically taking for college courses.

i was always driven and very ambitious. i did not want to spend my summer reading in my room. i thought it would be great, especially because i was going to be on the east coast, to experience a different university setting, and stanford has a very strong political science department. brian: yale. zachary: that was a writer's conference the summer after my freshman year. i attended a number of work ships and it helped me improve. brian: columbia. zachary: that was my junior year, it was a study away experience. i studied psychology and political science. a great time. brian: you grew up where? zachary: washington, d.c. and detroit. i was born in washington, d.c. in 1985, but i moved around a bit. brian: where have you lived

since then? in maryland, i have lived in the district of columbia, and two different places in detroit. zachary: -- brian: i can hear somebody saying, how has this man at 22 lived enough that he has already written a book? zachary: definitely. how does that happen so early? i would say, i knew i wanted to share my story at some point in my life, it was something i always had an interest in. but i did not anticipate or expect i would have the opportunity to do that at 22 years old. i wrote an article for "the washington post," and i described a number of the challenges low income students face when they go home for the holidays. the responsibilities and obligations, they have to help their family, and how stressful that can be. when i wrote the article, it gained significant traction, and a literary agent reached out and said i think you have a story to

tell. my initial reaction was, in five to 10 years? she said more immediately. brian: i'm going to read the first line, it is a question, in your introduction, and ask you why you did this. you open with, "do black people come from apes?" why would you put that in print? zachary: i think it goes straight to a very -- charles murray is a speaker i invited to williams. you think there are a number of ways that race comes up in subtle and overt ways. i wanted to open up with something that was clear, direct, and a little shocking.

that opens with a point or question of uncomfortable learning. this is a question i was asked by a pure of mine. i did not -- a peer of mine. i did not feel very comfortable being asked the question. i thought, what will draw the reader in, and that would be a good way to start. brian: who has had the biggest influence on your life? zachary: probably my mother. brian: having said that, i'm going to put on the screen some things she said to you. zachary: yeah. brian: let's start out doing that. i'm not even going to read the

whole thing, because it is tough for somebody like me to read this. "you ungrateful little bitch-ass," i am not going to use the n-word. "she told me through gritted teeth after she for herself out from yelling." why did you decide to use that language from your mother? zachary: that's the language she used with me. as a writer, one of the things i wanted to do, a risk a risk i wanted to take was to make

myself vulnerable in writing the book. the main reason i wanted to do that is because i have come to believe that one of the best ways to build empathy and compassion is to take the risk of putting yourself out there. for the next half hour, she grilled me about my girlfriend in explicit detail, what did her body look like, what kind of kiss her was she, what did i want to do with her when we were alone? it was the last thing i wanted to discuss. what is the background? zachary: i am 13 or 14 years old, not just interested in girls anymore, i'm starting to talk to them, i am beginning to date and i have my first serious girlfriend. my mom essentially felt threatened by that.

there is another woman in his life whom he -- whom she feared i would love more than her. it was an irrational fear or anxiety have, but that was my read of what was going on with her concern and interest in it. she got very upset. she wanted to read every text message, she wanted to know every time i communicated with her in any shape or form, if i was thinking about her. she wanted to know my inner thoughts, feelings, things you would not share. this is one example of how that would come up in our conversations. brian: where is she today? zachary: my mother lives in detroit, michigan. brian: what is she doing? zachary: she is not working at the moment. at various points throughout her life, she has gone back and forth between jobs. she tends to not stick with one long. brian: what is her background in

education? zachary: she was in the all but dissertation situation, she went to the university of maryland for underground -- for undergrad, was a very smart, but did not have the discipline to do as well in school as she could have done, but she always did well enough. she later on got her masters and pursued a phd in behavioral health. brian: how often do you talk to her? zachary: it varies.

i try to make an effort to stay in touch. there are times we will go months without speaking. brian: has she read the book? she later on got her masters and zachary: she has. brian: what did she say to you after? zachary: she had a lot of difficulty with it, the fact that i shared so much, that i opened up so much, and for her, she was in denial. she cannot accept the fact that she was anything but a wonderful mother. and i put that in the book, "i have always been a wonderful mother to you, zachary." after she read the book, that's the first thing she said to me on the phone. brian: is it true? zachary: no, that is not true. i think anyone who reads the book will see it is not true, it is far more complicated than that. there were wonderful things my mother did for me. my mother always love me even when she was upset or abusive, i never questioned that appeared maybe when i was -- i never questioned that. maybe when i was younger, he could you or four years old and your mother is infuriated over something you don't understand, but i always knew she loved me. but she made significant mistakes and that ended up playing a critical part in my development. brian: describe your early years growing up with her, and where it was and what your living conditions were, and did she work at the time? zachary: she was -- we moved back and forth between the dmv area and detroit. because of her mental illness, there were times she wanted to be close to her mother, and other times she did not want to be near family at all.

i went to first grade at three different schools. that is an example of how much we were moving. very turbulent. her personality was so unpredictable. i would wake up in the morning and i would not know, is it going to be a good day or bad day? was she going to be sad or depressed and lay in bed all day and cry? or where she going to be furious over something? something as simple as me dropping my fork on the floor at dinner, something like that. or was today going to be a day where we went to play arcade games and saw three movies and got ice cream and went out to dinner and did all of these things? you never knew. i had to learn to read certain signs, certain cues, to pay attention to her behavior and get a sense.

that made me more self-aware, it may mean more attentive, it may be more conscientious as a person. brian: where did she get her money when you were growing up? zachary: there was a significant portion of time where she was on disability because of her mental illness. she did not have to work. there were times where our financial circumstances were difficult. not nearly as difficult as they would be for me when i moved to washington, d.c. to live with my

dad, but there were times when we did not have a car, we had to take public transportation, a paycheck-to-paycheck situation. then there were times it was a bit better. when she did work, she worked for an organization called gateway community health for a while, and they focused on addressing the stigma attached to mental elements and on mental health and research behind it. brian: you said that she would speak to groups and take you with her, and he would speak to groups about your life. explain that. zachary: essentially she wanted to tell a story of success. she went through to relations -- through tribulations and ultimately triumphed over mental home is, that was the narrative she wanted to share. she started a foundation and worked on that three or four years. she persuaded a number of therapists who studied psychology, well-trained, respected in their field, that she had overcome everything. here she was a single mother doing everything she possibly could to do the best for her son. and this was her story of overcoming bipolar, her mental illness was actually schizophrenia, but she was not directly diagnosed until later. they were so taken with her, she

had excellent soft skills, great people person. they said, we want you to speak at our annual conference, we want to speak at our annual event. and she was delighted to have the opportunity, and she brought me along with her. and she said, zachary should speak as well. brian: what did you say? zachary: she would write these speeches for me, i was only in fourth grade at the time. it would begin, my mom is my number one fan and best friend. that is how it would begin, and it would end with, this is why, because of my mother story and influence on me, this is why i believe i will make a positive difference in the world one day. what she had me saying was that she was a wonderful mother who went through trying times but ultimately was a strong enough

person to overcome that. brian: describe her physically. zachary: about 5'7", dark skin. she had dark brown hair. she was -- gorgeous smile. she was the kind of person who would lean in while speaking, great with people. her personality was very amorphous, she could be all things to all people. if she was talking to someone, she was very quickly able to assess the situation to get a sense of what they wanted from her, and she always knew what she wanted from other people. brian: who is kevin? zachary: my mother's boyfriend. brian: is that his real name? zachary: no. brian: any real names in here? zachary: there are some. if there is a real name in there, i am only saying brief and positive things about that person. brian: what was the impact on your life with kevin, and did you live in an apartment or house of some kind? zachary: kevin, my mom's boyfriend who eventually became her husband, he was with us the majority of the time as we moved from detroit back to d.c.,

greenbelt, laurel, back to detroit. and he loved her deeply, and she manipulated him in ways that were just unconscionable. things you cannot even imagine or conceive of. and he was so dependent on her, that became clear to me as i got older, he needed her so much and his life that it was her way or the highway. brian: are they still married? zachary: they are. brian: is the marriage working? zachary: if you want to call it working, it is working. they are still together. the dynamics might have changed since i left. that is certainly possible. but she makes all of the decisions. brian: when did you move in with your father, and where did you live and how many people lived in the house with you?

zachary: i moved in with my father the summer after my eighth grade year. i was moving into a house with four people, sometimes five. it was me and my dad, my grandmother, my uncle, and my sister, probably about two to three days a week. in washington, d.c., in a small community called bellevue. brian: in the anacostia section? zachary: yes, about 10 minutes from anacostia station. brian: what was that like? zachary: it looks kind of like a duplex. you have someone living beside us. the two homes detached.

in utter disrepair. you walk into the kitchen and you have to be careful where you step because there is a gaping hole covered by a piece of plywood. and my grandmother has diabetes and the medicine makes her gain weight, and she would have to work through her mobility, not that great, getting to the refrigerator every day just to put something into the microwave. in terms of going up the steps, the railing was very bad. there was always water leaking at the top of the steps. in my room, it was the worst, the ceiling had caved in numerous times, and every time we tried to fix it, it would happen again because there was a faulty roof. we tried to get the roof fixed once, it was leaking in another place. there were so many things that made it incredibly difficult just living there. one, it were two bedrooms and you have five people, right? so my dad sleeping on the floor. brian: where were you? zachary: at one point early on, i was on the floor as well, or on a cot, one of the two, and then my uncle generously decided to move downstairs when i started going to high school. he said, you can have that room.

brian: you said you were afraid you would have to go to ballou high school. what is so bad about it? zachary: anyone who lives in ward eight or seven, you have seen it on the news. in terms of robberies and fights. it is under resourced, disadvantaged community where teachers are doing the best they have but don't have the resources they need, where students are coming to school every day having faced a number of challenges at home. it is a really, really tough environment. i cannot imagine myself succeeding there. brian: how did you avoid it? zachary: after i had left detroit, i had done really well at the private school in detroit, roper, and the headmaster said i am going to

look at my contacts and see who i know in d.c. at landon, sidwell, a number of the top schools. he made a point of putting me in contact and saying to deans in headmasters, this is a student you should consider. brian: where did you go? zachary: bolus. a private school in potomac, maryland. you have about a 100 acre campus. wonderful landscape, geography is amazing. incredible teachers. a five star school. brian: where did you get the money to go there? zachary: if i remember correctly, tuition was about $34,000, not cheap. i did not have one 34th of that.

my dad was working two jobs. -- three jobs. they gave me a scholarship that covered a little over 90% of the tuition. but just in order to pay the remainder, my dad was doing valet, delivering tapirs in the morning from 1:00 to 4:00 a.m., then he was an accounts payable coordinator. brian: what is he like? mr. wood: my dad is probably the strongest person i know. certainly the hardest working person i know. he has a kind of stoic dignity. he has gone through so much in his life, but you will never hear him complain about anything. brian: what does he think about what you have been through in what was his reaction to you going to bullis and on to williams? mr. wood: he has always been supportive. he's not an emotionally open

person. so there were times, periods in my life where i really needed to confide in him and talk to him and say this is what is going on with my mom, this is how i am feeling about things, and i was not really able to do that, but i do know that he was always proud and he was always there, and he was always working as hard as he possibly could to make sure that my sister and i would have far more opportunities than he had. brian: was he married to your mother at one point? mr. wood: he was, yes. brian: what caused the divorce? mr. wood: my mother's account is that he became abusive toward her and was very insensitive and threw her around one day, and i don't believe any of this happened. my dad has denied it happened. but that is one thing about my dad, and my mom told me in vivid detail, and i described this in the book, what made her leave, him throwing her around. and none of that, for anyone who

knows my dad, aligns at all with anything you would see with him or his personality. but he did not go on and on about his issues with my mom. he simply said, that's not how i remember it happening, zach. your mother love you. brian: how much are you in touch with your dad today? mr. wood: i saw him this morning. we got breakfast. all the time, i probably text him every other day. brian: so bullis had what impact on you? can you describe what the student body was like? mr. wood: the student body was, for a private school, fairly diverse, which is to say they had some students from disadvantaged backgrounds, not many. the overwhelming majority -- it was a predominantly white private school, students from wealthy backgrounds, parents who

owned furniture companies and were investment bankers and a lot of old money and old wealth. so in a very affluent community, students from affluent backgrounds, and many excellent educators who were really committed to their students, and in particular, speaking to my own experience, there were about a handful of teachers there who really played a critical role in helping me become a better writer, thinker, and scholar. brian: what is the email story? mr. wood: so i am in my -- this is the summer after my junior year, and everyone is concerned about college. it is the thing on everyone's mind. it is coming up all the time. i am a good student at bullis. and there were three or four students who were also near the top of our class, and i really

wanted to help people. and one way in which i was able to help many students was through tutoring. but they did not need help in that way because they were top students. so we would talk about college all the time and they would talk about people their parents knew and how important it was to have a network, to have access to someone, if you could. and i was going to these conferences and speaking here and there, not as many as now, but for high school i was going to a number. and i did know people, and i did know some professors. so i just very casually offered, i'm going to put you in touch with someone and see if i can help. that's how it began. and then i delivered on so much before that that they really expected me to follow through and i felt that pressure. and there is no way for me to justify what happened with the emails, but what i ended up doing is i did not want to tell

them, well, i actually don't know someone at this school specifically and i cannot tell this person something that will give you a leg up in the admissions process, i am sorry, i got carried away. i cannot do that. i did not want to say that, i wanted to come through and deliver on my end. i was also under some much pressure at the time, and that does not excuse it, but that was my mindset at the time. and i thought, i can actually give this advice and try to be of help. and so i forged these emails, i created fake email accounts, and sent emails to a few of my friends as though i were the professor and said, here are things to consider in the application process, here are ways to tweak the essay, things like that. and then it all backfired. but was interesting because it

did not backfire right away, it was a few months that had passed. i had stopped because i did not want to keep doing that anymore. i let the emails peter out, and we got to october of my senior year, and boom. it blows up. brian: what happened? mr. wood: i am called into the principal's office, he has the stack of papers, and he said, did you write these emails? and i am just open mouthed and florida, i don't know what to say. my dad is sitting in the room. he is shellshocked, a nervous wreck. i am thinking to myself, i got to talk to my dad, i don't know what he knows, what is going on. very extremely uncomfortable situation. i end up being given the option to either go before the conduct review board, which was interesting, because people at one point had told me to run for the conduct review board.

go before the conduct review because a few things can happen. i could get detentions, i could get a suspension, or possibly expulsion. another option said you could withdraw on your own terms and go to another school and figure out a way of explaining this in your college applications in whatever way you want to. and so i took the option to withdraw and finished at an online high school. brian: so you did not get a degree from bullis? mr. wood: i got a diploma, but not from bullis. brian: where did you go after that? mr. wood: there was a place called excel high school online. i wanted to go to stanford's online high school, but it is very competitive. you cannot just jump in in october and get a diploma. so excel online was this option that was affordable, it was cheaper than what my dad had to pay at bolus and it made the most sense. i had so much time and i was reading so much --

six, 7, 8 hours a day. online high school was so easy, nothing like the private schools i had intended. in my free time i was reading about all kinds of things. and i was so committed to bouncing back from that because that was a low point for me. i said, i'm going to learn as much as i can and i'm going to do something over the summer that will be intellectually rewarding, that will help me grow, and it will prepare me to go to williams and accomplish all these things i want to accomplish. brian: what were your grades at roper? i know you went to grosse pointe academy first, and to roper in detroit, but what were your grades coming out of roper? mr. wood: they were great. we did not really have a gpa, but we had an percent average, and mine was 96%, 97%. brian: what were your grades coming out of bullis?

mr. wood: very similar. 96% average around there. brian: how did you get into williams and did you try other colleges along the way? mr. wood: i had been in contact with admissions officers at williams and at harvard and a number of other schools, but i narrowed it down to those two. harvard because of every reason anyone would apply to harvard. it is known as the best. it has the best name recognition phenomenal scholars, respected , everywhere. williams because from the research i had done, i heard about this thing called tutorial courses, two students and one professor, and that seemed like the idyllic intellectual to be a part of. compelling for all of the reasons you would assume harvard would be compelling. and williams was encouraging me to apply early. at given the situation

bullis an effect i wanted to go to a great school, i thought i wanted to get a great education at williams, better than harvard, because of not just their research, grad students, and also the fact that williams was so interested in having me. apply confident that if i for early decision there, things would work out. : how did you pay for your education at williams? overwhelming majority can over 95% of the tuition. it was the vehicle to pay the remainder. so my dad is working three jobs, because later in my career, he gets a car from so he starts doing uber on top of the valet, delivering papers.

and i am working as well. brian: the impact of williams on your life -- and norm is in many ways. challenging in some very important ways. i got to williams, had always been very ambitious and very driven, but i saw college as wantedxt week step and i to take things to another level, i wanted to read more. i wanted to learn more for it i wanted to explore ideas and perspectives that i have not yet explored. so i got to williams and try to pursue all of these things hard charging, seeking out to become conversations, going to professors and reading things that they had signed and asked them if i could talk to them about it. williams had a very important

impact on me, and one professor in the english department, one in the political philosophy department, that help me and helped me tell my own story. brian: you said you are a liberal democrats, and before long i would share with them my addition to one day run for president. who were you sharing that ambition with? mr. wood: at some point while i was at -- i had always been , andested in public life by about middle school, public service in particular, because i was interested in people, people's stories, how do you improve people's lives, and a thing that would allow me to address a range of issues. i thought about academic, you tend to specialize and focus on

one or two or three areas, and i wanted to address economic issues, public policy, environmental issues, and i also wanted to be involved in the process of creating and advancing legislation, and to have a platform. and so politics made a lot of sense. so i started considering it. and when i got to stanford, people would ask me, what you want to do? and i said, you know, i think i want to run for president one day. and they all were so -- the people i was sharing this with, my peers at stanford. they were other students in the same situation, the summer before their freshman year of college, who wanted to do more, learn more before that. and the reaction was just -- it bolstered my belief in that that was something i could pursue and should pursue, because everyone

i talked to said, zach, i think that is great, i can see you doing that. that meant a lot to me. from that point forward, i saw public service as something i was committed to, and a number of things i did moving forward, one lens was, how can this prepare me for things i may have to do in the future? brian: how much more you worried about what you put in this book that would come back to hot you if you ever ran for -- to haunt you if you ever ran for politics or president one day? mr. wood: first, the baseline considerations are, how does this impact my family? i have a sister. how is that going to impact her? how does it impact my mother, my father, other family members? next, how is it going to impact my future, what i want to do? the fact that once this is on the shelf, i no longer control who reads it or sees it.

and so there were so many considerations, hypotheticals i worked through in my head, and ultimately what i ended up doing was weighing the cost and benefits, the advantages and disadvantages, and i felt the advantages outweighed the disadvantages. and that's when i knew, this is something i feel confident doing. brian: have you seen any disadvantages since the book has been published? mr. wood: sure. brian: give me an example. mr. wood: my relationship with my mother. this has not helped my relationship with my mother. just in a very -- in a way that might be obvious, especially if you read the book, she is not happy with what is in there. brian: did she see the book before you published it? mr. wood: she did. brian: did you change anything after she complained about what she read? mr. wood: i toned some things down a little bit.

brian: can you give us an example? mr. wood: there were things she might have said and i put some of it instead of all of it, or considered there were other examples of things that may have taken place, and i said, let me be selective. why do i need three things if i can just have one example that conveys the point? this is what would happen when she was angry. brian: i want to put on the screen some more of what your mother said, because this particular event in the book is different than some of the others. i will start reading it. brian: what is she talking

about? i am not going to read the rest of it. mr. wood: this is my eighth- grade year. i just got out of the shower. she wants me to come into her room -- i was walking out of the shower and had a towel around me. i was going to go upstairs to my room, put some clothes on. she calls me into the room and demands i remove the towel so she can see me naked. specifically, so she can see my genitals. and that is the scene i am describing there, and the language she is using, the things she is saying -- i've never felt so uncomfortable. i think anyone would feel uncomfortable in that situation, but i've never felt so uncomfortable.

and that experience, that situation, it made me really ask myself, if this is happening now, right after i started dating, i am growing up, becoming more independent, what is next when i'm 16? and i get a license? what is down the line? i don't know, because if you had asked me years before, i would not have anticipated that happening. so my mom was always obsessed with masculinity, and that comes through in the book, so they are some ways in which this follows this intuitively, but who would expect this to happen? so after that, i ended up really considering the need to remove myself from that situation. brian: who in your family did you tell this story to, or any of these stories about what your

mother said? mr. wood: when it happened, no one. my dad it was not the kind of relationship we had, it was not one where i could say this is what happened last night. we did not have that kind of bond. i wish we did. there were times where i tried to foster it, to creat it, to say something to him and see if he would respond. you know what i mean? he was not very consoling. i did not want my dad to think i could not handle things, so i said, you know what, i'm going to deal with it on my own. so the only person who ended up knowing about that at that point was the school psychologist. brian: what happened when you told the school psychologist?

mr. wood: she said, zach, that is abuse, that cannot be tolerated, no one deserves this. we got to figure out how to handle this, this cannot continue. that is what she said. brian: when did the child protective services people show up at your house, and what were the circumstances? mr. wood: i was -- so that was after -- i had only shared with two people, one teacher and a school psychologist, and someone made the call. brian: one of the two of them? mr. wood: one of the two of them made the call. brian: but you asked them not to. mr. wood: i asked the school psychologist directly, because i knew she might have a responsibility. i asked her before, can i trust this will not leave this room? i asked her because i understood that psychologists have an obligation. my teacher, i did not think about it at the time. brian: what happened when cps

showed up? mr. wood: i'm at the ymca in birmingham, michigan, outside detroit. my phone is face down on the ground, a little under the basketball hoop. i am dribbling the ball down the court, and i had just taken a shot, and i hear my phone starts ringing. and i go and pick it up and i see it as my mom, and for some reason, i just had a sense this was not going to be good. i don't know what it was him up but i said, this is not going to be good. i answered the phone, she spoke, she was very calm, curt, but can't. zachary, child protective services is here, please come home as soon as you can. and i knew that tone in her voice. "child protective services is here." i am asking myself, am i going to live to see the next day? really.

like, that is what is going through my mind, am i going to live to see the next day? because if ever at any point she has a moment alone with me and i make it through whatever happens when i get home and talk to them, lord knows what she is going to do, that is what i'm thinking. so i get on my bike and i get home as quickly as i can, and my mom puts on probably the best show i have ever seen. anyone would have thought she was an impeccable person. everyone would have thought she was impeccable. she was so classy, so courteous, so kind, so generous, so giving. do you want some lemonade? i really like your blouse. tell me about this. she was just so gregarious. you would have loved her. very affable. anyone would been completely fooled.

you would think someone had no idea what they were doing in making this call, they had heard the wrong story or have the wrong person, it doesn't make any sense. so they leave, and they say their line they have to say, we will continue looking into matters, what you could see the concern was wiped from their faces, this is an excellent mother doing the best you can for his son. brian: what happened after all that? mr. wood: after that i am alone with my mother for a bit and that is a very intense moment i described in the book or she is just staring at me intently for what felt like 20 minutes, but probably only a couple of minutes. because they are continuing the investigation, legally they have to, i go and stay with my grandmother for the remainder of my eighth-grade year. brian: her mother? mr. wood: yes. so this is the end of my eighth grade year, we have about two weeks left. i am with my grandmother.

and this investigation continues and i have to do two other interviews with cps. forced to lie in one, and then actually decided to tell the truth in the next. an incredibly difficult time in my life. brian: i want to jump back -- this is about language. you are a writer. what do you think of being a writer? how important is it to you? mr. wood: it's very important. for me, is way of communicating with people and a way of communicating with a broader audience. i am someone who always has enjoyed and loved one-on-one conversations, and one thing i like about writing is it forces you to clarify what you want to say, what you want to to communicate in way that is helpful for me personally and in terms of who i want to reach and what i want to convey.

brian: the reason i ask you -- you can explain where this is in the book, i will read a little bit and we will put it on the screen. i am going to read this. i am not sure what this mean. what does that mean? mr. wood: it is kind of a playful, sometimes intense, there is some camaraderie involved. brian: who was saying that? mr. wood: a friend of mine saying that to another friend of mine, and he is saying he has a large forehead. brian: is this among african-americans? mr. wood: just among my black friends. brian: you go on to say --

brian: what i'm going to ask you is that if a person's white saying that, what is the reaction and tell us about the difference. mr. wood: it's a good question. that is something i would with very few exceptions, only observed in circles of black men together. it is a way of interacting. in the book i described it, it is interesting what is going on, the dynamics. sometimes it is competitive, sometimes playful. you tend to do it with your friends. if one of our white peers came up and said something like that, to try to fit in or be a part of the group, the chances are it would not be taken very well. brian: why not? mr. wood: because they are seen to try to fit in or be a part of as an outsider, this is not something they are part of, this

is something we do as friends, it is something that we do together. right? it is almost like this is a black thing. it is a black thing. white people don't do this. that would be the perspective. now, there are some exceptions i have seen in my life, when i played basketball in detroit at the ymca. many of the kids who were playing were from disadvantaged communities nearby, but there were some white guys who would come and play, too. and they would take part and they would take part in these battles going back and forth, trying to diss each other, and it was ok because they had grown up in the community. brian: you admit in making your book to code switching. what is that? mr. wood: that means the way i am speaking with you right now,

in order to survive and thrive in a place like bullis or southeast d.c., when i go home to -- the way i react and interact with someone has to be different. you say less, the way you carry yourself is different, the way you speak is different. that is code switching. assessing a situation and recognizing what the codes of behavior are, what are the standards and norms, and trying to acclimate. brian: how much of this, not just with black folks that white folks, code switching goes on, and is there a negative impact for people to get together? mr. wood: it can be complicated. i would say that people are doing it very often. people are trying to do it more often than they realized. i have seen a number of my white friends in a way that is very

good-natured, and they are trying to be friendly. they will approach a black friend of mine and say something they would not normally say to someone else. "yo, what up, man?" they are trying to code switch. maybe not doing effectively, but trying to code switch. we generally as human beings want to relate to other people. right? we want to relate and we have a natural inclination to make that effort, and i think that is what you are saying. i find that to be harmless. that does not bother me. i think sometimes what code switching can do is -- it is often understood as this is only a black thing, and that is one of the issues i have with it. people code switch when you talk to your friends or your parents, no matter what your background is. the way you talk to your grandmother is not the same way

you talk to your girlfriend or your best friend or the way you talk to your teacher is going to be different from the way you talk to the people on your team, see what i mean? we are always code switching. the way you talk in an interview like this or in a job interview is different from how you talk to your brother or sister. you know what i mean? we are code switching all the time. when people portray code switching as something unique to black people, that is where i think there is a misunderstanding, that code switching is racially always understood. brian: i'm going to show you a picture of a woman, i don't know how well you knew her, but she died this year and he said she was important to your life. who was she? mr. wood: she was like a third grandmother to me. she did so much for me. she had a heart of gold, one of the most giving, generous people

i've ever known. when i was in my senior year of high school and i got accepted to a number of these summer programs at yale and stanford and brown and georgetown, i did not have the money to go. but i really wanted to attend. locally the local news, usa 9, covered the story -- luckily, the local news covered the story. peggy saw the broadcast and reached out and said i will for the rest of the bill. ever since then, she was like a grandmother and godmother and one. we would talk three times a week just about life, how is school going? how are you liking williams? what is stanford like? whenever i needed anything, she was always there. brian: where did her money come from? mr. wood: peggy -- some of it came from, from my understanding, her previous

marriage. and i believe some of it also came from things she had done earlier in her life, investments. she was a patron of the arts as well, so a lot of her money was in assets. brian: on page 180, you talk about people you most admire -- martin luther king, frederick douglass, bill clinton, reginald wayne betz, u.s. grant, cornell west, henry louis gates, and kobe bryant. why kobe bryant? mr. wood: because kobe bryant is like a cerebral assassin on the basketball court and he works incredibly hard. the one thing i admire about kobe more than anything is how hard he works. through his 20-year career, to be as dominant a player as he was. this was a guy who watched animal planet just so he understood certain things about

how to compete. this was someone who -- you would hear crazy stories about how kobe was trying to shave a quarter of an inch off the soul sole of his shoe so he could turn around a little quicker on a fadeaway jump shot. he altered his diet, it was his work ethic, and the way he played the game. brian: cornell west, you say you are a huge fan of cornell west. tell the story about meeting him and reading the 22 books and red bull. mr. wood: yes. cornell west -- a captivating figure. master communicator. i find out he's going to be speaking here in d.c. at george washington university,

and i want to see him speak. but i did not want to just see him speak, i wanted to see him speak and be prepared if there was any way to have an opportunity to have two minutes to talk to him. i said, i have read a lot of his books. i had already read a lot of his books. there were a few he had co-edited and other books i have not read yet. i said, i'm going to read it all over again so i know which questions i want to ask him the most. so i embark on this crazy endeavor of trying to read 20-plus books in six days. i can't -- you know, i read pretty quickly and i love reading, it's like breathing, but that is too much with schoolwork and a.p. courses. so i'm not getting any sleep at all. i said to myself, i can push through it, i just need to find a way to kick back this reflects, this natural reflex to fall asleep. so i said there's coffee, there

is -- red bull is stronger. let's go the energy drink route. i thought by drinking two or three, it would have a greater effect. i did not realize that that was not a smart thing to do. i understand now the health risk involved and all the stories wouldated, and i basically fall out at my desk, and my sister runs upstairs. actually -- the details of this scene, this was something where i had to ask my dad, what did i look like when i walked in the room? because i only remember so much. i can remember drinking and feeling like i could not move, like i was a lake. it was almost like sleep paralysis, but i was not asleep. and he takes me to the hospital,

and they say, it is exhaustion combined with this and stress, and don't ever do this again. and my dad is not someone who gets angry very easily, and i can think of very few times i have seen him get very upset. he looks me in the eye, you cannot do this anymore. and i understood. it was not a good idea. brian: what is your job at "the atlantic" -- atlantic"? mr. wood: i'm an assistant editor and there is a new section called the idea section, and it covers a range of things, foreign policy, politics. the things i am really interested in our education and inequality, specifically achievement gaps and disparities and how those things can be addressed. and on the inequality and looking at social mobility and , economic opportunity. brian: we did not talk about much of your activity at williams or your uncomfortable learning effort you made there,

so if people want to learn more, they will have to buy your book. our guest has been zachary r. wood, the title of the book is "uncensored: my life and uncomfortable conversations at the intersection of black and white america." we thank you very much. mr. wood: it has been a pleasure. ♪ [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2018] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> for free transcripts or to give us your comments about this program, visit us at q&a.org. q&a programs are also available as c-span podcasts. ♪ a half an hour, a

discussion on trade talks between u.s., canada, and mexico as the trump administration moves forward with changes to nafta. we will have coverage from the johns hopkins universities school of advanced international studies at 5:00 p.m. eastern here on c-span. tonight on "the communicators" -- a discussion on censorship harold feld. >> we can have a debate about what twitter can do. it is not a political question. >> it is not a question of policy. we could have an ethical debate about that like we can have ethical debates about how we behave toward each other. >> a perfectly valid conversation. i would be upset if that were to happen. i do not think that what happened. twitter has been reluctant to take down uses. when they take people down, they

use extreme examples come and the fact that the president has continue to be allowed to use the platform shows how much twitter has erred to have people use their platform. we are not heading toward a world in which people are regularly taken down. >> what are the ground rules? how do people know how to behave, and what are their rights of appeal if it turns out that they feel they have been banned by mistake or they have a particularly important -- even if controversial -- point of view that ought to be heard? >> watch tonight at 8:00 eastern on c-span2. tomorrow is the 17th anniversary of the september 11 terror attacks. on c-span, we will have coverage of remarks by president trump.

that is expected to start and 9:45. 2, we will be in new york city for the annual reading of the names killed. the pentagon3, memorial service. we will re-air all the ceremonies tomorrow night on the c-span networks. host: put e-verify in context because of that case. guest: this was a terrible case out of