2. q&a, then a house theing looking into transportation security administration. ♪ >> heather, what is demos? heather: demos is a public policy organization dedicated to the idea that in america, we should all 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. >> 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. brian: 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 that most 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 this 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 over-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. brian: 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 with a higher purpose, a

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. brian: 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. it was on the weekend, on saturday. by monday, it had about one million views. that has never happened before. a bunch of different other sites and video aggregators picked it up and put different headings on it, and it became a "racist 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 are 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. i think part of the reason for that is, you have to remember, 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 prejudiced, which, for people of color, we all just said, "finally." you had donald trump saying that mexican immigrants are rapists and saying, i don't have a prejudice bone in my body. here was this everyday guys

saying, yeah, i have these prejudices. brian: we found this video on your website. tell us how this happened. heather: i went down to north carolina, and i met with gary. we furthered that conversation about race and asked each other hard questions. it was amazing. gary: when you get to know people, don't let it go by. my fears were unjustified. if 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. brian: 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 found me. 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 did not know how it landed with him. i didn't know if he brushed it off. i didn't know anything about who he was. there was really 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. but 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 that newspapers across the country, it went viral on social

media, and it was picked up in the normal press. he was inspired by that. 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. also know that they can't actually change unless they admit it." brian: 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. [laughter]

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 having gone 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. brian: where is that? heather: he lives outside of asheville, north carolina. he wanted us to meet in asheville. so we met in a park outside of a hotel, one of the highest points. it was a beautiful fall day, the 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. brian: how old is the man? heather: i think he is mid 50's. brian: 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. he went to the v.a. for surgery in his early 20's. he had in his life in connecticut, 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 african-americans have been part of his experience in connecticut with gangs, drug addiction, and when he got his heart surgery, he stayed in asheville and fell in love with the down there and the slow pace of life. he has been living there since then. he has been a hvac electrician operator. now i think he's mostly retired. brian: is he married? heather: no. brian: no children. how often in your life have you

heard -- you can't quantify -- how often have you heard the things he was saying about what he as a white man fought about -- thought about black people? heather: it is a pretty innumerable count. it feels like, 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. often 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 to 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 argument against government carries on these stereotypes. undeserving people of color that would benefit from government. 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 white laid-off steelworker about the economy. i learned to talk with people about race with white people that allowed them to see their self interest in it. brian: tell us where you were born. heather: i was born in chicago. i was born and raised in the south side of chicago. brian: your parents did what? heather: my mother -- 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. brian: were they together? heather: they were together. they got divorced when i was young. i lived between both of them, had a great community, i grew up in the south side of chicago. the michelle obama southside that people know it has now. 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. brian: how many white people were in your high school? heather: that is a great question. 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.

brian: what school? heather: it's called bemint. very small school. it was in western massachusetts and i was 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. brian: where was that? heather: milton academy just outside of boston. brian: 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 you sat around in a library with five teachers and a book -- i'm sorry, five students, a book, and a teacher.

in many ways, i was very fortunate. brian: 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. brian: one of the things people noticed when you answered gary in the call in show, there was not an ounce of anger in your voice. when did you learn how to do that? and where you ever angry about race? heather: i mean, i'm angry about race a free day. brian: but when people are not nice to you -- how do you get this even temperament? heather: i went to the obama school of race relations. [laughter] i'm kidding. brian: 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 that is thrown at him, the amount of

vitriol, he has had to rise above it. that is the way he has managed to be president of the united states. brian: how do you do it? heather: there has to be, to be a person of color in a white-dominant society, you learn how to -- 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 in a hierarchy of human values, then is it any surprise that people would 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 movement faded is we stopped talking about race and admitting that in fact prejudice is far, far more common than we want to acknowledge. brian: how many times have you been with gary? heather: i talk with gary on the phone about a dozen times. i've met with him in person now three times. brian: 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. he would put that person low on the scale. he would rate them a 3. then he forced himself to say, "really bad traffic on i-91" or whatever, some kind of opening salvo to get to talk. and after the interaction, he would rate how he felt about him afterwards. there was always a 5, 6, 7-point spread. that was his system. that is definitely not something i would've come up with and showed him to do, but in some ways, it is disarmingly simple. 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. brian: i want to talk about class, because this may be an example. when you look at your background, what happened after high school? where did you go? heather: i went to yale. brian: what did you study? heather: american studies. then i went to law school at uc berkeley. brian: how did all of that happen? that's an expensive ride. heather: just debt. [laughter] we good old american system of student loans and debt. brian: 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. brian: where did you start, 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 works on issues of low income families 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 safety net for working class americans. this was early on, way before this became a dominant understanding of the economy. i worked on that issue at demos for a couple of years and decided to go to law school. brian: the reason i bring up class, how much education did gary have? heather: i don't think he finished college, if he went. brian: and he was in the navy. he must have had interactions with people that don't 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 and forwards and stuff like that were just part of the way they communicated and entertained themselves. brian: 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. we have grown from a handful of people working on democracy issues now at 60 folks. we are a $10 million per year organization.

i became president three years ago. took over from miles rappaport, who went on to become the national president of common cause national advocacy organization. when i took over for miles, he is a mid-60's, white guy. in many ways, because i had grown up the organization, 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 person in accounts payable 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 organization transformational process. the organization is predominantly white. 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. brian: what is the most offensive thing a white person can say to you? heather: can say to me? brian: or has? you say to yourself, there it goes, that is it -- it is a signal. heather: i think -- probably the most pernicious lie about people of color -- i say it is the most pernicious because it is actually pervasive, and it is core to undermining the sense of social solidarity and a shared contract that is essential for our country. 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 debate 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 inside 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. brian: 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 op-ed. i am sure it is much more now. brian: 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 me when we first met. but did not vote for trump. he has become someone who recognizes his own stereotypes. almost gets a little but of joy for catching them as he's -- as he thinks them and kind of shifting his consciousness to a more generous idea of who americans are. that has given me hope. brian: i am going to say something that 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. i was so excited we would do something here. [laughter] heather: i do want to say, we are all prejudiced. we all have stereotypes and hold stereotypes. for some people, it may be about muslims. for some people, it may be about immigrants, women, or obese people. brian: you know why i asked this question? heather: yes, sorry -- brian: i don't mean to make a big deal. 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. brian: it is her daughter. heather: yes, it is her daughter.

not only is it her daughter, but they have worked together on a number of books, including "the income trap." which 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 were making in the early 2000. 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 apart. brian: 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 calina and i met with melissa harris-perry, we had a conversation. she said if hillary clinton called, would you work for the white house? i said no, i love what i am doing at 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. brian: 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, now 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 our 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. brian: you look him in the eye, you will tell him things. first of all, let's assume he's going to say, i'm not prejudiced. i can't say this out loud, but this was all part of the act for getting elected. [laughter] 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, about people with disabilities, african-americans. brian: how deep is it? heather: it is so damaging, and 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 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.

we actually made the middle class in this country and transformed 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 of good jobs in america to violence, encouraging scapegoating. anti-democratic litmus tests for coming into the country based on religion is devastating and it will last longer than the donald trump presidency. brian: one of the questions is why are most black folks so anti-a black person who is a conservative? anti-clarence thomas, 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. race has been -- racism has been so central to the policy solutions, and the stories about the country, that so many conservatives have told -- 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. brian: 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 tell 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.

brian: yes? heather: sure. unearned privilege based on race is bad and diversity is good. i think that racial and ethnic diversity is the source of american exceptionalism. the fact that we are a country that -- we were not descended 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 in the globe 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, it is not egalitarian. yes, it has been baked into the fabric --

brian: is there privilege? are most whites white supremacists? heather: those are two very different questions. brian: here is another way of asking it -- 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. brian: there has to be things you say. heather: sure. i mean listen, our country -- we have this very strange, kind of double consciousness in this country, where we admit -- and on martin luther king day our country was legally racially segregated up until recently, but the footage is black and white. and yet we really do not want to

actually admit that, that has some effect on all of our systems. 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. brian: i want to go back to more video -- this is from april 30, 2016 with the president and larry wilmore. i will ask you more when you hear what he says. larry: 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 it, my [n-word.] thank you very much, good night. [applause] brian: i will just add to this, i recently saw the 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. i mean, good when black folks use it among themselves. heather: one of the difficulties of understanding race relations is the need to understand there is a 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, derision, disrespect. and when used by people of color, the intent, as you can tell by larry wilmore saying it to the president, was not hate, division 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. but as a young african-american woman, as an older white man, -- older, i did not say old! [laughter] there are power differentials there. brian: you're the one with a law degree from uc berkeley. heather: i am so glad you said that. there will always be exceptions. 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, predatory lending, 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. as groups in this country, if you lay all white men, african-american women, latina women, etc. out, and look at the way that they have access to power, who is represented in the senate and congress, 90% of the elected officials in the country are still white. two thirds 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 a callback. if you have an african-american sounding name but no criminal record, you are less likely to get a call back for a job and 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 be able to get a job? no, but it does mean these group dynamics still exist, and we have to acknowledge them. brian: are your parents alive? heather: yes, thank goodness. brian: what do they think of your success? heather: they are proud of me. my mother really has dedicated her life and career to racial healing. she is particularly proud of me. brian: still live in chicago? heather: she lives in prince george's county outside maryland. my grandfather is not still alive, and he was a chicago police officer. was very close to harold washington -- yes, first black mayor of chicago. i wish he were still alive. he would have a lot to say. brian: where is your dad? heather: my dad is in

sacramento. brian: so, where did you meet your husband? heather: i met my husband in high school. [laughter] brian: and his name is? heather: shepherd. he is a perfectly american story. his mother was a foreign exchange student from pakistan in the 1960's and met her husband, my husband's father in school. they had this incredibly unlikely love story. he was a white american from denver and she was a pakistani woman from karachi. he grew up in this interfaith, intercultural family. brian: so you have a mixed marriage? heather: yes. brian: 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: i think there is resistance -- 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 fate of black children that white people are prejudiced than if a black woman is prejudiced against white people. i will say that i fortunately -- my marriage has been embraced very much by our communities. brian: those who may have tuned in late, gary is who? heather: gary said he was a white man and i am prejudiced. that is how he opened up his call on c-span. he lives in rural north

carolina. brian: has he changed since that call with you? heather: tremendously. he has done -- first of all, 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. brian: here is a little bit from that cnn. actually, the fellow that is interviewing you i believe is on your board. heather: van jones, yes. van: how are they reacting? gary: 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. brian: is there more to do on the part of demos with the story? are you going to take it anywhere else? 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 fateful call with gary. the idea of the book is to really catalog the different ways that racism is actually bad for white people. brian: 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 the murder in charleston, dylann roof's murder of innocent people in mother emmanuel church. that really shook him. he lives in the south, and had never really noticed the confederate flags everywhere, but then he 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. brian: heather mcghee, president of the demos organization. if people want to contact you and get on your website, what is the address? heather: www.demos.org. brian: unfortunately, we are out of time. thank you very much for joining us. ♪ announcer: all q&a programs are available on our website or as a podcast on c-span.org. >> next sunday on q&a, pat buchanan on his book nixon's white house wars, the battles that made and broke a president and divided america forever. that is next sunday at 8:00 p.m. eastern and pacific and on c-span.

[captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2019] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> stephen hawkins talks about his group's new report on political polarization in the perception gap between partisans. be sure to watch washington journal live at seven thought eastern monday morning. >> tomorrow, democratic presidential candidate amy klobuchar of minnesota holds a meeting great. watch live at 6:00 p.m. eastern. or listen live on the free c-span radio app. former special counsel robert

at the house judiciary committee on wednesday, july 7 10 at 9:00 a.m. eastern. watch live coverage. or listen on the app. british prime minister theresa may answered questions on the uk's policy on arms sales to saudi arabia, climate change, medical marijuana, and allegations of islam of public comments by some in the conservative party. this is just over 45 minutes. provide support to promote success of wales in the united kingdom but don't look to undermine it. >> questions for the prime minister. >> question number one, mister speaker. >> the prime minister.