it did not work. >> watch the communicators tonight at 8:00 eastern on c-span two. former special counsel robert mueller at the house intelligence and judiciary on wednesday, july 17 at 9:00 a.m. eastern to testify in open session about his report into russian interference in the 2016 election. c-span3,e coverage on online at c-span.org, or listen on the free c-span radio app app. ♪ brian: heather mcghee, what is demos? heather: demos is a public policy organization that is dedicated to the idea that in

america we should all have an equal say in our democracy and an equal chance in our economy. and something that we've been thinking a lot about lately is actually the root of our name. demos is the greek word for "the people" which is the root word of "democracy." and right now in this country it feels like figuring out who exactly belongs in our demos and the people of our nation is this nation's highest calling. brian: i woke up on december the 10th, 2016, picked up the new york times, in their opinion section saw the headline, "i'm prejudiced," he said, then we kept talking. and i want to show you the video because it started here at c-span some time before that and then ask you to explain the whole thing. >> yes. good morning. i was hoping that your guest can help me change my mind about some things. i'm a white male and i am prejudiced. and the reason it is is

something i wasn't taught but it's kind of something that i learned. when i open up the papers, i get very discouraged at what young black males are doing to each other and the crime rate. and i understand that they live in an environment with a lot of drugs, you have to get money for drugs and this is a deep issue that goes beyond that. but when i have these different fears -- and i don't want my fears to come true so i try to avoid that and i -- and i come off as being prejudiced but i just have fears. i don't like to be forced to like people. i like to be led to like people through example. and what can i do to change to a be better american? >> heather mcghee? heather: thank you so much for being honest and for opening up

this conversation because it's simply one of the most important ones we have to have in this country. brian: you said more, but i'll let you tell us what happened after that. heather: that was a remarkable moment. i didn't really realize until i kind of stepped off the set because 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, i mean you can hear it. it's 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'm prejudiced." and the way he ended his question, saying, "what can i do to change and be a better american?" just reached right in and grabbed my heart. i had to kind of just pause and it felt like the set sort of fell away and i was trying to communicate with this person who really reached a hand out to me. i mean, yes, he said things that as the sister of a black man and

a daughter of a black man were painful to hear and i knew there was many more layers of stereotype against black men underneath even just what he said. but at the same time i know that we're all swimming in a sea of racist stereotypes and that the media over-represents black crime and that it's become the sort of aim of a lot of politicians actually to make people distrust one another and particularly distrust people of color. so could i really blame him for absorbing that, particularly when he was asking for a way to change? i kind of just had to thank him. brian: what happened next? heather: so i work in law and public policy. you know, i -- before that call i'd been talking about student loans and economic inequality and trade policy. and, yes, i'd been talking a little bit about race relations and i do but as an instrument to talking about public policy. but i could tell that gary from north carolina -- as i knew him

then -- really wanted kind of really simple answers to his questions about kind of how he could sort of integrate his life. so off the top of my head i said get to know black families and if you're a religious person, join an interracial church, right, the idea of sort of joining in with people of different races with a higher purpose, with some kind of higher common purpose. i did tell him to turn off the nightly news because we know that there's a really warped kind of vision of who commits crimes in this country that comes in many media markets. and i asked him to read about black history. i got a sense that who he was really talking about was black people. i could have, of course, talked about stereotypes against immigrants and muslims, but it felt like with his question he was really asking me -- as a black woman on his television -- to tell him sort of how to overcome his prejudice against black people. brian: and then what?

heather: and then i kept going with the program. it was a great program. and i walked off the set and i had a text message from my colleague, gwen, in my communications office 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. and they had sort of looked at each other with tears in their eyes and they said something really special just happened. and a few days later they put it on facebook. and it was on the weekend, it was on saturday. they put it on facebook, just a clip of gary's question and then my full answer and by monday it had about a million views and that had never happened to demos before. and a bunch of different other sites and video kind of aggregators picked it up and put different headings on it and it became a sort of racist c-span caller asks this black woman a question and here's her response. and it really went viral, i mean

you had comedians and sort of public figures talking about it. you know, demos is an organization that works in public policy. the people who follow us online are wonks and nerds, they're people who really care about the specific issues we work on like debt-free college or raising the minimum wage or democracy reform. but this was getting out there, you know. my like sister-in-law's hairdresser said, "i saw this," you know. it was starting to really break out of the bubble. and i think part of the reason for that is you have to remember this was august we'd had this sort of racially charged summer with donald trump's campaign with black lives matter and the police shootings and then the tragic events all in baton rouge and dallas. i mean it was really 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 was we kind of just all said, "finally." i mean you had donald trump saying that mexican immigrants are rapists and then saying i don't have a prejudiced bone in my body. and here was the sort of everyday guy being willing to have the courage and say, yes, i have this prejudices. brian: now, we found this video on your website and i want to run a little bit of it and tell us how this happened. heather: i went down to north carolina and i met with gary and we furthered that conversation about race and asked each other hard questions and it was amazing. >> i said this is somebody i could talk to again and here we are, we're talking again. when you get to know people, they're usually -- their fears are unjustified. don't let it go by. if you got eight million people responding positively to my insecurities, they must be

having the same things. it's just something that is -- we don't practice and taking that first step is the hardest thing. brian: how did you find gary? heather: no, gary found me. so gary -- so as i now know, gary, a few days later was watching tv. he's watching cnn. i went on cnn headline news and had a little interview about the fact that this clip had gone viral and at this point had reached 8 million views. and so he saw, he heard my voice again, he'd never have seen or heard me before the c-span show. so he heard my voice again and he sort of ran into the living room and saw me talking about the clip and then at the bottom it said my twitter handle. so then gary went to his computer and got on twitter for the first time in his life. his first tweet said, "how does this thing work?" and he found me he entered in my twitter handle and he said i'm gary from north carolina.

immediately i wanted to know i mean the way those shows work, i gave my answer, then we went on to a next -- another call. and so i didn't know how it landed with him, i didn't know if he brushed it off. i didn't know anything about who he was and there was really sort of no way to know. so he found me. he said, "i'm gary from north carolina." and then i sent him a direct private message and i said, "gary, i'm really glad you got in touch. i'd love to talk to you about what you thought about my answer to your question." so i gave him my phone number and a few days later i got a phone call. and he was sitting at a burger joint having 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" and to which i was shocked. i mean i thought, sure, when asked a pretty hard question off the top of my head i gave some decent answers, but i didn't

think that it was going to be something that he would take so seriously. and he explained to me that he's 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 and obviously it went viral on social media but also it was picked up in the normal press and 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 that's -- and are worried about what is going to happen to them if they admit it, but also know that they can 't actually change unless they admit it. brian: when did you go down there and why? heather: so we had a couple of phone conversation. the first one was so good. he thanked me. i thanked him for his courage. he said some version of actually what he said in that video. he said "i don't know what you

want to do with this, but this seems like a big thing. and if you're willing to keep talking about this," he said, "i'm willing to talk with you about it," you know, sort of use me to keep this conversation going because the country needs it. and so i kind of took that to heart. i didn't -- i didn't know exactly what would come of it. but i had a -- and then i got married actually and then -- and then my life kind of went -- i went away from my work for a while and i got married. i talked to gary once in a while when i was getting ready for my wedding. he told me about the books he was reading. i gave him some ideas. he told me a funny story about having gone to the bookstore to get a bunch of african-american studies books. he sent me a little video of himself and then the sort of heading for the african-american studies section of the bookstore to tell me he was in the bookstore. and then i got an invitation to go speak at wake forest

university in north carolina. and so my new husband and i said, well, let's call gary and see if we could drive by and meet with him and so we did that. and gary and i, i think, were both very nervous to meet each other. we had no idea what would happen. my husband is a documentary filmmaker and so i said, "gary, i think we should probably record us meeting." and he said, "yes, absolutely." so that footage you saw is from my husband. and it was a really beautiful conversation, the first one in person that really kind of exceeded my expectation. brian: where is that? heather: so that -- he lives outside of ashville, north carolina so he wanted -- he wanted us to meet in ashville. so we met -- it's actually in sort of a park outside of a hotel in downtown ashville, 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 just got to know each other, where he's from, the experiences he's had in life. brian: i'm going to hold you there for a second. how old is the man? heather: i think he's mid 50's. brian: where is he from? heather: he was born in connecticut actually -- newhaven, connecticut. connecticut actually ---- newhaven, connecticut. and he -- but he was in the -- in the navy and had a heart condition and went down to ashville in his early 20s for a heart surgery at the va down there. and had in his life in connecticut -- this is one of those sort of beautiful things that happens in american people's stories ---- where really the same things that he was afraid of from the sort of media stereotypes about african-americans had been part of his experiences growing up in connecticut with gangs and drug addiction.

and he -- when he got his heart surgery he stayed in ashville and kind of fell in love with it down there in the sort of slow pace of life and has been living there since then. he was an hvac electrician operator and now i think he's mostly retired. host: has he been married? heather: no. host: so he has no children. and how often in your life have you heard -- you can't quantify, but how often have you heard the kind of things that he was saying about what he as a white man thought about black people? heather: i mean it is a pretty innumerable account. it feels like in terms of someone saying that to me personally probably not so many times. i, in my career, really started out as an economic policy person and would go across the country in my role at demos and in other

-- in other jobs talking to groups of people about the economy. and oftentimes just in church basements or grange halls, union halls talking about sort of what had happened in our economy over the past couple generations so that working people are finding it so hard to get ahead. and i could tell that story without talking about race at all, i could tell -- talk about globalization and technological change, about corporate power in washington and trade rules and tax rules and worker's rights. but i felt that if i didn't mention race i was not telling the whole story. some piece of the puzzle was really missing about how it was that my grandfather's generation, you could have just had a kind of 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, you go to college at free and that something changed in the late 1970s. and, yes, there are lots of reasons for why that changed, but something also shifted in our politics to where the very idea of a government that invest in its people and supports working class folks and supports investments and mobility has become hard and, in fact, racialized so that the sort of conservative argument against government was very much kind of carried on these stereotypes of undeserving people of color who would actually benefit from government. and so 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 steel worker about the economy. and i sort of learned a way to talk about race with white people that allowed them to see their self--interest in it, their story in it. host: go back in your own life

and tell us where you were born. heather: sure. i was born in chicago, born and raised on the south side of chicago. host: parents did what? heather: my mother was -- at the time that i was born, she was a holistic health practitioner on the south side of chicago and then actually ended up moving into working into more social policy so i kind of come by rightly. my father was an artist and photographer and a graphic designer. host: were they together? heather: they were together. they got divorced when i was young, but i lived between both of them, had a great, great, great community that i grew up in, the south side of chicago, sort of the michelle obama south side now that people know it that way, really thick black community. my grandparents on both sides have come up from the south and worked in the public sector as a cop and as social worker and it was really great way to grow up. host: how many white people were in your high school? heather: that is a great question.

so i actually grew up in mostly all black schools until i went away to boarding school. and this was a decision my mom made when i was in seventh grade, which is pretty early. so i went from growing up in chicago to virtually all white girl in new england school. host: what school? heather: it's called bement. it's a very small school in western massachusetts and i was one of i think two black children in the whole school. and that was a pretty, pretty phenomenal adjustment. i was young as 11. i was -- i was young for eighth and for seventh grade, but in some ways i think being that young kind of helped. it helped me still be a child and had a sense of adventure about this incredible cultural shift that i had just experienced.

and so in my high school that i went on to it was a diverse but very elite prep school. and most of the kids of color would want to -- came in on scholarships. host: where was that? heather: that was milton academy outside of boston, massachusetts. host: and how were you treated when you were 11 years old by the white girls? heather: yes, it was hard. i mean we were kids so in some ways we were just young enough to have a little bit of that sort of childhood innocence and some of the kind of harsher kind of status concerns that come in high school, we were before that. i was 11 years old. but there were a lot of moments where they just didn't understand kind of some of the basic things about being black and young like i went from living with my family to living with all white people, with all white dorm parents and fellow students. and so little things about just the way i've grown up that was different in the way they grow up came about. but i developed wonderful friends, 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 kind of library room with five teachers and a book. i mean it was in many -- i mean, sorry, five students and a book and a teacher. and it was in many ways a very -- i was very fortunate. host: were your parents wealthy? heather: no, but they were able to use financial aid and it was a big -- it was a big leap that my parents may had to say. i wasn't getting the challenge i needed in public school and host: one of the things that people noticed when you answered "gary" in the call and show is there was a nod and ounce of anger in your voice. so when did you learn how to do that? and were you ever angry about race? heather: oh, yes, i'm angry about race every day.

host: but i mean in the way you treat -- when people are not nice to you, the way you're treat -- you treat other people -- heather: yes. host: how do you get this even temper about you? heather: i went to the obama school of race relations. no, i'm kidding. host: by the way, what's that mean? heather: well, i mean there's the joke about the sort of obama anger, i mean he has to do it all the time. i mean the amount of disrespect that's thrown at him, the amount of vitriol, he's had to rise above it, that's what -- that's the way he's managed to be president of the united states. host: but how do you -- how do you -- you've obviously done it. how do you do it? heather: i think there has to be -- to be a person of color in a white dominant society. you learn how to -- at least i've learned how to be how to

have empathy first. gary's question was extraordinary. it's different when someone's racist to me in a line at the store, you know. he was saying, "i'm prejudiced and i need to change." it comes back to this idea of is racism and prejudice something that is 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? and if we believe, as most racial justice advocates and academics do, that it's the latter, that it's not just a story of sort of evil sinners and good people but rather about a system that was set up in this country to communicate a belief in a hierarchy of human value, then is it any surprise that people would absorb that belief?

now, i'm not saying that that takes every -- takes the blame away from everyone, but it does mean that when someone identifies and is willing to admit that, yes, they've absorbed a bunch of pretty race stereotypes about our fellow americans. should we answer that call? i think we have to. i think we all have to. i think one of the big mistakes of the way that this country has -- this culture has shifted over the course of my lifetime sort of once the voices of the civil rights faded was that we stopped talking about race and admitting that, in fact, prejudice is far, far, far more common than we want to acknowledge. host: how many times have you been with (gary)? heather: i talked to (gary) on the phone, i don't know, probably a dozen times. i've met with him in person now three times.

host: and what's the future of the (gary--heather) relationship? heather: you know, i don't know. he is on this incredible journey that i'm just sort of from time to time sign--posting for him. he created this system all on his own where he forced himself to interact with people of color that he normally would not have. he started in the kind of waiting room at the va where black men sat next to him and he sort of created a little system for himself where he thought, ok, my assumption about this person on a scale of 1 to 10, he created a little system, on a scale of 1 to 10 is that i'm not going to like them. we're going to have -- we would have a bad interaction. i'm kind of afraid of him. i'm anxious. so he'd put them on a low in the scale. he'd rate the person a three. and then he forced himself to say really bad traffic on i91 or whatever some kind of opening salvo and get to talk. and then after the interaction he would wait how he felt about them afterwards. and there was always a five,

six, seven--point spread. i mean that was (gary's) system that's definitely not something i would have come up with and showed him to do, but in some ways it's disarmingly simple. and the basic spirit of it which is if you got into a point where not only do you consume a lot of stereotypes on television, but in your life you're finding that it's affecting who you feel comfortable sitting next to or talking to, sending your children to school with and then you work up that ladder paying taxes to support their education living near. we've got work to do. host: i want to talk about class because this may be an example, i mean when you look at your background. heather: yes. host: what happened after high

school? where did you go? heather: i went to yale. host: what did you study? heather: american studies. host: and? heather: and then i went to law school as uc berkeley. host: and how did all that happen? i mean that's an expensive ride in the heather: oh, just debt. host: debt? heather: looking at all american system of student loans and debt, yes. host: and why were you interested in, say, going to yale and then getting a law degree? what was moving you? heather: well, i've always wanted to -- that community i talked about on the south side of chicago where i grew up, there was a sense growing up that service is the rent, you pay for living on earth, right? i mean everyone had to sort of do something whether it's work in the public sector or work in a non--profit, (it was that). that was just sort of kind of how i grew up. i never really questioned the idea that in some ways making this country better was going to

be the work of my life. host: and what did you start right after you went to law school? where did you go then? heather: so i actually started working at demos right after college, about a year after college as an entry level position in the economic opportunity program. i was 22 years old. the organization had only been around for about a year and a half, two years. and i got the job because i'd had some jobs during college actually working doing research for a small type of policy organization that worked on issues of low--income families and children. and i was able to get this job working on the issue of debt actually. at that time, we were working on how -- the issue of how credit card debt and mortgage loans and payday loans had become this sort of plastic safety net for working and middle--class families. this was early on, way before this became kind of a dominant understanding about the economy. and i worked on that issue at

demos for a couple of years and then decided to go to law school. host: so the reason i bring out class, how much education did gary have? heather: you know, i don't -- i definitely don't think gary finished college if he went. host: and he was in the navy so he must have had interaction with people who don't look like him. did you ever talk about that? heather: yes, i did talk about that a little bit with him in terms of -- it surprised me actually i mean because we think of the military as actually the most integrated institution in our society -- but i think that was a long time ago for him. and since then he has in many ways just sort of lived the life of a working class guy working in the south. i mean north carolina has a very diverse kind of political landscape and everything. but it became clear through our conversations that among his friends, racist jokes and forwards and stuff like were just part of the way they

communicate and entertain themselves. host: tell us about demos organization, how many people work there, how much money do you spend a year. heather: sure. yes, sure. so demos is 16 years old now and we have about 60 staff. we've grown from really a handful of people working on democracy issues and economic issues to now 60 folks. we're a $10 million a year organization. i became president three years ago, took over from miles rapoport who went on to become the national president of common cause, a democracy advocacy organization. and when i took from miles, miles a mid-60s white guy, in many ways because i had sort of grown up with the organization, i was there for a number of years, i went to law school and then i came back in 2009, there wasn't a ton that i wanted to do to change it. but i did want to raise the understanding of all of our staff from the personal accounts payable to the economists in the

political science and the lawyers of how race affects us all. and so, really, the biggest thing i did to sort of transform the organization was to embark on what is now been a three-year racial equity organizational transformational process. the organization is predominantly white. it was much more so when i took over. and so, that conversation about race with white people was something that we took on head on at the organization. host: what's the most offensive thing a white person can say to you? heather: can say to me? host: yes, or has i mean... heather: yes. host: ...where do you see -- and you say to yourself, "there it goes. that's it. that's a signal." heather: i think one of the most -- probably the most pernicious lie about people of color and i say it's the most pernicious because it's actually pervasive

and because it's really core to undermining the sense of social solidarity and a shared contract that is frankly essential for our country to thrive. but the most pernicious lie is the lie that people of color, black people, immigrants are in some ways don't 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 kinds of supports that frankly made the white middleclass flourish in the middle of the century. it's that idea that, for example, we see the healthcare debate today, right? i mean, there's so much of this sort of prejudiced undertone in the conversation about taking

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

and criminals, right? that idea tears at the fabric of the country. how are you supposed to hear that message about, frankly, probably the communities that you don't live near because we're still very segregated and then say, "yes. i think those kids should have healthcare subsidies. i think that we should raise all of our taxes so that college is debt free for those community college students." i mean, it's 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 and it comes back and affects white people, too. host: going back to the video , it was 8all in show million at one point. do you know what the number is now?

heather: you know, i haven't looked. so, it's 8 million before the new york times op--ed, before the upworthy video. so, i'm sure it's much more now. host: what's happened to you as a result of this, anything? heather: i've had -- it was a rough fall, right? so, that was the week i was in north carolina meeting with gary, the week before the election. and in many ways for me personally and for many other people who've dedicated their lives to social justice and 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, it's a pretty rough and continuous to be a pretty rough proposition. my relationship with gary who should be a trump voter, right, by demographics, he should be a trump voter and he's not a democrat as he told me when we first met, but he didn't vote for trump and he has become someone who recognizes his own stereotypes, almost gets a little bit of joy of kind of catching them as he thinks them and sort of shifting his consciousness to a more sort of generous idea about who his fellow americans are. that's given me hope. host: now, i'm going to say

something that i guarantee people watching this right now, it's going to affect them. heather: ok. host: and you know why and you'll know immediately. who's the chairman of your board? heather: i thought you were going to say "you're prejudiced." i was so excited we were going to do something here. host: no. no. heather: listen. i actually do want to say we're all prejudiced, right? we all have -- hold stereotypes and beliefs that -- about for some people, it may be about muslims. for some people, it may be about immigrants. for some people, it may be about women. for some people, it may be about obese people. host: do you know why i asked you this question?

heather: yes. sorry. i don't mean to dodge this. host: in a minute -- i mean, it's not... heather: yes. host: i don't want to make a big deal out of it. when you tell us who the chairman... heather: yes. host: ...people listening will go, "one way or the other." heather: amelia warren tyagi who is the daughter and collaborator on a number of books with elizabeth warren, the senator from massachusetts. host: it's her daughter. heather: yes. it's her daughter. i'm sorry. did i not say that? host: no. heather: yes. so, it's her daughter and the collaborator. so, not only is it her daughter, but they actually have worked together on a number of books including, "the two-income trap" which is how i and demos sort of first got to know elizabeth warren when she was a professor. this argument that we were making about debt, about credit card debt and how the rules had changed and it was drowning working families in debt was one that she and amelia were making back in the early 2000s. and so, that's why we got to know each other and i've always been a fan of senator warren. and actually, senator warren and i have had a number of

conversations about race, about how you talk about the sort of economic populism that she delivers so compellingly and also, tell that missing piece of the story of how race has been used as the weapon in the class war to drive people who have common class interests apart. host: if donald trump -- president donald trump called you and said, "i'd like to meet with you", would you? heather: that is so interesting. when i was in north carolina and i met with melissa harris-perry, we had the interviews why we went down to north carolina. she said, "if hillary clinton calls, will you go work for the white house?" and i said, "no. i really love what i'm doing at demos." and then, she said which then like seemed like a shocker, "if donald trump calls and says 'i want you to lead my kind of racial reconciliation', would you do it?" now, i don't know. in your hypothetical, i don't know why he's calling me. host: well, actually, i'll tell you why what i want you to get to. he's calling you because he wants you to come to the oval office by yourself.

he will have nobody there and you get to sit with him, no drama, no cameras, no anything, and he's going to say, "now, tell me. tell me why it is the black folks dislike me so much and what can i do about it?" heather: you know, 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 that are together in one country. i have a lot to say to donald trump and i'd be happy to say it. host: so, give us an idea. i mean, you look him in the eye. you're going to tell him things. and first of all, let's just assume he's going to say, "look. i'm not prejudice." heather: yes, of course. host: he's going to say that. and he says, "look. i can't say this out loud, but this was all part of the act for getting elected." heather: and i would tell him that he has created lasting damage because his incredible

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

what is happened to the working and middleclass in this country, making the solution to that: a) voting for someone who says "i alone can fix it" as opposed to saying, "it's actually about collective action", right, we actually made the middleclass in this country and transformed terrible, 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 test for coming into the country based on religion is devastating and it's going to last much longer than the donald trump presidency. host: one of the questions that

i've heard conservatives ask us a lot is that why are most black folks so anti a black person who's a conservative. i mean, the anti clarence thomas, ben carson "they don't speak for me" and it's a big negative on them and they're not -- heather: well, yes, i mean, in some ways, i feel like it's similar to white folks who are opposed to elizabeth warren. it's about the politics, right? i mean, i wish that the conservative ideology wasn't so easy to sort of create a division among racial lines, right? i mean, race has been so central, racism has been so central to the policy solutions and the story about the country that so many conservatives have told. it's really hard. so, 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 actually a ticket to the middleclass for working black folks and latinos because the job discrimination is so strong outside of the union, it's not about race. it's about the policies and the ideas and what they have done and would do to the communities of color. host: all right. bill o'reilly talked about race on his show, december 20th, 2016. heather: ok. host: and it was about white privilege, but i want you to hear it and react to it. heather: ok. bill o'reilly: 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 peddled that. some extents, hillary clinton did and the liberal media tries to sell that all day long. so-called "white privilege, bad; diversity, good". host: yes. heather: sure. 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. as a young african-american but our groups woman, as an , older white man, -- older, i did not say old! [laughter] there are power differentials there. right? brian: you're the one with a law degree from uc berkeley.

heather: yes. 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 than if you are a white person who has a criminal record. does that mean that i cannot get a job, or that any white person will always 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. formerght, current and state judges including justice human sideussing the of judging. participants include ava guzman, the first latina elected to .tatewide office and author michael lewis who wrote "blindside" and "the big short." here's a preview. to -- itenced someone

was a lengthy sentence. as soon as it came out of my mouth i knew it was a mistake. i walked off the bench. i got to the door. i turned to my courtroom deputy word i said, bring them back tomorrow. the law is -- every now and then you have to look at the law -- the law is you cannot change it -- >> is that right? you cannot change her mind? sentencingled remorse. you just can't do it, but i did it anyway. this is terrible. seated in my courtroom was the united states attorney, at that time a fellow named rob mueller. you may have heard of him. he is sitting there. i'm changing this tenets, right? he said, i meant to say 38 months, not 48 months, whatever it was. and i walked off the bench.

a week later, i saw him in the that wasand he said, very interesting. very interesting. there is some question as to whether or not you had jurisdiction to do that. i said, i can understand that reasonable minds might differ on the issue. he said, you know what? we are not going to appeal you because we think you came out with the right answer. >> just some of today's discussion on the human side of judging. you can watch the entire program tonight at 8 p.m. eastern on c-span. >> tonight on "the would talk about the future of journalism in the age of big text firm -- big tech firms with computer and

communications industry representatives. journalismloy a 0% -- zero present journalists. they are not doing journalism. they are not going to school board meetings. our deliver on delivering content in monetizing around that content. we don't have local journalism. the question is whether or not we want a strong and five are in journalism -- vibrant journalism industry. should we do that with antitrust? we tried that in the 1970's, the broadcast era. it didn't work. >> watch "the communicators" tonight at 8 p.m. eastern on c-span two. --next, i national townhall meeting