sessions on thursday. house speaker nancy pelosi says that the house will seek unanimous consent on approving president trump's request but that could fail if one member were to object. as always, you can follow the house live on c-span, the senate live on c-span 2. listen to c-span podcast" the weekly. we are talking to robert browning who directs the c-span archives about congress's increasing use of lame-duck sessions. speaking at uc berkeley. our guest joining us has a new book taking a look at baldwin's writings and applies lessons for today. eddie glaude from princeton university. the book, "begin again: james baldwin's america and its urgent lessons for our own." thank you so much for giving us

your time. guest: it is my pleasure. host: can you talk first, about your relationship with james baldwin and what drew you to him? guest: my relationship with james baldwin is a complicated one. he informs how i think, philosophically, how i describe the american project, how he thinks about race and democracy. more importantly, he has given me a language, to manage my own interior life. in some ways, to deal with my own rage and anger, and to give me permission to love in spite of that anger and rage. i encountered him in graduate school. i started reading him in undergraduate in atlanta. it was in rajoy at school that i encountered him and i began teaching at my first job in bowdoin and fell in love with him ever since.

host: can you elaborate? guest: i wasn't mature enough to read baldwin. baldwin believes in the socratic victim. in order to say anything about the country, about the world, you have to engage your own -- engage the messiness of your own interior life. this is what i might -- what i meant by my own interior wounds and vulnerability. i wasn't mature enough to read him, and then in graduate school, i was reading in the privacy of my own study, in seminars at princeton, i would read him with my wife and suddenly i would have to encounter blushed faces, red guilt, this kind of ridden glance. he made people uncomfortable, because he spoke such unvarnished truth. i was uncomfortable having to

manage that. i would -- at that time, i was taken with ralph ellison and the mask as their road, fit perfectly. he was more comfortable and philosophically distant and objective. i didn't have to deal with my own mess. i tended to gravitate toward ellison but baldwin was speaking to my spirit. host: the topic of your current book, "begin again: james baldwin's america and its urgent lessons for our own," give us the perception that mr. baldwin had of america, and how you apply that to your writing. guest: the spine of "begin again "no name in's book, the street." it was the first book of essays he published after the assassination of martin luther king jr.. baldwin struggled with the fact that the country would in fact murder this apostle of love. what did it say about america,

about white americans that king would be shut down in tennessee? 1969, baldwin collapsed. he tried to commit suicide. street" was this book and he was trying to describe it as america's betrayal. how do we deal with the fact that this country has turned its back on its principles, on the idea that black folk are equal and should be accorded standing and status in society like everyone else? moment aftern this eight years of barack obama, and the country elected donald trump, someone who's political career was launched on birtherism, who appealed to white hatred and white resentment. i did not think someone -- i did not think the country would elect someone like him.

i felt betrayed. i found myself saying what they've done, -- looking -- saying look what they've done. i felt betrayed. i knew baldwin felt that same way. i started mining what he called the ruins of his work. i started going through those 7000 pages of writing. there, i found the book "begin ofin," and at the spine that book, "no name in the street," where baldwin deals with his disillusionment. host: you say in part this will demand a new american story, different symbols and robust policies to repair what we have done. i don't yet know what this will look like and my understanding of our history suggests we will fail trying, but i do know that each element of support is moving toward beginning again. could you take us further? guest: there are moments where the country found itself at these crossroads.

involve whether or not we are going to be otherwise. you think about the collapse of radical reconstruction, and that moment when we found the modern u.s. nationstate with the passage of the civil war, the emergence of the -- and what do we get in response? we got jim crow in the south. him --anglo-saxon is anglo-saxonism to define the country broadly and our imperial ambitions abroad. we doubled down on our ugliness. we are in the mid 20th century with the black freedom struggle. we passed the civil rights the voting rights act. what did we get in response? the tax revolt in california, calls for law and order. we eventually elected ronald reagan. we doubled down on our ugliness in that moment. here we are, at a crossroads.

we are in the midst of a broad moral reckoning. the country is broken. the question is, will we choose to be otherwise, or will we double down on our ugliness? will we seek comfort and security and an idea that this is a white mage -- a white nation in the mold of europe? history suggests we will not do very well, but we are not bound by it. we are only informed by it. hopefully we will make a different choice. host: our guest is with us up until 9:00. if you want to ask questions about his work and the themes he is talking about, give us a call. . for the eastern and central time zones. (202)-748-8001 for the mountain and pacific time zones. you can text us at (202)-748-8003. what was going on in the country that gave us barack obama for two terms? what happened with the election of president trump?

several things happening at once. we were exhausted by the bush years. remember, during the bush administration, this massive protest not only in the united states but across the globe with regards to the iraq war. organizing with regards to a living wage. there was a kind of massive movement in the streets, and in some ways, barack obama became the object of that organizing. that is one element. another element would be the demographic shifts in the country were making themselves known politically. the fact that the nation is way,ing in a very serious a majority minority nation. we are beginning to see that evidence in our policies in 2008. over the course of eight years,

barack obama comes in on this relevant activism and as a result of the demographic changes and the brilliance of the campaign. over the course of eight years, those demographic shifts explode in interesting sorts of ways, and we see what social scientists called a backlash. i don't like that language. we see the galvanizing of white resentment over those eight years. the moment he is elected, we begin to see an uptick in white identity groups, white hate crimes. -- we see the of publican party in some ways playing with that fire. we also saw the tea party. we saw the gutting of the voting rights act and the like. over the eight years of barack obama as presidency, -- barack obama's presidency, we saw an of the resentment, and it resulted in the election of donald trump in 2016. host: let's let you talk to some

of the reviewers. barbara in new york, you are on with eddie glaude of princeton university and the author of "begin again: james baldwin's america and its urgent lessons for our own. go ahead. caller: good morning, dr. glaude. would you make a note of my question? i think you stated one time that baldwin's attacked was an act of patricide. could it have been an act of revenge for unrequited emotional and physical love? i think richard wright wrote the backs -- the backs -- the best sex scene between a black man and a will black woman. in my opinion, the united states is on its way to becoming a totalitarian state with the lockdowns intended to destroy the middle class. would you say a few words about the strain of pragmatism philosophy, the ends that

justify the means? host: we will let our guests respond as he wishes. -- our guest respond as he wishes. guest: thank you for your question. i don't know of evidence that it was unrequited love in terms of his relationship. was in someright ways a father figure. career would not have been launched without richard wright. there is a reason baldwin chose to live -- chose to leave the united states and moved to paris. there was a sense that he had to kill the father in some ways. i'm not sure that is the only motivation, but that is what it feels like, in terms of his engagement with native son. baldwin gives a different account, but his personality is such that it makes sense. in terms of the 16 in richard scene in- of the sex

richard wright, i don't know if that is the best but if that is your opinion, i'm willing to be convinced. we would have to talk about it. pragmatism is more than just means justified by the ends. pragmatism as a philosophical orientation orients us to the world in such a way that our actions matter, right? in determining outcomes. if we engage in intelligent action, we can actually choose or achieve the kinds of ends that we aim for. this in atalk about straightforward way, if we want to move from this understanding of the less ethical pragmatism as the same as something called practicalism, that is a different kind of orientation.

we are not just talking about what is practical. we are talking about a sense in which human beings have the capacity to act in the world and transform the world circumstances. we can get into that some other time. host: constance is up next, from virginia. caller: good morning. glaude.r. i read your book two months ago and what i remember most about where heis that part is weary of its incessant liaison -- history is wary of its incessant liaison with time, because time and history have never seen eye to eye. time lapse at history -- time

laughs at history because time and time again, time traps history in a lie." madee that passage, and sure i remembered it so i could repeat it to you. did you want to ask our guest a question? caller: no, i just wondered to say i want you and i love you. you are the most handsome man i have ever seen in the world. have a happy holiday, everybody. be safe. host: thank you very much. guest: i love that. thank you so much. you got me smiling. host: because she used the word lie and part of her statement, you talked about in your book, the lie is the center of the american image or america's perception. expand on that. guest: at the heart of america's self imagining is this idea that

amended john with ribs description, this is the shining city on the hill, that america is an example of democracy achieved. that is the story we tell ourselves to keep us from looking at -- looking our failures in the face. white problemthe in 1964, and he says, and i am paraphrasing, the founders of the nation who said they were christian new that they confronted a problem, that they had these people they had enslaved. they had to say in effect that they were not human beings because if they were not human beings, then there would not be a problem. baldwin says that lie is at the heart of our present trump. innocenceo secure the of the way in which america has been organized, to secure this idea that white people ought to

be valued more than others, that architecture,ral organizing so much of our lives in this country, and it has organized so much of our history, so much that wb dubois talked about it, martin luther king talked about it. the lie keeps us in this lie protectshe this illusion of innocence that we have in this country. that seems to be collapsing all around. host: from washington, d.c., jeanette, good morning. you are on with our guest. caller: good morning gentlemen. i am excited and looking forward to reading your book. it is in my stack. i am really excited to get to talk to you. baldwin feel like james was a real intellectual, and sometimes i feel like that word is overused, but he truly was. you said something earlier that

he advocated kind of unexamined life, which i feel he did -- kind of an examined life, which i feel he did. being able to hold up a mirror to the world around him and make sense of it, and help people learn what was going on in the world, and the things we didn't see. he was very honest about how white men feel threatened, and it kind of informs their behavior. what i am curious about is how does he gain that kind of insight, let only into himself when he was able to translate it so beautifully into his work and talks, but was he someone who did psychoanalysis? do you just wake up one day and you are that brilliant? i am curious about that. i really respect your work, and thank you for bringing a light to him. a voraciousin was

reader. it requires a stern discipline. you not only have to be willing to engage in that self interrogation, but you have to throw yourself into the bibliography. it is not just natural talent. obviously he is brilliant. he was a mediocre high school student. these stories danced around in his head. there is also the fact that he is reading henry james, he is reading prost, dostoyevsky, everything you can imagine. he describes himself in that library in harlem. listening listening, to the rhythm, the pitch of black english, inhabiting the eloquence and rhetorical brilliance of the king james

bible. all of this kind of informs and shapes how he is thinking about himself as an artist. you combine that with baldwin is an advent -- and adamant watcher. he describes the world as he sees it, as it is coming to him. the sensory data that his eyes provide for him. i think when we think about baldwin, it is not just attribute in get to genius. that much is true, but he is also this amazing artist who worked hard at his craft. inember, baldwin was born 1924 in harlem. he grows up in depression harlem. he is not in sugar hill. he is in the hood, as we would say. he willscircumstances,

himself to becoming one of the most amazing writers the world has ever produced. that is a matter of discipline, stern discipline, a matter of attention to craft, as well as -- host: i want to play a bit of james baldwin, speaking at the national press club in 1986. he is answering a question about a hot -- about how to improve race relations. i want to hear what he has to say and then compare and contrast your own views on the topic. [video clip] >> i want to establish white history week. [laughter] the answer to these questions is not in me but in the -- but in the history that produces these questions. it is late in the day to be talking about race relations. they deteriorate or

improve? i am not a race, and neither are you. about the life and death of this country. when i talk about white history week. white people don't know who they are or where they come from. that's why you think i'm a problem. i am not the problem. your history is. as long as you pretend you know your history, you'll continue to be a prisoner of it. you can liberate me, but you can't liberate yourselves. we are in this together. finally, when white people talk about progress, all they are saying, all they could possibly mean is how quickly and thoroughly i become white. i don't want to become white.

i want to grow up, and so should you. thank you. host: mr. glaude, what do you think? guest: such powerful words in this moment. there is so much there. the first thing we hear, is the radical inversion at the heart of baldwin's corpus. the problem isn't us. the problem isn't blacks. it isn't the culture of poverty. the problem isn't laziness, or propensity to be criminals. the problem isn't ability to learn or intellectual capacity. the problem is this ideological construction of whiteness that requires the and word -- the n-word. as baldwin says, i've never been the n-word. why do we need this word? is first thing baldwin does he inverts this problematic.

to talk about the history of white people, and i invoke the history of white people, what does it mean to think about this ideology of whiteness? how did it take root in this country? one could tell that story through in the through immigration law. we think about the first naturalization act in the united states, having everything to do with white men. what is this whiteness signifying? waldman says quote unquote, whiteness. he makes a distinction in the evidence of -- distinction between those who happen to be white, and white people. white people is ideological and moral choice for baldwin. the last point is so important. whiteness for baldwin signals or signifies a kind of immaturity, a refusal to encounter the

ghastly failures in history that has been done in its name. whiteness is this illusion of innocence, the space by which we think we are perpetually in a never never land, that we are simply lost boys and lost girls and what is distinct of about never never land is we don't have to be held accountable, we don't have to hold ourselves responsible for anything. baldwin says in that moment, we have to grow up. i don't want to become white. i want to become mature. i want to be a mature human being. what does that mean? i want to face the difficulties of what it means to be a human being on his or her way to death, which means i have to embrace life with passion, or to paraphrase that moment. i think that formulation was brilliantly chosen because it speaks so much to our current moment, and it is true.

it is true. host: let's go to jacksonville, florida. rick, you are on with our guest. caller: good morning mr. glaude. on msnbc a lot. is for me being a 64-year-old black man from south carolina, who came here because of opportunity. like black folk are in an illusion of being an american, because we have died protecting this country from crispus attucks to whatever. when i heard you say something, you were disappointed, i got so much on my mind when it comes to blackness, black folks. -- we paid taxes

to support racism and ideologies of weight is pure and black is negative. as blackion that we americansrying to be and never being respected for nothing that we do. even you, with all of your scholars and accolades, you could come down to south carolina, and you might be called the n-word. us. have no respect of it does not matter if we are a man in your position or a black fellow sleeping on the street. host: rick in jacksonville, florida. thanks for the call. professor, go ahead. guest: we heard a version of that sentiment from rick coming out of the mouth of doc rivers, coach of the philadelphia 76ers and the former coach of the l.a. clippers, in response to george

floyd, if you recall. why do we continue to love america, if america does not love us? it seems to be a reasonable conclusion to draw, as we witness police wantonly killing black folk. as we tell the stories in our family, of people who have suffered insults for people who did not survive the violence of white mobs and the like. i don't want to deny the reasonableness of that is notion, but america the possession of white folks. those who embrace white ideology don't own this place. my great-grandmother is born and buried in mississippi, on the coast. members who have put their blood, sweat and tears into the soil of this place.

america is as much hours as it is anybody's. we have to claim possession of it. not as it is, but as we hope it to be. as we aspire to be. i respond to brother rick's comments, because i don't want to deny the substance of his claim, but i don't want to suggest, and this is an insight i gained from ralph ellis, that america is an argument to be had, not a conclusion to draw. i want to have an argument about what this place is, and what it can be, and i come out of a tradition that brings something very unique and special to the table, when it comes to making that argument. america is not the possession of those who claim to be white. it is not the position of trump voters or trump or the republican party. it is ours. it is ours, not

a black folk or white folk, and weaned us -- we need to stand on that with every ounce of energy we have. --t: you write that restless at a provincial election alone will not satisfy their hunger. a moral reckoning is upon us, and we have to decide once and for all whether or not we will truly be a multiracial democracy. what are the elements that that is happening? guest: i'm not sure. we found ourselves in a moment where we are in the streets and we saw folks embracing black lives matter and the like. the results are still in. we will see whether or not america, which has a tendency to do this, they tend to congratulate themselves to early before they finish the job. we are in that moment still. i'm from the gulf coast, i use this analogy often. i lived through a couple hurricanes.

you have the front end of the hurricane which is very violent, and then you have the eye, which is calm. we are in the eye of the storm, but we can't be comfortable because the tail is coming, and the tail is just as violent as the front end. we are at the precipice of possible change, but we will have to see whether or not america will confront the fact that we are broken as a society, and that brokenness evidences itself in different forms. the short answer is that we will see. chair of guest is the african-american studies at princeton university. eddie glaude, also the author of the book, "begin again: james baldwin's america and its urgent lessons for our own." vanessa in oklahoma. you are on. caller: good morning. i am calling from tulsa, oklahoma. of course that is the infamous place of the massacre from 1921.

with thentimes struck inability for us to really grapple with the true relationship, the disrespectful nature that white supremacy gives us. in that vein, the word reconciliation is stirred up all always say that it's kind of like a cuss word ,ere, because of the community the black, white and native american community. there is not a relationship to understand who to reconcile with, but that relationship of violence. any thoughts on that, professor glaude? guest: thank you so much for that question. at the end of "begin again," i travel to montgomery, alabama.

the purpose of that trip is to visit the legacy museum and the national memorial for peace and justice, what is known as the lynching memorial. what is so fascinating about what brian stevenson has done in montgomery, in the cradle of the confederacy, is that it is not a monument or museum to celebrate americamph or story of overcoming racism. that is not the narrative. in some ways what he is trying to do is get us to confront the violence that has defined this nation. the bloodsoaked soil is literally in the museum in jars. those metal, those steel jars literally in the museum and

are the memorial. lynchings thatse took a quick -- that took place across the country, even in my hometown of jackson, mississippi. what stevenson is saying and what i say in the book is that truth and reconciliation are sequential. first you have to tell yourself the truth before you can reconcile. ist americans want to do like people want to run past sanity and just get to easter sunday. they don't want to deal with what saturday represents. part of what stevenson and i argue is that first we've got to tell the truth about the line. why did tulsa happen? why did wilmington, north carolina happen? tell the truth about the violence that is in the soil of the country. precondition the for reconciliation which becomes the basis for repair. if you don't tell the truth,

then there is still distrust, still bad faith. america has become so adept at lying to itself, even having a liar in chief. we've had one for the last four years in my view. host: we have a viewer off of twitter who asks this question. this guest who seems rooted in history keeps mentioning the republican party but seems oblivious to the history of the democratic party sponsorship of the racial atrocities of the past. guest: it is not a story of just one party. book, read my colleague's the first civil right, we talk about the parser will -- the state, the democrats are a part of that story. the frame of american politics is not just a republican story. it has everything to do with democrats and their capitulation to it.

the two party system in the united states kind of soaked in the kind of racial reality of the country. nobody has clean hands here. let me just say this. i am an independent, politically. but we need to be honest about what the republican party today, stands for, and that is not to let the democrats off the hook. let's not engage in both sideism, where you have this side and that side. there are particular people in this country right now who are trafficking in white grievance and resentment and fear for their own political gain, and we need to understand who they are. host: we will hear from paul in indiana. caller: this is been a great pleasure, listening to this. i would like to ask the doctor if he could recommend a good

history of africa. since i retired 12 years ago, i have been interested in history, and found -- i have gone fairly far back into my own history, as a descendent of bavarian present -- bavarian peasants who came to the united states after the failure of the 1848 rebellion. bred inre abolitionists the bone of the five brothers that came over and died fighting for the union in the civil war. i wanted to find out more about the slave trade, and about the history of act -- of africa, back before 1600. it is almost impossible to find any history of africa that doesn't start with the west, other than the northcoast, part of the roman world, egypt and

all of that. as far as the interior of africa, there is almost no history of africa. i was fortunate enough to have a nigerian friend who had some information and told me about the empires of the interior. greattioned a few names, states that ruled the interior of africa until the slave trade. host: we will let our guest respond. guest: i don't want -- that is not my area of focus, but there are some wonderful works out there. me, and i will get you a list of texts. i think about the modern relationship between africa and the u.s., and i want to give you some specific scholars. i don't want to risk sounding ignorant by touting some titles.

i want to speak directly to your interest, to the interior part of the continent. let me think about that more. host: let me follow up with if someone who has never heard of james baldwin or is not familiar with him, but would you recommend as a starting point? guest: i would say the same book i recommended to president-elect joe biden. the library america -- library of america collection of baldwin nonfiction. i think that volume is so important because you can start with the early work and it will take you all the way to his later essays. the only problem with that volume is it does not include "the evidence of things not seen,"'s last writing about the atlanta child murders. you can read from his early days to the leader days and get a sense of the continuity of

things and worthy accents change. i would recommend that book. it is this book right here. host: there you go. to president biden, you had a recent op-ed about what faces him coming into office and particularly the topic of race relations. what faces the president-elect? guest: remember, baldwin wants us to reject that phrase, race relations. fromber the video footage the national press club. he wants to reject that phrase because it puts us within a certain kind of frame. he not only has to deal with this kind of racial reckoning where we finally uproot this idea that white people are to be valued more than others in this country, but i think he also has to deal with selfishness and greed. that the 74 --ay 74 billion people who voted for

donald trump are all racist. that is too easy. it is in part true in some ways, but it is too easy. there is a sentient -- there is a sense in which a large number of those folks aren't racist in any explicit sense, but they are selfish. they are worried about their own 401k, their circumstances, their portfolios, their neighborhoods, so when you have a policy where people are self interested, only concerned about their aims and ends, it undermines any robust nation -- robust notion of the public good. the last element, he is going to have to deal with our dead. i urge president elect biden's team to use his inauguration as a ritual moment to recognize our dead. they will be close to 400,000 americans who have died of covid-19 by the time of the inauguration.

we've had no public ritual of mourning. when president lakin -- when president lincoln gave his second inaugural, it wasn't of the most important speeches in the country and he gave it against the backdrop of the carnage of the civil war. the weight of those dead on his shoulders. president biden will have to begin his presidency with the weight of 400 housing dead on his shoulders -- 400,000 dead on his shoulders. it will have to be a ritual space, to acknowledge those dead and to mourn, as well as to give voice to an agenda that will speak to the selfishness and racial reckoning we are experiencing. host: one more question about the president-elect. he promised the most diverse cabinet in history. is he meeting that promise in your opinion? guest: he is doing fairly well right now, but i am less interested in representation in

terms of faces. -- more interested in although symbolic representation is important. we need a cabinet that looks like america. i am also interested in policies that will reflect a fundamental shift in how we think of governance in this country. he is on a good road, particularly with holland and others, but i am more interested than different faces in high -- i am less interested in different faces in high places than i am in policies that will transform this country. host: our next caller in elk grove, california. caller: good morning mr. glaude. i've seen your face on tv. i didn't know you were as deep as you are, but i am very impressed and i'm thinking about getting your book. baldwin, the stuff he was

saying, i will look further into that also. c-span, i heard people talking america because america doesn't love us. i'm not going anywhere. this is my home. i'm black, or what they call black in america. i'm also native american. that doesn't want to get acknowledged about the mixed black people in america, because don't like that -- because they don't like that. they just want to say you are black, that is it. i know who i am. it is our struggle in this life, 400ing with these people, years of history of them always trying to set us back. it is not going to stop, but it is our job and our legacy to keep fighting this hate and ignorance.

thatin said on that piece the white people don't know where they came from. they came from us. sapiense from the homo that left out of africa, and they know it. they might not like it, but it is the truth. host: thank you very much. tost: bernard, i want reinforce a claim i made earlier, that america is an argument to be had, and it is not settled. that is an echo of my pragmatism. it is not settled. america is not what it will always be. it is an argument to be had. we need to continue to make it. we come out of a tradition that makes it. one of the things i do in "begin voice toedro is i give baldwin's rage because i have it, myself.

being and youman see what we have seen and experienced what we have experienced, you can't help but be angry. rage lights the kiln. folks who were talking about leaving, talking about america not loving us, folks who were disappointed, i understand that. i experience those emotions myself. but america is an argument, and let's have it, it's put forward a claim about what we could and should be, and fight like hell for it. host: fort washington, maryland. hello. caller: yes. to say this to the professor. this problem of racism, particularly in america, i would

professor to dig beyond theck american experience here. to scripture. -- to the the car on koran. -- to the 12th sur can the koran, and you trace back all the ills that have happened in this country, because people lied on the creator of the heavens and earth. host: thank you. we will let our guests respond to that -- guest respond to that. guest: there are different ways

to account for the hell we catch in this country. there are different ways to account for the contradictions of the union, of the people that that we of the people do -- of the evil that we do. we are as complicated as we are. once, as baldwin said, disasters and miracles. we have to account for the asasters that we are, but fragile and fallen as we are, there is a chance for a miracle. i understand there are different ways to account for it. host: i asked you about the president-elect. let's talk about the vice president elect. what do you think faces her as she takes on this new role? guest: first of all, i want to acknowledge the historic significance of her election. thinking about all of those wash women in atlanta in the night --

in the late 19th century, thinking about betty lou hamer and ellen baker, all of these women who struggled for a more just america. as the wind beneath her wings. she is not the culmination of their efforts, i want to be clear. she is a result of their struggle. i think she is going to face an interesting challenge. if the biden administration decides to tinker around. on a basices down centrist democratic agenda, she will face an interesting challenge from grassroots organizers, from folks outside of that administration. that thereunderstand are certain expectations that will be part of the demand. i'm actually interested in how

she will respond. we will see. host: one more question about this administration. today is the attorney general's last day, as far as his position. in our first hour, we talked about his legacy. what do you think that is going to be? guest: i heard a lot of that conversation. i think history will not be kind to william barr. donald trump is just the tip of the iceberg. we tend to fixate on him, but there have been a host of actors around him, near him, who have enabled the erosion of democratic norms. i believe this is the way to understand our current state. i'm going back to the storm analogy. butuse can survive a storm, it has to go through a stress test to see if it is livable. it can still be standing, but the damage done is such that it needs to be -- it is not

inhabitable. what we have witnessed over the last four years, the erosion of institutions and bill barr's role with regards to the doj has been enormous. i don't think history will be kind to him. he has been a central actor along with mitch mcconnell and others in jeopardizing american democracy in my view. host: staten island, new york. elizabeth. caller: hello. absolutely, barr with this in legacytration, he has a back then. it is an honor to be speaking with you. you have been educating me for the last few years, watching you on television. i picked up the book, "the invention of the white race," at the beginning of the pandemic. it was a little too deep for me, so i had to put it down but i'm going to be reading it again.

i calling from the neighborhood where mr. eric garner was killed. impact thisirect last year on wanting to squash getting justice for the last six years that we have been fighting. fortunately -- to some extent, new york city was able to take -- take somefrom of that after him and possibly make some of it right. i wanted to know what you think about how our country is going to look after this pandemic. aoc a few months ago saying if we don't fight, especially in terms of the class

warfare that has been happening over the last 40 years, we may see a very different city as well as a different america, following this pandemic. host: thank you, elizabeth. guest: a great question. i think we stand on a knife edge. there is no retreat back to normal. we can't go back to what it was before donald trump. remember alan greenspan said the great threat to american democracy was wealth inequality. barack obama -- barack obama talked about the deep inequality between those who have and those who don't is a threat to american democracy. we know that this version of capitalism is bankrupt. it is clear. there is no return back to normalcy. police were still killing us back then.

everyday ordinary people were still struggling to make ends meet. we can go on and on. people want us to go back to normal, and then king listed all the things that were normal back in the day. part of what we have to do is fight vigorously for a new america. we need a third founding. another,trade one for get rid of trump and assume biden is the answer. the biden administration is just a means to an end. what is the end? the end is a more just america. we have to fight with all of our hearts, our courage and our conviction for that new america. moment, it, in this don't know if the country will survive it all. i don't want to be a kind of jeremiah or melodramatic, but i don't know if we can survive a bad choice again.

but we will see. host: let's hear from william in north carolina. caller: good morning, young man. how are you? guest: i am blessed. i said how are you, but anywhere. host: we are running out of time. go ahead. caller: the new america is the new heaven, the new earth in which we will create. has nod and the spirit color. andreated everything anointed in these uncalled gods, and therefore there is so much confusion. the end is nine, and i am that one. host: let's coaching anthony in

st. paul, minnesota. caller: good morning, pedro and professor. i would like to mention like the previous colors that there is a great follow-up with information regarding pre-america colonization called stolen another one called for columbus. another opportunity i took advantage of recently was one small step. it allowed me to look into that organization and opportunities that were presented. a previous caller also mentioned the democratic party and why you weren't highlighting them. a lot of people are not aware that the democratic ku klux klan also fromre mostly the democratic party. a lot of people don't know that. if you could highlight possibly

-- theern day highlighting's of such artwork as a so and others was stolen in that form. host: ok, caller. anthony. professor, if i may interject, we saw the removal of the statue of robert e lee from the u.s. capitol, to be replaced. what do you think of that moment, when it comes to the larger issue we saw with the removal of confederate statues? guest: it is just the beginning. the celebration of those who were traders, enemies of the u.s. nationstate who were defending slavery, sacrificing their lives in defense of that evil institution. the fact that we continue to celebrate them in the iconography of the country suggests at least to me, how backward we actually -- backward is not the right word, how we failed to confront our history in this sense. this is a good beginning, but it

is not sufficient. let me say this quickly, baldwin made the argument that he wanted us to do something unprecedented. he wanted us to create a self without the need of enemy. that is the new we are aspiring for, that i want to risk every fiber of my being in defense of. that is what the aim is. a more just host: there is much more in the book, "begin again: james baldwin's america and its urgent lessons by eddiewn" written glaude. we thank you for your time and joining us. >> c-span's washington journal, every day we are taking your calls live on the air on the news of the day and discussing policy issues that impact you. this week we are featuring our

annual office week series. one hour segments each day with a new author. coming up thursday morning, the book, the riches of this land, the untold true story of america's middle class. then crank charlie talks about president trump's legacy in the future of the republican party. watch live at 7:00 eastern thursday morning, and be sure to join the discussion with their phone calls, facebook comments, text messages, and tweets. 61 million americans have some form of disability that yet we are in less than 3% of film and tv shows. i would add the majority of those roles are portrayed by nondisabled actors. so ultimately as somebody with a disability, we want to see ourselves represented. because ultimately, not only are we seeing ourselves represented,

but it's going to help destigmatize disability, and representation in general in society -- get society use everybody, and ultimately it makes the world a more inclusive place. quick steve founded the easter seals disability film challenge. sunday night on q&a, he will talk about this year's injuries and winning films. that's at 8:00 eastern on c-span's q&a. wilmington, delaware, president-elect joe biden introduced connecticut's education commissioner to be the next -- next education secretary. he spoke about his background and challenges facing america's students during the pandemic.