[applause] [applause] [background noises] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2023] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> good income no, it's way more than that. comcast is partnering with

committee centers to create wi-fi. so that low income families can get the tools they need. >> comcast supports c-span as a cable service along these television providers, if you a front row seat to democracy. -- giving you a front row seat to democracy. joining us as part of c-span authors week, the author of race & reckoning from founding fathers to disk -- today's disruptor. things are coming on the program. >> my pleasure being with you. guest: the book is essentially a history of race in america, beginning before the revolution and before the constitution.

where in 2-16 we decided -- 2016 we decided to elect donald trump as president. a lot of the issues ultimately had to do with race. instead of doing the book i was going to do, which was going to be a political analyses of a lot of different things, the most important thing to look at in this context was race. i did a book on race beginning with the arrival of the first africans in jamestown. host: why do you think it is important to take a wide scope approach to these topics? guest: we think of questions that interest us and then we try to answer them. we have a tendency in this country to underestimate the impact of the racial dialogue in their actions as they relate to race.

i think for that reason, you have seen in several states efforts by legislators, republican in this case, to ban the teaching of the part of our history having to do with race. i think that is a mistake. i think you are not really teaching history. we cannot govern a country where its people are guided by myths raz opposed to reality. host: reading our viewers a little of what you wrote, " despite divisions that stretched back before the time of lincoln, americans share a cultural belief in liberty. we also have a history of marginalizing those who are not white and shrinking from interracial equality. we are engaged in a war over that history and over which version of america will prevail,

the version that rejects the idea that all are equal or the idea that all americans are entitled to citizenship." can you elaborate on that? guest: when you think back to the moment that donald trump came down the escalator and decided to announce his candidacy, some of the topics he touched on immediately or ethnic and racial issues. he touched on immigration and mexicans who he denounced as thieves. he touched on the religious issue in a very ethnic way talking about muslims. i think that defines his presidency in many ways. you had an appeal the issues that were very polarizing, but very polarizing in a specific way. they were polarizing along ethnic and to some extent

religious lines. h never outgrew thate -- he never outgrew that. the republican party made a decision, and the decision was that they were, to the extent possible, be a party that catered to the anger of whites and demonized african-americans. in many instances you have seen the party doubled down on that vision. in order to understand where we are now and how we got here, we need to unravel that somewhat. host: cose our guest for the hour. if you have questions you can call in. republicans, (202) 748-8001. democrats, (202) 748-8000. independents, (202) 748-8002.

the last part of the quote that says " accepting americans are equally -- are you saying minorities are not enjoying those privileges as whites would? guest: i'm saying each generation seems to get much better and with each generation, more and more people believe that human beings ought to be treated as human beings, not as members of a racial or ethnic group. we are making a lot of progress and we are further along now than we were 30 or 40 years ago. in terms of a political dialogue, in terms of how we understand many of these issues going from incarceration yo welfare -- to welfare, many of us look at them through a racial

lens and that is what polarizes this country and contributes to our disunity in an unhealthy way. host: when you say we are making progress, what do you attribute that to? guest: i think it is hard to grasp sometimes that until the 1960's and after, brown versus board, which was in 1954, and the 10 or 15 years it took to implement that, parts of america believe very strongly that black-and-white ought to be totally separated. that blacks and whites should not be allowed to be part of the same group, the same society in effect. i think that has changed radically. you have generations who come up with a very different idea of

thinking when it comes to people who different from themselves. they attribute it to that. host: you can call, text or tweet us. you are on with ellis cose, the author of " race and reckoning." caller: hello. down here in broward county, we are at the forefront with our governor, governor desantis. your book touches on two things that are important right now, both education and the epidemic are due to a eugenics bias that stems from the 1860's when the people who founded both our education institution and our perceptions on what science and evolution are -- that is where the great words eugenics and

survival of the fittest come from, it is from herbert spencer who came up with our education system. education is not about competition. education has nothing to do with competition. what we are doing is separating the chaff from the wheat. we thought the chaff where the black people. they were trying to use science to justify racism in the 1860's, and we are perpetuating that. that is why we are separating -- suffering deaths, mostly elderly. covid-19 was a grandparent genocide. the reason we are accepting of it is because of this eugenics bias. " they are sick and elderly, and they deserve to die." that is what implicit bias is. it is beneath our awareness.

we would hate to admit it of ourselves but that is how our education system is set up. equity is nonsense. it is about making a level playing field. host: ,r -- mr. cose, go ahead. guest: that is a lot to deal with. eugenics is a theory that grew up in the mid 80's -- mid-1800s, i should say and then spread across many sectors of civilized american society and governed many of our policies. the theory was there was a racial hierarchy in the world, and northern europeans and western europeans were superior than southern europeans, that whites were superior to blacks,

that christians were superior to jews, so forth. they were behind the immigration acts of the early 1920's. we are far from that way of thinking officially in america. virtually any scientist who is not a fraud leaves there is no medical difference between races in america or anywhere else. we are all creatures of the same genome. you still have the effects of history that persist. the fact that we outlawed slavery as a country in the wake of the civil war does not mean that the fact that we had slavery had no effect.

in many cases, it has determined how much wealth people have. that is something that is hard for many to grasp. people tend to say, " we haven't had slaves in over 100 years, so whatever effect they had on our society has vanished at this point," which is simply not true. the fact of those years is what accounts for a lot of the economic disparity to this day. host: is there something tangible you would look at that solidifies that something exists today because the race issue existed back then? guest: look at the income gap or the wealth gaps between whites and blacks. it is huge. one reason it is huge is because whites have always had a lot more wealth them blacks, which

has given them the ability to pass their wealth onto their children. blacks for the most part had no wealth. in the age of slavery they were not permitted to have wealth in most places. you had black families that started from 0 when it comes to their economic welfare. whites who started significantly removed from zero -- you have segregated living to the extent that there are white neighborhoods, there are black neighborhoods, there are increasingly latino neighborhoods. discrimination is itself a legacy of our slave history. it is all connected. i don't want to be misunderstood -- i don't want to say we are stuck in that reality but we

have to understand that reality to understand current american society. host: we have a viewer off of twitter. he asks you what you mean by the term " disruptors"? guest: those people who want to make fundamental changes in the way america works. that could be people on the right, it could be people on the left. it applies to people like former president trump who wanted to shred significant portions of the constitution. host: from a color in washington dc, independent line -- caller in washington dc, independent line. caller: we know america created

this nation as capitalist so it is about wealth management. black people were brought to this country to be a permanent underclass. things continue to resonate from that to today. could you please address for the audience, or for anyone listening, how they have classified in american history, which is a black history, not america's black history, what happened with riots in black communities where black people had a certain amount of economic power that allowed black people to use quid pro quo to manipulate and move legislation and politics in the direction we needed for our communities. riots made it seem like there

were good people on both sides, or that both people exercised the same violence when it was white people specifically attacking black people. could you talk to the audience about that? guest: let me also address something else you mentioned, which was that black people were brought to this country to be a permanent underclass. in point of fact, that is debatable. in 1619 when the first slave ship docked in virginia, it was not clear what the role of blacks were going to be in this country. we spent the next 100 years sorting that out. a significant number of blacks in the beginning were not slaves. they were indentured servants the same way many of the white people brought from england were indentured servants. they had the right to be able to earn their way out of servitude

and become landowners and employers of people themselves. one of the early africans who was brought over ultimately became the owner of several slaves in virginia. we made a decision, and we made a decision over the subsequent 100 years or so that blacks were going to be a permanent underclass. there is one point for that in 1705 when whites were given the right to kill back slaves who disobey them -- black slaves who disobeyed them. we made a decision that blacks did not have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of the american dream. in terms of where we are today we have tried very hard to try and change that but we have not.

the second point you made were about riots. there have been race riots as long as there have been countries. there were many riots in the race of world war i. there were incidents like in tulsa where a black town, a black part of town in tulsa was invaded by whites, supposedly because a black person on an elevator had done something insulting to a white woman. you had major riots in washington in the wake of world war ii, which were characterized by the press at the time as basically thousands of lax going crazy -- blacks going crazy, even though virtually all of those were touched off by whites and resulted in massacres of the

black community. you had a riot in the early 1900s in helena, arizona after what was an attempt by black farmers to organize a union so they could get better money for their crops. it became described as a black uprising and was treated as such as the major press. you have many examples. there were riots, which were essentially whites showing that they were not going to let blacks invade their neighborhoods. one of the worst riots in chicago was a brian it because -- a riot because blacks went to

a white to swimming section and whites kill them. -- killed them. in the beginning -- that was very much something in play and that evolved. host: you right beyond the experiences of blacks, you bring up the japanese and the racism they experienced. guest: not just the japanese. but yes, the japanese in world war ii, some were born in america and japanese-americans were denied the right to citizenship. going back to the first naturalization act, which was passed way back in 1790, we

limited nationalization to those who were white. you had the spectacle in succeeding decades where people from india, asia, and china having to convince people they were white in order to get nationalized. it was not just blacks. we had a series of exclusion acts, the most important began in 1882, which barred the chinese from entering this country. we had the indian removal process. the indian removal act of 1832 basically moved thousands of native americans to the western territories, effectively stealing their land. we had the immigration acts which i refer to earlier in,

1921 and 1924, which tried to make the united states into a white nation. that was the origin of the ethnic origins of a lot of legislation where we tried to replicate in this country the ethnic mix that existed at the time, the time in this case being the 1920's. you have several instances where we as a country made the decision that america was supposed to be a white, country and we did not really change that until the immigration act where we got rid of the immigration origin part. we decided to be serious about guaranteeing equality.

that is a small part of the existence of this country. we have to consider the whole history. host: ellis cose joining us. let's hear from ron in maryland, republican line. caller: ok, let's get to the real problem. guest: what is the real problem? caller: there are 42 million lax in the nation today. 32% are doing great. the barack obama's, the football players, the educated blacks are doing fabulous. 78% of the blacks were put in section eight projects in the worst sections of our cities and for the last 55 years they

have gone nowhere except to present. now every night in this country, poor, young blacks are being murdered. that is what happens in those section eight projects when they die. they pass on an empty apartment so the blacks never accumulate any wealth. you know who is doing anything about it? nobody? do know how many blacks own section eight housing in this country? none. guest: that is a lot to chew on. let me build on it. 70% of blacks do not live in section eight housing. section eight housing is basically subsidized housing by the federal government. essentially, there is a limit to

how much people -- there people of all colors. to the extent that they do live in section eight housing,. in section eight housin their rental prices are capped, so they do not have to pay full market price for rent. segregated housing is a problem in section eight. there have been controversies when section eight people move into areas that are not segregated. attributing the difference in black economic security to the relative handful of blacks who live in section eight housing -- we have a huge issue with black property in this country. we have an issue as well with

latino poverty, but that is not a consequence of section eight housing. it is largely a consequence of people -- a consequence of the success of people's parents. host: since you talked about president trump, you probably heard about him talking about his efforts in the black community, the unemployment efforts under his presidency. how do those factor into what the former president did for black americans? guest: we have a practice in this country because it is simple and easy to give the credit it -- credit to the

president for anything that happens while he is in office. i think that -- i don't credit the former president with much of that at all. he did not initiate anything major in terms of economic uplift for poor communities, which potentially might have had a huge impact. he said unemployment has gone down, let me take credit for that. under our system, we give him credit for that, but that is ridiculous as giving the president credit for the weather. he has something to do with those things, but only something and not a great deal. when you look at the contributions of a former

president, the major -- of the former president, the major contribution was a negative one. that was to basically denounce anyone who raised the issue of civil rights. it was to sanction restrictive voting legislation that made it more difficult to vote. clearly things that were positive occurred during the trump administration. positive things occurred during virtually any administration. they have very little to do with the president. the lasting legacy of president trump is political incoherence. it is difficult to make sense of what he was doing because he did not have a consistent set of policies. host: sonny in kansas,

democrats' line. caller: good morning. i was wondering what your thoughts are on this term, it seems to be quite controversial, particularly with republicans -- "woke" and crt, and why the push from republicans to stifle that debate? it seems to me that what they want to do is silence a certain aspect of history to whitewash it, so to speak, to not make themselves look bad to a certain degree. what are your thoughts? to me "woke," i don't see how that could be deemed a bad term. woke as opposed to what?

asleep? guest: we are talking about what has been deemed the culture wars, the denigration of "woke" people is not substantially different from the denigration of people who hold politically correct ideas. it is an attempt to say that individuals are not thinking individuals. they are just ideologues and they arbitrarily designate things right and they arbitrarily designate things wrong because they and their ideological compatriots adhere to a bunch of things, and a bunch of ideas that make no sense. i think rather than try to disentangle the hostility to "woke" as a term, what you need

to understand is the hostility towards certain policies one by one. "woke" is one of those words that when you use it as an insult it shuts down a conversation. it is like calling someone a jerk or an idiot. it is just a way to call somebody a name. host: there is a multiracial array of people who want to be free of the preconceptions of the past to realize that acknowledging the role of racism is not the source of our division, but our deliberate. a society that fails to recognize that is headed down the same, dark path." how did you come to that conclusion? guest: it comes from basically

blaming people who are lacking in education or lacking in options or their roan circumstance as opposed to an attitude that says, " how can we make this into a city, a state where everyone who is willing to work and who is willing to study can become much better off"? we have tended very often to demonize entire people and then to blame them for their roan circumstances. it is not just now that this is happening. if you go back to the aftermath of the civil war and the andrew

johnson presidency -- he was of course president lincoln's vice president and he became president when lincoln was assassinated. his views on many things were different than lincoln, who was a republican. he vetoed the civil rights act that came along in 1865, '66. why did he veto this act? he argued that it created rights for black people that even white people did not have, that this was discriminatory to white people. you only have to reflect for a second to realize how absurd that very notion is. we are talking about people who have literally been enslaved,

who have literally been not allowed to accumulate property, to vote, to get an education in many cases, to do anything that could allow them to progress, and now we are getting concerned because we made minimal efforts in that direction that it will disadvantage whites? whatever you think of the specific policies, that is just idiotic thinking. we have examples of that idiotic thinking that flow-through history whenever there has been an attempt on a group basis to try and elevate people. there has been a huge push back to it, certainly in the wake of reconstruction when the across the south and elsewhere, but mostly across the south, blacks

were fundamentally in most cases denied the right to vote. it was seen as taking measure -- taking action against measures that had gone too far. mississippi was praised in 1899 when it came up for literacy laws, which require people to quote some parts of the constitution, and came up with taxes that require blacks to pay for that right. it solves what the atlanta constitution called " the black problem." many of us have a tendency to think of this country as one that rewards those who are self-reliant and punish those who are not. that is way too simple a way of

looking at reality to make sense, at least to me. host: our guest is an author and the director of renewing democracy. what is that? guest: it is an organization i founded roughly a year or so ago trying to invite people to the conversation about democracy. this year and the year coming forth, we will be having a lot of talkback sessions and universities to talk about the state of our democracy, to talk about what is good about it, what needs to change, to talk about the world of young people, and how young people can be more effective in trying to alter it. it is an organization -- it is a project rather i am doing with several universities, including long island university and

northwestern university that is designed to elevate this entire conversation we are having about political access in this country. host: on the republican line from north carolina, this is richard for our guest. caller: i have a lot to unpack on this. first thing is wasn't slavery the way of the world? anybody could have been a slave, and everybody could have been a slave. guest: weight, let me respond -- wait, allow me to respond to one thing at a time, if you will allow me to. historically, race-based slavery has not been all that common. the huge difference in many countries in the united states is slavery was often imposed on people who were defeated in war

and they are men became slaves -- their men became slaves.that was not visited on their children and the children of their children and so on. the united states' slavery was particularly rigid. it was not an example of slavery imposed because of who we had gone to warren defeated. it was a stay imposed because people were available and were of a different color and had very different rights than other people who were brought to this country. we could have made a different decision in america. we could have made a decision to treat africans the same way we treated europeans who came over and whose way was paid for by merchants and by owners of

plantations and allowed them to work for a period of years and then gave them freedom. we decided not to do that. it is misleading to say that every country has had what america has had. in the 1600s, you had other countries including much of south america. the fact that slavery has existed in many societies throughout history seems to me not a good argument for why it should exist anywhere, and certainly not a good justification for not dealing with inequities that were rooted in slavery. host: the caller hung up. sandra from missouri, independent line.

caller: good morning. hi, sir. i want to mention i am going to get your book and i will check out your organization and get involved. i really appreciate you. i can't wait. i'm looking forward to it. i think it is critically important for you to do exactly like you did and intervene on the conversation when someone is about to go down a road without the proper knowledge and education regarding slavery. the history of the institution of slavery or oversimplifying it as it relates to chattel slavery, which was started in this country after victims rebellion. i think it is important that

slavery did not start with the early 1600s with jamestown. people were brought over, like you so accurately said, through the head rights system. the head rights system was through europe and england where certain people who cannot afford to come over to this country, to the colony of virginia specifically, to work -- host: caller, are you there? it looks like the call was dropped. go ahead. guest: i think she is right. of course i think she is right, she is agreeing with me, but she is right on the facts. part of the theme of my book is that there were decisions that could have been made otherwise. we made a decision in world war ii to have a segregated military.

there was nothing that mandated that decision other than the fact that white southerners, for the most part and others as well, were not comfortable with the idea of an integrated military. it took major efforts after world war ii to create a military that was integrated, and it became a great success of integration. this very notion that things were just done everywhere the way we did them in the united states is flat out wrong, and the idea that things, that things could not have been done any other way is equally wrong. in every instance we made decisions. there was nothing compelling the people who were part of the first legislature to decide that people who were naturalized had to be white. that was a decision that was

taken at that time, and it had consequences for decades after that. there was no compulsion in 1941 and 1942 to undertake a policy when we were facing hostility from italy, from germany, and from japan to solely focus on japanese or internment and not to intern enemy aliens from other countries. we made a decision to do that. the list could go on and on. the kind of thinking that says, " this is fate and that is what happened around the world in all places," is simply -- it exhibits a lack of awareness of

reality and history. host: in jackson, mississippi we will hear next from philip on the independent line. caller: in mississippi we went through a lot of frigid weather and we do not have any running water. it makes you wonder sometimes about how do these things just happen to jackson all the time? i am an original resident of the washington dc area. i had this interest in integration and the whole process of race relations back when it was unpopular. i wrote a book, " run in my shoes," trying to explain to people how to come together as

races go because i saw how sport can be that catalyst of race relations. i want to touch on something people generally do not touch on when it comes to the subject of race relations. basically, the socialization process -- first of all, i was a resident of orlando, and i left there because dissenters was going in the direction of not allowing race topics. guest: you moved from orlando to jackson, mississippi? caller: about seven weeks ago. i felt unsecure about working on the race relations piece there because there was so much negative talk about not allowing it in the school system. i'm still trying to work on a program i have been involved in

for 20 years in the system of mentoring all youth through sports. my main focus is how can we get the new immigrants coming into this country to understand the reality of the history of america? i know there are a lot of black-and-white who do not quite understand our history, but by the same token there are people who are coming here who have lists theories of -- host: we will leave it there. thanks. guest: i will respond. i think i understand the question. it is basically about how can immigrants get a better sense of race in america. many immigrants, particularly --

understand our history better than many nativeborn americans do because they have to show they know certain parts of history but i do think -- and i think to the extent that they get an education in american schools are american universities, they will learn the same thing american citizens learn, so i don't think there needs to be a particularly special program for immigrants. i think there certainly is a need for institutions that work with immigranta and make sure -- immigrants and make sure they have a better education. part of having a better education as p -- is understanding the history of the united states. the caller said he had moved from florida to mississippi. in jackson, mississippi what is

going on there with the water shortage and the treatment of that community is a casebook example of how we still have the legacy of race we are dealing with. jackson is mostly black. the legislature is not. jackson is not a priority. infrastructure has been allowed to collapse their that never should have happened -- there that never should have happened. host: because you spoke about the former president, what do you think of the current one? guest: i think he is sincere. he made a very impressive supreme court appointment. he has tried to do something about the restrictive voting laws that have been passed. he has not accomplished much,

but he has a very narrow majority and a very hostile republican group that he has to work with. if we are judging sincerity, i think he has done a lot. if we judge him by his votes, it is mixed. host: jerry is in new jersey, democrats' line. caller: good morning. i am very sympathetic to blacks right now. you have organizations like black lives matter. the leaders are making millions of dollars and buying million-dollar homes on the facts of blacks trying to get ahead. you have al sharpton who does not pay taxes, probably one of

the most corrupt leaders. they have you trying to make money on a book. you called them uneducated. they are staying uneducated because people like you do not do anything for those people. guest: let me answer. host: let her finish and then we will get your response. caller: he likes interrupting. you cut the republican off because he was saying the same thing. let him talk and let him get himself in a whole. host: stay on the line. go ahead. guest: i'm not sure how many people from black lives matter are living in million-dollar mansions. if the caller has evidence of that, she ought to present it.

if they live in million-dollar mansions illegally, than they ought to be prosecuted. al sharpton certainly has spoken out very loudly against a lot of racial issues, and i'm sure he does it because he thinks he is doing the right thing, but i think -- i have problems with this whole attitude that things -- it goes back to what i mentioned before, people who are poor or bad off are there because of their own fault or in the caller's opinion because some prominent blacks are saying crazy things. the caller seems to me ill-informed but if she has evidence that black lives matter

proponents are making millions of dollars of of this s she should present it. host: this is from npr saying there was a report about the black lives matter global network buying a $6 million home. caller, do you have a follow-up? caller: i agree with that. they have excuses about how they bought it. host: please address it to our guest, we have to move on. caller: i have seen it on the news. of course they are losing,. they are fading out, you do not hear much about them. the problem is like i said, i grew up in williamsburg in 1958.

i grew up with a lot of blacks. we were all on welfare. nobody was rich. welfare today is not like it was in 1958. we were watched like hawks. i know what it is like to be poor. if we want to give reparations, i think i deserve it too. host: you can follow up on that. guest: i don't have any response. i'm sure she did grow up poor. i'm sure she did have rough times. two expect well-known blacks to change all of this is to ignore what the problem is. most well-known blacks don't have the power to lift up the whole black community and make it wealthy.

she seems very upset about something. i'm hard-pressed to come up with a response that makes any sense. host: from marie in mississippi, you are next. caller: good morning. i wanted to see if you would touch on during the late 60's and early 70's when they would go to apply for jobs and they were being told for this particular job you have to have this certification, or this degree, which those jobs only required a high school diploma, which the majority of white women who worked there, that was all they had. that is when the hbcu's became

more prominent because blacks all over the country were told they had to have this particular degree for a job that was not really required, but hbcu's really blew up at that time. what a difference a day made! it shows you how after -- they went to get these degrees, how a four year period puts them back further than the white people who were working with only their high school diplomas. black people have always pushed the thing about having degrees because we were told we have to have more than what everyone else has in order to make it. i wanted you to touch on that if you could. guest: i think there has long been a believer articulated in the black community that says

essentially work twice as hard to get half as far. that informed people for generations. when you talk specifically about the hbcu's many of these were formed at a time when it was very difficult for blacks to get into white universities. it was only in the 60's that several universities, some of them under court order, that had not accepted blacks previously began to accept them. in that era when the whole question was highlighted a number of people turned to hbcu's because they did not want to deal with the possibility of racial discrimination.

there is a long history with hbcu's and that is a small part of it. the question of credentials being demanded of black sand not whites is why you have a lot of civil rights laws now, which were formed to combat that discrimination. same issue in housing where blacks would show up and a property that was listed was no longer available. this sort of discrimination is reality. i think that hbcu's have a noble and complicated history. at times people have turned to them to get credentials they thought they needed that were difficult to get otherwise. host: with everything you wrote

about in your book, how do you think a reckoning comes about and what elements have to come into place to make that happen? guest: we are having a continual reckoning. by reckoning i mean we are in various ways having to consider these issues, put them on the table, and rethink them. the previous caller mentioned black lives matter. that is part of a reckoning. it is part of an attempt by a significant group of people to rethink what we are doing with race. we are having another reckoning around the whole issue of voting rights and representation. we are having several things come together at once and all to mentally are going to have a lot of these issues right. i think we need to take a hard look at some constitutional issues as well, including the electoral college, including the

senate. the senate was organized in a different time or at least was graded at a different time when it made sense for each state to have the same number of representatives. at that time virginia was the largest state and it was eight times as large as the smallest state, delaware. now you have a place like california, which is close to 70 times as large as wyoming, the smallest state today. we are facing a society, in some case novel issues we have not dealt with, including the internet and its impact on speech. host: the book is race and reckoning, ellis cose also the

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