hello, everyone, welcome to "amanpour & company." here's what's coming up. former senator barbara boxer calls republicans who interrogated anita hill back in 1991 torturers. now some of those same senators are revving up to take on dr. christine blaze s z blasey ford. then, robert mugabe has been ousted. how will he turn this country around? an also african-american sees africa for the first time. comedian. with. kamau bell heads to kenya with a

special travel companion, anthony bourdain. plus, white fragility and the racism we hide even from ourselves. our michelle martin talks to the authwe robin dean -- d'angelo. yuuniworld is a proud spons of "amanpour & company." one day these rivers would be home to uniworld river cruises and they're floating in peak hotels. today that dream sets sale in europe, area, india, egypt and mor more. >> additional support has been provided by rosalyn p. walter. bernard and irene schwarz, sue

and edgar walkenhaim iii and by contributions from your from viewers like you. welcome to the program. i'm christiane amanpour in new york. president donald trump today attacked dr. christine blasey ford for her allegations of sexual assault against his supreme court nominee. he said "i have no doubt that if it was as bad as she said charges would have been filed." and he's calling on her to make the findings public. as we go to air, ford is still negotiating terms of any appearance before the senate judiciary committee. former senator barbara boxer has seen this movie before. in 1991 when anita hill made her allegations against then-nominee clarence thomas boxer was a

congresswoman and she joined six female colleagues to march on the senate and demand a fair hearing for hill. the next year, boxer was elected to the senate herself riding a wave of post-anita hill voter anger that came to be known as the year of the woman she joins me live from palm springs. welcome to the program, senator. >> thank you so much for having me on. >> president trump seems to have fallen off the restraint wagon. he was very careful not to attack dr. ford and now he's saying if there had been such an attack it would have automatically gone to the local law authorities. does that ring true to you? would a 15-year-old girl have gone to the law at that time. >> not only would she not have

gone to the law, she probably didn't tell a soul for a long time and this is the way it is so donald trump has once more showed his ignorance about matters that require empathy, compassion. most of these attacks are not reported and many women hold them inside. i myself had a terrible experience when i was in college, attacked by a professor and the only one i told was my husband. i was about 21 or 22 at the time and we decided not to tell a soul so donald trump opining on how a woman responds in a case of harassment or attack is like me saying what a quarterback should do on the football field. and he is the harasser in chief to boot. >> let's get to the heart of many this matter because you were in congress when the anita

hill hearings took place and you're a democrat and it was then the democrats who ran the judiciary committee and joe biden was the chairman of the committee. he said this about what he felt for anita hill. we'll listen and talk about it on the other side. >> i'm sorry i couldn't have stopped the kind of attacks that came to you but i never attacked her, i supported her. i believed her from the beginning and i voted against clarence thomas. >> is that apology enough? because frankly he also did not, as chairman of the committee, allow several other women who could have bolstered anita hill's testimony to come forth and be heard. take us back to what was going on right there. >> absolutely. when we marched over to the

senate from the house, i'll never forget it, it's sered in my mind. we walked up the steps and knocked on the door where we knew the democrats were having weekly lunch. a woman opened up the door and she said why are you here? we said we're seven members of congress, we have over 100 years of experience between us, can we come in and urge the caucus to open up the hearings and you know what she said? she said we don't allow strangers in the senate. when tse she said that i almost fainted and i said what are you talking about? we're not strangers, we're your colleagues. >> she said well that's a term of art we use to describe non-senators. well, frankly, she made that up. the only reason we got in to meet with then -- george mitchell was at that time the head of the senate was because we threatened to hold a press conference so here you had democratic women marching over

to the democrats and finally they reopened the hearing but with to your point about senator biden, i believe he did believe anita hill i believe he was on her side but what happened in my view and this is just speaking from experience, not firsthand knowledge, all of them, that whole judiciary committee, everyone a white man, were very uncomfortable and they said shut it down, check the box, shut it down. and frankly that's what i think happened. and later we learned from good reporting there were three women waiting to corroborate anita's testimony. it was a travesty of justice and that is still sitting on the supreme court today. >> it was nobody's finest hour.

now 27 years later it's the republican leadership in a similar situation. where are the women, or do you wish or hope that the women on the republican side even though in -- well, there aren't any in the committee, are there, could actually persuade their own leaders to have a fair hearing. >> i think you've hit on something important. this shouldn't be a matter of party, it's a matter of justice. a matter of fairness. a matter of respect. a matter of fairness to a woman who talked about this six years ago, who clearly took a lie detector test and all the things we're learning about judge kavanaugh, it adds up to the fact that we could believe her and i'm glad to say today i learned the fbi is going to protect her because she is under such threats but you would think

after 27 years post-anita hill the republicans would have at least one woman on the judiciary committ committee. they have very strong women there and i would say to the republican women, this is your time, do what we did, stand up and demand justice and stand with this woman. if you look at all the facts that surround this, i think you believe her. >> >> let us broaden out. i mentioned you were a congresswoman in 1991 and after v after the hearings there was another election in 1992 and you along with other democratic women in theites had the wave and came into congress. describe what the politics of that moment were and are they similar is to what is happening

now? because there's a record number of women running right now. >> i think we could see a wave of women the likes of which we have never seen before and i pray for that. because you can't have a representative government if most of the people in it are one gender or the other and we have this amazing opportunity but i will tell you straight from my heart the only reason i got elected -- this is my belief -- is because of the courage of anita hill. i would love to say it was my winning personality or my smile but the bottom line is people were so shocked when they looked at that judiciary committee and not one woman on either side of the aisle was on there and i would point out, out of the 10 democrats on the judiciary committee today, four are women. out of the 11 on the republican side, there isn't one woman and

i think the republicans are going to pay a price for it. some of them were there for anita hill and they're still being obnoxious about this issue. for example orrin hatch, who really was one of the lead torturers of anita hill, the things he said to her were disgusting, he's already decided that dr. ford is quote/unquote mixed up. let me tell you something, orrin hatch is mixed up. he doesn't get it, he doesn't understand it. i predict there will be a huge wave of women. not only because of this particular incident, which is critical but also the me too movement. the women's march, the fact that we have a man in the white house who said it's fine to grab women by their private parts and he has been sued by many a woman, he has nothing but disdain for us. >> he wants to take away our right to choose and put us in prison if we get an abortion.

this is the moment. it's not just about women, it's about the men who care about women and i think most men do so i think we'll see a huge wave of women coming in. that's my prediction. >> whether she testifieies or n, what do you predict will happen? do you think they can even take more time, delay the hearings longer? is it politically tenable? what happens if they don't? what happens if they carry on with a vote whether or not ford turns up? >> i think whatever happens, the republicans are going to pay a price for the way they have treated the this case so far. remember, anita hill was mistreated at the hearing but at least the setup was fair. there was an independent fbi background check to check on both their stories, there were 2 22 witnesses. they're not evening dr. ford that opportunity at this point, i hope they change their minds

and all of the threats aimed at her, the fact she had to leave her home, i think the american people are caring. i think they're going to say there ought to be justice and what are you hiding judge kavanaugh? you haven't taken a lie detector test, you don't want an independent investigation. your buddy who was in the room says he doesn't want to testify. all of these things add up to unfairness, kind of a dilt in the process and i think republican republicans are going to pay a price and believe me, they should, they should. >> it's a clarifying moment. senator boxer, thank you for joining us from palm springs. >> the political warfare here makes unifying the nation a distant hope. but how about across the world like in zimbabwe, south everyone africa. revolutionary freedom fighter robert mugabe ended white colonial rule but then clung to

power for nearly 40 decades thereafter, turning his rich nation into a poverty-stricken internationgtional pariah. a new president was elected late last year promising to turn that around. he is emmerson mnangagwa who tells me that they're open for business and he even wants to offer president trump a golf course. i talk about his infamous nickname, the crocodilcrocodile >> are you the crocodile? >> i'm human. [ laughter ] i am soft like wool but patient like a crocodile. >> here's our full interview. president mnangagwa, welcome to the program, thank you for joining me. >> thank you, thank you.

>> here you are in the united states at the u.n. general assembly. it's your maiden speech and it's not a secret the world had a very, very negative impression of zimbabwe for many, many years. >> yes. >> president marjory stoneman douglas mugabe seemed to stay in power forever. what is it that you want to tell the world from the pulpit of the u.n.? >> well, the first point is that there is a new administration of the second republic of zimbabwe which i lead. and it's the only time in our history after independence in 1980 that -- we had five political parties contested in the elections but this time around because of the democratic political space which we created, we had 153 political parties and of those 153, 56

contested elections. >> so you are talking about a much more pluralistic zimbabwe. you say it's a new day, a new team and a new democracy. what do you say to the people of zimbabwe and the people observing around the world about whether you can be a unifier? obviously your election victory was very, very narrow. it was less than 1% and people have complained and said that they hope you won't be divisive and be just for your voters. let me tell you what the united states has said about the post-election situation. the state department in august said the united states government is gravely concerned by credible reports of numerous detentions, beatings and other abuses of zimbabweans over the past week, particularly targeting opposition activists. that isn't new zimbabwe. >> i can assure you, that this time around with a very

peaceable free, fair campaign period which we've never experienced before. i'm happy that culture is taking root. i believe we should do everything possible to make sure our people develop a culture of accepting opposing views within the community and i'm happy that during the entire process of the electoral process we didn't have any, any disturbances, all the political part iies voted for wm they thought would support them. the one that lapped thappened t after the election, that is credible. we regret about that event and we're doing everything possible. just a day before i came here i appointed a commission of inquiry to deal with that because i felt it would not be

proper for ourselves to investigate ourselves. but besides my message from the day i took over on the 24th of november last year is peace, peace and unity, unity and love among our people, if indeed my -- in terms of our constitution and in terms of commonwealth parliament democracy, i had a 50.6%. my nearest contender had 44%, i think and in terms of the constitution, i won the elections although it was very narrow, i agree i hope as we go forward and open up zimbabwe economically and politically i think with the policies we are putting forward people will understand that we are doing better but, if, indeed, if the

opposition has a better message, the people will support them. >> you say these things and you were part of the old regime, right, the marjory stoneman douglas g-- mugabe regime and many people are asking legitimately is this really a new government? is it a lot of the old guard now taking on a new role. some people describe it as old wine in new bottles. >> if you look at me you would say i belong to the old guard and that is the fact. but look at my cabinet. >> the cforeign minister and others. >> how many people are in that cabinet? they are new. you can see the direction in

there we are going and i said before the conclusion of the elections that i'm going to bring in people with the expertise in various areas and the women and the youth and i've done so so i think people should examine what i'm doing. i believe the past will be lest behind and we must do our best for the future and work for the better. of our people and to do so in my view i need the most talented that can be produced. >> president mugabe was accused of many violations of human rights, economic process, corruption. all sorts of violations and abuses. would a mnangagwa have a truth

and reconciliation committee? is that an agenda? >> we cannot put an agenda o we have to account for the corruption they committed. we have somebody end corruption commission i have strengthened that one which is indicative of my desire to deal with corruption and so many cases are coming up if you're following of permanent persons who have been affected by the corruption but indeed we are not going to -- the new administration will not focus on the past. we need to focus because we're going to live with the future. we're never going to live in the past again. we are determined to move away

and be again a member of the international community embraced by all societies in the international community. >> is president mugabe ended up being the longest serving president in the whole african continent. he just wouldn't leave. elections or no elections he just wouldn't go. and i asked him at the u.nnga several years ago and he said i will never leave at the hand of imperialist and he considered any election or process to be illegitimate and i'm going to play that. >> there is regime. haven't you heard of regime change programmed by britain and the united states which is aimed at getting not just robert mugabe out of power but robert mugabe and his party out of power and that naturally means we dig in, remain in our

trenches. >> are you going to stand for election again? >> that will depend on what i decide to do in the future. >> can you tell us? >> no, not now. >> so in retrospect, mr. president, now that you are the president. >> was it regrettable that president mugabe didn't leave legitimately and under elections a long, long time ago. >> now with the new constitution which came into effect in the end of may we have now limited the terms of presidency, just two terms, if you are able to have two terms, the maximum a person can remain in office are two terms but beyond that the constitution forbids. >> did you give a pledge you would abide by that? >> lield lii would like to entr constitution.

>> would you abide bithat? >> we will abide by that without resistance at all. even if people love mely still go away because i believe constitutionalism is important and in fact you must give your people a chance to have other people come. ten years is not a short period, in my view. >> you are part of the old regime. you were president mugabe's intelligence chief. you took part in the suppression of the tainted elections in straig 2008 when morgan changerai won the vote. do you regret that? ly ask you that because upon his lett not so long ago you said something very important about it. you said both in and after the government of national unity he remained a national figure who insisted on free, fair, credible and non-violent elections as a

way of strengthening our democracy and overall reengagement with the rest of the world. >> that is true. you quote me correctly but the point is during that election, the former prime minister had 7% of the vote. my predecessor had 43% of the vote and the former prime minister had 47% which meant the prime minister had a better vote than my predecessor. >> it was considered a bit of a stitch stitchup. do you regret it? >> i regret they didn't achieve 50.1.that election. but let us look into the future.

chang er let us look as one people, under one flag and one national anthem move forward and to improve the economic environment so we are a global capital coming into the country. for two decades we have been an isolated island country. i don't think it is necessary. why do we punish our people? let us have this change. that is my dream. >> you've constantly said my predecessor, my predecessor. you never mention his name. >> you have mentioned his name. >> mugabe. i read that you have tried to restrain some of his excesses and impulses. >> correct. initially he wanted to have the same level as before but this is not correct anymore.

you know, this is what i'm going do, we must be constitutional and he accepted and i'm happy he accepted. >> his wife grace is not -- >> what did you say? >> she's something else. >> she's something else. i mean she wanted to be the leader, she didn't want you to be the leader. there is suspicions she and her gang even tried to poison you with a poison ice cream cone. >> well, i was poisoned and after today i don't know what i was -- for two days after that poisoning but my current vice president was quick enough to fly me to south africa. >> you mentioned the liberation struggle. in the spirit of truth and ril yaigs -- reconciliation,

obviously there was a massacre in the 1980s and there were descriptions of what was described as north korean trained zimbabwean forces killing some 20, 000 people. again, is that something you would consider a formal national apology for? >> at the time that happened my predecessor said it was a moment of madness, that's what he said which was a result of what was happening internally but when i took over i felt that we need to have finality to this issue so i appointed a peace and national reconciliation commission which is now almost eight months into investigations and gathering

evidence and whatever report they are going to make i promise the nationally make it public for everybody. >> and if it's the worst of the worst, would you apologize? >> exactly. it will be only that report and recommendations of that report, we should be man enough as a government to accept whatever recommendations are put and to see how we can as a government comply with recommendations of that but i will not want to in an advance state i will do this, i will do that. i'm waiting to hear. this is the only time in our history that we are saying let us have things open and transparent. >> is on that note, president emmerson mnangagwa, thank you for joining me. >> thank you very much. >> these divisions and the

healing process between black and white is a subject my next guest. wit wi with. th kamau bell the an expert on. he tries to breach the culture and racial walls. but bell, an african-american, had never been to africa until earlier this year until he travelled with anthony bourdain. here's how bourdain talks about it on their trip there "parts unknown." >> there's a mischievous part of my brain that wants to see how

kamau handles the spice, the heat, the crowds, the overwhelming rush of a whole new world. because that's what it is first time. this ain't berkeley. >> w. kamau bell, welcome to the program. >> thank you. >> i think he was hazing you. >> he made that clear that he was there to haze me. >> you said your show, "united shades of america" could have been called parts unknown. it's simple in that tony sampled food but you sample racism. >> race and culture. not always racism but it's about going into the tensions and seeing if i can connect and learn and share the stories with the viewing audience. not the same way he was doing but in a similar zblifeeling. >> i feel very poignant memories. hearing tony's voice and knowing he's no long we are us and that we're going to be airing what's called the final episode is very

heartbreaking and you got the chance to travel with him on one of the great last rides. what made you do it? how did he tempt you go and why haven't you been to africa before? >> despite how it appears i was a struggling comedian until the last five years so i do not have africa budget in my bank account. my mom went to kenya when i was a kid, kamau is a kenyan name. we're not from kenya but i felt a connection. so it was something that was going to happen. one day i'll go. i've been watching tony since before he was cnn. i was sitting on my girlfriend's now wife's couch saying i want to do that. so when he said we should do something together i was like i'll leave today. >> it's one of his funniest episodes because you're funny and the two of you played off each other but it was poignant.

there is one fantastic scene of you in the wilderness sitting on the red sox looking out on to the horizon and the camera pulls way back and you're having a very profound conversation. we'll play a bit of it. >> the other thing i'm aware of is that on this trip is that that thing about not wanting to feel like i have come home and yet there is a sense that there is this diasporaic connection even though i didn't come from here. it's nice to have the connection even if the frame the connection was built through was colonialism. even though that's not -- it's the good part of colonialism. it brings people together. it should kind of be compulsory viewing. like in you ever run for president, this should be compulsory viewing. >> at the very least. i do think a lot of perspectives would be opened up and minds

would be changed -- and this is on a personal note. like the idea that i'm sitting here with you doing this now knowing where my life and career have come is pretty cool. >> there's so much to unpick there, isn't it? you were almost putting the idea that i'm doing this with you now and he's no longer there anymore. >> i learned years ago that you have to tell the people that are important to you that they're important while they're around so when i went to kenya, at some point -- i didn't know it was going to be on camera, at some point i have to tell this man he is important to me. we're not just colleagues at cnn. i was the person watching the show going that guy is amazing, i wish i could be with him. >> but the two of you made it your mission, make it your mission, to expose the fault lines in society through whatever medium.

the culture and racial culture you explore and we just talked to the president of zimbabwe. all through this program we're talking about healing and trying to unite and reunify people and that's what you tried to do or at least you explore the possibilities. where do you come down on that in america right now? >> in america the big inge shoes is i think we have turned politics into a team sport. we look at it like professional sports and wwe, i'm on this team, you're on that team and the two can never meet. i find with united shades, most of the people i talked to i don't know who they voted for, i don't know if they have a maga hat at home but we're talking about what's going on in your neighborhood? what's going on in your city? what do you immediate more? those issues are always the same. i want better schools for my kids, better jobs, i want my community to be better policed whether it's appalachia or the

south side of chicago. >> and to tony's point about everyone running for president -- >> yeah, we were talking about the elephant in the room literally. >> should see the elephant in the world. >> yeah, like george w. bush hadn't traveled internationally. i think this current president, we should recon see what does it mean to be president of the united states of america and what qualifications should you have? i don't mean what job but what is your relationship to the rest of the world in the way we took for granted. >> we're seeing pictures of you on the leywa conservancy and they have saved rhinos and elephants from extinction. but i wanted to unpack about what you said because you hadn't been to africa before. you are an african-american and you said how the diaspora

ceiling -- >> i'mhat i reached for that world. i had a couple again agin and t going on. >> there was a lot of toasting. i read the great novel "ame "america "americana" and she said her character, nigerian girl, that that she never felt black in africa, she never felt black until she came to the united states. black inverted comma. and i wonder if you felt the reverse when you went to africa? >> i've read a lot of black people and african people and african-americans talking about going home to africa. the idea of like the mother land. the '90s is when i came of age and there was talk in hip-hop culture about africa and i read people would go back to africa, like richard pryor and say this isn't home. and a lot of times africans in africa are like american blacks, calm down. you can't go look at your house, your relatives aren't here so i

was protective and didn't want them to think i was showing up like this is mine but when i got there most of the kenyans i met were like welcome home. because i think they're aware we don't have a connection to africa and it's important to us. >> and your name is kamau, after a kenyan. so they probably felt a particular kinship. >> me and tony joeked about this. he left a comment on my instagram before he died and everybody was like where did you get that name from because they knew i wasn't kenyan. i'm not built like a kenyan and i would tell them my mom and dad wanted me to have a connection to africa and they liked kenya's independence movement where they kicked out british rule and they were like, okay, welcome home. so once they found out how i got the name they asked me if i knew what it meant, which i do, it means quiet warrior. they're like okay, you're one of us now. >> but you've also been exploring your own identity. you took a dna test.

we'll play a soundbite from your wife about this. >> i think kamau and i are both aware that our daughters being mixed race means their experience in the world is going to be significantly different from ours and as they get older it will be more nuanced and complicated for them and i think having this knowledge may just round out how they see themselves in the world. >> so, mixed race marriage? mixed race children? >> yup. >> you're kind of living the dream. >> some people's dream. some people's nightmare. >> but you're living your own united shades. >> well, i was living that before the show happened so when they named the show united shades it resonated with me. as first the show was just about me going white-to-white places and i was like i already have white in laws but in the bay area it was a very diverse

place, always living in urban environments. chicago, i naturally lived that kind of life-style so this is just the tv version. >> because of this tv show, i think because of, you went away from your in laws and into a much more radical white supremacist environment to explore that bigotry, that ideology and here is you talking to richard spencer in i think it was your first season? >> second season. >> so i think white people need to talk about their whiteness more. >> is we're here to talk about white privilege. we want to bring it back. mike white privilege great again. >> so you're a fan of white privilege. >> oh, yeah. >> is what do you love about it? >> it looks great. the people are good looking and nice suits, great literature. i just want to bathe in white privilege, the greatest most awesome thing. >> all you had to do was put out

that fishing rod and you reeled in a lot of obnoxious hate. >> and i caught heat from people on the left that i normalized him or gave him a platform. if you watch the episode it's about the importance of immigration in this country and how it's made america the great country it can be and about refugees and how we need to be open to them. that was one segment but there's another side. >> you don't apologize or justify, you have to talk outside the echo chamber and that's perhaps one of the problems. we criticize or you criticize or others criticize the right but the left has its issue. it doesn't want to hear the other side. doesn't want to hear the story of the other. not that his story is legitim e legitimate. >> to me the important thing about him or when i talked to go to the kkk is to go this is a very thin ideology and people don't realize it is and people are afraid of it when they see

the clips on the news. i say let's look at it. it doesn't go that deeply! your rapport was w him was inviting. you wanted him to speak. you weren't going at him in an aggressive way. >> that's not my way. >> but it was also before charlottesville, right? >> yes. >> do you think it would have been different had you had that expooerns to look at? >> 100%. and it didn't -- that thing aired, we taped it before he got punched in the face on the street and people were like why didn't you punch him in the face? i would haven't done that but that's not how time woerks but i still would have approached in the a i want you to talk that way. sitting down angry look at my face, that's not me. there are many journalists, talkers, who do that. that's not my way. >> you talked about immigration and a lot of that episode was about immigration. i meant to ask senator boxer. >> i'll be her surrogate. >> you can talk about it because

it's about the places you travel. the trump administration is moving hundreds of millions of dollars away from -- they plan to, they announced that they will, aids programs and other such programs to try to deal with all the undocumented kids. they need to care for them and pay for them. that's one thing, then i.c.e. has been arrested undocumented adults who have come forward to take care of these undocumented kids who are adrift because of this fracas with the zero tolerance and the separation of parents and children. what do you think about that? is that part of the culture and the racial part still on the agenda? >> is we did an episode at the border on season three talking about how life was like at the border because we heard about how violent it was and we talked to people and they said what you hear on tv is not the real thing. so there's elements of trump,

the trump administration thinks they're punishing those people. we are but we're also punishing america because all the evidence when you talk about immigrants coming to this country, they create industries, start businesses, create new jobs and technolo technolo technology. that's what's so shortsighted. we should be friendly out of a simply capitalistic sense of this will make our country stronger. forget the heart connection which i feel like we shouldn't but if you've going to be the party of business as the republican party claims to be. out of selfish business interest you should allow people to come in. >> headlines showed businesses were running out of employees because they couldn't get the high-skilled or the low-skilled immigrants to take those jobs but as we end our conversation, a thought about these being the final of tony bourdain's

episodes and we won't have that kind of voice. >> i have a show, there's other -- lisa ling is here at cnn, there's all these other voices we can look to but nobody is doing what he did. he opened this path for many of us, many specifically, and all we can do is take note from what liz work is is and deepen our own work in the process. >> you do in the all sorts of shades. thank you very much w. kamau bell. me visceral response, "i'm not a racist." but our next guest dr. robin di angelo argues simply and sadly that's not true. that an unconscious bias exists within even the most progressive of us white people. she would know. dr. diangelo says she was one of them. she said is she recognized her

own white fragility. she sat down to talk about this with our michelle martin. >> so white's white fragility. that's the title of your back and the subtitle is "why it's so hard for white people to talk about racism." why white fragility. >> the fragility part is meant to capture how little it takes to set white people off into defensiveness. so for many white people the mere suggesting that white has meaning will cause us to erupt in defensiveness. the fact that i'm generalizing right now for many of your listeners will set off defensiveness. individualism is a precious ideology for white people and we don't like to be generalized about. >> so let's back up a second and talk about how you got interested in this work and subject. i know you're an academic and you've done -- what would you call it? anti-racist training. used to be called diversity training. >> i think of myself as somebody

who came from practice to theory rather than academics who go from theory to practice so i applied for a job in the early '90s for a diversity trainer, that's what we called it at the time. i thought of course i'm qualified to go into the woerk place and lead people into discussions on race. i'm a vegetarian, how could i be racist? i had that classic liberal open-minded idea about what it meant to be racist and i saw myself of course as outside of that and felt quality buy theed and i got the job and i was in for the most profound learning of my life. it was a parallel process so two key pieces were one for the first time in my life i was working side by side with people of color who were challenging the way i saw the world and part of being white is that i could get that far in life, i was a parent, i was in my 30s, and never had i had my racial world view challenged, one.

two definitely not be a significant number of people color and not in any sustained way. i was like a fish being taken out of water. i would not be able to tell you i had a racial world view because as a white person i was raised to see myself as just human. now, you're a particular kind of human. i'm just human. and if we're going to talk about race i expect we're going to be talking about your race, not my race. >> you tell some very interesting stories in this book. you talk about leading a seminar where 38 out of the 40 people in the room were white and one of the participants literally pounds the table yelling that white people can't get a job and everybody who had a job there was white. >> it's a kind of delusion. i think some people have said when you're used to 100%, 98%'ll bes oppressive. as a white person i was raised to expect the world to be mine

in any field, i see myself represented in my teachers and curriculum and heroes and heroines so just even the suggestion that we need to make sure we're being fair and including other people seems to set the white collective off. >> tell me some of the things you saw in these workshops that led you to this theory. >> it's like water dripping on a rock. i didn't get it the first, second, third but it's so consistent and so patterned that it's like a script and after a while you can stand there and say i can predict what this white person will say right now and sure enough they say it so "i was taught to treat everyone the same." "i was people of color in my family." "i was in teach for america." "i marched in the '60 yeas." "i taught in a diverse school." the evidence white people give for their lack of racism is

revealing to what we think racism is and everything i do is to get us off the surface which is all this -- all these narratives and get under there to the underlying framework because despite those narratives, i was taught to treat everyone the same, i don't see color, our outcomes haven't improved by virtually every measure there is racial inequality in this country and by many measures it's increasing not dekreegs. >> you speak very frankly in the book about how you stepped in it yourself. do you have an experience of where you experienced your phone white fragility. >> i'm in a room with three black women, two of whom i'm very close to and one i don't know at all. she gives us a survey to fill out. it's tedious, it seems template, doesn't capture the nuance of what we do so i push it aside and say let me explain, we go out into these different offices and do these anti-racism trainings. in fact, debra was asked not to

come back when she went to such and such office. i guess her hair scared the white people. she has long locked braids. so i want you to notice what i'm doing. not only am i making a joke about a black woman's hair, which is a sensitive issue and i know better but i'm positioning myself as the cool white person and they're the clueless white people. and i wish i could tell you i recognized i was doing that i didn't. meeting is over. a couple days later the assistant comes to mend says angela was offended by that joke you made about black women's hair and i immediately oh, god, thank you and i called angela and i said would you be willing to grant me the opportunity to repair the racism i showed towards you last week? she said yes. we talked about it and she said i don't know you, i have no relationship with you, i have no trust with you, and i do not want to be joking about black

women's hair in a professional work meeting with a white woman i don't know. i hear you, i apologize. then i ask is there anything i miss? and she said yes. that survey you so glibly shoved aside. i wrote that survey and i have spent my life justifying my intelligence to white people. i said is there anything else that needs to be said or heard? and she said if we are going to work together i'm sure you're going to run your racism at me again so the next time we do would you like your feedback publicly or privately? >> interesting. >> i love her for that. i said publicly. it's important other white people see i'm not free of this but it gives me an opportunity to model non-defensiveness. >> you said you don't want white people to fell guilty which is

what i think some people will feel and will think you want to evoke so why do you say you don't want white people to feel guilty. >> you didn't choose your socialization or conditioning. you were born into a society that set you up in these ways. you don't need to feel guilty unless you know that and you're not doing anything about. >> it what about the people who voted for obama and then voted for trump? is. >> i think that obama was symbolic. i think what obama did was allow us to feel good about ourselves under very narrow terms. if the word racism ever came out of his mouth, i don't know what would have happened. he had to be the perfect black man. the safe black man. he's also brilliant and clear and educated and so also at the same time that allows me to feel good about myself. there's also a little bit of

challenge there in how powerful a black man he is, right? is and i would ask any white person who voted for obama and sees that as kind of their evidence that they're free of racism to ask themselves how did it change your life on the ground? how did obama's presidency change the experience for black people in this country day in and day out? i don't think that it did. is it was important symbolically but mass incarceration, school-to-prison pipeline, these things have not diminished. in many ways they've increased. >> do you see trump as a reaction to obama? and if so, why? >> i see trump as a reaction to obama because trump gave permission to the resentment that was roiling under the surface. >> resentment of what? >> of black advancement. of black uppityness. to use the jim crow analogy, you will step off the curb when i come down it. you will not look me in the eye.

his racism is explicit and undeniable and this that wasn't a deterrent, i think white supreme to look hard at. why was that not a deterrent to you. >> robin diangelo, thank you for talking to us. >> you're welcome. >> an uncomfortable message but an important one. next week marks the start of the u.n. general assembly here in new york when world leaders descend on this city. i will be talking to some of them from iran's president hassan rouhani digging into whether the iran nuclear deal will survive and i'll speak to new zealand's jacinda ardor. join us on pbs next time. thank you for watching "amanpour & company." >> uniworld is a proud sponsor of "amanpour & company."

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this is "nightly business report" with sue herera and bill griffeth. tariff escalation. china says trade talks are off and calls the u.s. a bully just as new duties go into effect impacting everything from the cars you drive to the homes you live in. merger monday. companies are doing deals, all kinds of them, even with the market at these lofty levels. what's in a name? one iconic company's rebrand. does it work? those stories and much more tonight on "nightly business report" for this monday, september the 24th. and good evening, everybody. welcome. trade concerns once again crept into this market pulling stocks back fro r