tavis: good evening. from los angeles, i am tavis smiley. first up tonight a conversation with one of this country's most respected influential thought leaders thomas friedman. he is out with a new text about america's place in world called "that used to be us." also tonight, a look at the sometimes disturbing link between science, race and genetics with northern law professor dorothy roberts. her text on the subject is called "fatal invention." we're glad you have joined us. thomas friedman and dorothy roberts coming up right now. >> every community has a martin luther king boulevard. it's the cornerstone we all know. it's not just a street or boulevard, but a place where walmart stands together with our community to make every day >> nationwide insurance supports tavis smiley.

with every question and every answer, nationwide insurance is proud to join tavis in working to improve financial literacy and remove obstacles to economic empowerment one conversation at a time. nationwide is on your side. >> and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. kcet public television] tavis: always pleased to have thomas friedman on this program. the widely read and influential new york times lunchtimist, his latest text along with michael mandelbaum is called "that used to be us." now we can come back. he joins us now from new york. tom, good to have you back on

the program, sir. >> great to be here, tavis. thank you. tavis: some questions about the news of the day. you were in new york where president obama was recently to give a speech and talked of course about this middle east crisis. president now on record being opposed to the palestinian authorities bid for statehood. your thoughts about his position on the issue? >> well, i'm sorry we're in in this situation basically to be forced to veto recognizing palestinians bid for statehood or, you know, basically vote for it and know that it isn't going to go anywhere. i think we're in this situation. in large part because of, you know, the parties themselves who live next door to each other basically, haven't been able to resolve the situation. this israeli government has

pretty consistently refused to take the initiative and put the peace plan on the table. i think the palestinians, unfortunately, have been divided between hamas and gaza and fattah in the west bank but i think the west bank palestinian authority had done a good job over recent years. the israelis have acknowledged, you know really building up their mechanisms. i have been covering this issue so much that i try to avoid calling balls and strikes every week. it is usually one ball or one strike. my feeling is it is really time for us to be telling the -- both parties to be using our leverage with israel, and with the palestinians, to really get on with it. this is really getting long in the tooth. it is not serving anyone. certainly not us. we shouldn't be in the middle of this. this israeli government should be putting a peace plan on the

table. palestinians should be doing the same. and it is really time to finish this thing. tavis: for those who have not followed this as closely as you have over these decades and have become the expert that you are on these issues, but yet hear all the time in the news media that this thing will only be resolved with a two-state solution. those that don't understand the plays being called here, why would the president of the united states go to the u.n. and oppose one side getting statehood if they keep hearing that there must be a two-state solution? >> there is a diplomatic answer and a political answer. ultimately there can bonl on the ground a palestinian state next to an israeli state if an agreement is reached between the two sides so israel withdraw from the west bank which would be where the palestinian state

would emerge in a part of arab east jerusalem. on paper. that can only happen if there is an agreement on the ground. the reason the president is doing what he is doing has a good deal to do with the fact that we're a little over a year away from the next election. he is very worried about his standing within the jewish standing in america and jewish votes and therefore he wasn't going to do anything to anger this israeli government even though this government has been a great frustration to this administration and has not been as forthcoming as we hoped it would be. we think it is within its interest to be -- we're not asking israel to commit suicide or withdraw frnkly from anywhere. we're -- frankly from anywhere. we're asking them to negotiate, to take the initiative, to see it at its time of arab awakenings all over the region, it is in its interest to conclude a deal with the

palestinianings. that was and needs to be our message. i'm sorry it has gotten owl bollucksed here with politics. i know you and your viewers shocked. tavis: one quick question before i get to the text, your new book "that used to be us," your most recent column was entitled "are we going to roll up our sleeves or limp on"? you made the case that we could have a hard decade or hard century. the point you were trying to make was what? >> the point i'm trying to make, tavis, is that, you know, we, and this is really a good segue to book. it really draws from the book. tavis: exooktly. >> we didn't get in this the crisis we're in now just in 2008 or last year. we argue this is a 20-year long crisis. it goes back to the end of the

cold war. we have been digging this whole living on credit and getting away from our formula for success, which was always education, infrastructure, immigration, the right rules for investing and preventing recklessness in government-funded research. we have gotten away from that. as a result, unless we go through the process of digging out out of this 20-year hole, which is going to require spending cuts. we have made promises to our kids that we can't possibly keep. it is going to require tax increases. i'm a capitalist, i believe in capitalism but it only works if you have safety nets to deal with people who are left behind and brutalized by it. we need spending not just in the short run to give more stimulus to the economy so we don't go back in recession but to invest in things like schools and roads that give us stimulation today and in the future.

we either roll up our sleeves and do that and have a hard decade or we're going to have a bad century. i hope it is the former and not the later. tavis: education, infrastructure, r. & d. you just laid that out. i'll move past that for the sake of time. the subtime of the text -- how america fell behind in the world it invented. i raise that only because even with all we are enduring now, there is this enduring notion of american exceptionalism. i know you are advancing that notion in the text. what about this notion that we are still all that and then some? you got a book to have the subtitle that says the world that we invented. unpack that for me, tom. >> sure. what we're really talking about is the world of the 21st century, the world of

globalization, i.t.. world that we think of today it is a modern world with so much invented here. president obama was ragged on a lot by sarah palin and others for not saying loudly enough and often enough how exceptional we are. our view in the book, exceptionalism is not an entitlement. it is not like social security that you get no matter what we do or an honorary degree. it has to be earned and reearned by every generation. that's what really the book is about. how we do that with a particular focus on education. this really is a book about jobs and education. where the jobs are today and what kind of education moms and dads and kids going to school now really need to secure those jobs because that is the fundamental basis of our prosperity. >> varp the -- tavis: is the president's jobs

bill enough to get it done? >> i see it as a necessary stimulus we need to prevent a lapsing back into another recession, which would be terrible, if we started that at 9.2 unemployment. it is also, you know, part of the long-term investment. ultimately -- in new industries and in stimulating the economy more broadly in schools and the like. what we really need, tavis, is something that really money can't buy. we need to roll up our sleeves. we need better teachers to be sure. we need better parents. parents who take an interest in their kids' education every single day. we need better neighbors. thabe who care -- neighbors who care about the kids in their naked whether they have kids or not. we need better politicians. that make it understand they are not competing with the kids down the street and the kids in

shangmifmente we -- shanghai. we need students who come to school ready to learn and not to text. sfu you don't get a high school degree that allows you to get through college, there is no decent job for you out there that will give you a middle class living. you got to get a higher education of some kind or another whether it is technical or four-year university or two-year. unemployment now for people with college degrees is nowhere near what it is for those without them. in tradition of the black church, i would say amen. there is nothing you said there that i disagree with. this sunday, i'll be on "meet the press" along with former education secretary bill bennett. the entire show all about education. i'll get my say so on n that debate about education. the one thing in your book that i agree with but i'm going to be

honest, i don't see how get there from here. this notion of fixing regulations that govern our economy with the way the lobbyists industry works in washington, with the obama white house kowtowing quite frankly to wall street. you're right about this. i don't see how that gets done. what is the path forward on that particular issue? so much of this is tied to that? how do we get that done inside the body policy that we have now? >> your reason for sobriety and doubt on that, we would share. when you look at what we just went through, and then you look at the opposition by wall street and the financial community to, you know, what was fairly mild regulation in demands for transparency. when people are opposing giving consumers more information on mortgages and you want to water that down, who does that serve? how does it serve the bank that

gives mortgages to people that are ignorpt about them and ultimately can't pay? how does it serve those consumers? that is been one of the most disappointing things. we have still have these huge banks that are too big to fail. bank of america, willing one that looks more and more frail every day. i would also add with europe and europe's banks now, threatening to -- i don't want to say kiel over, but they are in serious trouble. we have no idea, tavis, what happens if one of those european banks go down and what it means for your money market and mine. tavis: just scratching the surface on the new text by thomas friedman. this new text along with michael mandelbaum entitled "that used to be us." thomas friedman, always an honor to have you on the program. thanks for your insight. >> great to be with you.

tavis: up next, dorothy roberts on the link between race and genetic science. stay with us. dorothy roberts is a professor of law at northern and the chair to have board of directors at the black women's health imperative. her new text is called "fatal invention: how science, politics and big business re-create race in the twenty-first century", good to have you on the program. >> thank you. thanks for having me. tavis: what is the fatal invention? >> fatal invention refers to race in the united states. i say it is an invention because it is a political system that was created out of slavery and colonialism that continues to exist today to govern people and it is not a natural division among human beings. that's why i call it an invention and it is fatal because it has caused devastating inequalities that continue to this day. tavis: i'm not naive in asking

this question, but if post the human genome project, we know we are not that different that, .1%. what was the number? >> well t. .1%. it has been increased a little bit since then but still a tiny amount. tavis: a minuscule amount that makes us different. if even after that people want to advance the argument that we are genetically different, what is the reason behind advancing that argument anyway despite the science? >> there are lots of reasons. one is there are incentives for continuing to claim that rice is a biological category. what i emphasized in my book is that there are commercial incentives today to produce products by race based on the assumption that you can dwiped the human species into -- divide up the human species. tavis: commercial incentives like what? >> like race-based medicine.

while we wait for personalized medicine to materialize, the promise that one day drug companies will be able to manufacture drugs that are suited to our individual genotypes. that hasn't happened yet. in the meantime, companies and researchers are looking for race-based products that can substitute for individual drugs taylored to our genotype. already they have approved a race-specific drug, the first one that is approved and marketted specifically to self-identified african-americans. so there is a commercial interest in pretending that race is a biological category in order to sell drugs and other kinds of biotechnologies as well. ancestry testing to tell people what percentage of different

races there are and also some that say they can trace your ancestry to particular groups in africa or europe or other parts of the world. tavis: is that a scam? >> there is a scientific basis to it. none of the companies can tell you which tribe your ancestors came from. it all depends on their particular samples they got from contemporary groups in africa and the way they try to figure out how to match you with one of those groups. but all the companies have different formals they use. if you send in your test, your d.n.a., your cheek swab to four companies, you may get four different results. many people have. so that's one of the incentives. the commercial incentive and then also, there is research incentive. research money that is --

congress required to -- it is required that the researchers divide their clinical subjects according to race and this was because back in the 1960's and 1970's most of the clinical trials, the good ones, not the exploitative ones, we know black people have been subject to experimentation. to test drugs was largely done on whites. there was a movement to include minorities and women in medical research funded by the federal government, by the n.i.h. primarily. congress passed and act requiring that researchers who receive funds divide the tests by race and transport results by race. unfortunately that has turned into the per stheapings there are these fundamental biological differences according to race, which is a social category. tavis: you said a number of things i want to go back on.

two specifically. one, the medicine. that is aimed specifically at african-americans. for one purpose. what is it purporting to treat? >> it is for heart failure but it is forpt recognize this drug was developed without any regard to race. it was just a combination of two different genetic drugs that dilates the blood vessels and makes it easier to pump blood. tavis: why is black thing then? a lot of white people have heart -- >> because the researchers had to renew his patent so they had to come up with something new. he added to it the claim that it works better on blacks based on a review of an old study done in

the 1980's that showed some difference between te effectiveness of the drug on blacks and whites. this drug was not developed for black people nor was it ever claimed in the original patent to be for black people and the clinical trial only involved african-americans. there was no comparison group to be able to say it works better on blacks. tavis: you made the case clearly that the pharmaceutical industry has bought into this for commercial purposes. i get that. i'm grossed out by it but i get it. how much of this invention has been bought into by the health care industry, specifically doctors and physicians? >> well, doctors have always treated patients on the basis of race. medical studentses are still taught to take race into account. that's when they see a patient, they look at the age, the gender and the race of the patient. that has been a part of medical

practice for centuries. and also the idea that black people have different diseases, peculiar to them that black people experience disease differently. that has been a part of medical practice. tavis: that's not true for certain things like sickle cell comes to mind. that is not true in certain situations? >> sickle cell is a disease that is highly specific with a genetic mutation that you have to take into account that that is unusual, most diseases like cancer and diabetes and heart failure haven't been linked to any particular genetic mutation. sickle cell anemia is a generalettely associated disease. it is present in populations whose ancestors came from places where there is high prevalence

of malaria. if you look at a map of africa that shows the prevalence of malaria, you'll see that it is present in west africa but not in south africa and see that there is sickle cell anemia in other countries where there is a high prevalence of malaria. india. even some countries in southern europe so it is not a black disease at all. it can affect anyone whose anest is corors came from malaria-present regions. in greece, the rate would be much higher. tavis: what disturbs you most? i'm sure there is a long list -- if we had the time you could offer me a list of things, but what troubles you most about the way this federal invention is being played out politicalfully the era of obama because if if race is a political construct

and not a genetic construct, there must be things concerning you about the way it is playing itself out as we speak. >> exactly. now you got on the the heart of my book, which is the politics of this. i argue there is a new racial politics that is emerging that treats race as a -- as a biological category instead of a political category at the very time that we are being told america a post racial society. so what we're seeing is this emphasis on race being real at the molecular level at a time we're told it doesn't matter any more in society. that is the perfect way to obscure the intensifying racial inequality that we're seeing in america. we're seeing mass incarceration of african-american me and women and increase in poverty and the poverty gap between blacks and whites in this country. the health gap is still extreme.

infant mortality among blacks is still three times that of whites. maternal mortality four times that of whites. we have seen these stark despair tiss continuing in the united states and yet being told race doesn't matter any more. so people believe that these differences come from some i nate genetic difference, we are never going to achieve equality in this country. it will hold back the efforts that many of us are involved in to get rid of the political system of race. tavis: you want to read the new book from dorothy roberts called "fatal invention: how science, politics and big business re-create race in the twenty-first century". before we go, since you mentioned poverty, we'll start promoting this more heavily as get closer. it is on my mind now. starting monday october 10-14.

the poverty tour dr. cornel west and i were on this summer talking about poverty. a whole lot of black folk we saw, a week dedicated to poverty, five nights all week long talking about the poverty tour coming to pbs that week. be sure to check that out. again, professor roberts, good to have you again. >> good night from l.a. thanks for watching and as always, keep the faith. >> for more information on today's show, visit tavis smiley at pbs.org. tavis: hi, i'm tavis smiley. join me next time for a conversation with jazz legend sonny rollins, recently named a 2011 kennedy center honoree. that's next time. we'll see you then. >> every community has a martin luther king boulevard. it's the cornerstone we all know. it's not just a street or

boulevard, but a place where walmart stands together with your community to make every day better. >> nationwide insurance supports tavis smiley. with every question and every answer, nationwide insurance is proud to join tavis in working to improve financial literacy and remove obstacles to economic empowerment one conversation at a time. nationwide is on your side. >> and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. kcet public television]