good evening from los angeles, i'm tavis smiley, i'm tavis smiley. tonight, a conversation about white anxiety and white rage in the era of donald trump. our guest, carol anderson, professor and author of the national book critics award winner, "white rage: the unspoken truth about racial divide," and tim wise, activist and author of "white like me: reflection says on ras on race privileged son" and "dear white letter," thank you for joining us for our conversation. ♪

♪ >> by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. ♪ >> tonight a conversation about white rage, white anxiety in the era of trump. i am pleased to be joined by tim wise, activist and author of "white like me: reflections on race from a privileged son." has latest text is titled "under the affluence: shaming the poor, praising the rich, and sacrificing the future of america." also, honored to be joined by

carol anderson, professor at emory university and author of the national book critics award winner "white rage: the unspoken truth of our racial divide." i'm delighted to have you both on this program. >> thank you. >> thank you very much for having us. >> carol, let me start with you. what is the unspoken truth of our racial divide? >> the unspoken truth is that we right now in america, we live in a space that has a narrative of black pathology. if only black folks would value school, if only black folks would vote. if only black folks wouldn't do drugs. what i found in doing this research is that in fact african-americans have valued education, have voted, do drugs the least or about the equal amount, and the response has been white rage. the response has been when african-americans achieve, when african-americans succeed, when african-americans refuse to accept the subjugation, a range of policies come forth to undermine and undercut that advancement. i track it from the end of the

civil war all the way through the election of barack obama. >> and the source of their anger, the source of their angst or rage is what? >> black achievement. >> yeah. >> and black refusal to accept a subordinate place in american society. african-americans demanding their citizenship rights. and that quest for full citizenship and then achieving that creates this incredible response, coming out of the courts, coming out of the white house, coming out of congress, coming out of school boards to find ways to, in fact, undermine and undercut that to move african-americans back in their place. >> to those white folks watching, and we're on pbs so there are a bunch of them watching -- thank you, prisht it. thanks to viewers -- i appreciate it. thanks to viewers like you, i'm here every night. to viewers watching saying i don't connect to what carol

said, i don't begrudge black folks achievement, i watch tavis smiley, i voted for president obama, i am still going to the games even though they're not winning. i love oprah winfrey. when you say they are enraged by black achievement, unpack that for me. >> so to unpack it is to understand that this isn't about all white folks. >> yeah. >> but this is about a large swath of white americans. >> yeah. >> who are then in positions of power and are encouraged by those in the larger society who find that rights and access to resources, they treat it like a zero-sum game. so that you see, for instance, in the discussions, for instance, about affirmative action, right, in those discussions it's always cast as some unqualified minority taking my slot. taking our slot. so that what you get in that

construction is that one, that there are only so many slots. and two, that they are inherently mine. and so when some interloper, some unqualified minority gets into that position, then it has to be only at my expense. so what you're seeing -- and you see politicians working through this, you see wide swaths of media working through this, to treat this as just mine. and so when african-americans, for instance, are coming to the table, then it can only be at white expense. one of the reasons why the civil rights movement worked at the time that it worked is right at that moment, america's economy was expanding. it -- coming out of the second world war, the u.s. accounted for 45% of all industrial goods made globally. so in that expanse, it gave whites a kind of sense that it's not always at my expense. i can still have my house in the

burbs, i can still have my school, i can still have my job. when you begin to see the construction is in the mid a 60s and on. and this is when the american economy began to contract in ways that went after the manufacturing sector. >> to quote -- hold on, i'm coming. i'm coming. one quick followup here. what would you expect from white folk other than rage if their mean incomes had not increased for 30, 40 years, and the number's bred out the angry white men, i don't like the way they're going about it, i don't like that they're pointing the fingers -- i know you're going to say it -- but their incomes have been stagnant or decreasing for decades now. did you expect something other than rage from them? >> let me put it this way -- >> okay. >> -- there's a study that found that african-americans would have to wait 228 years to equal

the wealth of whites. where would rage really be coming from, okay. so this again is an issue of perspective. and it's also to say coming out of the civil rights movement, when you have the civil rights act of '64 and the voting rights act of '65, the response of white rage was the war on drugs. >> uh-huh. >> which led to mass incarceration, which led to gutting the voting rights act for convicted felons, and which also led to stripping away a lot of the rights in the civil rights act. the united states spent $1 trillion on a failed war on drugs. so this isn't about resources. this is about priorities. and so the rage that is being turned toward african-americans for refusing to accept that subjugation is misplaced. >> let me paraphrase bill clinton -- bill clinton said famously when he was president, when he established his race commission, you'll recall when

john hope franklin was at the head of it. i recall president clinton saying that -- that racism may be white america's -- may be black america's burden, but it's white america's problem. black america's burden, but white america's problem. we accept that it's our burden. but when, where, how will ever white people accept that it's their problem? >> i think that we don't because whiteness hasn't really been racialized the way that blackness has. white folks have the ability to believe ourselves unraced. we view ourselves as the neutral sort of floor model of an american. that's part of what whiteness does. it creates a mentality of entitlement. to connect that to what carol's talking about, if you are raised generation after generation to not only expect that if you work hard and play by the rules it will work out for you, which is something no person of color can take for granted or has ever been able to take for granted, but white folks could. particularly white men, particularly straight, white men. white men, middle class and above, could assume that. even working class white guys could assume horizontal mobility, right, as in my daddy worked at the plant, i'm working

at the plant, my son's going to worker at the plant or the coal mine or whatever. so if you're led to believe that you are entitled to the best of everything, that meritocracy is real for you if not for those people, and all of a sudden you find yourself in a system that seems as throw it has limits and where that entitlement is challenged, if i've had 90% of the good stuff and you tell me i'm going to have to make due with 75, equality begins to feel like oppression because what whiteness does is it sets up a mentality of expectation that people of color have never had. they've always known they're going to have to grind to get to that 7, 8, 9, or 10 on the scale. for white folks, 7 was promised, right? and even if you started at a 4, by god, if you worked hard, you'll get to the 7. i think we have to understand white folkses if we're ever going to get to that place that your question suggest that white folks know it's our problem, we've toe get to the expectancy and expectationalism which i can make up a word -- as a white

person, they let me do that. they actually let me do that. >> yeah. >> i need to trademark it. as a white person, i can make stuff up. >> and get paid for it. >> yeah. that white expectationalism actually coming at a great cost for us. part of the psychic trauma that white folks are experiencing when they see black folks succeeding or latin folks succeed, the reason they think it's you're taking my job, is we're led all of this is ours and you're here at our pleasure. i think that's not a healthy place because then if my life doesn't work out, if all of a sudden i'm struggling and can't pay the health care bill and can't pay for my kids' college, i got two choices in this society. one is the one that the society teaches me which is it's your own fault, wherever you end subpoena all about you. then that -- you end up is all about. then that makes me feel inadequate and shamed. then i project on to those people and say, it's those people, it's those mexicans. it t it's fascinating because i'll

get mail from young white folks, like those with tiki torches in charlotte that paraded with people of color, saying i can't get a job because all of the jobs are going to black folks and mexican. really, all the jobs? where are these jobs? are they in second life because they're not on the streets. the unemployment rate is always double for black and brown folks relative to white. they'll say that and turn around in the next breath and say, oh, and by the way, black and brown folks are all lazy and don't want to work. which is it? if -- you can't be both. if you took all the jobs, you're the president of lazy lalazy. if you're lazy, you didn't take one job let alone all the jobs. this psychosis allows us to blame others as a way to not deal with the sense of inadequacy rather than saying we need to be getting together with black and brown folks to figure out why the economic system is rigged against millions of people. mexicans didn't tank wall street. there are 37 people in this country that have the same amount of wealth as the bottom 50% of the country. that's our problem. whiteness says we've got to protect ours, this is our silo,

this is our fiefdom, and they are the threat, rather than other rich white folks. and that's the divide and conquer stuff that's been going on for years. >> there's two issues. one is the issue of equality, and the other is equity. even if you believe in equality, i get the sense people don't care much about equity. that is to say giving people who don't have an opportunity to get in the game. talk about the difference between equality and equity in the white world. >> right. well, i mean, i think the way that white folks think about this has been for many, many years this sort of colorblind racism, where the idea is let's treat everyone -- you'll hear nice, white, liberal people say i treat everyone the same. so that's equality. i treat everyone equally. and that sounds very, i guess, very nice in the eyes of some. they believe that that makes them prague recoand open-minded -- progressive and open-minded. if i treat people facing unequal and differential experiences the same, by addition to i do an injustice to those who need more. if we say we're going to fund all the schools with exactly the same money but some folks got

their parents kicking in and can have the big pta where they've got rich folks that can put more money in, then equality won't suffice. but i think when you're the dominant group, there's a real incentive to say, oh, let's treat everyone equally because at some level we know if i've already got the head start, mine, if i'm two laps up on you in a five-lap race and then you say, we're all going to run by the same rules, but folks are too laps back, then equality will end with a two-lap head start. and me crossing the tape first. equity is something we haven't really ever embraced because we're so wrapped up in that sense of being colorblind, not noticing, not talking about the stuff, as a way to really preserve the head start that we have but don't want to acknowledge. >> it's pretty clear i think, carol, to most people who are honest about this that donald trump didn't create this mess, but certainly his presence on the ballot and in the white house has certainly exacerbated it. just talk to me about white rage, specifically white anxi y anxiety, specifically in the era

of trump. >> and so what trump tapped into was what the republicans began to stir and play with with the southern strategy in 1968. that was to get at disaffected whites, both in the south and in the northern and midwest areas. particularly to say, look, you're -- you know, they're giving all of these things to these black people. and whereas you have to work hard for it. it is that line again where whites work hard and black folks are given. particularly given by the government, dependent on the government. they began to play with that. n 68 particularly -- '68 particularly, the strategy. and lee atwater, ronald reagan's chief strategist, laid it out beautifully. he said, in 1954 you could say the "n" word, it wouldn't hurt you. by '68, it hurt you. it backfires. then you begin to start talking

about economic things. cutting taxes, like bussing and all of those economic things, he says, and the point is is that blacks get hurt worse than whites. now in that language there, notice it's not just that blacks get hurt with these policies, but that they get hurt worse than whites. what that does then is it creates both a racial fill leaf to cover the racism that's -- fig leaf to cover the racism that's under that policy because if whites are getting hurt, you can't say that this is a racially discriminatory policy because you've got white folks who are taking the brunt of it, too. now that also begins the churn. it begins that sense of i've worked hard all of my life, and this is what i've got. i can't pay my bills. this is what trump tapped into. he tapped into what the gop has been churning for a long time. >> at least lee atwater, i

remember this well, at least lee atwater, his blues guitar-playing self was smart enough, to carol's point, to at least codify the language that they used. >> right. >> that's not what's happening now. >> and there are two ways to interpret that. >> yeah. >> you have what annie lopez calls dog whistle politics, what atwater was talking about. for years that was the strategy. that's what reagan does when he talks about welfare queens and cadillacs. that's what politicians did with willy horton. that's what we're used to. the two ways of interpreting trump and his way of doing is t is, one, not being a politician, he didn't get the memo that you're supposed to cover up your stuff. that somebody forgot to remind him that, hey, we play a game. and you don't really know the game. but here's the game. maybe. the other possibility -- this is more frightening -- is that we're at a place now in this country where one doesn't need to dog whistle, where you can use the bullhorn and not lose s. that goes to carol's point about -- lose support. that goes to carol's point about blacks and whites. i wrote about this five years ago that you had four things

happen at once. any one of which could have sparked wide anxiety. awe four of which were guaranteed. one, the election of barack obama which challenges white folks' notion of who the leader should be. and not just the black guy, but a black guy with an exotic name who's from hawaii or kenya or wherever we think he's from, right. and so that's number one. the second thing is the economic meltdown, right. which is confronting white people with a level of insecurity that we had not seen since the great depression. double-digit unemployment wasn't new for black and brown folks. for white folks, that was like your great grandparents' problem. third thing, cultural shift. the pop culture thoroughly multiracial and multicultural from music to fashion to food, everything interconnected in a way that means the pop culture irveths cons are not the -- icons are not the ones you grew up with. culture shifting. fourth was the demographic shift where we know in 30 years half the country will be people of color, half will be white. you get all those four things coming together in the mid 2000s, first decade of the century. they are going to -- that's

tailormade for white anxiety and have sentiment. >> i've said many times, we see it playing itself out, when you can't change the game, you change the rules. >> exactly. >> when you can't change the game, you change the rules. i think that's through. what that means ultimately, carol, i think is that if you wait this out long enough, the numbers are going to shift in your favor in such a way where they can't exert the kind of power, the kind of influence, they can't inflict the pain and suffering. so for those who believe that, disabuse us of that notion. >> i'm ready to disabuse it. >> bring it on. bring it on. >> and that is actually in the afterward in the new piece. this is why voter suppression is so important right now. because what you've seen, it's like what we had saw in north carolina where the fourth circuit said that the north carolina legislature targeted african-americans with nearly surgical precision. where you have the republicans applauding because the early

voting percentage of african-americans had dropped by about 8% because of the way that they had cut the early voting hours. and because of what they had also done with voter i.d. because they had looked at -- they didn't just say you need an i.d. to vote. what they did was they figured out the kind of i.d.s that black people didn't have and what texas is doing is figuring out what black people and latinos don't have. and then saying, okay, those are the kinds you need in order to vote. what they're trying to replicate is what we had in the middle 20th century. in 1942, in the midterm election, the poll tax states, the combination of the poll stacks and literacy test, only 3% of voting-age eligible adults voted in the poll tax states in 1942. in 1944 in the presidential election -- this is landmark -- roosevelt's going for his fourth term.

14% in those poll tax states. they're trying to replicate that because if all you have to do as a politician is be responsive to a very narrow band of your population because you have used the law to systematically disfranchise the bulk of your population, you reign in power. that's what they're trying to re-create via the legalism,view at white rage of the law. this is why we see the election integrity commission where they're using the myth of voter fraud to try to drum up this sense. it's working. the public, that massive voter fraud actually happens. when, in fact, it doesn't. a law professor out of california found that there were 31 cases out of $1 billion, and this is what you now have states who are in deficits using millions of dollars for voter

i.d. in order to begin to make sure that their black and brown populations cannot vote. >> we need to be willing to call what they're doing white nationalism. see, it isn't just white rage or white anxiety. we use the term white nationalist to refer to nazis. we called david duke a white nationalist because he is, a white supremacist, neo-nazi, whatever. we don't want to call the folks in the trump administration white nationalists because that conjures images of skinheads. if i am trying to limit black and brown people's access to franchise, to limit their ability to participate in democracy in this nation so as to maintain a white majority, not just numerically but in terms of power, what is that? >> white nationalism -- >> if not white nationalism? we've got to understand white supremacy, white nationalism are not problems up here. they're problems out here in the world of policy and systems. >> we've got any number of references in this conversation tonight. i see the click ticking way too fast. we have any number of references

to history. and my read of history, tim, suggests to me that history is not unlike our lives. that the darkest moments are just before dawn. so if the moment is really dark right now and clearly it is, what's america on the precipice of? >> well, that's our decision. and to make that call. here's the thing -- and i think this is important for us to remember. people are trying to make it seem as if donald trump is this new monster, and this is some new, unique thing. this is the monster that's always been under the bed. this is the monster that's been with us for hundreds of years. on the one hand, it's thashl it's been there that -- terrible that it's been there that long and we haven't vanquished it. but if it's the same monster that folks fought 100, 200 years ago when things looked worse than they do now and access for black folks was far worse, we can do the same thing. we need to take heart from those struggles. those -- i tell you, if bull connor didn't stop black and brown folks, if jim clarke didn't stop black and brown folks, donald trump is not going to stop black and brown folks. that's our call. >> a lot of people, carol, are

having difficulty in this moment to sustain their hope. >> and see -- and i know because it looks so dark. it really does. but where the hope is is that when you begin to see, for instance, after charlottesville, over 700 cities had mass anti-white supremacy marches. where you're seeing with the muslim ban, right, you saw lawyers flying into those airports, sitting on those airport floors, writing writs of habeas corpus, and you saw this kind of -- there is a sense in the larger american system, and we must not forget that the bulk of the people who voted did not vote for donald trump. there is a sense that this -- this trump, this trump-ian world is not the world we want to raise our children in. that's where the hope is, the fight is still there. >> 30 seconds apiece. what is the ultimate message if

we can be so bold to white america about how we get a handle on this white anxiety? >> and i would say that it's to reframe things, that this is not a zero-sum game. when you think about the one trillion we wasted on the war and drugs and what it could have meant for lowering college tuition and making college affordable, what it meant for making our schools better, what it would have meant for health care for all, then we can -- we have the ability to do this. it requires the will. >> i didn't plan it this way, but the white man gets the last word. >> i planned it that way. no. >> teasing. >> i would say -- i would say white folks have a choice. they can look backwards or look forwards. when you put on a hat that says "make america great again," you tell me that you're looking backwards to some ficti ve time. i'm saying to white folks, we've got a choice to make. we going to make it great again or make it great for the first time? if we say that -- it doesn't fit on a hat or bumper sticker, but it's the kind of slogan you can raise your children with and

that we can raise a country with. >> tim wise's recent text is "under the affluence," and carol anderson, her text is called "white rage: the unspoken truth of our racial divide." the winner of the national book critics circle award. honored to have you both on this program. this is a conversation that we could do for hours and days and, indeed, we probably should. thank you for coming on. >> you bet. >> thank you. >> great to have you. that's our show for tonight. thanks for watching, and as always, keep the faith. ♪ >> for more information on today's show, visit tavis smiley at pbs.org. hi, i'm tavis smiley. join me next time for a conversation with novelist salman rushdie. that's next time. we'll see you then.

♪ >> and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. ♪ >> be more, pbs.

- today on america's test kitchen: julia prepares braised halibut with leeks and mustard, jack challenges chris to a tasting of smoked salmon, bridget makes slow cooked whole carrots, and gadget guru lisa reviews warming trays. america's test kitchen is brought to you by dcs. dcs: manufacturers of professionally styled indoor and outdoor kitchen equipment.