that's my story, too. that has, pardon me. greatly. >> race is a difficult topic for our country and it's an on going conversation that happens and sits and starts sometimes. we have an african-american running for president barack obama. an interesting charge from some is he isn't black enough. what do you make of that? >> oh , dear. [laughter] that's just -- an understatement. it's annoying. >> what does that mean? >> i don't know what it meanses. i know what it means i don't want to accept the concept. if you are what you are and the concept that you need to act in a very prescribed way doesn't

mean that you can embrace or accept change. or you can be adoptable enough for the future from my perspective. and i just am dismayed when those sorts of charges are levelled. you can dislike someone, you cannot like their policies, you can disagree with them but don't say you are not black enough. >> how do you think knowing your own history and delving into it and doing a second book, what do you think about your own skin color and your racial identity? how do you think of it? >> i think of it as -- i self identify as african-american. i don't -- i assume that everyone else does, too.

and that's the way i think. that's the way i view the world. i hope that doesn't preclude me from having broad views but it is one of the ways through which i look through the world the same way i'm a woman and have to weigh that impact. i think of things in those terms as well. and i'm almost aarp age. i have to think in those terms. it's a series of ways of looking at the world. >> before you wrote the book you were working at sun microsystems in silicon valley as a vice president. is not a silicon valley a lot of african-american workers how do you deal with race did it come up in your job?

>> it did not overtly. it didn't much overtly. my view was always to refuse to acknowledge it if it did. if it came up in some sort of negative way and that usually the negative way would not be a racist comment it would be lowered expectations of what i could do. i just refused to acknowledge that. if there's something that you need done i was the person to do it. and just get out of my way. help or get out of my way. one of those 2. i don't care which just one of those 2 and then i was just sort of blow through it. it's not something that i was willing to devote a lot of my

energy toward. unless it was overt. in those cases i would address it directly. >> how did they react and you said you would leave to write a book. >> i did not leave to research my family history. i was doing research but didn't leave to do that. i left to find myself. >> [laughter]. >> and that's where i just found it. >> [laughter]. but -- it was just absolute surprise because i did not, i didn't have a concrete plan. my only concrete plan was i was going to not work for a year. and i didn't take a break. i wanted to burn the bridge.

i not in a bad way. i wanted to not have the soft landing and wanted to be out there for a yeear knowing what would come next and step into the void. try to explain that to people it's really, really tough. >> we can ask the audience if they have questions much raise your hand if you have a question. before you get to her, have you heard -- now that you have been away from sill sicon valley how does it look to you would you ever go back. >> if you make declarations it can really bite you. of course i could imagine going back to silicon valley. [laughter]. this is on tv.

>> [laughter]. >> i can't. there are a couple of reasons. i could not go back because i don't have that mind set anymore. the things that have become important to me are not necessarily in sync with those things that would need to be important to be successful. >> could you talk a little bit, i think of the many things that were disturbing one was that 2 were raped and to love the child. i would think hate the father. and how did you play that, you did it nicely but it seemed to me that would be a big stretch. >> it would be a big stretch. but it happened a lot. and again, it's having to live with that dichotomy. it's having to live that things

that contradict one another. i know that i grew up on stories and one of the morals of which was always you love your child no matter what. you know. you love your child no matter what. that piece of it i have no stretch in trying to figure out the how you feel about the father is more of a stretch but you see that even in -- i'm thinking patty hurst. people who have captors and love their captors sort of thing much you adapt to the situation in which you are placed, i believe. and i don't believe that i don't believe that my ancestors loved the people that raped them.

i do believe that over the generations that my great grand mother emily did love a frenchman who courted her. and that was a different kind of relationship. but i wanted to show all of those relationships and i had 4 generations to work with. >> it's hard to judge or even understand something that happened then based on the way we look through things today. >> that was the most difficult things in the writing of this book. my first draft was so through 20th century eyes. how i would react if i was placed in those situations. i did a lot of reading, a lot of research, nonfiction and a lot of fiction reading to try to understand that era, that time,

the relationships to try to get a sense of what it was like to live then. i transported myself back and tried to shed a lot of that 20th centuriness. >> did you get criticism from african-americans that you didn't treat slavery harshly enough? >> i have gotten some. it hasn't been overwhelming. i had actually ve lly done a ma put in my writing room and said no whips or chains. i did not want to write the same book that had been written before. to me the greatest sin of slavery was not whipping it was breaking up families. i knew that if i put in a lot of

se scenes of whipping and the things people are familiar they would gravitate to that and lose the concept of families trying to preserve themselves and how important that was to them. and that's what iment wanted to remain. >> emotional damage. >> yes. >> one of your statements 2 minutes ago was a -- i heard you speak about "cane river" at borders. you talked about you had to revise and go through a number of revisions in the writing process and i like to -- if you could explain in your own words what that was like from the first to how many revisions you had to do. especially interested because i'm an aspiring write, which many people are. >> yeah, the -- it actually,

"cane river" i think this number is right. it was 14 drafts. and that means starting from the first word to the last word and going all the way through and touching everything. i rewrote it 14 times. my greatest fear in the beginning was after draft one and draft 2 i would get hit by a bus and someone would say, what was she thinking? each draft i was polishing the craft but also leeching out a lot of the anger. or political agendas or i was polishing the characters. i was making it authentic and believable. i was trying not to preach. so each draft i was trying to up level the game and make it more and more compact and more

readable. and so with each successive draft it was more about the readers than it was about me putting the story down. what feedback did you get from family reading the drafts or didn't you ask. >> family did not -- whoa family didn't read drafts. my sister did. and my sister is always my first reader because i know that she will say that's great. and -- [laughter]. you gotta have it. you gotta have it in the beginning when it 's fragile that's what you need give it to joany a week later, that's great and you do it again and again. she was as excited about the story as i was. my mother was really very upset that i wanted to tell this story. she did not want he to tell this

story. >> why? 2 reasons. she spent her entire life making sure that i didn't have to look back to slavery. that i had risen above that. that's how she view today. and for me to look back and get stuck in that time she considered shameful just made no sense to her. and in the second piece of that was that these were family stories and she could not understand why i would put family business in the street. >> airing laundry. >> i get that i didn't listen but i got it and understood it. >> did she get over it? >> she did. oprah helped. >> yes. >> considerably. >> hi. i'm sorry i have not read the book i checked it out in the

library one copy. i would like to make a comment first? as an african-american woman who my mother ruby park was very light skinned. this is the beginning of the days of the dead next week where people set up alters and pay contributions to people who went to the spirit world. i have a picture of my mother that when sheave has brown hair. my mom was from florida and being very light she passed once in awhile. and i know when she told me that my first reaction was as a child of the 60's was, i was repulsed. the older i get and the more i think about it it makes sense much she would go to a restaurant that would not serve blacks in tallahassee, florida

and would be able to buy food for her and her cousin who is brown skind and could not get near the place. she would buy the food and they will laugh about it. >> i will tell you that my mother, this is my mother's family. my mother was fair enough to pass. she never went to bed passing. she never spent a night passing much there were occasions when she didn't declare what she really was. and one of those occasions was needing to go to the doctor and not having that care available for an african-american child. and so she passed in order to do that. she in order to get a job, she did that. but again it was very specific and wasn't a denial of heritage

it was in order to get something and make something happen. that is the realization i came to that that was a reality. it was a reality of the time. >> also does make you realize how silly the notion of race is in a way that -- that someone's assumptions about you can change the way they feel about you. >> right. >> so much. >> ridiculous. >> willing to give something here and willing not to give it and you are the same person. >> how are you different as a result of writing this book and then can you tell us what lead to writing your last book? >> i will start with the second first. i wrote the last book because i had done all of the research for

both my mother and father's side of the family together but too much to contain in one book. i split them in 2. i did the first, "cane river," first because my mother was still living. and i wanted her to appreciate and see t. my father had already passed. so, that's what got me from book one to 2. it changed me tremendously. it changed me, it opened you know not to get too much psyc psychotherapy. it opened me up in many ways and made me farless not racial, black and white so i lived in gray. because i had to put myself in everybody's shoes for so long i

was not able to just compartamentize. >> in doing the research for your father's side did you come across any descendants of the people who killed emily's husband? >> i -- yes. well, that is a matter of who did it. i put forth in "cane river" my point of view, which is not proven, i believe it's true but not proven. and yes, there are still descendants of those folks that live in the town. >> and you met them? >> they don't come out to my reading. >> have you had conversations? >> i have not had conversations but i have heard of some distant

relatives of their's who considered the whole thing colorful history at this point. >> yeah. >> yes. >> i'm curious a couple of years ago after he died the senator strong ferman had a parallel family. i wonder when you first heard that what were you're feelings? >> um -- there was such a lack of surprise. [laughter]. um -- but it that was just so common in the south. it was so incredibly common that that it was not surprise at all. >> there was a protocol and when you grow up in a concern way you don't think about it. there was a protocol in southern

towns where there is a man and he has an official family and a side family or 2 side families or whatever it is. and the protocol is if you are on the public street, if you are walking down the street you don't acknowledge one another. you don't say anything. you might actually converse and you might not. you might converse behind closed doors but never do it in public. and i know that that happened with my mother's family a lot. because they were so fair. but if you got whooped as a child if you said something to uncle billy. kind of thing. and so there was that dynamic that has just so many protocols attached to it. and so when that came out it

just wasn't a surprise. it also was not a surprise with who cheney and obama. >> [laughter]. >> i love the line obama's campaign, every family has it's black sheep. >> right. >> [laughter]. >> i actually have 2 questions. one being, how did our use of fiction help you navigate what perhaps could be painful in the fact and -- truth that were unearthed during your writing. >> how did you use fiction. >> yeah to navigate the pain and the truth and the second question is, this is a personal

story as a universal story as much as it is a discourse on a race. given all those things how are you navigating many people's desire to have you stand as a spokes person for the black race in fielding questions or comments that take away from the universality and the very private personal aspect of it for you? >> yeah, i very often, anyone that knows me know i very often preface comments i have i'm not speaking for all black folks. and then i will give an opinion. because that is a fallacy. i'm not i'm speaking for myself. you can ask me whatever and i will chose to answer or a won't. if i do you have to be aware

that it's one response. and then your first question was -- the using fiction? i actually believe that fiction -- i made a conscious choice not to do this as nonfiction. i made a conscious choice to do this as fiction because i think you can get at the truth better through fiction than nonfiction. and it's too easy to shoot down nonfiction if you have a slight fact wrong or something happens on a tuesday instead thursday and you discount the whole thing. i wanted to relay the emotional content and import of this time and this place in our country's history. and fiction lent itself very well to doing that.

and as far as navigating the painful and would have been no matter how i would have done t. i think it was more painful in fiction because i wanted to capture the emotion. it was worth it to me and because so much of african-american stories are verbal i was so intent on putting something down in writing from a different point of view. >> we have time for one more question and lalita will with in the lobby signing books. >> i had an opportunity to be in horn lake, mississippi this year this summer i was at a hotel with my family. jim crow was gone. this was at a time there was a little league tournament and children were playing with

children of all races the accommodations were integrated. i had an occasion to drive further to the delta and i stopped in a diner and the most epifet was used this woman was born 1965. in her 40's. and i wondered what i was seeing. i wonder through your lenses if you could comment on that. things were better, progress had been made but on one level this woman had not heard the story. >> i'm not speaking for all black people here, actually that's i have tremendous hope and tremendous dismay at the same time. it's the constant place i live because it's not gone.

we have made tremendous progress and you see something like that and it's not an anomaly it's there. it will be there for generations i believe. and you think it's died out and you see it coming back and people that are young. you see it in people in their 20's sometimes. and i don't really have a great light to shed on this other than to say from my perspective all you can do is to influence your own sphere. that's all you can do. you can reach out and do what you do. and hope that that's enough to try to counter balance what is definitely still out there. >> all right, i invite you to join lalita in the lobby after that. thank you for coming and thank you for writing such a great book. >> thank you. >> [applause]. >>

>> we will go ahead and get started. can you hear me in the back? >> good. >> good morning and welcome to the community building break out session conference. my name is una and i'm the program director of san francisco safe. san francisco safe is a nonprofit that has been serving the san francisco community since 1977. we build communities through crime prevention, and neighborhood watch. there's a lot of brochures if

you want more information about neighborhood watch or san francisco safe i point you in that direction. i'm honored and excited to be the moderator on the session and be on the stage with the finest of san san francisco's community organizers. throughout process of putting together this workshop we realize we have a lot of things we share in common. one is a belief with more than one person a whole community can come together and build strength and power and make changes. that's the emphasis of everything we are doing today is trying to network and share ideas and build ourselves into a more positive future. that's why we are here. i'm very glad to see you all have come to our session in the morning. i hope that through this workshop you will get the answers you have in terms of how to take that next step in terms of organizing your own

neighborhoodses and learn from those who come before you to forge a way to improving the city which is something we all hold very dear. i wanted to say in terms of the to m format we are flexible. there is a general introduction as to who we are and who we serve and our experiences and the tools and strategies we identified to be successful. then we will open it up for you all to decide where you want it to go. we have question cards in the back i hope all of you grabbed. through the question cards we can answer the questions you have. we don't know if come of you want to start a neighborhood watch group and want to know the first step in doing that. some of you may be have been doing that already and have questions.