let's bring in the founder of cultivated wit.com, baratunde thurston. thor of "how to be black." mr. thurston, thanks for joining us tonight. i want to start with this, the traditional america. what do you do if uncle fred starts talking like this guy right here. >> the demographics are changing. it's not a traditional america anymore. and there are 50% of the voting public who want stuff, they want things. and who is going to give them things? president obama. >> what about that? how do they handle that at the table? >> yeah, so, first of all, thanks for having me on, ed. happy thanksgiving to you, to all the viewers. i would say start compassionately. this is a tough time for uncle fred. he's angry, he's lashing out. give him a big hug, tell him you love them, tell him it's going to be okay, and tell him you've been there before, because when john kerry lost, you felt a similar silence of disappointment. and let him know you're there with him. as far as the stuff thing, i would flip it. i would say 100% of american who is want stuff. if you meet someon

[applause] >> baratunde thurston is the author of "how to be black." mr. thurston, how do you be black? >> it helps so much to be born black. i think that's the most reliable way. this book doesn't convert you from non-black to black. it's not an enhanced genetic modification. as for an intellectual exercise and identity storytelling and polarity. >> what is one example of being black in your view? >> the story of the book is mostly a memoir. a group in washington d.c. during the crack wars in columbia heights before cutting matchers station on a target. that journey from very political but our family and the legacy of my ancestors through harvard, that is the back of the boat. then there's lessons i learned along the way, how to beat a black friend. how to speak for all black people, which we are often to represent. everybody was sort of kind of baby look like. how to be the next but president bush's applicable during the season. contains those of interviews with experts identified primarily people who think like their entire lives as well who really know

[applause] >> baratunde thurston is comedian, author of the book "how to be black" and former director of digital for "the onion". [applause] >> robert darnton is director of harvard university, professor at harvard university. [applause] >> we are going to start out by having each of the panelists to the four minute presentation on what they see as the future of reading and we will go into a discussion from there. we start with nicholas negroponte. >> thank you. i modestly suggested i go first because i wanted to talk about the basics, not particularly advocate one future or another. in thinking about it over the years, i realized there's a very distinct difference between the future of words and the future of paper. they get conflated. then, once you tease those apart, there is a very big difference in the general topic of the future of narrative, whether the narrative loses some of the value and interest in longer form because our attention spans of gone down and whether narrative instead of one medium has multimedia and uses the brain differently. i wanted to separate those facts a

. >> eliot: "how to be black," baratunde thurston, thank you for your time. >> thank you governor. >> jennifer: i'm jennifer granholm. and tonight in "the war room," it's good to know that washington has not lost its touch when it comes to a scandal. previously on capitol affair. >> because the american people expect us to we are. >> can grover win him back proving once and for all that he's a serious man. >> the president was committed elected on the basis that he was not romney and romney was a poopy head. >> more intriguing details the spy and the biographer and the lady that the biographer didn't like bengahzi and i think peter king is in there somewhere. like sands through an hour glass, so--what? copyrighted, got it. [ ♪ theme music ♪ ] >> jennifer: this year a record setting 20 women were elected to the senate overall and there will be more women serving in congress than ever before. it's not just family female leaders who are making their voices heard but the female voters who voteed overwhelmingly for president obama. there was a 20-percent gender gap, the largest gender gap

. >> baratunde thurston, "how to be black" is the name of the book. this is booktv on c-span 2. >> joseph stiglitz, author of "the price of inequality" and paul krugman, author wrote train to talk about problems facing the u.s. economy for about an hour 45 next on booktv. [applause] >> well, thank thank you very m. thanks to the passionate attitude and technology in shakespeare books for hosting the event this evening. i also am very excited. i think we are all very excited to see probably two people who i would say are unquestionably the most cited economists in the world today. [applause] in addition to being most cited, and as you all know, those are noble laureates, i would have to say from the vantage point of the institute of economic thinking that if i were to nominate two people as being the most courageous economists in the world and the most impactful, the subpoena to find a list. so we're very excited to be part of this conversation. [applause] as you know, each of them has written a book that pertains to our current challenges and circumst