thank you, john thornton for your exceptional china program. thank you to colleagues for organizing this wonderful day of activities. whatever this may -- whatever this event may have been called, it is above all a celebration of he weifang. he is brilliant, he is learned, he is courageous. he is a tenacious person with the soul of a saint in fighting justice, fighting for justice. he is a soul of wit who somehow convinces us that fighting for fundamental change in china is a joyful activity. [laughter] the tweet andd by sparks of with the flow from him as readily as sparks flow from an iron factory. as china watchers know, to forge iron, one must be strong. he weifang is strong. the panel has been asked under a title to do not exactly remember to talk about the prospects at changes and challenges of legal reform in china. i am certainly honor to share the stage with such distinguished colleagues as bill alfred and jerome cohen. none of us know for sure what the prospects are for the rule of law in china. partly that depends on the time frame.

trade, how black the new world is, how old slavery is, and we'll teach them about my colleagues john thorntonywood at bu have theorized that there were 50 ethnic groups that were commonly called tribes that dominated the slave trade. so all of us are descended from one of these 50 tribes, more or less, in the new world who have african descent. so when the results come in, then the student will do a powerpoint about their ethnic heritage and their hybrid ethnic heritage, because remember-- 35% of all black men descend from a white man. 35% of all black men in the united states descend from a white man who impregnated a black female during slavery. that's one in three! if we went to the boston celtics tomorrow night and i did the dna of every black person, no matter how black they look on that court, one in three have a white male ancestor. >> hinojosa: so you're basically saying we need to get to a point where we see ourselves in each other without fear... >> but... and without obsession here. >> hinojosa: and without obsession. >> right. >> hinojosa: so finally, we could talk a lot about you

thornton and all of a sudden the ceiling starts to cave in. what is going through your mind as this is happening, guys? >> john, good morning. birmingham. it was really amazing to see. something like this, doesn't happen that often. you don't see that type of thing happen in an interview. a lot of praying to god immediately after that, but it's the roof's ripped off in that situation. the rain comes in, fills up the dry wall turns it almost into concrete and we could hear when we were walking on the streets, the you could hear the pop and the drop. we weren't sure what it was until we got in the interview. and lo and behold, the middle of the interview it happens. >> we were standing in the front of the house talking to neighbors and i looked to my right and all of a sudden i see the pieces start to cave in. the weight of all of that rain, just the roof gave in. >> it was so interesting. we were saying you can actually start hearing it first. we have been saying all morning no one was hurt. there were people at one point inside the house. how did the people all manage to stay safe? >> you did have. a lot of people in very ho