after the the previous year rodney king had been beaten on videotape. the technology allowed us to tell a story that wasn't being told by the mainstream media, that wasn't being told by the state powers. in 1991 recording of beating was almost impossible. some of you are seasoned enough to know how big of a thing it was to videotape someone. you have a big camcorder and you had to stick pieces of paper and the little holes so you could tape over the thing the night before. suddenly you have this whole thing yet to do any had to catch and you had to be there while that's happening. now be able to polite your phone allows you y to capture everyday events it allows you to stream your life in a allows you to live blog and tell everybody about what you are thinking about what you are mad thinking about what you're mad about in real-time. something that can be frustrating when people are on a timeline in their someone talking about something you don't care about but that might frustrate you. then a fight breaks out and then there's a moment where somebody com

we just had the 30th anniversary of rodney king. you know, which was not a cell phone video. but what's a video and was a compelling video, that sort of started us on to this role of citizen journalism. but each time we realized that this doesn't this episode can or should didn't happen in a vacuum. right? charlottesville did not happen in a vacuum. these are the bubbling up of of of a rich history that is extremely dark and in a lot of ways, it's also very hopeful. we found a lot of hopeful moments, but we as americans need to confront just how rich the history and news and dark the history is of america as a relationship with race and how that has played out in our media. the birth of a nation, the gone with the wind, the the terrible, terrible photographs of the lynchings, the late 19th century, the early 20th century, the role of those photographs at first in continuing the kind of level of racism, and then ultimately shocking and shaming the nation towards what they were doing. but i think that was a revelation, i would say was that the role of media wasn't just new. the

before rodney king. you can look at all the instances where there are calls for change. i think we are involved in change right now in this moment that is going to be long lasting. it is very challenging. i was the victim of a crime when i was in middle school. some kids at recess came around at pe class and came to the locker room and tried to steal my watch and physically assaulted me. the officer that helped afterwards went out of his way to check the time to see how i was. that is the kind of work, the kind of perspective i like to have in our sheriff's office regardless of circumstance. that influenced me a lot. some of the storefronts have changed. what is mys is that i still see some things that trigger memories. the barbershop and the shoe store is another one that i remember buying shoestrings and getting my dad's old army boots fixed. we would see movies after the first run. my brother and i would go there. it is nice. if you keep walking down sacramento. the nice think about the city it takes you to japan town. that is where my grandparents were brought up. th

it's the rodney king trial. i took anyone to tell you the four officer who arei charged with his killing. i mean, right? so for me that intimacy of that, like what were their names, what did they do? who were they before this spectacularec moment? ie, only know them because of ts spectacular moment. there arelk people in book becae of talked about personal experiences that you know before the moment of encounter but most of the people in the book i don't. then it was on me as both a historian and a someone investing in this in hid other things about them to tell a little bit about who they were, who were the people who loved them, who cared about them, who feel this differently than i do even a someone who deeply cares about what happens to them but they are still not my kids, right, in that intimate way that we think about kinship. so what does it mean to build a robust kinship with the figures of myoo book? and that fores me was the proces of witnessing and thinking about it and why i brought my own story acti

it's the rodney king trial. i charge anyone tell you the four officers who were charged with this killing? right. i mean, because assault. right. and so for me, that intimacy of that within of like what their names what did they do? who were they before this spectacle in the moment. and i only know them because this spectacular moment right there, people in the book, because i'm talking about personal experiences that i do know before the moment encounter. but most of the people in the book, i don't. so then it was on me as, both a historian and as someone investing in this work to find other things about them, to tell a bit about who they were, who were the people who loved them, who cared about them, who feel this differently than i do, even as someone who deeply cares about what happened to them. but they're still not my kin, right? in that in that intimate way, that we think about kinship. and so what does it mean to build a robust fictive with the figures of my book and that for me was this process of witne

or the rodney king trial.o for me of what were their names or what did they do or who were they before this moment? i only know them because of the spectacular moment people are talking about experiences most of the people in the book i don't so as a historian to find other things and tell a little that about who they were and the people who love them and cared about them even as someone who deeply cares in the intimate way we think about kinship so what does that mean and that for me was a process where i brought my own story and what are those emotional registers for that encounter in my life? what does it mean to encounter classmates from where she disappeared from in washington dc? in ways s that we were talked about and treated in coming from those experiences to hold the intimacy and then in a way to honor their lives. >> thank you for your work. i love you. [applause] >> i love you. thank you. so i have a question about doing your research what did not make it? that this is the violence i'm talking abou

discussed at length the first couple chapters of the book that went beyond the video starting with rodney king ands going all the way through and in part because it was a long drawn out death that was like a crucifixion. it riveted the consciousness. that mary that up with james baldwin and what he understood that his own time and the march on washington mesilla the history and it would require a steady pace to be communicating the very things videos tell us about ourselves we finally confront our own history honestly. and then you feel like groundhog day it is daunting and disturbing. did just reenergizing us i am a hopeful person and that that george floyd response was a powerful impact. meant to pick up the cause one more time. >> so where we see this technology going and how we use it. and with that culture and race in the concerns and with those issues on the platform. >> the good question assuming the salecr goes through, it likely well. it is disturbing to me for multiple reasons. it's a reflection of a larger problem twitter isn't just a platform. in many ways it functions asn wa publi

chapters of the book that went beyond, sadly, the multitude of videos that we've had, starting with rodney king and going all the way through. walter scott and others and in part because it was this long, drawn out death that was like a crucifixion. i mean, it really was something that riveted the consciousness. you marry that up with what we said earlier about james baldwin and what he understood about his own time. and while he would have loved to have spoken at the march on washington, i think he knew the march on washington was still a blip. the story of american history, and that it would require a steady pace, not a drop by drop, but a river by river, in a sense. right to be communicating the very things that these videos do tell us about ourselves until we will finally confront our own history honestly and yes, you wake up in the morning, it feels a little as we talked backstage by grant groundhog day, right. i mean, you end up feeling that here's this this days video. it's daunting. it's disturbing. but it should just re-energize us. i do. i do think that i mean, i am a hopeful person i

now you see this retrenchment and aggression away from the idea of the rodney king moment can be a real thing. can we all just get along, and instead, they want to refute that. they put it in political context. instead of saying white people are being threatened by black people or black people and asians or minorities want to see white people dead, it's democrats want to see republicans dead. republicans representing this uber whiteness that they're projecting around the globe and certainly here in the country. >> well, i mean, they kind of push back on it, and they kind of didn't. the tea party movement that existed during the obama years is now the baseline of the republican party, right? >> it's very different, joy. >> ron desantis on, they were hanging obama in effigy and saying, i remember mitch mcconnell saying i take him at his word that he's a muslim. he says he's a christian. i want to let tom in here. do we have element two from my director, do we have it. you don't. that's okay. i worry that we didn't react to the tea party movement strongly. that became the baseline. and mag

mica said the rodney king trial he is not on charlie george george floyd trial he is not on trial. it also this idea of violence through erasure. you said this before people right nobody cares about black women. they are black women who care about black moment and we are not nobody spread this way with criminalization should happen. i am wondering what didn't make it? what were thosess things you cod see see as of violence but is not necessarily not everybody's thinking about imagination. i want to hear your thoughts on that. >> almost everything could have gone in for it at a certain point it was like editorial decisions. there was not for me that some criteria and this didn't praise band with on some level one of these sites incredible violence is happening and written aboute assault, disciplining and violence against black girls in schools. and also some people i think alongside, nicole brown and othersri. really written books that areni near the end of the book i talked about all thesewh organizations where people are doing the work. i go to the beginning this is not a site but

rodney king got at the age of 39. so he lived a very relatively young life. but his legacy and the people that worked with him and followed him continues now until this day. and it continues through to the young. and as i mentioned, james orange was james orange. his daughter just passed away today. so that's kind of another pillar in that cohort, that whole king legacy that continues to go. yeah and ending on that note on the on the note of legacy may be a good moment to conclude our conversation with with ernest. so everybody join me in thanking friends for joining us today. yes. and once again we've been talking about the many lives of andrew, which ernie will now be signing on the plaza. thank you all so much for joining us here at the southern festival of books. thanks, henry. thank you. thank you. yeah, well done, sir

that is not what i was planning but things get better and better for black people despite rodney king despite this, than in the other thing i found the educated view was things had not changed for black people since 1960 and i didn't understand why and there was a part of me, probably just be anxiety, i couldn't rest with it but i couldn't say these people are crazy because they weren't, couldn't say they were stupid because a lot of them were smarter than me but i thought they are not processing reality, why are they exaggerating, what is this, that slowly led, i think it was particularly fueled by oj, painfully clear the man murdered two people and yet for many years black people of all educational stripes were depending on this. i didn't get it and that led me to write losing the race in 2000. i had no idea it would become so widely read. i wrote it kind of hysterically. i happen to write quickly, put this out there so people will know what i think and maybe some younger black people will see i'm not crazy like shelby steele taught me that i'm not crazy. low and behold losing the r

before rodney king. you can look at all the instances where there are calls for change. i think we are involved in change right now in this moment that is going to be long lasting. it is very challenging. i was the victim of a crime when i was in middle school. some kids at recess came around at pe class and came to the locker room and tried to steal my watch and physically assaulted me. the officer that helped afterwards went out of his way to check the time to see how i was. that is the kind of work, the kind of perspective i like to have in our sheriff's office regardless of circumstance. that influenced me a lot. some of the storefronts have changed. what is mys is that i still see some things that trigger memories. the barbershop and the shoe store is another one that i remember buying shoestrings and getting my dad's old army boots fixed. we would see movies after the first run. my brother and i would go there. it is nice. if you keep walking down sacramento. the nice think about the city it takes you to japan town. that is where my grandparents were brought up. th

if you in october -- i'm sorry, in may we were commemorating the rodney king verdict. that, we were acknowledging the anniversary of the beating in the south, 30 years. i cannot believe how fast time has gone. we could say the same thing for the oj verdict. america had very different ideas about who is guilty, who was innocent, who to trust, who not to trust, whether there was racism or not. in the brett kavanaugh hearing, we saw deep divides, not just along partisan lines but along gender lines about the allegations against brett kavanaugh. we could look at a variety of issues and see deep divides in this country. they do not start and end with the white house. i think that is true. the tensions are bound up in the contradictions of living in a country that protects capital, living in a country that is patriarchal, living in a country that is racist. these are all things that produce certain kinds of divides and tensions. we have a huge divide in this country between the have-gots and the have-nots. those divides and divisions were expanded and the tensions were stoke

before rodney king. you can look at all the instances where there are calls for change. i think we are involved in change right now in this moment that is going to be long lasting. it is very challenging. i was the victim of a crime when i was in middle school. some kids at recess came around at pe class and came to the locker room and tried to steal my watch and physically assaulted me. the officer that helped afterwards went out of his way to check the time to see how i was. that is the kind of work, the kind of perspective i like to have in our sheriff's office regardless of circumstance. that influenced me a lot. some of the storefronts have changed. what is mys is that i still see some things that trigger memories. the barbershop and the shoe store is another one that i remember buying shoestrings and getting my dad's old army boots fixed. we would see movies after the first run. my brother and i would go there. it is nice. if you keep walking down sacramento. the nice think about the city it takes you to japan town. that is where my grandparents were brought up. th

if you in october -- i'm sorry, in may we were commemorating the rodney king verdict.before that, we were acknowledging the anniversary of the beating in the south, 30 years. i cannot believe how fast time has gone. we could say the same thing for the oj verdict. america had very different ideas about who is guilty, who was innocent, who to trust, who not to trust, whether there was racism or not. in the brett kavanaugh hearing, we saw deep divides, not just along partisan lines but along gender lines about the allegations against brett kavanaugh. we could look at a variety of issues and see deep divides in this country. they do not start and end with the white house. i think that is true. the tensions are bound up in the contradictions of living in a country that protects capital, living in a country that is patriarchal, living in a country that is racist. these are all things that produce certain kinds of divides and tensions. we have a huge divide in this country between the have-gots and the have-nots. those divides and divisions were expanded and the tensions were

asking why did the police doing that -- why was the police doing that and there was cops doing a rodney kinge guy. you never see this and i want some of those questions answered. host: i can speak for news media -- guest: i can speak for news media as someone who disseminates a lot of videos. we are limited to the video that was provided by the people who recorded and those who gave it to us and the video released by the u.s. justice department. the u.s. justice department has released scores of videos and body cams from police officers and surveillance cameras. i don't think anything was without put we are limited to what we -- video of cops letting people in, i don't see videos of that but a number of defendants have testified as much that they went into the capital because police were waving them in or went through a door and at least one defended successfully argued that at trial. there has only been one acquittal -- a defendant in new mexico who went to trial with the judge where the judge assures -- shirts -- serves as a juror and he was acquitted and the judge said that based on the e

before rodney king. you can look at all the instances where there are calls for change. i think we are involved in change right now in this moment that is going to be long lasting. it is very challenging. i was the victim of a crime when i was in middle school. some kids at recess came around at pe class and came to the locker room and tried to steal my watch and physically assaulted me. the officer that helped afterwards went out of his way to check the time to see how i was. that is the kind of work, the kind of perspective i like to have in our sheriff's office regardless of circumstance. that influenced me a lot. some of the storefronts have changed. what is mys is that i still see some things that trigger memories. the barbershop and the shoe store is another one that i remember buying shoestrings and getting my dad's old army boots fixed. we would see movies after the first run. my brother and i would go there. it is nice. if you keep walking down sacramento. the nice think about the city it takes you to japan town. that is where my grandparents were brought up. th

before rodney king. you can look at all the instances where there are calls for change. think we are involved in change right now in this moment that is going to be long lasting. it is very challenging. i was the victim of a crime when i was in middle school. some kids at recess came around at pe class and came to the locker room and tried to steal my watch and physically assaulted me. the officer that helped afterwards went out of his way to check the time to see how i was. that is the kind of work, the kind of perspective i like to have in our sheriff's office regardless of circumstance. that influenced me a lot. some of the storefronts have changed. what is mys is that i still see some things that trigger memories. the barbershop and the shoe store is another one that i remember buying shoestrings and getting my dad's old army boots fixed. we would see movies after the first run. my brother and i would go there. it is nice. if you keep walking down sacramento. the nice think about the city it takes you to japan town. that is where my grandparents were brought up. that

before rodney king. you can look at all the instances where there are calls for change. i think we are involved in change right now in this moment that is going to be long lasting. it is very challenging. i was the victim of a crime when i was in middle school. some kids at recess came around at pe class and came to the locker room and tried to steal my watch and physically assaulted me. the officer that helped afterwards went out of his way to check the time to see how i was. that is the kind of work, the kind of perspective i like to have in our sheriff's office regardless of circumstance. that influenced me a lot. some of the storefronts have changed. what is mys is that i still see some things that trigger memories. the barbershop and the shoe store is another one that i remember buying shoestrings and getting my dad's old army boots fixed. we would see movies after the first run. my brother and i would go there. it is nice. if you keep walking down sacramento. the nice think about the city it takes you to japan town. that is where my grandparents were brought up. th

before rodney king. you can look at all the instances where there are calls for change.involved in change right now in this moment that is going to be long lasting. it is very challenging. i was the victim of a crime when i was in middle school. some kids at recess came around at pe class and came to the locker room and tried to steal my watch and physically assaulted me. the officer that helped afterwards went out of his way to check the time to see how i was. that is the kind of work, the kind of perspective i like to have in our sheriff's office regardless of circumstance. that influenced me a lot. some of the storefronts have changed. what is mys is that i still see some things that trigger memories. the barbershop and the shoe store is another one that i remember buying shoestrings and getting my dad's old army boots fixed. we would see movies after the first run. my brother and i would go there. it is nice. if you keep walking down sacramento. the nice think about the city it takes you to japan town. that is where my grandparents were brought up. that is the tradit

before rodney king. you can look at all the instances where there are calls for change.n this moment that is going to be long lasting. it is very challenging. i was the victim of a crime when i was in middle school. some kids at recess came around at pe class and came to the locker room and tried to steal my watch and physically assaulted me. the officer that helped afterwards went out of his way to check the time to see how i was. that is the kind of work, the kind of perspective i like to have in our sheriff's office regardless of circumstance. that influenced me a lot. some of the storefronts have changed. what is mys is that i still see some things that trigger memories. the barbershop and the shoe store is another one that i remember buying shoestrings and getting my dad's old army boots fixed. we would see movies after the first run. my brother and i would go there. it is nice. if you keep walking down sacramento. the nice think about the city it takes you to japan town. that is where my grandparents were brought up. that is the traditional foods or movies. they we

rodney king got at the age of 39. so he lived a very relatively young life. but his legacy and the people that worked with him and followed him continues now until this day. and it continues through to the young. and as i mentioned, james orange was james orange. his daughter just passed away today. so that's kind of another pillar in that cohort, that whole king legacy that continues to go. yeah and ending on that note on the on the note of legacy may be a good moment to conclude our conversation with with ernest. so everybody join me in thanking friends for joining us today. yes. and once again we've been talking about the many lives of andrew, which ernie will now be signing on the plaza. thank you all so much for joining us here at the southern festival of books. thanks, henry. thank you. thank you. yeah, well done, sir. thank you. that's good the glass away. this way. yeah, i think i drove by. yeah, yeah, yeah. i'm sorry to close the so sorry. that and we'll have more of book tv's live coverage of the southern festival books in nashville in a moment. sen