Letters in Black and White: A New Correspondence on Race in America

I'll be on the side hello can everybody hear me thank you for coming obviously you know this is a Cato Institute event a book Forum to be specific and that we have here letters in black and white a new correspondence on race in America now I like the book so much I would afford for it but I don't take my word for it I want you to listen to what we talk about today and and come to your own conclusions about how important this book is so I just came to the conclusion for you the book is important but I have here today the authors Jennifer Richmond and winkman Twyman let's have an official introduction Jennifer Richmond is a former professor of Chinese politics and co-founder executive director of Institute for Liberal values we're going to talk about that a little bit today as well and she is also in full black and white right no it's it's good spirit I like it winkfield Twyman is a former law professor uh focusing on constitutional law property and United States Supreme Court decision making and Son of the new South I can't wait for you to describe that he is a writer and an advocate for greater understanding across our differences so today we will just have a conversation you know very informal very relaxed and we will come to understand the impetus for this book and the reason why it is necessary before I do that though I want to remind everybody especially the people online that we will be taking your questions as well from Twitter Facebook and YouTube please use the hashtag Cato events all right so we can make sure we see you and everybody else sees you as well so let's get started I will ask a very very general question how did this book come about okay so I live in Austin Texas and Austin is known for being quite Progressive and I came back let me back up even a little bit farther I am a China scholar as as Eric said and I spent a lot of time living in China living overseas came back to the United States and I was really disappointed with the fraying of I think our our society and the polarization that we saw and so I started to write about it and as I got more into it I noticed that race was a lot of the wedge issues around our polarization so being a China scholar hadn't studied much about race issues and I and I thought well if I'm going to do this I'm going to I need to get involved and so the City of Austin had a diversity training and I signed up and I signed up with a very open heart hoping that I was going to go listen to views that were not my own and learn and I was really disappointed because that was not at all the opportunity that was given to me instead it was one where we broke up it's probably some of the stories that you've heard about diversity trainings where we broke up into Affinity groups and so I ended up sitting with a bunch of people who looked like me I didn't learn much of anything one of the exercises was to write down white traits and we were told not that they were they were neutral not good or bad white traits what are white I don't know but we started to write these things down and to my mind they weren't neutral if anything they might have even been evil some of the things that we wrote down were violence rape culture all these things and I just was again more and more confused like this you know these are human traits in many ways so being disappointed and being a writer I I wrote about it and it was published in a magazine aerial magazine that Helen pluckrose started just writing about what my experience was and the next day I got an email from a stranger and I will then pass to you thank you Jen can you hear me um although I was born in Richmond Virginia the capital Confederacy in 1961 in a segregated colored hospital as it was called at that time I actually came of age in the 1970s in the southern suburb uh Chesterfield County Virginia and what that meant was I was part of the new South and the new South was the in my mind the first generation of people of kids in school who were not segregated by race before 1969 the fall of 1969 black and white students had never attended Public Schools together in my County think about that for centuries there had been total social isolation between the races but in the fall of 1969 we Advanced a step forward in the new South in Virginia in Chesterfield County Virginia and so unlike my father who can never call a white Virginian classmate I was always one of the few black students in my Southern Suburban uh high school and Junior High School and Elementary School and so I learned very quickly to focus on individuals to focus on what makes people unique you became a good listener I learned to really listen to people not to be right not to denigrate or to slur but I learn to listen to individuals to understand people and that was a tremendous blessing for me in the 1970s I just wish we had more novels and screenplays and movies about what I call the greatest generation when it comes to race in America those who through their lived experience helped desegregate a society but any of it fast forward I went on to the University of Virginia to Harvard Law School I worked in Capitol Hill for two members of Congress and found myself in San Diego married a lovely wife from an old black American family and the children came fast forward to Jim one day maybe a few months before shinza experience with diversity training I was having a conversation with a relative and we were discussing race the year must have been 2018 2019 anyway a world away from the 1970s in rural Virginia and this relative said to me blockness is oppression nothing else matters well folks if you've ever seen the movie The Exorcist my head turned around like that lady in The Exorcist what is that about that makes no sense to me that's like the world turned upside down if anyone should be defeated about race it would be me who had to go through and benefit from desegregation in the 1970s in a Southern state so I I uh I was uh beside myself I've um didn't understand that and it so happened that one morning when I Was preparing for work I turned on my computer and I went to read this essay which had been authored by Jennifer Richman and when I read it I felt less alone and that's what great writers do great writers can make you feel less Alone by the insights they convey because sadly I love my family but they are definitely uh shall we say subscribers to racial dogma and that's all good but if it's four against one you can kind of feel alone sometimes in your own household so I saw when I read in her first essay here's a kindred spirit here's someone who also sees the pitfalls of caricatures and stereotypes these are lessons I have learned as a little kid in the 1970s so we started to correspond we started to talk one thing led to another and together we tried to help understand what was going on in this country regarding race why were we regressing from the 1970s and in the end was produced our book letters in black and white a new correspondence on race in America and it has been fun because in like I said before I always try to listen to understand not to be right and I think that comes across in that book how's that yeah speaking of the book what would you how would you describe it as quickly as possible to somebody curious about reading it you want to go first how about I describe the book um the book is the coming together of uh two Kindred Spirits who are opposed to Dogma to racial Dogma uh the two spirits who are opposed to caricatures based upon race stereotypes based upon race two individuals who are open-minded who are probably gone conformist in the Modern Age and who want to increase understanding in our country that's kind of what I would think of the book as being yeah I think for me it once we start we were writing each other again just out of the love of writing and and after about three or four months of writing we had so much material and I'd grown so much I think wink thought that he you know he grew so much where I said you know this is a conversation we're not having we talk a lot about you know the diversity training they call it courageous conversations which really just means sit down and shut up I said I think we're actually this is the conversation I want wanted to have to begin with and I said when we're not having it and I could not find this conversation anywhere that I looked you know whether it be in diversity training in the University settings or even in the workplace among friends and so for me I hope that it comes across as an invitation to other people to open dialogue about these issues that seem to be polarizing in America and if I may tag upon that blockness ladies and gentlemen is not oppression and that's one of the hashtags quote unquote that should come across as you read the book okay this book is special for many reasons but one of them is its composition it is literally a letter correspondence they're writing letters to each other for several months why do it that way instead of uh co-write more traditionally that's a good question I honestly I think I'd go back to what I just said I mean it really models an honest dialogue versus something co-written so and you'll see in the letters I mean we don't agree often and so again not just about this is racial issues aside I think that it shows that we can be as wink likes to say we can disagree without being disagreeable that's one of Wink's favorite catch phrases and so I think that's the reason we kept it in its form as letters letters offer a unique opportunity opportunity to gaze into the human soul the human Spirit unlike the traditional format of a non-fiction book when you have a series of letters you really are peering into the inner questions the inner Curiosities the inner torments of the person you know I'm reminded of a book that I'm sure no one has read except for Jen here in the room there was a book written in the 1820s I think by a Reverend John Rankin and it was called letters on American slavery and in many ways we are the descendant of that book and that book in the 1820s was about this guy who was so horrified that his brother had purchased slaves in Virginia and he just felt that was wrong and so through a series of letters a series of letters over months he made case after case an argument after argument to his brother as to why slavery was wrong why only slaves was wrong and that book became the inspiration for the um what's his name uh William Lloyd Garrison who eventually would create the Liberator and become one of the leaders of the anti-slavery Society so perhaps in this Modern Age of racial Division and polarization we are the modern day descendants of Reverend Rankin we felt compelled to write letters in the hope that someone out there will read them and the instances a better way of thinking about race for the uh the coming generation that's my idea at least well it does work I remember reading it and thinking I feel like I'm eavesdropping in on a conversation that is most Americans biggest nightmare right talking about race genuinely interculturally right nobody really wants to do that but here I am reading this and it's working and it it's providing insights that probably wouldn't be provided otherwise a genuine conversation between two people about race but I have to ask although it does work what were the challenges and how did you get over it oh the challenge is okay I'll name one off of that no name two off the bat so one challenge would be we have different Visions for race so my vision is that beyond the year 2050 we're going to solve a lot of these problems anyway because of the changing cycles and generations my idea is that kids will rebel against their parents their their their woke parents in the 2030s and 2040s you're going to have a new generation of kids who grow up and they're going to be Rebels like the beatniks and the hippies it's going to be cool to not be woke it's going to be cool to be non-conforming and then when they become adults in the 2050s and 2060s they will ushering the Blessed Society where racial divisions melt away that's my vision and I live for that I may be 61 years old I'm not going to be around in the year 2050 or for young but like Moses if you have a vision and you can help lead people in the right direction that's satisfaction enough at least for me whereas jyn believes there is too much victimization and racial resentment among black Americans for black Americans to ever think of themselves as old Americans a unitary classification and so my vision may be unrealistic and not achievable in the here and now that was our one great dispute the second um I wrote Jen because I could open up to Gin which is the greatest of ironies because I live in a black family right but because my black American Family subscribes to racial Dogma it's never really possible to have these deep conversations think about that isn't that ironic um but I think it's because different families have different approaches to race different black American families have different approaches to race and I think that's something Jin didn't really appreciate until I smacked her over the head with the reality of Jack and Jill Jack and Jill if you don't we can tell you more about it but is an elite Black organization youth is it would you say it's moms moms of Social Security moms so when he first told me about this I really thought it was a nursery rhyme I had not this is how much I did not know and keep in mind when we started this correspondence I just finished this diversity training and again right race is such a fraught Topic in the in the United States and so I wanted I felt like I had to tread lightly lest I say something to offend and so I probably well I didn't probably I know I came into the conversation and I wink immediately stopped me because I was using a lot of slogan words he tried to say she was white privileged and I wasn't having it you can't have a conversation people if you're using spoken words and filter words he gets we didn't even know such a thing in the 1970s in Good Old Chester Virginia so if you really want to talk with people put aside throw away the slogan words and have an honest conversation but I digress continue Jim the one of the funny things was you know at one of our first letters I said something like you know look I I didn't real I my family you um didn't have any issue issues they you know you know generational wealth was common uh I didn't grow up and mind you I just finished reading tanahisi coats between the world and me I said you know I didn't grow up in the ghetto and I'm trying again to be sensitive to a life that's not mine and we grew up back he goes I didn't grow up in the ghetto either you know and so he felt like I didn't see him and that was really where the conversation started to get going that's true and he basically said if you keep using these slogan words I'm not going to talk to you anymore yeah because what's the point right what's the point if you want to have real conversation you look into the person across the table you look into their eyes and you ask questions not to be right but to understand that's the way you do it people that's what we did in our book yeah and as I said earlier it does work I I implore you to read this book um I have to ask as I was reading the book and as I you know met you and talked to you as as much as I can um I realized that you guys are good communicators well thank you yes you're very good at this what what do you think makes you a good communicator now you guys both have uh talked about your past your origin stories if you will the book starts with that I'm wondering how those origin stories affected your ability to communicate so well for me it was this growing up oh navigate various cultures we grew up when I was younger I lived in uh what is now called Myanmar it was Burma at the time Indonesia China and so having that respect and that empathy and honestly though living overseas I realized that at some point we are more similar than we are different I mean we have similar desires similar wants similar similar goals you know love of family Etc and so I think that that background gave me a certain empathy and curiosity that perhaps influenced the way I communicate two answers to that question uh communication skills so answer one I happen to be the nephew of several uncles and so as I came of age I remember attending church service at the Ebenezer AME Church on Terminal Avenue in Richmond Virginia and when you're a little nephew and you see your uncle's preparing sermons delivering sermons reading the room of the congregants you kind of develop an innate sense for how to reach people how to touch people what works what doesn't work number two when you are the only black kid in your Southern Suburban public high school in 1972 or 74 or 76 or 78 race drips away it recedes because everyone's an individual so you have to force yourself to decide well what works best for Murray Berkey my classmate what does she resonate with in terms of conversations and issues or what works best with Scott Lee or what really gets my best friend Terry Nicholson going and so my sense is that oddly enough in that environment you're almost trained to be hyper tuned in to communication skills based upon the person you're talking to I sometimes wonder if you attend a school that's all black do you equally achieve those same skills or not or a school to say half black and half white could it be the case that there might be more racial peer pressure in a half black Half-Life school to be tribal to stick to your own group as opposed to the two extremes where race recedes away because it's not a factor for example I've been told by total strangers that I seem Jamaican or are you from Jamaica and I think that's just because sometimes people who come from Jamaica to the states don't have a sense of racial weight on their shoulders they really do kind of view America with eyes fresh and I think by the same token perhaps my grade school experience in learning to focus on the individual person allowed me to have a certain optimism in my communication in other words I assume people are good until proven otherwise there are bad people in the world but I don't necessarily assume that because you're of a certain race you must be bad I think sometimes people do that I think that's unfortunate but I think I learned not to do that because of my unique upbringing in the 1970s in a newly desegregated school so I think those two reasons contribute to my communication skills which you nicely admired and accurately as you can see yeah already Eric the money checks in the mail so you bring up the word individualism which I think is important because of its absence in a lot of uh the Dogma that you speak of the dog but that can be summed up in the phrase black is oppression that's all that matters where do you think that comes from why is it so prevalent in race relations today and besides this book what can we do about it well I'm going to point some fingers why not where does it come from I think it comes from Derek Bell who wrote faces at the bottom of the will the permanence of racism where he argued that you know we were hopeless on Race As Americans it just would never go away I think it comes from a former classmate Kimberly Crenshaw who had the wonderful idea to create intersectionality and Hyper focus on the intersection of race and gender I think it comes from a general sense of alienation and disaffection from the American mainstream I think it comes from black nationalism in the late 1960s I think it comes from a human urge for Conformity that if you are a block and you're steered into groups like Jack and Jill Alpha Kappa Alpha Alpha Phi Alpha the boulee and all the rest I think that there develops this sense that this is the way to be a black person in America and the powers of Conformity take over so that's that's kind of my thought where the idea came from Blackness is oppression Nothing Else Matters and it's so ironic so ironic because I actually attended an all black segregated Elementary School in the first and second grade in 1967 to 69 in Chesterfield County Virginia and I never remember that word oppression my entire universe is black all of my school teachers my principal The Faculty the staff and yet we never use that word oppression we would have used words like traditional Enterprise industry ambition self-reliance those are the words I would have heard in my all black world in the late 1960s what happened isn't it so ironic that in a day and age when black kids are more blessed they they spout the need to feel oppressed with more and more urgency it's a total total total reversal of reality and you know it is what it is but I certainly decided to uh to write a book and to speak my mind because you got to live in true people you can't create Doctrine here's the thing words do not create reality try as you might however reality should inform your words that you use and I think if we look at life that way we'll be healthier as a country and as a people but once again just my thought I always say I'm one out of over 40 million black Americans the problem is we too often assume there's only one way to be a black American in that one way is to believe Blackness is oppression Nothing Else Matters hashtag Blackness is not a person okay your thoughts honestly I'm not I I really don't know the origin of this I mean Eric I've actually learned a lot from you who started free black thought I mean one of your things was racial essentialism that has become trendy uh how did it start I mean I would say there's some tribalism has developed as a result of things like social media but to put people in a box and to limit who they are based on immutable characteristics is absolutely missing the mark and miss the richness in a conversation and so where the origin of it I mean that's a good question I mean I had almost even ask what your thought of is it is but it is something that I noticed as a a trend that really I believe started more in the past decade or so so whether that's be the Confluence of social media whether it's a you know yeah I'm not really sure where it came from but it is it is that racial essentialism and I saw that in the diversity training too again trying to box in Black traits and white traits and it was so limiting and was absolutely the antithesis of what we need if we're going to create a true truly diverse uh nation and and a diverse Viewpoint diversity in our conversations I think a large probably the largest difference between the uh classical 60 civil rights movement and what's going on today is each movement's relationship to Classical liberalism right which includes individualism and many of the things you you both have already been talking about you would have been aligned what's going on in the 60s but not so much today how do you think Classical liberalism informs this book um where can it be seen in the book um yeah I'll stop there watches on it is going back to this idea of individuality and seeing each other as an individual and not as a certain race or by skin color as well I think the other thing is this idea of freedom of expression and this censorship that we often see in these conversations around race particularly when you feel that you could be canceled or you know lose a job or you'll be threatened by the conversation around race so I think that Liberty that individualism that freedom of expression is kind of the centerpiece of what informs Us and how we write and I think Classical liberalism is from start to finish in the book you can find it for example in one of the very first premises of the book which is if there are over 40 million black Americans there are over 40 million different life stories experiences and perspectives that's individualism because we're all individuals it comes across in the freedom to talk and to talk and write for understanding not to write in furtherance of a narrative because that just constrains thought it comes across really really in the um anti Dogma sentiment in the book I for one I for one am a descendant of French huguenots uh in Chesterfield County and some of you may know the French huguenots suffered from the imposition of Dogma by the Catholic church in France and so they fled for greater freedom from Dogma to England and then from England to Virginia where they literally settled maybe 10 or 15 miles from my childhood town so perhaps that strain of the French Huguenot runs deeply in my veins and so when I confront dogma and its manifestations I recoil I rebel I resist I uh uh speak out I write against I do what I can to not become a slave to Dogma so there you go Dogma Dogma my favorite word yes uh you guys are obviously not addicted to dogma and to the point where you can have such a real conversation unfortunately there are people out there who will cite the concept of positionality um uh which is the idea that you can't understand who I am unless you are me or had the same exact experiences as I have otherwise this is a meaningless conversation right you guys obviously don't do that the book wouldn't exist otherwise so what do you think about people who Embrace this idea of positionality that shuts down the conversation that abides by The Narrative that you just finished talking about why do you think they do this what are they afraid of well I think positionality is meaningless it's the concept number one number two that's the whole point of getting to know someone is uh by asking them questions by increasing your Insight of them I mean we're humans we're not avatars for a racial group so to me positionality is one of those slogan words that I don't really use because I feel it just simply manipulates people let's let's grow up people let's transform ourselves we can do better we can uh talk in real terms and use plain language let's put positionality and systemic this and structural that and marginalize this and intersectionality that and all the rest of the wonderful cousins of Dogma into the Dustbin of history and let us help usher in a better age when we can just talk talk as people as individuals woman to man man to woman uh black to white or even better human to Human well I think you already positionality there's no reason for conversation if you're coming from a place of positionality why even talk at all I mean the whole point of getting to know someone and you you might not live their exact same experience but you can still empathize and so you hear so much in these diversity trainings where you know you don't have particularly you know towards white people you don't have room to speak uh do your homework do the work well again if I don't have the ability to empathize and to understand and to hear and to ask questions then I don't ever get that opportunity to grow and to learn and to make the change and to be the change that I want to be so the idea of positionality is one that is absolutely one of the reasons that we don't have these conversations and that's creating the the Discord Jen if I might yeah follow up on that so in terms of positionality uh and and our rebuttal to that in what concrete ways do you better understand me as a person after four years of writing a book together what how do I understand you better what you gave me was the ability to learn and to see through your eyes there was not Annette didn't feel fear I didn't feel judgment and so I could ask questions to actually really truly then get to know your position and to have that empathy whereas if I didn't have that opportunity to do so really that doesn't that that is the antithesis of connection and I think a lot of people are segregating because they just don't have anything to say anymore because of issues of positionality with you I had an opportunity to really dive into an issue to get to know you as a person I think we say this in the book you know hundreds of thousands of people can't talk to hundreds and thousands of people but what we can do is we can talk to one another and that's what we do in the book I think that you gave me the opportunity one of the biggest lessons that I learned from you wink is is it's so simple but don't engage bullies yeah so you're just in writing you I'd always go to wink whenever I would have a conversation where I felt that I was silenced if you will I would go to to wink and ask his has asked his opinion and so there was that we there was a trust there and an honesty that I didn't get out of most relationships and conversations and it came from we you know four years of burying I think our true selves and that's well I think that's the nice thing going back to something Eric you said earlier I mean that's the nice thing about letters too is I mean it's life plainly yes life lived plainly life plainly what I learned from Chen as a person tender cut positionality I mean I always have known that people are individuals right so I didn't approach gin as an avatar for the white race because that's just ridiculous and I learned that in the third grade okay this is like life skills 101 but some of the concrete things I learned about Jun was one the sad sad effect of the caricatures in the media I mean as Jen mentioned earlier she was she was careful to talk about the black ghetto of Tony Hoss's Coast's Fame because she didn't want to ascend not realizing no I grew up in a Southern suburb that was not my experience but because of the when the media covers the Black American experience we all too quickly assume well you must have some Urban experience in your background that must be where you're coming from number two that that um she was ready to talk to me using slogan words and I disabused her of that and I felt like once she was just abused of that she could really open up and there was clear sailing ahead for our writing um Jen didn't mention this but I might just briefly mention it there was an earlier exchange between Jen and someone else and as I recall I just read like a passage or two but I recall that it seemed chock full of the things we call spoken words and I just felt that was very sad because that person wasn't able to talk with a real human being without using set phrases and that's sad I mean that's a sad reflection on where we are today but anyway you you if you if you crack open these words see that they are manipulative and effect and just talk to someone like they are an individual first and foremost I think you'll find that genuine conversation lies on the other side of that of that Hill just my thoughts well I think in that in that conversation with the other person there's just this hypersensitivity around race so everything is filtered through this racial lens and so it really makes the conversation difficult because even if you say something that is in your mind not racial at all and it's interpreted that way where do you go from there in the conversation and that goes back to this you know idea of racial essentialism it just there's it it it's a it stops all all purposeful and meaningful conversation that makes me want to ask if there was any instance where one person inadvertently offended another person during this letter correspondence and how did you deal with it sense that's a big word Eric offense because I've been through a lot in life it doesn't take too much it takes quite a bit to truly offend me quote unquote um let me think um um well you you go Jen because I'm having a hard time okay I wouldn't say the word offend I don't feel like I've ever felt offended but our biggest issue that we had in the book that we disagreed on and it we had to we had to work through it is this idea of old Americans so wink asks why can't we just all see each other as old Americans to which I said I don't think we're ready for that not that I didn't I liked the idea I thought it was a you know very good idea but we weren't ready for that and particularly I felt that if I were to say oh we're just all old Americans it would be perceived as a a pass you know that I we could just oh forget history I'm an old American you're an old American Kumbaya and so when I wrote back expressing as much to wink I wouldn't say you were offended wink but you uh were what I said to you was very distressing and it was it was a couple of email or not yeah letters back and forth trying to kind of persuade each other of our our positions our ideas on that and that's a that's a pretty strong word distressing but maybe it's a fairer word give you some backstory I love genealogy I love personal genealogy I've done ancestry I've done 23 and me I've done family tree I've done Judd match I love that stuff and I'm a Twyman that's my last name Twyman and before my before I turned let me get straight well before my birthday in the year 2017 I think I can only go back in my family line to uh us formerly enslaved person name uh what was his name I think it was Scott yeah Scott Twyman born in 18. 48 died in 1939 and that was it I couldn't go back any further and I was really frustrated about that because my family name means a lot to me I was raised on Twyman Road in Chesterfield County everyone who lived on Twyman Road was a was a Twyman there was Uncle Robert Daniel at the end of the street with his white Aunt Juanita and his children Tony Bob and Bruce and Todd and across the street was Uncle Willie Ernest Twyman senior with his two kids and we were all twymans and until I was eight no until I was about six years old to me the entire world was just twiamens no one else existed we're just twimans right and so it saddened me that I could not go further back in time than Scott Twyman who was a slave in 18 uh four in 1848 but that's common with many black Americans who are descendants of slavery slave masters didn't keep very detail birth records but one day on my birthday another cousin helped me to locate a distant white cousin through the Twyman line and that opened up my universe because now I could trace the Twyman line back to 1661 in birchington Kent England and I had a whole universe of white Twyman cousins I had never known about before and as a result I became really enamored with this idea that if more people could trace and discover distant cousins from other races it would help further fly a greater sense of family among Americans particularly old Americans whose Roots date back to the 1600s I mean my um one of my ancestors is Peter Montague who was the first school teacher in colonial Virginia in 1621. think about that you're talking like Mayflower people right like Pilgrim error and I just think that for a black American to have that knowledge and sense of self expands your sense of connection to the American story there are Saints and they're sinners but your story is more complete no black American descendant of American slavery is a hundred percent black you're something else you're either part French Huguenot your part English or Irish or Scandinavian or in my case Filipino I have an ancestor from the Philippines who was born between 1630 and 1790 I think how did he get here he or she probably through the slave trade born in the Philippines traveled to Indonesia traveled to Madagascar a British slave ship captured someone brought them all the way to colonial Virginia and that ancestors genes still lived within me today on five of my chromosomes I just think it's a wonderful way for all Americans particularly black Americans to expand your sense of self and to recognize that we are indeed old Americans but for Peter Montague but for the white twymans literally I would not be here because I would not be a genetic whole person that's my thought okay well that gives me an idea based on what you just said I'm gonna throw out some terms and I want to know what you two think about them how you interpret them how they're valued or not valued what have you based on what you just said let's start with Melting Pot oh how do I evaluate that um you know I just think that's reality over time right I mean look at uh Puerto Ricans and Puerto Rico they kind of see themselves as a people even though they're three distinct strands the Spanish uh Indians and African look at Cubans Cubans think themselves as one people even though they're three different strands the Spanish the Indian and the African I just think there's wisdom in to use your term melting pot because if you look at Cubans and Puerto Ricans they have the ability to transcend those racial strands and to think of themselves as one people so I ask you I put it to you plainly if Puerto Ricans and Cubans can think of themselves as one people why can't white Americans and black Americans who have the same ancestors from the 1600s and the 1700s think of themselves as one people as well the shame a microaggression I think we're supposed to say a salad pot I don't do slogan words chin I don't do slogan words people hello hello no idea I live in a different Universe people I'm a time traveler from the 17 1970s you know that one time when I said Melting Pot and I said it with love I mean I just like that's what I think is so cool about this country is the diversity I really actually love the diversity and when I was I was I was chastised for saying Melting Pot I was corrected that it's supposed to be a salad these days because it means that we all kind of mix together and we lose our identity which I think someone's overthinking it a little bit you know but yeah this is where we've become so hyper sensitive that it just goes back to what we've been saying how do you even have a conversation when every single word can be viewed through this racialized lens and become something that you know so you become silent you don't have to play along you don't have to play along or I learn from you don't engage bullies yeah I mean along the way is you know one option but the thing is at some point we have to find a way to have these conversations if we are going to truly see ourselves as old Americans and this is where I say I'm not sure because we're so hypersensitive right now we're words like Melting Pot you know are considered a microaggression that we are at a place where we can accept this idea of seeing ourselves in each other across the racial line yeah you know the the unforeseen consequence of the microaggression Melting Pot is as you say you just keep people further and further apart you create a false consciousness of division right because the reality is as I mentioned before I'm not just a black American you know I'm all these other things as well Filipino French Huguenot English Irish Scandinavian autumn now I took family tree right and it I did a paternal line because your paternal line can be traced back directly for Generations and I was expecting to find African men right on my through my father's line what did I find I didn't find any matches among black Americans or Africans what did I find hear me listen to me I found among my paternal line at Family Tree matches from a Puerto Rican Family a Zapata I found a match to an Italian guy who lives in Boston and the oldest match was a guy from Serbia so my my yeah think about that so my paternal line somehow went through Puerto Rico Italy Serbia but yet some would say to me well you must only think of yourself only as 100 black American in a story so wrong so false so misleading so constricting so hardening of racial divisions imagine imagine a country tomorrow where every American regardless of race fully embraced cherished and loved all of their genetic antecedents you love the West African and you as well as the Serbian in you you love the cameroonian in you as well as the French Huguenot I just think it changes your sense of place in the universe I think you become a more complete person particularly if you're white American descended American slavery and you have black cousins reach out to them I urge everyone here who has ancestors dating back to the 1600s and the 1700s to do ancestry find your black cousins you know they're there you're going to have black fourth cousins and black fifth cousins reach out to them send them an email talk to them we did that in our book and I was guilty I was guilty of racial profiling it's a long story save it for the book right started writing he said do your do your DNA reach out to and and sure enough I had several cousins that I've reached out to Across the color line and I really feel like if you are to do diversity if that's even something you need to do is that was like that was so eye-opening and to start those conversations with people that were actually family and didn't look like me so I that that is if you're going to do diversity that's the way to do diversity you're here you're here two thumbs up Eric two thumbs up all right do you have more words for us yes I do microaggressions and it's based on the conversation they keep popping up they emerge organically how about color blindness hahaha another slogan word eh uh yeah I don't do color blindness I do human visibility you know it's funny um well I won't say that that's a story for another time but no I I just don't and because I don't um next question well though and we get to this in our book book is and you know Angel Eduardo says just being color blah instead of color blind I really like being color blah but we end up at a point and we debate this in in a book this is one of the things that we kind of go back and forth on is just the idea of retiring from race all together and whether or not that's even possible there's a friend of all of ours here Sheena Mason who uh her thing is the theory of racelessness and so I think by the end of the book wink and I have decided that that's really the way to go is to retire from race altogether and whether or not whether or not Society will let us do that well we have good companies don't companions in that endeavor don't we Jim we have Thomas Chatterton Williams who wrote unlearning race we have the wonderful Adrian Piper who resigned from race in 2012 and lives in Berlin and we have of course Sheena Mason um it's life is interesting um I have in the book we talk about some of my wife's ancestors who made similar decisions long long time ago but in terms of like colorblood because that's you know that's a buzzword color blindness and again it's obviously I see that you have more melanin I mean we're really um mincing you know words here but it doesn't matter and so this is where Angel Eduardo says color blah like I see it you know I mean I'm not blind but it doesn't matter so I mean color blinds doesn't the word itself doesn't offend me I know that it offends people now it's also another new you know microaggression but I just I'm gonna go with color blah okay all right that leads me to One More Concept and then we can possibly move on microaggression I mean is it a legitimate term is it yeah well you know if you're going to be human and live in society you're going to have friction sometimes you're going to be annoyed sometimes but the thing is sometimes you're going to perceive a slighter insult and it's not there I return once again to our my cousin that we'll talk about in the book who I race I racially profile someone if someone could complain about a microaggression it's my distant white cousin uh Nancy Nancy Williamson which by the way we did a podcast with her right wanted to hear that conversation more about how he racially profiled her yes I did I want to confess my sins here you're all my friends I'm going to confess so what happened was as you know I love genetic genealogy right ancestor.com becoming the full me knowing all my strains of my past so I came across a um I think she was a fifth cousin that sounds right and she lived in Virginia and I was intrigued because you know we shared a certain number of chromosomes so I wanted to know well who's our most recent common ancestor because that's what you do if you're a geek and a nerd or an ancestor in 23 and me you want to know who's the most recent common ancestor so I reached out to her I introduced myself I'm not a criminal I'm a nice guy I want to know how we're related I didn't hear anything back you know a month two months three months passed and then I got this furtive um email from her and I might get the timing wrong but it was a passage of time and then it was like this impulsive paragraph uh about how our most recent common ancestor had owned a slave and has sex up as slaves and may He burn in hell okay I get it I understand but I wanted to know you distant cousin as a person more not so much the evil most recent common ancestor so I wrote her back because I went to know more tell me more about that guy and about you nothing a month pass two months pass three months six months nine months we started writing a book by that point and I just assumed she was some you know Prejudice white distant cousin who couldn't stand the idea that her ancestor had been a bad guy so I just wrote her off and we wrote about that in the book how you know people can't get over the fact that they have evil ancestors I totally racially profiled the woman because of her race and her ancestry and our connection well lo and behold after we had written that part of the book who did I hear from but my cousin oh hi wink how you doing I don't check 23andMe very often I totally had this misperception of her right as some kind of traumatized quite cousin and it was all wrong it was false as the two dollar bill I apologize to her my heart went out to her we did a podcast with her and it taught me it taught me you don't have to be white to racially profile someone and it taught me that about the dangers of microaggressions it can cut both ways many ways so hopefully I've made amends to my dear sweet lovely cousin Nancy she's acknowledged in the book and she taught me an important lesson don't jump to conclusions about people because of their race important lesson learned well I think with microaggressions too I mean there's we've we've lost this ability to forgive and to show Grace so I mean now a microaggression is asking where you're from I do that all the time you're very microaggressiony kind of guy I had a great conversation doing that we love that I mean you did you had a great conversation around this I learned she was black from Alaska and I was intrigued and I kept talking with her yeah but so we I think that do microaggressions exist yes but do they exist to the level that we have taken it where you can't even ask where you're from without being offended yeah that's silly although I have to admit I mean I can I can be pristine here like a saint but I've encountered this in my own family I won't mention names but I was having a conversation with someone's girlfriend uh uh and we were in I think Hollywood and there was another guy there who was a roommate of the person the relative and I asked the the the the friend of the relative so where are you from and my relative looked like I had released a foul odor in the room I felt like good Lord I just asked where the guy is from so apparently I was not up at the times I guess but he has a fascinating background the roommate is from Sierra Leone and had wonderful things to share about his background that I would not have learned if I hadn't asked the question but yeah yeah yeah there are microaggressions even in true to my family at times that concern for them which is kind of silly all right I just had an idea I'm gonna make a t-shirt that says hey where are you from there you go see what happens that I'll buy it yeah of course you would hashtag where are you from um before we get into uh the Q a section of uh today's event I want to ask um our two guests if they have any projects going on right now uh that speak to the concepts in this book um it's one thing to write the book but uh are you just done with this topic or are you moving on and doing other things two things I mean we were planning another another we continue to write it each other so expect more from us um and then what I've done with regards to these ideas of liberal values is with with my friend Eric uh we started the institute for Liberal values and these you know kind of a continuation of the themes that are in this book of valuing individuality valuing freedom of speech and actually providing the tools so that people can adopt make liberal values a kind of a a second nature if you will so that's what I'm doing professionally while wink and I are still writing I think we're writing for as wink I think I already mentioned for the Next Generation right right I think the idea is to write a book as a sequel that talks about beyond the year 2050. and what does that look like when you do have a change in um the Embrace of individualism in the future with the coming Generation Um I also write essays on my own here and now I I have two ideas and now I'm currently one I'm thinking about an essay in which I write about the lack of self-awareness among some black Americans because obviously the values and attitudes of victimization and slogan words is not producing a better Society we've seen sometimes they have more dysfunction than we did in the 1970s and 80s so I'm working on an essay about why is there a lack of self-awareness among some who cling to these things that are not working why would you do that and then the second idea I have and this actually went to my heart and Jen knows the story so I'm the family historian no surprise and uh one of the things I love about my wife's family is it's a very historic family I love history her family is an old black American family they date back to I don't know the 1700s Congressman well before him he Congressman Rainey was the first black Congressman he served from 1870 to 1879 but before Congressman Rainey um James Mitchell was the first black American in their family of note in the late 1790s he immigrated a free black guy from England to Charleston South Carolina and he formed in 1790 the very first black self-help organization in North America it was called the brown Fellowship society and they had a number of generations of successful prominent black ancestors in Charleston throughout the 1800s but anyway so a relative is planning to go to Charleston and she asked me what should I see what sites should I look at and I had like like a three-page email of things to do people to see that's me and then she emailed me back and said wink I can't find the family graveyard uh this will be for the brown Fellowship society and I said well no it must be there somewhere because I I saw it a few years ago well apparently the family graveyard which contained Graves of some of the most distinguished black Americans in Charleston South Carolina have been paved over that's horrible so today students walk over these grave sites at the College of Charleston I think it's called so I want to write about that I want to write about there really are examples of disrespect in history and one would be the demise of one of America's most old black families to the point where their historic tombstones have been paved over and what kind of restitution or remedies should be gathered for that for that uh that incident um I mean it's not uplifting but it's truth and needs to be told because this is a cousin who wants to pay homage to her great great great great great great great great great grandfather nine greats eighth grade seven grades and sixth grades and she can't do that because the darn graveyard has been paved over by uh the College of Charleston that's a real story of Injustice of people can unite behind I think okay thank you both very much now we'll start the Q a session um I want to remind people online uh to use hashtag Cato events uh when asking questions we will take questions from Facebook Twitter um and YouTube but first we have people here so if anyone has a question yes microphone my name is Joe Freeman I spent four years in the 60 Civil Rights Movement including a year and a half working for the southern Christian leadership conference in four Deep South States and I finished a book about it one of the most striking things when I was working in the South was the blacks and whites didn't talk to each other trying to get the a small town just to create a biracial committee it was like pulling teeth shift the scene to a few years later I spent five years in grad school at the University of Chicago and three years in law school at NYU Law School where they weren't actively recruiting black students so there was more than a token number the black students wouldn't talk to the white students my mother who taught Junior High School in Los Angeles had black friends I didn't despite the background I just gave you can you explain that why why the black kids weren't talking to the white kids you know I think there are three possible reasons that come to mind um I'll give you a brief caveat and then I'll get my three reasons when I was in Junior High School my junior high school was 3.7 before 74 3.74 black I counted all the black kids in the yearbook and all the black kids set throughout the class the cafeteria during lunch we all sat together there was no racial caucus or racial Coalition we were just friends we had grown up together we got into the same elementary school together and I remember one day it happened a kid came to our school from Richmond Virginia which was the neighboring City it was 82 percent black the public school system he came to our school and he looked at the lunchroom with blacks sitting with her friends who were white and he said to us that like kids you guys can't do that we all need to sit together at the black table well me and my 30 other black kids uh Frick cost me he's kind of looked at each other and scratched our heads huh what we have to sit together because we're all black yes yes we must have a black table more or less so we all got together inside of the black table in the lunchroom and that was the creation of the black table social isolation if you will at a junior high school level but after a few days I grew kind of bored because my friends my running buddies were the politicos and the Nerds and the Geeks and the people who really love to study and read and that wasn't going on too much at the black table uh all peace out to my lovely former classmates at black table but it just wasn't satisfying my soul so I left the black table I departed and moved back to sit with my my friends but my point is three reasons I think why maybe that's happening that she observed that phenomena one I think it's um peer pressure I think that sometimes in Black American communities there's a peer pressure to stay with the group to talk with other black people uh case in point I was at my wife's College reunion last weekend and my wife is a strong black woman and she would be happy to hear me say that but she also has many white friends um so she had a a a dilemma yeah a real dilemma her college roommate Hillary was there and they've been roommates in college for four years love Hillary she's on her wedding maid of honor um and my wife's best friend from San Diego was there Lisa who's a black woman and so there was this constant pressure from Lisa and Hillary for my wife's attention I remember it was kind of comical in some ways oh you've got to come to the um the people of color Gathering or you've got to come to the Afro-American Cultural Center event whereas Hillary just wanted to hang out with her old college roommate from from college so my wife had to make choices ultimately I think she chose to hang out more with Hillary who's white then Lisa who's black but her dear friend but there was definitely she definitely had to pick and choose you know do I go to the Yale Opera chorus or do I go to the Yale people of color a convocation do I go to the lecture series about this that and the other or do I go to the Yale Afro-American Cultural Center so I think that that's part of it as well sometimes the pressure to show solidarity which leads you into uh mixing other black people and then finally I think desegregation created a sense of acting white Stuart Butler's written a book called acting white that when schools were desegregated certain values and attitudes became associated with whiteness right studiousness art study optimism and so once again peer pressure became easier for some blocks to reject those mainstream values as oppressive or or anti-black so those are my three possible reasons I for some weird reason never succumb to those pressures I I retired from the black table at a young age and I've enjoyed the larger world ever since okay um I want to ask one question from um our online viewers before we get back into the IRL viewers this is from Bill Severson have you thought about writing an illustrated children's book that embodies your ideas oh yes I haven't told wink that yet oh okay news to me I was actually thinking about that the other night I was thinking it would it would be kind of fun if we what would you call it what title I don't know I have to think about that anti-anti-racist baby The Adventures of wink and Jen I don't know but but I I yeah I actually I think that that would be something that's playing around my head the obvious title is Jack and Jill but whatever boom any ideas I have zero idea all right let's get that thank you um any questions yes thank you very much a couple of questions if I may is there such a thing as blackness more broadly speaking what is race and in the as I would understand difficulty to define race are we at times conflating race with culture those are great questions I'm going to try to answer two of them what is is there such thing as Blackness or what is it and do we conflate Blackness of culture so blackness I think Blackness is a a sense of self uh rooted in family and the larger National story so I think you can broadly Define Blackness and it doesn't mean everyone is going to manifest quote unquote that part of the American story in the same way as I always say if there are over 40 million black Americans over 40 million life stories um do we conflate culture with Blackness um that's a great question and the thing is Blackness and culture do not okay my my love I have a lovely relative who would say race equals culture Blackness equals culture I don't think that's true I think that's false you can be black and be a gangster you can be black and be the daughter of the president of Howard University you can be black and be Oprah Winfrey those are totally different cultures so culture doesn't Define or limit Blackness it's easy to caricature right it's easy to create stereotypes but I think a healthy understanding would recognize that culture can have millions of manifestations right so I think that um it would be foolhardy to assume there's an algebraic equation race equals culture culture equals race Blackness equals culture Black Culture equals Blackness people who adopt that way of understanding Blackness and race I think they are myopic I think they have a limited sense of human potential Blackness can be many many the lady I met who I asked where she's from she said Alaska she's have a different culture from me or from my kids who grew up in San Diego that's why I think culture is such a a loose flexible thing that it doesn't really help us to better understand race or Blackness whatever that might be I'm going to go towards something that I've learned from Eric is he calls things discourse communities and we have they overlap these various discourse communities and I I really think that that is a better way to categorize than culture in some ways I don't I don't think that there is a black or white culture I think that's to say so is to homogenize race you have the culture of the rural country folk and say Southern Georgia a different culture thank you a different culture of those who were part of the black bourgeoisie in Washington DC so I think it it there's always been differences I think I'll take another question from online this is from Victoria what I create an open conversation why can't these Concepts be more broadly disseminated particularly in our schools and universities I don't know Eric telling you tell me I I it is it's not ironic uh that something like say the 1619 project which has one way of understanding the world gets automatic dissemination through thousands of schools but kind of the reality of real life we're expressing is kind of ignored and dismissed and not embraced so readily I don't know what the answer to that is other than we need to have the generations turn over a cycle yeah one of the things that wink and I did in the process of writing the book and if you're interested you can find it online at truthinbetween.com we wrote two curricula one was on the we called it the alternative 1619 project so what we did with that is to say read the 1619 project read this as well so we literally went through every single essay in the 1619 project read this if you're going to read this read this as well and really engage in critical thinking and great engage in discussion and I don't think what we're seeing now in a lot of educational environments is we're teaching kids what to think and not how to think I don't I I see that time and time again so I don't know why we're not having this maybe I mean maybe we can put our book in some university school but um but yeah it's definitely happening it would be nice if if we got back to this idea of teaching kids how to think instead of what um a question from the audience first I want to say that um Jen and wink I love that you're having this conversation thank you I I want to see so many more of these conversations and and I want to hear and and learn more about the depth of of that conversation that you've you've had um a question that I was reflecting on as as I was listening to you was Jen and wink are extremely conversant extremely communicative extremely educated worldly sophisticated people thank you from what I can see right yeah you never know I can see and and I guess the question that I have is how can have you given any thought to how we can foster this kind of human to human conversation among people who may not have had your world experience may not have had your level of Education may not have the words and the language that that you have to reach out and recognize one another's humanness uh what I think is sad is that we are going back in some ways to segregating so these Affinity groups and we're separating each other you know by our immutable characteristics and so I would say that it starts young and I think though it starts with putting these kids in these environments together having them work on projects together that kind of I think type of education would be a conversation starter it would from an early age children would be able to Converse in this way because they were they've been doing it all around or since they were young and instead what we see is a lot of times people segregating out based on Affinity groups in the classroom both you know at elementary level all the way up through University level so I don't think you have to necessarily have a you know a lot of Education to be curious and to want to have a conversation I just think that we are actually we're taking curiosity out of the classroom yeah I thought the question was going to be what is your favorite color just just easily inside joke but um I I I think um it has to start young and I think it has a center around common experiences like sports teams or the Glee club or the Key Club or student council I know that in my own experience it was working together with other kids that really fostered the um the skill for conversation if you always isolate yourself then you're going to be stunned by people who are different from you and that's not the way to a healthy Society you have to view life regardless of your race as your oyster you have to it's so funny I sometimes wonder was I uniquely blessed to have lived on Twyman Road where everyone was blocked from 1961 to 1969 did that in a sense serve as a racial incubator so that I had a very strong sense of self so that when I started desegregated schools you're not going to tell me I'm less than because all the important people in my life are black maybe I wonder if sometimes if that's something to that maybe but I think what's more important is as I went through Junior High and High School every day I was engaging other people as humans as individuals we were different in race but so what of it what we cared about was can you help me win the football game or the basketball game are you going to do your part in the band club are you going to win that election for student council Governor or student council president I I think common experiences are the way to go and you don't have to be so worldly to do that as long as people are relative equals I think that that can be an important part of the process I think another question from the audience you have somebody here thank you very much and I appreciate you taking the time you know Mr Twyman you mentioned that you're optimistic in the long term if I'm crazy that's true beyond the year 2050. that's a long time from now is it it is uh and I'm curious how in your view we get there I imagine conversations like this is part of that answer but you know we as you know you know we live in an age of Dei where these attitudes are we all agree that they're harmful but they are enforced and it's intimidation and coercion that is fueling that uh the consequences are real every week we see a new story uh Chick-fil-A is not immune from that the head of Uber's Dei last week I'm sure you saw that story was devoured in this in the immediate term what is it in your view as it relates to the path forward to get past this well I mean there are several possibilities uh number one um if someone else subscribes to Dogma um that doesn't mean you need to breathe full life into Dogma as well you can simply decline to Voice or use certain words right um if you really feel the point or or you can press people for what you mean by diversity was it does that include Viewpoint diversity what do you mean by inclusion does that include Cato values and attitudes uh what do you mean by Equity do you mean redistribution of wealth or do you mean something else so I think maybe pressing for definitions is a way to Corral excesses of Dogma I think declining to use certain words as a way to show your um your resistance I also think speaking up maybe in family or with friends I can grow in that regard I don't always speak my mind with my family but maybe I will now writing essays writing articles I think there are many small ways in which individuals can show their descent think of it this way you say Beyond 2050 is a long time you bet it certainly is I won't be here or around but think about this I think you and I and everyone else here are in some way dissidents I think we're all dissenters from the from the Dogma from the Orthodoxy we are like Justice John Marshall Harlan in 1896 remember when he wrote The Lone dissent to blessee versus Ferguson so he knew there was a better way to view race and segregation but he was outnumbered eight to one but the beauty of it is because he saw with his vision A Better Way those words would influence a new generation of civil rights lawyers at Howard Law School in the 1920s 30 years after 1896 and then those guys led by Dean Charles Hamilton Houston and Thurgood Marshall and Oliver Hill and spot squid Robinson and a whole bunch of other blocks of rice lawyers would help to usher in the coming of a better time with the brown decision in 1954. so if it's in a Solace try to think if if yourself not as someone who's going to bring Victory tomorrow but rather as someone who has the vision to see the better way ahead that you're like justice Harlan the loan to Center to plus C in 1896 and you're writing for the future for the 1920s and the 1950s that's how we have to think about it people we we took two generations to get here and it may take a generation or two to get out of here that's my thought I'm I'm actually optimistic I think you there was a New York Times article not a couple weeks back about people are getting tired of the Dei industry and I can speak you know for Eric's a lot a lot of his work is on empowerment and we are creating you know kind of alternative if you will to Dei through ideas of empowered empowered Humanity Theory you've got people like Kenneth Foster and irshad Manji who are doing it doing Dei differently and it's I will tell you the interest and the demand that I'm seeing for those types of programs that are different than you still see the Dei stuff going on like you said yes the Chick-fil-A incident was uh was something that I read about the other day too but there is enough of a demand that I'm optimistic that there is I don't wouldn't call it a sea change but I think we're getting to a Tipping Point that I see earlier than 2050s range the long run plan take time I think I think they're generational right so I think that there were people who fought against segregation in the 1900s in the 1910s and 1920s but it took time and it took a Groundswell of momentum over Generations that that's just my vision I could be wrong and if I am wrong I won't be here to tell in 2050. okay one more question is from online this is from anonymous uh do you think this discussion or just having discussions with different people addresses the historical oppression as systemic racism enforced by the government or is it that we just hope to gloss over the past and start new from today the reality is that whiteness has been centered as the norm I think that's a great question and I'll tell you why because I can immediately see my points of objection to that so I love questions like that so number number one um only in your mind is something a norm I mean you have to accept you yourself have to think in those terms when I was young Blackness was the norm when I got older perhaps whiteness was the norm but now that I'm in my 60s I just view Humanity as the norm so I've kind of grown into a higher Consciousness about things structural racism and oh my my eyes glaze over look I knew state-sponsor segregation I went to a segregated School in first and second grade we don't have state-sponsored racism today we don't have state sponsored segregation today so it's a sad conflation of these terms which are misapplied in the here and now so because the question has premises that I disagree with I Just Disagree respectfully how about you I I think I'm going to yeah but that links okay all right um we have time for one more question if anybody in the audience would like to ask that question make it a good one no pressure no pressure that's right that's right no oh come on someone yeah my question okay good thank you thank you thank you um first of all this is a wonderful talk and thank you for being here for it my question is just related to institutions I think a lot about institutions and how this moves through it's sort of building on the same thing that we're all seeing um and I've always looked at the military as an example of there's two institutions that I think know the country better than any Walmart and the US Military and when I've had discussions with people particularly from the Marine Corps they've they've come up to me and they've said in the Marines we don't have Black Marines we don't have white Marines we have dark green Marines and we have light green Marines and that's sort of that the Melting Pot concept I thought was beautifully articulated yeah my question is what institutions what major American institutions are getting it right or close to right right now because I see many that many examples where it's not not going in the right direction are there any examples that come to mind where you see it moving in the right direction thank you Institute um I could go on but I think there are institutions outside of Main Street that clearly see a better pathway forward and I think it's just going to take I think it's going to take time for those better Visions to work their way into other mainstream institutions but that's a good question because um like it or not many of the people who cling to slogan words and and jargon uh might be in purchase of power as we speak again I'm optimistic because I do see the pushback I see the pushback in the organization that you know I co-founded Institute of liberal values I see the pushback in free black thought that Eric co-founded and so in in the Cato Institute so I see that there is a need and a desire I think to connect is there an institution that's doing it and doing it well yeah not necessarily but the fact that people are asking questions and the fact that people are seeking out Alternatives I think is is a positive development and I do touching on what you said though as well I mean I'm sure that there's incidents of of racism in the military as well but I do I mean I I like the way a lot of I grew up in a military family and so for me I feel like that also shaped part of who I am because it was a different culture if you will to use the word culture it was a different culture that I feel that allowed a flattening if you will of the the racial divide that is an excellent way to end this event thank you very much for coming out uh please give my guest our guests a round of applause I want to thank the people online for also attending and asking your questions thank you very much there will be a reception on the first four uh Winter Garden for people who like receptions and uh that is that again thank you very much thank you

Channel: The Cato Institute

Views: 954

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Id: NQUwB8sXqb4

Length: 91min 37sec (5497 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 03 2023