Good morning. So I’m usually not up at this hour. But I got up this morning for all of you. And so I’m quite happy and excited to be here, to really share with you a little bit about my life. I’m really excited to be here. I’m really excited to be here. To really share with you a little bit about my book, Stamped from the Beginning, because I think it’s a book that really gives us the ability to understand some recent events in this nation. For instance, how is it that a candidate endorsed by the Kukucks Klan could follow into the White House the first black president or the first biracial president? How could that happen? And I think through understanding the history of racism in this nation, I think it actually is quite fitting that that happened. And what I mean by fitting is that’s indicative of what has long happened in this country. And what I mean by that is historically, when people have broken through barriers, the people who put those barriers in place did not just go home and go to sleep. They erected new barriers, new and more sophisticated barriers to exclude people. When I call this in my book in Stamped from the Beginning, I call it that we’ve experienced as a nation racial progress, but the simultaneous progression of racism. That we’ve actually, this nation has had two historical forces as it relates to race. And I know that’s not necessarily what we’ve been taught. President Barack Obama in his final speech to the nation talked about a singular historical force, a singular historical force of racial progress, a force in which sometimes we take steps back, but typically we’re taking steps forward. Anybody heard that analogy for it? We heard it a lot during Black History Month. And what I’m here to tell you is that that’s actually not historically accurate. And also that it’s better to understand our racial history as this dual force, these two historical forces in which racist forces have continuously made progress in this country, just as anti-racist forces have continuously made progress in this country. I don’t need to tell you the ways in which anti-racist forces have made progress. I mean, the fact that I’m even here is indicative of that. But as it relates to racist forces, post-racial theory is quite possibly the most sophisticated racist ideology ever created. It is more sophisticated than any other set of racist ideas ever created. And if anything, it is to a certain extent the climax or pinnacle of racist ideas. Because to a certain extent every racist idea in history has been like a post-racial idea. Every racist idea in history has been like a post-racial idea. What do I mean? Well, from the beginning of this country, there has been racial inequality. That shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone, right? And there’s only two explanations for racial inequality, for racial disparities, for racial inequities. There’s only two explanations. There’s only two explanations as to why over the last 50 years the black unemployment rate has been twice as high as the white unemployment rate. There’s only two explanations as to why 40% of the incarcerated population in this country is black, even though black people make up about 13% of the population. There’s only two explanations as to why white people in this country have roughly 15 times more wealth than black people. There’s only two explanations for many of these racial inequities that persist in every sector of our society. Either there’s something wrong or inferior about black people, racist idea, or racial discrimination. Those are the only two explanations for any racial inequities. Either there’s something wrong or inferior about black people, either it’s the case that black workers are lazy, black workers are unqualified, black workers enjoy living on welfare, there’s something wrong and inferior about black workers, and that’s why they’re twice as likely to be unemployed, or job discrimination. Either it’s the case that black people are more criminal minded, they commit disproportionately more crimes, they are immoral, they are violent, more violent than others, and that is the reason why they’re disproportionately in America’s prisons or racial discrimination in the criminal justice system. These are the only two explanations, and throughout American history we’ve had racial inequities throughout our society. And you’ve had people who have been trying to get Americans to think racial discrimination doesn’t exist, that the actual cause of those inequities is black inferiority, which essentially in their mind and in their society they were creating a post-racial society, a society where racial discrimination doesn’t exist. Even though we have persisting and existing racial disparities. And then that causes people, if racial discrimination doesn’t exist, then it causes people to assume that the causes of those disparities must be what? Black inferiority. I studied nearly 600 years of racist ideas from their origins in 15th century Portugal to the, literally to the present. And I found that the principal function historically of racist ideas has been to suppress resistance to racial discrimination. Because again, if you have these inequities and you have been led to believe that there’s something wrong or inferior about black people, then that’s going to normalize those inequities, and you’re certainly not going to be able to see, let alone fight or challenge the discrimination that’s actually causing those inequities. And so then those who benefit from those policies that actually cause those inequities will actually continue to be able to benefit from them. Right? Whether that benefit is making money because people are enslaved, whether that benefit is getting in office because you’re able to manipulate people to vote for you because you convinced them that there’s an affirmative action problem, a crime problem, a welfare problem, whatever benefit. And I actually entered into writing stamp from the beginning thinking that the real issue, the underlying issue, the root of this problem is ignorance. People just don’t know. People don’t know about black people, and that’s why they’ve been creating these racist ideas. That’s what I assumed. That’s what I thought. But I decided in writing stamp from the beginning that I didn’t just want to write a history of racist ideas. I wanted to write a history that showed the ways in which racist ideas impacted the course of American history and the way American history impacted the course of racist ideas. So this history of racist ideas is largely intertwined with the history of America. And all the major events that have happened in this nation’s history are chronicled in this book. And so in seeking to do so, I realized that I couldn’t just give the story of what racist ideas had been created. I had to give the story of why these racist ideas were created and recreated over the course of American history and who created them. So who created them and why did they create them? And again, I assumed that it was because they were just ignorant. Like that was my assumption. But when I ended up first and foremost distinguishing between the producers of racist ideas and the consumers, and I decided, you know what, I wanted to study the producers. I didn’t want to study the people who are watching the television show. I wanted to study the people who are on the television show. I didn’t want to study the people reading the books. I wanted to study the people writing the books, making the films, making the speeches, providing these scientific ideas. And I also wanted to sort of show their development of their ideas within a specific historical context. So why is it that John C. Calhoun, anybody heard of him? John C. Calhoun, U.S. Senator from South Carolina who was in the news recently because Yale finally decided to take this person’s name off of a hall. Why is it that he, in 1837, stood up before his colleagues in the U.S. Senate and stated, slavery is a positive good? Why did he do that? Why is it that John McWhorter, weeks after Obama’s election, wrote in Forbes that we are now living in a post-racial society? I wanted to sort of answer these questions. Why? What was going on? And in doing so, I had to basically investigate the motives. And I had to investigate whether, in fact, it was the case that these people were ignorant. And I found over and over again that these influential producers of racist ideas were actually some of the most brilliant American minds in history. And many of them loved black people. The second major character in my book is Thomas Jefferson. Y’all know how much he loved black people. And so I realized that these producers of racist ideas were not producing these ideas out of ignorance or even hate. But typically, they were producing these ideas to justify existing racist policies, to normalize racial inequities, to, and the reason why they wanted to justify those policies and their effects, inequities, is because they benefited them. Right? And so what happened? They produced these racist ideas, and then we consumed them, and then we were led to believe there was something wrong with black people as opposed to those policies. And so then we spent our time trying to either incarcerate or civilize black people, because again, we thought something was wrong with them as opposed to these policies. And so I showed this history in which really the roots of racism in this country historically has been political, economic, and cultural self-interest. And people have produced and created racist policies out of self-interest, and then those policies have got racist ideas. Racist policies led to racist ideas. And then they circulated those racist ideas, oftentimes through the media, and then Americans consumed those racist ideas and became ignorant and hateful. And so that’s sort of this history that I’ve shown. And so for this recently, a particular party recognized that the demographics of this country and even the ideology of this country was turning against them. They recognized that they no longer had the votes. So what did they do? Did they say, oh, you know, well, this is a democracy? They stated, OK, we’re going to figure out a way to suppress the votes. We’re going to figure out a new way to suppress the votes, specifically of people who we think won’t vote for us. So they created voter ID laws across this country because they benefited them politically. And then they created a justification, voter fraud, which of course has a very long history of this idea of the corrupt black voter. And then people began believing them and getting their guns, and they went to black polling sites thinking they were doing something. That is indicative of this long history of racist ideas that I show in stamped from the beginning. Thank you. .