Notes from a Telecast of the 2013 Harlem Book Fair on C-Span

Below are notes I took during yesterday's live broadcast of the 2013 Harlem Book Fair on C-Span. Harriet Washington was interviewed after her panel discussion and that is when I started watching.
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Harriet Washington
--Deadly Monopolies
--Medical Apartheid (2007 Natl. Book Critics Circle Awd.)
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E.R. Shipp
Morgan State U.
jrnlist-in-res.

Carl Hart
High Price
"Drugs are tools."
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Tina Campt
Other Germans

>Peniel Joseph
--Dark Days, Bright Nights: From Black Power to Barack Obama
Tufts U. hist. prof.
--The Bk Power Movement
--Neighb. Rebels

>Kendall Thomas
--Co-ed. Critical Race Theory: The Key Writings That Formed the Movement
Ctr. for the Study of Law and Culture and law prof. at Columbia U. Law Sch.

"racial moralism"
"the"
context--"the word can mean everything and nothing"

recognition vs. indifference
progress vs. retrenchment---> Obama asking for conv. on race but refuses to lead it.

>Farah Griffin
--Harlem Nocturne: Women Artists and Progressive Politics [in] World War II
prof. Eng. and Comp. Lit. + AA Stud. Columbia U.
problem she has w/ personal anecdotes "becomes the end all and be all"
-->gets lost: Pres. Govt. no role for them to do anything about it.
Personal anecdote not good when it trumps what has to be done
-->absurdity of judge's allowing use of "profiling" but not "racial profiling"

Peniel Joseph
The new racism:
--outcomes
--disparities
--only 1.6% [of African Americans] make more than $200K.
--28% below fed. poverty level.
Substantive policy change
beyond

no urban agenda
no confrontation of new Jim Crow

Trayvon Martin: posthumous portrayal as a criminal

841,000 black males in jail

-->The further we deny racism exists the worse it gets

-->Harlem Bklyn gentrified

"We need to confront it and force [the President's] hand."

Kendall Thomas: "privatization of race"
the idea of racism and its "private resolution"
The heart of racism is "economic injustice"

Obama "is himself a commodity" One of the deepest challenges we face is the bankruptcy of a political system controlled by financial elites.

KT calls Reagan the "Architect of liberalism." [I.e., neoliberalism]
KT, cont. "Identity is being mobilized" to discredit claims for justice.

Following KT's comments on neoliberalism:
TINA CAMPT: "The offloading" of the conversation of race into pvt. sphere
-->What wd effective ldrship be?
Peniel: "That's happening already" at grassroots
The Age of Trayvon

People who've abdicated their role of activists for access.
>Those who give Obama a pass.
Ray Kelly: "The nation's biggest racial profiler."
MLK traded access to LBJ's Wh. House for moral clarity

Poor People's March

"can't do the colorblind racism game"

KT discusses "From Protest to Poliics" [by Bayard] Rustin

Griffin: the old-fashioned idea of charismatic leadership
Electoral politics is only one avenue
--Ella Baker
--Ida B. Wells
--Fannie Lou Hamer
grassroots leaders

communities, groups
a model of ldrship

NYT art. about frmr gang ldrs org against violence

FARAH: Stand Yr Grd Laws not explicitly racist but applied not in a race-neutral way.

What do you expect from Obama after his presidency?

Do something about prison, health...

tainted products [being sent to Africa]

K.T. The law's limits are sometimes greater than what it can accomplish
-->On Obama's statement about his children's generation thinking about race.
Hopeful but it's the experience of a very narrow section of African Americans.
Segregation still alive

Racial publics: committed to anti-racist agendas.

K.T. "I am not a person of faith."---No single role orgs can play nor single method.

Peniel: A research org @ Tufts: race and democracy connecting to public policy
"We want public policy transformation[s]"

Farah: Measure of success can't just be by Sasha and Malia but by gulf between Juror B-37 and Rachel Jeantel

Farah: Twitter irritating but allows back-and-forth. "Angry at the access racists have" to her... Messy, but democ. debate

Farah: There's a focus on natl. elections but what about local elections?
"We need to be just as vigilant about those elections as well."

Audience member: African American pols "ghettofied" to narrow districts. Tea Party better organized.

K.T. Talking about "a long revolution." Politics is often about how we imagine ourselves in relation to others. Nation: "imagined community"
"[P]olitics of the imagination" no subst.for hard work but motivates people to think critically and even refuse neolib.

Audience member: What about Alton Maddox?

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It was then that the panel discussion had to end.