An interview with the president of the NAACP.

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Ben Jealous: Myrnname is Ben Jealous, I'm President of NAACP. 

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Question: What firstrnmotivated you to pursue a career in social justice?

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Ben Jealous:rnYeah, my parents were both active in the 1950's and '60's, and my grandparentsrnas well.  And I was raised in arnfamily where we were taught that the best thing you could do with your life wasrnto really kind of push the cause of progress and justice and human rights inrnthis country forward.

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Question: What forms ofrndiscrimination have you experienced personally?

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Ben Jealous:rnYeah, growing up black in the States, even in the 1970's, meant that you werernsubjected.  And probably the thingsrnprobably the most glaring to me was I think both the way I was treated as arnchild in stores, like the local five and dime.  I grew up in a town that didn't have many black folks, andrnit was pretty clear that the black kids were treated different than the blackrnkids; more suspect, more shop owners were afraid we might steal something.  And also the white people responded tornmy parents’ marriage.  My dad'srnwhite and my mom's black, and it wasn't very socially acceptable.  When I was born it would have beenrnlegal for just over five years. rnSo, it was a different time.

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Question: In what waysrndoes the perspective of your generation influence your NAACP leadership?

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Ben Jealous: Yournknow, my generation, they used to refer to us as the "children of therndream."   The kids whornwere born just as and just after the big civil rights victories were born.  And we were told when we were comingrnup, look, all the big victories have been won.  Your job, young man, or young woman, is to just go out andrnplay hard by the rules, because the rules are now fair.  And that worked well for many ofrnus.  I mean, I went to greatrnuniversities and won great scholarships and all that stuff.  But for many of us, it didn't.  I mean, we came of age as a generationrnjust in time to find ourselves the most murdered generation in this country andrnthe most incarcerated generation on the planet.  And that's the shadow, if you will, of the shining victoriesrnof the 1960's.

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Question: How does thernolder generation feel about your generation’s handling of civil rights issues?

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Ben Jealous: Thernbattle at any given moment is multi-generational.  My parents and my grandparents were both involved in thernbattles of the '50's and '60's. rnAnd so who’s ever on the battlefield agrees there's a reason to be onrnthe battlefield and there's a reason to be fighting.  So the leaders of the civil rights movement who are stillrnactive, people like Joseph Lowery, like Julian Bond, like Merilee Evers, likernDr. Hazel Dukes here in New York, couldn't agree more.  I mean, we have great – because theyrnhave lived their whole lives with their eyes wide open.  And they understand just how far we'verncome; perhaps better than my generation does because they lived throughrnit.  But they also understand howrnfar we haven't come.  Again,rnbecause to the extent that there are similarities, to the extent that there arernwhole groups of people in the black community, or in the country as a whole whornhave gone backward in the last 40 years. rnWell, they've watched them go backward too.

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Question: In the longrnrun, is the NAACP’s mission to make itself obsolete?

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Ben Jealous: Irnmean, we're in business to go out of business, but you know so long as we seernstats that say it's easier for a white man with a criminal record to find a jobrnthan it is for a black man without one. rnWe're in business for a long time, both frankly for that black man andrnfor the white guy who's been treated almost as bad as the black guy. 

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Question: How can thernNAACP continue to help African-Americans in the 21st century? 

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Ben Jealous:rnYeah, in the 21st century, a lot of the barriers that exist, they're growingrnback up.  In the 21st century, likernthe centuries before, there is a problem so big in the society that you can seernit from space.  I mean, you thinkrnabout the 18th century, the 19th century, the 20th century, the beginning ofrnany of those.  You would have seenrnin the 18th century, for instance, the trans-Atlantic slave trade.  You would have seen from space in thern19th century the plantations across the South with bodies bent over closelyrntogether working the fields.  Yournwould have seen in the 20th century racial segregation that, literally, west ofrnCharles Street in Baltimore were black folks and east of Charles Street werernwhite folks.  And you would see inrnthis century, the prisons that pockmark our country, our people in our countryrnare 5% of the world's people and 25% of the world's prisoners.  Now what that means, and that's peoplernof all colors.  Now if you tookrnblack and brown people, all of them, out of prison tomorrow, this country wouldrnstill have way more than its share of prisoners.  They would just be by a factor of two, and not a factor ofrnfive. 

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So, in our lifetime, in my lifetime, this country hasrngreatly increased the rate at which it incarcerates white people, and yet blackrnpeople are incarcerated five times more than that.  And that really defines at the beginning of this centuryrnwhat we have to fix.  Now, in orderrnto bring down the incarceration rate, well, you've got to start with thernbeginning of life.  You've got tornmake sure that parents and schools are prepared to prepare young people forrnsuccess.  You've got to deal withrnthe next stage of life.  You've gotrnto make sure that people in this opportunity have the opportunity to work at arngood job, they have access to good healthcare, and that they have thernopportunity to build wealth and to actually advance their family's status inrnthe country over time. 

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And then finally, we need to make sure that our justicernsystem works for the interests of everybody.  That it makes every community safer, that it usesrnincarceration as a last resort for people who are a danger to themselves or tornsociety and that we use, quite frankly, the means that allow us to hold as muchrnof our resources for other priorities as possible.  I mean, right now for instance, New York state last year, wernpushed them to change the Rockefeller drug laws.  And they did. rnAnd in doing so, not only were poor drug addicts now given access tornwhat rich drug addicts always had access to, which is rehab, but they saved arnlot of money in the process.  Andrnthat is sort of the thing about the incarceration struggle in our society isrnthat really at the end of the day is both the proof of the failure of so manyrnother strategies, education strategies, employment strategies.  It also is the acid that eats away atrneach those strategies.  

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In the state of California right now, you see a system wherernthe tuition rate is going up 30% in the fall. There's no way to explain thatrnwithout acknowledging that California is one of five states that spends more onrnincarceration than public education. rnAnd if you look at the pattern over the last 25 years, right away, thernpriorities have flipped.  Staternspending in California on public higher education has gone from about 12% ofrnthe budget to around 4% or 5%, and at the same time, state spending inrnCalifornia on incarceration has gone from 4% or 5% of the budget to around 11%rnor 12%.  And you see that acrossrnthe country that as what we spend on incarceration goes up, the money we havernfor schools and colleges goes down and so, part of the struggle for ourrngeneration is allowing people to see the connection and to understand that atrnthe end of the day, this isn't a movement for education over here and arnmovement for worker's rights over there, and a movement for justicernreform.  It's all one broadrndomestic human rights movement. 

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I think that's the biggest functional struggle, is to getrnpeople to see the connections and then to connect themselves to one another.

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Question: Is thernincarceration crisis the civil rights struggle of the 21st century?

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Ben Jealous: Irnwould say things a bit differently. rnQuality schools, making sure that each child has access to a qualityrneducation is the civil rights struggle of this century, but the catch is werndon't get there unless we solve the incarceration crisis in this society.  We literally won't have the funds to dornit and will continue to break up far too many families to be able to believernthat all children here are really going to start off with the foundation thatrnthey need.  And that's – I think wernare accustomed in our society to thinking that you can go after one issue allrnby itself.  And when it comes tornschools and incarceration, you just got to start off recognizing that in thernpoorest communities, and in the state budget, they are absolutelyrnconnected. 

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If we want to get the incarceration issue under control inrnthis country, we have got to make sure that we use incarceration as a lastrnresort, not a first resort.  So,rnthat means more shifts like we saw in New York State last year saying, okay,rnwhat do we really want to get out of having the court coming into contact withrna low-level drug addict?  We wantrnthem to get off drugs.  So, let'srnsend them towards rehab, not towards prison.  Because if we send them towards prison, they'll come back inrna few years, they're going to be angry, they're going to be more desperate, andrnthey're going to be more dangerous. rnAnd that's not what society wants to get out of this equation.  Right?  And it'll cost us twice as much money. 

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Similarly, we need to just really revamp -- and one of thernthings we are pushing in Congress right now is a bill by Senator Jim Webb thatrnwould force the country to take a look at its justice system from soup tornnuts.  For the last 40 years, we'vernbeen pushing this notion in this country that the best thing we can do when itrncomes to crime is to be tough.  Andrnin a country as intelligent as ours, we should always know that when somebodyrnsays the best thing you can do is be tough, the best thing you can do is usernyour brute force, then we're selling ourselves short. 

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The best thing we can do is be smart.  And when you're smart on crime, whatrnyou see is, you shift from how do we punish these people as much as possible tornhow do we bring down crime as quickly as possible in a way that'srnsustainable.  And what that drivesrnyou towards are alternatives to incarceration, what it drives you towards isrnusing probation and parole in ways that are much more intelligent where you'rerngoing to ratchet it up for people who are more violent and you ratchet it downrnfor people who are less violent. rnAnd what it drives you towards is really focusing on re-entry, and howrndo you get somebody from prison into the workplace into their community in arnway that sets them up for staying out of prison.  

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In the California prisons right now, 67% of the people arernthere have recidivated, have been there before.  And we spent all this money on keeping them in prison andrnthen very, very little on actually setting them up for success.

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Question: How can thernissue of prison rape be brought to serious attention?

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Ben Jealous:  Yeah, again, when you're smart onrncrime, you start off by recognizing that both the victim, first of all, thernvictim, but also the person who did the crime are both human.  Have both been broken in various waysrnand could either be healed more by what happens through the courts, whatrnhappens through the justice system, or broken more.  And the goal should be a win-win.  The goal should be that, at the end of it, anybody who'srncoming back to society is healed more, as well as the victim getting a greaterrnsense of closure and sense of justice. 

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When you look at an issue like prison rape, what you see arernpeople being violently broken while inside of the care of our society.  The prisons are an extension of ourrnsociety.  People come in there andrnliterally in jails and prisons across this country, people young, old, male,rnfemale, who have been convicted, who are awaiting arraignment, are raped on arndaily basis by inmates and by guards and by contractors at these facilities.  Probably the most heartbreakingrnsituation I saw was in the California Youth Authority, the prison forrngirls.  You know, for females whornare not yet 18 in California being systematically raped.  I mean, just again, and again. Thernallegations when I was with Amnesty were unceasing from the girls’ facility inrnCalifornia.  And you will see it inrnjails -- the way that we got consensus on the bill was that a number of men whornhad gone to prison as a result of the savings and loan scandals.  These are white collar criminals, whornwere raped; spoke up about what their experiences had been.  And helped us convince -- and it wasrnsad.  You would hope in arnrepresentative democracy that things like race and class don't keep arnrepresentative from identifying with an issue, but I see privileged white menrncome in to talk, quite frankly, to other privileged white men who, in thisrncase, former bankers coming in to talk to people in Congress was transformativernfor those Congressmen.  And it gotrnthem to understand that this wasn't a joke.  In fact, it was their first -- it was probably their worstrnfear in that their constituents, all of them, **** there for the country tornactually do something about it. 

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Question: On whatrnrace-related issues have we made the most progress since the 1960s?

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Ben Jealous:rnWell, Brown v. Board of Education has worked everywhere except for thernschool.  Except for the venue inrnwhich it was intended to work.  Yournhop on a train and it's a desegregated train, you get on a plane it's arndesegregated plane, you hop into a taxi and anybody can hop into the taxi, andrnthe same thing with the bus, and the same thing with most work places.  Although there are many, I mean, yournknow, 15% of advertising firms on Madison Avenue have no black -- major bigrnones, hundreds of people, have no black person working for them.  Right?  In a city that's like 20-someting percent black.  So, we have made progress in everyrnsector.  Where we've made -- andrnthe military is where probably were things have succeeded most and where thernsuccess seems most resistant to being rolled back on.  

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Schools, unfortunately is where we've seen the biggestrnregression, and that, unfortunately -- when the NAACP started its first centuryrn-- was job one and now as we start our second is job one too.

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Question: What are thernmajor challenges in 21st century minority education?

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Ben Jealous: Yournknow, it's a funny thing, in this country we all believe that we have a rightrnto go to school.  We have a rightrnto a good education.  And we don't.  The U.S. Constitution contains no rightrnfor a child to go to school, let alone for a child to go to a good school.  And yet, we know as a people that ifrnthey don't go to a good school, they're less likely to be able to realize allrnthat this country has to offer. 

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The focus for the 21st century has to be ensuring that everyrnchild born in this country, can grow up and go to a good school, get a goodrneducation, and be set up for success. rnAcross this country that's just not the reality.  We've seen schools rapidly desegregate overrnthe last 20 years.  That's why whatrnSecretary Duncan is doing right now to rebuild the civil rights enforcementrnpowers of the Department of Education are so important. 

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Now, a Latino child in California is more likely to go to arnmore deeply segregated school than a black child in Mississippi.  And so problems that we think of in ourrnmind as being in one part of the country or another tend to be all across therncountry.  That child in Los Angelesrnmay go to a classroom with 50 kids in it. rnAnd they live in a state that spends an average of $5,800 per child torngo to school, and $248,000 to incarcerate a child for one year in the staternprison.  You can see where thernconnection is.  That literally itrncosts the same as an entire classroom of children to send one kid to prison inrnCalifornia.  

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The focus has to be on recognizing the instruction gap inrnthis country.  People talk about anrnachievement gap, and they talk about, for instance, only 31% of black malesrngraduate from high school in Baltimore. rnOnly 38% of white males graduate from high school in Baltimore.  So, that really is a Baltimore problem,rnright?  More than it's a blackrnproblem or a white problem.  It's arnblack and white problem -- it's a Baltimore problem. 

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But 40% of that achievement gap would be closed if qualityrnteachers across society were distributed on an even basis.  We're still fighting, in other words,rnfor the same things we were fighting for a long time ago.  We're fighting for good teachers, wernfighting for kids to have new books, we fighting for kids to be in decentrnclassrooms, we're fighting for kids to be treated fairly.  Right now, the way we use schoolrndiscipline in this society is out of control.  Here in New York City, we had a situation a few weeks agornwhere a young Latino girl who wrote on her desk with an erasable marker wasrntaken out of the classroom in handcuffs and taken downtown and booked.  That's just not what any parent wouldrnwant to see any child subjected to. 

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We also, besides resources and teachers in dealing withrnschool discipline, we really have to, as a country, recognize that school isrnwhere people get their identity not just as a scholar, or a future businessrnperson, but as a citizen.  And wernneed to make sure that our schools set them up for success as citizens.  And that's why desegregation is sornimportant, that people grow up in an environment that reflects the diversity ofrnthe country.  That's why makingrnsure that civics are taught in school is so important.  We need to see our schools as what theyrnare, which is a place to train the next generation to lead and not placesrnsimply to lead them to prison or some other dark path.  And that's, unfortunately what so manyrnof our schools are.  I mean, whenrnyou really spend time in so many of our public schools and poor neighborhoods,rnblack or white across this country, you can see how a child could give up hopernby the time that they're 12.

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Question: Should GeoffreyrnCanada’s Harlem Children’s Zone be imitated nationwide, as Obama has suggested?

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Ben Jealous:rnHarlem Children's Center is incredible. rnI've known Geoff for 20 years. rnThe first time I've met him was as a kid in college.  The question is how easily could it bernreplicated.  It's something thatrnthrives in one of the wealthiest cities on the planet.  And the question is, well, could yourntransport that to Mississippi? rnNow, I would agree that in a sort of perfect world, we could.  But in this country right now wherernresources for schools are based on local property taxes, it becomes nearlyrnimpossible.  So, I would say, yes,rnit should be replicated wherever it possibly could be, but I have real doubtsrnabout it.  So, it's a yes, but Irnhave real doubts that the country could literally afford to do that across therncountry.  Or more importantly, ifrnwe could afford to do it, if we would do everything we would need to, to bernable to afford it.  When we stoprnfighting wars overseas and doing the sorts of things that eat up all thoserntrillions of dollars we could be spending to treat our kids as well as Geoffrntreats the kids up in Harlem.

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Question: What brand-newrnproblems have arisen for African-Americans in the past decade?

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Ben Jealous:rnSure.  I mean, since Septemberrn11th, for blacks and for whites, there have become new pernicious forms ofrnemployment discrimination.  And inrnthe wake of September 11th, there were stories about ex-felons working inrnbaggage claim at airports.  And thernresponse was, first by the companies that produce the sort of job applicationsrnfor low level public jobs.  Andrnthen throughout private industry was to put a check box on the front of the jobrnapplication that says, "Have you ever been convicted of arncrime."  Well, as you mightrnimagine, when you're a hiring manager and the box is checked, it just goesrnright in the trash.  We literallyrnchanged hundreds of years of tradition in this country where people were onlyrnasked that question in a job interview. rnOnce a company decided that they were interested in them, and then theyrnwere able to explain themselves. rnAnd we put it on the application, where it just goes in the trash.  And you discouraged people fromrnapplying and you typically preclude them from being considered. 

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Now, in this country, it's harder for a black man with norncriminal record to find a job than a white man with a criminal record, which isrnto say that race is actually a bigger factor than ex-felon status.  But if you're both, it's almostrnimpossible to find a job.  Andrnthat's an area that we've been really working on very intently.  As we've been working on this issue,rnwhat's come to our attention is that credit scores are being used in much ofrnthe same way.  Imagine, the middlernof a recession, our employers across the country have increasingly begun to userncredit scores to determine whether or not they hire somebody.  I mean, it would be a joke if it wasn'trnso serious, right?  It's absolutelyrnthe opposite thing of what you do. rnTake a country of people who are in financial distress, the ones who arernmost in financially distressed are the ones that are least likely for us tornhire them.   

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And so we have found ourselves fighting on new fronts, onrnstill carrying the banner for racial equality, but also understanding that inrnthe 21st century we have to fight for simply human equality as well.  And that really, for the NAACP, peoplerndon’t realize, you know we weren't founded like so many groups after like thernBlack Power Movement, or the Chicano Power Movements.  We were founded in 1909 on the hundredth birthday ofrnPresident Lincoln.  And our dreamrnhas always been to manifest his dream, that this be one country where allrnpeople are treated with equality and dignity and have the ability for thernchildren to be raised with hope and for the children to have the opportunity torngain prosperity.

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Question: What can berndone to involve African-Americans more in the green movement?

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Ben Jealous: As arnkid, the first group I ever paid dues to was a group called SEEK.  That was a bunch of green activists onrnthe college and high school campuses; actually I set up one of their first highrnschool chapters.  And there's alwaysrnbeen I think in the black middle class a lot of folks who have been active inrnthe green movement in this country. rnFor working people, you've got to make it worth their while; you've gotrnto connect at the kitchen table as using ways that are very explicit.  So, you'll see folks, you know, inrnWhirl, Mississippi, where a plant that used to produce some horrible toxin hasrnexploded getting very involved in that local issue because it's about life andrndeath, it's about their children's health, they get it, they understandrnit. 

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Katrina helped, and Haiti has helped to make that case in arnmore general basis to working class folks, but what really I think has the bestrnopportunity to get working class black people involved in the green movement isrnconnecting it to the opportunity for jobs, connecting it to their children'srnhealth in very explicit ways, very high rates of respiratory disease in thernblack community that come from very local environmental contamination.  And there's a real sense that changesrnin the global economy is passing our neighborhoods and communities by.  And so, yeah, I have great hope thatrnthe green jobs movement in this country will pull in generations of blackrnpeople who have stood by the sidelines in that battle because no one has everrnmade the connection for them about how this actually would make their livesrnbetter.

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Question: Why haven’trnAfrican-Americans fought harder alongside gay rights activists?

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Ben Jealous: Wernhad to start from the fact -- somebody once said to me, I didn't march in thern'60's so that men could sleep together. rnAnd I was like, well, that's all right because Byron Rustin had thatrnheld down.  You know, the man whornplanned the march on Washington was gay, was known to be gay, and that was okayrnwith Dr. King, it was okay with Julian Bond and John Lewis then, and it's okayrnnow.  Our only regrets about ByronrnRustin are that he still isn't with us planning marches. 

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So, I think we have to start from the premise that gayrnpeople are a part of the NAACP. rnThey've been a part of the social justice movement.  The gay black people in particular livernboth of those identities, as we all live multiple identities.  You know.  

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The NAACP, for that reason has always been quick tornrecognize across a whole range of issues that common interests as black people,rnas black people, or as multiple identities as black people, and gay people asrngay people and there are multiple shades and colors.  I mean, for instance, issues of police brutality, employmentrndiscrimination, hate crimes.  Wernhave been there side by side, fighting on again and again.  We just had a big victory, the MatthewrnShepard/James Byrd bill, but the NAACP bought ads in Texas to promote andrnreally to beat up on the then-Governor, about-to-become-President Bush, for hisrnlack of support 10 years ago.  Andrnwe're out there now in the employment non-discrimination act.  And we're out there now in Uganda.  We hate the death penalty because it'srnthe death penalty, but we also, we hate it all the more when you say that yournwant to make being a member of a minority group, any minority group the reasonrnthat you get the death penalty. rnAnd that's what they're trying to do in Uganda.  They're trying to actually make thernbeing gay a crime punishable by death.

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Where there has been distance recently has been betweenrnreligious communities in general. rnAnd the movement for marriage equality and the NAACP has a veryrnreligious base.  And people whornwant to see movement on that issue are people who want -- like people want tornsee more blacks in the Republican Party, need to invest in outreach.  Need to really say, you know what, thatrnconstituency is a priority and I'm going to make it my business to make surernthat we reach out to that constituency on their terms and in the way that's thernmost effective.  That’s what anyrngood organizer does, that's what I do for the issues that I'm pushing. 

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With that said, Julian Bond for instance, our past chair, isrnvery outspoken in support.  I letrnit be known that I personally support marriage equality.  My brother, the man who is closer to mernthan any man on this planet, my best friend since I was six years old -- I'mrnsorry, six months old -- and whose mom celebrated Mother's Day with my mom andrnwhose family lived with us off and on for a third of my life, is gay, is HIVrnpositive, is on-again, off-again homeless.  I've spent many -- a lot of money trying to keep him fromrnbeing homeless, but sometimes people just, you know, issues in their life thatrnno dollar can overcome.  So, it'srnvery personal for a lot of us, I guess is what I'm saying. 

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But we're a democratic organization at the end of the day,rnand that means that we that tend to be on the front edge on some issues and werntend to lag behind on others and we never get there until a consensus is built.  And that's why I say to folks, look, ifrnyou want to see the NAACP even more active than we have been, and we've beenrnactive in California.  Folks therernin California voted to oppose Prop 8, and they rolled out all the stops tornoppose it.  The national office signedrnonto the lawsuit to invalidate Prop 8 because we were able to get consensus onrnthe principle that a simple majority vote should not be able to trump a court'srnfinding of the fundamental right. rnThat's a threat to a whole range of rights, including the right tornmarry, but also the right to be treated with respect in the workplace; not getrndiscriminated in the workplace, for instance.  Apparently that has to be put up to a vote in California. 

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So, we had been involved, you know, gay people have been involvedrnin the NAACP for a long time.  ThernNAACP has been supportive of a broad civil human rights agenda in this country,rnincluding rights for gay and lesbian people, for a long time and many of ourrnmost outspoken leaders are very outspoken on the issue of marriage equality andrnmany are outspoken against it.  Andrnlike any other democratic organization, trade union, what have you, it's beingrnworked through.  And the way thatrnone side wins or the other is that they decide that they want the membership ofrnthe NAACP to be supportive of this one particular part of the agenda more thanrnthe other side does.  And right nowrnit seems to be a bit of a toss-up.

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Question: Were yournsurprised to see an African-American elected president in 2008?

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Ben Jealous:rnNo.  I’m a fifth generation memberrnof the NAACP, and we train our kids to dream really big and impossiblerndreams.  It has always been thernformula for the NAACP.  When it wasrnfounded and when my grandmother's grandfather first joined, the man had beenrnborn a slave.  The big dream thenrnwas to shame the country out of the practice of lynch mob justice. 

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And so for us to say from an apartment in New York Cityrnwhere our first group met that we were going to do that was crazy.  And yet we did it.  It took us 50 or 60 years, but we didrnit. 

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So, that's our tradition.  Our tradition is to train our kids to dream big dreams andrnto pursue them doggedly.  And aboutrnhalf a century earlier, our membership really started talking in earnest aboutrnbreaking the color barrier on the White House, about setting it up and foughtrnbattle after battle after battle, and that's the context in which I was raisedrnin, in the human rights movement and brought into the NAACP as a teenager, wasrnthat we were on a mission to maximize black voter participation and to maximizernthe opportunities for black people to run for and win office, Mayor, Governor,rnand so forth. 

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My grandfather, a couple of generations back, you know ifrnyou will, the third generation member of the association was more circumspect.  He wasn't able to dream that big.  I talked to my grandfather about it andrnI told him that some friends of mine, before I rose to my current position, Irnwas running a foundation in California. rnSo, some friends of mine and I put in our plan to help move the blackrnvote into early primary states. rnAnd we raised several million dollars to do that.  I said, I think we have a winner thisrntime, Granddad, I think we're going to go all the way. And he said, "In myrn90 years of being a black man on this planet can be of any value to you, don'trnget your hopes up because it ain't gonna happen."  I said, "Really Granddad, yourndon't think there’s any possibility?"  "Well, son," he said, "It'll be a cold dayrnbefore that happens."  Well,rnless than three years later, I was sitting 15 rows behind the about to becomernPresident Obama on Inauguration Day. rnI kept looking up because it was like the coldest day I could rememberrnin Washington D.C.  And I said,rn"Granddad, you were exactly right. rnIt is a cold day, and Barrack Hussein Obama is President."  It was a good day.  It was a good day.

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Question: What hasrnimpressed and disappointed you most about Obama?

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Ben Jealous: Yournknow, I give the President wide latitude in his first year.  There are things that, like the IraqrnWar that our membership would like to see ended more quickly.  But we understand that this is arnPresident who came into office in the midst of a rapidly expanding recession,rntwo wars, and we have a lot of faith that he is not just doing the best he can,rnhe is doing the best that can be done. rnI'm very excited by the quick passage of the stimulus bill last yearrnwhich included a lot of money for restoring school which had been rotting inrnthis country for decades and create 2.5 million jobs in a time when, man, we neededrnjobs to be created.  I'm veryrnexcited about the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act being passed, which is a billrnthat made it possible for women to really know that if they had beenrndiscriminated in the workplace they were going to get their day in court and berntreated fairly.  We are veryrnexcited about the Matthew Shepard/James Byrd bill being passed and morernimportantly, about the civil rights infrastructure being rebuilt.  And I think part of our patience --rnit's been misinterpreted, I think, the patience of black people and civilrnrights leaders at this moment. rnPart of our patience comes because we're more aware than most just howrnmuch damage was done by the Bush Administration to the federal government'srnability to enforce civil rights. rnAnd so we've been celebrating people of good conscience being hired intornkey positions for the last year and a half.  Now the bar raises because the people are in position, or ifrnthe Senate is holding up their nomination, well it's just clear and we got tornget on with it.  And we're startingrnto see good signs. 

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Secretary Duncan came out the other day and made a veryrnunequivocal commitment to ensuring that racial re-segregation, racialrndiscrimination, the mistreatment of poor children en masse in American schools,rndiscrimination against people who are learning English for the first time wouldrnbe treated -- would be a top priority. rnAnd that actions would be taken forthwith, and as we speak, they'rernlaunching a major investigation in Los Angeles, for instance. 

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So, we have seen great progress, we have reason to bernhopeful and as we're patient because we knew that, if you will, the startingrnline for him was probably a hundred yards back from where it should have been,rnand literally between when he won in November and when he started in January,rnthe direction of the economy meant that the track was all of a sudden uphill.

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Question: What’s the mostrnimportant thing Obama could do for black Americans that he hasn’t done yet?

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Ben Jealous: Thernbiggest piece of the agenda that doesn't seem to be really even on the radarrnscreen is serious criminal justice reform, serious criminal justicernreform.  Black people are 15% ofrncrack users in this country.  Wernuse crack like every other group at about direct correlation with ourrnpercentage of the population. rnWhite people are 65% of the crack users in this country.  White people are 5% of the peoplernlocked up for using crack, black people are 85% of the people locked up forrnusing crack.  Yeah, that issue, hernwas very clear when he was campaigning was -- that that disparity wasrnunacceptable and the disparity that compounds it, which is that the punishmentsrnfor using crack are 100 times stiffer than for using powder, even though it'srnthe same drug as cocaine. 

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So, we would like to see him speak out on criminal justicernissues.  We would like to see himrnreally push, really support -- signal support for Jim Webb's bill to for therncountry to just take a look because he knows.  He knows as somebody who has taught constitutional law, whornrepresented the south side of Chicago, who pushed through powerful lawrnenforcement accountability bills when he was in the state Senate in a staternwhere people were tortured with impunity up until 10 years ago.  And so we would like to hear and seernmore there.  We have faith thatrnit's coming.  His appointment ofrnEric Holder as our top law enforcement official was genius and that's somebodyrnwho gets it.  And Eric and thernPresident, people who are capable of explaining to the country that this isrnabout justice for all of us. 

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In the last decade, I guess the good news, if you will, isrnthat black drug arrests were down 20%. rnThe other news is that white drug arrests, the bad news, were uprn40%.  The war on crystal meth thatrnwe are seeing right now, if you look at the footage, which is typically poorrnwhite people being locked up, engaged with the police and locked up.  It's literally a film negative.  It's just like it's flipped from whatrnwe saw on the war on crack 20 years ago in poor black people.  That's not progress.  That's not progress for thisrncountry.  And we need a Presidentrnand the Attorney General to be even more clear than they have been, that thisrncountry needs to move forward with its criminal justice policies towards arnplace that makes all of our children safer and not continue with the past setrnby people like Richard Nixon and George Wallace 40 years ago.  Barry Goldwater 40 years.  Really, we're going by the Barry Goldwater/RichardrnNixon playbook and it's not serving our country well.

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Question: How does thernexperience of “mixed race” Americans differ from that of “black” Americans?

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Ben Jealous: Yournknow, the beauty of being black in this society is that black has always beenrnan inclusive definition.  White hasrnalways been an exclusive definition. rnI think one of the challenges for white people in the next 40 years isrnto figure out how to have a more inclusive picture of who their families are,rnof who they are. 

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I grew up in a family where my father's white and my mother isrnblack, but if we're honest, the exception may be the two or three generationsrnin between on the black side, most of the male parents – it’s hard to call themrna parent, you raped the mother, most of the male parents were white forrngenerations.  Growing up as a blackrnkid with a white father who loves you, who affirms you, who was part of yourrnlife is fundamentally different than what people in my family were subjected tornin the 19 century or the 18th century. rnBut unfortunately, it doesn't change the old racial order.  I think we need to, in this society,rnlet the old racial order just stay where it is and not seek to improve uponrnit.  Not try to create more racialrncategories, because all that does is it makes a race stick around longer.  And the reality is that race is a liernbuilt on a lie.  

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The first lie is that people are different, somehow skinrncolor or hair texture is more significant than eye color, or the shape of one'srnfeet.  The second lie built on toprnof that is that then there's a hierarchy that that more significantrndifference,  the color showing uprnas brown on your skin rather than brown in your hair, or whatever, is somehowrnmore significant and there's some sort of hierarchy.  That the lighter you are, the straighter your hair, thernbetter you are.  And Obama, Oprah,rnyou know, Dick Parsons, whoever is -- ****, have blown that out of the water,rnPresident Obama, Michelle Obama for the country.  The trick now is for us to really incorporate that into ourrnfamily lives and for people to not just, I guess be led by their children forrnwhom race is just much less significant, but to help lead their children, or atrnleast follow willingly.

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Question: After all thesernserious questions—who’s your favorite comedian?

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Ben Jealous: DavernChappelle.  Dave's my godbrother.  So, I'm a little bit biased.  And we came of age together in New YorkrnCity, me in college and he at the Boston Comedy Club, which was a college ofrnsorts for him.  I was actuallyrnknown to some as Dave's Puerto Rican bodyguard because they didn't know exactlyrnwhat to make of the guy who didn't smile much and who just sat in the back ofrnthe club reading books.  Theyrndidn't realize that I was at Columbia University, and the only way I could havernthe privilege of hanging out at the comedy club is if I read books whilernsomebody else was telling jokes. rnSo, yeah, Dave's definitelyrnmy favorite comic.

Recorded March 10th, 2010
Interviewed by Austin Allen

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