Yes.

Before that, it had never, it had never been really moral.

I mean, it didn't have anything to do with that.

It was just a custom.

Uh, most Americans, uh, as, as everyone knows now, uh, had, uh, uh, did not, uh, did not have slaves and so forth.

Um, but so-- but the civil rights movements, uh, said, and Martin Luther King was the articulator of, of this situation, but they, they said, "No, racism is evil." That's the big, that's the big revelation, the big move, movement of history forward, uh, that, uh, occurred in the-- over the last several decades.

Um, I now can, I now can, uh, can look at white people, and I can accuse them of being racist if they s- um, support affirmative action, which they do and which I will.

Whatever it is, it's metamorphosizing.

How would you look back over the, I don't know, the past half to three-quarters of a century and, and assess where we are now in America in terms of race relations?

Well, where we are now is, and I think it's important to, to note that America has made enormous, inconceivably v- uh, vast movement and growth over the last fifty, sixty years, beginning with the, with the civil rights movement and led by Dr.

King and, and, and so forth.

Um, I grew up in w- when that fight was going on, that struggle.

Uh, and it, it shaped my sense of the world.

Um, America is not a racist society.

It is the, the most open-minded society that ever was.

That's a pseudonym.

And so let's just start with what is white guilt? What is it?

Well, I suppose it's many things.

Uh, but white guilt is, comes from the fact that America for three and a half centuries persecuted Black Americans in slavery and, uh, every form of human debasement was employed to keep them down by a society that was, on the other hand, open, fair, the m- possibly the fairest society of its time, uh, in the 1800s.

Uh, and so there was this strange contradiction where America embarked on a journey with evil, and I think sadly, uh, in many ways aware of its evil.

Uh, and the, uh, we think of people, uh, like Martin Luther King.

I, I...

The thing that's interesting to, about, about someone like that i, is the fact that Martin Luther King established that the- simply established the idea that racism w- was evil, is evil, and always will be evil, and there will never be a time or a way in which we use race to divide men and, and women in, in s- our soc- society.

What do you mean by that? What does that mean that the white guilt is Black power or is part connected to Black power?

Let's watch it.

[gentle music] On a drive from Chicago to my small college in Iowa, I remember making the conscious decision to move away from Martin Luther King.

Our plan was to occupy President Joseph McCabe's office and present him with our list of demands: Black professors, Black dorms, Black cheerleaders, Black administrators.

I led a group of 30 students through the door toward his office.

In my hand was a lit cigarette, and there was no ashtray to be found.

I saw the anger come over his face.

I girded myself.

Which will be held against you, especially in academia.

Why

so? We got to a point where we just simply couldn't take it anymore.

I remember that very distinctly as I went through high school.

I was exposed to bigger ideas.

Malcolm X was and remains in my view an important figure for me because he said your freedom is by any means necessary.

You may have to fight, you may have to die, but you must be free.

And anything you do in the interim You're tolerating the evil that persecutes you.

They did not need any additional assistance from the federal government.

Why so?

We got to a point where we just simply couldn't take it anymore.

I remember that very distinctly as I went through high school.

I was exposed to bigger ideas.

Malcolm X was, and remains in my view, an important figure for me because he said your freedom is by any means necessary.

You may have to fight, you may have to die, but you must be free.

And anything you do in the interim you're tolerating the evil that persecutes you.

They did not need any additional assistance from the federal government.