Transcripts For CSPAN Capitol Hill Hearings 20130826

Live pictures from the in washington dc were reour continuing our live coverage celebrating the 50th anniversary of the march on washington. Have a new panel on the Civil Rights Movement hosted by the w. K. Kellogg foundation. We will be joined by marc morial who is the president of the National Urban league. Good morning. Saying goodr morning in a way that i would hear, and with that sort of energy. Thank you all. This is such a joy to be here in this historic week about to celebrate our history and to envision and move forward toward creating the future that we all want, and certainly the future that our children deserve. Christopher, the Vice President of the Program Strategy at the w. K. Kellogg foundation. You on like to welcome behalf of our staff and our over theon all nation. Solidarity behind this idea that no light can live forever, and we must heal for our childrens sake. When mr. Kellogg built the foundation he said do what you will with the money, so long as it benefits the children. During his lifetime he worked to help vulnerable children. When we sit back and look at the changing demographic of this country am a and we lick cou ntry, and we realize that most of the children being born today are children of color, and we in them growing up and impoverished situations, we must help them. E w. K. Kellogg foundation, one of the largest philanthropic organizations in the world has made this their focus. That most people are uncomfortable with, and are in denial about. We launched this work in 2010 and here we are today, on the anniversary of what is perhaps toricost the store his galvanizing of human will to eradicate racism in this country. Only held a vision and a dream for us, but we , made inn his remarks montgomery, on the capital steps, when he asked winwood freedom, when asked when he answeredm come, that no lie can live forever. We must eradicate the absurd notion of the hierarchy of the human family. That is the notion that gave permission for the enslavement of millions. Belief, iton, that is antiquated, it is absurd, it came about in the 1700s, when the time of the Printing Press came about. It was proliferated throughout the world, it was embedded in all of our systems, that somehow value chy of Immanuel Kant said that people who looked like him should be at hierarchy. The the was the foundation of understanding and ignorance of those times. We have fought to eradicate racism, but we have not talked about the effects of racism. We fought a civil war, but imagine if we, the abolitionists, had shed that belief instead of the blood of hundreds of thousands of people. Imagine how the world would be if there had been a concerted andrt to set things right asserted truly the equality of humankind. We will submit to you that the work of the 21st century is that work. That we didtools not happen the 20th century did not have in the 20th century. We understand how the brain works now, how and by the how as get embedded in the human conscious. It is time to my wise mob ilize those technologies, to change the fundamental construct on on which our nation was built. We asserted a quality equality, but we built this on inequality. As we go forward into the 21st century, we ask, as the w. K. Kellogg foundation, to move beyond rhetoric and beyond denial. Publication last week that suggested that we are contrary to a postracial less than half of whites actually believe we have made a lot of ryegrass toward toward dr. Kings dream. That means that some of us are moving past denial of the work that remains to be done. And a lot of us are moving past denial. Once we passed the dial of fact fact, we must move past the denial of fact, of the consequences, of the feelings. I want to tell you a buried brief story of when i was 13 a very brief story of when i was about 13 rate 13. I lived in an area that was all white, and they brought in colored kids from all over the country. It was my first exposure to different backgrounds. My roommate was another young woman from my town. We got along famously. At the end of the summer i came home to our house, and there wasnt ambulance in front of the door. They brought her out on a stretcher. They were taking her to the hospital, because she had attempted to commit suicide. They showed me the letter that she had written. It was almost time for us to go home, and she was afraid to go soe, because her father had convinced and indoctrinated her as to the inhumanity of blacks. That she should hate black people. Her experience over that summer had been a complete contradiction to what she had been raised to believe, and as a young white, she was so confused. The irony . Her father was a police officer. My next story speaks volumes. That story speaks volumes. It shows theause immense progress we have made over the years. The human brain is wired to accept stories. If we keep telling story, we will accept the same thing. Television on the and see another story that steep valley rises the people of that indeed our uis as the people of color, say no. Our panelists here today represent amazing organizations that represent millions of people all over the country who have been working to eradicate the scourge of the belief in hierarch or he hierarchy. To make right the injustice to this work. Largere also part of a network of hundreds of Community Organizations all over this nation that the w. K. Kellogg foundation has founded to do this work. Theyre going to share with you their perceptions of what we need to do to bring about change. Most importantly, they reflect the diversity, they reflect the inclusion, they reflect the power that is embodied in this charge. Which is, we have to Work Together as a nation to heal this nation. Not for those people, or those people, or those people, but for all of us. Raise the average income of the people of color to the average income of whites, we would increase our gdp by 1. 8 trillion, and that would translate into billions of dollars in corporate revenues. The blessings that would flow into this country will flow into we haventry when eradicated racism. Those blessings are immeasurable. That is where our focus has to be. Experiment that is what democracy is, a great experiment , a great experiment in human empowerment. Survive without human equality and human equity. This is our work, it is the work we must do, and like the work of the Civil Rights Movement, that work will be looked upon an , and embraced by other countries around the world. If we heal our legacies of racial division, imagine what it will kneel in will mean for the rest of htthe world. Are blessed today to have a great coanchor to our panel. Were very happy that she has agreed to join us today. Moderate with a great deal of courage and trepidation, because it is going to take some energy to moderate this panel. But she join me please and joy in welcoming carolyn sawyer. [applause] aint you so much. Thank you so much,. It is an honor to be here. Familiar with this organization earlier this year, i hope you will also become addicted. I have a distinguished panel, and about an hour and 10 minutes to cover a large number of topics. We are looking at the 50th anniversary of the march on washington. Let me introduce the panel, give you their names, organization, and you can hear more about their work as we continue this discussion. Morningelcome this miles rapaport. Ext in him is rinku sen Judith Browne dainis. Her is marc morial. Is alvin haring. Herring. Please welcome Gordon Whitman who is the director of policy for the pico National Network. Next in him is philip tegeler, who is the executive director for of the poverty and Race Research action council. The president and chief executive officer of the naacp. Welcome to all of our panelists, and to the audience. We will begin our discussion coming off a big weekend here in washington dc. The historic 50th anniversary of the march on washington. I know we talked about it earlier, but can you call us about your reflections from the weekend . It was a powerful weekend, a great crowd, a glorious and beautiful day. There was a tremendous amount of energy. Inse of us who were involved the mobilization, got grounded in a couple of ideas. It was a collaborative effort by civil rights labor and civic organizations who came together under the leadership of a philip randolph. Was aear the mobilization collaborative effort. Speaking from the lincoln memorial, what you saw was a broad array from all walks of life. We needed to focus on the new america, the new Civil Rights Movement. The new equity in the backdrop of the Supreme Courts karen this decision of section four of the Voting Rights act. Systemsce insufficiencies and disparities and need for reform shown by the Trayvon Martin case. What i was struck by is the large number of young people, including children. The fact thaty everyone had a phone, everyone had a camera, so there should be an ample record of this. It is a game changer for those of us who are here on this stage. It is a time for us to use the Energy Created by the historic 50th anniversary to look ahead. Not to simply be commemorative and the style object nm andlgic, but to look ahead be inspired. Needs to be framed by what i would call the go forward issues. It is a powerful day, a wonderful day, and i just deal religious that the National Urban league, which was there in 1953 was there in 2013. Mcarc waslike struck by the energy there on saturday. Ofwas for me, a time reflection, having grown up in south carolina. Remembering how far we have come. During thisinded of march was the energy and the young folks, how much work we still had to do, but it felt really good the number of people that were there. Folks, so ioung just gave me new hope that the new generation will be able to tackle all the problems that we still have existing. Really pushing, the crowd that day was pushing on those two core decisions. Decisions. The first second was the decision in florida on the George Zimmerman case. The crowd was reflected in the diversity of speakers. Of aso down in one one of the most diverse marches in washington. As the tea party has risen up, and government becomes more aggressively extremely , all of us in labor civilrights and rights, and other communities need to recognize that this is , inmoment to come together the model of the three musketeers, and say all for one, and one for all. Past year we have passed marriage equality, and abolished the death penalty. In a state that is as drenched , it islegacy of slavery the state that Harriet Tubman escaped from, the 18th state in the confederacy if president lincoln had not taken extreme action to keep that from happening. What the civil rights and human rights communities have been able to compete achieve there in the last year should be a beacon for the entire country as we move deeper into the century. Just peoples color as our demographic, they are getting more inclusive than we have seen before. The Hispanic Community was engaged in the 1963 march in ways that we do not think about. Galvanized to do all that he could for the poor Hispanic Community because of dr. Martin luther king. He was a medic at the march in 1953 and went on to do great things. Hed went on to do great things inspired by that day. That march was about jobs and justice, and we have made a lot rights,d in the area of and wealth for our communities. What struck me about the march is how all of the communities came together. Gives us great hope as we look at the young people and demographics of today about Going Forward together and shading this country for the better. One thing that i will remember from this march, deftly, is that women were on the stage, and speaking. This is womens equality day, folks should know. Planning being in a meeting for this march, and i marcember remember saying look at the sisters in the room, sisters will be on the stage. I think that is important because women have played such an Important Role in the Civil Rights Movement. We continued to play an Important Role, and i think about all of the women like a baker, who ella were the nominal women, phenomenal sisters to the movement. I think it is great to see the spectrum of women, from young latina sisters. We really did have the mix of do hard work. Young people were there because they know what happens to trayvon could happen to them. They all know a trayvon. Have hadut of this, we a lot of progress. Young people already for more. That is where the energy are now, this is really been the summer of discontent. Verys, we are working in a big dream defender, and they were there in numbers. There are a number of people saying we are going to make that happen. Moments really stood out for me, speaking of women. One of my favorite moments was when i was walking class that planned parenthood banner. I tweeted most of the march, and as i was watching class that land parenthood i heard a couple behind me, and one of the woman was talking about the banner. One said to the other, girl, you know they are trying to use take away our birth control. Clearly on the agenda. [laughter] the other thing that struck me was that i did interviews with lots of people. One of the questions i asked them was when do you think we are going to achieve Racial Justice in this country . When is it going to happen . There were three responses that i got that really ran the spectrum. One was, i dont think we will ever achieve it fully, but we have to keep working toward it. , i think we will only achieve after more time has passed after slavery then we spent in slippery. Another 250, 300 years or so. What ard response was lot of people think because there is a paradigm shifting. I think it is very difficult to hold those three realities. It is going to take hundreds of years, because we have spent spent hundreds of years with slavery as the main show in our history. Not a show, and a vent. An event. But we are making progress, we are winning things. Endingon the verge of practice, no matter how much mayor bloomberg defends it. The womens agenda really needs inbe a part of the agenda, preparing for Racial Justice to be here tomorrow, and for it to never be here. Speaking to the diversity of the march, and really the purpose of the american healing program, we have seen the growth and diversity of the population, especially with immigrant communities. Expanding the population in the United States for the past 30 the 2012d really elections were a wakeup call to both parties. The overwhelming response from both let you know and Asian American communities for the president was a wakeup call for how important immigrant rights are and how much this group works together around immigrants rights. Around justice, and a whole range of civil rights issues that are recorded to the whole country importance to the whole country. It is important, not only to the smart, but to the work that weve been doing over the past many years. Brought forward a key issue that was on the minds of many people this weekend. The question i would would out is where would we go next, what is next . The folks right now are bigsed on three or four things. We have to get comprehensive Immigration Reform through. We had to get section four of the Voting Rights act restored. We have to raise the minimum wage higher than we ever have before. And then, bullocks are also focusedon folks are racial profiling that has come out in the racial trials, like the Trayvon Martin trial. There is a wider range of issues that we need to support. Rious moments va movements are pushing forward. We can hope, that in our lifetime we will see a renaissance of ideas. We are seeing that happen now, because we are winning more statelevel battles. The problem is that we are going webe winning a state where are winning, and losing in the state where we are being challenged. Spent to hear each perspective from each organization. What do you see as next now that weve gotten the Supreme Court ruling on the Voting Rights . I think we are going to see a great pushback against the negative ruling. Theye same time, i think have an Incredible Opportunity to see if advancement has really advanced us to open up the voting process and get millions and millions of people registered. Whether it is through state legislative changes, or whether its through battles on the courts to really expand or to utilize National Tool that we have like the Voter Registration act. I see the opportunity over the next several years to really expand the voting. You shared with me this morning a tactic to use the portal care act, can you share that with us briefly . Sure. That medicare, medicaid, and Childrens Health benefits are all covered. They are required to be asked whether they wanted to register to vote. If people take advantage of that up atunity, it will open Huge Community that would otherwise be missed. Vermont, North Carolina, and maryland have all said they will include the Voter Registration question with their health benefits. It is a big deal. Legalization, regularization for our 11 Million Immigrants have been here for years. That, and handinhand with that is the origination. Getting more hispanics registered to vote. Highly, getting hispanics who are registered to vote to vote in off year elections and to change the conference. If we can do that, this country will be a change place. Days saw in less than 30 that what we projected if the itreme court ruled the way did in shelby, what happened would happen. Announced he would implement legislation that had been ruled discriminatory by a threejudge panel. Move happened to conine, anti democratic legislation. Hasheres what is good, he indicated his resolve to use the Justice Department to protect democracy. Counsel, are already mobilizing to use state constitutional provisions, the Voting Rights act to protect democracy. A new, strengthened, armies of lawyers. We need armies of activists. We need to elevate the idea that we cannot allow, but the clock to not be turned back. The oldturned back to literacy tests. Itd turn back to a time of revisions that happened in the post reconstruction. 1890s, thete constitutional convention. We have to elevate that as a involved in democracy in places like afghanistan. We have got to say it in those terms. Two a narrow of question of what the law is. More on the side of what democracy is. All to account on where they stand. Thesefundamentally retrogressions happen in a there is a lawp there is a statue over there. We have to fight back, regain our ground. I just want to support what he is saying. You look at the people who are uninsured, disenfranchised, and you can get them to vote and act on the national Voter Registration act, they will be able to shift according to what marc is saying. If you have these core groups disenfranchised turned around, it will make a big shift. From alaska. Alaska is one of those states where we have challenges. The were looking for Supreme Court decision so they can move forward. Says that time they have made some decisions about eliminating some voting places. Voting. Not have early population is alaskan native, and can turn a vote. When the for windows verse when the rivers are too frozen to travel, and you cannot get to those places where early voted , that 20 isited hi marginalized. When you to those places where it indigenous languages are primary language, you need those voting texans protections. Those things are really important for us. Particularly because of issues indianotecting our welfare. We have a lot of unique laws to us as an indian people. A caseow we are having that is being determined on the same day as the Supreme Court remanded the baby veronica case. Didntth Carolina Court even have the rights of the child for the hearing to take child has asked to return from her charity father to an adoptive parent. Case openedy county the floodgates to what we will do is kind of a really aggressive rollback of Voting Rights. It was already happening, it was happening as kind of a retribution for the turnout in 2008. When africanamerican and latino voters, and young voters turned out in record numbers. We saw this wave already happened of trying to pull us back, but now with the supreme youre out of the picture, we are going to see the floodgates open. North carolina, not front and center. Closely withg very full at the branches of the and aacp, because n they have very aggressive voting loss. Secure free,e to fair, and accessible elections. Because that state has become progressive, there is this fear that North Carolina is the rest of the south is a sign to the rest of the south. Rising have demographics, the rest of the south will also follow. They passed legislation to cut early voting, and 70 of africanamericans voted by early voting in the rwecent elections. Voter id will be in place, the cutbacks to tunes, we are seeing this in every place. We need to understand that this is the real fight. The voting booths is the one place where we are all equal. On election day you walk into the voting booth, and it does not matter if you are white, black, rich, or poor. We are all equal. It does not matter how much money you have. So that is where theyre trying to make the difference to be able to win. For givinghank you some specific examples, because i heard this morning that the as saying he did not understand what the big deal was. I went to e what judith said. That making itr harder for the africanamericans to vote backfired. Incredible turnout, incredible civic engagement. A pastor who about did not hold his services on sunday and sent people out to vote, because they had put out incredible efforts to restrict the vote. We have to be in on the offense. Beare very happy as pico to working to reentrant eyes the estimated 1. 4 million previously incarcerated men and women who are disenfranchised in florida. Andre going into hospitals, it is led by people who are directly affected. Hat we have an opportunity to do over the next several years, we are going to be celebrating an incredible stream of social a compliment. Both healthcare, medicaid, medicare civil rights, to remind ourselves that change happens when people who have the most on the line and take risk and lead. Combining those communities with the national infrastructure. A 19yearold young man who was formerly incarcerated led a movement in california to convince his county not to expand their jail even though they had state funds to do that. To take that money, and put it into prevention, job training, job access. When the newspaper story about that effort was written, johnny if you had told me a year ago when i was sitting in jail that i would be outside leading an effort to convince my county and was a better way, i wouldve said youre crazy. Im disappointed that there will more beds than were planned. I think it is that infrastructure that is going to get as a string of victories on Voting Rights, jobs, citizenship in this country. I think we have a remarkable opportunity, but we do have a ton of work to do. We have people in the audience who want to hear who we want to hear from as well. We provided cards for them to fill out questions. Well will actually share those questions with the audience. Shoot aant to tweet and question, that is available as well. One thing i was really proud about last year, being part of this group, part of the large Civil Rights Community, was the litigation that went on in the courts. Rights movement, at its best moments, have been about engaging the community and the courts together. I think the push back that we voters, we have a lot allxciting legislation across the south to push back. That was handinhand with Community Engagement and mobilization. Often in the past we have seen litigation and the additional system the judicial system rivaling the values of the community. I actually think that the shelby case was a disaster. The Voting Rights act took a big hit, but section two of the Voting Rights act is still alive and well, at least for now. I think we have a huge opportunity here, while we are waiting for congress to act, to bring a whole new wave. I know it is already starting, and i think that is really the best tradition of the movement, the lawyers working together with the community, and thats to wait reciprocal relationship. Way reciprocal relationship. That could be the Silver Lining of shelby, but i dont want to go too far with that. We are a nonpartisan resort organization, and one of the things that we do is provide the research and data of all of the things that we have talked about to our congress and to our legislators to help them make the right decisions on things Going Forward. The Voting Rights is so fundamental to all of the things that we have been discussing here in terms of making changes and making things happen. When the joint senate first 1500ed in 1970 there were africanamericans who were elected to office. Part directly related to the Voting Rights act. I grew up in south carolina, and i had folks that died in order to get the boat vote. What is going on now hurts me very deeply, and we need to vote we need to fight and make sure we continue to get this right to vote. America the healing conference, we had the verdict on Trayvon Martin. What does this mean for america, it,ad the marches after what does this mean for america and what can we do collectively as organizations to change the outcome for young men and boys of color . I think this moment really, for many of us personally, was a very disappointing moment. Im sure many people can never exactly where they were when they heard that there was an acquittal. Any of us had to support one another through that disappointment. Now we have to move forward in changing the outcomes. The outcome is not just about that case, it is not individualized, it is what is happening for children of olor generally in this country. We are galvanizing the young children, and there is beauty in that. If you think about the role that those young people, those college students, and younger play, they are ready. Working very closely with the supreme defenders in florida who, right after the killing, took over the Police Department because they were upset there were no arrests. After getting the arrest, they moved on to after the acquittal, taking over the state capitol. Days, young people stay there, and i had the opportunity to stay with them. Themlly strategized with what was next, how to change the anger into a movement. What we have been doing is ,orking with them and the naacp in drafting what is known as trayvons law. We have three components of it in florida. Which which one of is repealing the stand your ground law. The second is to stop those things that are really racial profiling. We have people who are like george the written in school, profiling kids in the hallways. It is not going to be just florida, but it is spreading because people have decided that this is their issue. What is important is that we give them the space to actually do them that. When i heard about the Trayvon Martin decision, as i was driving, i ticked up my cell phone and i was stopped by phone for using my cell with my children in the car. Everything judith has shared. I think many of us immediately asked the Justice Department to revise an investigation on whether any federal laws were violated. The family has civil remedies. Ive seen ms. Fulton on a number hasccasions, and while she conducted herself with a great deal of thing d, and strengths strength, andd made the rounds on television and in the communities, i see a mother in pain. The otherin her mothers in pain around the nation who have lost loved ones during senseless violence. Pushdea of what we do to comprehensive reform in the criminal Justice System, racial profiling, stand your ground, unfair processes and procedures, inadequate public defenders in the criminal Justice System. I think that also has to include more candid conversations about what was referred to on saturday as files in the community, where we have to assert ourselves because too many young people are dying each and every day. We have to seize the moral ground on this issue. We are losing more people to gun violence every year than we have ort in a rock or iraq afghanistan. Loseoung people that we every year in this country trumps any engagement we have. Whether it is the Voting Rights, or trayvon and George Zimmerman, call time for a wakeup for the nation. That one thing the zimmerman verdict gave us a chance to talk about is how to define racism today as opposed to how we have defined it 50 years ago. Ashink Americans Still think all racism as being individual over, and intentional individual, over, and intentional. If there had been a newspaper saying that George Zimmerman saying that George Zimmerman had word, when he went after him. Recognize that as racism unless someone says or explicitly race hateful things. What we need to pay a little more attention to in our fight is the notion of input highest bias. It is the notion of unconscious racism. It gets codified in our there are practices and unwritten rules by our practices and unwritten rules. If we can take the opportunity to talk with our fellow citizens about how racism actually works and that it can be resident present even among good people. I am not saying there were good people in the sermon situation will but among people who think as good people, we need to interrupt those implicit biases. The type ofe andocols and practices gets that get people to people to actually stop and think, not just go on their first assumption. To ask themselves a set of questions, whether it is in Police Department, hospital, or schools, that start to disrupt peopleiases that most are not aware of, but that do terrible damage nonetheless. Philip, you have to jump in here and talk about these implicit biases. I do not want to get in the , but in terms of your point earlier about how long it is going to take to get to a better place, i think we disparities at the and implicit bias. Key distractions that we look at over and over again is racial economic segregation and separation. Looking at the implicit demands from the marked 50 years ago was not about freedoms, it was about integration. Marche movers of the supported racial integration, it was not about aesthetics, it was about equal opportunity and they had heated discussions about how it led to stereotypes, and misunderstandings. There are many structures and policies that we have to look at that reproduce inequality and Racial Disparity that i think segregation is one of the key influences. We have more People Living in centrateded con poverty than we did 50 years ago. Our schools are more segregated than they were at the height of the desegregation movement. We havethings that a lot of faith in our young people, americas very diverse, separating. Till up,next generation, coming is much more enlightened than we were, but theyre still living in a system that produces the same patterns that we see. It is an inconvenient thing to talk about, but has to be on the agenda like it was 50 years ago. Ben, i told her i was going to get to you. Law,h outlined the trayvon and my question is how will you have to attack with this . County . By county by this afternoon i will turn an 1. 7 million signatures to the u. S. Department of justice for them to file civil charges against George Zimmerman martil rights. The almost halfmillion of the signatures came in on cell phones, mobile phones, young people, primarily, organizing on their smartphones. Tragedy, we have played a decisive role in removing the chief of police in sanford, florida, and replacing them with someone who has the interest of the entire community. And has been very strategic about getting that Community Back together. A we haveverdict am played a Critical Role in delivering a vetoproof majority to outlaw profile racial profiling in new york city and put in place Inspector General for the first time for the nypd. We are the only agency in new york city that had no Inspector General emma perhaps the only major Police Department in the country that did not have one. We stay focused on winning victories and very pragmatic reforms that have a real impact for peoples lives on the ground. Trayvons law, there will be a federal version, to be sure, with this congress it will probably go about as far as the in racial profiling act. We will be focusing on winning in the states where we can win. Quite frankly, pushing and states even where we may not be able to win now, but we will be able to win in the future. In that respect, we have to take a cue from the voter id movement. The tea Party Started hitting home runs. In that respect, we need to understand that after 30 years or so of losing power to the passingin this century, state legislation and sometimes county legislation will be as important as passing federal legislation. That is why our role is so important because we are active in every state capital, we even have two branches in the state of alaska. Thing for alltant of us, for all of our neighbors and communities, is to get organized. I tell people, i dont care if you join naacp or another group, but you better join something because in a democracy, there are only two types of power organized people and organized money. Organized money only when some people arent organized. Organized people, they are not the money part, but the people part, one thing i want to add, i think this moment that we are in after the zimmerman are in crisis. Our communities are in crisis. Our babies are being killed. It is trayvon, but it is jordan davis. I had an opportunity to meet his parents yesterday. For those who dont know his story, he was in the car who was playing his music, apparently was too loud, for a white man. The white man allegedly pulled out a gun well, he did do that part, and killed him. 8 shots. Florida. Ng teenager in for music that was being played too loud. He says he thought he saw a gun. This is a crisis when young black men can be shot dead because their music was too loud. I mean, this is the emmitt till moment. As a community it is not just young black man. It is how young black girls are being treated, how young people of color are being treated as predators in our country. We have gotten away from the idea they are our babies. If we dont know this is the 911 call, write, that we have to organize around come if we miss this moment, we can forget it. The Racial Justice moment will not come because if we cannot fight for our babies to have justice for our babies, until allow them to live and be treated as human beings, and allow them to live and be treated as human beings, then what are we doing . This is the time we have got to make the call, people have got to do the organizing and getting back to the old school organizing of the naacp, of the farm labor movement. We have got to get back to it. I totally agree. It happens at the county level, city and county level, state level, federal level. And it also requires arts and culture to be engaged because we really have to connect the heart and mind. I live in oakland and i would to see fruitville station, which case. Ut the oscar grant it pulled between duty together in a way we have not seen in a long time. That spoke to the institutions and the systems that occur that allow Something Like that to happen. See, i reallydid appreciated the filmmakers work where he was saying that it wasnt about that he had a statement to make, he was just telling a story. But he told it in a way that was really sensitive to the diversity in oakland, the way the Community Comes together, and the need for organizing, and how important organizing is. Because it really is the life of our children and the lives of our families. On all those levels, the organizing, and also moving hearts and minds with arts and culture is such an important phase. I think what ryan did with os movie to really humanize as a full person, a human being, is how we honor Trayvon Martin and the challenge on us is to bring about thousands and thousands of conversations that are multiracial, that occur in local communities where people talk about their own experience. We have honest conversations about who counts, what it is like to grow up and not be valued, and what the opportunity structures are. It is that american conversation which has to happen and get connected to really concrete changes in Public Policy. We have got to create political will, public will. There is no reason why so many young people should be killed in cities across the country. Most of the gun violence deaths are happening in 50 cities. Sandy hook discussion open up some conversation about violence, but because it was a racialized, because it did not come with understanding of implicit bias in the way in which we have to learn how to talk about race and how it works in our society, and we have to build political will to bring down levels of violence. We know how to bring down levels of urban gun violence. It is not hard. It just takes a lot of work and effort. We have to put the wheel into that. I think we do have an opportunity, but we cant squander it. It really starts with these conversations that lead to organizing, lead to change the local and levels. Is a finds that the Kellogg Foundation is taking. Starting this dialogue and conversation among all of these groups. Journalists have covered individually, but to have your collectively cap this discussion i know you want to speak and then im coming to you, ralph. I know youre a southern guy and would like the lady to go first. I think we learned a lot of lessons with the violence against women. We can together from a lot of different communities. We came together based upon our backgrounds and the issues, but the conversation happened in our communities amongst our women come in the groups. We were organized and we had a message and we were able to accomplish it. Even though we got the violence against women act reauthorized, the conversations havent ended in the communities. We learned a lot from each other. Kellogg sponsored another event not too long ago were some of us were in switzerland and we anded a lot about privilege oppression. I dont think we have enough conversations because that is one piece of it. Privilege and oppression and the unconscious by by us, i think those things have to be on the agenda. If we look at this case and the impact the on and just the Trayvon Martin. I applaud the foundation for bringing us together to have these discussions because race is one thing that is uncomfortable for people to talk about. Have the we need to conversation but we also need to seek out people that are different than us to have the conversation with, just not amongst us. I also applaud president obama for his statement on the martin case and he came out into the 17 minute speech from his heart. It talked about that. He was able, as president of the u. S. And a black man, to convey to people who do not think they are racist the kinds of things that have happened to him in terms of locked doors and other things. No one will come up and say, im a racist. They dont think they are a racist until you call them out on something. We need to have more of a discussion and we also need to you need to help your friends as they do things that they believe are not racist, the pulled him aside and say, do you know how that may me feel . Do you know what you just did . Discussion have this and dialogue. Race is a very uncomfortable thing to talk about. Do you want to jump in here . I do. This conversation makes us sad. It makes me sad because it goes back to the 150 years, how long this is going to take. We tend to jump when we think of as a policy martin response, we need to help more young boys in trouble, going to jail. Trayvon martin was a kid going to a store. He was not a high school dropout. He was not someone who had been adjudicated. He wasnt all those things. Normal, everyday kids. The conversation about race is going to have to compliment the legal work were doing, the voting work were doing. This is the part that is going to take 150 years and a part that makes me sad because it is the part that is about individual to individual, and we cannot forget that soft piece and we are thinking about how we change laws and thinking about how we create policies. It is about human to human. Do athink one thing we the applied Research Center that has helped in those conversations quite often is we really try to spend more time talking and thinking about impact rather than intention. So that when a person says, i am not a racist and did not intend to offend anyone, i did not intend to oppress anybody, i have learned to accept that lack of intention. You know, maybe i feel confident that it wasnt there, maybe i dont, but if the person says, i didnt intend to, my usual reaction now from it which ive had to train myself, is to accept that and accept it on its face because if they said, well, i did intend to, that would be a different conversation. [laughter] and ive had that conversation, too, and it is quite different. So better if you dont intend to, in my view. And if you dont intend to, we can except that as a premise. We can move on from there. And then we can start to deal with the impact of actions and. Ositions and behaviors and i do find that quite often people, if you can reinforce the good intention, they will actually then begin to have some openness to changing their behavior. But if there if their defenses go up right away, and you as the mature, experienced, hero of thate reinforceon cant what is good in a lack of racist intention, then that is a person you might not be if you can reinforce what is good, that is a person you might actually be able to recruit into this grand project we have. So i heard Martin Luther king iii say this weekend that 50 years ago when his father was delivering his i have a dream, speech they came to washington and it was about civil rights and he compared it to being about justice and civil rights and jobs. We have not talked much about jobs. It is sometimes difficult to fight the good fight if you dont have a check coming in. We have to recognize there is a job cap in the nation and there is a growing income inequality, which when combined with the racial wealth gap means America Today has a larger income inequality than in any time since the 1920s. We have lost tremendous ground in terms of that. While we have a stronger safety net, no doubt, and overall standards of living are generally higher, we have fewer people although there are that was the reality of 1925 for those who are in poverty, particularly in ral south and for some in the cities. We dedicated our work at the National Urban league for 103 plus years to jobs and economics. I am proud we Just Launched in may of this year a new jobs. Tive for we have an unprecedented level of new job to training programs. Some targeted at the formerly incarcerated, both those from a juvenile system and the adult system some of that were going to try to train and how place and good jobs. But i have to tell you that from a Public Policy perspective, the most important step we have got to do is help people move towards livable wages. We need an increase in the minimum wage. We need to index it to take the politics out. We need to make work pay. In other words, work needs to pay. That means a large number of americans who work and are still poor cant make ends meet, i think is the great tragedy. Theres a tendency to think of the poor is being unemployed and locked out of the economic system. When so many of the poor are working poor, so many of the working poor are women with children, young women with children, young women of color from all committees. The jobs issue, we have been thwarted now for number of years for there to be what i call the main stream a main street economic program. Wall street got its Bailout Program and the Automobile Companies got their Bailout Programs. The mainstream didnt. Like the american jobs at the president has proposed has been thwarted by filibusters in the congress. It is not just about Public Policy. Public policy is crucial and key , and that is why yesterday was about jobs and justice. 1963 was about jobs and justice. Thewe are, when it comes to africanamerican community, we have a higher Unemployment Rate and 2013 than we had in 1963. The recession, indeed, has made it worse. We have to elevate Public Policy. Those of us who work in the Justice Community also have to focus more on economic policy. When people are economically independent, selfsustaining, they have less challenges when it comes to things like health and education. These matters Work Together and theink most importantly, work we do because we are a direct services organization, we made an unprecedented commitment what im looking for is some of the work were doing to help those who have been incarcerated. When we get success, the message is going to be we need to expand this kind of work. But already we face the barriers of people who do get some training not being able to get work because too many private sector firms have barriers on hiring people who may have any blemish on their record. So these are complex issues, but economics is so crucial to this new Civil Rights Movement. I would say in some ways the issue is even larger. This is a place where if you compare us to 1963, there are some really troubling comparisons. In 1963, we were in the middle of a rising economy, a growing middle class. Inequality was actually decreasing yearbyyear between 1946 and 1973. We were doing better. It was the great compression. But what has happened now, there has been so many structural changes in the economy that it is not simply getting people into a succeeding economy. Our task becomes changing the whole structure of the economy, such that it is more people centered. It includes a lot of different things. It is jobs and living wage. It is also tremendous investment in education, whether early orldhood Education College affordability. It requires a lot more investment than what the president spoke to. A change in the tax structure so it is more generally progressive is required. Buts not only about jobs, an economy that really works for everybody and one that everybody has an equal chance. We need a democracy where everyone has an equal say, and that is really important. The market in 1963 was followed by tremendous acts of president ial courage and the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights act or shortly thereafter. President obama, with a stroke of his pen, could say in every job that is federally contracted , which is over tulane jobs, everyone has to be paid a living wage. Even those privatized services were people now are being paid 7. 50 an hour and a dollars an hour. That would make ash and eight dollars an hour. That would make a huge difference. He could do it and he should. Washington is watching and listening, a funny thing. I hope so. Middleink we are in the of a movement on jobs and the economy and we saw that food worker strike over the last pico is involved in the living wage fights. I think what we need to be clear about is, we cannot get to where we want to get to with a race neutral approach. So if we just talk about jobs and just talk about living wage and just talk about minimum wage, we will not get a vision that was laid out 50 years ago. And part of what i think is so you unique and valuable about this conversation is it is an opportunity to bring that targeted universalism, that sense that if you look across the spectrum almost all americans have been disadvantaged by the economic decisions we have made over the last 30 years. In the wake of the march. It is federal policy, minimum wage laws, how we treated unions. But the people who have been most affected have been African American and latino, especially communities. We have to be able to talk about that explicitly and then build into our policy strategy, both lift everyone we have to establish living wage jobs and an for everyone to get full employment. We also have to be very conscious about who gets access to the jobs they get created. We have to remove the barriers to people who were formally incarcerated. Statelevel efforts on collateral sanctions. Ohio past remarkable legislation to end or remove whole set of collateral sanctions for people coming out of the prison system. It was passed in part through coalition, civil rights, the catholic church, formally incarcerated returning citizens, and then broadly supported republican the democrats will stop so this can be a bipartisan effort. It can involve a broad set of people but it has to have a race consciousness to it and i think that is what is kind of conversation is so valuable because we can bring it to the jobsite. Ben . One thing we have to establish is that we all have an interest in solving this problem. Every person in this country has an interest in us getting more people to work, quite friendly, replacing this kind of bottom scraping minimum wage is than half of what wouldve been if it had held up to inflation with something that people can actually live on. Going backthe to this notion, not only is there a hierarchy of race that is pretty much defined by shades of color, if you will, but the oppression showed towards those of us who are not white only hurts us. My mom published a book called combined destinies about 50 people talking about racism. The notion in the human family can hurt most of the family and not hurt the whole family is ridiculous on its face. You really see it in the economy. Our country led the world in the last century, and like most of the world in the last century, we were placed with a strict racial hierarchy, a caste system, if you will. The world has become in a sense flat. The only way we will eat it like we have, is to become flat ourselves. But also with this fight on the minimum wage, quite frankly, folks up a lot of of our economy over consume. Wage from seven dollars to 10. 25, most of that money will go back into the same corporations that are complaining about the impact. Mindsetgot to get to a i saw jack kemp so emphatically the tray one day in southcentral los angeles, he was just saying, all of our children, all of our children, all of our children. Clearly talking about the crisis he felt of the young people down the street in a Public School in southcentral. A black woman said, where is he from . Where is he from . I said, maam, i dont think he is from southcentral, if that is what youre saying. She said, i dont think so, so whose gift is he talking about . I said, maam, i think his point is there all our children because we are all citizens of country. T they ultimately belong to all of us. You onnt to hear from this topic as well. Jobs . Is a small example, which is a study was done recently that said if all of the retailers, the bigbox retailers, simply waged or raised the lowest wages to the point where a family of three would be over the poverty line, which is about 12 25 cents an hour, in just doing that, it would have taken 1. 5 million families out of poverty, created 130,000 new jobs, and cost them one percent of their cost. The idea that we are in a permanent, lowwage, low opportunity ladder economy is the most devastating thing. Singlehurts every person. People of color, yes, absolutely the most, but the level of Economic Security now for White Working Class families is higher than it has ever been. It is not just about having the economy work for an Additional Group of people, but an economy that is no longer working for anyone except for the 1 . If that doesnt change, the rest of the century looks bleak. If it does, we really can lead the world. For the longest time hispanics have a on him, reagan africanamericans. That is changing. The longest time, hispanics had higher and implement reagan African Americans. That is changing. I think we need to stop the wedge that is breaking up our group. Trying to break up the Civil Rights Community. Because hispanics do work and a lot of lowwage industries. They are the backbone of the fast Food Industry in many cases of the service agencies, who cleans the offices at night. But we this week in the newspaper was filled with whether immigrants were going to take jobs away from white and black americans who would be willing to do those jobs. People talk about this as if people want to be a lowwage jobs. Taking them away because they want to be no stops. What we are forgetting is that we are creating talk about a permanent underclass. We are creating a permanent underclass when we act as if that job is a reward. Youre very fortunate to be working in a fast food industries, fortunate you can work two jobs, clean an Office Building at night and work in construction during the day. We have fallen back from some of the strategies that we know work , like educating our children to a level they can compete with anyone. Like protecting Worker Rights and having people understand what their rights are as employees and as human beings. And the kind of work they are entitled to and the kind of pay they are entitled to. All of these issues cant be byved a groups alone, individual groups, hispanic groups, African American groups. We have to do this together because we are becoming pawns against each other in this bigger economic battle. And that is one of the things that a Civil Rights Community, we can come together on it as a group and talked about the economy as something that we are going to lead in the future because of the changing demographics, and this is in the interest of everyone in the country. There is another set and i couldnt agree with you more, but theres another set of economic headwinds that is a phenomenon of postrecession america, and that is the idea that those that achieve a College Degree are having difficulty finding a job in their chosen field of study. Having difficulty finding a job that matches their educational qualifications level. Finding a job that allows them to pay back your student loans. What that does is is it puts pressure and competition because they are now competing for jobs that they may not have been interested in 10 years ago. That is one set of economic headwinds. Another set are the large number of what i call mature workers. Theyre in their 50s. In their 60s. They find themselves being laid off, out of work for the first time in their careers. Who are not old enough to collect Social Security, who didnt work in an industry where there was a private retirement system or an adequate private retirement system, who find themselves in the economy competing. Olderk with 55 and americans, lowincome americans, who are looking for work. And the pressures on them. So now there is this increased competition for jobs that were in fact mainly populated by younger workers or less skilled workers. Comments about the structural issues, those are the things we have gotten away from the discussion in economic policy. So much of the focus has been, lets just get Economic Growth and a rising tide will lift off. Now we know a rising tide will not necessarily left off boats, it will lift those who dont have a boat or live those boats that are stuck at the bottom. That may give you good example of that. In Indian Country has the highest systemic unemployment over any other group. And usually we are never mentioned because were the astra to the data pools. A is is athat im good example of where one of the places were Indian Country has been left off the table continually. But only from the conversation, sometimes within our own group, but most lee and the policy Decision Makers sony talk about structural racism, you look at policies that actually are supposed to help the economies of other governments. Financing, energy tax credits, green jobs, all kind of other kinds of labor programs and they all forget Indian Country. In tribesdont add two authorizing language or included in policies, we are left off the table. Once again, the community that has the largest systemic unemployment gets left out of the proposed solutions. I think what is important to this is to really be able to make sure that we are inclusive in the group for but also that the recommendations, this conversation needs to happen around education, because it is not just about jobs but about education and opportunities,. Bout access, Rural America there are a lot of players that need to be in this conversation. Thank you for that comment. Spent a lot of time today looking back on the last 50 years and i think the question now is, how do we look forward to the next 50 years . Really this question of what has been the copper inset set of policies that have structurally shifted our economy and our society that have prevented our communities and families from really getting ahead are really just being able to sustain themselves weatherby education him at the economy, health am a the Justice System all of these things, if we think of them as a complex have really been structurally disintegrating in a way that has prevented our families from even maintaining. How do we think about a Racial Justice agenda, as you mentioned, looking forward over the next 50 years i can really have a comprehensive agenda that looks at all of these things in concert with each other . How do we improve the Education System at the same time were thinking about the educational system making sure that people have the right to health care and housing and all of these things . And of course, all undergirded by Justice System that really recognizes the needs of everyone in our community. You have posed a pretty lofty question. Keep working with me because were going to get there. I want to get thoughts from everyone on that question. I did promise ralph to get in here. I agree with need to be inclusive, but i also want to make sure we remember youth unemployment, 18 to 24. Joint center is completed a job study on our website that shows in some cities that youth unemployment is as high as 50 . We need to make sure we focus on older folks, as mark mentioned, but it is also an issue we need to focus on. But so the Racial Justice agenda. I heard statistics from a small study in virginia that asks the question about whether or not people believe they were still judged by their color. 71 of those polled said, yes, they do. Then they said 54 believed their children would be. As we think about that agenda and we look forward, dr. King did not necessarily put a timetable on it, he just said, i hope one day. Do we think you met 100 years . Where are we going . About theot to think struggle for Racial Justice is having an endpoint. Because i think the gap tween the endpoint and where we are is so intimidating that there is no coming out of that gap. It has no end point. Our task is to make as much progress in every generation as we possibly can. No victories ever permanent. There are always holes, always attacks and steps back, so i just figure this is what it is going to be and i try to prepare for an endless struggle. Even though it is endless, it is also beautiful and theres a lot of humor that comes along with it. We have great moments. It is a joyous struggle. So i think, though, in the next 50 years we could actually do some things. I think we could end the war on drugs. I think we could end racial of arenasin a number in which it is now accepted as regular business. I think we could get a handle on andfuture of the economy begin to reshape some of the begin to shape some of the very Big Questions we need to make like, what are people going to be doing for work . Makestion and technology it so that in fact we need fewer human hands in a bunch of arenas where we used to. So that means we have to think about work quite differently and about what Society Needs for contribution. Behink our best chance will a getting to some of those changes if we have a really fully multiracial Racial Justice movement that is explicit about race in the ways that gordon mentioned, and that engages everybody who has a stake in taking the racial order a part. Judith . I am hopeful about the next 50 years because i think the changing demographics of america presents such an opportunity for us. We are coming into a time where we can redefine what it means to be americans. For too long, that has been a title that has been really captured and owned by white folks. And many of us, even though born for 200, 300re years, been here since the very beginning before there were know, its, you really not feeling like we were american, right . We were the other. I think we are in the moment where we are getting ready to actually coopt it back and to really own what it means to be american, and i think that from that will come a different dynamic because the power is going to shift. I think it presents a real opportunity, and i think for the folks on the stage and the people who do civil rights and Racial Justice work, for the lgbtq community, we have to make sure we manage the change in the right way. Because we could miss the opportunity if we dont politicize our communities, if we dont educate our communities about the history of this country. If we dont have a progressive idea of where were going, we could actually really fail in that moment. But i think because of the work that has been happening together across all of those lines that we are moving in the right direction, so when we see that shift, when we see the minority become the majority, that we are going to be in the right place to make a progressive america. I cant agree more with both statements. The only thing i would add is create a framework for the ideas , specific engagement. We have got to find ways to empower our people. Around in the 1960s, i remember people talking about taking the power. Well, were going to have the power just because of the numbers. What weve got to learn to do is use the power in a responsible way, use the power in a way that we would want it used with us. And use that power in the american way, which is what we are all striving for, is to be engaged in Building Society as a valuable member of society. And we have got to find ways not only to register voters, but to make sure they turn out at the polls, to make sure they are informed about their communities , and to be able to become the leaders that they are going to be set up for in the next 30, 50 years. I have a personal story. Your opening of this morning on telling a story. I think that my dad in these situations. In 1963, i was five years old, and he sat me down the night before i went to kindergarten and said to me, youre going to an American School tomorrow. And youre going to have to do better than everybody else in school because your chinese. Even though i was born here in america. And you have to prove that youre smarter and better than everyone else just to be treated equally. I know that resonates for a lot of us. I hear the a man from the choir. Yes, it is all those things, it is in viewing them people their own leadership also teaching our children that they will face racism. But what is the response . Is it up personal response to bring for the relationship it is a personal response to bring forward the relationship, but to say that her responsibility beyond your family to your community, to organize, to teach, to lead and that is really the way that we will be a limit change. My thought is, we do our work and i think we are doing a great job collaborating and working together and we can always work to improve it, but as i look at the next 50 years and i really think about this a lot, specially for my community, and ive taken on this challenge almost like succession planning, with that same kind of fervor. I am looking at my next generation and i realize my big responsibility is teaching the next generation. I can do this as my day job, but my full job is running succession for the next generations. We need them to understand why this matters. We need them to understand sovereignty for indian countries, to understand the Civil Rights Movement, human rights movement. We need them to feel comfortable in each others community. We need them to understand the history that is not told in our history books so that we can actually have the next generation more educated. So i spend the majority of my time thinking about the secession plan and how i can keep working with the next generation. If we could do that more, not just with our families, but then our families and all within our youth groups and families, we will have a lot more hope than this generation may have. Ben . Representedtta who congress for so long and was transportation secretary under bush and before that clinton, tells a story about coming home from the internment camps. Child, ana young older person and committed to meeting standing up and saying, we can never afford for there to be an antijapanese party again. Hat andoing to pass my youre going to put money into it and were going to sponsor a young people to go to the republican dinner every year the democratic dinner every year. His potshot was usually, thank god i got to go to the democratic dinner. There are similar stories told in the black community about men coming home from World War Two and deciding and committed he to join the democratic republican party, to push us all rights agenda. We are on the verge of having anticivil rights party in this country, having civil rights be one party issue. There are still allies in the republican party, still governors are making Great Strides and sometimes it is on the take of affirmative action. Think deeply,lly not just about how we build bonds amongst each other, but how we, frankly, reintroduce sole rights to the republican party, which for 100 years was the party of civil rights. In many ways. Next believe if we in the 50 years can get a little more sophisticated about how we work our politics, if in the next 50 years we can be able to more inspire quite frankly, by our grandparents and lessons they understood very well and we can get back to a place for civil rights is a little less partisan, then we can move forward even faster than we think is possible. I think we have opportunities right now with criminal Justice Reform him an opportunity with the Voting Rights act. And we need to see those not as exceptions but as toehold toward getting to that place that those men and women coming back from internment camps understood. But those black soldiers coming back from world war ii understood. Civil rights has to be a universal thing in this country. Universal belief, set of values. But that moment that we were closest to that after world war after the early 1970s, is where we sell the advance so quickly. Quite frankly, the first courageous steps happen with us saying we are going to have the hope to actually talk to the other side of the aisle. Right now things are often we use self reinforcement of our own agenda in ways that are maybe Expedia Expedia in the shortterm but the torrential in the long term. I would be remiss, i need to call my colleague from bet. Welcome. [applause] make suree back and you get your comment and, philip tegeler. We want to thank the panel and are excellent moderator for what has been a thoughtful discussion. [applause] we had been taking your questions, taking them online, social media, bt. Com and have come away with lots of interesting questions. Theres been a common theme throughout many of them. I will bring up the highlights. We also want to make one brief disclaimer that all of the comments are independent of the Kellogg Foundation and bet. With that lets get our conversation started. This question is from susan. Can you discuss how much Voting Rights regression we have seen . Have we seen it at the local level yet . Are we seeing it in our School Boards . What tangible effects have we seen . I will start. I think since the Shelby County case the Supreme Court, clearly we have seen a number of states to restrict the right to vote. You had texas literally in the moments after the decision, the attorney general tweeting that they would start to immediately enforce voter id. As i mentioned, North Carolina actually had that piece of legislation pending, and after that decision, then passed it. We are also seen at the very local levels. Decisions like in North Carolina, one of the counties that was covered by section 5 where a College Campus immediately closed the polling place, and that was a place that had elected president obama. We are seeing these little places bubble up in little areties were things that that small as closing the polling place of that communities of color cannot , that the voting booths is happening. What we are doing is with Civil Rights Community and those of us who do Voting Rights litigation but also with organizations like the naacp and those who are on the ground, is to monitor that. Because it is popping up in every little hamlet and town across the country that these kinds of small changes are happening. Anyone else . Stories on the ground . We work very closely what folkshe small group of that we are focused on quite frankly is activating 1200 units to serve as an network. We brought in folks from all 38 of our state and multistate conferences. That was a couple of weeks ago. Theyre doing the training right now with those units. With pollingg places that are shifting, attorneys general i dont want a repeat everything that we have gone through, but i think we do need to understand this is in many ways a long fight. We reinstate section 4 in the Voting Rights act, we will still be fighting. Folks have decided to take a very old playbook offtheshelf, and using the law to suppress the vote. What most of us grew up with was breaking the law cant to suppress the vote. This is an older playbook because back to the founding of the country itself. The very first group to be disenfranchised, somewhat surprisingly, were the privates in the revolutionary army who lettingd, no, were not the negroes vote or our wives vote or you to vote. In the words of john adams, that would be mobocracy. We need to understand that virtually all of us in this country descend from someone who was categorically denied the right to vote, the vote was oppressed, whether that was a black person or a native person or a poor white man, or a woman. At the very least, we all dissented from women. They took the playbook offthe shelf product to the civil war instead offer 40 years. This is likely to continue to be until orright up shortly after this country becomes majority people of color in 2042. Our next question comes from the social media world twitter. What specific steps can we take with coworkers towards address and acknowledge implicit bias . Steps a feww steps we can take, the first or the sequence might vary depending on your particular workplace and what youre dealing with, but some of the options are, one, to have a direct conversation with a coworker. If youre going to do that, try to remember focusing on impact rather than on intention. Doesf my colleagues who the great online videos under , he saysill doctrine focus on what people did rather than who they are. The second thing you can do, though, is to try to get your workplace, your employee o employer or management to take a deeper look at the workplace of bothand at the kinds the written world, the policies, but also the unwritten rules, the practices, that might be disparityxclusion or or inequity in the workplace. I like to think of workplaces as like hardees. You can invite people to a party, but they have no ability to change the music and the music doesnt suit them, theyre not going to stay at the party very long. We kind of argued out whether we ever really wanted them at the party in the first place. The way that plays out in a professional setting is, you can be a person of color, you can get to the meeting, you can get to the table but if there isnt real equity, no one is going to listen to anything you say. Employer, maybe to have a Diversity Program or training or committee, to think of that as an equity and Inclusion Committee rather than just as a diversity committee, that may help to have your whole work lace begin to think about workplace think about some of the structures you have in place everybody in network lace in your workplace can participate fully. Sometimes it can be a door closer, so it is difficult. What are other techniques you can use to bring up . Word because it is equity. Were doing antiracist work, which means im going to be against you, the racist, or whoever against whoever is being called a racist, thinking about racial equity, Racial Inclusion work. It is a very subtle shift but sometimes it opens up space and it gets us out of that cycle of accusation and defense that it is pretty hard to find our way out of when we are in it. Impact, thinking about structures as a collective workplace, and knowing that it is going to take some real time and energy. It is not a discussion you can have once in a move on from. So try and prepare your coworkers for an ongoing set of work will help. And then, of course, for yourself, if youre the person making the intervention, just really taking care of yourself. Do your meditation and making sure you get your exercise and get enough sleep. Because, in fact, you have to have the internal capacity to deal with very difficult things. And keep your cool while you do it. Some tips. E all at color lines. Com, folks can of people of stories who are making that kind of change happen in the neighborhoods and in their communities. There is a lot to learn from their examples as well. All right, a question that a lot of the local sports fans will definitely want to hear your thoughts on, 50 years after the march on washington, will we see a change to the d. C. Football teams name . I would love to answer that question. [laughter] so to the local team, as we call it, i absolutely think so. I am feeling very optimistic because i believe that more and more voices of the people are stepping up. I think it will get down to economics of the owner, who has definitely put his line in the sand. But as the National Football league and as other sponsors of the team have been starting to urge the team to reconsider action, i think i also want to say one other thing. We always want to create winning opportunities. I am more than willing to figure out how we can create a winning opportunity for the fans who should be, you know, excited about their local team, to come up with a name that is heroic and honorary and that we can all stand behind. I would love to be part of that process. And have an open invitation to do so. Any other thoughts . Well i love sports. Heres the deal. Go for the sea statehood, give tc two United States senator and name the team the washington senators. Removing d. C. As a colony. Sorts ofis these things, it will happen and needs to happen, it is time for it to happen. The awareness has been raised football i am probably a best assessed with football. When i watch the team now, it goes through my mind, has the time just come for this image and for this name to be changed . This is the nations capital. Its institutions and Football Team as an institution and they need to be standing with the best for the future of the nation. I think it is just that simple. Excellent, we move from sports to entertainment. Will someone speak to the role of media, music and entertainment . The role it plays in formulating our ideas about race . What are the responsibilities of music, media, and entertainment . I started to talk about that a little bit earlier about the power of entertainment, the media, to really move hearts and minds. I think that is really, really important. Because art really touches ones soul in a different way than policy analysis or any of the other kinds of things that stimulate our thinking, and the progress that has to be made in terms of policy and other kinds of articulations of change. A really touching peoples soul and touching their hearts is really the way to open people up to really engage in the kind of isversations that rinku sen encouraging us to have or im encouraging people to have other children and families about how do you become that change, how you graft your own grasp your leadership and contribute to organizing and strengthening this country. I do think it is very, very important. Weve also seen the flipside of how harmful entertainment and media can beat your own selfesteem, our own psyches. Certainly in the asianamerican community, this has been a huge issue, that you dont really see asanamericans but foreigners. So that can be really harmful to people and how they view themselves and how they understand their place in the world, but also their community. I think it is an important part. If theres a way we can bring together arts and Civil Rights Community even more strongly with the media and entertainment industry, i think that would be a wonderful partnership. Ben jealous . I was just at a tech conference and spoke to someone who works with code and was reminded that while we are talking about while the grown ups are upstairs, if you will, talking about the influence of music and rap videos, our kids are in the basement playing video games. It is important that we expand our analysis to include those games. They pointed out that black females are a very tiny percentage of who is portrayed. You usually do not have the option to be a black female or. All the black females per trade portrayed things like that are very powerful. People it is because drew up playing video games, e pong or Space Invaders [laughter] but what the young people are playing are so hyper lifelike here it we should be paying more attention. Media part is clearly important. After the acquittal of George Zimmerman, clearly there was a discussion of race on tv. And depending on what station you are watching, it determines what that discussion was going to be peered was that discussion about race going to be about males beingican more violent and saggy pants and all of that or was the discussion going to be about some of the problems that young black men face . Then you have the stations that kind of give a make us where you have a particular person who had startedbout which from a discussion about what happened on another channel, and he started to have a discussion about the baggy pants. But it has opened it up. It was very offensive. I happened to be in an airport watching it, screaming at the tv what are you talking about . That conversation about race is not the conversation we should be having in this moment, but it is about why young black men are seen as less than human and are being killed on streets and stalked and killed. Frame ourrly can politics and frame how people engage with our politics in the moment. And that responsibility is very important. Excellent. Lets head back out to the twitterverse where is the discussion about monetarily supporting primary education as a necessary step in educating america on race . On thisnk all of us stage believe it is a given that that is what we have to do. We are going through another wave where people are recognizing early education. We have been through several waves and never seem to carry it through. This time is our opportunity to make sure not only the federal government but the states look at the responsibility to young children. If you we all know that have got a good solid preschool education, youre less likely to drop out of high school. Youre less likely to end up in prison. And you are much more likely to earn more money than those kids who did not go to preschool. So it is a given. And we do have a crisis right now. I mean, black and latino and latino children are more likely to be in Public Schools that are being closed. As we see this fiscal crisis playing out in cities across the country, our children are on the short end of that state. I think we have to recognize that this is part and parcel of the dismantling of the public good of Public Education. And that if we allow this to happen, what we will see is more privatization, more charters that are run by nonprofits and private companies, more testing, more money being made out of education than what were putting in in terms of really actually teaching our children and giving them a really sound basis for becoming citizens. So we have to keep that that crisesly one of our main and Public Education and how to save it for all of our children. We see privatization not just in the private schools and Charter Schools but in the Public School system itself. The opportunity structures that create essentially private schools in predominantly white suburban communities, a sociologist calls this a version of opportunity courting. Structural racism are closely tied. We will not achieve the goal we are all seeking here without breaking down those structures and privileges. Folks who are sending their kids to those schools are not going to give this up without a fight. You have two separate structures for poor kids of color and the rest of society right now. That is most prominent in the Public School system. Just pouring more money into that system will might address the problem ultimately. You know, this is being recruiters also in Higher Education. I read a study last week out of georgetown university, huge disproportion between white kids graduating from high school and attending elite colleges. The vast majority of new enrollments of black and latino kids are in the noncompetitive two and fouryear schools that are open enrollment. There is a huge split going on and increasing, increasing the racial split, with more whites going to elite colleges and black and latino kids getting sent to schools that have lower resources for kids and lower terms ofutcomes in graduation and employment after graduation. That is one of the things president obama spoke to this week when he talked about rating colleges. There are other issues, but i think we need to look at those structures. We need to realize that the folks in the 1 and the 10 who are getting the benefit of these opportunity structures are not going to give those up without a fight. House to thehurch schoolhouse now. Lisa harper, an attendee here today, says the march on washington in 1963 was fundamentally led by the church. What is the role of the state Community Today quest of the faith Community Today . Historically, one of the ways in which we have gotten off course is for the religious community, the black church specifically, in some ways being separated from the movement were building. I think reconnecting this and understanding it and not forgetting it, it is fundamentally a moral fight we are in and defined the country we live in. It needs to be led by religious leaders. I think we have seen one of the most powerful organizing on the ground in response to trayvon to levels ofsponse urban gun violence, being led by the religious community, multistate, multiracial. But i think it is connected to as a movement, Civil Rights Movement, postCivil Rights Movement, movement for racial and social justice in this country, entertainment, religion, even sports we have to connect to beagle where they are at at and make sure we are not disconnected we have to connect to people where they are at and make sure we are not disconnected. The civil rights leadership ,as distinctly ministers because they had independent jobs. They did not owe their job for working for a company or institution. So they could not be fired. There is a practical reason. That independent spirit sometimes in a community, those , those thategree are independents lady a large role. So there is a practical reason. They are going to fire me because we are past our time. I just want to say also [laughter] we have to of unity, look at nonjudeochristian states. Since 9 11, Muslim Americans have been profiled and the level of hate violence has increased significantly. Whether it be buddhist or muslim or other faithbased communities, those also have to really be incorporated in our sense of justice and our sense of bringing our communities together. Lets give the panel a hand. Thank you. It has been a pleasure. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2013] i really cannot adequately sum up how wonderful and historic and rush us this morning has been with all of you. It is amazing to five years ago we could not have had this conversation. Withconversation today this audience represents progress. And we need to take heart right now and realize that we are not where we were five years ago. We could not have had this kind of honesty and inclusive representation of the future of our country. And we can have it now. We must seize the momentum of now, as our panelists have said so eloquently. We would not be having the need for this work if there was not still the residual belief that some people are better than others. And so when we talk about what will it look like when we have a victory, and i have started wheng when not if, but racism has been eradicated. Because race is a social construct. It does not exist. Every branch of science tells us that we are one human family. The genome has to mr. Do that there is less than 1 difference in us. So what does that mean . We have to teach our children that. They have to open their books and say, you know, there was a time when america believed in racial hierarchy. And this is all the harm that we created because of that leaf, but we are now a different america. That is what our children have to learn. The wk Kellogg Foundation is humbled and privileged to be able to partner with these organizations. Remember, hundreds and tens of hundreds more in this country who have the courage i want to emphasize courage, because it still does take courage to do this work. So we applaud all of those who have the courage that we know if wed took all the money that exists in the world of philanthropy, and every foundation, we would be putting a drop in the ocean that is required to do this work. So i say to you, the Public Sector must invest in this work. The private sector must invest in this work. The future of our country requires that we get it right, scorch eradicated the and its consequences of this absurd notion that some children have less value than others. So when you leave here today, please leave here with a sense of determination and commitment to him and knowing that this is our work. This is the work of this century. Please take on that work as a part of your everyday life, not just on the memorial and the remembrance of dr. Kings wonderful leadership, courage, and a sacrifice and the hundreds of thousands who sacrificed with him. Is our work. It is everyday work. Ultimately, our health and the health of the nation will be greatly enhanced when we have done this work. Ofis a social determinants health and wellbeing. When we address this, we will do much more in the affordable vandy Affordable Care act could ever do. I love the Affordable Care act. It has to happen. It has to be fixed where it is not perfect, but it is a wonderful the three. True health in our country depends on healing our hearts and allowing our most than a mental need to be addressed, the need to be in a relationship, beloved, and be connected, and not be discriminated against as an other. So thank you all very much for being with us today. [applause] as this discussion wraps up, a reminder that you can see all of our programming related to the 50th anniversary of the march on washington on our website cspan. Org. We have a number of tweets from those of you watching this discussion. You cannot solve any problem by pretending it does not exist. We would have had a postracial society if we had talked about it. Also this the real question is, where do we see the impact and is a quantifiable . Also this where is the discussion about monetarily supporting primary education as a necessary step in educating america on race . Again, you can contribute your withhts, your ideas americahealing. There have been a number of tweets commemorating the 1963 march, including best last weekends rally in washington. Cspan will also bring you live coverage this wednesday from the lincoln memorial, the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther. s, i have a dream speech. Live coverage is set to get underway late in the morning on wednesday with speeches and events scheduled throughout the day. We do have more live coverage coming up this afternoon. We will take you to chantilly, virginia for a town hall discussion on immigration. Illinois congressman Luis Gutierrez has been traveling around the country during congress august recess, part of a bipartisan work group known as the gang of seven in the house. It has been working to present a fall. Al by the live coverage set for 1 00 p. M. Eastern right here on cspan. We will also bring you live today a medal of honor ceremony at the white house. Remarks from president obama who is presenting army staff the honor forrter his actions and bravery during a 2009 firefight in afghanistan. Also tonight, we will bring your conversation with former Vice President dick cheney along with his oldest daughter liz who announced her intention to challenge republican incumbent senator mike kenzie and the 2016 election. That is by the steamboat institute, tonight at 7 30 eastern right here on cspan. Original series first ladys influence and image, we look at the public and private lives of the women who served as first lady during the nations first 112 years. Now as we move into the modern era, we will feature the first ladies in their own words. Would be one of the foundations on which we would an atmosphereorld in which peace could whirl. Like i do not think the white house ever completely belongs to one person. It belongs to the people. I think whoever lives and it, the first lady, should preserve it. Quick season two of first ladies , from Edith Roosevelt to michelle obama. It includes your calls facebook comments, and tweets. Starting september 9 on cspan. Tonight, we will conclude the encore presentation of season one of our series with first lady ida mckinley. We will be live at 1 00 p. M. Eastern with a town hall meeting on immigration with illinois congressman Luis Gutierrez. We will have more when they get underway. Until then, a discussion on the faas next generation Transportation System from todays washington journal. Host we take a look at how your money is at work in the segment. We are looking at improving air coordination and operations. It is called next generation Transportation System or nextgen. It was originally expected to cost about 40 billion. Were joined by Gerald Dillingham, who has studied this project for the government Government Accountability office. Give us a better sense of what nextgen actually is. What is that 40 billion supposed to buy . Guest it is the full transformation of the air Traffic Control system. It is about 28 to 29 different products. The end product is to move from a groundbased, radarbased system to a system that is based on the Global Positioning system the gps. We are moving into the 21st century with our air Traffic Controller system. Host it was started in 2004 and expected to be finished in about 2025 with that 40 billion price tag. What is this going to mean for passengers, pilots, and air Traffic Controllers . Guest it is going to mean significant gains for each group. For the air traffic system, it is going to give us a more efficient, greater capacity, environmentally friendly, and for the general public it is going to have a positive impact on emissions. It is also going to do away with, not completely, but have an impact on delays that we experience within the system as part of the flying public. Host here is a headline from the wall street journal. The faas billiondollar a project to him star oh on snarl u. S. Aviation is beginning to speed flights. Talk about the history of this project. Why was it decided in 2004 to finally go ahead and do this . Guest Congress Passed legislation that required the federal Aviation Administration to begin this initiative. It started in the planning stage and we are now some nine years in, and as the headline indicates, there were some bumps on the way. We are starting to see some benefits of the new system. We are moving forward in implementing the nextgen system. Host lets talk about the old system. Guest it is from the 1960s, some of it from world war ii. It was based on groundbased radar and meant that airlines would fly like highways in the sky. They had to stay a significant distance apart. With the new system, we are talking about flying the most efficient, most direct of mean the savings on fuel and emissions. We are going from a man centered, man controlled airspace to an airline centric machine based aviation system. Host we are talking with Gerald Dillingham of the Government Accountability office. We are taking your calls and comments on this nextgen project. The faas attempt to revamp the airline processes. I would love to hear from you. You touched on this a second ago, but dean asked, will it include Remote Control aircraft as has been shown to work since the 1970s . Guest it will have the capability to include unmanned vehicles in the system. There are lots of hurdles that the faa has to overcome in order to allow uavs to fly in the system safely. The faa is still working on developing those regulations and rules that will allow uavs. Host this from april of this year on nextgen and its implementation. Faa has made some progress in midterm implementation, but ongoing challenges limit expected benefits. Talk a little bit about your findings on that report. Guest we found that we were getting to see some limited implementation of nextgen, however there were hurdles that needed to be overcome. The biggest hurdle is to get equipment on the aircraft so they can take advantage of those capabilities. Another obstacle is the Airlines Need to feel some confidence that if they invest in these technologies that faa will come through and also do its part with the ground infrastructure with procedures and policies that are needed to operate. At the same time, we need to remember that we have a system that has to operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week. We have to manage both the ongoing system as well as the transition to the new system. Host talk about the breakdown of cost. 40 billion at the outset of this project expected. You looked at the inner room, or sort of the interim or the near term in terms of cost. Airlines are going to have to cover about 6. 6 billion out of a total of 18 billion to implement nextgens goals. Are we still on track for 40 billion when this thing is finished . Guest each time the system is delayed, and it has been delayed for several years, you can expect an increase in cost. The 40 billion number was a number that we obtained from the faa at the very beginning of the initiative. We have not updated that number at this point in time. Since the finish date has been extended a number of times, i think it is reasonable to expect that the cost will also increase. Host lets show some folks how nextgen is impacting folks right now. A program led by the faa allows all carriers to use satellite guided approaches to seattle tacoma airports. The red lines on this map are the old, controller guided approaches, and the green lines, which are more condensed here, are the new gps guided tracks. How many airports have actually implemented this new gps guided tracking and thus cut down on some of the routes . Guest faa has in place, this kind of orientation in at least 10 airports across the country. I think seattle is the most advanced of those airports with the greener skies. The greener skies is the best example of where the airlines are able to do a very smooth landing into an airport. The aircraft are on an almost idle. You are getting less noise, and the airlines are saving a significant amount of money. The less time theyre up there, the less fuel burn and the less money involved. Host these are paths of planes approaching houston airports. The older path is this longer route here. We talk about saving on fuel and money. Are we going to see those savings get passed on to the passengers of the airlines . Guest it is hard to say what the airlines will do with those savings. Airlines operate on a very thin profit margin. They are beginning to see a profit. We are seeing those profits turned into passenger services. Better services, better aircraft, and things like that. They will eventually do an airline decision, but we are seeing some of those benefits passed on to the passengers as well. Host were taking your calls and comments as we are talking he hasald dillingham. Studied the nextgen for gao. We will start with james from florida on our democratic line. Caller i have a couple of technical questions. I am a pilot and flight instructor. I have issues with nonparticipating aircraft in the gps system. How will they be accommodated . I am worried about aircraft that may be penetrating our airspace. Radar will pick them up. Gps may not. Can you comment on some of those . Guest excellent question. There will always be radar backup to take care of the kind of situation that you described. This is also a dod project and a Homeland Security project as well. There are about six agencies that are involved in nextgen. Part of it involves National Airspace security as well. We will have a backup system of radar in case there is gps interference or spoofing. Host following up on that question, roger asked about the older system as a backup. He also asked how many jobs would be gained or lost with nextgen. Guest i havent seen any studies with how many jobs will be gained or lost. When we looked at this issue in terms of how many air Traffic Controllers would be lost or along those lines because we would be doing more automation than we are currently doing i think the consensus is that we are looking forward to greater capacity. We are not projecting the loss of control or jobs at this point. The controllers will be able to manage and handle more traffic than we currently have. That was the impetus for nextgen the estimated traffic increase that we would see in the next 15 to 20 years. Host daniel is next from pennsylvania on our independent line. You are on what Gerald Dillingham. Caller i am a retired air Traffic Controller. The American Public should be aware that the faa purchases new equipment the same way the military does. They collect bids from large corporations that do eventually produce a product that seldom meets the original specs. That is usually vastly more expensive than anticipated. The benefits from nextgen, it is a commendable goal, but i think that separation standards between aircraft are just about as small as they can be. Im trying to make a lot of points all at once. One example how controllers have been quite disappointed in equipment that we have received that was much ballyhooed and sold to the public it turned out that the faa bought shiny brochures and not real equipment that was highly functional. We received a radar system in about 19791980. We had keyboards that communicated with two different functions of the system, one with the radar system, one with the flight plan system. One was a conventional qwerty keyboard and the other was an alphabetical keyboard abcdefg, etc. The transition between the two to work efficiently and rapidly was very difficult. We complained about the intended system extensively before was delivered but we got the goofy unworkable system and had to make it work. Guest you make some very good points. Let me speak first to the separation standard. The separation standards are such that faa and the controllers have determined that there need to be certain space vertically and horizontally between aircraft. What we found is that, for increasing the margin of safety, the air Traffic Controller have added to those separation standards and therefore you have space in between aircrafts that if they are put together closer with a more precise location of where they are, where you can obtain through the nextgen system, then you are able to add capacity to the system safely and efficiently. Host pilots reaction times pilots will be able to react in case something happens. Guest absolutely. As a general rule, it will give more space to the aircraft in their operating envelope as such. The second question that you raise about equipment that when it goes into operation or when it is brought into the air Traffic Controllers is not what it is expected to be, that is one of the longterm problems with faa. The need to bring all the stakeholders together so that when something does finally get to the control tower, it is in fact, reflective of what the controllers need. It is equipment that needs to be maintained by the faa technicians. Now we have a lot more coordination, collaboration between all of the stakeholders. I think air Traffic Controllers are on board and they are indeed well integrated into this nextgen system. Host Gerald Dillingham works at the Government Accountability office. How long have you been working there on aviation issues . Guest longer than i want to admit, but at least 25 years. Host you were there when the gaa put the system on the high risk list. Why was nextgen on that list for a while . Guest we had a modernization system on a high risk list. It is a list of programs and projects that we believe are at risk or could be at risk of exceeding their schedule or their budget or the fact that we want to monitor those for the congress because they are large and complex problems or initiatives that need to be monitored so we can inform the congress as soon as possible if we see anything developing. We had the atc system for about 12 years. That was because it experienced all of those problems that we just talked about. It was over budget, behind schedule, it was complex. After about 12 years, the faa decided to move to running the atc system as a business. It began to bring the project in on time, with budget. We took it off the high risk list with the notion that we would be monitoring nextgen as it came into being. We made sure congress was well informed of any situations that were on their way to being a challenge or problem for this nextgen system. Host we talked about the potential savings with nextgen, will airlines pass the cost of implementation to the consumer . Will our tickets cost more to pay for this . Guest what we do know this point, airlines will be saving money. That money we hope those profits will be turned into better customer service, newer aircraft, and things like that, rather than passing on the cost. We would not point to the fact that this would be passed onto the consumer in terms of increased ticket prices. Host will controllers become passive if a gps system is used for landing and takeoff . What threshold is needed to override that system . Guest the controllers will shift from handson control of the aircraft to more managing air traffic. There will be a human in the loop through all of this. The controllers will be a part of the system. Host lets go to maurice from georgia. Caller good morning. I am confused as to why this would take 21 years to implement fully. When i read about it, the primary impediment seems that the airlines and their implementation and their adopting of the transponders is the primary impediment. That is the reason it would take so long for this to be implemented. Wasnt the 20 billion in the Stimulus Program specifically for the gps conversion . Arent other countries already havent they already implemented fully a gpsbased air Traffic Control system . Host 21 years on implementation, mr. Dillingham. Guest this is a significant undertaking on the part of faa. It is one of the largest Infrastructure Projects that we we are concerned that it has taken up to this point to achieve the kind of nextgen implementation that we have achieved up to this point. There are a number of issues that have impacted on why the system is taking this long. The key is part of what you say in terms of equipage by aircraft. It is not only the equipment and the airlines, it is a significant issue, but there has to be procedures developed, tested, the systems have to be demonstrated so that they are safe. They have to be operated while the Current System operates. There are so many other issues besides equipage. We have criticized the faa for almost 10 years of planning and not much implementation. The hope is that we will that we are at the point where we are seeing some returns on the investment that faa and the airlines have made in regards to seeing benefits from nextgen. Host the other question was on stimulus funding. As you were talking about that, are there cuts under sequestration that could impact nextgen . Guest if i can go back to the first question or second question about other countries. Other countries are doing something similar to what we are doing. European countries have an initiative that essentially ends up being the same thing that we are doing. They are not in front of the u. S. In terms of doing it. Theyre working together. Theyre collaborating together. All of these are moving step by step. Aircrafts operate internationally. They are going to have to be interoperable between systems, otherwise, airlines would have to be equipped with two different systems. That would not be cost effective, efficient, or safe. Other countries are doing it and we are working handinhand with those. With regard to the stimulus money, i am not aware that the faa received any money to push nextgen forward or push gps forward. The gps system is also used by dod. I am not aware if there was money involved in that or not. The third question you asked, that has to do with the sequester. It did have an effect on faa. Faa is at this point, developing regionalized implementation of sweeps of Nextgen Program at many of the major airports around the country. These initiatives involve both the air Traffic Controllers, the airports, as well as faa personnel. Some of those initiatives had to be delayed or put on hold while the sequester was in place. At this point, we dont know how it is going to come out or what the congress is going to do with further sequestration. Impacts on faa could also affect and delay the implementation of nextgen. Host we have about 15 minutes left with Gerald Dillingham. Phone lines are open for your questions and comments about nextgen this effort to upgrade the u. S. Aviation systems. Joe is up next from flushing, new york. Caller the jets taking off of runway 13 at laguardia have three four options to take off. The safest one is the whitestone climb. It takes off over the sparsely populated park during take off. The faa are diverting the jets for the u. S. Open, for baseball games now, and theyre going to a new climb called the flushing climb over densely populated areas. Will nextgen pinpoint those as highly political the takeoff routes. How will nextgen be used to fairly distribute the planes and the noise and the danger . Host i want to show the story in todays the New York Times talking about this issue. It is called a rumble in the sky, and grumbles below. Laguardias new tennis climb concentrates planes over a swath of queens. Irritating residents below. Previous routes were created to diverge planes from the u. S. Open and were more dispersed. Bt shows the new tennis clim and the routes the caller brought up, and finally that flushing climb. Guest the new york area is one of the most congested areas in our country where three major airports in close proximity. In terms of nextgens capability to reduce noise and emissions, it is in fact, the mission of nextgen. It is to help aircraft smoothly land in airports with their engines almost on idle so you get less emissions, less noise. It will also make for more precise landing and takeoff as well. Unfortunately, when you move traffic from one place to another, someone is going to experience the noise that perhaps they didnt experience before. The faa is working to minimize the impacts where they can and the airlines are working with quieter and more efficient jets as well. Those particular takeoff lines that you mention are something that faa, under its own study and procedures, made a determination that this was the safest, most efficient way to proceed. I am confident that faa will continue to address this issue as we move forward. Host lets go to paula, from tucson, arizona. Good morning, youre on with Gerald Dillingham. Caller the nextgen system is moving from a groundbased to a spacebased type of system. How was it going to help manage that . Guest as it turns out, faa is responsible for commercial space flights. It is responsible for integrating Unmanned Aerial Vehicles into the airspace system. It is the most efficient way to handle both of those missions. Gps and nextgen is the answer to our air Traffic Control system in accommodating those new types of traffic. Host back to the article in the New York Times and the different departure routes around laguardias airport. One of the issues that was brought up is the fact that the environmental reviews can take a long time when trying to reroute planes at different airports. Explain that issue. Guest we found that the faa did not involve Community Members as much as they should have. When those new routes and new takeoffs and landings were implemented, it brought a surprise to the community because they were receiving more noise and emissions than they had previously. One of the key things that must happen is that Community Involvement must be attended to by faa and those who are developing nextgen. In the new york area in particular, it is difficult to find a route out of new york that is not going to affect someones noise and their environmental feel. It becomes a priority to involve the community as part of the Stakeholder Group when you start moving forward and changing routes. Host cambria heights, new york. Good morning. Caller i live in cambria heights. Right now, i have two letters i was about to send off to the congressman and some other person. The traffic from the airplanes is so many and so noisy. What can be done whether they reroute or alternate them with other areas. No one area should have to accommodate or put up with all this. We know that flying is important. Different areas should absorb some amount of it at different times. The planes are flying so low, it is very scary. Guest your question is very important. I think you are beginning to take the steps that i would recommend, which is to contact your congressperson and let them know what your concerns are. You should also contact the faa. More to the point and closer to you, contact the airports because they have noise mitigation committees and executives. They need to know what the complaints are. If they move forward with further reorganization of the new york airspace, these are the inputs that they need to have to know how the community is being affected by new routes and takeoff and landing lanes at the new york area airports. Host lets go to mary, from fredericksburg, virginia. Caller thank you for taking my call. I am enjoying your explanation of everything. You make it sound well it is easy for me to understand. I was wondering, is this going to be a gps platform . Is that what youre talking about . Guest absolutely. It is going to be a shift from groundbased radar to automated gpsbased communications and navigation for aircraft and air Traffic Controllers on the ground. Caller my question is, what happens when satellites are disabled . What kind of a backup plan will there be in that scenario . Guest there are redundancies within the gps population so that a switch can be made almost automatically should there be a problem with one satellite. A second backup we will maintain groundbased radars for a long time into the future to make sure that we have that kind of backup. A third backup you have the pilot. You will have the human in the loop. That will also be a backup that can guide and control those aircraft to the ground or to their flight paths if necessary. Host another question from sea of tranquility on our twitter feed. How well can they detect possible downdrafts . Guest because of the global look that this will have, the pilot will know where bad weather is and will be able to fly around bad weather. It is a situation you may be familiar with. You are sitting on the ground in miami and the weather is clear but you get an announcement on the intercom that says we are having a weather delay because of the weather between here and denver or here and seattle. With gps and being able to route to the most efficient weatherproof routes, you will be able to minimize those kinds of delays and move straight through the air Traffic Control system because of gps. Host we have a few minutes left with Gerald Dillingham. He is the director of Civil Aviation issues with the Government Accountability office. Paul, on our independent line. Caller i just heard mr. Dillingham. I think he is very wellversed on the air Traffic Control system. I think the public has noticed in recent years that airlines tend to shut down and not fly in thunderstorms areas. That is not due to a concern on their part about safety, but it is the fact that the system is so proceduralized and computerized that it is not flexible enough to change with rapidly changing conditions. What assurance do we have that new Computer Systems and a more proceduralized system will be able to react very quickly and flexibly so that a controller will be notified that you can descendent to philadelphia from the north and he will be able to set it up and get going . In the old days when i was a controller in the 1970s, the system was very flexible. You could swap airspace around, you could change whoever and what airspace. You could change procedure rapidly. Because it was a personbased system. People could react rapidly. I fear that the new system will be too rigid and wont work very well. Host a fear that you share . Guest not really. I think were going to have the automated system, the gpsbased system, with its procedure navigation and all the pluses that go with that. Were also going to have the air Traffic Controller still at the heart of this. We are going to have two systems that are going to be able to operate. What is important about gps and the nextgen is that aircraft will be able to see their own path. They will know where other aircraft are and aircraft will know where they are. You will get more capacity, even in terms of bad weather. Nextgen also includes a weather segment. It will be getting the weather on a more rapid basis and they will be able to manage it more precisely and effectively than they have in the past. Host we talked about what nextgen will mean for passengers in flight. Can you talk about what it might mean for passengers on the ground before they take off and after they land . Guest i think the first thing is delays. Not too long ago, one in every four flights were delayed when leaving or arriving at an airport. With the greater capacity of the system, we expect that delays will be significantly decreased. I think that is the Biggest Issue for passengers on the ground. The nonflying public can benefit with regards to those positive environmental things that can, from nextgen. It can be a winwin situation for all involved. Host the director of Civil Aviation issues for the Government Accountability office. You can see some of his work on this subject at gao. Ogov. Thanks a much for joining us to talk about it. In ourange of plans programming this afternoon. Secretary of state john kerry will be making a statement on the situation in syria. The ap reporting that the u. N. Team has been inspecting aside will commit where chemical weapons attacks allegedly occurred. Snipers fired shots at the team and inspectors as guitar. That statement will be live at 2 00 p. M. Eastern. We will have it for you here on cspan. We were planning to bring you a medal of honor ceremony at the white house with remarks the president , presenting army staff er with the cart medal of honor for his bravery in afghanistan. That is set to begin live at 2 10 eastern and moves to c span2. Tonight, a conversation with former Vice President cheney along with his oldest daughter intentionnounced her to challenge the incumbent senator in the 20 16th election. We will have that for you from colorado, the steamboat institute, tonight at 7 30 eastern on cspan. In our original series first ladies inflate an image, we looked at the public and private lives of women who served as first lady during the nations first 100 12 years. Now as we move into the modern era, we will feature the first ladies in their own words. Building human rights would be one of the Foundation Skills on which we would build in the world an atmosphere in which peace could grow. Not think the white house ever can completely belong to one person. It belongs to the people. I think whoever lives in it, the first lady, should preserve it and enhance it. Ladies,n two of first from Edith Roosevelt to michelle obama. Why on monday nights, starting september 9 at 9 00 we will include the encore presentation tonight of our series. In chantilly, now virginia. We are at a town hall meeting. This is just getting underway. Country, people are demanding comprehensive Immigration Reform and the end of the deportations and distraction of our families. [applause] was in minneapolis, st. Paul. The church was full. She bemoaned the fact that more people did not come. Frustratedired and and disillusioned. Will guess what. Example is giving the today. No one has the right to be tired or disillusioned. No one has the right to give up today 1200ht because people will be deported. Hundreds of children will be left without a mom or a dad, without a husband or a wife. The fear that permeates our community has to come to an end. Do not have a right to be tired. You have a responsibility to fight, to make this a better nation. Virginia is giving that example. Thank you so much. [speaking in spanish] signs we are going to win in Immigration Reform, i want to welcome john. [applause] [speaking spanish] gracias. Gracias. [speaking spanish] amen. [speaking spanish] [speaking spanish] amen. [applause] [speaking spanish] very, very much. I do so much. Now we are going to start the program so please have a seat. [speaking spanish] we want to say thank you to all of the people who are here supporting this very important event. The aclu of virginia new united, tremors of virginia, members from chantilly our two friends. [applause] thank you so much. And to all of you, thank you so much. You need to come back. Welcome. We are going to have a very critical discussion today. A is important we have discussion about the impact of Immigration Reform. We never think about how important it is. [speaking spanish] today is women eat quality day. It is very important we have this conversation. In particular i want to say one more time, thank you to our leaders, our champions. The persons who fight every single day and night in capitol hill. [speaking spanish] every single day and night, trying to win to gather republicans to pass Immigration Reform. That is the reason today we are here in virginia. A republican who believes it is very important that he supports Immigration Reform. Now i want to welcome all of you and in particular, i want to welcome the facilitator of the conversation. Thank you very much for this very important moment. A professor at yorktown university. Welcome and a thank you very much. Hello . Thank you. Moment toke to take a thank our organizers for this opportunity to present to you and thank you all for coming to this important event to recognize the contributions of women and immigrants in this country and of the particular plight of immigrant women and the special issues that they face. This day honors the 19th amendment that forever changed our nation by empowering millions upon millions of families, millions of women, social, cultural, Economic Issues that are based on gender equality. Women know the importance of coming to gather and we would not be where we are today without the help and support of the women in our lives, our sisters, our lives, our mothers, our doctors, our friends. Today we honor and celebrate our unique contributions and roles in protecting families and giving unique opportunities to all. We know it is not about what you look like or where you are from or what values you have, but what you do that defines you in the United States. It is not just about your background, but also about what you are contributing to this country. We wills discussion explore the harmful immigration impact on women and children. They are often the ones left behind when fathers are deported which is hard for the fathers, are left women who behind to hold that a family together and support that family. They also suffer other types of discrimination and impact from our Immigration Laws. Any proposed Immigration Laws must address the special needs of women and children. We are joined by Service Providers and immigrant women who are all committed to positive change in our Immigration Laws. Part of a National Network of Organizations Holding similar events to ensure that the needs of women and girls are front and center in any debate about comprehensive Immigration Reform. These events are coordinated by we belong together and to ensure that any reforms that are passed women,r and inclusive to not just in words, but in the actual implementation of the law. With that, i would like to introduce our panelist. I will start with paula fitzgerald. She is the managing attorney. Our next panelist is actually fabiola. Fear of beingr in separated from her children. She sees Immigration Reform as the only means of giving her family full access to the american dream. We then have anna who has lived in Northern Virginia for 14 years. Knows firsthand many single women in similar situations who are desperate for an Immigration Reform bill to pass out of congress. Have lillian from the masses. Her family has been directly impacted by the Immigration Crisis that has been a result of our broken immigration system. Several months she has become a local activist. Thank you all for being here. We are going to start with you. We have a couple of questions for our panelist. The first question we would like you to address is if you could please describe the impact of the Immigration Crisis on women and children. Thank you for having me. I think the major impact i have seen on immigrant women based on our horrid immigration system is visa wait times, the long separation that many women and men have to separate from their families. I have a lot of clients who have been separated from their children for more than 10 years. Areng the time they separated they are emotionally distance from their children and in many cases, some very horrible things have happened to their children. Of my had children clients a broad be threatened or attacked by gang members, sexually assaulted. They are in a more vulnerable situation in their home country. Thatis something absolutely needs to be changed. Visa holders do not grant status for independence. They do not grant work permissions. A loss of women who come with their husbands who do have visas are still not granted work permission in the u. S. That is putting them in a very dependent situation which is problematic if there is any Domestic Violence or something of that type. We have a lots of clients who are Domestic Violence victims and the long wait times, just the way the system goes in general, sometimes it discourages women from leaving an abusive situation and protecting themselves and their children. Women seen a lots of return to very dangerous home theations solely because immigration system does not allow them to have the and still beo lead able to provide a roof over their children. Thank you. Along those lines, there is another issue we face in the deportation context which is even if you didnt qualify for relief, certain kinds of relief, there are certain standards that have to be met. Important that our congressional representatives wrote understand that breaking up a family constitutes extreme hardship. That is not really a consideration under the law, but asis a hurdle people face well as when they are coming back into the United States with waivers. Wanted to turn towards fabiola. If you could share your thoughts with us. [speaking spanish] gracias. [applause] thank you. [indiscernible] [speaking spanish] [applause] enqueue. Thank you. Lillian, could you provide describe the impact of the Immigration Crisis, particularly on women and children . My experience is only with my family. Uncles, cousins. My aunt recently went through a hard time. She has three kids. The oldest one just came. She has been suffering by herself. Her husband left and he disappeared, leaving three kids and her alone. She has been working hard every day with no help from everybody. We just give her support and tell her to move forward. Three kids. To see her working really hard, she has a right to be here as well as cousins who finished high school and have been wanting to go to school. Who are going to school but cant go to college because they cannot make it to university or anything. For them, it is really hard. Kids who wish to have a Higher Education rather than just high who cannot go to universities and pay regular tuition fees or anything else. I see them struggling and cannot really do it. Hat is why i am here [applause] thank you. Our second question we have for our panelist is what role do you believe that women in particular have to play in advocating for relief. Lets start with you. I think that women have the unique ability to tell their stories and share the unique and specific situation and suffering they experienced a stunning immigration system with other people. I congratulate the women next to me who are on this panel for doing so and i would encourage more of the women out there in the audience to do this as well both on formal and informal levels. Tell your story. It is so much more powerful to hear your story than to hear me tell your story to someone else. The strongest thing you as women can do to empower the group, tell your story to anyone who will listen. People do not know what you go through every day and they need to. It is so important that your voice be heard. [applause] could you share . [speaking spanish] thatat she is saying is ple travel to make sure [indiscernible] [speaking spanish] we are the center. [speaking spanish] people who are watching right now through tv my message is to to out and join our fight get Immigration Reform. That is the only way we can win. Talk to your friends, talk to your neighbors and invite them to this type of event. Thank you. [applause] [speaking spanish] as a woman, i am asking all of you to join our fight. We are very strong women. We are fighting for our families, for our kids. And for the entire society. [speaking spanish] as a woman, i am in the struggle and the struggle to get Immigration Reform. , because as women we are the center of our society. We have to keep fighting. For example, myself, if i get deported, who will take care of my kid . My children . We love our families so much that we deserve to be here. [applause] women have their voices heard now. Ones from where kids grow. My mom has always been there for me, always. Also, my aunts. They have been there, but theyre always working. [speaking spanish] i wanted to see her and it is exciting to say that my vote counted in my election for obama. That womentime should stand up and see that their vote counts. [applause] thank you so much. I would like to now introduce and give some background to congressman gutierrez, even though we are familiar with his excellent advocacy work and pushing legislation forward on this very important topic. In thethe 11th term house of representatives, he has established himself as a congressional leader on behalf of his constituents in chicago. His leadership is championing givenuses of latinos and a voice to the millions of undocumented immigrants that on ther country home. National level, there is no elected official more committed to or passionate about court protecting the community than the representative. Congressman gutierrez laid the key role for the Immigration Reform bill that supports women and children, preserves family unities out and provides the pathways of for citizenship. The record level of deportation has been current in the past couple of years. With children and mothers that are being torn apart by this immigration system. Thank you for your leadership and for joining us today. [applause] thank you. First, i wanted to ask everyone to give a warm round of applause to the wonderful panelists who are setting the stage for our conversation. Fights. Your tireless today we celebrate womens equal the day. Celebrate thate women of taint the right to vote and that they are using that right to vote to make america a better lace for all of us to bring more fairness. Want to focus the conversation this afternoon a little more around women and immigration. I think that not enough has been said about our broken immigration system and how it impacts women. You that itare with doesnt matter where i have visited, whether it is a garlic field or a citrus grove outside of orlando or orchards out in oregon and washington state. When i sit down and speak with women in the immigrant community, they all tell me the same thing. They share with me the horribly oppressive conditions that they work on, the sexual assault, they are submitted to it each and every day. I want everybody in this room to think for one moment. If our country cannot protect the women in the armed forces of the United States of america where there have been thousands of cases of assault already documented, i want you just to imagine what happens to women out in the field every day that take that lead us those tomatoes, pick the vegetables, that are the cornerstone, the foundation of our agricultural system, that it only happens to them their. Iowa after a huge rate and i sat down with the women, women with bracelets put on them as though they were criminals. And the government went after them, but they did not go after the men who had abused them for years. The tone of the same thing. Complain,to me, if i if i do not submit, they simply call the police. And timeeen this time again that everybody talks about security, but i want to tell you something. One of the greatest things that will happen with comprehensive Immigration Reform is that the millions of women will be given a document legalizing them in the United States of america so they can take that document, and up a phone, dial 911, bring to justice the men who have exploited them for so many decades. That is something that we must do as a nation. [applause] as we look at the most vulnerable of our immigrants, it is the women. Massiveseen deportation. In the next couple of months, tragically, we will reach 2 million deportations in the last five years. 2 million. 1200 today, 1200 tomorrow, and the next day and the next day and the next day. Women. The burden on the we went out one time to mississippi. We were there, and then we went andto earning him alabama we heard the same story time and again. A woman being abused. A neighbor or woman calls up, and guess who goes to jail. The person who called them because they say that woman does not have papers. What does Law Enforcement due . That is why you have to separate Law Enforcement from immigration policy. The police are there to protect the people. They have to protect the women and the families. It is fine and dandy to talk about safety, but we have to understand just how safety really has a corrosive effect. The police, their cars are important to them to protect them. Their guns are important to them. Their communication, their training is important, but the most important tool, instrument that the police have is the people and the cooperation of the people. Pass Immigration Law to criminalize all emigrants and make them fear the police, you make all of us less safe and you make us all a nation in which we perpetrate injustice on people here who have been submitted to crimes and criminals. I think it is important that we speak about this issue in terms of how it is. I want to tell everybody that i talkot come here to trash congressman wolf. If you came for that, you will be deeply disillusioned. I came here so we can hear the stories of our immigrant communities, so that we can demonstrate to our nation how do deep and profound this movement is for comprehensive Immigration Reform. It exists here. There is this theory that it is only democrats that want it. That is not true. Ran for Vice President of the United States of america. I did everything i could so that he would never achieve that goal. Could everything that he so that i would never be in the majority of the house of representatives, get after the election, he extended a hand of friendship and collaboration and unity. He said to me, you are cap, i am atholic, we cannot have permanent underclass of workers in the United States of america. That does not reflect our values and who we are and he is working to get it done. Like him, there are dozens of other republicans who are ready to stand up. Democrat or a republican issue. A look at the senate. Senate, what was the first thing . There are 54 democrats in the senate. They are the majority. Yet when you look at the proposal, billions of dollars were simply confiscated. Gone. Id Social Security, vanished. You cannot make a claim on any of those dollars. Thats not happen in 1986 under that Immigration Reform. And one you could go back your account was adjusted. Not in the senate proposal. Congress of the United States. 54 democrats voted for obama care. The 11 millionny for the first 10 years any access to the subsidies. Without subsidies, there is no healthcare for lowwage workers in this country. You want toto them, legalize . No healthcare. And pay all your taxes, but dont expect to get any means tested program should you need it. If youre unemployed for more than 60 days, you are out of the program. If you sponsored your wife and children, they are out of the program, too. Saidat wasnt enough, they wait a minute, we just found 175 ilium dollars. That is what the c 175 billion. That is what the cbo says. We allow them to legalize their status. They get no benefits for those 10 years. No right to healthcare. In 10 years,d, dont even think about trying to bring your brother or sister to the United States because we are eliminating that in the Senate Version of copperheads of Immigration Reform. Tookat wasnt enough, they 50 billion so they can but 20,000 more order patrol agents between mexico and the United States, basically creating a militarized zone between mexico and United States. But you know something, i vote. Or that proposal today i would vote for it today even under those harsh conditions because what we need to understand is today someone is going to die in that desert trying to return to that family. Women and men are going to die in that desert. Someone is going to lose a finger, a hand, because an unscrupulous employer is going to put them in harms way. If someone is going to die. There is a woman who will be raped in a field somewhere in America Today because she has no rights in this country. We need to end of that. There are children who are going to cry and marriages that will be destroyed because someone will be deported today. There will be children left orphans in this country. For all of those reasons, we would accept that. I explained to you what goes on in the senate and that is where there were 54 democrats. That is not a democratic proposal. That is the result of democrats and republicans sitting down at a table to have comprehensive Immigration Reform. We are ready to make the same kind of concession. Dont say it is the democrats. We understand that we are in the minority. The republicans should understand that they lost the referendum on november 6. Lets sit down at the table. People like all ryan and others, lets find an american solution. Not a republican solution. An american solution to our tragedy of our broken immigration system. [applause] we want more people to be able to celebrate in the coming decades. At their ability to vote. Their ability to make our democracy and strengthen our democracy. The New York Times, the wall street journal, the editorial comments are similar, almost identical. Conservatives, liberals, almost the same. They sat down with the u. S. Chamber of commerce in an unprecedented agreement on immigration. Spend millions of dollars against each other in the congress of the United States, they sat down and is said a southern we saw baptist, evangelicals, lutherans, men and women of different faiths who have fundamental differences but they put those differences aside for comprehensive Immigration Reform. Weve seen that. Largest Growers Association in this country sat down with the union and reached an agreement. Durbin who and dick came from florida as a senator said, and no, it was all amnesty set down with bennett from. Olorado republicans and democrats in the senate set down and put their differences aside to bring about copperheads of Immigration Reform. Why is it that the only place where people cannot set aside their differences and compromise and find Common Ground is in the house of representatives . That is what we must achieve. Look. I dont have them, but they exist. I know. We talked to them all the time. Some of them have artie come forward like all ryan. We know that 40, 50 republicans already exist. 185 democrats. Re we know we have a majority, right . It exists. We fought for it. But they wont allow us to vote. That a majority of the majority must first make an agreement before we can all vote. I wanted you to understand just what that means and how particularly undemocratic it is and how corrupting it is of the democratic system. Are 230 saying there four republicans and before we can vote on anything, 118 of those have to agree on something. 118. If 118 republicans agree on something, then the 435 of us can vote on it. That is not what they did in the senate. That is not what the New York Times and wall street journal did. That is not what the lutherans and the catholics and evangelicals did. They did not be theside had to predominant side. They compromised because they were looking for a solution. Givee need is for them to us a vote and for speaker. Oehner to allow a vote that should be our clamor for democracy. It is all we are asking for. That is all we are asking for. You want to vote against it . Vote against it. But allow those of us who want to move forward for justice and fairness to move forward for justice and fairness. Dont get in the way. Dont be an obstacle. There are good men. If someone came up to me and said, steve king said these terrible things about immigrants and he did. You know my response was . For every steve king there are dozens of republicans who are readys who are ready to stand up for Immigration Reform. I have talked to them. I know them. They know who we are. The Republican Leadership should allow them the ability to vote. [speaking spanish] why is it important that we are here . Because we have to understand that this is not a democratic solution. There are voices all across this country in districts all across this country. The majority of Republican Voters want comprehensive Immigration Reform. Survey after survey has been demonstrated. They are tired. Theyre sickened by an exploitive system. I want them to become citizens of the United States not as some privilege. I want them to have all the same responsibilities and duties that i have as an american citizen is i know they will fulfill them in a manner in which that will create honor and respect to the great tradition of american immigrants. So, i am ready. [applause] [speaking spanish] but i we want to move on, just wanted to share with you, look. We have to make sure. Someone asked me as i walked in, what about our group of seven . About the group of seven and the house of representatives. I already signed off on the document. I am ready to go and make an announcement. I am ready to have a bipartisan deal. Work with these group of seven, then we will find another group of eight, but we are going to find a group of something that will bring us to a solution in the house of representatives. We refuse to let the people down. We refuse to lose. [applause] we are going to continue to fight. , 50,000 latinos turn 18 every month. Every month. And yes, i know some of you are asking [speaking spanish] those are the ones we are talking about. 50,000. So, look. It is a growing community. And in the Asian Community and the american population, we won the referendum. There was a referendum. One side said, self deportation. Pack your bags and leave. It is in the platform of the republican party. They said if the dream act comes before my desk, i will veto it. 1070said we should take sb and replicate it in 49 other states. That was their side. The other side said we should bring about compassionate, comprehensive Immigration Reform and the debate was held. For the first time, there was a broad debate on those issues that people understood. The side for comprehensive Immigration Reform one. That is why barack obama won. [speaking spanish] [applause] we were together twice. Arrested in front of the white house, denouncing the policies of breaking up our families with others. That wasnt easy for me to do that to a president who i love nd respect. Who i fought so hard to get elected, but we pushed. He said he couldnt do it. He said, i cannot stop the deportations. What he said he couldnt do, we kept saying he could and in the and there are 500,000 dreamers today in this country who have documents, drivers license, Social Security cards. [applause] they have work permits. So, when i come here today. Here today to say it is not a democratic or republican solution, we have walked that walk before. Once the president embraced our use and said our youth and said he would not deport anymore of our dreamers, he did those tv commercials that said what . He said, i did it because i saw and those young people, those undocumented young people, the and i hads as my wife indicated in our doctors. [speaking spanish] well, guess what. It is time to deportingme to stop the moms and the dad. There is a lot. I am going to thank you profoundly. Some people said to me, it is good of you. I love my wife. [speaking spanish] [applause] i am going to go back. We are going to harrisonburg later on today. We are going to continue to list the voices. [speaking spanish] [applause] so, continue. We have much to do. We are going to find an american solution. I am going to continue to work with my republican friends and colleagues. There are many of them. They exist. Allow us the time to vote and we can fix this broken immigration system and we can finally move on. You everybody for allowing me to celebrate because we wenot have real freedom, cannot have real justice. We cannot have real equality in this nation if half of the walking two steps behind the other half. Men and women must walk to gather equally. Arm in arm with equal protections and equal rights under the law. One of the greatest things of this Immigration Movement is to see the role of women and the roles that they have taken in leadership positions on this issue. Years. E celebrate 93 [speaking spanish] thank you. [applause] [chanting, si se puede ] thank you. At this time, we are going to take a couple questions from the audience. Does anyone have any questions they would like to ask the congressman or any of the panelists . Do you want a microphone back there . Spanish]ing in this is an important question, because there are many people who have a status, but can fluctuate at any moment. There are asians, salvador he are people whoe have been in this country 25 years. There is a Large Community where issues still have not been finished. To settle these once and for also they know with certainty what their future is. In the senate there are