Transcripts For MSNBCW Melissa Harris-Perry 20141207

Jameston winston. He was never arrested following the investigation nor did he Face Criminal Charges because a prosecutor for the state of florida found there was insufficient evidence. According to an investigative report from fox sports in october, that criminal investigation was hampered when Florida State University Officials and tall has zee police took steps to both hide and then hinder it. For the adjudication of his innocence and guilt, he was left in the hands of the university and the florida of University Student conduct process. That ended after a twoday hearing when winston declined to answer questions about the alleged assault. Instead, for the first time he spoke for himself telling his version of the events that happened that night in a fivepage statement he read during the hearing. His accuser, identified him as the man who raped her one month after the alleged assault, but in his statement winston claimed sexual acts between himself and the woman happened with her full knowledge and consent. And he ended it with the account of the allegations have taken on his life. Including rape is a vicious crime. The only thing as vicious as rape is when a young woman alleges to have been raped. Last sunday i spoke with sabrina who identified herself as jackie who survived a brutal rape in 2012. The article also indicted the university for its inability or unwillingness to commit to securing justice for students who are survivors of Sexual Assault. The article sparked National Outrage casting uva as the poster child for the institutional failure to address the problem of Sexual Assault. It prompted the university to hold an emergency meeting to review and revamp the policies and to begin addressing the shortcomings in handling the cases. And then this week the story took a turn. It was called into question by the journalistic organization that initially published it. On friday Rolling Stone released a note to readers saying, in the face of new information, there now appear to be discrepancies in jackies account, and we have tom to the conclusion that our trust in her was misplaced. We were trying to be sensitive to the unfair shame and now regret the decision to not contact the alleged assaulters to get their account. Post reporters that Rolling Stone decided against to interview the man jackie named to friends as her alleged attacker. The man said he never met jackie in person. And according to the post that Student Belongs to a different fraternity and nobody by the name of that member has been a member of phi kappa si. And they disputed the Rolling Stone claims saying no member of the fraternity worked in 2012 at the Aquatic Center where the story says jackie met her attacker and there was no social event held at the fraternitys uva chapter the day of the alleged assault. Despite the inconsistencies of the Rolling Stone article, jackie interviewed several times by the Washington Post stands by her account of what happened and gave details to the post very similar to the original story. Whatever the details of the story and still remain in dispute, look no further than what happened at Duke University in 2007 to understand the consequences of a i lowing an individual accusation to shift focus from the all too credible and common claims of sex assault survivors that year after a 2006 rape accusation against the Duke Lacrosse Team made national headlines. The alleged victim was completely discredited. By physical and dna evidence to clear the man of any Sexual Misconduct against her. Michael nifong resigned and spent the day in jail for criminal content, but the rightful story of the accuser undermined the legitimate questions of race, violence and vulnerability raised by members of the Duke Community that initially came to her defense. And whats more, by aligning themselves out of trust with an accuser who was not telling the truth. And only exacerbating the shame that keeps so many survivors silent about their stories. In the duke lacrosse case, justice for the wrongfully accused players came at the expense of a dialogue that could have prompted meaningful institutional changes to the larger problem of campus Sexual Assault. And it was a reminder as we consider National Policy approach that is respond with the concerns of the survivor that is the reality of Sexual Assault is much bigger than a single story. Joining me now is dave ziron, and author of brazils dance with the devil. And we have jonathan metzel, director of the medical health of society, and also the author of the protest psychosis. And lisa lik, vizzing scholar and coauthor of Trauma Services for women in Substance Abuse treatment an integrated approach. Im going to start with you, dave. Marly on the Florida State story. In the context of Florida State and duke, there was a discussion on the individual case and sports culture. In the case of uva it was about fraternity culture. In what gets lost in a he said she said about the individual act, what gets lost in a larger conversation about the culture that s that are ind . In this case, Jameis Winston is a cash cow for tallahassee. Thats the bizarre thing about this. This case brings together two streams of some of the ugliest things, its the historical idea that black men in the south are accused of Sexual Assault and the idea that women who bring forward claims of Sexual Assault are slandered and destroyed for doing so. It comes with the 21st century economy twist. Thats that Jameis Winston brings in 12 million every day. His coach, jimbo fisher makes more money than anyone in the state, 4 million a year, and the police who are looking into the state are the people who make money through the Organization Called the seminole boosters to provide security on game day. Jameis winston doesnt get paid a dime. He refers to the group that looks out for him in situations like this. In a moment when we talk about the issue that black lives matter, you look at eric garner and Michael Brown, peoples lives who were deemed as disposable, and then Jameis Winston who has a particular privilege in tallahassee and should be protected, but none of that excuses the insane letter that Jameis Winston and his lawyers produced, beneath contempt. And it could be in a show starring viola davis called how to get away with rape. It checks every box in how to shame survivors into silence. So on the one hand, all of those things can be true and yet also dont necessarily make he can be in a special privilege protection as a result of his athlete status, it can be true hes written a hard statement and may, in fact, not be a rapist, right . That all of those things can be true at the same time. Thats what is hard for me, when i read that line, that the only thing thats vicious is rape and being accused of rape, the survivor inside of me said, no, that is wrong. And then the africanamerican historian inside of me who knows about the black mens bodies that were in fact viciously attacked and destroyed behind the false accusations of rape in another century, it was like, well and i was left with, what do we do in this moment . In this moment its not the past or a moment in which there are false allegations that are just popping up every day. At this moment, the fbi put that is percentage at 2 to 8 , which is less than car theft. For the most part, statistics, 98 of the allegations are going to turn out to be true. And i think that when people come forward, we should default to compassion and empathy as opposed to automatic skepticism. You wrote this for thewashingtonpost. Com, we should believe, as a matter of default, what an accuser says, ultimately the costs of wrongly disbelieving a survivor for outweighing the costs of calling someone a rapist. During the period while they endeavored to prove or disapprove the accusation, this is not a legal argument about what standards are but a moral one. We have to take ourselves out of the court system because we are not judge and jury. This is not about due process because its not about innocent until Proven Guilty when you are just sort of talking. If someone is coming forward to say, ive been sexually assaulted. If your first refault response skepticism . Are you sure . Were you drinking or what were you wearing . Are you okay . Do you need help . Thats the world i want to live in and thats not the world we live in right now. Let me let you in, jonathan. This is is a journalistic strategy. We use the individual narrative to make a larger point on the hole. The flip side of that, you can personalize the stories to make them more understandable, the flip side is if there are problems with the individual narrative, then all of a sudden it gives people a platform to default the bigger issue. Heres a huge problem of Sexual Assault on campus and colleges are starting to address this. The hard part is this journalistic point of the individual standing in for the communal. Why do you think that we need the perfect victim . I mean, it does seem to me that you made these you tie this into the lovely threads of thinking about the moment around race and vulnerability in ferguson, here in new york, along with this. And they do seem to touch for me on this question, dr. Lik, of the need for the perfect victim and what the uva Rolling Stone story was it was a perfect victimology story that seems like, okay, it may be more complicated as largely much Sexual Assault is. It always is much more complicated and the unfortunate thing is somehow if a victim was perfect, that it makes it easier to go forward with the case. And the fact that everything is, in fact, much messier makes it much more difficult. Also for survivors to come forward. So people ask because your own sense of being yes. If you have any questions at all, which every rape survivor does, even in the most obvious cases where theres been sexual coercion and violation, did i somehow do something wrong . What did i do to contribute to this . Should i have been doing something differently . So all those things make it difficult for somebody to come forward. And especially when theres this belief that i dont look like somebody, who somebody else would believe. We are going to stay on this topic. Everybody is going to stick around. And well be back in a moment because up next, Rolling Stone, uva and the impact on all survivors. Or less reliable when only one network is americas largest and most reliable 4g lte network verizon. With xlte, our 4g lte bandwidth has doubled in over 400 cities. And now, save without settling. Get 2 lines with 10gb of data for just 110. Or 4 lines for just 140. And get a 150 bill credit for each smartphone you switch. Only on verizon. Alright, so this tylenol arthritis lasts 8 hours, but aleve can last 12 hours. And aleve is proven to work better on pain than tylenol arthritis. So why am i still thinking about this . How are you . Aleve, proven better on pain. [ woman ] i will embrace change. Everything life throws my way. Except for frown lines. Those im throwing back. [ female announcer ] olay total effects. Nourishing vitamins, and seven beautiful benefits in one. For youngerlooking skin. So while your life may be everchanging. Your Beautiful Skin will stay beautiful. Total effects from olay. Your best beautiful. Total effects from olay. Ring ring progresso i cant believe im eating bacon and rich creamy cheese before my sisters wedding well its only 100 calories, so youll be ready for that dress uhhuh. You dont love the dress . I love my sister. 40 flavors. 100 calories or less. Last week when sabrina joined me to talk about her article in Rolling Stone i asked her about the details to include in the story. What i did not ask is what she decided to omit. Rolling stone made an agreement with jackie not to speak with her attacker. So this is a onesided story from the accusers point of view. Now will dana said, we made a judgment, the kind of judgment reporters make every day. In this case, our judgment was wrong. We should have either not made this agreement with jackie or worked harder to convince her that the truth would have been better served by getting the other side of the story. That failure is on us, not on her. Joining my panel now is chloe angel, senior columnist. You were here with me last week and we were all struggling through the story. Where are you in this moment this week . What i said last week was that this article was a tremendous act of Public Service and that would still be true if they had gotten this article right. And now what we know is that this is actually a tremendous act of public disservice to survivors of rape everywhere and to the people who care about them and love them, support them and are doing everything we can to make sure this becomes a culture in which we honor and believe survivors of rape. I kept thinking during this week about the because we cover issues of Sexual Assault on this show a lot. And what it means to do it in a way that is ethical that does understand what rape culture is for people who are survivors coming forward, and yet also maintains a level of journalistic integrity . Lets talk about journalistic integrity because thats important here. Im enraged at Sabrina Erdley and not because a frat was done wrong. They will be back at the end of the semester, but im not as enraged about the fact that this is clearly going to push a lot of survivors back into the closet, as horrible as that is. My real rage is for the fact that heres this woman, jackie, she clearly is traumatized and clearly has some form of ptsd and clearly had serious doubts about pushing this story forward. And as a journalist, thats when it should have ended. These stories shouldnt be about revictimizing survivors. It should be about giving them agency. As soon as jackie gave any hint to the fact that she was not sure about this story going public, thats when it should have ended right then and there. It should not be about revict revictimizing people but empowering people when the stories come forward. Dr. Lik, im a survivor who did not tell for many years and never had any kind of legal justice or any of those things for a wide variety of reasons. But sort of came of age in a time when we understood that somehow speaking to your story, telling it, saying it over and over again, maybe not the details but simply the identity of survivors, was it selfempowering, but it was also a world before twitter and a world before a level of social media scrutiny. And i guess part of what i wonder now is a member of the media is whether or not that storytelling is still empowering for survivors. If they are not going to have a legal sense of justice. Right. Thats an interesting question because theres a lot of ways in which coming to tell your story in some fashion, you know, can be very therapeutic. Whether or not that story should shake place through the social media or any kind of media is another question. Certainly a lot of people do try to push the memories away and they try not to think about what happened, and thats a way of kind of getting through early on, but over time in treatment sometimes its very important to actually make sense of your story by talking about it and telling the details of the story. But arent there also implications for being a witness to your own story based on the kind of psychological tricks that we practice . I mean, even when we do segments on this, i always say, now were going to do melissa disassociating on television because its going to be helpful to me to make it through this segment. And i guess part of what i wonder is does that make you a less credible witness to your own criminalization . I agree with the points and think david is spoton. Rolling stone dropped the ball in two major ways. People in general have a very hard time with the particulars of memory. People have a hards time across the board differentiating memory from real memory. Ptsd is a disorder of memory. And people have a very hard time remembering the particulars of events, so in that sense, placing this womans story as the central narrative here opened her up to these exact kind of criticisms. The second way Rolling Stone dropped the ball is in their statement, distancing themselves, they said our faith in her has been misplaced. They came back to change that, but it felt like that kind of revictimization. Chloe, you can have the last word on this because i know that you have been, all of us who stood by sabrinas story here, because we trusted the work that had been done, are also now in a position of needing to kind of have a say. I think a lot of things are up for dispute in this incident. What is not up for dispute is what we know about false rape accusations which is between 2 to 8 of accusations are false, and what is also not up for dispute is that this is going to have a Chilling Effect. This is going to make it harder for every person who has been raped for the next thousands of people who have been raped to come forward to tell their story and to be deemed trustworthy when they do. This will make it easier for rapists to get away with rape. And a Chilling Effect from the social movement to emerge, so infrequently, but when they do, a Chilling Effect. Thank you to chloe angel, everyone else is coming up. Coming up, new accusations against comedian bill cosby. Rescued. Protected. Given new hope. During the subaru share the love event, subaru owners feel it, too. Because when you take home a new subaru, we donate 250 dollars to helping those in need. Well have given 50 Million Dollars over seven years. Love. Its what makes a subaru, a subaru. Does your mouth often feel dry . Multiple medications, a dry mouth can be a side effect of many medications. But it can also lead to tooth decay and bad breath. 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The secretary of the navy said he was being stripped of his title because the allegations against him are in conflict with the navys core values of honor, courage and commitment. On monday cosby resigned from the board of trustees at his alma mater, temple university. He always wanted to do what was in the best interest of the university and his students. And cosby could be facing a new battle in the court of law. Friday Los Angeles Police met with one of his accusers, judy huth, for about 90 minutes. In a lawsuit filed tuesday, huth alleges she was molested by cosby in 1974. When she was just 15 years old. Cosbys attorney has filed Court Documents seeking to have the lawsuit dismissed. He calls huths allegations patently false and accused her of suing cosby after a failed extortion attempt. In recent weeks, more than a dozen women have come forward accusing cosby of drugging and sexually assaulting them or attempting to. Now were learning of one womans story from the man who says he had to come to her aid and he joins me live when we come back. U cant breathe through your nose suddenly, youre a mouth breather. A mouth breather well, put on a breathe right strip and shut your mouth. Cold medicines open your nose over time, but add a breathe right strip and pow, it opens your nose up to 38 more. So you can breathe and do the one thing you want to do, sleep. Add breathe right to your Cold Medicine shut your mouth and sleep right. Breathe right. And look for the calming scent of new breathe right lavender, in the sleep aisle. Were for an opens you internet for all. Sing. Were for creating more innovation and competition. Were for Net Neutrality protection. Now, heres some news you may find even more surprising. Were comcast. The only isp legally bound by full Net Neutrality rules. Ghpitched ] nailed it you get used to food odors you think it smells fine, but your guests think it smells like this. sound effects febreze air effects works instantly to eliminate odors youve gone noseblind to. It smells so much better so you and your guests can breathe happy. As we learn of more allegations of Sexual Assault against bill cosby, we have heard from many of the women at the center of the story. But now a man has come forward to talk about what he says happened one evening who years ago. In a daily beast article titled i saved my friend from bill cosby. He tells what happened after a friend of his attended a dinner with bill cosby in 1984. In the article he says his friend, a booker with the modeling agency, called him from cosbys home crying in hysterics asking him to come get her. According to his story, the woman told him, tony, ive been in this room and i think on the second floor. And ive been here for a long time. I dont think im even in my own clothes. Im almost numb, i cant stand up, i cant see straight, my cloths are all disheveled. Once he arrived and confronted cosby, he said his friend drank too much, had a reaction and wasnt feeling well. Hogs friend was in her clothes, but she was a mess, she was in a fog and couldnt snap out of it. Later in the daily beast report, her friend was listed in the civil suit filed against cosby. The woman never testified and it was settled in a case before it went to trial. The daily beast contacted her and his sentiment largely echoed his. We reached out to bill cosbys attorney for a statement on the daily beast article but did not receive one. Cosby once again has not been charged with any crime. In the past has denied similar allegations. Joining me now at the table, tony hog whose story is featured in the daily beast. Adam sorer and lisa litt, clinical psychologist. Already, tony, are you telling the story on behalf of your friend or are you the spokesperson for the two of you . No. All right. So part of what i was struck by reading the article was your own recollection that you had a hard time, even in that moment, believing that it was true. That you had such a sense of star power of cosby that even you standing there seeing it felt like, this has to be something other than what im seeing. Tell me about that. I really didnt see it having anything to do with that quite honestly. Because there was no reason to even assume that. The night before we had dinner at mr. Chows and his home, i didnt care much for him. He was very controlling and shifting people around and everything, but i already had been in the business so i knew a lot of people in los angeles. I was not starstruck but i just remember him as a kid. I didnt it was like you were seeing somebody different on tv and then somebody different in person. You know, which happens. But basically that night when i got the call, i was not really expecting anything. But my friend was not a drinker. When she was drinking as a representative from these agencies, she was there more professionally than anything. And not for an acting career or anything else, but so she was terrified and was younger than i was. So i was, i guess, protective of that. So, you know, just the fact that she felt in danger. I knew something was different, something was wrong. It was just something out of place. I couldnt try to tie the two together for any reason. So you just did yourself let me ask this, these allegations have existed for a while. Your friend as one of the jean does in that initial 2005 case that sort of went away, i guess part of what ive been wondering, if this reemerged after a male comedian made remarks that then sort of blew up the internet basically to lead us to once again look at the credibility. And i wonder in part if you as a male friend end up having more credibility than the five, ten, 15, maybe 20 women who themselves are claiming to be actual survivors. Because youre not saying it happened to you, youre saying i witnessed what happened in this moment. Correct. Its interesting, when i heard the story about the girl from temple university, my heart, everything just sank because i was hearing the exact same story that from her, you know, when i contacted her attorney. As i had felt that night. And for all those years, it sort of has been suppressed, i supposed, but i never suspected anything. Then the other people came forward and i said, wow, theres really something going on. Because in my gut i knew there was, but you cant really assume anything. In the 80s, there was a party, i used to go out and party in denver and different parts of the country, i never knew of that going on. I never heard of anybody being drugged or anything and never would have assumed that, but when this came out, i did get on the phone immediately to her and thought, maybe my story will be unlike i have heard her going through. So now it may be something that somebody says, i didnt see that but i heard what was going on and it goes on from there. We just spent some time in the last blog talking about the reporting and journalistic ethics around the university of virginia story and who was not asked and who the sources that werent talked about. And we have folks in the business, journalists, who we see as highly credible, who we like and respect, whose work we read, who this information was out there in the world and then so many of us were culpable in ignoring it. And i guess part of what im wondering then is in what continues to be ultimately not a criminal case, but still a he said she said, what then are the earth call claims to be made around stories like this . Well, i think with cosby its different because you have legal documents that can used as a basis. But i also think that a lot of from the civil case. From the civil case, you have women like Barbara Bowman coming out and are writing opeds. The truth is, from a journalistic perspective, Rolling Stone did jackie no favors by not verifying her story. And thats not to say her story is not necessarily true, but they did not do her a favor by verifying it. I think when you take on a story like this, you have to nail down every detail you can nail down and be honest about the detail that is you cant nail down. And then you tell people why you couldnt nail it down and what you did to try to nail it down. The only way to do a story like this or really any story is to do literally everything you can and then show your work. Yep. Stick with us, because of all the claims that we have seen regarding bill cosby, now there is one where age is a key factor. And that part of the story is next. Mmm mmm mmm mm mmm mm mmmmmm here we go, here we go, here we go. 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Cosbys attorneys have filed documents seeking to have this dismissed calling the allegations patently false and accuse her of distortion. Not only is this the first sexual abuse lawsuit cosby faced since 2005 but also the first time a woman says she was a minor when the abuse happened. This is part of what i want to talk to you about, doctor, for some people and certainly how the attorney for mr. Cosby is responding, why should we believe this given that the two decades and three decades and four decades have passed. Why wouldnt someone Say Something right away, particularly in the case of someone being 15, does that sound unusual or surprising to you . I mean, the tragedy is that it is difficult to report being sexually assaulted at any age. When you are so young, 15, which is below the age of consent in any state, its so confusing to even know what has happened to you. That especially now with drugs or alcohol being involved, things are hazy, you have very little understanding at that age of what is going on sexually. Potentially, theres no context for whats happened. Is this normal . What is this . What did i do . So even to make sense of the experience is very complicated. It also feels like its worth reminding people that as bad as things may be for reporting now, that 30 years ago there was the notion that Law Enforcement would have been somehow well prepared to manage a young person coming forward and saying this. I think its even more distressing. I guess part of what i wanted to tell you is there at least a moment of possibility open in all of the horror of the allegations for talking about and creating new pathways for reporting . Because why dont you just go to the police . Yeah, because everything we are seeing about police these days makes you feel like thats a really good idea. And thats a key point because we need to talk about the process of what happens when you report a Sexual Assault. For example, a rape kit is not a science experience. Thats sort of very sanitized and not invasive. Its invasive and emotionally a damaging process. I think that people think they just go to the police and to the hospital because you feel revenge for whoever. Jameis winston or an exboyfriend, and you go through the process to get revenge as if the process is not retraumatizing. And talking about the process of reporting and how the pushback at every level, not just the police but the hospital, i was told, why did you wait so long . And i waited a day. I couldnt in my own case, i waited a day because i didnt understand what was happening to me. And actually it was the detectives who said, what you have described is Sexual Assault. So even in my own case, someone who right now im an advocate, i was not aware for the first day or so what happened to me was Sexual Assault and thats common. Did you and your friend, as you left, you go, you did you consider going to the police . Did you say, i think we aught to go to the hospital, any of those things . No, no, i didnt. It just wouldnt have occurred to you at the time . No. Im one of ten kids, im very protective. Im the second oldest, so any time there was something again, this is so unusual, when i was in denver, i was around a lot of true men, i guess, Football Players and athletes of all kinds and everything, so i was around a lot of different guys, but we were very protective of our families and sisters, brothers, whatever, so when that happened, you know, i would never have thought that this was something to even consider because, first of allers it was bill cosby. And second, she was just not herself. So i didnt know what to expect. But i really didnt expect a confrontation per se, but i got my game face on a little bit to say, i just wanted her out of there was all. Thats all. I am left with the challenge then of how we talk about in this case, so maybe this case with the woman who had been assaulted at 15 will go forward, there will be a trial and some kind of resolution. And then you can say, mr. Cosby was found guilty of some sort of criminal court. But its also completely possible that will never happen and that we will be left in the end with allegations and denials. Well, i just have to tell you, even theres a lot to be said about this. Over the last 20 years, it really laid the groundwork for shifting peoples thinking about Sexual Assault. When you go back to look at the way the assault allegations were covered at the time, theres a lot of, i think shes going for the gold. Theres a lot of really dismissive stuff in the way that journalists and talking heads talked about it. Youre seeing a lot less about that now. People take this a lot more seriously and i think one of the reasons why the cosby allegations have sort of stuck here at this time in a way they didnt in 2005 is because of this work that feminists have done shifting the conversation about how we think about Sexual Assault. Right, so now this time when it emerges into the public, even if that line of discourse exists there, is a counter line. Thank you to tony hogue, zarlena maxwell and lisa litt. Adam is back with us next hour. And we have much more to get to this morning, including the National Dialogue we are currently hearing on race in america. But up next, im so pleased to welcome to nerd land, the awardwinning jackland author. If you have not read it, go and get it. Ries to more places than anybody on earth. We have the speed. We have the technology. And we have the team. We made over 15 billion successful deliveries last year. 15 billion football has a season. Baseball has a season. 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Many of the poems recall moving, born in columbus, ohio, and spending many years in greenville, south carolina, before her family settled in brooklyn, new york. In dreaming, woodson explores Sexual Identity in a beautiful way. She received a National Book award last month. Her newest honor adds to her growing list of accolades. Shes received among others three newbury honor medals. Im so pleased to welcome to the table, author and National Award book winner, Jaqueline Woodson. What do black girls dream of . Everything. Everything we can possibly believe in or even the dreaming of coming to believe in something. So for me it was the dream of being a writer for so many of us its the dream of seeing themselves on the page. Of growing up and being whole. You talk of dreaming of becoming a writer. I wept with the poem the beginning. Your sister is teaching you to write. I have to not cry with her hand over your hand. So you begin to dream with my sisters hand over mine, making it do what i cannot yet do, how amazing the words are that come to me. How wonderfully on and on they go. Will the words end, ski . I remember, no, all of 5 years old now and promising me infinity. And maybe because im the youngest with three older sisters or because my own eldest daughter, writing with my youngest daughter, but this just your sister giving you infinity at 3. Uhhuh. Its amazing. Thats the thing about siblings, they dont know the gifts they are giving us. They are torturing us and all this other stuff, but i have such a clear memory of that loving moment of her putting her hand over mine to say, this is how you make the letter j. And then later on understanding that letters become words and words become sentences. And the power in that. So it was amazing. There is a line that i just one line, but all day i kept thinking of it. Saturday night smells of biscuits and burning hair. And i thought, now theres an insider sentence, right . When i hear that sentence, biscuits and burning hair and that saturday night smell, like i can feel that, but im thinking, man, i know some folks have no idea what that line is about. What does it mean to speak from a space of specifity that is universal . It is so interesting because its that moment of speaking to the really intimate people in your lives or in your world. The people who get this. And then i think that specific moment does become universal because for other people it might not be biscuits and burning hair, it might be rice and a perm or something. But there is that moment of intimacy anyone can bring their own experience to just by because its so specific. The memoir begins on the day of your birth, at the moment of your birth, but most of the early pages are actually about your people, not about you. Why do we have to tell the story of our feel in order to tell our own story . Because we dont get here by accident. You know, and i know im here because im standing on the shoulders of an cess sores and on the shoulders of my grandmother and mother and father and the people who came before me. And i think it is dangerous to pergt that. To forget we are here because of what everyone else did to get us to this moment. And so i had to start at that beginning to get to my beginning. And one of those ancestors is your grandfather who you call daddy. There is a moment that reminds me of ferguson these days. You write, this is the way brown people have to fight, my grandfather says. You cant just put your fist up. You have to insist on something gently. Walk toward a thing slowly. But be ready to die, my grandfather says. For what is right. And then i go on to say later on, we want we dont want to die, we want to keep fighting and live. You know, but it is, i mean, this fight is not a new fight. And i think when people are surprised by ferguson and when people are surprised by Trayvon Martin or any of this, it was not surprising to us. This is the fight weve always been having. This is the conversation weve always been having. With our sons i was watching the verdict come down about eric garner, and i just started crying. I have a 6yearold son and hes speckled and geeky and, you know, and hes my brown son. So its nothing new for us. This book saved my life this week. It was a tough week and i needed some brown girl dreams. Thank you for this book. And thank you to Jacqueline Woodson being here. The book is brown girl dreaming. Still to come, it seems no matter where you look, everyone seems to be talking about race. Race talking nerdland at the top of the hour at, 11 00 on sunday. Given new hope. During the subaru share the love event, subaru owners feel it, too. Because when you take home a new subaru, we donate 250 dollars to helping those in need. 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I have 40,ney do you have in your pocket right now . 21. Could something that small make an impact on something as big as your retirement . I dont think so. Well if you start putting that towards your retirement every week and let it grow over time, for twenty to thirty years, that retirement challenge might not seem so big after all. Ring ring progresso i cant believe im eating bacon and rich creamy cheese before my sisters wedding well its only 100 calories, so youll be ready for that dress uhhuh. You dont love the dress . I love my sister. 40 flavors. 100 calories or less. Alright, so this tylenol arthritis lasts 8 hours, but aleve can last 12 hours. And aleve is proven to work better on pain than tylenol arthritis. So why am i still thinking about this . How are you . Aleve, proven better on pain. Fyour everyday dishes will only go so far. Literally. You had to go deep into the cupboard. Embarrassingly deep. Can this mismatched mess be conquered. By a little bit of dish liquid . It can if its dawn ultra. Its more concentrated. Just one bottle has the grease cleaning power of two bottles of this bargain brand. Heres to the overextended family gathering. Dawn, its amazing what a drop can do. Welcome back. Im melissa harrisperry. Have you noticed everyone is talking about race and justice . Some of the voices are expected, like our government officials. All lives must be valued. All lives. Mr. Garners death is one of several recent incidents across our great country that have tested the sense of trust that must exist between Law Enforcement and the communities they are charged to serve and to protect. People need to know that black lives and brown lives matter as much as white lives. Its what we still have to aspire to. Now weve also heard from less expected voices, like those of sports stars and actors. We have to look at ourselves in the mirror. The reason they racially profile us at times. Sometimes its wrong, but sometimes its right. My stomach is twisted over this thing. I mean, me and her have been talking about it, you know, i mean, we all kind of witness a snuff film on television when you saw that video. And then when you come back and say no crime has been committed . Its hard for people to swallow. But its really, really time to start i know we are promoting annie but we want to let everyone know, lets heal. There are also the kind of surreal, maybe we can even describe it as hopeful moments, like when my colleague here on msnbc quoted bill oreilly to make a point about the value of protest. Something bill oreilly said the other day, of course people are protesting, bill oreilly said, because thats how you change things. That doesnt happen every day, but for decades there have been calls for National Race and it seems like we may be having one, so we are thrilled, right . President obama weighed in with a different viewpoint. This is an issue we have been dealing with for too long and it is time fortous make more progress than we have made. And im not interested in talk, im interested in action. Action . Yes, but to get to action we have to have an agreement about the cause of the problem ch and getting to that agreement on the issue of race is tough. Some realize that there are Racial Disparities in health, for example. Babies born to africanamerican have twice the infant mortality rate than white men. And black women die from Breast Cancer at a much higher rate than white women. There are also economic racial inequalities. Take the fact that white households earn a Median Income of 57,000 in 2012 compared to 33,000 for black households. Or that white families have a median net wealth of more than ten time that is of black families. There are inequities in the criminal justice system. Black americans make up 13 of the population but 28 of all arrests. And africanamerican men are six times more likely to be incarcerated than white men. And to receive sentences 20 longer than white men of similar crimes. But these are rarely about the numbers, statistics and graphs, this is about answering the question why. Why are black people sicker, poorer, more likely to be arrested . Some point to active ongoing conscious racism, points like rell ovations of the former l. A. Clippers owner Donald Sterling told his girlfriend he did not want her to bring back people to his games. For many, the persistence of racial inequality is a direct result of the continued efforts on the part of white people to ensure that black people have fewer opportunities, resources and influence. Others find inequality reproduced through implicit bias, existing institution, even when an individual or a group involved doesnt actually have explicitly racist intent. For example, the explicit racial buying in Home Mortgage lending 50 years ago created racial patterns to still mark american cities. Segregated communities affect access to quality jobs, schools and environmental quality. Even if no one is actively seeking to shut out black communities. Then theres another explanation. One that looks to black communities themselves to explain their continued inequality. This view holds an africanamericans view warped by subjugation. And they maintain this is not in injustice, its about misbehavior. Facts show Racial Disparities exist. And these days everyone is talking about race, but before we answer the president s call to act, we are going to have to stop talking past each other and actually figure it out, what it is that we think we are trying to solve. Joining me now is dave ziron, and it is worth pointing out you are both white men and i really purposely wanted specifically to have this conversation across this particular divide because i think theres a particular role for white people in this conversation on race. And i guess im wondering in part, dave, how you would define what that role is. First and foremost, it is obscene to have a conversation about the problems in black culture when black people are victims of state violence. Thats obscene when you see people being choked to death on the streets on videotape. And part of this discussion is about is the legal system broken. And thats what they are talking about right now on nbc and meet the press. Is the system broken . But is it . But the question shouldnt be is the system broken, it should be is the system operating the way it was actually set up to operate . Which is about the violent policing of black and brown communities. The only difference in 2014 than the last 350 years is that now we have videotape and social media, so white people are now inconvenienced with the images of what it means to be black and poor in america. And if i could just say, people say what is the problem with black culture . I want to rephrase it to say, what is the problem with white culture that white people act inconvenienced about seeing deaths on television. Why does Joe Scarborough look annoyed to see the deaths on tv . Im going to put joe scar boroughs aside here, but your point about the videotape is critically important because its one that i think is particularly painful in this week, jonathan. Despite the videotape of the death of eric garner, the grand jury made a decision not to indict. And in a new nbc maris poll out this morning,2 of africanamericans agree with the statement that Law Enforcement applies different standards to whites and blacks. 80 strongly agree. By comparison, only 51 , excuse me, 51 of whites disagree with the statement and 39 agree with it. Even when we are looking at the stimuli, 82 of black voters say that looks like justice and 52 of whites say, not too much. Carmichael spoke to this about individual racism, why do people see these things different in this . If you want to address racism, dont talk about individual attitudes or racism. This will change the school board and the makeup of the police force. Change the zoning laws. Structural factors that impact everybody because his argument is racism is not individual. It is individual, of course. As much as it is structural. We are faced with a similar kind of moment now which is if we come away from this incredible moment where people are not just talking about race, they are talking about institutions and the police and the legal system. About health as you mentioned. And i think what this moment calls for is not a feelgood molt. We feel better, we have a better moment and get along. Certainly that would be great. Its more we have a moment to change the structures. And i think what is important about this moment is also to recognize that the structural factors that people were protesting against in the 60s are ironically far more entrenched right now this in this postcitizens united he gave an interview on bet to 106 in part. Lets listen to him for a moment. As painful as these incidents are, we cant equate what is happening now to what was happening 50 years ago. And if you talk to your parents, grandparents, uncles, they will tell you that things are better. Not good in some cases but better. And the reason its important for us to understand progress has been made is that then gives us hope that we can make more progress. So i think this is fascinating. Because i think what happens when i talk to my father and to my uncles, they dont say better they say different. This thing is a different thing, but they never say better. You see its interesting because the ceiling is now higher for africanamericans than it was 50 years ago without question. The top cop is africanamerican. The president is africanamerican. But the floor is lower. So there is more class stratification and there is more brutality being thrown on the shoulders of the poorest of the poor. And i think there is a profound disconnect between barack obama and what is happening in the streets right now. And it reminds me so much of the words of the late historian howard zin who said it doesnt matter who is sitting in the white house, it matters who is sitting in. We are having this conversation on racism because bill clinton said we are going to have speech, but we are having this on terms of injustice precisely because masses of people are in the streets demanding the discussion. Sure. But i also dont want to miss that there is something that also the reason president obama sits in the white house is because that movement existed and propelled to create some space possible for the. I dont want to miss it mattered for me when my president was able to say, Trayvon Martin could have been me. I could have been trayvon. If we dont acknowledge the ways in which it matters, although its still deeply imperfect, i know i sound like him, but then we go to say, it doesnt matter if you have black elected officials, right . Because that ownership and power of that ceiling Still Matters even as the floor drops. Part of what people are protesting now is everything to do with the race, but theres also distennesscontent on the s forces getting worse. People feel like what it takes to get elected now, it is harder to get peoples voices heard in a certain kind of way. In a way, this moment calls for the true lesson of the 1960s is new forms of coalitions. What kind of coalitions will come out of this moment. Well let you have a unified voice to impact change. I want to listen to gardner who said it may not just be this is the widow of eric gardner. Well listen to this going out. Your husband is now in the face of Law Enforcement. How do you feel about that . I feel that he was murdered unjustly. I feel like i dont even feel like its a black and white thing, honestly. You know, in my opinion, i dont feel like its a black and white thing. Im flo i know im going to get you your rental car. This is so ridiculous. Were going to manage your entire repair process from paperwork to pickup, okay, little tiny baby . Your car is ready, and your repairs are guaranteed for as long as you own it. The Progressive Service center a real place, where we really manage your claim from start to finish. Really. Easy as easy can be bye ring ring . Progresso its ok that your soup tastes like my homemade. 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Garner was not a threat. American police are held to a very High Standard because they have power. They have guns. They must control inflammatory situations and not make them worse. There was a police overreaction to mr. Garner. And that should have been adjudicated in a court of law. That was fox newss bill oreilly thursday night explaining why he believed the grand jury should have indicted the nypd officer who placed a fatal chokehold on eric garner. Joining our conversation is National Editor and buzz feed news and reverend jackie lewis from here in new york. Adam, i want to start with mr. Oreilly here in part because we talk a little bit about perfect Victim Compensation in the case of talking about Sexual Assault. In the case of kind of ferguson versus garner, we have seen very, very different responses from folks about the very imperfect victim that is Michael Brown versus the family man gentle giant of the discourse around eric garner and wonder how thats operating in this race talk. I think theres a space and am b ambiguity here. Wilson spoke to the grand jury and told them a very colorful story about what happened. And here in the garner case, you know, the video leaves very little room for interpretation. That doesnt mean people arent saying he shouldnt have resisted arrest, whatever that means looking at that video, but i think that this is one of the things about cameras, people say body cameras wont solve the problem and thats true, but there would be no we wouldnt see this outrage across the political spectrum. George w. Bush was like, i dont understand how the grand jury this is not a left right thing. Which is surprising because unthese shootings do turn out to be a left right thing. But it is so plain for people to see. Yes, that feels right to me in some sort of ethically balanced way, but it also seems wrong to me because it continues to play in to the third thing i talked about last time, the possibility of black pathology being the reason that racial inequality continues. I wanted to we went back to october to look at something Charles Barkley said in the cbs philly radio interview. He said we as black people are never going to be successful, not because of you white people but because of other black people. When you are black, you have to deal with so much crap in your life. The driver is black pathology. You must be the perfect victim caught on tape in order to garner sympathy. That black pathology thing has too causes. One is institutionallyiized. And all these are symptoms of that. Some of them are we internalize the narrative. And the other thing melissa you were pointing to a little while ago is somehow it makes us feel like we have more power. If its our stuff, we have more power to examine it and to fix it. But the bottom line is it is about racism in america, which is in fact pathological. So wide gaps of income, wide gaps of infant mortality and around wealth and education. You know that, health care, all that stuff leaves us black people behind. If indeed it gets really hard to have that conversation, when you say its not about black pathology, it is about racism. Its about White Supremacy and the history of institutional inequality. When i try to have that conversation across racial lines with good people, but man the walls go up. And it is, hey, im not a racist. Help me to talk about how we do that. Well, its like a cartoon out right now where theres a picture of a black person saying i cant breathe, next to him is a white person saying, i cant hear, i cant see. And its this idea of affecting for yourself white blindness and kind of blissful ignorance about what is happening in the world thats what the video of the eric garner case has imposed upon this conversation. It is impunctured in that shield around. A lot of the protests are multiracial, so it should encourage people. Its in every 50 states now that there have been protests. There are protests in france of white people saying black lives matter. The french love to protest, though. There are things being written on the walls of gaza saying black lives matter. So it has a currency that is puncturing that wall, thank goodness. But if i say this quickly, i think its fascinating the discussion about lets knock down respectability politics once and for all with the backdrop of bill cosby from grace. One of bill cosbys rhetorics from 2006 is if only black families did not name their families shaniqua and tacwon. But look at the names of those just killed, eric and trayvon. And looking at the conversations about ferguson, the president in his rhetoric, well have more on this and well talk a little bit about being between barack and how president obama is managing the problem of race talk in america. Mmm mmm mmm mm mmm mm mmmmmm here we go, here we go, here we go. Fifty omaha set hut losing feeling in my toes nothing beats that new car smell chicken parm you taste so good nationwide is on your side mmm mmm mmm mm mmm mm mmmmmm wow [ narrator ] on a mission to get richard to his campbells chunky soup. Its new chunky beerncheese with beef and bacon soup. I love it. And mama loves you. And mama loves you. Come in and use your starbucks and mama loves you. Gift card any day through january 5th for a chance to win starbucks for life. Oralb toothbrushes aree engineered al, with end rounded bristles so brushing doesnt scratch gums and angled perfectly, to remove 90 of plaque for a healthier smile. Trust the brand more dentists and hygienists use. Oralb. Only 30 of americans overall approve of how the president has reacted to the decision. 46 disapprove. And i wonder if some of this disappointment is based on the belief arguably a mistaken belief that president obama should be particularly adapt at managing this moment because he himself is a black man. Which got me to thinking about the buzz worthy question our next guest posed back in august. Will it take the next white president to talk to white americans about race . Joining me now from washington, d. C. Is slate. Com staff writer jamelle bowie. Talk to me about whether or not we need a white president to have the race talk. Well, my first thought when i asked that question was thinking back to the commencement at Howard University in 1963. And i dont think he was president yet but that speech if you have never read it, i know you have but to viewer who is have never read it, its one of the most forthright statements given by someone in the oval office or in proximity to the oval office. It is about the responsibility in creating the condition that is so many of our people lived in at the time and still live in today. So part of me looking forward and looking at president obama thinks that, you know, president obama can say a lot on race and can do a lot to articulate the perspectives of black communities, but im not sure that when it comes to getting white americans to take racism seriously as exists today, that hes too equipped to do that. Not because he lacks the eloquence or ability, but because this is a conversation white people may need to have amongst themselves. If i thought the next white president would be lbj, i would be down. Im with you, but given particularly on the democratic side theres a strong likelihood the next white president could be a clinton, and when i look back at the legacy of the last clinton presidency, i dont particularly see either good race talk or good racial policy in the context of welfare reform, criminal justice. Heck, we could go on to the dont ask dont tell that claim turned clinton presidency. I wonder if the need for it to be a white or black president , we miss the responsibility of the presidency to do this work. Right. Thats a really good point. I am not really sure where Hillary Clinton is on these things. Shes said good things about ferguson in august, but shes generally trying to shy away from most controversy. But yeah, i think that youre right. When it comes to sort of the board picture, we need the office of the presidency to speak and take actions on these things. To treat racism as a national problem, because, not because hes a black president. One elected official was the mayor of new york, bill de blasio, making a personalized statement about race. We have had to talk to dante for years about the dangers he may face. Good, young man, lawabidingdown man who never would think to do something wrong and yet because of a history that still hangs over us, the dangers he may face. We have had to literally train him as families have all over this city for decades in how to take special care of the officers there to protect them. Jonathan . This is a terrific question. Getting back to the question of obama and whether the identity of the president matters. On one hand, the point is right, obama has paid a high price every time hes talked overtly about race and all of a sudden people say, wait, youre black . What is going on here . That happened during the election. I think two counter points we have to think about. Obama has a terrific Justice Department and reinstated himself as a potential backup when the states fail. Eric holder, is he the black president you were waiting for . I dont think hes we are learning that the nature of racism is very different from what it was in lbjs time in a certain kind of way. Racism is, if you try the 1960s era of racism, its like the Donald Sterling moment. Racism is much more embedded and structural and in a way, what we need is a government to enact structural changes. Let me come back to you for a second. If we think about the white president s who have done race well, there was some sort of good that came from president clinton and lbj as you pointed out. And then from de blasio, though not ath, when these are white leaders who shed some of the typical White Privilege who talk from a relatively candid, personal narrative, which is part of how president obama can speak about because hes often embedded in it. But they are purposely shiding the ability to not have to talk about race. Right. Thats definitely what bill was saying, but im not sure Hillary Clinton can speak from the personal experience. When she asked her audience, mostly a white audience, she felt how the people would feel if it was her child or their community. I dont think people have directly felt how they would feel if it were them facing routine Police Violence or them face i facing the issues in the communities built by White Supremacy. Jamelle, thank you for joining us. We are going to continue to disagree. I think president obama is a better race talker than Hillary Clinton. That said i dont think Hillary Clinton is better, but i think it is very interesting. There you go. It is nerd land and all interesting. We have much, much more on this topic when we come back. My voices here at the table are getting back in. Up next, what the news outlet cleveland. Com wrote about a slain 12yearold to his parents and why they did it when we come back. Enusiast. Mmm, a perfect 177degrees. And thats why this road warrior rents from national. I can bypass the counter and go straight to my car. And i dont have to talk to any humans, unless i want to. And i dont. And national lets me choose any car in the aisle. Control. Its so, whats the word . Sexy. Go national. Go like a pro. vo rescued. Ed. Protected. Given new hope. During the subaru share the love event, subaru owners feel it, too. Because when you take home a new subaru, we donate 250 dollars to helping those in need. Well have given 50 Million Dollars over seven years. Love. Its what makes a subaru, a subaru. A boy was shot by police in cleveland, ohio. And a few days later this story was run. Tamir rices father has a history of domestic violence. The story did little but to look for Public Record of information from tamir rices father which tamir rices mother was the victim. The report did not interview tamirs parents or family members or representatives of the family for the story. An executive with the northeast Ohio Media Group responded to criticism by saying, quote, we believe it may shed further light on why this 12yearold was waving a weapon around a public park. Of course, tamir rice was playing with a pellet gun, not a weapon, when he was killed. Now this is the same news organization, adam, that broke that this officer who shot him had basically been deemed unfit for duty. So its been a sight clearly against his family or something, but just that impulse to need to explain why the 12yearold got shot . Well, you know, theres a particular quote that i think in moments like this, and it was patrick dorsmans mother killed by the nypd. First they killed him and then killed him the other way with the mouth. And this is what you see constantly with the black shooting victims with police is this sort of weird attempt to retroactively justify the death by explaining how this was not a perfect, wonderful person. It goes back to the whole imperfect victim. Theres a weird analogy here like a short skirt theory of being shot by police where at 12. Right. What did you do to make that happen . And i think in this case, peoples reaction was so strongly precisely because rice is so young and, you know, just simply did not have enough time on planet earth to do the kinds of things that might have actually been successful at persuading people he had it coming, because it does happen. As you point out, we have video in this case and know that the officers shot him within two seconds of making it to the scene. And there are misleading statements from the police before the leading video came out on what tamir rice was doing, whether people were there. Theres a lot of things in this case that i think have been pretty shocking. And i think the usual social media cycle of assassinating character assassinating a dead person has not been people have had a much different reaction to it than they have had in other situations. Dave. Im going to secede the floor. I think we need to get real about how much we need to make the world safer for 12yearolds everywhere. 12yearolds of color, 12yearolds in every city. I mean, the demography of all the ways our children are just under siege because of education. We need programs like the Childrens Defense Fund of Freedom School to make safe places for kids to learn and grow and be safe. When you say that, i just had this conversation with some of my students on campus about the notion of crime and what our response to it should be. And on so many College Campuses, theres a regular crime. By crime i mean breaking the law, and that is underaged drinking, right . 21 is the drinking age, most College Students are not 216789 and the main response from the universities is, how do we make that crime safe . How do we make it safe for students to commit the crime so they dont harm themselves or others in the context . And quite honestly, i think thats the right approach. We shouldnt round up the 19yearolds who are drinking, but thats not how we treat let me be clear, tamir rice was not committing a crime, but thats not how we treat crime for those sitting on the College Campus. Youre talking weed on the College Campus versus the corner. But im going to something adam said because he made a reference to the short skirt theory. It is so striking whether youre talking about how a woman dresses in a Sexual Assault case, whether youre talking at whether or not a child in gaza was throwing a rock. Theres always the retroactive effort to say the person who in the power relationship is on the bottom end, somehow deserved their grizzly fate. And it feels sometimes so oppressive and so orchestrated that you just want to raise your hands and holler. I think what is interesting about this moment is that youre seeing a generational push more than a racial push but a generational push of young people saying, weve had enough of this discourse and this narrative. We are going to reseize it and say, no, we are going to stop blaming the dead person for their murder. I like this moment. I think it is egregious. Two white women on the way to a protest with two white women talking to each other on the street. One with a sign and another with an American Girl back. The discourse from the woman with the sign was, this Christmas Season is all about justice and all about making a change. So i think it is generational but i also think this is a Seismic Shift in the discourse where even your average white lady on the street shopping understanding that something egregious has happened and has to talk about it. I think it is important to remember theres a racial to politics on reporting crime stories, which is these stories are all horrible tragedies in the aftermath of newtown and the stories all about adam lanzas brain, the individual white pathology and the aftermath of the stories like this we tell the black cultural story. And i have a piece coming out next week that looks at the statistics in the media about this. But i also think that same dynamic is at play in peoples interpretations. Theres the individual story often linked to whiteness and the culture story part of the cultural narrative. If a white bad actor is bad, its an individual. But if its a bad black actor, its the whole culture. One of the things about the shooting is that when it was called in, one of the Police Officers said rice was 20 years old. This is like a documented fact. I mean, you can see studies from the American Psychological association on the show that black children are consistently seen as older, as more dangerous, less innocent and are far more likely to, if they get in trouble, to be thought of as incorrigible or even if they get in trouble with police to be thought of or to be on the receiving end of physical force. Its such an important reminder that whatever becomes of the race talk we have been talking of this hour has to be about making the world safer for a 12yearold. Thank you to dave zirin, jackie lewis is sticking around. Up next, where do we go from here . Heres our new trainer ensure active heart health. I maximize good stuff, like my potassium and phytosterols which may help lower cholesterol. New ensure active heart Health Supports your heart and body so you stay active and strong. Ensure, take life in. I make a lot of purchases foand i get ass. Lot in return with ink plus from chase. Like 50,000 bonus points when i spent 5,000 in the first 3 months after i opened my account. And i earn 5 times the rewards on internet, phone services and at Office Supply stores. With ink plus i can choose how to redeem my points. Travel, gift cards, even cash back. And my rewards points wont expire. So you can make owning a business even more rewarding. Ink from chase. So you can. 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The 1954 brown versus board of Education Supreme Court decision ordered america schools desegregated. In 1964 in the Civil Rights Act ending segregation in public accommodations became law. In 1965, the Voting Rights act which ushered in full citizenship for black americans. It became law. But king did not enter 1967 with a sense of inevitable progress and certain victory. Instead, the con temperatuvoice question, where do we go from here . Chaos or community . This is the title of his 1967 book and in it he focuses on issues of economic justice, decent housing and global peace. The year now is 2014. And we have accomplished extraordinary things as a nation, but the events of recent weeks and the injustice in alienation so many in our country experience draws us again to doctor kings question, where do we go from here . Will we descend into chaos or are we capable of Building Community . In 1967, king wrote, power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice. Justice at its best is love correcting everything that stands against love. When we come back, im going to talk with two faith leaders about love and justice and whether those two things are part of the answer of where we go from here. Singl line with 3 gigs for 65 a month. 3 gigs. Is that a lot . Thats about. 100 app downloads, 45 hours of streaming music, and 6 hours of video playing. singing and five golden rings ha, i see what you did. singing four calling birds. Three french hens. the guys starts to fizzle out two. Turtle. Doves. I really went for it there ya you did. You really, really did now get 3 gigs of data on one line for 65 a month. Switch to at t, buy a new smartphone and get 150 credit per line. I wish. Please, please, please, please, please. [ male announcer ] the wish we wish above all. Is health. So we quit selling cigarettes in our cvs pharmacies. Expanded minuteclinic, for walkin medical care. And created programs that encourage people to take their medications regularly. Introducing cvs health. A new purpose. A new promise. To help all those wishes come true. Cvs health. Because health is everything. Wow [ narrator ] on a mission to get richard to his campbells chunky soup. Its new chunky beerncheese with beef and bacon soup. I love it. And mama loves you. Its been a difficult few weeks. The grand jury decision in new york not to indict officers involved in the deaths of Michael Brown and eric garner were distressing for many. The confrontations between police and Community Members are distressing. But this is our country. And were going to have to find a way to live here together in peace and with peace and with justice. And we need to begin thinking about the way forward. Last week, Union Theological seminary president told the huffington post, now is the time to build a sturdy and empowering infrastructure for a social movement representing people of all faiths, nationalities and ethnicities. The degradation and demeaning of black life must stop. What the hell kind of country do we live in . Its the theme jackie lewis echoed in her own entry. Our nation is cracking wide open on the fault line of race. In order to repair what is broken, we need each other. We need to heal, to connect, and to be the change. And so, to help heal and conn t connect, reverend lewis is back at the table with me and joining us is serene jones. What is the value of faith in a moment like this . Well, in a moment like this, its time for very critical selfreflection. In so many ways, our religious communities are responsible for that deep bias, that prejudice, that brutality. People learn those in many cases in their churches, but also means its a moment for religious communities, for faith communities to tell a different story. This mortgage morning, in every church in this country, it should be the topic of discussion. And if its not, what the hell kind of church do we have . Is the question i want to ask. For me, when you implicate, when you indict even to say, our faith traditions impart in this, i cant help but to think reverend lewis, about dr. Kings own admission that 11 00 on sunday morning is the most segregated hour in america. I know that the work that you do in your church is trying to build interracial congregations, but man, how do we even Start Talking about interracial political coalitions if we cant have interracial congregations within our communities. Its an important piece of work to do, melissa. And we do, our church is multiracial, multicultural. And the needle is tipping a bit. About five years ago, a book called united by faith said there were only 5 of the congregations in america were multiracial. And now were up to 12 . Now 12 does not mean were desegregated. We have a long way to go. I want to point to the hope of that. And i think there are congregations having this conversation about race. The middle church. There are congregations in the city and around the country are beginning to get it that if we dont pull together and rehearse is reign of god, were going to get to the segregated heaven. Its not going to be like that. I want to come back in part to one of the sets of lessons often learned in religious communities, particularly christian communities. And that is, if we go back to the pathology argument we were talking before that often times Church Spends most of its time telling us to individually fix ourselves, right . And not that this is a bad idea. But that so much time gets spent on the individual fixes for ourselves and for our families that far less time goes into a collective or structural discourse narrative. Right. And that goes for even the concept of sin. We spend so much time in our churches teaching individual people to stop doing individual bad things. Usually it has to do with sex or something, and we say nothing about the systemic collective sin of racism. For instance. One of the things, i think in our churches, if we wanted to take this on as we go into christmas, and we think about the central story of christianity, its the story of a black body being executed by the most powerful nation in the world. And thats not complicated. Yep. Its a complicated thing, but that is a clear, pure message. Amen, and it deserves to be echoed. Because the black body of jesus is not something were talking about. But thats a multiculti black body being executed. And the story, the other narrative, the concept of light coming into the world. That the and we need that kind of light right now. And the sense is that the light is infleshed in us. In other words, all of us are the body of christ. These kind of conversations, the way of multiracial, multicultural are gathering. Some of us were praying on the phone the other day about a union student, working together to do a big prayer action on monday right at st. Pauls chapel. This moment, melissa, i think is a moment where were all sayi saying when one of us cant breathe, all of us cant breathe. When all of us cant breathe, maybe god cant breathe. One, i think, reverend lewis, you were reminding us, even as were asking for the prophetic, that people also still have a pastoral need. It is a hard week and sometimes we need to feel better. And one of the places we can sometimes feel better is in the refuge of faith, but i also dont want to miss what you did there, serene, with the black body of christ, because there are some viewers going to say, the what . In part because of the representations of the baby jesus typically, particularly in this country are not black. And that when you see black, you mean it, i presume in part, not so much africanamerican, because obviously not in america, but rather that notion of connection with those who are the least of these. What others might call and when the roman empire at the time of jesus looked at jesus as a jewish man that was part of a country that was under imperial rule, they saw a black body. The same way officers today see young men on the streets. They see a demonized black body that makes you very vulnerable to be killed. You know, the other story i think about in this regard in advent in the Christian Church is the story of the slaughter of the innocents. Jesus was born, rome was threatened, so what did it do . Started killing young men. Young men. James coen writes the cross and the lynching tree. To the reverend jacqui lewis and serene jones, thank you for being here this morning. That is our show today. Im going to see you next saturday at 10 00 a. M. Eastern. Right now, time for a preview of weekends with alex witt. Were going to talk about what went wrong in the failed attempt to rescue an american hostage. Long time friend of bill Cosby Hugh Hefner speaks out about the allegations against the comic. The mystery ailment explained. What he was told yesterday when he went to see his doctor. How happy hour started earlier than anyone might have thought. Dont go anywhere. Ill be right back. Of heroes and titans. For respawn, building the best Interactive Entertainment begins with the cloud. This is titanfall, the first multiplayer game built and run on microsoft azure. 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