Transcripts For MSNBCW Melissa Harris-Perry 20150125

Of fair housing. Protecting hardearned victories in fair housing is what took him and others to d. C. On wednesday morning. To d. C. And to the steps of Supreme Court. On wednesday the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case Texas Department of housing and Community Affairs v. The Inclusive Communities project. I know, its not exactly a snappy title, but this case is really really important, so stick with me. When the court rules on this case the one that got those activists out in the cold with their handlettered signs, when the court makes this decision, it could be among the most historic and consequential choices ever made about the issue at the heart of american lives and dreams. The place we call home. Because at the core of this case is the Fair Housing Act of 1968. Now, see the Fair Housing Act was the final piece of civil rights legislation resulting from that partnership of president Lyndon Johnson. Johnson signed it just seven days after the assassination of dr. King. Johnson insisted even as cities burned in the aftermath of shock and mourning for the loss of king that this piece of legislation was the necessary capstone of civil rights. Quote, now with this bill the voice of justice speaks again. It proclaims that fair housing for all, all human beings who live in this country, is now a part of the american way of life. Johnson and king had been working on the issue of housing for years. The president s Kerner Commission had found that housing segregation was the root cause of previous riots in 1967 and urged, quote, opening up opportunities to those who are restricted by racial segregation and eliminating all barriers to their choice of Jobs Education and housing. At the time Property Owners and realtors and banks and local governments and even the federal government explicitly discriminated against africanamericans, restricting which neighborhoods they could live in and preventing them from buying homes, even if they had the means and money to do so. The federal housing act ended all of that. And yet more than 45 years later, residential segregation remains a serious obstacle to equality. Discrimination is rarely so explicit as it was before the federal housing act. Most people although certainly not all, know better than to publicly refuse to rent or sell to someone because of their race. Still, enforcement of the Fair Housing Act has proved nimble enough to adjust to the more subtle forms of discrimination. Rather than needing to prove intent, most cases need cases of disparity impact. It can be found to be discriminatory if it has a disparate impact or if the policy or practice per pet waits or deepens segregation. Disparate impact looks at the effects without having to prove intent. Thats where the Supreme Court case comes in. In the case the court heard on wednesday, a group in dallas has claimed that the state of texas was being discriminatory when it gave incentives to build Affordable Housing almost exclusively to developments in poor minority neighborhoods. The group argues that the practice violates the Fair Housing Act because it keeps those who need Affordable Housing disproportionally people of color, in minority neighborhoods and thus per pet waits residential segregation. But the state of texas, even though its already agreed to change its practices, disagrees. Texas claims that the Fair Housing Act only prohibits discrimination, quote, because of race and therefore that it only bars intentional discrimination and therefore, that the disparate impact standard is invalid. And even though every federal Circuit Court that has heard a challenge to the disparate impact standard has upheld it the Supreme Court has been trying to get a clear shot at it for years. And now it has one. That is pretty scary. Joining me now, Nicole Hannah jones, reporter contributor to the atlantic and author of living apart, how the government betrayed a landmark civil rights law. And vince warren executive director of the center for constitutional rights. Thank you both for being here. Vince, i want to start with you because, you know as we were listening to those oral arguments, one of the things that we heard was Justice Alito saying should we be concerned here about the use of chevron to manipulate the decisions of this court . Help people to understand what the chevron deference is and what that might mean for where this court is going to go. Several years ago there was chevron versus nrdc. In that case what the court found was that it was very important for judges to defer to administrative authorities when there was a question about the statutes clarity, about the statutory interpretation. So here where you have texas arguing that this only covers intentional discrimination and not disparate impact on saying thats not clear, its not in the statute, what chevron tells the court to do is actually defer to hud, the department of housing and development, for them to fill in those gaps to fulfill the Broader Mission of that statute. So its very important to see how the Supreme Court pivots. Are they going to listen to hud or are they going to listen to what they think the society is ready for in terms of housing discrimination. Nicole, i want to follow something because obviously theres this kind of legal set of questions that will emerge. Some of that i think will be hard for people to start using words like deference and, you know, administrative rules but just at its core why does disparate impact matter for the enforcement of fair housing. Much of the discrimination that hands now is very systemic. Its not about an individual landlord denying housing to an individual person. Although that happens too. It happens all the time. And the law addresses that. But what this gets at is the way discrimination really happens in a systemic way. Banks that charge different groups of people higher Interest Rates and they cant explain why. Its in the way that insurers might charge different rates for types of housing that is usually only available in black communities. And without disparate impact you dont have a bank thats saying were charging black buyers higher rates because we dont like black people. You have them oftentimes not giving an explanation saying were just charging this part of town a different rate and it just so happens a lot of black people or latino people live there. If you have a practice thats disproportionally harming a protected class, you have to justify that. If you cant justify that with a legitimate practice you might be violating the law. And it feels to me because this is about housing and housing goes to the very heart of the notion of the American Dream that we have to be able to build a coalition. People have to think that this matters not only to although critically importantly to communities of poverty and to communities of color, why should this matter if im a middle class White American . Why should i care about disparate impact and about this case . Well because in our society we recognize that for years we segregated people based upon race and we still do. But lets look at the intergenerational effects of this. This is not something that happened before 1968 and were over with now. It impacts the very fabric of our society. The ability of people to get to jobs, the ability to form schools that are full of life of energy and good connection. It all has to do with how we segregate ourselves as a society so we all should be concerned about it. Theres this piece in the Washington Post with a graph showing from 1992 to 2000 both white families and black homeowners, you know theyre all kind of losing value. But then then it just splits and you just see black families continuing to go under water. In what way is that related to housing segregation . Well what they found is that housing segregation makes it easy to discrimination against certain groups of people because you have entire communities that are locked out of the standard credit market. And so lenders can just go into those communities. They dont even have to mention race. But segregation makes it easy. Its like shooting fish in a barrel. If you have entire communities that in the past were red lined, they dont have traditional banking, then you go in and offer them exorbitant rates and they feel like they dont know or dont have a choice but to accept them. During the recovery then those neighborhoods were the ones that suffered most from foreclosures their Property Values went down the highest and they have not been able to recover. And its important for people to know that this piece was about prince georges right . Its like the middle income kind of black American Dream of this suburb that would be close by and we see this happening. Stick with us well bring more voices to the table when we come back. Speaking of voices as we go out, i want us to listen to president lbj on the day that he signed the Fair Housing Act. Democracys work is being done. In the Civil Rights Act of 1968 america does move forward. And the bell of freedom rings out a little louder. We have come some of the way. Not near all of it. There is much yet to do. [coughing] dave, im sorry to interrupt. I gotta take a sick day tomorrow. Dads dont take sick days, dads take nyquil. The nighttime, sniffling sneezing, coughing aching, fever, best sleep with a cold medicine. Constipated . Yea dulcolax tablets can cause cramps but not phillips. It has magnesium and works more naturally than stimulant laxatives. For gentle cramp free relief of occasional constipation that works mmm mmm live the regular life. 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. Your home is not an island. Well i mean unless youre super rich and you youve actually bought yourself an island which sounds nice. Okay, i digress. Your home lets say this is your home well it exists within, say, a neighborhood right . There are other homes around it. You know, a district a hamlet whatever you want to call it. And heres the deal. When you have that neighborhood there might be good jobs around it within commuting distance or not. The schools that your kids go to, they might encourage and challenge them and give them a Strong Foundation for the rest of their lives, or not. The air that you breathe in your neighborhood might be good and clean, or not. You might have healthy, affordable food at your grocery store, or not. You might be able to walk down the fear of crime, or not. You might be able to walk down the street without fear of police or not. Your political representatives might be a powerful force for their constituents interests, or not. Where you live affects everything. Your opportunities economically your health your safety and your childrens and all of theirs. All depends on the place that you call home. Fair housing is at the very core of every other civil right, and the Supreme Court may be poised to knock down our best tool to fight fair housing discrimination. Still with me, Nicole Hannah jones and vince warren and joining the table, shawna smith, who is president of the National Fair Housing Alliance and jasmine rand civil rights attorney at rand law. Shawna you at nfha have been doing this work for a long time. What would be different if say, for the past 15 years you had not had disparate impact as a standard . What things would have happened . Lets just use your house. Lending discrimination is both overt and subtle with policies and pricing issues. So in the past 15 years, africanamerican and latinos got loans, but they got bat loans. And the result was that the department of justice looked at that and saw that equally qualified credit qualifications between africanamerican latino and white borrowers, the africanamerican and latinos were higher priced higher fees predatory loans. So if the Justice Department couldnt use disparate impact to challenge that pricing model, well, they didnt right away so we ended up with this but the Insurance Companies, once you get that house, you want replacement cost coverage so if theres a loss you get to rebuild your house and you get to have everything put back in your house, your clothes, your furniture, but we challenge the Insurance Industry because they had a policy based on the age or value of your house, you couldnt get replacement cost coverage. So if you are living in an older, established, africanamerican neighborhood was your home but then you wouldnt have that coverage. Part of then what i want to think about here when we think about all of this and jasmine, when we think about a court that has brought down section 4 of the Voting Rights act, that has entered into the conversation about affirmative action to reduce the capacity to use it. If they come for disparate impact and during the administration of the first black president , have they managed to dismantle the entire civil rights legislative agenda of the 1960s . I think were coming very close to that. In fact i think the Supreme Court has a decision to make and theyre going to be able to go either way on it so the decision will be a reflection of what they want to see for our nation. Theres a very easy way to uphold disparate impact. Under the chevron principle, all that you have to do is look to hud and the administrative policies that they put in place allowing disparate impact. Hud governs the Fair Housing Act. You can also look to title vii, employment discrimination. And then you want to look at the public policy. You just heard from president Lyndon Johnson on the matter. The whole policy of the Civil Rights Act was to uphold these fundamental civil rights not just in the vacuum of the voting context or the vacuum of employment discrimination but to look at the broad impact of the nation which really begins in the home which begins in housing. Housing is fundamental in upholding civil rights in this nation. Nicole you have written so beautifully about this. I made it into a funny little chart but youve written beautifully about this and uncovered what we find to be a bit of a surprising history here. Lbj first articulates it but the first president ial administration who gets a chance to do anything with this act is actually the Nixon Administration and the hud secretary at the time is George Romney. What was his vision for how to actually use this act to bring about a more fair and just circumstance of housing . I think its important to know that lbj actually wanted to introduce the Fair Housing Act much earlier and they understood that housing of all the other civil rights that they were fighting for was the most toxic. This was a northern civil rights bill. This went into the homes or the backyards or the northern congressmen who were very much in favor of civil rights that affected the south. So weve always had very uncomfortableness dealing with housing and i think thats reflected now. So nixon appointed George Romney. And George Romney is kind of the Unlikely Hero of fair housing. He was a huge champion of using it to actually the Fair Housing Act to break up housing segregation. So when the court is kind of looking at what did what did what was the what did the Fair Housing Act intend what theyre showing is that one of the biggest cases initially was blackjack. In that case it was looking at zoning and the administration was saying yes, the Fair Housing Act covers disparate impact and covers policies that have an effect on a large group of people usually africanamericans. And romney himself, George Romney, lets be clear, who was at the time secretary of hud, actually called the patterns of housing discrimination a white noose around the black inner city. This reflection of an understanding of that connection and thought that the federal government ought to really aggressive use its power. Vince, when we come back i want to talk to you about over protective classes and talk about where the fair housing fight goes after this. Up next the mandate to affirmatively further fair housing. Are all the green lights you . No. Its called grid iq. The 4 51 is leaving at 4 51. They cut the power. Itll fix itself. Powers back on. Quick thinking traffic lights and self correcting power grids make the world predictable. Thrillingly predictable. 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Push your enterprise and you can move the world. But to get from the old way to the new youll need the right it infrastructure. From a partner who knows how to make your enterprise more agile, borderless and secure. Hp helps business move on all the possibilities of today. And stay ready for everything that is still to come. Like, literally ran into him. [rambling]. This story had 30 minutes left. Until kim realized that Stouffers Mac and cheese is made with real cheddar aged to perfection for 6 long months. When you start with the best cheddar, you get the best mac and cheese. So, what about jessica . What about her . Stouffers. Made for you to love. Nestle. Good food. Good life. Local and state governments that receive federal funds are required to do more than knotted discriminate discriminate. They are also obligated to affirm the purposes of the Fair Housing Act. The Fair Housing Act was passed to eliminate fair housing discrimination and promote racial integration. In order to do that you have to combat intentional discrimination in policies and practices. And then you have to affirmatively take steps to rectify the results of that discrimination. But the Fair Housing Act doesnt require quotas it doesnt require you to have setasides for people it just opens up the door so everybody has that same opportunity. And when you talk about everybody, you know weve been focused very clearly on race here in part because thats the crucible in which this was formed. There were other protected classes under the Fair Housing Act. My mom talks about having experiences of housing discrimination in the late 70s as a result of being a single mom, right . And it wasnt that it was race she was showing up as a white woman, but she was a white woman alone with children and people who didnt want to rent or sell to her. Exactly. So this is much broader than race, which i think speaks to the societal nature. There is gender is a protected class. Familial status as we talked about, that you cant discriminate based upon single parent status and things like that. Religion is something that also happens. When you begin to look at it in that context, there are a range of things that a government or a state can do not focusing particularly on those things but can make for devastating consequences. Things like building not being able to build housing next to or around particular religious communities or in a religious context or creating income guidelines that single people cant meet. So there are a range of things that society wants to have happen, which is have people have fair housing and Affordable Housing, that gets thwarted if the Supreme Court decides to take away discriminatory impact. And i get the feeling like we are missing what actual what produces inequality and the don sterling thing for me is the clearest example. The whole country gets all revved up about him saying words that are bad and negative words towards people of color, but he already had a settlement in which basically it was clear that in his housing practices, he had discriminated against people. But that seemed to be less relevant. I wonder is this right at the core of how the court is thinking that its not quite sure what it is we think discrimination is anymore. Anybody on that one . I mean i think when were talking about discrimination nobody and don sterling is a rare example because he actually vocalized his discriminatory behavior. Before that you made an important point, he had already demonstrated this pattern which may have been perceived to be nondiscriminatory although it had a discriminatory outcome. Thats whats happening in our nation. Most people are intel jentdligent enough not to voice their hatred of people. The Fair Housing Act is meant to protect you to live where you want to live in a community. Can you imagine if we have to wait for every disparate impact to have their don sterling moment . To have to get into the brains of people . I also wonder shanna if part of what happens is once you see disparate impact it doesnt have to be that you sue the person. Theres possibilities for active working together as organizations. Absolutely. We now continue to work with Insurance Companies all the time as theyre developing policies. They run it by us saying do you think this could have a disparate impact and we tell them. Run these tests. See if it does have a disparate impact lets sit down and talk about a less discriminatory way you can do this. Disparate impact isnt about intent its about the result of your policy. The remedies are not race conscious. The remedies are to open up the door and treat everybody fairly so everybody gets the same shot. And i think the Supreme Court understands that well members of the court understand that it is not a race conscious remedy its a remedy that removes a barrier that has a disparate impact. Now some policies though sometimes people do develop a policy. Banks have said were not going to make loans in indiana to homes that had 1200 square feet. Well, those homes and the bankers knew that that was an Africanamerican Community that was built after the war for veterans. So sometimes they make a policy and they understand what theyre doing, but i would say a lot of times the actuaries at an insurance company, the underwriters, they havent been trained in fair housing so they just go this is a good policy. Nicole, just briefly. Youve been reporting on this for a long time. Are you optimistic . When you think about what this court is likely to do are you optimistic that disparate impact holds on the back end of this . Its hard to be optimistic because the court has been fighting so hard to get this case. This is the third time its tried to take it up in the last three years and you can be pretty sure its not the liberal justices who want to take it up. But with that said scalia has been a bit of a surprise. He said chevron like 15 times. Hes been very opposed to disparate impact. He said that he believes that violates the equal protection clause of the constitution. At the same time hes deferred to regulatory agencies. His line of questioning surprised a lot of people. I dont tend to be optimistic about these things in general, but it looks like scalia may have something in surprise for us. Love that. Thank you to Nicole Hannah jones, and shanna smith. Next, the president that tries Something Different with the media that even made reporters say, are you sure thats a good idea . With the incredible fuel efficiency of 38 milespergallon highway you can feel like royalty in the nissan altima. 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Find them in the cookie aisle. On this day in 1961 president john f. Kennedy launched what would become a staple of the office. The first live televised president ial News Conference. He had already proved his natural affinity for the relatively new phenomenon of television during the 1960 president ial debate with republican opponent richard nixon. While kennedy appeared well groomed and in control, nixon was seen as sweaty and flustered. That debate would be a gamechanger for kennedy and every politician that followed him. Five days after taking the oath of Office Kennedy demonstrated that same calm cool demeanor as he faced more than 400 reporters and 65 Million Viewers from a podium in the state department auditorium. For 37 minutes he took questions on issues president s are still being asked about today. Everything from Voting Rights to cuba. But in 1961 that kind of president ial candor on live tv was so rare even the press expressed concerns. Mr. President , theres been some apprehension about the instantaneous broadcast of president ial press conferences, that an inadvertent statement could cause some grave consequences. Could you give us some thought on this . I think the interests of our country are as well protected under this system as the system of president eisenhower. This system has the advantage of providing more direct communication. Despite that initial skepticism kennedy would hold 64 press conferences during his brief presidency attracting on average 18 Million Viewers. Now more than 50 years later, another media savvy president is once again facing questions about the appropriateness of his engagement with the viewing public. Thursday president obama sat down with three youtube stars to discuss his state of the union address. Many of the questions were insightful, but there were also some amusing moments, including this exchange with glozell green. I have green lipsticks, one for your first wife my first wife . I mean do you know something i dont . Oh for the first lady and the first children. Oh sorry. Some media critics wondered if the youtube sessions were worthy of the office of the president. Consider this, the three youtube stars combined have nearly 14 million subscribers, also known as potential voters. It was proof that sometimes trying a new way to reach a new audience may be just as worth it today as it was for the young president who took a chance on live tv on this day, january 25th, 1961. We come by almost every day to deliver your mail so if you have any packages you want to return you should just give them to us i mean, were going to be there anyway why dont you just leave it for us to pick up . Or you could always get in your car and take it back yourself yeah, us picking it up is probably your easiest option its kind of a no brainer ok, well, good talk i want my yoga pants to smell like i sweat money. 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A jury pool of 9,000 is slowly being whittled down to a mere 24 people. 12 jurors and 12 alternates for the trial of James Eagan Holmes the man accused of killing 12 people and injuring dozens more inside a colorado Movie Theater. Its one of the largest jury pools in u. S. History. Police say two and a half years ago, holmes snuck into a Movie Theater in the denver suburb of aurora and opened fire on 421 people watching a midnight showing of the batman movie the dark knight rises. According to police holmes used three different types of guns. A semiautomatic variation of the militarys m16 rifle, a pump action. 12 gauge shotgun and at least one. 40 caliber semiautomatic pistol. Witnesses say he walked calmly and silently through the theater as he fired. Holmes has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity but he could be sentenced to death on multiple counts of firstdegree murder and attempted murder. It is a rare occurrence to have a person accused of a deadly mass shooting to go on trial and face a judge and jury. As the Washington Post points out, an fbi study of active shooter situations looked at 160 incidents between 2000 and 2013 a list that named the Aurora Shooting as the deadliest during that period. More than half ended when the gunman stopped shooting often because he committed suicide or fled. Nearly half of the shooters looked at by the study ended their own lives. Joining the table, dr. Jonathan metzel, director of the center for Medicine Health and society and professor of psychiatry at vanderbilt university. He also has a new article in the american journal of Public Health, Mental Illness, Mass Shootings and the politics of american firearms. So i want to start with jonathan you have kind of some assumptions that we often work from in moments like this. One of them is this idea that Mental Illness causes gun violence. Whats wrong with that assumption . Let me just say, first of all, talking about the Aurora Shooting, of course the Aurora Shooting like all Mass Shootings is an unconscionable tragedy. 12 people lost their lives. 70 were padly injured and a whole country were traumatized. The problem we get into with focusing so much on the Mass Shootings and i think it will be the case in this trial is that it reinforces the notion that there are crazy people running around the country trying to shoot people. What we know with the research we did in the article, we looked at cases of shootings across the country over the last 50 years. What we found is that first of all, persons with Mental Illness are far more likely to be the victims of crime than the perpetrators of crime, overwhelmingly. Second, if you really want to stop gun violence not in terms of mass shooting but in terms of everyday violence one of the main factors we argue is that there are factors associated with sanity not insanity. So are there guns in bars do you have a loud neighbor all of these everyday factors and the availability of guns. So really the problem with these trials is that we just focus this trial is entirely going to be on the question of Mental Illness, but really we should be asking at the same time how can we stop everyday violence and that is not linked to Mental Illness. There just is a way that a moment like that shooting is not just horrifying in the moment but terrorizing in fact right . It makes us feel like at any moment we could be victimized in a random way. But the realities are particularly for a woman, youre much more likely to be victimized by an intimate. If youre going to die by gun violence, probably not in a Movie Theater. It is much more likely to be because your partner, your spouse, and youre in a circumstance of domestic what we think of as Domestic Violence. How do we certainly seek justice there, but also look for just rules that are actually much more likely to impact us on a daytoday basis . I think you have to start with overall gun policy because if were placing these guns into peoples hands so easily then you know we cant blame it solely on Mental Illness. Thats an easy scapegoat to say, oh its just mentally ill people using these guns but its not always mentally ill people. Weve seen the issue with officers and we have a culture that promotes the use of guns. We have this movie that just came out called american sniper sniper. And the name alone is indicative of how the nation feels about guns. We like them we own them, we row romanticize them. We were looking at an image from colorado of waitresses and theyre carrying their sidearms while working, waiting tables. I get the reasons why that might be sort of a fun colorado western moment but theres also, i think, in there the sense of like that its so deeply entrenched in our culture that we would never talk about making guns less available but much more likely to simply talk about crazy people doing bad things with them. I think thats right and i agree that this type of cataclysmic event causes people to focus on the wrong thing. What were talking about with this case is what is the problem that were really trying to solve as a society. And i think that certainly this case is going to deal with the problem with this particular person and that particular shooting, but the broader question really is as we were talking about is how do guns actually play out on the day to day . What is the hidden effect of having so many guns in our society . And thinking about this example that it does make sense to have sort of guns as this National Heritage symbol. But the heritage historical symbol doesnt imply whats happening now, which is that we use them to kill each other. Were not shooting elk, were not out there pioneering we are shooting each other in almost bizarrely mundane ways that we need to be talking about. But mundane is not instead we dont focus on the mundane but the spectacular, and then we want you to become our front line so youre a practicing psychiatrist. Shouldnt you be telling us which of your patients are likely to turn into mr. Holmes . Well there have been roughly 200 Mass Shootings since the 1970s in the united states. Meanwhile there have been 32,000 gun deaths on average a year. And so i think psychiatrists and Public Health scholars really have a very hard time predicting even among the many patients they see which one of their patients is going to be violent. Certainly they cant predict these 200 awfully tragic but statistically random events which are Mass Shootings. Psychiatrists can say there are things that are risk factors for gun violence such as a past history of violence past history of assault, substance use, these are things many legislatures are enabling rather than making more difficult. When we come back well talk about the fact michigan Governor Rick Snyder made a decision to go against the nra on an issue like that which i thought was sort of fascinating. The other thing i want to talk about is what happened to this africanamerican man who was carrying a gun for which he had a legal permit. When we come back. 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. [ hoof beats ] 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. 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In this video, you can see the africanamerican man, clarence daniels, knocked to the floor by Michael Foster a 43yearold white man that you see there. As foster tackles daniels, he yells to others that daniels has a gun, to which daniels wells back, i have a permit. Foster saw daniels in the parking lot placing the handgun under his coat and tried to take matters into his own hands. Daniels did indeed have a permit to carry. Foster was arrested and charged with battery. Is the Second Amendment only for people who are not africanamerican men . Well i think that there are two competing discourses right now. On one hand there is the Second Amendment conversation. We want firearms we have open carry, we want dudes Walking Around coffee shops and restaurants with their weapons and at the same time theres a historical narrative that tops into the longstanding fear of the black gun owner. As we show in the paper you mentioned before this actually goes back to the 1960s when the moment that the civil rights you know that the black panthers wanted guns and malcolm x wanted guns for self defense, all of a sudden everybody is like no no no we need gun control and the nra supported the gun control act and so there are competing discourses that played to racial stereotypes. And this is a tough one in part for me because i do think i spend a fair bit of time on the show trying to think about more sensible more reasonable gun legislation. On the other hand i grew up in a household my fathers household had guns. My father believes that people should know how to shoot a gun. I have a gun in my household. And yet the open carry in particular, it never makes me feel safer. I dont care the race of anyone. When i see guns in my chipotle in my starbucks, in any public space, it only makes me feel more nervous. I dont blame you. I think the discourse narrative plays out like this. Theres nothing more american than an american with a gun and theres nothing more dangerous than an africanamerican with a gun. So thats how that plays out. And i think the equality paradigm and im not conflicted by it but part of what we do as civil rights attorneys is try to say that africanamerican folks have the right to do the same stupid things white folks do. So thats part of the analysis but i think were saying lets look at the stupid thing that were doing societally and ask this question should we be doing it at all. Thats where i think i agree with your analysis here. I think this case is really fascinating because what we have is an africanamerican man expressing his right to open carry a gun. And i agree with you, im not comfortable with anybody of any race carrying a gun inside stores. I believe in the home. But whats interesting is youre seeing this vigilante behavior once again. When majority white men in the walmart attacking this black man who has a right to be there with his concealed weapon. But on the back end, im really kind of proud of the local sheriff because he said this type of vigilante behavior will not be tolerated and this man was charged with battery. I didnt as a civil rights attorney, i didnt expect to see that out outcome. So i say oh he wasnt arrested and when hes charged with a battery, thats a good sign of progress. There are now three big stories that have been headlines over the past few months. First it was the walmart killing of John Crawford right. John crawford iii, a young africanamerican man who was Walking Around the walmart with an item that is sold in the store, right, the 911 call comes in and were able to see on that surveillance tape where officers come in and shoot him. And then the other kind of tragedy where a mom is in a walmart with her 2yearold and her 2yearold pulls the gun out of the diaper bag and shoots and kills his mother. At every point i think who are we kidding about this idea that we are being made safer by this . I think thats absolutely right. Walmart has i think its own issues. Right. Theyre usually labor practice issues not gun violence issues. But this is a microcosm of the bigger gun issue. On one hand as much as we have the rhetoric and we want the crazy person its real eat everyday violence that is the issue here. I think this illustrates it. The other point is in emotionally charged moments when people feel threatened they fall back on stereo types, racial stereotypes very often so having a fun present at that moment just leads to these kind of outcomes. You want to give everyone in those circumstances, you want to give them five more seconds, right, to pause to make a decision. Because i have to say this is how low my expectations have become. I was just so happy no one was so shot in that video. Like i thought thank god they tackled him. Please dont tackle someone with the legal right to carry a gun but i just kept thinking of John Crawford iii and how it could have turned out so differently. Thank you to vince warren and jasmine rand. I do want to update you on the next major winter storm set to wallop the east coast over the next 36 hours. The historic storm is expected to bring blizzardlike conditions to new england. Some areas could get up to 2 feet of snow. It comes as residents are still cleaning up from saturdays snowstorm, the first significant snowfall so far this winter. Stay with msnbc for the latest on the weather conditions. Still to come this morning, the debate over american sniper, my letter of the week and the News Conference from saturday afternoon that had me screaming touchdown more nerdland at the top of the hour. 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Invest with confidence. Request a prospectus or summary prospectus with investment information, risks, fees and expenses to read and consider carefully before investing. Welcome back. Im melissa harrisperry. By now you have undoubtedly heard about the case of the underinflated footballs used by the new England Patriots during last sundays afc championship game. First, the Indianapolis Colts sensed something wasnt quite right with the game balls. Then the pats coach told reporters he has never even had a conversation about ball pressure in his whole career. Then the pats quarterback told us all about how he likes his footballs, but claimed he didnt do anything unusual or untoward to his balls last sunday. By yesterday afternoon, we figured that our inner 12yearolds would have been sent back to our collective subconscious because surely there was no further ball talk possible from this particular kerfuffle. But all of that changed when the patriots head coach, Bill Belichick, held yet another press conference saturday afternoon. But this time he took a very different approach. This press conference was about the science of footballs. We found that once the balls the footballs were on the field over an extended period of time in other words, they were adjusted to the climatic conditions and also the fact that the balls, you know reached an equilibrium without the rubbing process that after that had run its course and the footballs had reached an equilibrium that they were down approximately 1. 5 pounds per square inch. Could life be better . Its about the balls and the rubbing process. Thats right. The patriots conducted their very own simulation to review the way that their game footballs are prepared to meet league requirements. Through their experiment they found that after the footballs are conditioned to meet the standards of both the nfl and the quarterback, once the footballs are used outside, climate and atmospheric pressure can result in substantial deflation. The hypothesis belichick rernlded is that the climate could be responsible for the footballs underinflation. Belichick did qualify his hypothesis with this though. Im embarrassed to talk about the amount of time that ive put into this relative to the other important challenge in front of us. Im not a scientist, im not an expert in footballs, im not an expert in football measurements im just telling you what i know. I would not say that im Mona Lisa Vito of the football world, as she was in the car expertise area, all right . Man, i love him. Kudos to belichick for working in a performance of marisa tomei in my cousin vinny. Here at the table professor young, who is a professor of physics at Stonybrook University who, in fact teaches a course entitled the physics of sports. Kavika Davidson Jason page host of the week night nbc Sports Radio Program up late with jason page and chris valetta who is a former nfl player and author of team works, the gridiron playbook for building a championship business team. Professor yes. Was that a solid hypothesis . Seriously. Is the process he went through like a reasonable experiment to get us to some kind of conclusion about what may have happened. So im a physicist, im trying to be factual as much as possible. To have that kind of effect of just atmospheric pressure alone, you need some kind of condition of tornado when initial measurements are made and then on the field. But actually the things that makes more influence is the temperature. So if your initial pressure was pressured at higher temperature, room temperature, say 80 degree fahrenheit, and then on the field it was a 51degree fahrenheit, that will make at most 1 psi difference. So the big question here is all of these theories however, is moot because the physics is universal. Yes. So why would it be 11 in footballs and not 12. If there is 12 footballs, subject to any kind of theory i dont care whatever difficult theory, but it has subject to all 12 footballs as well as to another 12 footballs the colts had. So i would like to know what are those measurements are. Why is there one particular football measured normally and 11 measured under . So that of course that was my very first thought. Physics doesnt work differently for some footballs and not for others. So i dont want to miss this. So you played in the role of center so that means before your quarterback gets the football you get the football. Yes. For my mother whos watching who may not youve grabbed a lot of footballs. My fair share. So the way the whole thing starts is its an interception and the defensive player is like this doesnt feel right. If youre the center would you notice, right, before you hike the ball would you have noticed this ball is a little squishy, its soft. Not necessarily. But look i will say this this whole thing is being exploded to proportions that are completely unbelievable. Because its so great but let me tell you this. Tom brady makes his living knowing every square inch of that football. Every stitch every single piece of it he knows how they feel he knows how they carry in the air, he knows when they have been broken in versus when they havent. The equipment managers the staff, the coaches, including belichick, they all know exactly what kind of footballs tom brady likes to use on the sideline. And, id like to add, when footballs come off the field, theyre usually dried off in inclimate weather, theyre usually put in places that keep them warm so they dont stiffen in the cold weather. Everyone is very kind to the footballs. This is clearly an issue that is much larger than deflategate. This is addressing the integrity of the nfl, the integrity of belichick and many more issues. I agree. I actually think that i mean its fun because we get to say balls over and over and learn things like you guys really know one anothers balls and take care of them and that kind of thing. I want to go back to the science because instead of going to an ethical question the First Response is i am not a cheater. And then are you guys just being ridiculous. But ultimately yesterday when belichick comes out and decides to kind of go through a long pseudoscientific discourse, then he draws us right back in. We have to ask, you know his response to the 11 out of 12 was each is an animal and each one is made out of leather that could be different and may have been rubbed or manipulated differently and thats why you wouldnt have a universal outcome. I think thats very unlikely. And again, i will say that what is a measurement of the other 12 balls colts used. So it just its highly unlikely just one particular ball. Well it obviously felt the colts footballs obviously fell between 12 1 2 and 13 1 2 because they fell within regulations. If they hadnt we would have known it by now. They surely must have checked all of those as well. Its important to note this too. It was talk that theres 11 of 12. Theres still some people suggesting it may have been all 12 footballs. While were all assuming its 11 of 12 theres still a chance that all 12 footballs may have fallen below the leagues standards by at least 2 psi and maybe more. And thats the thing right now. Were still in a waiting game. We still dont have all the information from the nfl. Theyre staying very quiet on this. I am not at all surprised to discover that there is psi shrinkage in cold weather, but that said does it matter right . Like should would this have had any ultimate outcome changer . Why should we care so much . So i think on the one hand people are saying the patriots totally blew out the colts and this didnt actually have a meaningful effect on the game. While thats true we can look back at other games against the ravens, for example, that were closer and wonder what the outcome is. The overall question that hasnt been answered is how common is this practice. Some players and managers are saying this isnt a big deal. People dont comply by this that deflation happens often. That quarterbacks are very specific about how their footballs are handled. From a physics perspective, does it affect how the ball flies . Obviously in bad weather if its softer, its easier for the quarterback to grip and the receivers to catch, but is there anything else about the physics of that ball that changes with that kind of deflation . Oh sure. It really for the optimal conditions if you want to throw the ball long or kick long you would like to have more proper inflation. So if you make it a little bit softer really is it good for the bad weather, you have good grip so you can throw it with a tight spiral which accuracy is the most important thing at the time. Especially teams like the new England Patriots who lives with short passes. I dont know what is the statistics of that particular game. I bet there was not that many long throws. Not only is it good for throwing, but also receivers like it when it is softer and also running backs like it because it prevents them fumbling. So it is all good for in bad weather a little bit softer. One thing i go back is it measured psi was indoor when the officers measured it. It was indoor at 10. 5. That could have been 9. 5 on the field. So that would have made not by the time they went back in. And the tighter the spiral the further the football is going to go as well right . Yes. The tighter spiral will get you more accuracy and further. So in bad weather it really helps in terms of having good help. Thank you, professor, for putting up with our silliness. Man, i would take that class. Up next what we learn from the black sox of 1919 and deflategate. Ballgazi, which we get back. Racell quantum to power their game day communication. Abort abort hes keeping it duracell quantum. Lasts up to 35 longer than the competition. If youre running a business legalzoom has your back. Over the last 10 years weve helped over one million Business Owners get started. Visit us today for legal help you can count on to start and run your business. Legalzoom. Legal help is here. Searching with devotion for a snack that isnt lame but this. Takes my breath away [ female announcer ] we help make secure financial tomorrows a reality for over 19 Million People. [ susan ] my promotion allowed me to start investing for my retirement. Transamerica made it easy. [ female announcer ] everyone has a moment when tomorrow becomes real. Transamerica. Transform tomorrow. Nbc sunday night football is one of the most watched primetime programs on television. On any given sunday more than 21 Million People tune in to watch their teams take the field and take part in some good competition. Some fans even relinquish the comforts of the couch and choose to root for their players in person sometimes during brutal weather conditions all because of the love of the game. And that love of the game has to do with the competition. A competition that hinges on one central assumption that the game is actually competitive. That its fair. So what happens if its not . Consider one of the most infamous sports scandals in history, the 1919 black sox scandal when eight Chicago White sox opted for big bucks over fair play and conspired to throw world series games ensuring a win for the cincinnati reds. After news of the scandal broke, the league appointed the first baseball commissioner. One of his first tasks was to decide what the league should do about the eight alleged conspirators. He banned them all from the game forever. Legally the eight were indicted on counts of conspiracy to commit fraud and faced trial. In the end, however, they were acquitted and nothing really happened to the league or to the game itself. In fact the Chicago White sox were seventh in the league in 1921 and baseball lived to thrive another day. Some of those days included a series of steroid scandals with players increasing testosterone levels to get a competitive edge. But the sport of baseball fine. This year the nfl has seen scandals involving individual players, mainly the allegations of Domestic Violence and child abuse. Fans still watch the game every week. But the nfl news this week is different. This has to do with the way the game itself is played down to down, end zone to end zone. How does a scandal on the field impact the game if at all. Back at the table is Jonathan Metzl metzl, professor of psychiatry at vanderbilt university. I want to ask about this. Nobody is turning it off, everybody is going to watch the game. This is the pro bowl and theyll all watch the super bowl. Does this do anything because its different from offfield scandals scandals when youre talking about something on the fields. I think thats a more important distinction to make. Fans feel outraged when they feel the integrity of the game is compromised. I think we tend to be both moralistic and very idealistic when it comes to the fairness of our sports. There are all of these unwritten rules that we dont really acknowledge in the open and there are a lot of inconsistencies that exist. Baseball stadiums arent regulated for their dimensions for example, so i think there are many ways there isnt actually an even Playing Field that we overlook because we like to think of sports as the ultimate competitive arena. As a saints fan, itsz not fair that we have to play outside, ever. Listen i dont think fans care as much about fairness as you think, and here is why. I think sports is entertainment. And entertainment is entertainment, whether theres fictioning boxing is still enormously popular worldwide. Boxing matches, how many people talked about boxing matches being fixed. One of the most popular things on the planet is wwe wrestling. Everybody knows its fake but everybody still goes and watches it anyway. Well its not its entertaining. It was not fake. In fact theres a lawsuit right now with some of the folks about the injuries they sustained. The outcomes are fixed. But i do get your point that entertainment is a different question than whether or not its sportslike competition. Then maybe it goes to what part of the sports world were talking about. So, you know one of my favorite new reality shows is the friday night tykes and the idea that the kids engaged in football. So whenever we think about the nfl, like at the core it teaches you something about competition and teamwork. So ive spent my entire professional career outside of the game on that exact topic. I believe wholeheartedly that athletes represent the skills the tools, the methodologies to be excellent not only in life but in business and their relationships. I think what were talking about here is the 1 that make the mistakes and thats what we tend to focus on. I truly believe the nfl is a league of integrity. I believe that the game is a game of integrity. Its built on sportsmanship and built on integrity, its built on honor and code. I believe in it so much that i think that the skills that you learn in that sport, especially at the young age to the show that you just talked about, are translatable to every single facet of your life. I think that athletes represent the best business people. I think they represent people that can hold the highest level of standard. Because you look at people that are being focused in the media right now and that is whats giving this halo effect to the entire nfl. Its unfortunate, but i truly believe the nfl is in a power position right now to represent those qualities and broadcast them to the public in a way that they have never seen before. So this is fascinating. I wish dave zyron could pop down in the middle because i know a fight would occur. But theres such a part of me that knows all the guys who are those guys and who i have core experiences where im like yep, thats exactly the guys i know who played. I want to show this because it went to it in an interesting way that sesame street got in on it because it did feel this was the childhood part of it. I want to see sesame street planting a shade tree over the nfl. Were here to tell you all about the word inflate. Inflate, baby. Now, the word inflate means to fill something up with air. Inflate. So that was the word of the day on friday right . I mean i just at least it wasnt ball. I want to be than wind sock guy for halloween next year so im honored to be at this table as a psychiatrist a profession that has a long history of thinking about what men will do in competition with each other and also billionabout balls. I bill say i have no horse in this race at all, im from kansas city and we never make it this far. But when belichick said we follow the rules to the letter when you look theres a slippery slope the technical. The technical point and the fact that basically if winning supersedes everything people will fall down that slope where they wont see the ethical implications. The other idea goes back to this idea that everyone else is doing it. That was the rationale people used during the steroid era. Absolutely. So i think that theres a lot of insight into that press conference that told us maybe about you know ive never met the man and im rooting for the chiefs but i think that there was a lot going on that was interesting. There is one thing, because i did feel like you evoked the spirit of dave zyron and made me think of one other piece. This notion of the technical letter of the law, in the ncaa take it out of the nfl, in the ncaa it has ruined young men and women. This technical letter of the law and the way the ncaa acts about tiny infractions that dont impact the outcome of games, i guess part of what im wondering, what feels unfair to me is the idea that the rich powerful guys get away with tiny infractions when often the kids who are making millions for their schools and nothing for themselves end up losing scholarships over things like this. Right exactly. And i think that that its really important to separate the idea of sports and the fantastic things that athletes do for us and sports teach us as human beings from the professionalization and the organization of sports and the corrupting power that that absolutely has. I think that holding an entire organization of professional athletes and coaches to the standard that athletes are the best businessmen and the best people really makes us overreact when they dont live up to that ideal. So when we kind of when the glass kind of shatters a little bit, were not prepared for just how human these people are and just how flawed some of these people can be too. And humanity is what pushes them toward making choices which are sometimes bad ones about the competition. Chris valletta, you are coming back. Were going to have a fight about whether or not it is good for your mind and your soul and your spirit. Lets do it. To play sports. Because i think it is and then dave tells me its not. Its very confusing. Thank you to kavicka davidson. Up next why no one is being held accountable in the murder of a 16yearold girl. No one else gives you options like that. [voice echoing] no one at all no one at all no one. Wake up [gasp] oh you okay, buddy . I just had a dream that progressive had this thing called. The name your price tool. It isnt a dream is it . Nope. Sorry you know that thing freaks me out. He can hear you. He didnt mean that, kevin. Kevin yes, he did keeping our competitors up at night. Now, thats progressive. 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. The world is filled with air. But for people with copd sometimes breathing air can be difficult. If you have copd, ask your doctor about oncedaily anoro ellipta. It helps people with copd breathe better for a full 24hours. Anoro ellipta is the first fdaapproved product containing two longacting bronchodilators in one inhaler. Anoro is not for asthma. Anoro contains a type of medicine that increases risk of death in people with asthma. It is not known if this risk is increased in copd. Anoro wont replace rescue inhalers for sudden copd symptoms and should not be used more than once a day. Tell your doctor if you have a heart condition, or high blood pressure. Tell your doctor if you have glaucoma, prostate or bladder problems, or problems passing urine as anoro may make these problems worse. Call your doctor right away if you have worsened breathing chest pain, swelling of your mouth or tongue, problems urinating or eye problems including vision changes or eye pain while taking anoro. Nothing can reverse copd. The world is filled with air and anoro is helping people with copd breath air better. Get your first prescription free at anoro. Com. I wanted to tell you about a homicide case that caught my attention. In december of 2010 Felicia Barnes 16yearold honor student, suddenly vanished while visiting her older halfsister in baltimore. She had everything going for her. She was beautiful, smart, set to graduate from High School Early and was applying to college. In april of 2011 her body was found in a river about an hour from her sisters home. She had died of asphyxiation. Police ruled it a homicide. For more than a year her family waited for answers. Finally in april of 2012 a man named Michael Johnson was arrested and charged with her murder. Johnson was felicias sisters exboyfriend and had been staying at the home when felicia disappeared. Johnson plead not guilty and the case went to trial. One key witness, a man named james mccray, testified that johnson called him to ask for help disposing of the body. Mccrays testimony was so crucial because he could tie johnson directly to the murder. The jury found johnson guilty of seconddegree murder but at the sentencing the judge threw out the conviction on the grounds that the prosecutors had withheld information about mccray from the defense. A second trial began in december of last year without mccrays testimony. After the prosecution rested its case, the judge, a different judge this time granted the defense request for a mistrial. This time on the grounds that the prosecutors had exposed jurors to material they werent supposed to see. Then this past week the judge dropped all charges against Michael Johnson. All charges. The judge cited insufficient evidence calling the prosecutions evidence unarguably circumstantial. For now, Felicia Barnes family will have to wait even longer for justice. We dont know if there will be another trial. What we do know is that we have another case of a young black woman killed and no one being held accountable. All lives matter. Felicias life matters. Joining me from baltimore, maryland, is the family spokesman don rondo and her father Russell Barnes. Mr. Barnes thank you for being with us. Can you talk to me about how you and your family are responding to this latest judges decision . Myself and my family were really in disbelief on what has happened in this case. We just our hearts are like shattered, you know. We just dont understand how the judge has just ruled that this person can walk out of the jail on tuesday. Now, obviously, you know you have a beautiful 16yearold daughter and she just goes missing. I know that you all you put up purple ribbons because purple was her favorite color, that you organized people in the community to try to find her before her body was found. During all of that were you at all or any members of your family suspicious of mr. Johnson or were you as surprised as anyone to find that he was the person charged with your daughters disappearance . When we first started looking for phylicia this person showed signs that he knew something about her whereabouts. At that particular time we were just looking for phylicia. We thought she was just missing. This person did not help search did not do anything, lift a finger to help with the community and with the police and anyone in just helping us find phlicia. In the beginning, we just knew something was not right with this individual. If i might add, you hit on a key point that all lives do matter. Early on the Barnes Family really drove interest in this case and so we really are certainly disappointed by the current turn of events. But to be frank, thats how things have progressed from day one for us. From day one weve had to fight to get attention to our case weve had to generate interest in the community. We, the people rose up and made sure that the process started and that she wasnt just another noname girl of color that has fallen through the cracks. Myself and others im here representing not just the Barnes Family but a coalition of people who all have vowed to not stop until phylicia receives justice. And so while we are disappointed in how things have progressed we are not surprised that we are sitting here because this has been five years of this. From day one to right now. Melissa, were certain i am certain that if that our system may have to change so that we have resources dedicated towards protecting and serving children and not just incarcerating them. Actually its on exactly that topic i want to ask you about. Tell me about phylicias law. Because in addition to trying to get justice in this one case youre also you all have been working to try to make a more just system. Well, certainly. You know there came a time when after searching with great groups pastors, local politicians in the city of baltimore to search for her, we drove that search. We, the people. Well, we found we were informed that she was murdered and so there came a critical point where we had generated all of this good will and developed all of this expertise and resources, do we just go back to our lives as individuals and leave russell to fight and not do anything to affect permanent change or do we stand as a community and say, hey, were going to make sure that Going Forward there will be an expectation that we will go after we will seek justice for any kid anywhere any color, any time. And so we drafted legislation and with the support of a real great streetfighting delegate joel p. Carter out of baltimore, we passed phylicias law and it was before there was justice, obviously, for the name sake. Don rondeau and Russell Barnes from baltimore, don, thank you for your advocacy. Mr. Barnes we are all grieving with you in your loss and we do hope that you and your family find some measure of justice. Thank you both for joining us this morning. Thank you. Thank you. 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Campbells healthy request soup lets you hear it in your heart. [ basketball bouncing ] heart healthy. Great taste. [ mm. ] [ tapping ] sounds good. Campbells healthy request. Mm mm good. ® on friday evening, while potential republican president ial contenders scurried to iowa to court support, an east coast residents hurried home to beat the snowstorm, and those of us in cable news cracked ourselves up with underinflated balls jokes, a New York Times oped columnist was on twitter sending advice to activists. Tweeting activists should have focused less than Michael Brown and more on the shooting of 12yearold tamir rice in cleveland. And that is why my letter this week is to nicholas kristof. Its me melissa, thanks for the strategic advice you offered friday afternoon. It was a great reminder of how important it is to endure injustice until just the right victim comes along. Back in 1955 it was Claudette Colvin who had to learn this hard lesson. She was 15 years old when she refused to move when the driver on a segregated bus in alabama ordered her to get up. She endured arrest and eventually challenged the law in court. But civil rights leaders felt the working class pregnant teen was the wrong symbol for the movement. So they waited nine months for the unimpeachable rosa parks to do exactly the same thing colvin did. Then they launched a movement. After all, whats nine months of injustice if it ensures you have just the right symbol for organizing . I presume that is the point of your tweet, nick to encourage activists to find palatable and pitiful victims so that skeptics will be forced to admit a wrong has been committed. After all, who can be sure that Michael Brown didnt deserve to be shot . Six times while unarmed. Who can say for certain that it was a bad thing for his body to be left lying under the sweltering missouri sun for four hours . Who has the right to label that a travesty . Apparently not a community of mostly black people whose schools remain effectively segregated, whose voices feel silenced and who are policed by a department of mostly white officers. And clearly not the prosecutor or grand jury who refused to even bring the officer to trial for browns death. And not the thousands of allies and organizers who stood in solidarity with the people of ferguson for months. No, no no no no. The Michael Brown slaying was far too murky because he was no angel. Activists should not have organized against the brutality they perceived or drawn attention to the militarized response of police they endured. Your tweet was a reminder that they should have waited. Waited for more than three months after the august 9th death of brown until november 22nd when Cleveland Police would offer a more perfect victim. A more palatable protagonist to dramatize the fragileity of black lives. Tamir rice was just 12. He was killed in full view of a video camera a camera that even captured the horror of his 14yearold sister being wrestled to the ground and handcuffed. If only those impatient activists had waited. And while im sure you must be right, because after all youre nicholas kristof, i was just thinking about how hundreds of activists did organize in cleveland just days after rice was killed. They actually didnt need to wait for the New York Times to tell them a wrong had been committed in a january 22nd article that he helpfully tweeted along with your advice. I was thinking about how many of those activists were activated because of their outrage over the events in ferguson months earlier and i was thinking about how those activists articulated connections rather than distinctions between the cases of Michael Brown and eric garner and John Crawford iii and tamir rice. And i was thinking how many of them even saw links with the killings of Trayvon Martin andra neesha mcbride and Jonathan Ferrell and even emmitt till and jimmy lee jackson. And i was thinking how unlike you, nick these activists were not searching for perfect martyrs to tell a neat story. They were responding to the realities of loss and experiences of injustice as they happened. And these activists, who you felt the authority to counsel on friday afternoon, didnt wait for rice because they were dodging tear gas in ferguson and stopping traffic in new york and disrupting shopping in minnesota because they did not want another unarmed man or woman or child to be killed because they believe that justice delayed is justice denied. And because they took Martin Luther king seriously when he said we cannot wait because there comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over and men are no longer willing to be plunged into the abyss of despair. And because these activists are wildly foolish enough to believe that all black lives matter. Thank goodness you set them straight about that. Sincerely, melissa. You show up. You stay up. You listen. You laugh. You worry. You do whatever it takes to take care of your family. And when its time to plan for your familys future were here for you. Were legalzoom, and for over 10 years weve helped families just like yours with wills, Living Trusts and more. Visit us today for legal help you can count on. Legalzoom. Legal help is here. I have the flu with a runny nose. [coughs] better take something. Theraflu severe cold wont treat your runny nose. Really . Alkaseltzer severe cold and flu relieves your worst flu symptoms plus runny nose. [breath of relief] oh, what a relief it is. Mommy hey son oh no. Can you fix it, dad . Yeah, i can fix that. dad i wanted a car that could handle anything. I fixed it dad thats why i got a subaru legacy. vo symmetrical allwheel drive plus 36 mpg. 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Since opening in wide release less that two weeks ago, american sniper has raked in more than 154 million. The bulk of that during its recordbreaking opening weekend. Its also been nominated for six oscars, including best picture and best actor. Along with accolades came controversy. Most immediately high profile figures began offering opinions on public media. Seth rogen tweeted american sniper kind of reminds me thats going in the third act of inglorious bastards. And filmmaker michael moore, who reports that his uncle was killed by a sniper in world war ii says quote, we were taught snipers were kourds. They will shoot you in the back. Snipers arent heroes. They both walked back their comments. Sarah palin wrote on facebook just realized the rest of america knows youre not fit to shine chris kyles combat boots. Just how did this film american sniper become such an american controversy. Joining me now, Jonathan Metzl, professor of psychiatry at vanderbilt university. Earl catagness jr. , professor at Valley Forge Military College and veteran of the iraq war. Alicia quarles, correspondent for e news and jeremy skahill author of dirty wars the world is a battlefield. Did you actually like the movie . Not the controversy, the movie itself. I actually liked the movie itself. Ive got to say, full disclosure, i interviewed Clint Eastwood, ive interviewed Bradley Cooper several times, i interviewed chriss reallife wife and sandy miller who plays her and i like the movie itself because its very different from the book. The book is controversial. The movie, clint cut out a lot. He cut out 44 pages of dialogue so its hard to get everything thats in the book in the movie in two hours. This is hollywood. And also Bradley Cooper said this is not meant to be a political film this is meant to be a film telling a soldiers story. Okay. So that moment this is not to be a political film i think is right where the angst lies jeremy the idea that you can tell a story about this particular moment and it can be somehow personal and not political. Of course its a political film. I view this as a nonobjective fairy tale that represents how certain people in the special Ops Community and their fans view their role in the world. It was totally void of any context. Why were we in fallujah why was the u. S. In iraq . The term savages is used a number of times during the film. If you read chris kyles book of course he refers to iraqis as savages regularly throughout the book. He brags about having a crusader tattoo on his forearm that he had put in red to symbolize blood. I didnt know chris kyle personally. I know people who trained him that are friends of mine and have talked to him. Hes a beloved figure in that community which is part of why theres the highstakes emotion here. But as a film of course its pure America First propaganda. In the end i think it does a disservice to the people in the u. S. Military because of the cartoonish portrayal. All he needed was a captain america shield to sort of solidify its role as that kind of a film. Earl. I completely disagree. This film really could have been me, could have been any of the other brothers that i served with. Chris kyle was with me for two weeks in fallujah and i cannot tell you how much of the purity that he had for love of country and the patriotism. He was he talked like that. He believed it. He was the real deal and he was a true warrior. And many of our warriors are like that and thats what ive been trying to say over and over. You will not understand. This is not a this is it. This is the way we think. This may the combat scenes are obviously hollywooded up. This isnt propaganda, this is hollywood. They make money. So mentioned in the break about sniper you sit there for days just looking for glass, just glassing targets or glassing potential targets and not seeing anything for weeks, so you cant sit there and show that. But there is frustration but actually on the movie making of it that is what i had hoped for. I have someone in my life who is in the role of a sniper. When i asked this young man about it the first thing he said to me was that experience of the long drawnout, sometimes even boring and then suddenly having to make decisions. And i thought i guess what i was so surprised at again as a movie is that i felt a sense of disconnection from that from that sense of like angst and of Human Experience but as i listened to you talk earl i guess im wondering is it just because my Human Experience is so removed from this one that it doesnt read to me as a kind of authenticity. Can i jump in because i want to defend my comments and what you said earlier. Its a political movie by nature but thats not what bradley intended it to be. He fought for this movie. He bought the he bought the rights to it. Steven spielberg was supposed to direct it. He had a very different vision pulled out and Clint Eastwood came aboard. Clint eastwood almost didnt do the movie because he didnt want to be associated with another war movie. I say its not purely a political movie because this is chriss pointed of view. This came from his book. This is his storytelling. Bradley did this as an actor to tell his story. I get it. But i will just suggest and yet our points of view do have political meaning. So 12 years a slave is also a point of view film told from a memoir but it has enormous political meaning. Stay with us, more on american sniper when we come back. With the incredible fuel efficiency of 38 milespergallon highway you can feel like royalty in the nissan altima. Now, get great offers on the 38 mpg highway nissan altima. 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So it was a movie, and thats what we have to put it in context. Hollywood makes movies to make money. Its not propaganda. You can attach all of that on top of it from your perception, but for me being a sniper being a warrior for six years ago being in combat and being wounded, thats how i felt when i come home. Its a very touching movie to me and my family. And i respect that. Thats when i say i think its a fairy tale what i mean is everyone i talk to who worked in special ops or fallujah on the military side says the same thing, that it resonates with them. Im not military and i experienced that war as a journalist on the ground from a different perspective. One of the most troubling things to me about the film and this is the directors prerogative is there is no context why the u. S. Is in iraq or why the u. S. Was in fallujah at that time. To not even reference the fact there was basically no al qaeda presence in iraq before the u. S. Invaded is and that it was u. S. Policy that facilitated falu ja which i spent time in before the iraq war becoming this hot bed of al qaeda in iraq to not explain that and then just have it as hes shooting all the bad guys including kids. In his book he says the rules of engagement early on were kill any male 16 to 65. You dont get any sense you just made earls point. So the rules of engagement are there for us literally to one, they come from the pentagon. Its legal for us so we dont get prosecuted. More importantly, its for psychological purposes. You just hit on a major point. The rule of engagement would be military age males that were showing either aggressive actions, Different Things that were stipulated including cell phones. If you actually monitored them and saw them and where they would trigger ieds, but the trigger man was a cell phone. So were taugt as a sniper to pick up on these behaviors. Theres a psychological component to it. We have to build that evidence in our heads and justify every single shot. Thats why you see that. I want you to jump in. It seems to me theres a slippage between the rules of engagement between what sol jors are doing and the movie. This is a movie. I think the problem is potentially it kind of reproduces the books lack of moral languish about what it means to kill people. I think thats the debate that people are having. You didnt think there was moral anguish in there . I think the movie oversimplified iraqis. I think it lacked right right. So the more language is coming home. Thats what i heard you say. For your family this mattered because that sense of distance from the experience the Home Experience versus the war experience. And i think for me maybe thats part of why i was having trouble relating to the film. Even though i know those who have had those experiences, once theyve come home because that part thats happening away from home is so shrouded. But jeremy you were in those places. You just werent there as a combatant. As one who has struggled also with posttraumatic stress zorder from seeing kids blown up and dead bodies in somalia, yemen, iraq afghanistan, i did relate to some of the scenes. I think in fact to me it was one of the most important parts of the film, these allusions to chris kyle struggling with his own demons and how it affects the family. When chris kyle was killed and the end of the film is powerful. When you see him getting into his car with this young guy who ends up killing him, this is a highly underaddressed issue in our society. The Domestic Violence that occurred as a part of ptsd but also lack of really good support for people that ive got to say this. Surprisingly, im defending this film. Surprisingly because i agree. If you watch the film, you think, gosh, this film seems just completely, you know, racist. It seems ridiculous. Again, this is chris kyles interpretation. This film is based off of his book, his experiences. Im not saying its right, its wrong. I dont agree with a lot of the things he felt but its based on his experiences. As journalists, right, were open to everyones experiences. Hollywood didnt say i mean but this was his experience. People dont know. Read the counts of muslims who have gone to the theater to see this. People thought this was real. All right. Thats our show for today. Thanks to you at home for watching. See you next saturday at 10 00 a. M. Eastern. Time for a preview with alex witt. Take a breath. This is a fired up conversation. Were going to continue it on this show as well. Everyone, were also talking about bracing for snow. The northeast is getting ready for a blizzard and its all because of bombo genesis. Well explain that one. The number of measle cases on the rise. The statistic shedding new light on how contagious this disease really is. 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Coach Bill Belichick with a new and more elaborate explanation, denying anyone from the patriots tampered with game balls. American sniper, new controversy and clamor surrounding that