In the countryrs today. How did this march come about . Guest the planning of the march came after the itll of the officer who killed philando castile. There was a sense of anger and powerlessness around how can a man who told the truth, who was just trying to get home to his stopy and was killed in a by the police, how can that happen in america . What we decided to do was this march as a response to that, but also a response to the continued infringement upon the civil rights of communities of color and really say with this march that were done with that. We want to bring awareness to this country that this is still happening. For some people, they were not aware this was still happening. This march is saying communities of color deserve to live in dignity, with respect in the country that they love. The march for Racial Justice is saying where there is injustice, lets root it out, figure it out as a country. How can we have dignity across the board and civil rights being upheld across the board and human rights being upheld across the board . Host im going to read your mission statement. It says, for generations we have marched, locked out, and protested about Racial Justice in a struggle to transform the policies that produce these policies. The policies are you referring to . Guest for example, i will start with what started the march itself with philando castile. Philando castile was honest. He said, i have a gun. I have a license for it, and the officer reacted to whatever he was feeling and infringed upon his right and his Second Amendment right. The defense that was used for that was i was afraid for my life. Subordinateds fear Philando Castiles rights in that moment. We are saying that is not ok. If we have these inalienable be,ts they need to inalienable. It is not ok for someone to be honest, to be correct in everything that he is done to then die. That is just one example. Host what is the message of the march, and what is your goal more broadly . Guest the message of the march is that we are at a new day, and we need to define what it means to live in this country. There should be no difference in terms of your interaction with the police or the state, my interaction with the police or the state, or any part of our country between someone who is white or asian or indigenous. I have the opportunity to travel a lot in building this march and speak to communities. Injustice is across the board. When i went to reservations and spoke to the indigenous communities, what i learned there, because when we talk about racial injustice, we cannot just talk about one group, i discovered what was happening on reservations and the land treaties not being honored and Health Crises on these reservations not being even looked at or funded. It is across the board. We have to decide as a country, when we say we are american, that this nation represents a standard of living or a standard of rights, then we have to do everything in our power to make sure that standard is across the board, not just for some but for all of the people. I think what is happening in puerto rico right now is an example of that. These are american citizens. Aty are not being treated the same level as the rest of the country, and the protests that are going on in the nfl are a reminder, saying, be aware of what is happening in this country. Just because everything is ok with you and your family, that is not enough. There are going to be thousands of people out there today who agree, saying it is not enough for me to be ok in my neighbor not to be ok. Host there is another march happening, the march for black women. To the causes overlap . Guest absolutely. Host that is a dumb question. [laughter] host tell me how the causes overlap. Guest the marches were created and built in collaboration. We strongly believe there is no Racial Justice without gender justice. The situation of black women in ofrica is very dire in terms any type of metrics that we have. If we talk about maternal four times,t is five times likely to die more than white women. Infant mortality, three and four times likely that black babies are to die than white children. That is a real problem. Talk about homicide, so many different ways that black women and children are not safe in this country. We felt that there was a strong space for black women and honor the work they have done in moving us all future bymore unified their dedication to civil rights and to the entire country. We wanted to honor that and bring awareness to they are the most impacted group by racial injustice. Host question for you, why do you think the burden is always on communities of color to advocate issues that affect communities of color, and the burden is always on women to advocate for issues that affect women, when these are issues that affect america writ large . Guest im going to connect it to the way in how our founding of the country was in silos, and the identity of america and americans is in silos. Many people in this country have no clue around what is happening in other communities. It has fallen to communities of color to say here is what is going on. That is what happened throughout jim crow. There was this segregation. How white people were expecting america was completely different from how black people were experiencing america. As i had dialogues with communities, the experience of america is different across communities. People are not talking to each other about that experience. Someone who doesnt have any friends of color or is not part of communities of color, they really believe america is exactly the way they are experiencing it. What we want to bring awareness to is when we talk about america , it is not just on communities of color to change anything. It was not just on Martin Luther king to change anything. It was on when america to say this is not acceptable. This is happening in my country, this is not acceptable. There will be thousands of what americans out there with us who are white americans out there with us who are saying this is not ok, youre not alone. People, women and children of color across the country have dignity and respect, and their rights are upheld. Host the march for Racial Justice happening here in washington. We are taking your calls. The line for democrats is 202 7488000. Republicans call 202 7488001. Independents call 202 7488002. Sheila calling from worchester massachusetts on the line for republicans. Say that for me. Caller woucester. I would like to know when the march for the assassinated Police Officers is going to take place . And i would like to know who does the black Community Call when there is an emergency for their families . I think this call for Racial Justice is totally unbalanced and is unfair to the men who give up their lives every single communities,t all white, black, yellow, green, and purple. It is a sad thing that i dont hear any in the black immunity coming to the fence of the greatest defense of the greatest country of this world and our police department. Men in blue sacrifice every single day for our citizens. There should be a march or those Police Officers who have been assassinated by black criminals, sitting in their police cars, protecting the community. I am sorry that miss davis does not acknowledge that. Thank you for listening to me. Guest i will say this to sheila, i have Police Officers in my family. My father served this country. He is a vietnam veteran. That did not stop him from being assaulted and robbed by police in new york city. That is what brought me to this communities that were being treated differently. We can honor Police Officers, canweekend honor we honor people who serve this country of all color and also point out the inequalities that exist. They do not have to conflict with each other. They are in collaboration. When someone who is black or latino or asian or indigenous calls the police for help, i want them to have the same experience as when a white person calls. We can honor everybody who is of service to this country, and i do, and this march does. What we want to see change is that those interactions with the state, with the police are the same across the board so there is no need for any american to feel like i am having a different experience than my neighbor because of my skin color. Mike, anr from independent. Good morning. Are you there . Caller mi on the air now . Host you are now. Caller this is mike from white plains. The trouble with this country is we are a conservative country, conservative justices, and an election system that is totally rigged. In other words, there is gerrymandering in a lot of states. There is a lot of ignorant people out there, the archie bunkers of america, and they dont understand we are one nation. They are all americans, and it is up to us to treat everyone on an equal basis, but we are unwilling to do it. Thank you. Mike mentioned some of the underlying structural issues he sees computing to social injustice. What do you think about that . Guest i would agree that we have a lot of changes to make, and there are many threads that are coming through from our history that we have not on earth and not unearthed and is no at and said this longer who we are. Up the nfl bring protests that have been happening, were significant me upwitness as i grew playing sports, a job for years jock since four years old. When you neocon any field, it is because someone is hurt. When i saw Colin Kaepernick take that stance, it was a signal, and that signal was somebody is hurt, lets Pay Attention. Field, you neocon a you Pay Attention you k neel, you Pay Attention to that person that is hurt. When he took the knee, it was like lets look at the communities where being hurt and deal with it. It is not just playing the game and moving forward. If we did that on a field, it would look very callous to continue playing the game when people are laying out on the field. We are saying people are hurt in the u. S. There are 3. 5 Million People in puerto rico that are hurt right now. There are people on reservations, in urban centers that are hurt. This is overwhelming. Lets Pay Attention to that and not just keep playing the game. The goal is human beings and our respect and dignity for human beings. Host lets hear from clyde from texas on the line for independents. Caller good morning. How are you both . Host fine, thanks. Caller i see this thing that is called race is simply a wedge issue to detract from or to bounce off of class. Races dont exist, but its much the same to me, at least, as abortion or desecration of the flag. It is just a wedge issue to make people who choose to call themselves white feel important, and it also brings about a certain amount of animosity amongst people so that they fightgroup together to against the powerful. If you look at the davisbacon act, i think it was called, the indentured servants and african slaves banded together to try to overthrow the powerful. Here we are talking about something that doesnt exist simply because the powerful want us not to recognize that they are ones, much the same as machiavelli and all the other rulers in the world have sought to pit people against each other. Guest well, i am partly in agreement with mike because race was created for a purpose of division here. Whiteness was created in america. Before that people were irish, italian, scottish. They came with their ethnicities. When we started separating people by law and saying as a white person you have these rights, and a black person has these rights, which are a lot less. If youre asian or indigenous, you have these rights. We did that in this country, and that was part of the founding of our country. Those rights and the shifting of those rights have shifted over created in theit founding of our system, our judicial systems, our political systems a separation and away people are being treated differently. Because those things are at the founding of who we are as a political and judicial system, in order to uproot those things we have to look at where those things still exist. The way we can examine that is by the results we have. The results we have, if we are looking at mass incarceration, we have seen that it is overwhelming communities of color that are being affected by mass incarceration. However, if we are looking at things like drug use, they are the same. Problem with our judicial system that goes back, not just in the last 20 years, but the last 100 years. This has been a consistent issue in our judicial system. Yes, scientifically there is no such thing as race as we do find it. Cash as we defined it. T has been defined by law i think his name was mike, he pointed out it was for the efforts of White Supremacy in this country. Persons of color and communities of color fell under this goal of White Supremacy. Are doing now, gathering thousands of people is saying that is what we no longer want. We want everyone to have the quality in this country and to have rights in this country. Host lets hear from lane in ohio, a democrat. Caller good morning. I want to comment on the collar who wanted. The sum acknowledgment of the police that have been killed, not only by black people, but police are being killed by white people also. I also feel like that acknowledgment, but how many times do People Knowledge all the black people that were lynched and killed, those that fought for this country and were not allowed their rights . It hurts to have to hear that we are supposed to constantly acknowledge what this country has done for us and nobody big knowledges will we have done and put up with big knowledges what we have done acknowledges what we have done and put up with in this country. I consider myself a christian. The people brought the bible over here with them. All they want to justice and freedom for themselves, they took freedom and justice from the native people that were here. The whole time, that bible had the same scripture in it. How can you love god, whom you notnever seen, if you do love your brethren who you see every day . Host jeff calling in from crofton, nebraska, a republican. Caller how you doing . I would like to say since the early 1960s, civil war bill was passed to help the black people, to votee decided as a block of 98 for the Democratic Party, the same party that was the kkk, the same party that decided to stop reconstruction and treat the createdamericans, who jim crow and everything else, they have decided to vote for the Democratic Party, and you have done it since that time. I think that is part of the reason that the Africanamerican Community is in a terrible shape. They destroyed the family of the black community. Sadly enough, i believe the Democratic Party i should not say it is democrats, progressives are ready to exchange the africanamerican people for hispanics, and i think they are going to be left off the map here soon. Guest i would first like to er,ress the first call sorry, i forget her name. The march is taking place on september 30. We chose september 30 two honor the you lane massacre. The elaine massacre. That took place in arkansas, and over 200 sharecroppers and soldiers were massacred and killed, men, women, and children, by Law Enforcement and deputized white citizens. No one was imprisoned for it. No one went to jail. The only people that went to jail where the black people that fought back. We chose that date because we wanted to honor those black people who stood up and said that is unacceptable for us to be treated differently because we deserve dignity and rights and to be paid fairly for our work. They were killed because they had that standard for themselves. We honor the black people today and the Indigenous People today and the asian people today, and we honor those in the past. I would say in terms of democrats and republicans, they in protectinged the rights of communities of color. , which it be in alabama is mostly republican and was just found guilty of racial gerrymandering this year, or we go to democratic states, new york, and the issues that have been happening around police brutality, both parties need to do inventory around the communities of color and protecting the rights of communities of color. Where there is not a voice, where peoples rights are not being protected, that is not a democratic or republican issue. It is an american issue. We want to make sure that wherever people decide to vote, their rights are being protected and upheld. Both parties need to do that work. Dorcas davis is the cofounder and cochair for the march for Racial Justice happening today. We will carry portions of the march today at roughly 2 30 p. M. Eastern on cspan. Thank you for being with us. We appreciate your time. Guest thank you. Host how much does it cost how much does illegal immigration costs taxpayers in the u. S. . According to a study by the federation for American Immigration reform, about 116 billion. Daniel stein is the head of that organization and will go through that report. Later, our spotlight on magazine asies continues kathryn miles joins us from the boston globe to talk about nuclear safety. Stay with us. Today, booktv has coverage of the 2017 baltimore book festival. Starting at noon, Michael Eric Dyson discussing his book, fears we cannot stop. Laura jacobs with her book, you are in the wrong bathroom and 20 other myths and misconceptions about transgender people. Andrew ritchie with invisible no more, Police Violence against black women and women of color. Robert spencer, author of the revolution has come, black power, and gender. Dev allen, author of a beautiful ghetto. And we will feature interviews to the books democracy to freedom, no wall they can build. Noonis today starting at on cspans booktv. Chester a arthur consistently ranks among the lesser known president s. The only thing people know about him is his distinctive facial hair, mutton chop sideburns. Sunday, the unexpected president , the life and political career of cheste