Talk about the reaction to the George Floyd Killing, which has grown exponentially just over the last couple days. What is your reaction to what you have seen in the country . Specifically the d. C. Im from d. C. , i grew up here. My grand i graduated from the first integrated high school. Its personal. We keep seeing shootings, an indifference to black life so i think now were at a tipping point. Were dealing with 400 years of tragedy and i think a combination of factors have come together and theyre not going to allow us to ignore it. Host when you look back at the video to watch of george floyd under arrest, Police Officer with his knee on the nevk of orge floyd for eight or nine minutes, the reaction of the people in the crowd. Obviously theres filming going on. Does it surprise you that these sorts of tactics still exist in American Police forces given the presence of not just social media but media in general, given the presence of changes in leadership including minneapolis and promises to change practices in u. S. Police forces . Guest it does. Inherently it surprises me. But given what we continue to see it doesnt. You would think with cameras, with the abundance of social media and the speed with which things go viral when people see a camera you would think it changes their attitudes but instead we see just the opposite. We saw the Police Officer in minneapolis knowingly keeping his knee on somebodys neck knowing the camera was pointed. Thats the scariest thing that peoples behavior doesnt change knowing that theyre being watched, knowing that everyone can see what theyre doing. Host of course in the days after the officers were fired the particular officer has been arrested and charged with third degree murder Second Degree manslaughter. Initially what sort of message do you think that sends to the public . Well, i think the firing i think was quick and smart. I think they needed to be fired. All the evidence was in the video. In terms of prosecution, i think the d. A. Made a mistake by coming out and saying that there wasnt enough evidence. It looked political. I will say people in minneapolis and people around the country are going to hold the people in minneapolis and Police Departments and elected officials all over the country responsible. Theres not going to be a continued effort to cover these things up and normalize it. People are demanding a change and i think the country is listening. Host the wall street journal writinging this morning about the federal involvement. The headlines task force has echos of rodney king. Mr. Bar oversaw the departments response to the videotaped Police Beating of rodney king that led to the los angeles riots in 1992 when mr. Barr was attorney general under george hb wush. How confident are you that attorney general bar the u. S. Justice department can handle the case of george floyd and prosecute it to its fullest . Guest sadly im not confidbt in attorney general barr at all after his response to the Mueller Report and his manipulation of that evidence, that report, and just his rhetoric overall. I have zero confidence in him. Which is sad because the department of justice isnt a personal attorney for the president , theyre the attorney for the people. I have no confidence that they will not only protect black lives but lives across the country. Host talking about the unrest and the reaction to the George Floyd Killing and racial relations in the u. S. The numbers are on your screen. Lets talk about another case the aubrey shooting case in georgia which happened earlier in the year but just made known in march headline in the nbc news says d. O. J. Is considering possible federal hate crime charges in the arbri shooting. What do you see as the difference between that and the george floyd case given the suspects involved . Well i think the clear differs is one is a state actor in the george floyd case versus in the aubrey case which was civilian but we still see a Common Thread through both. In the aubrey case you had those individuals hunt down mr. Aubrey and murder him. And on the floyd case you have very similar situation where an officer just inhumanely took the life of someone on camera and i do have to always point to those two minutes and 28 seconds when mr. Floyd had gone limp. He was already unconscious and the officer continued to put his knee on his throat taking away any oxygen. Ost what sort of police modifications or reform needs to come out of these recent cases . I have to say i think one of the thing that is d. C. Has done which has been successful and one of the reasons growing up i didnt inherently have a fear of police was most d. C. Police are from the area. Theyre from here. Theyre our neighbors, theyre people we see every day at restaurants. And so theres a sense of belonging. Theres a sense of shared community. I think a lot of Police Districts need to get back to that. If you look at new york for example, i think someone like only one in seven new York Police Department police work in one of five burows, thats problematic because you need people policing areas where they live. There needs to be a shared interest there. So i think thats one of the first steps that police can take. Host you said you dont have a fear of police growing up in washington, d. C. Area. Let me ask you about a piece published that says the there is one epidemic we may never find a vaccine for fear of black men in public spaces. He writes in this opinion piece that in terms of the videos that have been out there, i dont look at many of these any more because theyre so soul crushing. All these have depressing familiarity. Its part of the racism of our everyday lives. Why do you suppose that black men that White America according to his column has that fear of black men . Guest part of it is stereotyping. Historical stereo typing. You look at movies like birth of the nation played in the oval office 60, 70 years ago theres always been a characterization of African Americans, especially African American men as aggressive, oversexualized. And so those stereo types have stuck. And now what were dealing with oving forward is black men their skin color being weaponized. Were seeing that in just the long litany of videos of African Americans being shot. But it has a psychological effect as well. I think of when im walking through the city if there is a white woman in front of me ten feet in front of me, i make a very conscious decision to slow down so that im far enough behind her or speed up to walk ahead of her because of that just inherent fear that i could be accused of something that shell think im following her. Its things like that. Last night i had to put on when i put on a sweat shirt i was very cognizant that i was dressed in all black and that could seem men asing so i needed to make sure that i had color on so that its more friendly, more welcoming. Things like that that are everyday, everyminute thoughts that are survival instincts that i dont think fellow americans who are white consider. Host you mentioned your folks were part of the first integrated high school in d. C. How early do you recall your mom or dad saying to you giving you guidance on being in public and the potential ramifications of that . Guest i would imagine four, five. As soon as i could begin comprehending and begin being able to participate kind of in the things going around, i was told when you go into a store dont pick things up because you could be accused of stealing. If the police ever stop you make sure to take your hands out of the pockets slowly, calmly, dont flinch. And it wasnt so that i wouldnt get in trouble. Its so that i would get home, so that i could make it home. And one of the things now that im of age where my friends are having kids, where people are getting married, it never hit me and it never hit a lot of my friends that we would still be having those conversations, that we would still be sending kids out wondering whether they were going to come home at the end of the night. Host lets get to our callers. Michael star hopkins. We go first to brad independent line. , a er i am a christian veteran, and an African American. I just call things as i see them. A protest is not looting. A protest is not taking over a city street. Protest is not trying to intimidate or be a predator trying to create a reaction from the police department. Let them know what youre protesting about. I come christians are supposed to forgive 7570 a day. How are these guys protesting something that happened 200 years ago . You have problems in the community because you have bad actors and the people of the community dont call those bad actors out. Youre a house of jesus or youre a house of satan. Host michael. Guest wing we need to make a distinction between the people who are protesting and the people who are rioting. I was in the protest in d. C. On saturday in front of the white house that got really scary really edgy quickly. And during the day there were protesters there young people, families, kids. They were making their voices heard and they were doing so peacefully and were not looting, rioting, breaking things. And at night things changed. People who werent there during the day showed up. And those were the people who you see dressed in Tactical Gear, who are breaking things. And i think that theres been kind of a disservice done to whats been going on because there are rioters. But those people in my opinion seem to be coming from outside influences. Those arent the people who are there marching, chanting, asking, begging for their humanity. These people seem to have another agenda and are coming for ulterior motives. Host so when those people showed up did you make a conscious decision to get out of there . Guest i want to stay as long as i could because im covering this, i want to know whats going on being able to speak to it from a first person perspective but after a certain point i did have to leave. There were a lot of explosions, dumpsters being set on fire, the police were moving forward and shooting rubber bullets. So at that point. Host heres john on the republican line in pennsylvania. Caller good morning. Thank you for cspan. I believe that we should be having the conversation about race that has been advocated for many years actually. But it has to be based on an open, truthful, factbased discussion. Now, i do believe that it was appropriate for the policemen to be charged with murder. Hes been charged and thats going to play out. But very few people know that according to f. B. I. Statistics black males make up 6. 5 of the population but commit over 50 of the homicides or murders. Also according to f. B. I. Statistics, about 90 of the interracial violence is black on white, not white on black. A person you should have as a guest is Heather Mcdonald shes a yale educated lawyer and city journal. Host ill let you go there. Heather mcdonald has been on our program multiple times. Michael star hopkins your thoughts. Guest i want to touch on the statistics for a second. When you talk about the high crime rate among African Americans, lets remember how historically we got there. When you take a group of people and give them poor education, you give them no opportunities, and then put them in a condensed area, theres certainly going to be crime. When you throw overpolicing into that and put a police force that is primarily in poor neighborhoods and specifically looking to break up crime in those neighborhoods, youre going to even raise that rate higher. In terms of the interracial crime rate you said i dont know specifically what that speaks to but what i will say is that as a former public defender in manhattan you can make statistics say anything and when you look at the rate of crime among African Americans there are very specific historical reasons why there are those rates. And when you look at the crime rate among white on white and black on black those statistics fall apart very quickly. Host so going back to your comments earlier about your observation on the washington protests on saturday i believe ou said, these outside influences that you observed coming in could they be taking advantage of that situation and usic it sort of an acsell rant to their needs not only in d. C. But other areas . Guest absolutely. Thats absolutely what it appeared to be. They were well they had planned, they were able to communicate with each other. We would see the Police Coming in to break up things and then you would start to see these people in Tactical Gear move out kind of spread out and start to hit areas where they knew the police werent there. And it wasnt these werent people with signs. These werent the people who were in shorts and a tshirt just from the community. These people were prepared. And that i think that was the scary part because there was a clear distinction among who was there to make their voices heard and who was there to cause anarchy. And i think at its most basic level thats what some of these people were there to do. Host well go to steven from louisville. Caller good morning. I want odd to ask you a question. Were you at the protest in louisville . Is that where you were the other day . I live in louisville myself and when you said paint balls or you were talking about you know what im talking about when they were shooting those balls or something thats what they were using here. And i didnt know if thats where you were when you were referring to being at the protests the other day or not. I did want to just add my two cents. I keep listening to all these people this morning, some cooks calling in about swars and we need a civil war and all of this. I think no we dont knee a war. Weve had enough war as it is. I think weve had it up to here with war right now. What we need is reform. We need also, i sympathize with people that talk about a Resistance Movement but i personally dont agree with the resistance because i dont think it goes far enough. We need a transdental movement. I say we probably need a drive or move party to rival the coffee party and the tea party quite frankly right now. And quite frankly it doesnt help matters much when we have the leader of the free worled equating champions of social justice with domestic terrorists back in 2017 during the charlottesville tragedy. Host well let you go there and hear from michael. Guest i think one of the biggest problems is a vacuum of leadership. Normally in times of tragedy our president comes before the country to ease those tensions. We saw that with bill clinton 1992 after the Oklahoma City bombing. We saw that with george w. Bush after 9 11. Barack obama after the shootings and the murders in south carolina. Were not seeing that now from our president. And i think that is causing fear and consternation among the american public. But its also allowing people to seize on that lack of leadership and i think thats where youre seeing some of these rioters, some of these anarkists come in. When theres no one to come before the country and ease those tensions, i think people just kind of freeze. I think right now were seeing whats already a country thats very divided among racial lines, among partisan lines, become even more divided. So i think until we have some leadership, someone whether its the president , whether people are calling on barack obama to come forward and make a public statement, not just one in writing but to really speak to the country, i think were going to see these things. Host youre a democratic strategist you worked for the obama campaign. What do you think the Presumptive Democratic nominee joe biden needs to say at this moment, needs to do at this moment . Guest its hard for me because theres the political consultant side who says joe biden should do exactly what hes doing now and let trump continue to sow cords of division, because electoral its good. Were watching bidens numbers go up and up. But as an american, as a black country, we this tensions. Er the and i think joe biden needs to come out and talk about the tragedy that hes seen in his own life, whether the death of his kids and his wife when he got ready to tensions. And i think joe biden needs to come out and talk about resume the senate or whether its the death of bow biden a couple years ago. I think he needs to share that common tragedy. I think thats something that has worked for him before. I think americans want to feel connected to something and know that someone feels their pain. I think joe bidens always been really good at showing empathy. So moving forward if he is going to make a big speech, do the thing that politicians do, i think thats the message he should touch on. Next up, from milwaukee. Caller i just want to say im very disturbed to say how a lot of callers tend to call in and just denounce the fact that there is racism, systemically occurring in this country. I live in milwaukee, wisconsin one of the most hyper segregated cities in the nation. In 2016 we had what they called the uprising in sherman park that stemmed through a police shooting. But what a lot of people dont understand is that the Police Shootings are just a match that lights the fire. This is a system of 400 plus years of racism that has this profound lack of economic opportunity, the 13th amendment. That alone of itself is modern slavery. And with guns, drugs, hatred, you have destruction of selfand community. The high school i went to was segregated. White people in the front, black people in the back. The lutch tables were like this. The whole city. Nobodys telling us to do this but its a subconscious remnants ofert past that were living. And we know what the problems are. Why we have this disparity but wheres the change . I cant understand why if i drive down one street in a White Community full of business and people jogging with their children and living in this like nostalgic world with no fear, and i go into the black community and its sheer dest tuition, blight, crime, drugs, violence. I mean it makes no sense to me. This is what people are mad about. Were frustrated. We get empty promises. We dont have solutions. People want solutions and thats my comment. Host ok. Michael. Guest the caller hit the nail on the head. People are desperate. Th