laughter despite the fact that when the constitution was written minorities werent even invented yet. laughter i think. Thankfully mayor bloomberg says he will fight to preserve stop and frisk because he knows you cant make a safety omelet without breaking a few brown eggs. audience reacts jim . We go to where the reports of crime are. Those unfortunately happen to be poor neighborhoods and my r minority neighborhood. Stephen okay, the program is not about color, its about friskability. laughter in fact, i dont see color, not even my own. People tell me im white and i believe them because i dont get frisked. laughter the point is for years, for years this has been a safe city, a wonderful toy for a girl and a boy. But now it will be teeming with unfrisked black and or hispanic people. I wont pwefpb able to cross the street to avoid a suspicious looking African American without running into a questionable latino on the other side which means i have to walk down the middle of the street here comes the cab im dead. laughter and, folks, its not just whos on the streets now, its also about the thugs headed back there. Because yesterday attorney general eric holder announced new federal guidelines to undermine our war on drugs. Attorney general eric holder announced the Justice Department will stop seeking mandatory minimum sentences for offenders accused of lowlevel nonviolence drug crimes like a smalltime drug currier. Instead, theyll ask to send them to drug treatment and Community Service programs. Stephen no jail time, just rehab. Its like every minor drug offender suddenly became a White College student. laughter well, tank infully folks its one group that is always dishing out the frisky buffet, the t. S. A. laughter because they have the safety of this nation in the palms of their hand. Also your genitals. laughter and there laughter . And theyre finding all sorts of new places to do it. How do you feel about a special t. S. A. Team searching you before you see your Favorite Sports Team or concert . The t. S. A. s expanded duties now include security checks at passenger train, subway, and bus stations across the nation. Theyre now expanding into sporting events, rodeos, music festivals. Stephen thats right, t. S. A. Agents are headed to our stadiums and passenger trains. And the hiring process should be easy since theres already plenty of guys on the subway ready to give patdowns. laughter and thank goodness, folks. Thank goodness the t. S. A. Will be able to secure our vulnerable rodeos. But a word of advice for broncos those horseshoes are going to be a nightmare at the metal detector so invest in some crocs now. cheers and applause but folks this massive expansion comes after reports that the t. S. A. Misconduct increased 26 over the last three years well, that makes sense because up to spread misconduct over a broader sample size. Just like if you ever cheat on your girlfriend you have to get a bunch more girlfriend so youre more faithful per capita. laughter this expansion of the t. S. A. Beyond airports is known as vipr. Theres no e in that word because it was detained for appearing twice in the word yemen. laughter and, folks, as vipr mission clearly states, t. S. A. s visible intermodal prevention and Response Program is part of a nationwide Security Program that serves all modes of transportation. You hear that . All mode that means cars including nascars. Some before each lap theyre going to have to get stopped for a screening. laughter its the only way to make sure everyones safe before they crash for our amusement. laughter now, obviously we also need agents to monitor chair lifts. Think about it theyre full of suspicious people Wearing Masks who never ride them round trip, just one way. Where do they go . No one knows. laughter folks, what about the most widely used American Transportation system of all . Legs. With all the threats out there, wouldnt you feel more comfortable with the t. S. A. Agent clings to one at all times . laughter there are some people out there who say the world is getting safer, we cant let our fear of crime and terrorists change our way of life. Here to defend the let them kill us view is neuroscientist and author of the better angels of our nature why violence has declined steven pinker. Mr. Pinker, thanks for coming back. cheers and applause the book is called the better angels of our nature why violence has declined. Before we get started, can you put out your arms, please . laughter just want to make sure youre good. Tkpb foe what you were hiding under that helmet. Okay. How can you say that we are safer . 9 11 9 11 was off the charts 3,000 people were killed every year in this country alone, 16,000 people are killed by ordinary homicides, 40,000 people kill themselves, 3,000 people die by drowning, 300 of them in bathtubs. Stephen why isnt the t. S. A. Giving spe a pong bath . laughter every year other than 2001 more people die from bee stings, peanut allergies, from collisions on highways with deer, from stephen you said other than 2001. Other than 2001. So youre taking 9 11 out of the mix. Thats like saying the germans killed very few jews except hitler. Take hitler out of the mix and the germans were lovely to the jewish people. After 2001 there was a prediction that wed have 9 11s every month. That there would be shoulder fired missiles that take down planes, that there would be bombs as disneyworld, at super bowls. That prediction has not come to pass. Stephen it seems like with this book youre trying to get us to calm down about our fears but i see things to be afraid of everywhere i look. Do do you watch cable news . I do. The problem is youll be misled if you base your assessment of how dangerous the world is on the news because the news is about stuff that happens. Anything that goes bang anywhere in the world that makes the news. All the people who die of Natural Causes dont have a reporter and camera crew at their beds. There are more and more of them, there are fewer and fewer violent events but every violent event that does happen makes the news. Stephen ill give you an example thats not the news, this is reality, that vipr program. Four years ago it was a 30 million program, now its a 100 million program. That says to me the world got 70 million more dangerous. Or else it wouldnt be there, right . laughter well, the Security Apparatus doesnt do costbenefit calculations, we spent Something Like a trillion dollars since 2001 on Homeland Security and related expenses but nobody does the math. Could we have made ourselves much safer spending that trillion dollars in other ways . Stephen like alternates to bathing . laughter for example. Or stopping people who text while they drive. Stephen if the world is a safer place, why can i still die . laughter . cheers and applause until we are immortal, shouldnt we do everything in our power no matter what the power to keep ourselves alive forever . We should. Then preventing terrorists attacks is not a Cost Effective way to do it. Youre much more likely to die in a car accident, falling off a ladder. Stephen how many people die from falling off ladders. Thousands every year. Stephen should we be inevading ladderstan . laughter is that possible . 20,000 deaths a year from accidental falls. We just read about one in a stadium yesterday. Most dont make the knew. Some guy falls off a ladder and dies. But you add them up over the course the of the year and youre much more likely to get killed in a household accident than a terrorist attack. Stephen you said the number of people who died in terrorist attacks are newer than the number of people whose pajamas have caught on fire. laughter every year but 1995 and 2001. Stephen are pajamas the original sleeper cell . cheers and applause dr. Pinker, thank you so much for joining me. cheers and applause the book is the better angels of our nature steven pinker. cheers and applause cheers and applause . Stephen welcome everybody, my guest tonight is a eufl rights pioneer who fought for Voting Rights in the south. Ill ask for valid i. D. Please welcome congressman john lewis. cheers and applause congressman lewis, good to see you. Good to see you. Stephen thank you for coming back. Thank you for having me. Stephen sir, for those of you who do not know your c. V. , you were a giant of the Civil Rights Movement, chairman of the nonviolent student coordinating committee, the youngest and only surviving speaker at the 1963 march on washington when dr. King gave the i have a dream speech. You were a leader to the selma to montgomery march and a recipient of the president ial medal of freedom and profiles in courage award and you have a new book. Im exhausted. laughter . cheers and applause dont be exhausted. Its all right. Stephen i want to say that you do not outcivil rights pioneer me. Because i held in my hand this is a banner from the march on washington, all right . Got that. August 28, 1963, all right . This is in my hand because i was there. All right . In my mamas belly. She was pregnant with me and she was at the i have a dream speech so dont feel all high and mighty. I was at the i have a dream speech too. Do you hear me . It was a little muffled. And im not sure if id developed ears yet. But, yeah, it was i spoke number six and dr. King spoke number ten. So you were the sixth person to speak. If im not mistaken, near the end of your speech you kept on saying wake up. Id say wake up, america. And he said i have a dream. So werent you fighting each other . cheers and applause what do you think we should remember about the significance of that day . It was an unbelievable day. Hundreds of thousands of americans came together blacks, whites, latinos, asian americans, native americans. Men. Women. Children. When i was introduced, i looked up over that audience, the sea of humanity, i saw all of these young people on my right and then i looked to my left i saw many young people in the trees. Then i looked straight ahead i saw hundreds and thousands of people young and old with their feet in the water trying to cool off and i said this is it. And i started speaking. Stephen were you nervous . No, i was not. I had been arrested and gone to jail many times by the time of the march on washington. I met with president kennedy a few weeks before the march. And president kennedy didnt like the idea of bringing hundreds of thousands of people to washington. He said if you bring all thee folks to washington, wont there be violence and chaos and disorder . We said no, mr. President , this will be an orderly, peaceful, nonviolent protest. And the day of the march, when the march was all over, he invited each one of us, the ten of us, back down to the white house and he stood in the door of the oval office. He was beaming like a proud father, he was just smiling, he said you did a good job. You did a good job. He shook our hand. When he got to dr. King he said and you had a dream. America is a better america because of the march on washington. And we are a better people. applause you now have a graphic novel called march, book 1. And this is a graphic novel of your life, how you were inspired to join the Civil Rights Movement and this is the march across the Edmund Pettis bridgton road to selma. And this was for Voting Rights, wasnt it . It was, people in selma, like so many other parts of the south, could not register to vote because of the color of their skin. In selma people had to stand in what we called unmovable lines. You could only attempt to register to vote on the first and third monday of each month. Stephen the first and third monday. Right. You had to pass a socalled literacy test, pay a poll tax. On one occasion a man was asked the number of bubbles in a bar of soap. On another occasion a man was asked to count the jelly beans in a jar. Stephen how many bubbles are there in a bar of soap . Well, i dont know. Stephen should you be allowed to vote then . I guess obviously each state gets to set their own standard. States are setting their own standards now. But its so wrong. Its so wrong. Stephen if you can stick around for one minute, well take a commercial break and come back to talk about a couple other things and the book. Thanks so much, well be right back. cheers and applause cheers and applause . Stephen were back with representative john lewis. cheers and applause congressman lewis, your new book is called march, book 1. This is a graphic novel. Essentially a comic book of your early days in the Civil Rights Movement. Is that dignified enough for the Civil Rights Movement . Because what you guys have got at stake is just dignity. Is this lowering the dignity of civil rights by making it a comic book. It is not lowering the dignity of the Civil Rights Movement. There was another comic book that came out in 1957 when i was 17 years old it was the Martin Luther king story of the montgomery movement. It was called Martin Luther king, jr. And the montgomery story. Stephen so there was a comic book of Martin Luther king in 1957 . It sold for ten cents. Only ten cents. Stephen there it is. There it is. Martin luther king, jr. , the montgomery story, how 50,000 negroes found a new way to end racial discrimination. Did you buy this . Well, someone gave me a copy. I didnt have ten cents and i read it and reread it and this book inspired me when i went away to school in nashville, tennessee. And inspired other young people. Stephen had you met dr. King at the time . I didnt meet him until 1958. Stephen so you had this before you met dr. King. So this would be like meeting superman to you laughter well, it was meet mig hero. He became my hero. He became my inspiration, my leader. He inspired me to say no to segregation and racial discrimination. When i was growing up 50 miles from montgomery i saw those signs that said white men colored men white women colored women and i would ask my mother, father, grandparents . Why they would say thats the way it is. Dont get in trouble. But rosa parks and Martin Luther king, jr. Inspired me to get in trouble. So for more than 53 years ive been getting in trouble. Good trouble. cheers and applause . Stephen well, lets talk about trouble. Lets talk about trouble for a second because the Voting Rights act was recently gutted by the Supreme Court when they said that the criteria that judged serb states that had a permanent place under the jurisdiction of the Voting Rights act were to be thrown out because they were no longer applicable. You want to reinstate certain part of the Voting Rights act. Why do we need to do that . Because the Supreme Court said racism is over now. laughter arent you kind of being the racist . laughter no offense. No, its okay. Its all right. Were not there yet. Were not living in a postracial society. A lot of people like to think because we elected an African American president its over. Its finished. Stephen i like to think that. Doesnt that feel good to say, though . Doesnt it feel good to say racism is over . Feels better than saying its not over. That makes me sad. It makes me sad not knowing that its not over. I dont see race. I dont know if you watched the show earlier. But i dont see race i dont know if im white or youre black. I assume youre black because i have a desire to frisk you right now. laughter well, please dont. You may find something on me so please dont frisk me. Stephen is there going to be a book two . Book two, book three and it will tell the whole story, the complete story. I love what my coauthor and nate pile have been able to do with the worries. Its drama, passion, it makes this book sing. Stephen since youre the hero of this graphic novel, do you have a superpower . Well, i can make things happen. You know, it preach or speak in rural alabama to those chickens and sometimes they would say amen. laughter . cheers and applause . Stephen preach to chickens, that could come in handy. Representative lewis, thank you so much for joining me. John lewis, the book is march. Well be right back. Xn,x 4hf cheers and applause . Captioning sponsored by Comedy Central captioned by Media Access Group at wgbh access. Wgbh. Org im going down to south park gonna have myself a time both Friendly Faces everywhere humble folks without temptation im going down to south park gonna leave my woes behind ample parking day or night people spouting howdy neighbor headin on up to south park gonna see if i cant unwind [muffled] come on down to south park and meet some friends of mine