The washington journal continues. Host paul butler. Law professor, former prosecutor, as somebody who has been arrested, what is your take on ferguson . Guest im tired of this happening over and over again. It is not just ferguson. It is staten island. It is that 51yearold grandmother who was beaten by the cops. Hit her 10 times. All of these unarmed africanamericans being brutalized by police. I think it is important to have a conversation about race and to put it in a larger context, in which african lives just dont seem to be valued. Host that is larger context . Guest it is not just criminal justice. It is civil justice. It is not just africanamericans. It is people of color. It is important to talk about race. White americans who are disenfranchised. The Lgbt Community has issues with the Justice System. But it is important to realize that africanamericans it is the classic american dilemma. There was a lot of hope when barack obama was elected. I dont think anyone thought that it would reverse a legacy of 400 years of slavery and segregation, but there was the thought, the expectation that we would move forward on Racial Justice. Looking at ferguson, looking at civil rights protesters being gassed in the streets like it is the 1960s, it doesnt seem like we have come that far. Host Armstrong Williams, what is your take on ferguson . Guest good morning. Anis so unfortunate to see innocent individual shot six times. The Law Enforcement have phasers tasers. They have batons. They have so many other options. If you remember the Supreme Court rulings, even their own guidelines, the last thing you want to do is shoot an individual. , theerstand the outrage family. In our system of law, innocent until proven guilty. On a deeper level, i think we as americans must get to a point where we are outraged at all lives that are lost in such a tragic way, whether it is in chicago, the kind of crime and feelings that go on there every weekend, whether it was what happened in new york. Because i dont i think it is less about race and more about Law Enforcement. I think it is about the training of Law Enforcement. Weve had an opportunity to talk to Police Officers. They will tell you in their training sessions, when theyre showing images of what criminals are and who commits the crimes, most of the images are of young black men. That is unfortunate. If you live in a place like in missouri or new york, where it is a high concentration of andle who look the same they commit the same crime over and over again, i dont care what your training is with Law Enforcement or the rulings are of the Supreme Court, you begin to believe that is a picture of crime. Somehow or another, we have to get back, is ashley with young men take chicago as an example. Why do these young People Killed . They believe that the gun gives them power. If someone disrespects them, the piece of power they have is to take someones life. Fathers are not in the home. It is more than Law Enforcement. It goes back to the communities. The other issue is, well, we have to have a conversation about the value of life, personal responsibility, and accountability. We need to get away from this thing about race. It is less about race and it is about human beings. I would be just as outraged if the kid was latino, if the kid was white, if it did work day. If the kid were gay. I will give you this stat alone for the last year. 100 black men have been killed by Law Enforcement at the sirs. 5000 alone have been killed by black on black crimes. If you want to militarize someplace, it should not be a place like missouri. It should be chicago. To me, there is something it goes back to training and Law Enforcement. We have to value all lives, regardless of their race. Host Eleanor Clift, ferguson. Guest if you talk about this in the context of all the other problems we have to solve, it gets overwhelming. I agree we have to tackle many of the issues that armstrong just raised. But if we take it back to ferguson, we do have a case of a parent Excessive Force of apparent Excessive Force, even in this young man stole some conveniencerom a store, he did not deserve to have six shots fired into him. Now we go through the wheels of justice. We have a president who has announced for the first time that our criminal Justice System is not fair. I think you can look at the people condemned, sometimes wrongly, to death, look at the numbers in prisons, and you can tell there is something wrong. There are some social logical issues at play here as well. But the criminal Justice System does not operate in a fair way. I think the president did the right thing by having his attorney general go to ferguson. The appearance of eric holder did have a calming effect. I think there are many more trouble spots ahead. We dont know if the grand jury will return an indictment. We dont know if it will result in charges. You dont know if or how this officer will be punished. We dont know all the facts. I think there are many flashpoints ahead. I think the conversation certainly, as you are having on the show, is out there. It demonstrates a pretty big racial divide in this country still. We may have a black president , a black attorney general, but we have a lot of white, entrenched power, and we have a country that is changing rapidly. A lot of people feel uneasy about that. The president s election, rather than assuaging those feelings, has brought them out to the open. Now we can deal with them. I commend you for having the show. A longtimeeen washington observer. How do you think Race Relations have changed in this city and throughout your lifetime . Ew,st i think there is a n professional class of African Americans, certainly in washington, that was probably always there, but is very much more visible in the last years since the president has been in office. I applaud that. I lived in northwest washington, which is still dominantly white, but i have several black neighbors. In my own personal family, we have some interracial marriage. I am very comfortable with it. I applaud it. I recognize that there are some people who feel threatened. Host paul butler, what is your personal racial situation . Guest i live in the middle class, integrated neighborhood. Ive watched washington and ive lived here for the last 20 years. In some ways, it is like many cities. Many of the poor people, who are disproportionately africanamerican, get moved out, and middleclass people, often young, white people, move into these neighborhoods. They walk their dogs in the street. It is nice to see the neighborhoods, quoteunquote, improving, but you wonder why that has to always be at the expense of poor people and africanamericans. You go to these yuppie restaurants and there are very few africanamerican waiters. We are not benefiting from the progress the supposedly less that we are making in terms of race in this country. Africanamericans are still left out. When we look at other groups that have been subordinated, italian, irish come a jew all eventuallyy move up. Africanamericans dont seem to have the same access to the american dream. I find that troubling. Host Armstrong Williams. Guest im an employer. I own a television station. When you are an employer and you employ hundreds of people and you have been an employer for the last 28 years, you see all kinds of people that come through your place of employment. And what matters is confidence competence. Whether you show up on time, whether you work late, and what you produce. I have not experienced racism. I say this often. People think im crazy. We grew up on a farm, where we were isolated, bred in an incubator. My parents did not pass on the bitterness or the segregation they experienced. They did not pass that onto us. We did not drink from that trough. My parents gave us a clean slate. They said you write your own narrative. We had a mother and father in the household. We learned as a fling, sacrifice, respect for Law Enforcement. We learned discipline, sacrifice, respect for Law Enforcement. My father told us, if you are stopped by Law Enforcement, that is a person of authority with a you are say, yes, right. No back talk. That has always worked for me. Ive never had anything it is all about my attitude. Whether they are right or wrong, it doesnt matter. My father taught me this lesson. When you go through life and you get an education and youre able to build wealth, it becomes less about race and more about class. I think we all can agree with this. If that it does have an impact when 70 of the population is when 70 of the population have no fathers in the house will. I see employees who come from singleparent households versus two parents. Then we the men react different to authority. We take a lot of these kids and mentor. They dont believe they can be successful. All you have to do is get an education. Sometimes the best things that happen in life, you cant explain. They believe in this narrative of what black is, criminals, drug users, uneducated, imprisoned. The women and children i know are not that way. I see so many young blacks all the time. They are not successful because they are black. They are successful because their dna is selfworth, selfesteem, and they dont buy into this america is racist. Guest but that doesnt matter. Trayvon martin was on his way to his dads house. The young man killed by police in new york st. Louis, he was supposed to start school this week. The problem is not about fixing young black men. It is about fixing the system. It is about fixing the police, the criminal Justice System. I totally agree with you, eleanor. It is unfair. We need to look at these structures. When you are saying you get stopped by the police, it doesnt sound like youve never been the victim of discrimination. It sounds like you have an attitude where you want to ignore that, but it sounds like the police know you are black, employers know you are black. There was a study that said if youre a black man who has a college degree, you dont have the same chances as a white man who has a criminal record. If employers look at your resume and see you have a, quoteu nquote, black name, you don[t dont getet you the same callbacks that you do if you have a white name. Guest its about your way of thinking. Everyone knows that story. There are always exceptions. Yes, there are people who have racism in their heart, but that is not the whole story. We should also give these kids the other story. When Police Officers stop me, i never think about race. Your story is just part of the story. You have to make these kids believe there is opportunity. Guest older people who came out of the Civil Rights Era do think you submit and you respect authority. Younger people are not willing to do that, whether they are white or black. We still have that generational divide in ferguson. Go to calls. To we divided our phone lines by age. We have a roundtable, paul butler, Armstrong Williams, Eleanor Clift. We will put the numbers on the screen so you can dial in at the number most appropriate to you. Under 30, 31 to 49, over 50. Have you seen a difference in how white people view race when it comes to different generations . Guest i do think young people are colorblind, which was the goal of Martin Luther king, jr. Difference. Ee any they are intermarrying. I think they have gotten over it. I have always been openminded. I grew up in new york city. My parents were immigrants at a delicatessen store. When my brought when i brought a friend home, my father would ask what is the last name. Carol murphy you knew by the last name whether they were polish, italian, irish. That was important to my father, who actually was a terrible bigot in his own house. He was wonderful in the store to everyone, but, boy, that always made me the champion of the underdog. Thats where i got my values from. Plus, i had a brother who was 16 years old or who was a new deal liberal. And he made sure that i grew up right. And then as a young woman i moved to atlanta working for newsweek. That was the first time i really saw an integrated society. Atlanta was a city too busy to hate. They were working on integration. They were surrounded by five dominantly black colleges. There i met many black people who were far more educated than me, which was eyeopening in that era. That is kind of how i came of age on this issue. Host paul butler, very quickly, is your attitude toward race different from your parents . Guest i think im more optimistic than my parents. They grew up in chicago, the city that Martin Luther king said was the most segregated that he had ever seen. I had great opportunities to go to a nice just with high school tnd then to a nice jesui high school and then onto some Great Colleges and law schools. I was exposed to some of the young people eleanor described, people who were more openminded about race. I think im less cynical than they are. Guest my parents were wonderful. They experienced much racism and discrimination, but they also said along the way when they would make assumptions and judgments about people, they found that these people became their greatest allies and friends in life. They always told us not to judge someone based on their color of their skin, but their character and whether the values were similar. It is one of the best gifts my parents have given me. Host let me apologize to call her to callers. We planned on talking for just about five minutes, but then we got into their personal stories and youth i thought you might find that interesting as well. We are going right to calls. We will spend the next hour and a half taking your calls for our roundtable, race in america. St. Louis, missouri, thanks for holding on. You are on the washington journal. Caller thank you for taking my call. I find your guests very interesting. I am from st. Louis. With theen out there demonstrators nightly. My background is an activist with Police Crimes and Police Brutality decades cases for decades. I can give you several names in history. I know folks there are familiar. Ith fannie lou as she said some years ago, im sick and tired of being sick and tired of these Police Crimes against our youth. ,hat has happened in ferguson it is clearly a revolt and rebellion of young folks who are not willing to take it anymore. They dont want anymore Trayvon Martin verdicts or rodney king verdict. What happened in ferguson, the people are hurt, really hurt. Interesting what your guests have said. I know the time is always limited. What is getting the young people going forward, getting the young people involved in politics,aking, in involved in what controls their community it is very interesting as an eyewitness. Im seeing it unfold and unveil. I think it is very despicable to be putting it in the light that the officer is the victim. Host could i ask you could i give could you give us how old you are . Guest i am 70 years old. Host and youve been out of ferguson several times . Guest yes. Host when did you start to become an activist in issues like this. Like this . 19 79. 1979. Not making in the 1990s. Rodney king in the 1990s. Folks who never made the news. Time and time again, young black men are killed by the police and nothing is done. That devalues black life. Young people are rebelling against the situation they find. Oousy education, no jobs, and n health care. So, they are sick and tired of being sick and tired. Host thank you, maam. Armstrong williams, quick, short answer for xenobia . Guest the Ferguson Police have new througha through a hiring process. They have fired the police. They feel they have a prosecutor who is out of control, who has always shown bias toward the Police Department, against these young men. What has happened with this young man who was shot like an everythinggalvanized they have been feeling for so long. Obviously, people are upset. We have to change this. We cannot take it anymore. I can sympathize, absolutely. Burbank,tin, mark, illinois, 57 years old. Guest im going to put a little spin on everything ive been hearing this morning. Im so proud of these guys that are going to Little League world series championship. Hopefully, they win it. I want everybody in america to get behind them. Thank you. Host we will leave his, their and move onto his comment there and move on. Chris is 29 years old. Guest interesting discussion caller interesting discussion about race in america. Im 29 years old, black, american. Ive moved all across the country. Lived on the east coast, the west coast, ive been out of the country. And i think part of the problem wewhen we look at history, tend to take what we see at face value and not dig any deeper. History is written by the victors. It is written by those who have power. The last people to establish the dominant force across any type of peoples. If you look back in history, if you peel back the layers, there are artifacts, art, writing of civilizations that we have been told in schools are the makeup of white people, these civilizations were black. We have a whole history that was erased in order to perpetuate the idea that white is dominant and white is more closer to godliness. And i think that has perpetuated itself across the whole world. I believe it is a way to ensure genetic survival. If you look at just the gene pool, there are recessive traits and dominant traits. Light skin, blue eyes, blonde those arehair recessive traits. If all white people got together, say they coalesced around australia, they would still be a small drop in the ocean in terms of the domin