Transcripts For MSNBCW Not Just Black And White Race And The

MSNBCW Not Just Black And White Race And The2020Election April 28, 2019

Here now is reverend al sharpton. Good evening and welcome to this msnbc special. Im your host reverend al sharpton and i want to begin with a history lesson. Since world war ii the africanamerican and latino vote has been increasingly critical to the Democratic Party, a relationship that was realized symbolically in 2008 when barack obama was elected president largely on the historic turnout of black voters nationwide. But a decade later voters of color are seeing their gains attacked under the administration of president donald trump. I recently spoke with more than a dozen of the current democratic president ial candidates. And for the next hour youll hear from them all on criminal justice, social and economic inequality, the power of the minority vote and of course race. And add to that conversation, the news this week that former Vice President joe biden has officially joined the race. Will he be the one supported by minority voters . We are in the battle for the soul of this nation. I believe history will look back on four years of this president and all he embraces as an aberrant moment in time. But if we give donald trump eight years in the white house he will forever and fundamentally alter the character of this nation. Who we are. And i cannot standby and watch that happen. Ive got a panel with me to examine their responses and what it means for 2020. Sophia johnson, annan, editor at large for time and msnbc political analyst. Alexi, political reporter for axios, and donny, msnbc contributor. And Maria Theresa kumar, president and ceo of voter latino and an msnbc contributor. Now we start with the topic of income inequality, which has been at the heart of the Democratic Party and a focus for every candidate i spoke to. Take a look. The problem weve got is a combination of economic and Racial Injustice in this country. If we did a wealth tax on the richest fortunes in this country, everything above 50 million, 2 a year, we could produce enough money to do universal child care, universal prek. Universal prek for all our babies, 0 to 5 and still have 2 trillion leftover. Thats money we could spend reducing the Student Loan Debt burden. We have to take on the handful of people who control our economy and our political life whose greed is destroying the entire middle class of this country. Not acceptable that three people own more wealth than the bottom half of america. And in the midst of that is Racial Disparity where white families now have ten times more wealth than black families. Equality is about equality under the law but also about equality in practice. I think about it as the challenge being that we have to create an opportunity, an equal opportunity for every person to achieve success. And not everyones starting out on the same base in the same place. And weve got to correct for that. So now one of the things that i was speaking to many of these candidates around the issue of the race gap in each of the areas were going to talk about because when you deal with even class you also beyond class have the race gap. And that was part of what i wanted them to address. Not only the economic gap but the race gap in economics. Blacks in the most prosperous economy is still doubly unemployed to whites. One of the most fascinating dynamics of this are the two intersecting problems are our racial problem and the class problem. Theyre intersecting because if you are a minority in america, if youre latino, theres a bunch of description that comes with that. Theres a bunch of systemic injustice that comes with that. And if you add to being poor, theres a bunch of issues that pile on. But theres also a separate issue. And one of things you see bernie sande sanders emphasizes class a little more and others in Racial Injustice. None of them want to deal with this in a full way because theyre all trying to basically win White Working Class theyve been trying to avoid this. Theyre basically trying to win a Democratic Coalition that has a lot of minority in which minority voters as you say are important. But theyre also trying to win some white people in the middle of pennsylvania and elsewhere who have been left out on some of those economic things but also have feelings of racial resentment and dont like the other message before you get to solution, do you agree thats the problem . Because one of the reasons and a lot of these conversations we had at the conveng because i wanted oo people to know wait a minute we need to deal with race. As uncomfortable people are and the candidates did come, is that a problem and then what do you say is the solution . You deal with it. You deal with all these desperate issues in a way that is unifying ribbon theres one objective, beat trump. So we can have all the moral discussions we want about reparations but we have to beat trump. And the answer is i dont care if youre a black young person or a middle aged 40,000 a year white person, the system is rigged against you. Maria, dont you agree at the same time that its rigged or trump has not delivered and his conduct, but you also have to deal with the fact that some of the people have lost credibility with black and brown voters, and they have to deal with some of the issues that are specifically of concern to our communities . Reverend, im so glad that you brought this up. I think we have to recognize that the reason we had obama in the white house, the reason that we were able to change and Flip Congress was because we had young voters who are disprorgztally people of color coming in full force and saying we need to take our country back, and we need to move towards the future. And the individuals that are trying to thread that needle saying, oh, i dont want to address racial issues, theyre not going to be able to galvanize those people that came out and voted. One out of six voters that came out in the midterm elections were young voters. D d d disproportionately africanamerican and latino. Theyre going to be the largest generation of voters period to a tune of 12 million people. Alexa, youre in that generation. You talk to people in that generation and report very effectively from that generation, but they still see race. I mean charlottesville didnt happen in the 60s and treyvon was six years ago. They see race and they in many ways say youre cowardly if you dont deal with the what the issues are. And something i hear oe overwhelmingly and i feel myself it cant just be the candidates of color talking about the issues that face this country. Anyone smart enough to think about this or listen to other folks should be able to effectively and articulately face. I was in houston this week for the shoe the people president ial forum, the first president ial forum for and about women of color. Joy reed would ask this question of every canned dtd, why should a woman of color choose you as the next democratic president. And a lot of the candidates said things like oh, im from a diverse place or i was raised by a strong woman of color or i was around a strong woman of color. Thats fine. But the person who got the most applause was Elizabeth Warren because she had plans for these folks. And thats what we were doing at the conference saying what is the specific plan. I want you to listen to candidates on criminal justice issues beginning with the newest candidate joe biden talking about his own regard at our Martin Luther king breakfast in january. You know, ive been in this fight for a long time. It goes not just to Voting Rights but the criminal justice system. I havent always been right. I know we havent always gotten things right, but ive always tried. It is truly about access to justice in every form that it takes. And so that is about it is about Economic Justice. It is about educational justice, about housing justice. Its certainly about needing to put justice in the criminal justice system. So its fighting for equal access to an opportunity for success. And that means recognizing the disparities and correcting for that. The more i listen and learn which i must as a white man in this country who has not experienced this, the more i understand it is structural, it is foundational, it is systemic. Its not a for profit prison system, not just cash bail but the fact we have a history of criminalizing and keeping people down. We need to build on the First Step Act and do more criminal Justice Reform so that we end that pipeline of so many people especially young people of color that end up incarcerated. We need to make sure that everybody is innocent until Proven Guilty so that we invest in the public defender system. In addition to federal issues, federal sentencing reform, federal Death Penalty directly in control of the federal government, a good white house and a good doj committed to Racial Justice in policing should be there to help mayors and Police Departments to do the right thing, and im committed to making sure we do that. One of the things thats been a real, real problem has been the inequality in criminal justice, from mas incarceration to policing. The first thing this president did is take away consenlt decrees in cities that had a pattern of bad policing, setet cetera. Criminal justice if it is not dealt with in a racial way is really not dealt with at all which is why we bring it to the counties. I think Kamala Harris comes to mind because she was the prosecutor and attorney general of california. I think candidates like kamala are really going to have to set the table for this because i think its a difficult issue to talk about because most americans particularly if theyre white americans, and i dont mean this in a demeaning way, dont have a clue what its like to be black in this country. If you look at joe biden and i showed at the Martin Luther king breakfast we do every year, he said sometimes we get it wrong. In the context of what he said he was apologizing, oh, the headlines, he went to the breakfast and appaologized. Most of the Congressional Black Caucus was saying we need to do something. People like me who were the young outsiders were saying youre going to lock up too many people, its an overreaction, which ended up being the case. So youve really got to look at this issue but really look at this issue. I think both he and Kamala Harris have an issue they have to deal with on this question. And its not insurmountable. Nothing is insurmountable. But Bernie Sanders also voted for and what bothers me when i see those folks attempting to navigate this is instead of just being like a real human being the way any of us at this table sitting with our family would apologize for something we did two decades ago that hurt people instead of being real and authentic and saying i was wrong, lot of other people were wrong at that time also, heres things ive read and saw that changed my view, forgive me. Ive seen Kamala Harris so many times say i was always a progressive prosecutor. People know she had a different approach back then. Thats fine, youre a human being. By the way, were going to get to biden. And i think a 78yearold man has a chance to say when i was 40 i thought about the world differently. 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Its a now theres one store that connects your life like never before store. The xfinity store is here. And its simple, easy, awesome. Welcome back to this msnbc special. With a nation polarized on the topic of race the Democratic Party faces a difficult prospect going into 2020. On the one hand by tailoring messages that focus on diversity and identity it continues to court women and voters of color, two essential voting blocks that will be necessary to defeat president trump. But as democrats struggle to recapture the White Working Class vote some are wondering whether this is the right time to deal in the same identity politics that many saw lost the vote in 2016. Heres what some of the candidates had to say about race in the race. When people raise the term identity politics its the modern or latest version of the race card. It is raised with the intention of marginalizing the issue or shutting you up. I think we should not run away from our identities because its what makes us who we are. Where we get into trouble sometimes is if of our identity becomes a way to separate ourselves from somebody else. We know that no group can get to civil rights and to get to Economic Justice alone. We have to do it together. Certainly we learned that in the 2018 election where we elected more women, more people of color than weve ever seen at one election, new people in the house of representatives, and thats because we stood together. We didnt look at dividing people, which is what the country has been undergoing with this president. If we can take those parts of our identity, not those things that wall us off from other people but as a basis of solidarity, why i ought to fight for somebody else. The challenge of leadership is making people realize were all in this together, that anything that directly assaults the justice of us directly assaults the justice of us all indirectly. I am never going to be shut up or believe or buy what people are trying to sell about how if youre talk about these specific issues that its somehow about identity politics. And so lets talk about it. Lets talk about the disparities that exist based on race in this country. They are clear. Maria, let me go to you. You and i and others in the Civil Rights Community has fought really passionately around this identity question. And really i think senator harris said it, its almost like shut up and be quiet and go along and youll be all right if we get in, which in and of itself is offensive. Well i think this idea that communities of colors have to be grateful has to be passedch we need to make sure were providing them with this idea, yes, were american, those are the unifying voices but its that uniqueness and contributions that brings us together. Theyre not comfortable with answering the question. They were not basically cementing what makes us special. I agree that a lot of the candidates seem uncomfortable when i would confront them directly on race, and i dont have a reputation running around trying to make people comfortable. Thank goodness. Because i think that a lot of us even into generational, your generation, mine, feel offended that we are uncomfortable left out of the discussion, which is why we want to have this discussion. Yeah, and i think a big part of this is this discomfort youre talking about. And part of what i would like to see is a larger conversation about privilege. I am afforded a privilege because i have lighter skin than you or sophia and other black folks that is difficult to explain but is real. As a white guy i didnt know that until five years ago. I literally was ignorant of that. I knew that in the maternity ward. I think theres a lot we could get to if we discuss the fault lines everyone has that we use to make immediate judgments and biases in this country. They can come together and better understand each other. Its the way we dress, the way we speak, the schools we went to, the clothes we wear, the neighborhoods we grow up in, the places we work that make immediate judgments and divide us. If white people, black people, asian and we need to get it out there and deal with it. Yes. I was going to say two things. One is eplurb pluribus anum. 53 of white women in this country voted for donald trump after the tape came out. Look at what happened in the midterms it was the suburbs of virginia. It was the suburbs of philadelphia. It was so like it or not once again im just being marketing strategic business guy. Every message out there that is explicitly targeted we are going to cure race injustice, right or wrong, the earmuffs go onto the suburban woman. So the gain is to unify. The irony of this whole race discussion is the more we have specials like this, and its a great special where we relate. The more strategic we because the i

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