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Past if he makes any mention of race. you remember the criticism he received when he said that if he had a son he would look like trayvon but it was wonderful to hear him speak from the heart, to talk about his own personal experience. and to mirror the fact that he knows that african-american boys, men go through this experience on a daily basis. and a lot of women, too. >> how important is it, representative bass, do you think for people to understand that perspective? how much do you think many people in this country don't even think about that? >> well, i mean, i know that people don't. an...

Offer on questions of diversity. it is not quite true that that -- when he said it's true all across in all communities -- it's not true in all communities but i do think what he is right about is this generation sees and understands and experiences race quite differently and that we in older generations must give space for them to experience their realities of race without constantly putting our narrative on it and saying, no. this is that. i think the other important point here and i felt this was part of the motivation for the president, that the bitterness and the anger and the sense of be...

Give me the reaction to the timing and tone of this message. >> it was deeply personal, remarkable how personal it was. as kristen said we've never heard him speak about these issues ever in this. he had only given a speech about race overall in 2008. he said last year my son can be trayvon, you know, and that was a very personal comment. this was much deeper when he talked about being followed when he was shopping. that was something he never said. i was just watching. i have covered him for six or seven years and i never heard him speak in that detail about race and sort of extemporaneously,...

On the other side. but there was this sense of the recognition of this young man's life and of the president saying, that life has value because it is in part like my life. you guys elected me president. >> yeah. do you think the president had a choice, though? or do you think he felt compelled he had to speak out? >> i absolutely think he had a choice. particularly because i suspect as a matter of politics this was not a good way to go. certainly his base would have been quite irritated but this is not a man ever running for election again. and instead what he did was waded into a place that ...

Some people are angry and some people are frustrated. you know what, it's a really important point that sometimes it is a refusal to see the social and racial inequities in our society and we have to move beyond that. people have got to come to the table and become more connected to the experiences of those who have been racially profiled, connect to the experiences of unjust racial biases in the criminal justice system. that is the only way we can begin to eradicate some of those challenges. us having these conversations, raising these issues, the symbolic nature of the trayvon martin issue a...