the plight that a lot of people are living in, which is not that dissimilar. we just talk about it less. >> let me ask you this. you represent the hispanic federation. the structure we have to do with race and racial discussions in america are things like the and la raza.- and publicithe naaca, we are having it family breakdown, we need greater structural support for kids to have less support from the family. but we still have these institutions in 0 way of relating to reace that ties back to the history of america, the black-white conversation. do you think that is outmoded? >> i am not think it is outmoded. why did these institutions come into play? you feel that organized or

mainstream institutions are not addressing your needs, so you want to sort of be part of that discourse. you want to be part of the. >> i am not sure i agree. it is like what was talked about in the center spot. hispanics say the blacks of the naacp. so we'll have la raza. >> at some point, which would be way too long for the panel, i can tell you the history of how the hispanic federation came to be. i can say it's simply. it was because united way of new york city existed and hispanic organizations were going there and saying, hey, we would like to be funded. we would like to be considered for some of your programs, and i love united way and they helped found us, they found us because they felt there was a place and a role for organizations that represented at the agricultural groups. and what concerns me sometimes is that when you have groups

their represent minorities or a particular ethnic groups, we get accused of balkanizing. why do we need that? why can you just work and the larger concept? we do not say that about women's group. why do need women's groups/ ? why do have to have jewish philanthropy or jewish organizations? there is some validity to having these institutions represent you. that does not mean that you work -- you do not work with and the construct of larger groups . >> hang on. what i'm saying is so we have all these groups are present, and as you said, when it came to funding, when it came to representing yourself on a the larger society, you found the necessary mechanism. >> because there was a barrier. >> correct. here we are today talking about family breakdown and what is impacting the overwhelming majority of our younger population disproportionately,

minority, a disproportionate immigrant, large representation of the muslims and asians in this community, driving the population growth in the country. but it does not sound to me like that the way of thinking fits the new issues or new problems. am i wrong? >> i agree with you that in many ways we do share a common desire for the american dream and respect of of what community to come from. part of the challenge for these organizations is that these issues -- class mobility issues that face a lot of communities do not fall clearly along racial lines. solutions are clearly not going to be targeted along racial or ethnic groups. so we have the challenge of how we create a society where there is a lot of opportunity for people to move from the bottom to the top or at least from the bottom to the middle? and we do not have organizations -- part of the problem is that

people who are in those ethnic groups will be disproportionately the middle class members of the population. for example, on a the black community, you have a real divide between the middle and upper-class and working class. the issues that are advocated for by organizations representing african-americans have very little to do with the trauma experience by working- class african americans paired >> specifically you are talking about affirmative action. >> it would be a good example. if we are protesting about affirmative action at berkeley, we are not worrying about the 60% of kids who are dropping out of urban schools are and a california. and this is the kind of -- you worry about how many black board members there are on the fortune 500 companies. this is not the kind of issue of grave concern to the working class. >> it is not a legitimate.

>> it is a question of priorities. we have finite moral capital to spend. we should spend it on helping the worst off. >> what are you talking about, political capital? in terms of white people be guilty, you owe us this it? >> that is not what i am saying progre. >> what are you saying? >> i think that is what you are saying. i think there is an opportunity on a this country to mobilize this concern around issues that disproportionately affect black and brown communities, right? so you could have people say, we are going to focus on producing better schools for everybody or conceivably you could spend a lot of energy on other issues that are more particular. i think the way race in america works right now is the concerns, that there is actually a much greater need for people to take concern with class mobility rather than racial discrimination. >> but we are not there because

we are still locked and it, i was suggesting, to the old parameters, the old framework that would say, you are present the blacks, but hispanics, you represent the muslims, but you are presented the arabs. that is the way america still works. it seems like an old structure. >> the one thing that gives me some hope about how -- >> maybe it is unnecessary structure. >> there are a lot of issues that still matter. i do not mean to suggest we do not need an naacp. how america now has to see itself as the underdog. china is producing 1 million engineers a year, and our kids are ranked 40th out of 50 on math and science, suddenly america's concern for education is not about concern for the worst off. it is concern for american agenda. and i think there is an opportunity for black and brown kids to benefit if the country

starts to get concerned about some of how we have failed our poor. >> i think your point is an interesting one because i do not know if this is true for -- the socio-economic strata. when you're at the middle or upper end, as your affiliation is strong with your racial and ethnic group as it is with your economic group? what i hear you talking about is at the lower level, do we need to build more of a sense of the economic unity rather than a pure racial or ethnic separation? that concept may not benefit the folks at the bottom as much as it benefits the folks at the top tier >> given the realities of the family breakdown, especially in of the minority communities, there will have to be some way in which society compensate if we want to rescue those children. to the racial structures that exist now, the civil rights organizations, do they speak to

those needs or are they speaking to the old conversation about race in america in terms of resources and sort of white guilt and black of victimization? if that was the dynamic that previously existed, does that dynamic serve us and addressing the needs that are on the table at the start of the 21st century? >> i can say that i need the black-muslim community, they rejected this breakdown of the family unit because they were suffering most from it. so they rejected it by embracing islam, by getting rid of drugs in their communities. by making their family unit the nucleus of their growth. and it is a flourishing community. i was just in atlanta with 200 members of that committee. it was such a beautiful community. everything about that community was beautiful. the children, there was a

future. there were like a model community. it is like somebody showcase this kind of thacommunity because they took the matter in their own hands. we will keep the family -- the family will be the nucleus of our growth. they have decided they are going to impart good education, high ethics, and focus on what, how to build a community. and they have taken matters into their own hand. >> you are suggesting that would be a model reconstituting the families sounds like your -- >> but they are not relying on outside systems. they said the system is within the family, yes. if the family has a support system that family itself can help each other and elevate each other. >> what do think about that? >> i think it started with a single mothers. many of these women were single mothers. they did not have the structure in place.

they decided to get together, strong women, matriarchs, and decided there were going to build it all up. >> that happens around this country all the time by other committees. i want to be respectful, but i feel like what we are being told is you know, maybe this what is interesting to me. what i am hearing is you're siloed. the latino community with all of our complexities and all the work we are doing -- a whole bunch of things i want to react to, but we do not see ourselves as silos. we went to a small community in texas and took charge and went back into ourselves, and it is manifest destiny. we are part of a larger construct in this country. and i wish that we could go round with the 50-plus million

and say, i wish i could do it, high, all of you. this is the way you are all going to lead your lives and these are going to be your values and attitudes and morals and this is the way you are going to push for. destiny as hispanics i made the united states. but it does not work that way. we are way too large, there are way too many factors. when we had this conversation and 20 years and you have these population shifts that are especially in the asian community which is a growing at a rapid rate, i want to see and 20 years what this conversation is like. what i'm trying to emphasize is that, yes, i believe we do have to say for ourselves manifest destiny. we need to shift the paradigm. i am not disputing that. i agree. and we need to figure out what are the things that are going to work for or done people? and it is not all around safety

net and social services -- what are the things that are going to work for our young people? >> well, how do you get that then? from the way that things are structured now, you could have the hispanic federation say, this is our priority. and then you go to the political structure, the corporate structure, the religious structure and you say, this is what we are trying to accomplish. is that the way to go? >> no. and we have gone back into our own communities and had dialogues are around how we turn the tide for our children. how we make it different? what has happened? the same things that have been talked about here, what is happening within our families, in terms of upward mobility. and the 1950's and 1960's, we did not have the same demographics, those very tragic demographics . you recognize this, that we now have on the 2011 third >> so

these conversations -- this is not a peculiar conversation we are having this morning. you are saying major civil rights organizations are talking about what is going on with our kids. >> and we are convening our communities. yes, we are talking about what is happening with our kids and we are convening our communities on a different types of settings and saying, look is what is happening to our children. we need to turn the tide and we need to talk to our own families, our own adults and say we need to take control. >> if there is a generational split, given that the kids needs are somewhat different -- older blacks, older hispanics saying this is our focus. we have been barrier breakers. we were fighting against white racism, said addition, limits, trying to achieve up or were billeted. the kids are coming in and are having a different set of issues. there is a generational tension inside your hispanic community? >> are they having a whole

different set of issues? >> we just talked about family breakdown as being more pronounced in this generation that it was on a the past . >> so what happens is i do not think they are having a set of issues. i think they feel the more are too weak and there are more problems. what i am struggling with also is this whole sense that we had perfections in the 1940's and 1950's inside these families. these families have alcoholism and domestic violence and a lot of horrible issues affecting them. so what we have is we have a global economy, more news, more media, more awareness of what is happening around the world in a split second. so we are reading that is that things are so much more terrible, when quite frankly, because we did not have the media outlets and a level of information we have now, 50 years ago, we believe we did not know what was happening. maybe a little bit of ignorance

was bliss. i do want to respond to this. we do have the two problems, problems around graduation rates. that cannot be disputed. and achievement. but you know what? i also refused for our community to stay siloed in let's just deal with these issues. there are the major issues and they are big problem and we have to address them. the issue of copper mobility and those conversations that you mentioned -- the issue of copper mobility and those conversations with corporations, those conversations are important. if we want people to move out of poverty. it is not about white guilt. it is about entering into conversation, creating programs that propelled families afford but also hold people accountable and responsible for lots of people to success. and that is why those corporate conversations are important. we are posted here. we just negotiated a contract with comcast.

they agreed to put the latino on their corporate structure. that is important. it is about the access and the leverage that person will hopefully bring with an those decisions that are being made about where they invest, how they invest. and you cannot not decouple them. >> i can decoupled them. we have seen massive growth by the black middle class, enormous success for the upper echelons of african-americans. for the bottom third, things getting much worse. high rates of incarceration, higher rates of single parenthood. you see all sorts of things that are about being locked out of economic opportunity. if your argument was right, then all of the success for the black middle class, they would have pulled the black underclass with them. that has not been the case carrot the idea that -- i am not saying -- we should focus on

the issues that affect the worst off. and the worst off are the people at the bottom of the economy. >> but we are focusing on those issues. but we cannot allow people to tell us we can only focus on those issues. stay here, lillian, do not fit into business interests. >> if there were evidence that these organizations were making a real dent in these other issues, i would say go to it. we are killing it on getting teen moms into college. we are doing a great job of reducing the dropout rate, a superb job of ensuring that young men are able to get jobs and keep them for a long periods of time, then, yeah, absolutely, let's worry about the board members. i do not see the evidence of that. we have got to prioritize. and prioritizing is focusing on the issues that are most

pressing for the worst off progre. >> i think there is an element of mutual expressivity that may not exist. i understand your parting ocean. priority notion. i did not grow up i need a community at the was highly associated with the indian community. are they willing to reach down and help pull up? it is not just your own and where does your affiliation and your sense of identity connect across your ethnic line that straddles the socio-economic strata and is that happening or not? i think it is important. when i became the president of -- power, my family members called up, and theyre were crying. they thought it was a huge barrier i had broken through. i never thought of it that way, but became a very important symbol that an indian in a non-

asian industry light energy had become the president of a major company. -- like energy had become the president of the major commodity. there is a certain responsibility of mine to reach down. when i think about structural barriers that may exist in different communities, is that where i am lending my resources? i think this notion of identity is important. do you identify with those who may be lower on the wrung? a constant battle is fighting mad separation. >> react to this. there was a poll done by pew a year ago. one of the most amazing things that came back is when you ask african-americans about race, is there one african american or raise in the u.s., the answer

was no. the answer from up for blacks was there are two groups. there is the barack obamas and the buguy on the corner. when u.s. upper class african- americans they said, there is one group of african americans. you cannot forget where you came from. that is not the attitude among poor african americans to see barack obama as a totally separate racial group. >> it does not surprise me having spent a number of years in the neighborhoods. part of where that leads me is the question of responsibility from a broader societal perspective. is it a responsibility of the african americans who are middle and upper class to help -- oprah needs to solve it, michael jordan. from my perspective, it is a broader initiative among anybody

who is a middle and upper class to do what omar is talking about >> it is an interesting poll, but to me is more about where it is -- as a society and not just in the black community is where your priorities are going to be. >> doesn't mean you do not identify with that black experience, that minority experience, and your aspirations that i want to be like an honorary white? >> i think growing up, i aspiration was to be an honorary white. now that i have achieved that status, i think, my aspiration is to help those that don't have access to opportunity, regardless of whether they are

indian-american, latino, african-american, it is more of a socio-economic focus that a racial, ethnic focus. >> in a corporate setting, how do you help those people who come from a broken family, who may come from an inadequate educational background, it is such a competitive economic environment. >> what we are facing is the same as what most corporations are facing in this country. these are not low-skilled positions. america was built on manufacturing. as people fall further and further behind in their ability and education levels, it becomes very hard. we try to build up systems or partner with the community colleges, working with them so that your curriculum is designed in a way that leads to a good outcome for that person.

that you know there is going to be a job at the end of it, not just putting for something for the sake of studying. you need to reach back down and look at the systems that are producing folks. we have summer in terms who come from neighbors that do not have a lot of people in corporate america. we spent a lot of time on just basic integration into the corporate world. >> you are compensating for lack of family structure. >> if you want to address the issue, you have to help out in the particular world. it goes back to what we talked about earlier. i don't think corporations are going to solve this problem independent of all the other, but it goes to zero more -- omar's borader point. helping those who do not have access and don't have opportunities, not that i don't

want to -- to do that you need people at the top. their priorities have to be the priorities of society's most vulnerable. >> you are right, but i also don't want to be nigh eve -- naive. let's just different here. the jobs that come out of those companies and where they are based, it could be drivers. it doesn't have to be all high- level tech jobs or investment banking jobs. the jobs in the local communities that help african- americans are hispanics, the placement of that plant is critically important. i don't want to get stuck here because this is not exclusive. my work is on those essential needs, but i recognize that a company is going to determine

jobs. small business development. where are they putting their procurement? that is important. to the extent that civil-rights or nonprofit organizations, in partnership with government and corporations, can create resources and structures around young people that can help them move forward. that is important. we have demands and difficulties that are so broad and wide, is important to have multiple partners. i do not ignore the role of companies or corporations in terms of problem solving an investment of resources into our community, because it is important. they are another potential partner. part of this is around community reinvestment, procurement and those jobs. it does have income on low- income latinos, how they do. my parents were in unions, and

it gave me a certain amount of mobility and growth in this community, because they had jobs and benefits than they were able to do things and they instill a core value of education and hard work. my point in saying that is, it was important at that point in time for all the structures to help build my future. everything counts. it is not just this and that. everything counts in moving these young people forward. >> we all agree that this is about, in terms of our session this morning, about trying to help young people, it disproportionately minorities and poor, move up into american society. this is a key moment in terms of that civil rights conversation. everybody is going to have to adapt in some way to try to make that happen. let's open the conversation to the audience.

>> we have done a tremendous job of integrating into the communities. what i hear omar saying, the tools and the structures we have today are not addressing the long-term poor. i want to continue those, but you have to add to it to really address the big problem that is there. right now we do not have the tools and the systems that are doing that. i don't know the answer to it, but to me, that is where you need to focus your energy.

>> i am talking about just where jobs are and how money moves in this country. where are the stepping stones? where is the latter to bring each community up, the way we had in earlier generations? we need to analyze why that has broken down. >> how much time we have for questions? 15 minutes. >> good morning, and happy monday. i want to complement the aspen institute for having this timely discussion. i am the executive director of the black leadership forum. we look at policy that impact black people. i want to address first the structure. this is the first panel, and they usually 10 to set the tone for the day. in that context, i think that the panel in the framework that we are looking at this discussion is a bit skewed.

first, if we are suggesting, as you said, juan, it is the black- white construct addressed by most civil rights organizations, is that relevant in the 21st century? the false notion of white supremacy and the idea of race and class has not changed in america since 1619. if we extrapolate up to 1963, jobs and justice were the issues on the sons of the great march in washington. dr. king said, don't give us a favor. honor your creed. respect your promise to all of us. those issues of jobs and justice in 1963 still permeate communities of color.

as lillian said, we do so in the context of a broader discussion. i think the framework of whether or not the discussion of racial issues is still relevant is a bit skewed. >> hold on, let's stop there and deal with that. i don't think anybody on this panel said that we should not discuss racial issues. i think that clearly we are at a different point in 2011 and then we were in 1963, and to suggest we are in the same place, i think that is skewed. black unemployment is still extraordinarily high, but you also have higher graduation rates and you have a black president. >> in 1963, you could say there is legal segregation and if we dismantle it, that will create a lot of opportunity. the problem is that in today's era, if you are a high school

dropout, it does not matter whether you are black or white or asian-american, you have a ceiling that is going to guarantee it will be hard to make a middle-class life as a high-school dropout. that was not true in 1963. that issue is bigger than what faces anyone racial group. better education is an issue for the entire country. to frame it as a racial issue is to miss the opportunities for coalition building, and to focus on the wrong problems. >> year referred to the issues of civil rights being small potatoes compared to what we have currently. i am offended by that, particularly as an african- american. the national council of negro women and the national congress of black women addressed the

issues of girls getting into the pipeline. the 100 black man looks at math and science academy's on saturday morning. the urban league makes a dent in job training. we in the black leadership forum are addressing the least of these. as such, i am a bit offended that you are saying the organizations are looking highbrow at 38,000 feet and not addressing the least of these. yes, we are. >> i said that the accomplishments of the civil ,ights movement were tremendous but relative to trying to bring millions of people out of poverty, the jobs part of jobs and justice, dismantling legal

segregation is a much easier problem. we have figured out how to do that. the second answer to question is, there are these organizations that are doing god's work out there, and we still have a million black men in prison. we still have a 60% dropout rate. these organizations have been working for decades. i am posing to the possibility that maybe we need more. >> i would like to set thank you to all of the panel members. when i came here, i had almost the whole box of kleenex, and this is all i have left. i have gone through a range of emotions this morning. as a black woman, i am offended, which is a norm for us. i am humiliated. i have just gone through every emotion. you could call me the angry black woman as i sat there. when i saw that there was no

representation of black women on this panel, and you are discussing us as if we are at the bottom of the boat. we are the cause of the problem. our families have broken up. let me tell you, i work with black women every day who have children who succeed in spite of the fact that they don't have the resources to do it. they do the very best that they can. we have ethics. we have education. i beg to differ. if you attend one of our events like we have every year, all across this country, you would see young black people succeeding, coming out of the worst situations and succeeding. they have ethics and education. i have five degrees. i am a country girl. i came off the farm, but i did the best that i could. being beaten up on as we have heard this morning. >> hang on, hold on.

what is it about black women -- how are black women being blamed for the out of wedlock birth or the high poverty rate? >> because you brought up all the negatives in our community without showing the positive that black women create in our community. if you took a broken-down car and you did not oil the car, it will break down. if we don't get the resources, as lillian was talking about, to build it at an even faster rate, then surely it is going to break down. >> what are the structural elements that would compensate for the family breakdown? >> i am chair of the national congress of black women and also chair of the board of the black leadership forum. let me just say that when you talk about the elements, with

what we have got, we are the only people who were brought here in chains. we are restructuring our community. without a lot of help, even from some blacks who have made it in our community. >> let me go to the next question. >> i think i was next. i wanted to just say that in some ways i agree with faye. it is not just the women or even just the men. we have some societal issues that have impacted these families. let's start with the fact that we have a school to prison situation where the three strikes your out, you are already in prison for life. we have the privatization of

prisons, and therefore they need more consumers, that is more product, so that means we need to bring in as many prisoners as we can to continue these private prisons. we have the attack on women's reproductive rights, so were we had contraception available, etc., we now do not have family planning at the kind of level -- and continuing on to the fact that we continue to provide corporations with incredible tax loopholes and credits, etc., and the investment in education is not happening as it was in the past. i happen to be very lucky to have been coming up -- >> what is your point? >> the point is, it is not just the families that have the issues here. it is society that is retrenching --

>> where we do try to improve those structural issues? what would you do? >> you say that we do not have the answers. actually, the answers were there in the 1960's and 1970's before the reagan administration, when we were investing in education and family-planning. corporations were also being told, you pay your fair share like everybody else, and that investment was happening. the answer was there. >> i came from poverty and i became a lawyer and went to one of the best law schools in the country. it is because of the investments that were made. >> investment by government or corporations? >> government and corporations. we are going backwards, not forwards. >> and you don't see the family unit or individuals as able to

compensate. your say more responsibility has to be taken by government and the private sector. >> i believe that is correct. we have resource issues up the wazoo. we need others to come in, and i think we need that investment to happen. >> i agree with the speaker that we have a criminal justice system that is out of control and exacts an enormous cost in communities of color. spending on welfare programs has gone up nonstop since the 1960 's. safety nets have not proven very effective. that is part of the riddle. it is not enough to say we need

more to these programs that have not worked for the last 40 years. for inspiration i look to programs like the harlem children's own or efforts to dismantle the war on drugs, which produces this mass in corp. -- mass incarceration. those programs do not come out of the traditional organizations. we need new ideas and new leadership. >> the inability to find the right language to communicate. what i have heard from the last two speakers is that there are multiple legs to this tool that we need to get right. there is the family side, but that is not the only one. we are still a race conscious country, and there are structural issues.

i heard the last speaker say that the structural peace has put a lot more on the family. it is important if we find the right language to get there. the structural peace, we have to figure out, and we don't know the answer to that one. i agree that there are more investments, but how you do it in a way that is going to be effective ice think it's still an open question. >> it does not seem to me that the best way to frame the family conversation is to look at marriage and the disintegration of families. when i look at my friends, most of their parents are divorced, regardless of their color. when my mother read jogger, most

of her friends' parents were married. more people used to be married 50 years ago than today. marriage has been used by white people, especially rich white people and the nuclear family has been used as an ideal, and economic ideal, and it is really a racist way of looking at things. it is not valuing different kinds of family structures and is not looking at the power that a lot of different family structures have that are more community-based and include more people instead of a father who is the patriarch or a mother who is just a matriarch that emulates the kind of economic system we have. if we are just talking about class mobility, there is always going to be people at the bottom and they will be disproportionately people of color because they have traditionally had less access to

power and resources. it seems like we should change the way we are looking at the debate. >> i don't think there is any question that when you look at declining marriage rates, you see it has consequences in terms of the resources you are speaking about, education rates, graduation rates, and incarceration rates. crack's most of the people i am friends with, their parents are divorced. >> some cable care about relative poverty and some care about absolute poverty. i care about absolute poverty. the fact that there will always be a bottom 20% is not a concern to me. my concern is if that bottom 20% has access to good luck. i don't think relative party should be our primary concern. do people have access to health care, good schools, said communities? can people be champions of their

own destiny? and the larger point, you are raising questions about the centrality of the nuclear family that have been going on since the moynihan report in 1965. i agree that we should be welcoming of all different kinds of family structures. i certainly would support gay marriage laws in every country. i think every city -- 80 state -- every state. the hard fact is that single parent households or five-six times poorer than dual parent households. this is just the state of affairs. if we want to try and help these poor children and poor families, we cannot just say they are all equally good. there are real cost to being in a single-parent household.

>> i am very sorry for whatever was said here that had that impact. >> i am not sorry for anything we have said. we have had a fascinating conversation. >> that is why you are on the news and i am not. the human element is very important to me, not that you are not human. [laughter] >> i am not even a different race, i am a different species. >> there are so many issues we have all been bringing up. you said something i finally agree with, which is is a very different life. what you were able to cheat in 1953 or 1963 with or without a high-school diploma, you cannot do now. we are not talking about a global economy and how that has affected our ability to move

forward in this country. the movement of jobs overseas and what that has done in terms of the economic environment in the united states. how people come and. if we were having an emigration conversation, we would be talking about how visas get granted, and how we present our engineers and scientists and people with specialized skills. that is why they come in with the different income level, because that is what we are bringing in in terms of immigration policy. all these complexities are impacting the way everyone is doing in this country. you talk structurally, what are we talking about? i went to see the president and we had a conversation. i am talking about the hispanics.

it is about some of the programs that used to help other communities integrate in a different way. and it is about integration, not just a long-term safety net, but i am talking about helping people understand how you get into schools, how does the money move in this country? how do you get your child educated? what are the different type of programs, anything you can do to get your child educated. i have a child who is a freshman in college this year. i struggled with just understanding that process. we are not acclimating people the way we used to. we are not lending them the kinds of support that we used to in terms of newly arrived immigrants in certain communities. i want us to build those ladders. i want us to take responsibility as families and as individuals, more than anything else, for

what we are putting out and the world and how we are building successful, productive adults. at the same time, i want to take in the context of what is happening politically and economically in this country that is affecting that entrenched party. my dad used to be able to make it and have his kind of job. some of those jobs are no longer available. >> we are running out of time. one last question. >> your experience in no way speaks for the asian american community as a whole. unlike the muslim community or that latin-american committee, we do not have a common language or faith that unites us. if you look at filipino, it is

50% unemployment reduced poverty level. i keep hearing your discussions and they all come back to the intersection with class and economics. how do you feel that our communities as a whole can go forward economically or three education without addressing the connection to economic issues that would have to come through labor unions? i know that for labor unions, it is minority communities that are most benefited from labor unions. when i speak to white people that are trying to become involved in the labor movement, their perspective is, i look at myself as a worker, a middle income earner, a dual income

family. how can we talk about these economic issues with our communities of color so they can start to look at themselves as middle class workers or people who have the opportunity to become more economically successful. >> you mean how can you get people away from a racial matrix and start thinking in terms of their social and economic class? >> not to ignore racial identities, but to look at the intersecting issues that obviously convolute the question. when you look at how african- americans look at themselves as two different kinds, that speaks to their ability to have education and those that do not.

how do we create the dialogue where it is no longer just white against black, but college- educated against high school. how do we foster this? >> i think that conversation is coming. there is more and more stratification in the american economy. the question is how to build a structural supports but also in terms of global economics. how do you fit in something like unions in the american tradition that may not exist in other societies? that becomes a point of conflict. that is why you see declining rates of unionization in this country except in the public sector. >> i find that working with communities of color, it is the idea that latinos or asians are disproportionately represented.

there are those who have been able to go forward and get an education and those who have not. >> so the declining significance of race is what is preeminent for you? >> you need to be a will to acknowledge that there are individuals who are able to have education. >> i think it is about coalitions. you want to go across as well, and that cross-coalition is in some ways defined by socioeconomic -- socio-economic needs. >> before you started to speak, i started talking about the economy, what is happening in

terms of jobs. one of the things we need to think about is, what is the minimum standard we want for this country around education, around graduation rates, routes higher education? if we are serious about having people move out of poverty, we have to do two things. we have to create an economy that allows them to have that up for mobility, and the other thing is, we need to become very serious about education. a lot of money has gone into education. we are not being sensitive to what kids really need. we have created a four-tier system in terms of higher education. we need to just create a bar and say this bar is for everyone, and everyone needs to get here, whatever it takes. i have kids that contact me at

georgetown and they say my parents could keep me in for one or two years, but now there is no more loans, so what do i do? you have kids who are doing well, and now they have hit a ceiling. we need to think about it in terms of housing, education, and a couple of other key areas, and then we move away from race and talk about what people need in order to progress. [applause] >> thank you for this incredible panel and comments. part of it is, not every opinion is going to be on the stage, so we appreciate having audience participation. we are looking for audience participation in the c-span and

a lot of what some and the has focused on in her work in the government is what she wrote

about before going into the government. her book chasing the flame, about sergio they mello, in great human rights offenders, in this is certainly been the kind of work she has done and a professorship of the practice of global leadership and public policy at the kennedy school and both of these people were people who give their lives for human-rights, and a link having been assassinated in 2003