communicate not only to employees but also to the consumer base? >> it is one of the most important things the business can do if they believed they are part of the society in our community. as i said earlier by 2040 there will be no more georgia community. weitz will certainly be the largest group that they will not be the majority. african-american and latino people and asian people will really be more of a majority in this country. how do you bring these folks into the workforce? how do you not only bring them into the work or were spared how do you bring the spending power of their constituents into the workforce because we are looking at trillions of dollars that these communities are spending. so i think that often in the business community, you know, if it ain't broke, don't fix it but that seems to be the attitude. at the same time, something has to be fixed. russlyn said something in the

previous segment, more money more wisely. this is not only the case for education but i think it is the case for business as well. one of the things i think that business must do is to create partnerships with colleges and universities around things like internships and other ways to bring people into the labor force. they can start as early as a seventh or eighth grade with awareness programs about employment that certainly by the time i have students duart bennett college for women or other historically black colleges and universities and you know i have got to do my plug. the blacker the college the sweeter the knowledge. [laughter] >> keep ongoing dr. malveaux. >> in any case we need business to come to us and say if you are trying to diversify if you are looking for black women to promote your products come to bennett or spelman or amt or someplace else. we need business to embrace our young people and say there are

opportunities. it is a hard thing richard to say in a recession because in a recession everyone is paranoid. we have 14 million americans who are unemployed. have of them have been unemployed for half a year. so to talk about what can you do for young people is almost inherently threatening. at the same time we know that the labor market is the turn that even as people are coming in for new jobs, we can learn from young people. there are so many things they have but one of the things that they do that we don't is they really value diversity. let me say one last thing. one of the things our country has as a comparative advantage among other countries is our diversity. we look at those countries that are kicking us, china india eastern europe, more widely traded than a dollar. the united states is the only country that has the diversity whether we value it or not we have it. >> diversity and united states is different from the countries we are talking about whetherb china or india on a different level.

>> so let's look lifted up and celebrated. >> janet, when we hear this from businesses where they are saying you know having a diverse work group as well as understanding our consumers and their customers are very diverse has to do with action internally for businesses to break the issue we are talking about because if you are able to break that then you can bring in those workers who are talking about. i am always interested in understanding what are they doing in terms of activity? whether business is doing terms of activity sets to show that strategy we just talked about? some of things they do is they have the business research groups. they have an affinity groups. they have all sorts of approaches, advisory councils diversity councils. are those effective? >> well i think they can be, yes and i know that for us, as you look at the statistics out there, the demographic shift and you look at the business community they do so much data planning and research when it comes to almost everything that they do yet with the current

landscape such as it is reflecting these demographic shifts and growth and many of the communities of color particularly and the latino community there still seems to be a disconnect for most of the major businesses and industries out there in terms of how to engage those communities whether it is as a potential work horse or a potential consumer. and i think there are different best practices out there. one of the ways that we have been engaged with many of the business and industries are some of the corporate lord of advisory groups that can exist. i know most recently comcast and nbc sponsored this event and it put together advisory groups that i think can really be a very good best first step in terms of engaging many of the leadership who represent a love of the communities across the country on how to really take the steps necessary and look at

the different sectors in which they can take those steps. and i think for us, education and how they are involved and engaged in education takes a long-term view. i think one of the things business and in the shays, they are so interested in the return on investment, tomorrow or the next week. we need businesses to take a longer view, and mindset of how are they engaging these communities today knowing that there've been tensions among their stakeholders and their shareholders about getting that roi for tomorrow but knowing that if they take certain steps today that there r. l. i will be there as a multiplier for them and perhaps three to five years. a lot of times industry are complex but i would argue they are able to take any up or so look at the longer longer-term view engage those communities and much more longer-term efforts that will i think be a benefit not just for the good

corporate social responsible ability that will have a drug benefit to their bottom line. but they need to look and understand that first and foremost having those types of arrangements were they able to engage thought leaders and those communities of color and to represent communities across the country is a good first step but then i think it engages them in getting those recommendations in understanding and being willing to test out issues. i think again in the business community if they don't see it on paper plate up with every i dotted and t crossed they can't do it. well here, we need some people in the business community because time is short. if we are going to take advantage of the incredible need to invest in these young people across the country and think of innovative solutions, you can't. you are not going to have all the answers every time you make that express my. obviously everybody -- a good idea about accountability that we need people to be bold and we

need i think the business and the community to understand it is going to require little bit more bolder and i think they are going to have to get up there a little bit more on the advocacy front. i think again investing in programs is good but we need programs but ultimately we need changes in policy. those leaders in the business community are willing to step up and i will give you an example because i think it is very relevant. recently been experiencing the latino community a lot of targeting and discrimination around russell -- racial profiling. we saw a lot passed their that one of the federal judges ruled in part to be unconstitutional but there've been efforts by leaders in arizona to pass even more extreme legislation like repealing the 14th amendment and others that are on that same level. most recently there was finally a pushback on those laws and those proposals in the state legislature in arizona and was mostly because the business community said enough. we do not want to be targeted as

the state that is anti-hispanic and seen as a discriminatory and we are not going to support this. when the business community steps up and is a voice of advocacy that can be a very powerful force in combination with many of us who are out there also trying to do the right thing. so i would argue that it is multiple layers that they roll that business and industry can play. is about investment. is about engagement but ultimately i think it is also being a voice of advocacy because programs and investments in those communities alone won't move the needle as fast as we needed to move in terms of the need to change policies that are going to directly impact not only those communities but this country and its ability to be competitive in this global economy. >> a lot of good points there. reverend al when we look at these national companies that have the structured written guidelines that they try to employ and deploy and if done

well at it, what about on that local level that janet is alluding to in those regions around the country? how can they get the support to develop the same program that may assist in hiring diverse workers? >> let me just say also it has been the work of african-americans, latinos, faith-based groups and i really commend reverend sharpton for helping us in arizona because he saw this not just as a latino issue that is an issue of facing all of us as committed to the colors are want to thank you were that in arizona. thank you very much. [applause] >> thank you. i think first of all, the way that businesses can engage is they must be intentional. because, business operates that way. i mean, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out how they do anything else so why do they need a rocket scientist to tell them how to deal with diversity? they have to intend to do it and

they have to admit that a lot of the omissions of doing business with blacks, latinos and asians and employment and all the way up to their board was intentional exclusion. when we figure the debates about affirmative action and in and people would say why do we need a program, because we had a program to exclude people. you have to have a program to counter the program you had. so it was not just some osmosis that in -- occluded people. was intentional and you must intentionally correct what is wrong. in terms of the question of amber and we have done a lot of work. in fact we unveiled about six companies now. according to how the advisory boards are set up, are they set up to be window dressing for the company to say we talked to

everybody. >> would it be found? >> i found both and are they set up where they actually hear it bison share the information and the data across the board? employment, procurement, business contracts. not just come in and say you know, here is a brochure and we will buy a table of chicken dinner if that you have once a year. so you have got to deal with how the advisory boards are set up in and how you deal down to the locale. i think if you are going to deal with the wealth gap and the median and calm, you not only have to deal with their personnel. you've got to deal with the growth and promotion in the company and to the contract and do business with because we have seen some companies that make improvement on the employment side but do absolutely no contracts in the communities of color, none. none of them are chairman and

the people in charge of those departments, which deals with billions of dollars in some of these national and international corporations. nobody is there to make sure any of that reaches our community. so i think that yes it is good business but i think that they must understand it is good business and intentionally deal with that. and they think that janet's point about becoming advocates is absolutely right. those understand it is good business because it brings in more profit to them because you have people that know how to deal in those communities better who are a large percentage of their consumers, and large percentage of the people they are trying to appeal to for the workforce. those are the ones that can increase their profits at the end of the day. people are in business for-profit. they are not in it for community work and they are not in it for charity work. but you make the money if you know how to work better in the marketplace that you are to have a large margin of profit and. in many cases we are to difference between being

operating in the black and operating in the red, pun intended. when you operate with the black you can stay in the black. [laughter] >> and i would argue that a lot of times we focus legitimately so on the political power as we are trying to grow for our communities, but one of the things we often take for granted is that we have already much economic power. for the latino community it is a trillion dollars that. weakened by that for the african-american community. when we come together and we can say in issues like what is happening in arizona are wrong and we stand up against that and as a result of that we are not going to bring our conventions and conferences and other major events and we are going to discourage artists and other people to quit doing business in a certain state, we can be economic drivers of that kind of reform because we can hold those corporations accountable for their actions if we are willing to use our economic power in addition to our political power.

>> you know we have seen --. >> do you have a comment on this? >> i will yield my time. >> there we go, ray. >> i do think we have seen examples of the notion that the communities of color have really made a difference. we have seen saturation in certain march. people might look at the foreclosure crisis, the aggressive attack on communities of color, aggressive promoting of life, get you all to get more of this was a function of saturation in the majority of communities. 75% of whites own their homes. 75% compared to 50% of african-americans and latinos. so there was a margin of a sickly and ability to to try to increase that. is seen at many in many other places so we can go industry by industry and look at bottom-line and when we look at those bottom-line to see the difference in the economic impact. several studies have been done to talk about the economic impact of diversity and the

importance of using diversity metrics to talk about production and to talk about productivity. i think it is really important, those companies that get it not only from a domestic perspective richard but also from an international perspective are companies that are posting profits. i don't want to pick anyone out that mcdonald's is a great example and i have gotten a -- from mcdonald's. >> no bias, right? >> no bias whatsoever but their other companies that have basically learned how to go into communities, to learn their culture, to sell their product to improve their bottom line. we see that time and again and we see the companies who aren't able to do that. their inability shackles them and makes it impossible for them to grow. one of the things that i think this conversation has lacked just a little bit is the notion of a global space in terms of

diversity. we are flatter than we have ever been in terms of how we sell and who we sell and again i think the leverage that we must have in this country is that we have a diversity that no one else has. as we see the growth in china, what can we do with our chinese and american nation population to leverage that? we see a growth in the spanish-speaking countries. how do we take our latino population and begin to do with that? the african continent is so wealthy and so many things. how do we began to get african-americans evolved than that? this country and i know assistant secretary ali will support me in this, we. >> less language than anybody else in the world. we don't do language education. part of our diversity is not just race and gender but also our ability to be culturally competent. this includes language education which is something we really have got to get back to because it is so very important. if we are going to be as competent as others are in

basically breaking some of this down. >> we are now going to have to move into questions and comments. we have had such a great conversation appear that so many folks of course want to get some of your wisdom. so any questions or comments? don't hold back. >> maybe they don't want our wisdom. [laughter] if you could state your name and where you are from. >> my name is -- and i'm from california and presently were carried washington d.c. for an hbcu actually and to that and i wanted to ask what all of our panelists thought about what the emerging role or i guess the new world of minorities serving and institutions as we move into the 21st century and are continuously thinking about our global workforce because clearly we spend a lot of time talking about what needs to be done on

the k-12 level and we also spent time talking about what needs to be done in the corporate world and the missing link between this too is post-secondary education. if he could. >> to that i would greatly appreciate it. >> i hope you have a scene from the presidents bush a proposal in their work over the past couple of years of of renewed investment in minority serving institutions. nearly $800 billion over the next 10 years. they are playing an ever important role not just in that bridge or in diversity work as you both have mentioned, but also in teacher preparation, right? as dr. melville indicated, schools like bennett, schools like -- throughout the south are really an amazing positions to ensure that we get both a diverse teacher force in a highly skilled one simultaneously.

hbcu's have historically been the biggest producers of doctors and engineers and lawyers in the african-american community. they play a key role in our history and must in our future. that said, we still see big disparities. the office for civil rights has six outstanding desegregation orders between traditionally white institutions and historically black institutions in six states. there is a lot of work to do to ensure that the promises of minority serving institutions both the promises made in the past are in fact promises kept at that we provide them with the support necessary to ensure that all of their graduates can compete as well. >> i think you need to combine that with the private sector as well. as she knows i was involved in some of the conversations with the administration about hbcu's but last week at our convention we honored the president of

cooper university and got corporations to make a commitment to their college. as an example, think it should be all around the country vet with these advisory boards, that they have these companies that they are sitting on on the top and work within hbcu because of what they produce for our community. ..

and able to make lemonade sometimes with no lemons. >> i will lift up or be ejected and celebrate women and developing them in the leaders and global thinkers. we have the full of japan or should, leadership, global studies and communications i would have been thrilled to have four buildings which is unprecedented the first new construction in 28 years. entrepreneurship because all of us will be entrepreneurs at one point in our life whether we want to be or not. leadership because the borrowed as crying out for leaders, global studies because we have global morals. we will be in all passport campus in august of 2011 and i am so excited about that. and communication because how we present to the world. he would have to have black

colleges if we didn't have them. president obama said he wants us to lead and lead in the production of degree holders. we can't do it without historically black colleges and universities. here's what is happening in the age of budget cuts. public universities have metrics the have to meet. you can't admit someone without the gpa or someone without an s.a.t.. i can admit them with a 2.0 from high school. they will leave college with a 3.5 and they will go to harvard and that is my commitment to young people. we basically invest deeply, sincerely, phenomenal and intensely and that is what hd see you. they do the same thing but i must tell you anybody that's watching us. [laughter] >> you are so funny. anything to add? >> i would briefly at i think

it's true that the serving institutions of historically black colleges i think for us seeing the level of investment and targeting those investments in those areas we know there are gaps that's where you have the population i think it's going to be so critical for us to move forward. on also just make the pitch that community colleges or investments and strategies and community colleges become really important because they can be the sort of building, the steppingstone that can either be launched for our students or they can end there and we need to make sure those kids who are trying to do everything they can with tuesday in the system as they do go to the community college can find a way to get on to the next level. so i think it is about resources and obviously we want to make sure the institutions that are serving predominantly, students of color are getting that

targeted strategic funding but for me community college has become important if we are going to save that generation of kids and keep them in the system. >> a great question. >> one institution -- >> your name and where you're from. >> on the civil and human rights. the question i have is about the other institution, a lot of kids are interacting which the criminal justice system, the question i have for you is how we dismantle the war on drugs and all of its forms. in three days? [laughter] >> i think you've got to deal with none of which are easy but we leave that to do if the criminalization issue. you have to deal with the old glorification of drugs, the whole advertising issue and i think the naacp came up with a study that talks about the disparity and prosecution and incarceration because even

though for example african-americans are a very small minority of a crack users overwhelmingly pledge your ready if the people in jail, so one level we've got to deal with, the even in drug use and drug criminality treated equal discriminatory way has a better shot but that's how bad it is and you have to deal with all of these lawyers in a very complex way that it must be dealt with because the war on drugs is to me the reason it hasn't worked. there's too many that i think that we've become the fatah for those that want to privatize and create the prisoner industrial complex and i'm not sure we really want to solve the problems. >> we've seen success again when

you're taking the command to holistic purchase with parents, schools, communities come together and really try to tackle those issues within it is the gangs but lead to some of those beavers but i also think when you're looking at the juvenile justice system we see so many failures particularly when it comes to our children of color, not enough done are not prevention and certainly as reverend sharpton have said even when they get in the system they aren't given the breaks we think if you're going to to provide disincentives for that behavior is different types of and for some actions you can take and there are studies that show it's pretty obvious when you mix these young kids with the older kids you're only going to reinforce that kind of behavior once they are put into the juvenile detention centers that aren't meant for juveniles so there's a lot to look at, but i

think ultimately it's about a mix of resources with the right and it meant taking a holistic approach using communities, parents and many of the education systems. >> when he talks about the inequality i think the whole sentencing disparity is the issue that has to be dealt with. tiffin people that have been dealing with it, crack cocaine user is sentenced far more severely than powder cocaine user. sheeran washington they've been doing great work about closing of the sentencing and the disparity. but even within the similar drug use we find differences so some of this is legislative and some of it is a civil rights issue >> i will add the notion that there is a prison pipeline in this country has become part of the american lexicon and we have to flip that. it has to very much be about cradle to the career.

secretary duncan and the president working in the department of education is geared towards trying to do just that, but it can't happen from washington. as michael panelists have said very much as a community, federal, state, local and neighborhood partnership that has to take place if we are to ensure schools and other places, children can turn to to meet their needs and get their support as opposed to we are seeing today. >> thanks. >> the black leadership forum, first of all i want to thank you for all that you do to hold our community of their and let people know that we do have challenges but we also do good work we like the president's campaign team we do big things. the question i would ask is the smaller organizations, the smaller nonprofits and i assume there's a lot of people that

represent them in this room do wonderful things but then when they are asked by large corporations to write these massive proposals just to get a dollar i'm wondering -- and we have to prove that we've done so much, and it would be obvious to us what we are doing but it's a little bit difficult to put on paper sometimes. how do we get these corporate heads to come into our community and see what we are doing. and i don't mean the question to be to the reverend sharpton but anyone how to get corporations to understand we might not have all of the records on paper that others have but we are doing great things, and we need some attention in terms of looking at what we are doing and funding it and not having the same requirements that you what of a major company that has all this staff to write it all of these massive proposals. >> i would say that one of the

things is these companies all operate local and therefore they ought to be involved local. if you have franchisees and local command keys, or franchises ought to know who is doing very effective work in the local community, and i think that some of the national groups ought to be pushing that. again, these advisory boards to bring up, they're needs to be one of the problems about dollars and this is the black bundle and hispanic bundle and the asian bundle and we have to fight over that rather than really having a strategy to invest in the community through nonprofits. some should be local, some should be national because you are giving for different reasons, and i think we've got to get out of this whole thing where they have less like hamsters trying to run around to go on the treadmill and who's going to outrun the other to get

the chicken this year effectively pushing it and you're right who need the work and are doing their resources and doing the work on the ground in business. this is where they are in business where the need the good will and the community that's working in the schools and the after-school program and we have to be built to protect that. another thing we need to be but to develop and that's why the black legion was so important and gary and others that worked with at that in the oval office. it's that you've got to have this interconnection so there can be those that have the larger staffs that helped write those proposals and help flood them in because some of us may have people that do that on the staff need to make them available to them on profits because if we don't have a local

nonprofits, we can't generate the kind grassroots we need and some of the national campaigns because all of us don't have every village. we may have them in a lot cities. i will give you an example the young lady, 13-years-old, this young lady organized 1200 young people in stone mountain georgia to fight violence and literally took it down in the secondary schools in that whole city. i never heard of her but because i knew what she was doing it got to as we've been able to help her write some proposals and that's the kind of things we need to do. >> thank you. i must make a plug for comcast and say the people are in our community and they do tend to help small organizations. >> i would just say they're our best practices the emerging. we have about 300 organizations

that make up our network. we work closely to engage them with our national partners and stakeholders on different approaches and different programs and one of the things we are doing even more as creating collisions. there's one example where we worked with the naacp when it came to health care and reform. we worked with the urban league capacity organization when it can to responding to the foreclosure crisis and we basically make sure we put together proposals jointly. we've seen that on the broadband collection where we've been able to encourage the kuhl engagement deutsch joint proposals of the national level but have had the direct economic benefit for our affiliates of the local community level and i think more and more of those types of collaborative story emerging and i think being part of a coalition can be very beneficial. >> gerient i represent 51 of

those organizations, so he's going to speak next. >> that timetable. i like this. gary flowers, to policy questions. one, should every individual student in the united states have a federal right to equal high-quality education. the united states industrial nations contributes 9% funding to public education. comes from state, county, local, every state to have a fight between the state board of education, county, local mayor's office, meanwhile the children are left out. is it the position of the administration or the panelists agree to radically increase the 9% of funding to maybe 50% so that we could compete with the larger nations around the world to fully fund the public systems. >> so, to the first question whether education is the fundamental right as the

president and the secretary had said this has been an important issue of the generation. transforming the way the schools work. it's the course of the two of us right embodied within the constitution, the federal constitution. there are a number of states that have in the state constitution's for the proposition and with the right to inadequate education as part of a right in those states so that is the decision for the congress. >> does the administration supports that? >> it's not a proposal i know of that is pending anywhere for which to make a decision of support or not. on the question of the dollars spent you are right historically anywhere from eight to 10 cents on the dollar is the contribution of the federal money does janet diluted to earlier the vast majority of

funding comes from states and from several state supreme court decisions that have said things like the funding is unconstitutional and turn to the state legislatures to do something about. the issue of the role of the federal government in terms of impacting systems of finance so they are more equitable was one we are exploring now. the secretary called for an announced equity excellent -- excellent condition so it has many of the main names that have been mentioned here today on it to provide recommendation to the federal government on just that, the appropriate role. what we like to see an increase such that we could provide so much more to the states? undoubtedly and as all of us are

feeling in real time our conversations happening in the congress today. >> i'm sorry. if i could just say a word about the way that we are funding, the fact that education is funded from the property tax is a huge problem in terms of how we end up with educational disparity. if you find the inner-city education with the press and the property value and suburban education with suburban property value you end up with something where the gdp, the spending per child varies by thousands of dollars. and the federal government could be the equalizer. this is a conversation that predates this administration. >> how could be the cluster? >> of the federal government decided to fund more the states would be funding less. this is the floor and we will pay for it. the income tax as opposed to the property tax pay for some level of educational spending.

the state governments could also be the equalizer as you said the states have said the way that we fund education is unconstitutional. but we cannot afford to have a certain educational standards and mississippi and another one in new hampshire. we are trying to be a nation. what happened to the notion of the nation? the federal government should be doing more for the k-12 education and code except for the political reality. political reality are with the party and we are not going those because they are what they are and people denigrated my favorite beverage and they've done many other things. we just to live with it for the moment, but the fact of that is we've seen these inequities functioning how we fund education. i would think left from that the department of education among others would be leaders, you have so many things on your plate so it's not a criticism looking at the way we fund other countries and looking at the way

-- you know, we were once first in the production of the degree holders and now we are 12th. countries that you wouldn't even think of like spain. i'm not descanting spain, i love it there, you know, south korea, japan, not surprising, canada all out rank us in these things because they spend and fund education differently than we do so it is a conversation about how we fund education and what priority education takes in the work that we do. >> we've got maybe 30 seconds each if we can before charlie steps over here. >> in terms of the constitution question i think that is important. i think that for whatever reason we didn't follow the movement on that i certainly say you know there was on the record supporting it and was thought of as i ran for president.

>> for the it's important to understand that there's a tremendous shift in the growth in the demographics of this country and i think it is more important now than ever for us to find ways in which we are investing in these children so we can not only see these children advance but knowing the future of this country relies on the investments we are making today in those very young people ten, 20 years from now is going to be very important i think in terms of guiding us as a country forward. >> i hope we can leave a sign of hope. the idea of the funding inequities in our proposals for the reauthorization of the elementary secondary education to view the sins of the fundamental fairness and ensure that the dollar's get to the kids they were intended to. we've seen great progress over the last couple of years in terms of states with taking the lead to ensure this is the code

doesn't decide who learns what and to close the teacher eqecat and change the laws that were otherwise barring innovation. as we have a lot of work to do. but the strong america requires strong schools. it's been a good discussion of the solutions to that think you so much assistant secretary. reverend sharpton, thank you so much. janet, thank you so much as well as dr. malveaux. a really fantastic time that we had. [applause] >> thank you richard for the great job of moderating. we are going to take a break and we will resume at 3:25 p.m.. [inaudible conversations]

>> "washington journal"s]

continues. host: we want to welcome back to the wbc," benjamin jealous, president of the naacp. let's start with the unemployment rate for the black community. we have seen that number dropped overall: 9%, but it has not dropped that much for the african-american community. guest: we are stuck in this country right now. we have a whole bunch of folks who frankly need the same thing that we did in the great depression to get out of that great recession. we need to be focused on creating jobs. right now the debate in congress has been how to spend less money. you can look over to the u.k. to see what happens. in the midst of a recession coming you try to fix things by

spending less. you end up with much lower consumer demand and much lower job generation. " we need for congress to be focused on, job creation, go back and look at what we did in the great depression to get out of the great recession. one thing that happens in times like this, the discrimination goes up. q c people attract around the family and social network. the people that they know good jobs first. people outside that have a much harder time. and as the economy starts to get slightly better, more and more people stop -- who had stopped looking for work start for you have a push and pull their. the poll is going back, and then what pushes it up is that people they were not counted, not searching, because they had given up and now they are

starting to push back in. host: you and other african- american leaders met with the president a year ago urging him to specifically address the unemployment issue for minorities, poor communities. at that point may come in the unemployment rate was 16.5%. to a if you look at the most recent statistics, not much of a difference. hispanic or latino, 11.3%. what grade would you give president obama on tackling the issue that you urged him to do one year ago? guest: this congress, we would give a very low grade. if you look at first term, the first congress that he worked with, every major push was about jobs. health care was about jobs and job quality.

dealing with the financial crisis was about jobs. dealing with the huge stimulus that he was able to push through was about jobs. dealing with issues of discrimination and exclusion, and one of the things we talked about was the need to have a need for every federally funded job -- right now when you bought into a federally funded job center, if you will see up to 30% of the jobs they are hiring for in your area. 7% are invisible to you because they are done by contractors not required to post. in a country where it is possible for some much of our federal money to be spent in a way, it is so non transparent, it locks up communities like cars. that is something he can fix directly. host: he has not done it so far. guest: the regulation has been

proposed and it will be done by this summer. but this problem has existed at least for my entire lifetime as the federal government shift more to contractors from federal workers. and it has never been solved. it is finally being solved. you see him posted a big stimulus, you see him push through health care, you see a big push to make sure that small business people the best minority small business can do the same contras. but the congress is trying to push the same mistakes that the u.k. may. they're going back and say that we have been through this once before, how did we get out of it? instead, they are saying, let's use this economist playbook that wherever it has been used, it has become a nightmare, and that is the problem, congress. host: what about the president?

what is his grade? guest: it is hard for me to separate the two. " we need is a massive investment in jobs and you do not get that without the president. his leadership with this congress is not good. host: so a low-grade for both. guest: certainly of low grade for the country as a whole. what is going to take to get us out of this recession is for the country to spend more. congress will have to make the first move. host: when you look at those in -- unemployment numbers for the african-american community, does that translate into lower enthusiasm for the president when it comes to his reelection in 2012? guest: people and our community know that we're not dealing with a three-year depression. we're dealing with the 40 year depression. every president in my lifetime

has come and gone out what that situation. finally we have a president that seems to get it and has been pushing congress. and you see a lot more from the governors, too. one of the big concerns with the whole stimulus was that we had mayor's in mississippi, rowe used to be the managing editor of the main black newspaper, saying, do not send it to the governor. senate to us and we would get it to the people. barbour took money that was meant for katrina to rebuild his porch. of all the leaders that i've met with, the governors, the heads of congress, the president himself, he is the one that gets it the most. host: you mention a regulation that will be put into effect and then -- guest: it will be put into place

this summer. it will ensure that all veterans in this country can see all federal funded jobs. it is the effect of having that all people can see all federally funded jobs. for which folks are currently hiring in the area. right now, if you are a taxpayer in your down in your luck and you go into a taxpayer-funded jobs center annually c of the 30% of the taxpayer-funded jobs, -- and you only see 30% of the taxpayer-funded jobs, it is outrageous. that they would only say that much that their test. dollars are funding in their area. host: this is a regulation that the administration will put into effect. what else are you hearing that they plan to do over the next year for minorities and poor

communities? guest: a big push right now to expand access for small business people, a real focus of small people -- small business people of color to get better contracts. that is huge. there is a lot of frustration with congress over this budget. there is a lot of frustration with the state's right now. there is an assault on what the people have right now. unfortunately, we're being forced to play defense. the reality is that we need a different conversation in this country that comes down to groups like ours getting people to raise their voices and say, it is not enough for us in a recession to play defense. we need to play offense. we need to create jobs and go back to those values that got us

out of the great depression and use them to get us out of the great recession. host: a republican in queens, new york. you're on the air with benjamin jealous. caller: a quick comment and then a question. every person hearing my voice right now has a family member in prison. what is the naacp doing about this very great problem in our community? and also, going back a century now, over 100 years, malcolm x and martin luther king have all been condemned by the organization of the naacp. allied to take -- would you like to take the opportunity to set the record straight on the way that the naacp dealt with these great men who helped us with black pride and pride in africa? host: he is not there.

guest: right now in this country, a black person is five times more likely to be in prison than in south africa at the height of apartheid. not only has our country taken over their former glory as the r.rld's largest incarcerate h we take it to a entirely different level. it is bankrupting our country. we have a report called misplaced priorities that shows how it is choking public universities and the stabilizing families in america. it is something that we have to be concerned about because it is not making a safer. we actually got grover norquist to stand up with us with a passionate statement from newt gingrich to join us. these policies have failed us miserably. they are wasting a whole bunch of money. our country needs to do

something different. we evening that the head of a large -- the largest prison unit in the country to stand up with us and say not only that, but we need to take the money we are wasting and give it to our public universities. in california when i was a kid, they spent 11% on public universities. now it is 11% on prisons and 7.5% on public universities. that is a huge turnaround. they used to be the best universities in the world. it is no longer the case. they are squandering money trying to solve social problems with prison. there ways to do it that are more humane. with regards to the great leader, you can look back at the record of the naacp. we have always been supportive and involved. what did they argue about? they argue about whether blacks

should stay in this country are laid. we are unapologetic about saying that blacks ought to be a part of this country. i have family on both sides. we have been here, and we will stay in this country. and will stay in the country. if you look at malcolm x at the end of his life when he was assassinated and assassinated by members of the country itself, he was becoming much closer to the mainstream of civil-rights purity and i think he is a great man. it is worth studying. quite frankly, they are some of the greatest leaders this country has had, if some of the most controversial. and host: let's look at the recent numbers to came up with. 1 million of the 2.3 million incarcerated it is represented by african-americans.

500,000 black fathers currently incarcerated. one out of six african-american men have spent time in prison. what should the administration be doing about this? guest: one of the remarkable things about this country is that we tend to use rates at the he same rate. take crack. then you look at who gets busted for using crack. 85% of people busted for using crack this by% of whites. that tells us we have two very different law enforcement strategies. if you are white or rich it basically says to go to rehab. if you are poor or black, you go

to prison. we know dollar for dollar is seven times more effective. we do it anyway. it is really time for congress -- senator jim wright has proposed that we actually look at drug sentencing, criminal justice from top to bottom all at once and proposed a whole raft of changes. the state of georgia is seeking to go there right now. one of the fascinating dynamics in this country right now is we're seeing career issues from southern republican leaders banned from northern democrats. and in texas there are 18 smart on crime bills moving. the state of georgia, the

governor is proposing a look at criminal justice policy. it goes much further. it is actually classic conservative play. it says let's do what is most affected. host: here is a tweet -- tony on the independent line. caller: i want to talk about jobs today. i basically want to say as long as we keep asking people to provide jobs for us, we will always be at the tail end of the line as it pertains to getting jobs. we need to talk about entrepreneurship. we need to take matters into our own hands and create our own jobs so we do not always have to go hand in hand looking for a job. it is really our problem to solve, not president barack

obama us. -- not president obama's. guest: when i talk about contractors, that is what i am talking about. this administration is doing a lot to make it easier. we will be doing speedskating where you have contractors a whole bunch of some ubcontractors introducing them. we are trying to help make sure that people actually know each other and connect and do business together. at the same time, you make a great point. one of the things that we really push young people to do is to actually build upon and continue the tradition of small business ownership in our communities. we spend a lot of time helping

young people across the country in our 200 programs learn how to draft business models, so that they actually go into college thinking about the small business people and come out with a great head start. host: tyrone, republican from louisiana. i want to piggyback on what tony said. we do go hand in hand with these other people from the federal government asking them to give us money. we are not self-sufficient. my point is if we localize how the money is created, at the congress people are supposed to create our buddy. our money. we will not have the deficit's going through the roof. if we get the congress to

reclaim their responsibility for print and regulating the currency, then we can hold these people accountable. my point to you is does the ncaa -- n.c.a.a. go to the black conference and talk to the representatives and impress upon them to get the responsibility back to the congress from the federal reserve banks who we do not know, who cannot see and hold accountable? i think that will help the black people. have our local representatives responsible. guest: one theme that came up is the issue of accountability pyridin that is. that is so often we focus on across the country. we told congress people accountable to their communities. with regard to that you have a good point. host: leonardo on the democratic

line. good morning. caller: i am just trying to figure out the naacp's role, because they have been very quiet as far as, well, i do not see no real leadership. all i see is follow worse. -- follwers. this guy will get all kinds of excuses about why. he did not hear the whole conversation and that, but that was the game they played on him. guest: sure. think you for calling about that. we were the last to make the mistake in the first to apologize. we pushed the white house to apologize, and it follows suit and did. we pushed the usda to apologize and they follow through and did. we worked very closely together now -- we work very closely

together now. both of us are very concerned about the fight to end poverty and rural areas. she would say we cannot let moments like this distract and divide us. we saw a situation where a right-wing attacker group was trying to destroy us by destroying her, and we were ultimately able to keep both from happening. i am one of those people but have beene she should offered her old job back, but we push for that, and it offered her a job, unfortunately i do not think they offered her the right job. host: barbara, new york, a democratic line. caller: this is a comment. you do not have to respond. you oned in to complement t

not being called into the interrogation techniques by greta. most of the time is spent challenging, undermining, pinpointing the articles and challenges. black people will survive. the same thing is happening to the mainstream of america today is that they are crying and grasping and demanding for what has been happening to black centuries. all th do not complain, go out and pull yourself up by your bootstraps and take responsibility. guest: in this country we rely

on government where they play a key role in making sure people have jobs. i think the calller makes a very people try toat get the black community to encourage us to hold this president accountable for everything, and we know. we have dealt with dozens of presidents. he was the first black president. from the point he was elected to the day of his inauguration, then he became the 44th president. we had great pride in him, but we also know he is no more powerful than any of the past presidents we have dealt with. on an issue like job creation, congress will have to decide that it is job one. at the end of the day, 535 people who really determine how we spend our money and whether

we will continue this pattern of basically bankrupting the nation, and then say we have to cut social services. when push came and we had a huge surplus. we will able to predict the future of medicare. -- when bush came in, we had a huge surplus. then they get a huge windfall to the richest 1% in this country, and look where we are now the two things are very connected. listen to the people now that say we need to tickle unions from working people and medicare from grandma. they understand the first step is to bankrupt the coffers. then you cry bankruptcy. unfortunately 536 people, if there was one that was all powerful, the president would be

high on the list, but that is not what he is. host: two more phone calls. in depend on the line from philadelphia. -- independent on the line from philadelphia. caller: i wanted to say i think the questions are appropriate in the facts are straight. other middle-class organizations have accepted the fact that in order for mr. obama to be successful he cannot be challenged, criticized. as long as you except that, we have to be placed at the back of the line. we will always be at the bottom. i think it is a very sad dynamic that people of this caliber could accept that kind of dynamic that issues cannot be addressed at the risk of losing white voters. spend all day

making sure our pitissues are addressed. we focus on the issues that are most urgent work communities, and not based on class. we put up a billboard in los angeles and welcome to the u.s., 25% of the world's prisoners. in bold indictment of words things are in this country in the state of leadership in this country. we have pushed forward and pushed hard to make sure this issue of mass incarceration is dealt with. pushing hard to make sure the fact that black children are 15% are 50% of the new hiv kids are dealt with. we are pushing hard to make sure the issue of joblessness is dealt with. again, those who would push us into confrontation with the president when it is congress who makes the decision are encouraging as to wallow and destruction. it is time for us to be clear

about who has the power to make the decision on the federal budget, the decision to make the 1% pay their top fair share. we are right to focus on congress. host: before we let you go, we will return to our conversation about the gulf coast one year later. i want to get your thoughts on it before we leave. guest: i was down there several months ago stand on the beach looking at an oil slick in my feet started to sink and they ended up an oil. that is the metaphor for the whole thing. you'd think you are on land, but you are really 1 inch above oil. we put out a white paper today. it is there on our site.

it is calling on bp to take full responsibility for this disastrous situation in the gulf. there are huge physical and mental health problems that are not being addressed. we're seeing resources plummet as tax revenues have plummeted in the area even further than one could expect during a recession, and the need to go through the roof. we have seen a big increase in domestic violence. the reality is that the company needs to take greater responsibility for the long- term effects and really push to make sure the billions that have set aside -- you said earlier, 5 billion only gets out to the community that needs them. we have to remember, unless you

have lived in the region as i have, it is hard to understand. these folks are absolutely tied to this environment. it is not like when you lose a job but one doctor you ca