we have a lot of folks coming up. keith ellison has decided to run for attorney general. we will see how that turns out. state representative omar has thrown her name in the hat in fifth congressional district.she will probably win. she's a fresh face, fresh voice with fresh ideas. we will see if she can move her agenda, move the agenda of the democratic party nationally as well as in the state, but it is very difficult. i think that we have to always social mind that, as the winds blow in the country, they always dictate how a party should move. i her to previous caller talking about black lives matter, all the social justice movements. we have to return to the days where those movements help dictate the agenda of local, state and national party. right now, that's not happening. host: joining us via skype, a

professor of african-american and african studies at the university of minnesota. thanks for being with us. guest: thank you. aost: we are joined next by sociologist professor at peru college -- baruch college at cuny-new york city, joining us this morning with input on race relations across the country, specifically about where things stand in new york city since the strength relation death of eric garner. how would you rate the state of race relations, police relations with the community in new york city? guest: we have definitely had problems, continue to have problems there. with the case of eric garner, it is connected to one of the big issues within new york city, gentrification. eric garner was killed in st.

george, an area of staten island right next to the ferry to manhattan. developers are very much interested in that. in new york, we see a lot of stories about the tactics used to promote this gentrification and real estate development. things like landlord's not doing repairs on apartments, turning off the heat, making living conditions unbearable for tenants to leave. he and others -- like him -- [no audio] trump is certainly in support of these real estate practices. he and his father in the 1970's racially for profiling, putting the letter c if it was a person of color looking to get into their

apartment buildings. host: some of the comments we andd this morning, racism, the plight of the middle class, people not just talking about income levels, but in one case neighborhoods causing white flight, and those middle-class people being forced out of their neighborhoods in cities like baltimore and such. sounds like a similar situation in new york city, that this spreads beyond just being a racial issue. guest: well, it is both race and class. a a lot of the people who historically have been pushed out have been poor people of color, largely african-americans, so there's definitely an intersection of those factors. host: let's talk about the police response. the headline from npr says the nypd will pursue charges against internal affairs charges against the officers in eric garner's death. have police changed their

interaction tactics at all with potential suspects in the city? ave triedthink they h to implement some measures of community policing. meeting with residents, talking communityto have more policing where they would know the residents that they are supposed to be protecting. i am not sure, we have not seen, i don't think, an immediate effect in changes. i think people of color still african-americans are still targeted. stillten island, there's problems with that. i don't know, we might see changes moving forward, it is a good idea to have those talks, but when you have those talks it is a question of, how safety people feel in voicing their opinions? if you are from a community that's been targeted, you might

not feel safe in opening up about what's going on with policing. only certain people show up for those things. i think there has to be some structural level of changes, how police are trained, recruited, the types of people drawn to this have occupation. what kinds of training they are receiving, and more accountability. for example, the case of tamir rice, which was not in new york city, but the issues there were clear. this was an officer who i believe was fired from his previous job, and's supervisor wrote all sorts of troubling things about this man's mental, emotional health, yet he was still hired elsewhere, then shot tamir rice. there has to be more accountability in looking at, the police officers being hired and their behavior. we have taken this long to see any action on the eric garner case, so hopefully moving forward we will