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 pay more

attention. host: associate professor of sociologist baruch college at new york city-cuny. thanks for being part of our conversation. guest: thank you for having me. host: we are joined by shawn harper, from the west coast, with the university of southern california. we have been going across the country this morning, talking about relations, race relations and maybe more specifically police and community relations. give us a sense of how things are in the southern california region, on race relations? guest: thank you for having me. before i answer that question, i want to respond to something that a previous caller said in w e withe equated crim black people and suggested the reason there was no crime in his community was that there were no black people. i think that is part of the problem here. associations,e

implicit and explicit associations of black people with crime. the realities and facts are that poor people are more likely to commit crimes than are black people. people across all racial and ethnic groups commit crimes,; here is that it's not just black people cannotlack and should not continue to be the face of crime, criminal behavior in the country, which affects policing, right? if the only portrait of crime we have is a black one, then it causes police officers and school personnel officials in charge of safety in schools to always think of black people as deviant, as criminal. i think that leads to the kind of disproportionality that we

see in the criminal justice system. host: we start this morning, may be appropriately, looking at southern california, going back to 1989 and the rodney king beating. looking back, almost 30 years, how do you think things have improved? or have they? guest: one of the things i found most striking about your program this morning is that there has been a variety of views offered from every geographical region of the country, which i really appreciate. i think that sometimes people believe southern california, all of california, to be this incredibly liberal place where all of these residents from different racial, ethnic groups totally get along. that is not always the case, right? one of the things that came out thehe eruption that was rodney king tragedy was an understanding that not everyone

gets along. and that there is not enough dialogue about the realities and complexities of race and racism in our country. those of us in california read the same textbook says children in other parts of of the country, and consumed there for the same racial history, which is largely race-less. so even in a place that is politically more liberal, there are lots of people who are still largely undereducated about the realities and complexities of race. host: southern california might be different also, obviously a large concentration of the hispanic community, but the immigrant communities. vietnamese communities, even more recent communities. has that competition the racism issue there? guest: i don't think it has complicated the issue, but i do think it has created an

incredible opportunity for the state of california, and really for the rest of the country, to figure out how to facilitate opportunities for people to learn across racial and ethnic lines and to address some of the terrible racial misunderstandings that i have heard articulated on the show this morning. it has been really clear to me that people who have been courageous enough to call in and share their viewpoints with you, it is clear to me that they just, many of them are just largely under-educated about race, and you know, really have not had meaningful opportunities to interact with others across racial and ethnic groups. i think southern california really, you know, is a great orboratory, if you will, f cross-racial learning and meaningful interaction. host: as we wrap up our program,

tell us about you. you're the city director of a race and equity center at the university of southern california. what does your organization do? guest: we bring together researchers from across the university, more than 100 professors at usc who study race, racism, immigration, people of color, racial interactions and so on. and our aim is to be helpful to the nation as we continue to grapple with racism, and help people understand that racism is not just tiki torch carrying white nationalists or kkk members in white hoods, but racism is also historical, structural and his stomach. that is the kind of -- systemic. that is the kind of racial understanding that i think many of the people who called in this morning and too many americans across the country seemingly lack, and our aim is really to

educate the country on those very complicated, complex representations of racism. host: dr. shawn harper, university of southern california director of the race and equity center. appreciate you joining us from the west coast, capping our program this morning on "washington journal." guest: thank you. >> we don't live in the same part of the country. we don't have the same location, the same particular outlook, but where we are all the same, men of color, women of color, is the way we try to instill a sense of fear, you can call it respect, but a sense of fear as a sobering consequence of what could happen if interacting with the police goes wrong. >> tonight on "afterwords" hughley and actor dl shares his thoughts from his

book "how not to get shot and other advice from white people." >> how about a police department respectful of the people they work for? policewoman held to a higher standard than children? there is a certain point when children just don't listen. should they die for that? as ad we accept that, society? is that really the best we can do, to tell our children to be more responsible than the adults trained to serve their community? >> watch "afterwords" tonight at 9:00 p.m. eastern on c-span 2's book tv. c-span's "washington journal, " live every day with news and policy issues that impact you. monday morning, former education secretary and author arne duncan with his book on his three decades of experience in

education. then, former white house press secretary sean spicer on his new book about his time at the white house and president trump's relationship with the media. watch washington journal, live at 7:00 eastern monday morning. join the discussion. >> next, summer interns from the cato institute and heritage foundation take part in a debate on libertarianism versus conservatism. topics include immigration, foreign policy and the opioid epidemic. this is moderated by reason magazine. it is one hour, 40 minutes. >> good evening and welcome to the heritage foundation. i am the program associate of the young leaders internship program here at heritage. at this time, please take a moment to silence your phones, and other devices. it