tavis: good evening. from new york. i am tavis smiley. i am joined now bynely galán, founder of the adelante movement; dr. julianne malveaux, economist and president of bennett college; suze orman, a leading authority on personal finance; hilda solis, 25th u.s. secretary of labor; cecilia firethunder, former president of the oglala sioux tribe; faye wattleton, former national president of planned parenthood; randi weingarten, president of the american federation of teachers; and sheryl wudunn, pulitzer prizewinning writer and co-author of "half the sky." we are glad you joined us.

irv it's the cornerstone we all know. it's not just a street or boulevard, but a place where walmart stands together with your community to make every day better. >> aft, making a difference every day. pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. [applause] tavis: i have done these symposiums for years, and this

is the first time in my 20-year career i have been blessed to moderate a panel of all women, and i will tell you this is the most difficult symposium my people have helped me produce. trying to get focused on this, trying to get media attention about this. when you put together a panel of experts, i have a few friends and industry. it is not so difficult to get a platform and i need to talk about the impending conversation. this has been like pulling teeth, trying to get the focus on this issue. >> there are a number of areas in which black women fair least well. what we have not discussed is the enormity of the power of

popular culture and the media to define black women in terms that are not worthy of being an -- but we are not worthy of being perceived as the equal. the characterization's and stereotypes that are reinforced about black women in our society really conservative uprising among black women, and the popular culture and conversation all need to be challenged with respect to black women. [applause] tavis: i am glad you said that. suze, you are in honoring black women. >> the rumor is i am a black woman trapped in a white woman's body from south side chicago. >> the point about media that poverty is just a question,

particularly women and children in poverty, we do not find sexy enough to talk about, even though you talk about it every week. -- you talk about money every week. >> for 11 years i have had a show on cnbc. for the past for five years it has been the number one rated but you would not know it. you will not hear anyone talking about it, and you will see the support -- you will not see the supports of one of my stature should have, but i do not have it. as much as you think i do, i have to fight and crawl and they in scratch for every single thing i create, so women do not have a place in media,

especially business economic media. they do not have it the way they should, and i think when you 9, and because commo it is true, it is sad. there is only one dispute, and that is that you say women hold up half the sky. [laughter] ladies, we hold of the entire sky. [applause] tavis: i am just mincemeat, and all my fellow brethren, but i take your point. >> i want to answer your question, because i think the reason it is difficult to talk about poverty is because in a country whose god is money, and that is true -- when you

classify yourself as for, you might as well be a leper, so nobody wants to call themselves poor. tavis: but half of us are. praxair is part of our collective -- >> it is part of our collective but part of our collective we deny. what is going on is the values in this country have gone to and what we see in the media, what is going on with the republican debate is embarrassing, and what we see in the media and what we have seen over the last few years, what we put out in the world is money is gone, and if you do not have enough, you are nothing. we know women are the holders of

values, and we have to go back to upholding what is really good. when we say immigrants' children should not have education, and what happened to a country where we wanted all children to have education? it is painful to discuss. it is shameful in this country. it is not shameful to the core in other countries. who are you in our community. [applause] tavis: you respond in a way you want to respond. i take that point and agree. good luck side to thing that is why -- i do think the challenge of our times is a gender inequity.

it applies to the u.s. as well. part of its is the way we tell it. it is how you tell stories, and much more thought needs to go into how you tell stories. we tell individual stories of women who have faced challenges and come out of those challenges, and i think that is really important. you need to not only tell the story of the challenge but also the way out. tavis: if i say in my mind there is a bipartisan consensus in washington that poverty does not matter, that the poor do not

matter, there is a consensus in the town but the poor do not matter. >> that is the absolutely right. but as another word we do not talk about much, capitalism. we do not talk about the flaws of capitalism. let's be clear that capitalism creates poverty. the people that have paid a loans are making money off poor people -- have payday loans are making money off poor people. people with prepaid credit cards are making money off people. a man wrote a book called "support pay more region -- "the poor pay more." dr. martin luther king talked about economic structure. he said there are 40 million poor people and the country, and

you have to ask what kind of country creates 40 million poor people. you have to ask about the structure of our economy. we are only second to sweden in inequality of income distribution, and nobody wants to talk about -- if you talk to other people, they will say, this is class warfare where you begin to talk about the differences between who earns one or they need to work harder. there is no one harder working than an undocumented worker cleaning somebody's house and getting paid under the table. [applause] tavis: since you raise these prepaid cards, you have a card called the approved card and that is different from anything else. i want you to respond and tell us about what makes this card different.

>> there is a big business with people being poor. the more poor you are, the more you pay for insurance, the more you pay for everything, the more money they make of you, so i would not disagree about capitalism. there is a good side, and there is a horrific side, and that is true. when you are poor, you love bounced checks. when you have bounced checks, you cannot get a banking account. when you cannot get an account, how you get a card to transact business? you need a piece of plastic to order something off the internet, to go into the grocery store, but in the a business where many people brought what was known as prepaid cards, cards you did not have to qualify for, but they were

issued in you deposited money and use them. many of them are highway robbery. they charge you $35 to $50 a month to use them. how many of you have one of those? quite a few of view. i decided i was going to do something about it, and i created the approved card. if you use it away i asked you to use it, it will not cost more than $3 a month, and that is for the card, and so for 75 cents a month, you can pay your bills. i have never seen such opposition of outright lies from the television community, and from newspaper reporters, from

everybody saying if i succeed in this card, the banks fail. if i succeed in this card, the other people that have these prepaid cards and are making a fortune off view fails -- off you fail. you cannot get a credit scored if you use cash or a debit card. if this experiment works, 24 months from now it will go on to your credit report, and you will get a credit score for being a viable human being. you have to work with me because everybody else wants to this project to fail. if it starts to succeed, the $3 a month you have to pay will go away, because i wanted a car but was better than cash.

an >> i would be accused of class warfare, but i was just in china, singapore, and japan, and what is remarkable region we talked about the factories, and in our terms, they are sweat shops. in their terms, they are awkward and mobility, but they have in china and industrial -- they are upward mobility, but in china they have industrial policy. if we lost the auto industry, detroit would be dead, and what happened is they took a risk. the secretary joker risk, the unions of their risk, and you see this -- took a risk, the unions took a risk, and you see a remarkable change. i think we need more industrial policy. what we are saying is it is

important to shine the light so people do not feel ashamed, but it is equally important to have a set of strategies we go forward with, educational strategies, because it is our value in the united states of america to give us your tired and your support. and we are a country that will have the american dream, but we need those strategies, and i am listening to the amazing ladies on this panel. if we could end up having a set of strategies and we all occurs zero region we all purser, that would be a change.

we fight to keep schools open. you are right. we see it firsthand, but we have to have long term as well as short-term strategies. we also have to have a lifetime strategy. >> that brings me back to this discussion. our reservation, we have schools and colleges. did one thing we are doing is taking a hard look at educating our people to regard the western model created in washington, d.c., education when it began was only to do two things. speak english and the christian.

when the american government first educated who -- invested in education, it was not to teach us how to read and write. it was to speak english. today we are taking a hard look. it is our responsibility to look out where we have been, where we are, and where we need to go. we said education is the key to get out of poverty. not everyone can go to college. what kind of jobs to we need to train our people for?

we grow revive. part of the challenges to take a look at how we can change how we do work in the community and changing educational philosophy so it fits the needs of every community in america. >> just like there is a link between inadequate education and poverty, there is a link between the four halls -- between poor health and poverty. talk about that. link,re is an enormousl and it is tragic because we are also mothers of children, and when we are not healthy, and our children cannot possibly be healthier, yet most policy

programs are aimed five children -- aimed at children. we need to change that. we are the caregivers of our parents and the disabled. they will provide preventive services, meaning that the consumer does not have to put up a certain amount of money to get the care, and who would have imagined we would engage in a major national debate over whether contraceptive care would be included as a fundamental requirement? when i speak about health care, i said we have to also put into that category of freedom from violence against women in society.

the organization i co-founded a few years ago published a survey among 3300 women in which we thought we ran going to find the usual conversations we have had today for over two hours, economics, and when we came back and ask what you believe ought to be the number one issue of trust in this country, it was to stop violence against women, and it is a marker of how we value women in this country and our alth, when the only time we are concerned a of a woman's safety is when she has been physically injured or killed, and we do not much care about the circumstances of her own well-being with respect to safety and security, health security, unless there are

enormous threats to her well- being. praxair is also data that links the cycle of violence to -- >> there is also data that links the cycle of violence to poverty. don't >>, cited is the highest -- homicide is the highest among women. health ought to be the number one agenda. [applause] tavis: one of the other issues i want to get to today that we did not get to -- you reference to dr. king earlier, and he once famously said war is the enemy of the fopoor. that is true for all poor people, but it is particularly true for women and children, because those resources squandered abroad end of not

being available at home. >> that is how he looked out war. capitalism, because who makes money from the war? and what we notice is among women who unlisted, 45% are african-american. -- who enlisted, 45% are african-american. we have people who love their children with their mother because they wanted to enroll in war and -- who left their children with their mother because they wanted to enroll in war. the next thing you know they are in afghanistan somewhere. when you talk about violence against women, it is economic violence. patriarchy allows economic violence against women with the

situation we are put in, the sexual harassment, and people say to go away, quit. some people cannot afford to quit, so we have to be more united. we have excepted a structure that discriminates against us systematically. it starts with the music videos. i had 2000 students one day, it is not against a loss for you to cover your body is -- i had to tell students one day, it is not against a loss for you to cover your body. war stock's huge resources from our economy, and women and children pay the price. >> condi said poverty is the worst form of violence. -- ghandi said poverty is the worst form of violence. tell me why in this particular

moment with all the numbers not giving us reason to be optimistic whether or not you are hopeful and whether women and children should be hopeful. >> i am hopeful. starting tomorrow we are going to celebrate the passage of the affordable care act where latino women and children are being courted in phenomenal numbers. this is a time when finally the president got something done. poor people are reaping the benefits. 3.9 private million -- private- sector -- 3.9 million private- sector jobs have been created. part of it is because people have confidence, optimism, and hope, and i believe the numbers can improve if we empower each other and make sure we are sharing and are really standing up and that we hear the voices of the public.

our destinies are wrapped up together. it is all of us working together as a community. tavis: i am delighted to be here on this issue. one more time for our panel. i want to thank everyone here at nyu and this curveball center for performing arts. things to all of you for being here for this conversation. -- thanks to all of you for being here for this conversation. g >> for more information on today's show, visit tavis smiley at pbs.org. tavis: hi, i'm tavis smiley. join me next time for a look at the supreme court battle over president obama's health care plan. that is next time. we will see you then.

>> every community has a martin luther king boulevard. it's the cornerstone we all know. it's not just a street or boulevard, but a place where walmart stands together with your community to make every day better. >> making a difference every day. >> and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you.