good evening, americans. welcome to the ed show, i'm michael eric dyson in for ed schultz. republicans held the country hostage to cut spending and hurt today republican leadership admitted it. this is "the ed show," and as ed would say, let's get to work. in a very coordinated effort, the far left is once again trying to marginalize the tea party. >> republican leadership is in on bill o'reilly's left wing conspiracy theory. today mitch mcconnell admitted that the gop held the country hostage. bill maher weighs in. and then there's the other republican hostage crisis. the faa shutdown is killing thousands of jobs. we'll have the latest. and in minnesota, a student is suing her high school for allowing kids to hold an annual wigger day. the girl's mother is my guest and she'll explain her case.

the level of right wing victimization over hostage are at a fevered pitch. republicanare crying foul because vice president biden allegedly referred to the tea party as terrorists. he denies he used the word. that doesn't stop sarah palin from playing the victim. >> heck, sean, if we were real domestic terrorists, president obama would be wanting to pal around with us, wouldn't he? he didn't have a problem palling around with bill ayers back in the day. >> the only other republican politician who's used more reckless and politically charged words than palin is her pal michele bachmann. the congressman who went to the house floor and accused the democrats of runni a gangster government, also bemoaned by these nonquotes. bachman is using it to raise money. this line was in a fund-raising e-mail she sent out yesterday. i am offended by vice president

biden's irresponsible words. and need your immediate support to defend myself and fellow tea party members right away. the attack on biden for an unsubstantiated quote isn't the only game in town. the king of no spin is accusing me and other liberals of unfairly equating the debate over the debt ceiling bill to a hostage taking operation by the republican party. mr. o'reilly took offense to my analogy on his program last night. >> they tried to brand the tea party racists, but that attempt failed as the election last november indicated. now the uber left are at it again, trying to say the party is like terrorists. >> these tea party guys are wearing dynamite in times square at the height of rush hour. you tell me how those kind of stand-offs happen.

>> once having been successful at blindfolding the american public, putting a gun to the president's head, forcing him to read into law or to sign into law this extraordinary act of i think unpatriotic and irrational frenzy, i think that they're emboldened. >> any faction in america, that would put a gun to the head of 310 million people and say if you don't do it our way, we will blow your dreams away, we will blow a hole in the american economy, that is unamerican. >> notice the nearly identical language used by those three individuals. there is no question that the designers of far left propaganda are very well coordinated. >> nobody in business, and i do mean nobody, can fake outrage like my good friend bill o'reilly. i used a metaphor to describe republican tactics, o'reilly and his kind have it actually

accused president obama of associating with the terrorists. there's a huge difference. beyond that, my analogy was spot on. if you don't believe me, take a look at what the minority leader of the united states senate had to say. republican mitch mcconnell said -- "i think some of our members may have thought the default issue was a hostage you might take a chance at shooting, he said. most of us didn't think that. what we did learn is this, it's a hostage that's worth ransoming. and it focuses the congress on something that must be done." isn't it amazing and just plain hypocritical, that the folk who have most of the power, do most of the griping about not having power, republicans and other conservatives constantly blast the liberals, leftists and minorities for playing the victim card. and yet if playing the victim card won any awards, the right wing would take home the oscar, they don't want to own up to what they did, which amounted to something like -- and that's a key word here, suggesting that an analogy is in the building. economic and legislative terrorism.

the word terror comes from a latin word meaning to frighten. i don't know about you, but the tea party republicans sure frightened the heck out of most americans when they pushed the country to the brink of financial catastrophe. they held the debt ceiling negotiations hostage to their outrageous calls to cut spending while generating no new revenue through taxes. to paraphrase a patron saint of the right, now, theri go again. what's wrong with me? i'm using the word hostage and ruffling the feathers of the right wing. poor babies, they took this nation hostage, when they placed their partisan and parochial beliefs above the good of this country. they hijacked -- oh, my god i just can't stop it -- a routine gesture in the past, between democrats and republicans of raising the debt ceiling and

loaded on their imperious demands to make the rest of the nation join their philosophy. what's that philosophy? rewarding huge corporations, stuffing theoffers of the rich, and kissing bye the imagination of the americans. and the laboring poor, who work 40 hours a week and still can't make it above the poverty line. the wealthy rub their bellies and pat the heads of those in congress. they're sipping tea while the rest of america is trying to find a suitable beverage to dull the economic pain we've had to endure. the right wing juswouldn't listen to reason, they were completely unwilling to compromise. it was like they held a gun to the head of the nation, forced us to read a note pledging our faith to an economic austerity that is little more than a

heartless attack on the most vulnerable in our nation. and when the crisis was over, they got mad that we called them out for what they really are, so now they want us to have the stockholm syndrome too? where we empathize with our hostage takers? that's where i draw the line. the right wing may act like terrorists, but i refuse to play patty hearst, and bill o'reilly, my friend, can you believe i'm in a no spin zone. joining me now is my very good friend bill maher, host of hbo's "realtime with bill maher." thanks for coming on the show. >> anything for you, mike. >> thank you, my friend. despite blow back from the right wing saying that leftists and liberals who compare the tea party hostage takers were wrong, mitch mcconnell today admitted his party acted like hostage takers during the debt ceiling negotiations. do you agree? >> i think anyone who's sane agrees. i don't see any could be controversy there at all.

a lot of people have been calling them hostage takers for a long time fp if we shoot the hostage, it's not that bad for the hostage, that was their idea about the debt ceiling, right? if we default, you know, it's not the end of the world. which to me is the equivalent of saying, we have the hostage, if we shoot them in the head, it's not that bad for the hostage. >> it's crazy. >> yeah. >> well, maybe they're boning up by looking at ransom, an old mel gibson movie to figure out how to get this thing done right. what's your response to palin and bachman playing the victim over the alleged joe biden terrorist comments? >> well, surprised as i was to see palin and bachman saying and doing something ridiculous and hypocritical, i would say for them, it's par for the course. but, you know, i don't know why

these people are always in need of being the victim. i guess that's part of the mentality if you're in the tea party and if you're the kind of person that wants to join the tea party. it's always the alamo, mike. they're always with their back against the wall. i think what threatens them the most is winning. which they just did big time. boehner bragging, they got 98% of what they wanted. but that takes away their victim status. i think just for the sake of fair play, to make it interesting, once in a while, they should let obama win one. because otherwise it's just boring and the other kids go home. >> do you think that michele bachmann can really ride victimhood to the presidential nomination of her party? >> absolutely not. i think the republican nomination is going to come down to man know mano-a-mano.

as soon as rick perry gets in, he will suck up all the -- or most of the crazy vote that's divided now between bachman and santorum and whatever other mouth breathing wing nuts are out there. i know there's a lot of them on the republican side. i haven't memorized the whole roster. i think rick perry quickly becomes that part. and then it's -- you know, it's the old school plutocratic wing of the republican party represented by mitt romney, the scummy business side of it with the crazy teabagger side of it. someone will combine those, the scummy business and the crazy teabagger and they'll be scumbag >> if rick perry ends up absorbing all of the right wing tea party conservatism of michelle palin that leads michele bachmann -- if mitt romney is the front-runner, do

you think republicans -- the base, that is, are ever really truly going to place their faith in the guy who's a mormon? >> no. that's what's going to be so interesting, is when rick perry and sly and underhanded and no fingerprints methods starts putting out the idea, which is a true idea, by the way, that mormons are not really christians -- you know, once america, which is a very christian nation, finds that out, i think they'll have a -- certainly in the evangelical part of the country, those folks -- they will not be very fond of mitt romney. once they find out that jesus christ is like third in the hierarchy there, it really was about joseph smith. mormonism is closer to islam, because in islam jesus is a revered figure, he's a wonderful prophet, he's just not the ultimate prophet, he's not the

headliner. when they find out that about the mormons, i don't think they're going to like him. and then mitt romney will play the how dare you denegrate my faith card. i can't wait for this one. i think when this gets going, i should rerelease religious. >> i think he'll play the religion card. the republicans are trying to vet who they think is going to be the front-runner, and obama at the same time is said to be losing his mojo. recent polls suggest that the base thinks pretty highly of him. those who are supportive of him, 83%, despite claims that he's lost his mojo, if reagan was the teflon president, obama appears to be the titanium man. and if clinton is the comeback kid, obama is the never say die kid. do you think anyone in the republican party could beat president obama in a head to head match?

>> absolutely i do. especially where the economy is going. they're getting what they want. they want the economy to tank, because that's their best ticket to beat obama. and the bill they just forced him to sign is a great start to ensure that we have this double dip recession, and that unemployment stays high, and that nothing is moving in the economy. they're choking the recession in the crib. that's just what they want to do. and obama signed along with it, i just don't understand this man, this idea -- let's go half in on a really bad republican idea. why is he parroting their talking points on economics all the time instead of presenting the counter argument? i mean, maybe he's doing well in the polls, he's not doing well in this poll. you know, and i don't think i'm alone. i think for a lot of people who like obama and always will like

obama. we love him as a person, you know, he's such a breath of fresh air as a president, a hip, smart law professor. you know, but -- there's just something missing there, as far as the way he fights back. unless he's just more conservative than we thought. whatever it is, i have to tell you, the magic is gone. after the bush tax cuts, he rolled over on that and a number of other things. and this latest one, he has no credibility with me. i heard him the other day, getting right back on the podium saying, now we need tax increases, we need to get some revenues and those corporate jet owners and the oil companies, it's like, wait a second, i just heard this for three months and you gave up on all of it, and didn't get any of it. why would you get it now? why would the bully now give you what you want? >> well, let's talk a bit more about obama when we come back from a break. bill, stay right where you are. we'll have more with bill maher next.

tonight the president is celebrating his birthday at a fund raiser in chicago. up next, i'll ask bill maher to give the president some birthday advice. and more than 70,000 people are out of work, and the taxpayers are on the hook for more than a billion dollars. all because congress has yet another hostage situation on its hands. we'll have the latest on the faa shutdown. [ female announcer ] think all bodywashes moisturize the same? challenge that thinking with olay. ♪ there's more than a jar of olay moisturizers

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bill maher and i will talk about whether the president needs to drop the no drama obama routine. you're watching the ed show on msnbc. ibilities. excuse me? my grandfather was born in this village. [ automated voice speaks foreign language ] [ male announcer ] in here, everyone speaks the same language. ♪ in here, forklifts drive themselves. no, he doesn't have it. yeah, we'll look on that. [ male announcer ] in here, friends leave you messages written in the air. that's it right there.

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welcome back to the ed show. let's bring bill maher back, host of hbo's "realtime with bill maher." take a look at what speaker boehner said to cbs news. >> when you look at the final agreement we came to with the white house. i got 9% of what i wanted, i'm pretty happy. >> you know, bill, if a party has got 98% of what they want, why are they belly aching and kevetching now about democrats who say they're hostage takers, they got 98% of what they want, according to the man who leads their party. >> they need that sense of victimhood, that is their identity, they always have to be fighting the man, and i don't know if they know how to be winners. look at how they're sort of cannibalizing their own.

who's crazy enough these days to be pure enough for the tea party? their threat is always to primary each other. if you don't fall in line, we will primary you, we will find someone even nuttier. they went after alan west, the guy from florida. when he said he would vote for one of the boehner plans, they said, okay, we'll find someone who is pure enough for us. if he's not pure enough for you, have you to shop pretty hard for crazy. >> obama seems to be in a tough position. on the one hand people say, we want a guy who steps up, an angry black man is not what got obama where he is today. on the other hand, if he capitulates to the right wing, he's seen as a wimpish president.

how does a guy who is trying to appeal to the masses of america, who are angry and at the same time step up and be presidential. how do you balance those two? >> i think he has to give up on the worries about looking like the angry black man. because maybe that's what's been holding him back the whole time. i understand the concern there, and i understand that we live in a country that has still a lot of racism, especially racism among people who don't even know they're being racist and what their perceiving might be racist. but you have to pick your poisons here. if that's what has been the problem all along with obama, and i think it is, then he's got to throw that out the window. it can't get any worse than it is. i saw right after they made the deal, or maybe it was the day

before, obama went out there and said, you know, i've been working with john boehner, he's very reasonable, says nice things about him. and boehner comes out and says, well, you know, that obama, he's a muslim socialist out to destroy america. and he's just too nice to these people. his approach from the very beginning. first of all, he screwed it up in the first 100 days. everything was too halfway. he should have come into office saying, we are in a crisis mode. it's 1933, i'm fdr, we -- you voted for radical change and here it is, he never did that. and that's the problem he finds himself in now, is that he goes along with really what the other side does. i said this a few months ago on our, show much, wouldn't it be a shame if four years of democratic rule came to an end without ever trying democratic policies is? that's really the situation we're in. everything is a republican

policy, including the stimulus, which was something like 40% tax cuts, it was never big enough, he gets all the blame when it doesn't work or doesn't work well enough, and people will say, a democrat was president, the economy was bad when he came in, and he left it bad, because the democrats are not good at running an economy, and i would say, well, a democrat who uses republican policies is not good at it. >> well, bill, finally, look, obama turns 50 tomorrow. if you were standing around the birthday cake, what would you wish for him to help this nation forward? >> i would tell him just flip the script, stop worrying about being liked by the conservatives, it's never going to happen. you're the wrong age, the wrong party, the wrong color. there's a good 40% of this country that wouldn't vote for you if you personally saved them from drowning.

so get rid of that baggage, stop caring about the people who will never vote for you anyway, and be a strong liberal democratic president. you're 50 now, you owe it to yourself and us. >> that's bill maher, host of hbo's "realtime with bill maher." thanks for joining us today. >> my pleasure. >> the right wing has a new kind of birther, this time they want you to believe that birth control will cause the decline of western civilization. and president obama is going on the road to talk about jobs, and he's urging congress to get on board. republicans are choosing to call him a wet blanket instead. [ man ] they said i couldn't win a fight.

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the obama administration is requiring new health insurance plans to cover patient's birth control costs. yesterday, a u.s. congressman went to the floor of the house, not only to denounce the plan, but to denounce the very idea of birth control. >> they called it preventative medicine. preventative medicine. well, if you apply that preventative medicine universally, what you end up with is you prevented a generation. preventing babies from being born is not medicine. it's not constructive to our culture and our civilization. if we let our birth rate get below the replacement rate we're a dying civilization.

>> allow me to help the congressman understand why birth control is conservative. contraception reduces the number of abortions, and saves states billions of dollars a year in costs related to unwanted pregnancy. in congressman king's world, this leads to a dying civilization. in reality, it leads to financial savings and improved women's health. congress is on vacation, but tons of thousands of workers are jobless because of political gains in washington. kids at a minnesota high school turn a school dressup day into wigger day. one african-american student is suing her alma mater for not stopping it.

we cannot compare labor management relations in the private sector with government. government cannot close down the assembly line. it has to provide without interruption the protective services which are government's reason for being. >> that was president reagan exactly 30 years ago today. at the time, he was threatening the striking air traffic controllers union. but today it sounds like he could be talking directly to congress. congress did not pass a routine funding extension for the federal aviation administration before going on vacation. nearly 75,000 workers were laid off and it's costing the government $1.2 billion. transportation secretary ray lahood, a former republican congressman mind you is outraged. >> on 20 other occasions congress did not hold hostage 75,000 people. what they did, they passed a clean bill.

congress could come back, they cod come back today or tomorrow. compromise, pass a clean bill, work out your differences. >> joining me now is laura flanders, the host of grit tv on free speech tv. she's also editor of the book at the tea party. welcome to the show. >> nice to be with you. >> explain what's going on here, how we have republicans who have turned a simple funding vote on to an assault on worker's rights, and they've come out with a victory on the debt ceiling. >> you are in serious danger of having to use that hostage taker word again. we have, as ray lahood said, he's talking about 20 times raising the budget for the faa, routinely -- in the last few years, and yet this is being held -- there's two things going on, one is a fight around small regional airports, and surprise, surprise, the gop wants to shut

down ones in democratic controlled areas. the other is a labor issue. that the republicans have tied the renewal of funding to a move that would restore a type of eviceration of fair labor practices, having to do with union votes. taking us back a decade or more. they have refused to move forward unless these fair union rules are eviscerated. and they've run out of town. the amazing thing about this, these are people who said they hate deficits. this is costing the u.s. treasury some $35 million a day. clearly as other people said today, they hate deficits, and they hate workers worse. >> right. well, republicans are blaming the senate for not passing the house funding bill. if the senate doesn't pass the bill, if they don't agree on the amendments, why don't they just pass a temporary fding measure that will fill in the gaps? >> this has been proposed, reid, schumer, they've all been out

there over the last few days saying, we're prepared to make contentions on the regional airport part of it, for example. somehow the democrats are getting blamed for saying, stop beating up on us, stop having these additional requirements. it's like the wife being blamed when she says, wait a minute, you can't keep beating me like this, i'm not going to do what you say. democrats are standing up, they could have a little help from their leaders. barack obama talks about congress being the problem. it's not congress, it's the republicans. >> well, do you see any similarities in this attempt to weaken unions and reagan's strike breaking 30 years ago saw on t camera? >> we have to be careful. it's not air traffic controllers affected in this case, but there are safety workers bei required to come in or expected to come in and work, they may or may not be paid, that's different even from reagan's time. when people were furloughed like that, they were guaranteed to be paid at the end of the day, have you 4,000 peopleut there right

now, who do not know when their next paycheck is going to come in, it's all about weakening unions, all about weakening unions, and this gets us back to the fight that we're engaged in and you've been talking about. this is a big ideological fight, by a bunch of people, bill fletcher talks about kamikaze pilots. these people they don't want to govern. they want to do damage, they are on an agenda here. they're on a flight path, if you will, where they don't care if the plane goes down. it's cruel to -- it's hard for a lot of us to get our heads around that, but i think that's what we're looking at. this is about destruction. and union destruction is a big piece of it, destroying the power of working people. i mean, this debt agreement that we just saw is one that leaves 26 million people without full time work who want it, there is nothing in our situation right now in that debt ceiling agreement that is going to do anything to stop it being 45

million people looking for full time work six months from now. >> thank you, laura flanders as always. we appreciate your time. >> you're welcome. president obama is urging congress to cooperate to create jobs. but republicans are still more interested in getting tax cuts for the rich than in helping americans get back to work. the president of the teamsters union james hoffa sounds of next. who steal chocolate temptations. aaah! [ all scream ] nice job, chocobeast! [ male announcer ] temptations. it's the first jell-o just for adults. helps defends against occasional constipation, diarrhea, gas and bloating. with three strains of good bacteria to help balance your colon. you had me at "probiotic." [ female announcer ] phillips' colon health.

the ed show and the national association of free clinics are teaming up to hold their next health clinic on august 29th in new orleans, louisiana. msnbc viewers have funded seven previous clinics around the country. your donations will help bring vital health services to people in new orleans. visit freeclinics.us. you can also text the word

health to 50555 to make a $10 donation by cell phone. up next, the president prepares to hit the road to promote job growth legislation. the gop hits the road with their new talking points. stay tuned, you're watching the ed show. ork. a network of possibilities. excuse me? my grandfather was born in this village. [ automated voice speaks foreign language ] [ male announcer ] in here, everyone speaks the same language. ♪ in here, forklifts drive themselves. no, he doesn't have it. yeah, we'll look on that. [ male announcer ] in here, friends leave you messages written in the air. that's it right there. [ male announcer ] it's the at&t network. and what's possible in here is almost impossible to say. from the teachers to the students. i had a student the other day that said... "miss stacy, this class is changing the way that i look at things." sparking that interest

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i hope we can avoid another self-inflicted wou like we just saw over the last couple weeks. we don't have time to play these partisan games. we've got too much work to do. over the next several months, i hope congress is focused on what the american people are focused on. making sure that the economy's growing. >> that was president obama earlier this evening speaking at his 50th birthday fund-raising party in chicago. the president plans to emphasize his renewed focus on jobs with

the three-day bus tour across the midwest, starting on august 15th. yesterday obama urged congress to follow his lead and get back to work on the economy with legislative measures like the extension of payroll tax cuts and unemployment benefits. republicans have already dismissed most of obama's suggestions. and gop leaders are distributing their own marching orders as congress heads home for the august recess. senate republican conference chairman is sending his members off with talking points written on handy pocket cards. one side of the card tells republicans how to sell their agenda. it says "we' make it better. making it easier and cheaper to create private sector jobs." the other side of the card is what republican leaders want their members to say about president obama. he's making it worse, a big wet blanket on the economy. get ready to hear a lot of wet blanket talk in republican town hall meetings this month.

meanwhile, house republicans have released a supposedly new jobs plan, but it sounds a lot like the old policies. deregulation, tax cuts, oil drilling and more spending cuts. it sounds like the same old policies. guess what, because it is the same old policies. this plan was released in may. now it just has a shiny new website to promote the same failed policies that got us where we are today. it will take more than a bus tour for the president to convince these guys to play ball on job creation. with me now is james hoffa, general president of the international brotherhood of teamsters. mr. hoffa, welcome to the show >> nice to be here. >> what do you want to hear from president obama on his upcoming jobs tour of the midwest. what would tickle your fancy? >> well, number one, i'd like to have him have a real policy. and basically come up with something that articulates getting this trillions of dollars that corporations have

right now, and making them start to hire americans, build plants in this country, stop sending jobs overseas, propose changing the tax law that's going to penalize people that send jobs out of this country. when he's on that bus tour, i wish he could go to wisconsin and get involved in the wisconsin rates. and he ought to go to ohio and start mobilizing those people. those are the people that are ready to fight that we're going on -- fight that's going on to get jobs back in america, to keep unions alive. he's got to get involved in that, he's got to go to his base right now, he has to mobilize his base, mobilize working families to be involved in creating jobs in america. merck just announced they made record profits and are laying off 13,000 people. does that make any sense? that's what's going on. the more money they make, the more they lay off. or they send it to mexico or china. we have to change that policy by having one that basically penalizes companies that send this out.

we have to appeal to a nationalistic streak in the corporate people to say, hey, what are you doing laying off americans? make them ashamed of what they're doing to this country. they laid off 8 million people just since the recession, and we have to get those jobs back here. we have to start turning this thing around, and he's not articulating that. he can't be afraid to go to wisconsin, ohio, and say i'm with you, i stand with rebuilding america. getting family jobs back, getting america going again and mobilize his base instead of just going on in giving these speeches. >> it's a two-way street, right? the president has to be more articulate about the things he needs to be articulate about, especially when it come to distribution of resources. and, of course, job creation. on the other hand, you have a congress that just went through this whole debate about the debt ceiling crisis. do you have any confidence that congress will be supportive of any kind of job creation? and whether the president will

be able to muster, if you call it the muscle and the power to go out and make that kind of argument in the way that you think he failed to do, perhaps during the debt crisis? >> well, what he's got to do is start mobilizing people right now, maybe this is going to be about the 2012 election. this is the issue, make this the issue in the election. we just did this in upstate new york, where we took back what it would basically be, a republican seat. it can be done. let's expose them for what they are, the trickle down economics. how they want to destroy a social security, medicare, medicaid, make those the issues, that's how we're going to get congress back, so we can start getting an economic policy that will put america back to work maybe he's not going to get it done on the next couple weeks, he's got to start laying the basis for the 2012 election, to say, this is what this is about, this is how we're going to take it back. maybe we can get the house back, we already have the senate, and make it stronger. i don't think we should be in retreat right now, people are responding around the country. people are outraged what's

happening, what they just saw with the hostage taking with regard to the debt ceiling, with regard to unemployment, and now with the faa bill, on and on and on, we're going to see more of that. he's got to turn that tide and say, we're going to take back the congress, because we're going to run on a policy that makes sense for working families, he's not doing that, he has to be more articulate and say, hey, we're taking back the congress so i can put you back to work. that's a simple message and he can do it. >> thank you, mr. hoffa. thank you so much for joining us. working with barack obama is like touching a tar baby? that's what one republican had to say about the president. anybody home?

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the election of the first african-american president led some in this country to declare the beginning of a post racial age. they did so prematurely.

>> even if some people say, well, the republicans should have done this or they should have done that. they will hold the president responsible. now, i don't want to even have to be associated with him. it's like touching a tar baby and you get it -- you're stuck and you're part of the problem now. >> that was colorado congressman doug lamborn talking about compromising with the president on the debt ceiling. at first he thought he said nothing wrong. >> his office was flooded with phone calls. he told me he didn't know the phrase he used had a negative racial connotation. >> the tar baby was used to trap brare rabbit in a story. he said he meant to use quagmire instead of tar baby. congressman lamborn sent a

personal letter to president barack obama for using a term some find insensitive. he is confident the president will accept his heartfelt apology. coming up, wigger day, it's become a tradition in a predominantly white high school in minnesota. i'll talk to the mother of a former student suing the district for racial insensitivity. i found one that uses robots instead of real people. 'cuz robots work for free. robot 1:good morning... robot 1:...female child. sfx: modem dial-up noise woman: flaws? yeah, um, maybe. anncr: there's an easier way to save. anncr: get online. go to geico.com. get a quote. 15 minutes could save you 15% or more on car insurance.

allow me to play tony morris of the novelist. it was homecoming week 2009, and here's how students at one minnesota high school chose to show their school spirit. >> it's part of homecoming week, kids were allowed to dress in tropical clothing, instead, 60 to 70 students took part in what they're calling wigger day or wangster day. >> that was not a one-time incident. and now one red wing high school graduate kyra pruitt is suing the school district over creating a hostile and racist educational environment. she was just one of a few african-american students at the predominantly white school. she filed the suit on behalf of all students who experienced discrimination as a result of wigger day. for those unsure of what the term means, it's a derogatory

term used to describe a white person who mimics black hip-hop culture. officials did require the students to change their clothes immediately, no more punishment was followed, but the district does plan to use the incident to teach tolerance. according to the lawsuit, that plan to teach tolerance never happened. joining me now is kyra pruitt's mother, maxine true it. welcome to the show. >> why thank you for having me. >> yes, ma'am. so when your daughter came home and told you what had happened at school, what was your initial reaction? >> at first i was a little shocked. but i was also a little upset because she came home in tears, because these were students she had gotten to know. and were actually friends with a few of them. >> was she very surprised? was she shocked? was she ambushed by this? or did she expect this kind of behavior out of her school mates?

>> she was angry by it. she didn't expect this type of behavior from the students at the school. >> right. the lawsuit says this was not a one-time incident. do you believe the district officials and teachers were aware of the racial implications? were they sensitive to it? or do you think they mostly ignored them? >> they were aware that the wednesday of the homecoming week had been deemed wigger day several years before, and when i talked to the officials about it, it was like -- it's just kids having fun, you know? it was like, they didn't take it -- the seriousness of it. >> right. now, i think that the city in which the school resides is something like 94% white and 1% black. they're not a great number of black people there. do you think this accounts for

the kind of racial insensitivity there? >> exactly. absolutely. because there were only like -- maybe five african-american kids in quera's senior class. having lived down south, this type of behavior, we just couldn't believe that it was allowed to happen. and the students at the school are -- they're not used to a diverse population, because most of them have spent their entire life in the town. when we moved here, it was culture shock to quera and i, some of the behaviors we have witnessed. >> since you were a southerner and you grew up in the south, did you do anything special to prepare her for the potential problem that might arise because she was a strict minority in a

dominant majority situation? >> absolutely. because i went to school during desegregation in the 60s, and i knew that she would face these problems, when we got to red wing, and i prepared her by telling her the stories of how i was called the n word every day, and there was never anything done about it. and in my heart, i knew that i could not let this type of behavior happen to my child because she has someone to speak up for her, she has me. >> right. well, she's -- >> this type of behavior -- this wigger day stuff is just unheard of, you know? it's -- i was in desegregation as i said, every day you get called that, and there was no one to turn to.

well, i decided at red wing, and being a mother of this child, that came home in tears that i needed to step forward and make a difference. >> right. and do you blame any of the black popular culture, hip-hop culture. the proliferation of the use of the n word as a background to this? or do you think this is something they do regardless? >> no, i think this is something that's just done regardless. >> and so what do you think the school system should do? what kind of action should they take to make certain that nothing like this ever happens again? >> well, i -- the story that i like to tell, quera went to school with a scarf one day, i received a phone call from the school on my job that she was wearing head gear, and they didn't know what kind of message she was portraying. when the student population came dressed and calling it wigger