® because zyrtec® starts working at hour 1 on the first day you take it. claritin® doesn't start working until hour 3. zyrtec®. love the air. calling cajun catholics. today is your day as my home state of louisiana gets the say. how will politics, god and the pope come into play? plus, a pop quiz and get ready to test your knowledge of who said it? newt gingrich or kayne west? and can a pill cure racism and change your politics or all just crazy talk? but first the quest for justice continues. good morning, i'm melissa harris-perry. last week i asked if the name trayvon martin meant anything to you. after weeks of outcries by the

family and lawyers and total strangers marching in hoodies the show the solidarity, i am hoping it does. the slaying of trayvon martin has pierced the come play sen ti that meets the untimely deaths of young black men and boys, and trayvon martin's youth and bright future and the seeming innocence and the nightmarish screams have stirred up a calderon of anger and anguish and demand for the answers. since george zimmerman killed trayvon martin on february 26th, the outrage has been growing, and we are finally beginning to see some results. on monday, the justice department opened up an independent investigation. wednesday night, the sanford city commission voted 3-2 that they had no confident in the police chief bill lee. lee felt the pressure and made this announcement on thursday. >> well, while i stand by the sanford police department, its personnel and the investigation that was conducted in regards to the trayvon martin case, it is apparent that my involvement in this matter is overshadowing the

process. therefore, i have come to the decision that i must temporarily remove myself from the position as police chief for the city of sanford. >> and the country is rallying. new york, oakland, milwaukee and washington, d.c. have each held marches in support of getting justice for trayvon, and why the national outrage? multifaceted. first the history, before trayvon, there was sean bell, and oscar grant and like trayvon each of the innocent young men was shot and killed while unarmed. they each left behind grieving families who were forced to deal with the untimely and sensitive deaths. then the policy, have you heard of stop and frisk? the 1968 supreme court ruling in "terry versus ohio" allows the police to stop and frisk any person on the street based on reasonable suspicion, and it is a practice the new york city police department and

between 2004 and 2011 nine of ten of the new yorkers stopped were completely innocent. according to the new york civil liberties union, furthermore, the bulk of those stopped were african-american and latino. then there are the laws. state laws that can lead to deaths like trayvon's. and since florida's adoption of the stand your ground law, 20 other states have adopted laws to allow citizens to use deadly force when threatened outside of the home. the florida version was crafted in 2005 by darrelle peden, baxley, but according to "the miami herald," they don't believe that zimmerman should have immunity, and they don't believe however that the law needs to be repealed. but the state legislator who is from the district of trayvon's mother does.

president obama weighed in on the case yesterday. >> if i had a son, he'd look like trayvon, and they are right to expect that all of us as americans are going to take this with the seriousness that it deserves, and that we are going to get to the bottom of exactly what happened. >> let's be clear. in order for the justice department to bring federal charges, they have to prove that trayvon's civil rights were violated and that the shooting was a hate crime and hence the focus on the 911 recordings that called zimmerman's possible use of a racial slur into question. now a florida grand jury will hear evidence on his case and so we wait until june 10th. let's begin now talking about it. joining me is a professor of psychiatry of vanderbilt university and author of "protest psychosis," and nicole

pole belt, and the president of the nonprofit group when it is real, it is forever, and she lost her fiance sean bell on their wedding day in 2006. first to sanford, florida, and ron allen who has been covering the story there. ron. >> good morning, melissa, how are you? >> good morning. obviously, all of us are shaken and watching what is happening, and shaken and angry, but i want to know if there are new developments this morning that we haven't heard about? >> i think that the biggest new development is that there's an attorney who is speaking out on behalf of george zimmerman. we have not heard his side of the story in a lot of detail, and this attorney has not had a lot to say, but he has said that zimmerman still maintains his innocen innocence. he is aware of the national outrage, and he is under a lot of stress and advised his client to remain in hiding because of the various death threats out there, he says. he also says that zimmerman was

injured in the incident saying that he was injured when he fell on the ground of a fight with trayvon martin, and that he was a victim as well. so there is some of that out there which somewhat changes the conversation somewhat because we have not heard that side of the story, and of course, it remains to be seen who plooes th s thbe side of the story versus the cops and the family and the supporters. >> okay. ron, stay with us, because i want to turn to the table. nicole, thank you so much for being here. and you know, obviously, we had asked you to come to join the panel to discuss trayvon martin's case, but overnight, there was a dwoevelopment in th case of your fiance sean bell who has been nearly six years now, is that right? >> this year is going to be six years since sean was taken from us. >> killed, unarmed by police officers who were not in uniform here in the city of new york, and we learned today that it is in "the new york times" today that the officer in the bell

killings is fired and three others are going to be forced out. so, we are in a process now just a month into this trayvon martin case, how does this, does this make any difference to you, this new development six years later in your own case? >> well, it gives us a little -- just a tad bit of a warm feeling, because i have to say that it has been six years. you know, and my daughters have gotten bigger, and time has passed and it should not take six years for these officers who committed this crime in an instant, this killing of an innocent man and wounding of other innocent men, and just basically terrorizing the neighborhood. these men should have been thrown off of the force. they proved that they weren't trustworthy and that no one who made those decisions should be allowed to use a deadly weapon, and use their own discretion. my family is now having to suffer because of that.

it seems like six years is a long time to everyone else, but to us, it really feels like it just happened. >> of course, because sean was your beloved. >> absolute ly. >> and then he was gone. >> and adam, you have been following and writing about, because i follow your writings from mother jones who is now one of the most important explainers of what happened here. so maybe walk through a little bit on the trayvon martin case. what are the things that people listening ought to know so that we are hearing from ron allen that there is maybe another side of the story, and obviously, nicole, you know in your case there was always a notion that there was another side and what do people following this story need to know, adam? >> well, the important thing is to understand the distinction between sort of regular self-defense claims and the florida law which is that the florida law does something really, really strange is that it asks the police to make a factual determination and not say at trial where you are supposed to make those sorts of things, but it asks them to make a judgment call in the moment,

you know, was this person acting in self-defense. right. this is sort of how zimmerman is let go, because the police, and he wasn't arrested at the scene, because the police believed his story in part because the law says that, you know, you have to have probable cause to believe that the person is lying about having acted in self-defense. that is really what makes florida's law unique, because even though we have these laws on the books in 25 states and almost in every circumstance in you say that i killed this person in self-defense, you still have to prove it, but you have the prove it in court. we generally don't ask the police to make that judgment at the time. >> jonathan, i want to go the you on exactly this, your work as a professor and psychiatrist as both of them is in part about this assumption about how people are making decisions. so we just heard nicole bell say they were using the, the police officers were using their discretion in the killing of her fiance and in this case, the police officers making a

discretionary choice of whether or not zimmerman is to be believed, but most critically zimmerman making a discretionary choice of whether this unarmed 17-year-old kid poses a danger to him. what do you know? what do you suspect you know from your own work about what was going on with zimmerman at this moment? >> well, i would say a couple of things. one is that part of what we are seeing is a very tragic large telling of what happens in snap moment moments of snap judgments when there are so many guns around. so in a way, you have two seconds to make a particular kind of decision, and it is not surprising that with the proliferation of guns that people are falling back on quick racial stereotypes and quick judgments and of course, those kinds of judgments happen across the system, and they happen in medical encounters, and they happen in police interactions and other settings, but when two people have guns and the person who is the aggressor in the case does not have any training about the self-awareness about the racial stereotypes in a way the

stakes are so high and so fatal in this instance. >> i want to come back to you on this question, ron, because for obviously so many of us who are observers of this, it feels like what happened here is that zimmerman racially profiling trayvon martin, but we are hearing pushback, oh, that can't be possibleb because in fact, sym zimmerman himself has latino or background of heritage, and what is happening there? are people understanding this as influence or inflections of race? >> yes. in a word, certainly. beyond this question of the racial epiteth, there are things that zimmerman said in the course of the 911 calls that said that he was going after trayvon because he was black and certainly knew that he was black. if you look back over the history of his 46 some-odd calls to the police, there are a

number of instances where he, zimmerman, tells the officers that there are black teenagers involved. i believe a couple of weeks ago before this incident happened there were two young black teens arrested and charged with burglarizing that community, so that the whole issue of young kids doing wrong in that community, young black kids was apparently on his mind, and the neighbor's minds at the whole time this thing was going down. so, yes. but a lot of people, you know, are saying that is basically an issue, but the main issue is that there was a 17-year-old boy who is dead, whether he was black, white or whatever, and the other issue, of course, is that it appears that zimmerman was going well beyond what the expectations of those neighborhood watch volunteers would be. when you read that organization's handbook by the organization in d.c. that runs and sponsors these groups around the country, the rules say no guns. the rules say be the eyes and the ears of the community. the rules say don't confront

suspects. and by most accounts, zimmerman was going well beyond, that and most people have never heard of a neighborhood watchman who carries a gun and let alone a 0.9 millimeter semiautomatic, and so why is this guy acting essentially like a cop. >> thank you, ron allen in, sanford, florida, for bringing the news to us. we will continue the conversation and we are not anywhere near done and we will keep talk tact issues of race and madness and all of this in the fight for justice for trayvon martin. i habe a cohd.

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i think that every parent in america should be able to understand why it is absolutely imperative that we investigate every aspect of this.

that everybody pulls together, federal, state and local to figure out exactly how this tragedy happened. >> and right there, our president, president obama succinctly verbalized why trayvon martin's case is not just a problem for african-american parents, but for all parents, and quite specifically and in important ways for parents of color who are trying to raise children who might be profiled in this circumstance. and so i actually want to start, and one of the ways that i deal with the stress of the emotions of this sort of racial moment is to go back to the readings and i've been on richard wright, and ralph ellison's "invisible man" and reading from james baldwin " "the fire next time" and where james baldwin's uncle is writing to him, and he writes, you were born into a society which spelled out with brutal clarity. and in as many ways as possible that you were a worthless human

being, that you were not expected to aspire to excellence, but to make peace with mediocrity, and with potential violence with your body. i am joined by jonathan metfield of vanderbilt university and adam sewerer and nicole bell. i want to talk about race here, because as much as we are talking about hood dishere, hoo adam. >> well, the remarks of president obama are extraordinary, and this happened sort of with the henry louis gates moment when he was arrested inside of his house. there is a way in which the president is the president and he is dealing with the big issues, but he sort of reminds you that if he had been walking around that sanford, florida,

neighborhood, zimmerman might have called the cops on him, and it is an acknowledgment that despite the fact that the president is black, these issues and these factors still impact people's lives in drastic ways. >> jonathan, your research in part talks about the assumption of criminality around black men and black men's bodies and tell me how that may have influenced what happened in sanford, flori florida, that night? >> well, two points about that. of course, this as i said before is an individual tragedy, but there are whole structures around that sort of cultural mistrust of african-american men, and this plays out as we know across the medical system and the penal system, and part of it is the schizophrenia around african-american men, and even when we try to train doctors and police officers not to automatically make assumptions, even after years and years of training, people

fall back on it, and part of it is what happens at that automatic moment is to give somebody a gun and not think about it, and this is about the racial politics of guns. we have not had that conversation before and one other book is a book from the 1960s where he is arguing for self-defense in a way, that there is a question of sel self-defense, so that the question of who gets a gun and who gets to defend themselves is a highly historical racialized issue. >> and self-defense is fine, until it is the black panthers who want self-defense and then we are talking about gun control laws. and we were talking about this upstairs with the staff, and when i say a group of people in hoodies or hoods, and what does that say to you, because we are talking about hoodies and geraldo rivera talking about young men in a hood, and in my neighborhood, if my staff will give me that image, that is the people that scares me in hoods,

it is image of white men in klan hoods that i find frightening. so nicole, i want you to comment on this idea that zimmerman is not a white man, that he has latino, ethnic background and heritage, and this is also part of the discourse in sean's case, this idea because there were officers of color, that it could not be racialized, and where have you and your family and the folks doing the work around sean's case come down on these questions? >> well sh, it comes down in th same similarities as the trayvon martin case. sean and his friends were outside of the club leaving from his bachelor's club, and the undercover officer, the officer who is fired today chose to follow them, because of the mannerism and the demeanor, and this is what is said in the court trial. so my family, we lost sean because of their demeanor that night, and that does not sit well with us. i honestly have to say that if i

really want to send my condolences and my love as much, you know, hugs and kisses i could send to that family, because if it wasn't for this terrible, terrible tragedy happening to trayvon, i don't believe that ray kelly would have made the decision right now during this time. it has been six years. we've had discretionary, sorry, departmental charges hearings several months ago and now in the wake of these protests and in the wake of these protests, there is a decision today. >> and in the demeanor of the parents that they deserve a nobel prize for bringing justice for sean. >> well, it takes so much. i really, any support and any --

they need it. they need it. we need the community and everyone to stand up, because this is the way that the family will be able to heal now. >> nicole, thank you so much. up next, why this is actually a very old story. [ male announcer ] how can power consumption in china, impact wool exports from new zealand, textile production in spain, and the use of medical technology in the u.s.? at t. rowe price, we understand the connections of a complex, global economy. it's just one reason over 75% of our mutual funds

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surprise! surprise! surprise! surprise! i had no idea. [ gigi ] nice 'n easy. available in original or award winning foam from the color experts at clairol. . >> rage, empathy, sad neness, frustration -- trayvon martin's murder evokes all of those emotions in those of us who have been closely following the story in recent weeks and those who love black men and know them as our fathers and nephews and partners and students and teachers and husbands and friends. we know the snark, and the swagger and the dreams for themselves and their families and our communities. when we see trayvon, we see them. we also have a weary recognition of the familiar territory of violence and death perpetrated against black men. when we hear trayvon's screams

we are reminded that we have been here before starting when africans were killed or committed suicide during the african slave trade. 2 million is the number of men who embarked on the voyage from west africa. in the years 1852 and 1891, 3,437 people were lynched in the united states, and less than 2% were brought to justice. zero is the number of antilynching laws passed be i the senate despite attempts to introduce legislation in the '30s and '40s. 105 is the number of years it took for the senate to apologize for the failure to act when the first anti-lynching act was proposed. 2005 is when that finally happened when the u.s. senate approved resolution 39. 18 is the number of white defendants executed for the murder of black victims in the u.s. since 1976.

252 is the number of black defendants executed for the murder of white victims in the u.s. since 1976. it is a number not likely included on the cdc's list of leading causes of deaths for black males between the ages of 15-34. where the most unforgettable number of all is the homicides the number one spot of causes of death for black men ages 15-34. it is easy to lose sight of the personhood of young black men, and amidst a jumble of numbers detailing the problems of young black men, but in summer of 1955 the entire nation bore witness thanks to one devastated mother who offered up her personal and private grief for public and political scrutiny and launched a movement. mamie till mobley allowed "jet" magazine to publish the photos of the brutalized body of her son emmett till who was tortured

and kill bade group of southern vigilantes for allegedly whistling at a white woman which is no more a crime than walking home in the rain with a bag of candy. her creative choice sparked a choice that would give rise to the civil rights movement. i thought of her this week as i watched tens o hooded supporters rally in washington, d.c. and new york's union square. coming up, enough of us speaking for black young men, but they are quite capable of speaking for themselves, and some of them will join me right here at my table next. ergent and i found myself using three times more than they say to and the clothes still weren't as clean as with tide. so we're back to tide. they're cuter in clean clothes. that's my tide. what's yours?

>> we have been talking about trayvon martin. in the last two days we have seen many organized school walkouts in protest of the killing and mostly in florida. now, we have been talking a lot about young men of color and what it is like for them to grow up in america today, but right now i want to go to the source.

i have a 17-year-old senior here from the east west school of international studies in new york, and c.j. morrison is also a senior at capital prep in hartford, connecticut, and also joined by a young man from the bronx new york, and also from phoenix, is a consultant to the urban school districts and author of "there is nothing wrong with black students." thank you all for being here. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> thank you, melissa. >> i want to start with you dr. kungjuf, because you have been working around the lives of young african-american boys and working with schools for decades so i want to ask you what is your reaction to the death of trayvon martin? >> well, it is unfortunate, because we lost a husband, a father and no telling what kind of career options he had in front of him. so, it was a tremendous loss to the community, and we are real

concerned, and our prayers go out to the family, and to all of the other parents listening, every day, you need to plead the blood of jesus over your son, and clearly say that no weapon formed against you will prosper. we need to also make sure that as parents that we know our children's friends, that we listen to their music, that we watch the television shows that they watch, that we visit our children's schools, that we demand the best of our children's teachers to give them high expectations. >> and now, young men, i am thrilled that all three of you are here, and i am going to ask you the same question that i asked dr. kunjufu, what are your thoughts of trayvon martin? >> i thought, how can this young

boy age 17, who was walking down the street harmless and didn't mean to cause trouble and then here comes a guy who wants to take away his life, because he is a young man of color, and i feel that is wrong. that is no reason as to why he should kill him for no reason being, and then when i was hearing the call when he called 911, and they actually told him, and especially not to go follow the man, but not to follow the boy, but he continually tried to follow him, and i heard it clearly and he actually called the boy a coon and just making that racial slur something needs to be done. honestly as far as the petitions and the rallies and protests goes, i think that will not stop until something is done, until the man is arrested. >> i know that all of you at one point have had the experience of being stopped by a police officer, and tell me about that and how you might have connected that here. >> growing up, i got stopped

twice. at one time, it was me and my friends playing at the park, playing basketball, and we were walking home with the street lights on and getting ready to part ways and giving each other dap, and the cop slows down and stops and to question us and what are you doing? do you have drugs and asking us why are we out so late, and it is like, we came from the park, and behind us is the park, and like why are you questioning us in this way? and i kind of walked away, and he eventually just let us go, but it is just like, why? why is it that we as young men are always being questioned for things that every kid does. >> that means that all of you have been raised by parents, moms or moms and dads who have been raising black boys and have your parents told you anything, or did you get a talk or lesson about some point of how to manage these experiences? >> all of the time. everyday my mom tells me, watch

the people you hang out with, because police officers are watching you, and they are watching your next move. i remember walking to my friend's job, and which got stopped because we fit the crime or we looked suspicious, and i found that ridiculous, because i am my own individual, and i'm my own individual and i don't think that anybody looks like me, so for me to say that i did the crime or i fit the crime or i robbed somebody on the corner, i think it is ridiculous. >> so i want to go back to you for a moment, doctor, because you said that you said we need to make sure that we are teaching our young men to have good standards and all of that, but in the case of trayvon martin, that is the case. he had very involved parents. he was in a gated community, i mean, what he had done is gone out to get some skittles, and how do we protect the young men and i am talking to the three young men sitting at the table with me, and how do we protect the young men when it is not

about them making some kind of bad choice? >> well, exactly. there was a study just released as relates to suspensions, and unfortunately a 3 to 1 ratio of black males to white males suspended, and they both committed the same infraction, and they both had a cell phone. the white male a warning and the black male 3 to 5 days, and they both had an infraction of the school attire, and the white male a warning and the black male three to four days suspended. for the white male to be suspended one of three things has to happen, a knife, gun or bloodshed. for the black male, the teacher said, i didn't like the way he looked at me or the way he shrugged the shoulders or the pants on the same way and there are teachers and not just s zimmerman, but teachers who are afraid of black boys and i believe you cannot teach a child that you do not like, that you do not respect, that you do not understand their culture and

that you have not bonded with. >> i want to ask this question, because i know that you all were talking about it, but c.j., your mom encourages you to carry your i.d. at all times. what is behind that? >> she wants me to be able to tell people who i am and people don't always believe our word for whatever reason, they don't believe us. so with i.d., i have no criminal record, so, another time i actually got stopped by a police officer on the phone outside of a bowling alley and i am talking on the phone, and the cop rolls up to question me again, what am i doing out here outside of the bowling alley and was i involved with some crime that some kids had vandalism and things like that and he was questioning me and then he said, do you have an i.d. on you and said it in a way like he expected me not to have it and i pulled out the wallet and pulled out the i.d. and he ran my record and looked at me and said, okay. that is when i walked away and i told my mother, i was like that, is ridiculous, like i was on the

phone, and it is not like i was in the back of the building, but in the front where cars were, and standing right there on the phone. it is just amazed me why. >> and so here you are carrying your i.d. and george, you are the president of the student class. >> yes, the president of the student government. >> here you are the president of the student government and do you feel like you to show people who you are, and so the doctor was saying that maybe teachers are profiling students not in the way of zimmerman, but wondering what kind of kid you are or can you move through the classrooms and through the world? >> well, honestly it is a little bit of both. i have to present myself as far as like showing people who i am, and then again people also know me. the sad thing is that people always define who you are as like based off of how you look or your racial ethnicity and that is wrong.

people should not define you on your situation whether you live in the public housing or you are black or hispanic, and people should not define you based on the concept of character and the way you act, soo it it is a li bit of both, so i feel like i have to prove myself to leave a greater impression. >> we will come back with the three young men, and with nicole poulte bell. don't go away. turn left.

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i am back now with three young men who are high school students and all of them living tout reality of being a young black man in america, and back with us is nicole paultre bell who is the fiancee of sean bell

who was gunned down in 1996. i want the start with you, and there have been a lot of conversations about the trayvon martin case about the idea of what he was wearing and that the hoodie was a potential i indication that he was up to criminal activity of some sort. you wear uniforms at school and you don't at school, so do you make any choices? >> well, when i am not in school i wear exactly what trayvon martin was wearing. it is like, wow, that could have been me. i have a twin at home, and that could have been my twin. that could have been my little nephew, and if he was going to the store to buy a bag of chips or something for me, and he could have been gunned down and i would have been messed up for life, because that is my sibling and now i have to get up and be conscious of what i am wearing. that is ridiculous. >> and nicole, you have daughters not far from the age

of my daughter, and i can remember praying for a daughter and saying that i am not prepared to raise a son in this country, because of what feels like the danger. was that ever on your mind and particularly after the loss of sean or is the world just as dangerous for our girls? >> you know, really what it is that i feel the same way, because when i had my daughters, i never in a million years imagined that i would be a single mom. that wasn't in my plan. when i lost sean, it really opened up my eyes, you know. i was sitting here with these gentlemen today, and it just, when i met sean i was their age and sean was their age, and now when you think about it, it is the problem just with black boys, is it with black girls? the problem is, period. it is black, period. and what we need to do is to really, everybody needs to continue to stand up and fight and speak out about it.

>> does the trayvon martin kill ing or the sean bell kill org the oscar grant killing -- do they make you feel any particular way about your own future? or do they feel like these are tragedies that happened in the world but my future is still secure? >> nah, i don't think. so i think that i need to be aware of my actions everyday and even if i'm sean bell or trayvon martin, they didn't do anything. they were enjoy iing their live and at the prime of their lives, and you know, just like that, and their lives are gone. i feel like -- i feel like i need, and i shouldn't have to be aware of -- yeah, i should be aware of my actions, but i shouldn't have to be aware of worried that someone is going to take away my life just because you are not the same. >> well, to me, it just goes to show you that life is not fair, and people may have special

opportunities that other people may not have, and it may be due to the skin color and that is something that i have a problem with and this is why i try to educate and empower my brothers and friends around me as far as like going back to my community, because it is important that they know and important that they are aware of these things, because if they are not, they will continue to carry the perception that, you know, white or any other race may have on them as far as they may not succeed or might not do well, and it is interesting, because i was reading upon a topic that people are starting to build more jails based on the fourth grade tests around the bronx community and in general, and that is something that i have a problem with, because why are you making money off of failure and activity like this? there should be other ways to make money besides that. >> i want to ask you about one other thing, and that is something else amazing has

happened in your lifetime, and that is the election of the first african-american president, and barack obama is president of the united states, and one of my favorite images from early on in the obama administration is this picture of a young boy who is asking president obama to bend down to rub his head and he wanted to see if the president had hair like him. it struck me as a very powerful moment of that connection of the first time that you have a black man as president. so here on the one hand, you have barack obama the president which is the symbol of the opening of america, and the killing of trayvon martin that feels like a closing of america, and if you had five minutes with president obama in these moments following the trayvon martin killing, what would you want to talk to president obama about today? >> i would honestly say to him that things are still the same. things are not changing. even with having him as a black man as president people still feel the same way as they felt 20 years ago as black people

when we didn't feel we could have a black president. i feel like we are still judged on the appearance and not on who we are as people. like, i -- like growing up had to change what i wore and i used to sag my pants like most of the black kids do, and i used to wear the baggy clothes and the big t-shirts and i started to go to a school where i wear a uniform, and, you know, i kind of saw the difference that how people looked at me walking down the street in my uniform or in sweatpants and baggy jeanne -- baggy jeans and now i wear a plaid shirt and jeans on my waste -- waist, because i care what people care about how i think. as much as you say you don't care, you do care. and going back to barack obama, i feel like, you know, the kid rubbing his head to see if he is

the same as barack obama is like a symbol as we are who we are. we should try to just portray that in everything that we do. you know, you just have to be yourself. >> i know that you are proud of president obama, but i know if he had gotten the few minutes with you that i have gotten, he undoubtedly would be proud of you, and thank you all for joining me. doctor, i'm sorry, we didn't get back to you, but thank you for being here and also to nicole paultre bell. coming up my fashion tips for safety, that is next. every time a local business opens its doors or creates another laptop bag or hires another employee, it's not just good for business, it's good for the entire community. at bank of america, we know the impact that local businesses have on communities.

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pleasure to introduce the dress code for black safety, because clearly we need one. you didn't think i'd say that? well, take it back to the 1980s for a minute because you could not wear red and blue because of this. ♪ the gangs of l.a. would never die just multiply colors ♪ ♪ colors colors colors >> red and blue were a big no-no for young black men and the bloods and the crips took those colors to the new heights. wearing the wrong color could get you killed, and that is not to say that the colors are safe now. take heed, young men, because they are not your friends, so try turquoise or mauve or salmon, if you are daring. we know those are not the only no-noes on the list. do saggy pants ring a bell? well, in conroy, alabama, you could have received a fine up to

$500 and six months in jail. and they were not alone. mansfield city carries a fine of up to $500 or 15 days in jail. in albany, georgia, it could cost you $200 and as of september, the city has made $4,000 on saggy pants citations. so if the cops don't get you, the parents are sure to be mad for costing them all that money. and in florida, there is a statewide ban on saggy pants the there, because that's the most important issue in florida right now. just say no to saggy pants. last but certainly not least, the pesky hoodies, because think are a fashion no-no for mhp's dress code for safety and geraldo thinks so, and he said it on fox news. >> i am urging the parents of

black and latino youngsters particularly to not let their children go out wearing hoodies. i think that the hoodie is as much responsible for trayvon martin's death as george zimmerman was. >> oh, clearly, geraldo knows of what he speaks. did you see that sharp suit. although i would caution him on the shades of blue i saw, no. they are not acceptable on the mhp dress code for safety. no red or blue, no sagging pants and no hoodies. if you want the play it safe dress like skip gates. so if you follow these simple rules, you, too, can be safe, and even be considered safe to b be around. coming up, i'm going home. louisiana's voting today and i have a lot to say about that. who steal other people's chocolate temptations. but you guys have nothing to worry about, right? [ man ] aah! [ campers screaming ]

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that is louisiana and the united states, right. so, given rick santorum's solid track record in the south, many predict a win for the conservati conservative, and afterall louisiana is a culturally catholic state. we live in parishes and not counties and the year is organized on the catholic calendar and we always have good friday off and ween take a week off for mardi gras. cultural catholicism has the political effects. most of the statewide officeholders are catholic. in recent decades there have been heated racial politics in louisiana, but for the most, our leaders are catholics and the most beleaguered football team is the saints. so will the big easy catholics vote catholic? well, it depends upon what you think voting catholic is. it does not mean supporting the catholic candidate. in the primaries so far, catholic candidates newt gingrich and rick santorum have been losing the catholic vote to

the mormon opponent. santorum performs well with the evangelicals, but romney has enjoyed a generous lead with the republican catholics. through illinois, romney has had a 15-point lead with catholics over santorum, and in the last primary contest, ron paul beat santorum among catholics, so is there a catholic bump to be had in louisiana for the front runner? we will see tonight. join meg to talk cajun politics is buddy roamer who is now an americans elect and reform party candidate who is in san francisco today. and here at the table is matthew taylor who is a professor of political science and louisiana native. i want to start with you, buddy, because in part the election is in our home state to i daday an want to ask you how you see the louisiana primary playing out? >> i was in louisiana, melissa,

for a couple of days this past week. i gave a speech in new orleans. i gave a speech in houma, h-o-u-m-a, down in the south. a lot of catholics. i'm a methodist boy myself, but the mood is two things. there is not a lot of fervor or spirit in the election in louisiana. i don't know why that is, but maybe they see the same thing i do, because there is not much choice there, but number two, if someone's going to win, i think that it will be santorum, but not by a wide margin, but the catholic vote, the conservative vote. he has a team that has worked the state hard. i think that he will do well today. >> thank you, buddy. matt, when we decided that we wanted to talk about catholicism and voting and talk about louisiana and voting i said, somebody get me matt wilson, because i feel like your work has been both the academic work and the public writing has been so clear about this, so when we say that the catholic vote, it

is actually an extremely complicated set of voting factors, right? we have been hearing a lot about catholicism lately and talk to me about what the catholic vote looks like. >> sure. we have to remember that catholics are america's largest religious group and 25% of the u.s. population, so within a group that large, there is is gg to be considerable diversity. one thing that is often overlooked in the exit polls is the observant and nonobservant catholi catholics, but they don't usually hone in on that, but it is an important factor, because observant catholics put more on the issues, where as the nonobservant don't differ that much from the averages. >> and there are those who are identifying as catholic and not weekly church at the enders, and sorry, actually weekly church

attenders are 40% for romney and os 5057 -- 57% of those. >> and yes, the support is radically different for rick santorum who has resonated more among the observant than the nominal catholics ash and this is something that you will pick up in the general election as well. in 2008 john mccain did much better among the observant catholics for those who it iss i residual identity and not an active participant. >> and something about the catholic vote and in general what will happen today, but isn't there something about the illinois catholics and the l l.a. catholics and something about the south and the particular traditions and our populism of the south that might lead to different kinds of choices happening in this republican primary? >> yes, the biggest vote might

today be those who don't vote at all. i mean, they might be saying something, melissa. i mean, your conversation is pertinent, but very sophisticated. it is hard to just draw these conclusions when you read the results of the election today. but there are a lot of things happening in louisiana and across the south, and here in san francisco, there's anxiety. there's economic unease. there's a sense of who we are. i mean, there is a feeling that, you know, we make a billion cell phones in the world last year, an none of them made in america, and louisiana feels the themes. they are looking for somebody or something, someway to improve. and elections are just one of the cycles that we go through. today, i think that you will see a low turnout. i think that you will see a mixed results, and i don't think it is going to be based on religion. i think that it is going to be

based on what the hopes of people are. i think that's just fine. >> and it is a great point that sort of this idea of the multiple cross cutting ideas, right, people going into the polls with all of the anxieties and the concerns and one of the things that i really liked professor wilson about how you have written about catholic voting is that your point on the one hand that the church has to focus on life. you say that life issues and a pro life stance mustt remain central to the prism through which the church views a political world, but then you also ask how many people know that the church is a champion for the human rights of immigrants both documented and undocumented and how many people know that the american church is edadvocating for universal acce to health care, and how many people know about the advocacy issues such as economic justice. if i'm a catholic voter in the primaries or looking at the general election come november, how do i weigh the life

decisions which you say must be central and these other ones? >> well, it is a complex issue, and it is important to remember that this is why the church and its teachings don't map neatly on the political platform of neither major political party. certainly the catholics in the environment have to make choices of which issue is central, and for most catholics the abortion question and the family values issues are paramount, but it is not without some regret that the party through which they could best express the convictions has been in most cases been anti-immigrant or in some case not embraced or understood the need for comprehensive access to health care, and those are important tradeoffs, but within the context of the of the republican primary, all of the candidates share the same positions with regard to those human life and family issues, every candidate running, romney, gingrich and santorum and they

are all pro-life or at least that is what the etch-a-sketch has come up with today, right? they are all pro life and pro family and if we de -- fine it in terms of the traditional norms, in that sense, those things are potentially off of the table, because of the uniformity of the position, so catholics can explore other issues that governor roemer suggested. >> and that is interesting. the catholic vote is about to get much more important, and we will be joined by adam jones of mother jones right after the break. nade ? susie's lemonade... the movie. or... we make it pink ! with these 4g lte tablets, you can do business at lightning-fast speeds. we'll take all the strawberries, dave. you got it, kid. we have a winner. we're definitely gonna need another one. small businesses that want to grow use 4g lte technology from verizon.

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monday. we are talking religion and politics and the focus is given the louisiana primary, really, we are talking about the catholic vote, and one which is changing rapidly as the latinos make up a increasingly larger portion of who in america is catholic. back with me now, former louisiana governor buddy roemer and adam sewer of mother jones, and i have to say that one of the first votes that was cast was for you for governor and that is when you and your opponent in louisiana was a convicted felon and admitted klansman, and so, welcome to louisiana, folks. >> i know i'm only 68, but i just look older. >> so, actually you were making a point, buddy, that i want to throw out to everybody that folks may possibly be staying

home. we were looking at the american election studies which are not poll data, but academic data, and it is about the changing partisan of catholics over the years and the height of the partisan identity with democrats in 1960 that has climbed significantly from the high of 63% down to 30% in 2010. but, the main beneficiary has not been republicans as it has been the identity of the independent, and the catholics and these are white catholics in america increasingly understand themselves as independent, because of the talk about earlier, matt, that it is challenging to balance the identities, but adam, as we look at the primary and going into the national election fx you have a group of voters who make up a significant portion of the american electorate, does that independence bode poorly for the republicans given how far to the

right they have moved? >> well, it depends bark was the interesting thing about catholics is that everybody is talking about the catholic vote, but in some ways it is actually a kind of identity signifying because of the traditional values, because catholics don't vote as catholics as a voting bloc, so it is almost, it is interesting that -- i mean, it is sort of one of the funny things that whoever wins the election tends to win the catholic vote, because they are getting more voting than anybody else, and catholics as voters are not easily manipulated bloc of people. >> yes, and matt, let me ask you about the increasing diversification now because the reason they are not voting together as one big bloc, because it is not all that different to be an illinois catholic, but louisiana catholic, but increasing latino population means more latino catholics versus irish catholics. what does that do to the bloc? >> well, it is increasingly making the catholic church what it is years and years ago an

immigrant church. if you think of the origins of catholicism in america, catholicism is historically a region of imgramigrants who wer marginalized. and now more and more with the influx of the latinos the catholic church is returning to the immigrant roots which is an important change. it is important to note that the catholics coming in from latin america, they are also socially also pro justice for the safety net which increases the cross pressure of the catholic electorate. >> i want to ask about the cross pressure, governor, because part of what your campaign is about is saying that the two parties whether you are catholic or not catholic simply don't capture how complicated americans are, so you and i are bad

louisianians and not in louisiana on the primary election day, but what are the other options if we can't figure out what to do within the democratic or the republican par party? >> well, there's a bear in the room. there's a monster in the room. it is called corruption. i mean, social justice, look at this trayvon martin tragedy. social justice, economic justice -- that does not happen in a criminal court. that does not happen in organized crime. that does not happen in deals under the table. corruption is the enemy of justice. and america is a place that we all love, but it is a place now run by big checks and special interests and i'm not putting down the republican party or the democrat party, but they are joined at the billfield. they don't care about the money except that they need it. and they will take it from the

big checks, from anybody. it is what is wrong in america. and you know, melissa, we have talked and i think that we need more jobs and we need smart trade with china. i think that we need a tax code that decent people can read and treats us fairly. we need a budget balanced not tomorrow, but over time with a clear plan. i think that we need immigration reform, and i think that we need banking reform, but none of these things will happen until we get corruption out of the room. and that is the issue that the republicans don't talk about in their primary, and president obama has given up on. i mean, he said three weeks ago that he was going the take super pac money and send his administration out to get it. i mean, i don't like it! >> yeah, and you have been a kind of clear and powerful voice on that. it is interesting that you made this connection with the trayvon martin case, because we were

just talking about that in the last hour. let me turn to ask this question, because last wednesday, catholic bishops made the opposition around the white house contraception mandate clear, and they said that they are strongly unify and intensity focusing the opposition to religious freedom and they will stay on this. so we have a catholic bishops very clear in the stance around contraception issues and very clear as you pointed out before on life issues, but then something happens around what feels like another kind of injustice, and it feels like faith communities and maybe not even even particularly the catholic churches, but a deafening silence around other churches but if the catholic church has teachings in this, we would want to hear from them in this moment. >> yes, there is a difference between this and that there is not a specific governmental action for them to speak out against, although the catholic lead

leaders in florida would find themselves in solidarity with the african-american church and seek justice in the trayvon martin case. >> i don't want to be unfair, but it is completely possible there on the ground that we have local catholic churches ding that, but we haven't heard anything at the level of the bishop bishops. >> i suspect that is the case. but sometimes it is more difficult for the church to speak out on issues of immigration, of poverty and social justice, because the teachings in those areas are inherently a little more nuanced and complicated, and they don't make for good sound bite. in our sound bite political culture and sound bite political discourse, nuances get lost and the bishops can be saying things, but people are not listening or the bishops can be saying things, and because it is complex, it does not fit neatly into the discourse. >> well, you can always bring those nuances into nerd land. thank you all for being on the show. >> good to be with you, melissa. up next, a pop quiz. what, you weren't prepared? no one warned you?

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[ female announcer ] and try aleve for relief from tough headaches. clear your desks, take out a pencil, because it is time for a pop quiz. my test takers today are matthew wilson, and adam sewer of mother jones, and today the challenge is who said that? i will read you a quote and you tell me who said that. and i want to thank the friends at mtv for this week's matchup. your choices are presidential candidate newt gingrich or hip-hop artist kayne west both of whom we have decided are catholic. here we go. who said this? i will spark a generation of thinkers who will question traditional thought until they find the absolute truth. everybody vote. who do you think said it? we have three kaynes and i'm with newt though i have no idea. and what is the answer? and the answer key is -- it was

in fact kayne west in a letter to the media january 2009 quoted on mtv. okay. the next one. quote two who said the following newt gingrich or kayne west. i have enormous personal am a bigsk a -- ambition and i want to ship the entire planet, and i'm doing it. i'm now a famous person. i represent real power. everybody is on kayne here and the answer on the trusty answer key is newt gingrich. that was newt gingrich quoted in 1985, by the "washington post." okay. we suck on that one. and who said the following, it does not matter what i do, but people have to hear what i say and nobody can say what i can say, and it does not matter what i live. vote. everybody believes it was newt gingrich who said this one and in fact it is newt gingrich who said do as i say and not as i do

from a may 1999 quote by newt's ex-wife maryann gingrich to "esquire" magazine. okay. now this one, i'm going down as a legend whether -- one more time. they said this? they said i'm going down as a legend, whether or not you like me or not. oh he oh, help me, let this be kayne. yes, it is kayne west, and there is hope for the plitle ka systesyste -- for the political future. and this one is really too much. she isn't young enough or pretty enough to be the president's wife. is that kayne or newt gingrich? yes, in fact it is newt gingrich. quoted in the l.a. times, 1994 about his other ex-wife. thank you. to matt wilson and adam sewer,

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to have nine top safety picks like the passat and jetta. so we're celebrating with our "safety in numbers" event. that's the power of german engineering. right now lease the 2012 jetta for $159 a month. it's election day and as we have been talking about in my home state of louisiana at this moment voters are making choices. they are weighing and a measuring and analyzing the choices and those of us here tend to think that the voters show up with a portfolio of policies and weighing each objective objectively and each cold hard position of each candidate, but those are bad predictors of how to voters behave. but being a political scientist, i know that americans don't lead with their brain.

it is mostly with their gut. so this is your brain and am pathway of nervous center, and communication center for the brain and this is your brain on politic, and deeply held beliefs an stunning acrobatics of rationalization, and the political brain is a messy place, but still, there is rhyme and reason to the political beliefs, and what is it? here to explain withe, jonathan metzl, and author of "the protest psycho cyst." and jen murphy who is a psychiatrist. and so both of you do work in the fields of psychiatry, and so jen, you said that as we were thinking ab the choices that people make in the ballot boxes

and in our lives and there one is thing that we get out of the polls, do you like this candidate? are you discriminatory against this group, but then there is another set of things that are going on that are implicit that we may not know about, and tell me about those differences. >> that is right. just like any other decision that we have to make in life. political decision is choosing between and in this case two candidates, but it could be an issue for or against, and we know, and yes we have, and we can have elaborated reasons for or against that we have learned through reading or through our friends or learned about, but we also have, as you said, our gut feelings, these automatic reactions towards a particular candidate and policy and that can come from all sorts of seemingly irrelevant factors just how someone looks for instance and obviously things like the religion or the race or other characteristics that we

like to think that don't really weigh into the sort of rational calculus for whom we would vote. >> you know, i have been reading andrew weston's "the political brain" and one thing that weston says that is democrats are bad about telling the story and making us feel something, and i wanted to show you something this week because romney is criticized in the way that democrats had previously for sort of being unable to connect and tell a story, but this week ann romney put out a wedding anniversary video, and a kind of video valentine and i wanted to show you a little bit of this here. >> mitt had this enormous energy, this enormous infection for life and the love of life. he was very careful about not letting him know how i felt about him, and i think that drove him crazy. >> she drove him crazy and you hear the swell of music and the valentine for all of us to love

mitt. is this the effective way to kind of get at the implicit attitudes to change our perspective of who mitt romney is? >> well, i have not seen that ad before, but crazy is a highly politicized word, and i don't know how many votes he will be getting being called crazy by the wife, but it is a term with a complex history. >> indeed it is. and in fact, one of the questions i want to ask is that there is a lot in the politics lately about the idea of crazy, and of the idea that some folks are, we have seen it in the shooting in afghanistan that this was a soldier who went crazy or potentially the george zimmerman, the shooter of trayvon martin is nuts or is crazy. how should we ajude kadjudicateb like that in the atmosphere? >> well, i look at who is called crazy and why in politics, and one thing i learned in 1960s for example when there were

african-americans with guns trying to defend themselves, and it is not the one person is crazy, but it is black culture is crazy. when it is the kind of crazed white shooter in the aftermath of shooter, it is personalized like this one particular person, so the link between the crazy one individual or the crazy culture that has shaped over time to trayvon martin as well. >> and that is an important point, because you want to say this is the lone person or the lone gunman who could have possibly done that, and we know it is not true. in most of the cases, it is a system of cultural stereotypes perhaps or whatever circumstances that have infused the person, but also the rest of us. we may not go out to shoot somebody, but we have the biases and the brain responds to the same cues that zimmerman or this shooter in afghanistan could have also responded.

>> and i love that idea of that we have been looking at a white body and call it just this one thing, but when we are looking at the groups that are what we call marginalized and the latinos or the poor folks or maybe gay and transgendered bodies and we say that whole group is nuts or crazy. jen, some of the work is actually, and the first time i read this piece on exactly that question, i said, oh, my gosh, this explains why we are not in a post racial america, and explain how we can encounter barack obama and encounter michael jordan and african-americans who are exceptional, but somehow it du not change our perspective on african-americans in general. >> well, quite honestly our minds are incredibly flexible so we can encounter melissa harris-perry and separate her and sub type her from the rest of black or black americans on whatever grounds we want to use. i mean, we are very good story

tellers and we tell stories for ourselves. >> it is because she has the white mormon mom that makes her so fabulous, and not the blackness. >> we saw it with barack obama, right? because, well, he has the white mother or raised by white people, so that is working for him on one hand, but of course, you see the other side, well, he is foreign, so maybe he is like the rest of those sort of scary not one of us black people. so it can cut both ways, we really don't like to give up the stereotypes, because they are so usefulf and hem us out to help the old lady walking across the street. they work for us a lot. we don't want to let them go even when we actually don't endorse them, and when the egalitarian heart says that is not who i am. >> and one interesting thing about the stereotypes helping us, so in clinical settings, jonathan, you talk about in part how doctors interact with the patients and are the stereotypes helpful and help us to see the weeping widow and oh, okay, this

is a type of person or do they actually make the interactions for example in a clinical setting worse? >> what i argue in the book is that in a way of course, it is not like the goal of medicine is to eliminate cultural stereotype, because that is part of the nuanced interaction we v and we want people to talk on multiple levels and if you have a patient come into the doctor's office and say, i have had two weeks of depressed mood and loss of interest like a robot, it is a far less meaningful session, but what you want to do to create a database to create a climate of stereotypes and so they can have conversations with people on a deeper level. as i said earlier, i think that is the danger when we deputize people saying we will train you about the guns and not the way of understanding the cultures and we have years and years of trying to train physicians on the automatic culture response,

and it is unbelievably difficult to train and think about the implications. >> when we come back, i want to suggest that there is a little bit of news this week that suggests that maybe we can just drink and/or take heart medicine to make ourselves more egalitarian and/or more conservative. so up next, what more can science tell us about who to vote or who the trust or what to the with the stereotypes. we will dig into that right after the break. g of walk-ups, it's back to more pain, back to more pills. the evening showings bring more pain and more pills. sealing the deal... when, hang on... her doctor recommended aleve. it can relieve pain all day with fewer pills than tylenol. this is lois... who chose two aleve and fewer pills for a day free of pain. [ female announcer ] and try aleve for relief from tough headaches.

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as much as you feel like you were in the twilight zone when our politicians were talking about vaginal probes and insanity, it is not engaging with the political reality is the key to political change. and back at the table to make a examination of the political brains is jonathan metzl and jennifer byrnes, and when we hear that, one thing we hear is that there is a medical solution to it. two things came up with week, but i want one in particular to you, jonathan, and it is the language that apparently a heart medication might actually reduce implicit negative racial bias,

actu actually reducing that form of racism that we have that we don't realize that we have, and it is because of the medication kind of dampens down the fear response. so i'm reading it thinking, that if we put this medication in t he wa ter for example in sanford, florida, then maybe we would never again have the kind of tragedy that we had in the tragedy of the context oft trayvon martin or maybe we would have more people of color in elected office or something. can this really end implicit racism? >> two points, but first, anything that we put in the water, i'm for it. but actually -- >> well, anything. >> well, there are tons of prozac in the water with people flushing it, but two points, when i saw that study, there is an interesting historical tension here, because there was a big debate in the 1960s and 1970s about is racism a illness, mental illness? but that argument was made by black activist psychiatrist such

as people like greer and cobbs who basically said yes an illness here, but it is not schizophrenia of african-american men, but racism itself is the illness. >> i have heard similar arguments made by theologians who said that racism is a sin, and taking whatever your professional language is and say saying that negative thing is the thing that racial bias is, yeah. >> and a second part here which is more important which drives me crazy, these kinds of studies, because i believe that there is a fantasy that racism, itself, is some kind of individualized problem that can be treated with medications, and whether or not that might be true, the racism is a structural problem. we know this from the stoakley carmichael on down, and if you want to address racism do it both by interpersonal issues, but also by zone, school boards, and grocery stores and all of these issues, and so to individual racism is to in a way negate the way it is a

structural phenomenon. >> and in short, structural, and when we say there are politics here, and you are someone, jen, whose research is around the individual brain, but i felt your agreement with dr. metzl on this? >> yes, the brain is a product of whatever we bathe it in. there is a basic structure there prepared for certain biases and thoughts, and, you know, expertise that all of it is learned, and so it is not that this is just human nature and how we are. there's a piece of that that is true, but it has to be nurtured in a culture that says this group is dangerous. this group is smart. this group is competent. this group isn't. and when you, you know, in order to understand bias even at the individual level, and even at the level of the individual actor which is not the only exclusive level it should be examined but even in those cases you have to think what is societal, what is political con

tin jen sis also at play here. >> and i want to pause on this point, because i want to drive it home a little bit, the idea that what we think of as crazy is politically and socially determined, because i think that a lot of how we talk about mental illness and mental wellness is pharmaceutical, and we can get a pill and cure ourselves of it. >> right. >> there were times when psychiatrists as a community believed that if a slave ran away, that was a representation of mental illness. there were times in the recent past when psychiatrists as a community believed that to be gay was a mental illness. talk to me about the actual politics around what we think of as the medical realities as crazy. >> yeah, i think that i would, i think that look at the political sense and the social psychologist that the crazy serves to stigmatize and ther-ize and say that we are the

rational thinkers here, and people with our values and our beliefs and our side and our team, and those others, they are not just have a different perspective that is reasonable, but i don't agree with it, they are crazy, but it allows or motivates in people a sense of i don't have to understand where they are coming from, and you know, what i don't have to treat them well, because quite honestly crazy is unpredictable, and it is irrational and we need to put those people away and rid ourselves and what we used to d with quote, unquote crazy people. >> put them away. >> so we will come back in a little bit and stay with the questions, but i think that maybe set a new rule starting here on the mhp rule that we won't call people crazy on this show. >> okay. and melissa, you will be hopping from your set over to mine to

add perspective on the trayvon martin case. and today is the big easy for the republicans in the primary in louisiana. and how much does it matter for the bigger battle of the nomination. and look up in the sky at night, and if you don't act soon, you will miss something out of this world. it is spectacular. and must seat or must avoid? the record-setting new film "hunger games" already taking in millions, but it is really worth seeing? we will check it out, melissa. >> i don't know if it is worth seeing, but my guests got excited when you promoed "hunger games" just now. >> it is all of the rage. >> thank you, alex. >> nerdland going on the road and i want to take you with me, and that is right after the break. ok, guys-- what's next ? chocolate lemonade ? susie's lemonade... the movie. or... we make it pink ! with these 4g lte tablets, you can do business at lightning-fast speeds. we'll take all the strawberries, dave. you got it, kid.

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now it's time for our foot soldiers.

we usually profile people who have leapt from the headlines or from the nominations that you our viewers make on our blogs. this week, i visited kansas city which has one of the worst performing public school districts in the nation and one of the highest dropout ratings. but the students and educators at one wonderfully unique school are trying to to do something about it. hope academy is a charter school founded to serve students who have previously dropped out of high school and are now trying to earn their diplomas. these young people chose forward. the teachs and staff are right there to help them take that step. in 2011, there was a graduation right of 93.1%. it's all done on the second floor of zion grove missionary baptist church. these are some of the folks that i had the pleasure to meet. i don't want to talk at you.

i actually prefer to hear from you. i'm here because you guys have stories that i care about and i want to hear about. how will your life feel on the other side of getting your ged. >> i think it will be easier to get a job. you can't get a job without that. once i do, maybe it will open up doors for me to get a job so i can go to college. >> if you had five minutes with president obama, what would you say, president obama, here's what i need or here's what my community needs or here's what 17-year-old kids like me need? >> i would really focus on the school systems because our school systems now are just horrible, pretty much. the kids aren't getting challenged like they need to be. >> we hear this criticism a lot that underachievement among particularly students of color that it's somehow caused by a community that doesn't care about or value education. but if you're telling me you can get 1,500 people in this

sanctuary for 30 kids graduating, that sounds like people who care a great deal. >> for a lot of these kids, people had written them off. for these families to see now they really have a good opportunity for a second chance, the excitement is a little different -- i'm not taking anything away from the normal graduation. but for these kids who have been in trouble, a lot of times this was their last little bit of hope. >> where i live at is crazy with the crime rate. you walk outside and see five cop cars just sitting around, constantly looking over our shoulder or looking at the next person and wondering, is he going to rob me when i walk past him if it's 9:00 or 10:00 at night. >> what's your big dream? after this, what's next? >> my ultimate goal is to actually own a farm. >> really? >> yes. >> tell me about that. >> i want horses, chickens, goats. >> i plan on getting my degree in broadcasting radio and television.

>> i'm going to the marines in october. >> my biggest dream is actually to sing. >> really? ♪ >> beautiful voice! big dreams. for more on hope academy, please visit our blog at mhpshow.com. to read our interview with one of the school's founders, pastor michael brooks. that is our show for today. thanks to you at home for watching. and happy 50th birthday to my big sister. see all of you tomorrow morning at 10:00 a.m. eastern. we'll preview what's going to happen in the biggest supreme court in a decade, one that could completely change the course of the 2012 election. coming up now, "weekends with alex witt." f the backboard. [ laughs ] dad! [ laughs ] whoo!

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