this morning, the enemy within that is pushing our troops to the bring. plus, the pipeline from cradle to prison. time to cap that pipe. and if the unemployment outliar. why for one group 8.2% would be a victory. but first, mitt romney's fight with "sesame street" proves he will never understand main street. good morning. i'm melissa harris-perry. as ugly as american political campaigns can get, there should be a few things off limits, even for the fiercest battles. one of those things is this guy. big bird. you know the cherished children's hero who has a

lovable learning tool for kids the world over. big bird, the guy who is the heart and soul of "sesame street." the program meant to teach tolerance and cooperation. well, not everyone would agree big bird is as close to a-political goodness as we can get. for some, big bird and his gang of muppet friends are social pariahs addicted to government handouts. >> there are programs that i like, like pbs. i mean, my grandkids watch pbs. they like to watch "sesame street." you know, i just don't think we can afford to borrow money from china to pay for things we absolutely don't have to do. in the case of pbs, i would say get more contributors or advertisers but the government is not going to pick up the bill by borrowing money. >> that was mitt romney speaking to radio iowa laying out the kinds of savings you can rely on from the romney presidency. apparently mr. romney was taking big birds' advice. he said, show your true colors, mine is yellow. but he was throwing it back in

the bird's face. this was not romney's first attack on our large feathered friend. >> i'm not going to make big bird go away but there's going to be advertising on pbs if i'm president. >> that's right, big bird. you are going to have to look for some private sector for support because president romney is taking you off the dole. everyone has to earn their keep. but i have to ask, mr. romney, have you ever actually watched "sesame street." ? i know you prefer water sports with your grandkids, but i bet they can tell you how to get to "sesame street." you know who you will find on the block? a bunch of hard working, middle-class citizens. and you'll find gordon, a government worker and maria, who works at the library. and allen who runs hooper's store. the small business which is like ""sesame street's" town square. life on "sesame street" is the picture of the live thing middle american class that both mitt romney and president obama are

employing for their campaign messages. if that sesame temperature graphic is that our candidates are always talking to. >> so what i've said is, now is not the time to raise taxes on the middle class. the economy is still fragile. we are still digging ourselves out of this hole. so let's provide certainty to 98% of americans. 98% of americans make $250,000 a year or less. let's say to that 98% your taxes will not go up. >> so that was the president yesterday in battleground state virginia appealing to the middle class with his tax plan to extend the bush era tax cuts for that middle demographic. so while it's certainly a winning message in campaign season, i'm still questioning a bit about whether or not it's the right thing for robust democracy. see, the congressional budget office announced this week the

average tax rate is at a 30-year low. and compared to the rest of the industrialized world, the united states is among the lowest taxes in the developed world. so is the president's tax cut extension smart policy or just about politics? does it just become about winning that sesame demographic? the focus is only on bringing down the tax rate, then the middle class is just a revenue base, but the middle class is so much more than that. think of hooper's store. so much more than just a revenue source for the irs of "sesame street." it's the place where big bird gets his seed and puppets have their first summer job and everyone shares community news. if the sesame class is a tax base, why care about the middle class at all? joining me is marion right and president of the children's defense fund, bob herbert, shelby knox, a feminist organizer and lawrence otis graham, historian, author of "our kind of people inside the black upper class." thank you for being here. >> good to be here.

>> bob, why does mitt romney hate big sfwhird. >> well, who knows what the gop is going to do for the big bird that they have done for the middle class. they are going to get rid of it. if big bird had more money and if big bird was wealthier, it would be protected. but that's not the case. >> well, specifically if big bird were privatetized, we know what happens when children's programming has advertisers, right? we know what kind of things will be advertised to children. one of the things i love about pbs is the fact that my daughter who is 10 didn't as a 2 or 3-year-old see cereal commercials, toy commercials, didn't get revved up what the next big gift was because when you watch pbs it was a safe space. is this about taking away the safe space for zmids. >> which is so limited today and children are a big commercial market. they spend billions trying to get them addicted to certain brands. i remember going to the store with my children and walking

down the aisle of the grocery store and i wondered why my 2-year-old was wanting this. they should realize to keep their hands off big bird and "sesame street" period. >> they were lobbying you. >> i want these sweet cheerios, i'm like, i'm not going to argue with my 2-year-old about that. >> it is not just a children's program. they would be able to get advertising for "sesame street." the reason you have public broadcasting is for all the program that is can't get advertising. so there are arts programs or educatal programs. there are philosophical issues you may want to explore that you would never get corporate support for. and pbs is not out there for that sort of thing. >> it feels like the point bob is making here is precisely this larger battle going on here between democrats and republicans needing to make a claim there are some sets of thing that is are public goods, that are not up for sponsorship or privatization.

>> one of the things of pbs is when you look at "sesame street" you seedy verse families and children taught to value their education. when you privatetize children's programming, you are not only talk about advertising but the programming has to fit the advertisers. so you're looking at shows like nickelodeon or disney where you see young women incredibly thin because the beauty industry wants them to buy their products later. you see kids who want all of the latest electronics instead of being excited to go to school. you're making future consumers not just through the advertisers but if pbs were to have advertisements you would have companies invested in the programming to make sure our future consumers are doing what they want. >> it's an interesting point, it is not that my wind didn't want a tickle me elmo when he was the big deal, but she does not want to look like elmo. elmo is not aspirational. lawrence, i wanted to ask you about that aspirational aspect because it feels to me so much of your work, particularly

around the black middle class and upper class, is about the notion of the middle class as aspirational. i want to listen really quickly to our vice president who was making a very -- i'm sorry, not listen to, i'll tell you what the vice president was saying here. when he was discussing the middle class he actually defined it as aspirational saying middle class families aspire to home ownership, a car, college, education for their children, health and retirement security and occasional family vacations. that's actually the u.s. department of commerce and vice president biden saying this is what the middle class is. the story i just told was that "sesame street" is our aspirational middle class. it's the kind of community we wish we lived in. is that what's dying in our current economic circumstances? >> that's what is dying, melissa. i think about the three african-american children who look at shows on pbs and see themselves as shelby pointed out, they see themselves reflected in the programs and say, that's me. that's who i am. my kids were so excite when

michelle obama appeared on "sesame street." here she was telling them how to grow good foods that you can eat and they felt that could be me one day. and we don't see that in commercial television that's aimed at young people because their goal is not to show the diversity of children that are out there. their goal is to figure out cross promotional programs and a way to launch this particular singing star on this tv show so they will be able to go on parade around the country to sell what they are selling. >> it is not a multi-linguistic demographic for years, since the '70s. coming up, we'll talk more on the middle class and specifically it has been a bainful week for mitt romney. the 1% is going to try to explain it all way away. that's next. [ dog 1 ] i am not a sheep... i'm a sheep dog! i don't want to just eat plants. [ dog 2 ] what do i look like? a rabbit? yeah, maybe, but i don't want to eat like one. [ male announcer ] most dry foods add plant protein, like gluten

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the politics of the middle class is about more than policy. really it needs to be personal. candidates search for their own storylines that connect them with the average joe, which for mitt romney can be a bit of a struggle. no judgment here, but his personal roots were simply not sewn in the salt of the earth. when he himself became an even ripper man largely through this work at bain capital and that work has dogged the governor all week. it began with a major story out of "the boston globe" questioning which year mitt romney severed his ties with bain capital. the questions kept coming. not even the condi for vp floater could stem the tide. so last night governor romney granted a series of interviews to address this issue. >> in february of 1999 i left bain capital and left all management authority and responsibility for the firm. i had no ongoing activity or involvement in the affairs of

bain capital. >> so, see, no matter what the explanation the question remains l romney's demographic bar the middle class voters? shelby knox and lawrence otis graham, lawyer and historian, i don't think just because you're rich means you cannot connect, but i have to say the fact we can't know clearly when he's working, when he's not working, whether or not he's going to release the taxes, is this the bar? will middle class voters look at mitt romney and say, okay, yes, this guy understands my pain? >> that's not happening already. i mean, i think you see it reflected in the polls. they see this guy as kind of a distant figure. he's the epitome of the 1%. actually, 1/10 of 1% maybe, but i think the biggest -- and i think that's actually romney's biggest problem, because the republicans would have an opening in this economic

environment ordinarily, but people remember those bush years and they remember what happened to the economy. they don't blame obama for the state of the economy. they recognize what he inherited and it's very easy to associate romney with that era. >> especially if he's floating condi rice as his vp. >> he does nothing to disassociate himself from that and that's a fundamental mistake. >> let me talk about the taxes piece a little bit. the big conversation is that president obama wants to extend the bush tax cuts. i've been wondering if this is sort of a language attempt to push president obama and george bush together, but i wanted to correct just like one piece of misinformation. the way that so much media has been reporting this is the idea that president obama is willing to raise taxes on every household that makes over $250,000, which is not quite right. i just want to say this right. the first $250,000 of everyone's

income is safe, if you will. and it's only the marginal proportion over, so if you make $300,000, it is only on that $50,000 over. is there a way in which $250,000, when people say that, for what part of the world does that feel like middle class? living in louisiana, that feels like rich folks. >> i think there is a part of the world where a part of this country does feel like middle class, but it's a very small part of the country. >> san francisco, new york. we are in it. >> in fact, "sesame street" is in it. new york city. >> most americans do not think a family making $250,000 a year as middle class, they believe you've gone beyond the middle class when you get there. >> and melissa, also when you look at certain communities, cities that historically were successful in memphis. my parents are both from memphis, tennessee, where there was a thriving middle class there. my grandfather had a successful trucking company and restaurants. you look at those communities now, the black communities,

particularly in those cities, are completely decimated. my wife is from detroit. same situation there. mitt romney is from another detroit. he's from the gross points, from the exclusive private schools. he talks about identifying with the middle class, but here was a man whose father ran a major auto manufacturing company and his father was also clearly a presidential candidate who was more forthcoming and more able, better able to connect with the middle class than his own son. >> and more pro civil rights. >> yes, he opposed the naacp really as a prop in a narrative that was completely false and also was a way in which to throw black folks you should the bus to valvize his own audience, that's what he's done to go after the middle class by throwing black folks under the bus. >> this is a nancy pelosi claim that this was a prop to get the boos because getting booed by black folks is good for shoring up a base. >> you get the tea partiers --

it was his sister soldier moment, to throw this group under the bus to say look how strong and tough i am. i will speak against black folks who want free stuff, that's not what the african-american community is looking for. >> right. even the notion that free stuff is never free. in fact, we pay for it with these taxes. the idea that we are not our government, there's this government giving us stuff, we are taxpayers. >> we are taxpayers, but i also think it is mitt romney who opposed the bailout of gm which would have destroyed a whole lot of the middle class in michigan, but more importantly i think he's endorse it is paul ryan budget, which is the most devastatingly irresponsible budget and unjust budget. they are proposing not only to continue the bush tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires. over 125 each, but to give them another $265,000 in tax cuts, the top 1% does not need more tax cuts. and i just think this is the most hypocrite call effort to talk about the budget deficit

while you hand away trillions more. >> let's look at the picture of this. as much as president obama wants to extend the bush tax cuts, the fact is there's a difference between what the gop's plan is and what president obama's plan is. it is so clear on this graph that if budgets are moral documents, if our tax policy is an ethical document, these are the ethics. this is who the gop thinks deserves a break in this country today. up next, we'll talk a bit about president obama's special she werea to the middle class. what is his middle class story? where does it come from? why should our wallets tell us what our favorite color is? every room deserves to look great. and every footstep should tell us we made the right decision. so when we can feel our way through the newest, softest, and most colorful options... ...across every possible price range...

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in chicago, and michelle's mom, she stayed at home and looked after michelle and her brother until they got older and then worked as a secretary most of her life. and yet, despite these modest beginnings, michelle and her brother craig could go to the best cool schools on earth. and rise up to do extraordinary things. >> that was the president telling the first lady's middle class story in part to connect with middle income voting bases he's currently courting. while michelle obama's family, the robinson's family history may be helpful politically, it is more of a fairy tale. for the average middle class family, take home income has dropped 7% in the past ten years. and if you're part of the african-american family, your household wealth plunged by 53% between 2005 and 2009. that middle class michelle story ofiesteryear is just that story

of yesteryear. bob herbert, shelby knox and lawrence otis graham. shelby, that kind of yesteryear story, what does that mean for young people in your generation? >> you used to count on aspirational votes, talking about the 250,000, my generation doesn't even think that we are going to make 250,000 a year. fewer people are -- fewer young people are homeowners, we are renting and moving back in with our parents. the idea of the middle class, i'm sad to say, the not really one we have. when president obama is talking about michelle obama, what we've got to remember here is that 42% of american women don't have enough income to meet basic household expenses. that goes up to 66% when you're talking about african-american women. we add the pay gap in there, 77% for women, 66 cents on the dollar for african-american women. so he can tell this story. and it's one that needs to be told.

but he needs to be speaking to the reality of american young people, especially american young women. we really -- we are devastated out there and we know the challenges. >> it's interesting the sort of aspirationals a pekts in this idea when you look at the hard facts, it feels like this story of the government blue collar worker, the stay at home mom, the kids that go to princeton, that does not exist. >> that does not exist but her story is a real story. mitt romney is trying to appropriate it to tell his own story, but i went to princeton and harvard with michelle robson at that time. and she and craig were down to earth regular people who you knew were going to work hard in order to make the family back in chicago proud of them. the thing about it is that we see so many of those successful families now not being able to repeat that with their own children. in my book, "our kind of people" i got a lot of heat from the jack and jill black elite crowd, but what's happening is there's a short moment in time and we've

had this black success as entrepreneurs and investment bankers and lawyers, but we are the first ones to get cut. once we get cut because we don't have the deep reservoir of networks and connections and old boy connections the way george bush had, george used to tell the story when he graduated from yale with a c-average he could still become president. that can't happen. >> only in certain bodies. that's right. >> absolutely. there's a certain amount of white mail privilege that goes along with, and that's not true for all white families, but for well connected families like the bushes. three generations of people in the senate or high level government officials. that's how a c-average white guy can get to harvard business school and then go on to become president that doesn't happen in the black and brown community. >> it's my favorite stories of the obamas. they paid off student loans moments before he took the oath of office for the u.s. senate. that to me is sort of what middle class feels like. you are still burdened with student loans becomes a senator.

coming up, we'll talk about this issue and more specifically i have issues with governors who flat out refused to implement the affordable care act. how is the middle class even going to pay for health care? man: there's a cattle guard, take a right.

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of the poverty line, let's be clear who falls in the category. an individual with an annual income just below $15,000 or a family of four living on as little as $30,000 a year. before the affordable care act expanded the social safety net to catch these people, they simply were not quite poor enough to qualify for health care and still are not in the seven states whose governors seem contempt to let them continue to slip through the cracks. as we discuss making an appeal to the middle class, i still have to wonder why for those still struggling to get in that class their own governors who deny them just a little bit of help, still we me at the table, shelby knox, lawrence otis graham, it feels like the poverty line is a better definition of the poor, a definition of a family of four existing on $30,000 as wealthy enough to buy health insurance is just wrong. >> absolutely.

and millions, tens of millions of people have been helped before. and the affordable health care act is a major step forward. it's astonishing to me that any governor would think about turning down 100% federal funding and then 90% federal funding to help its people get one of the most basic human rights that there is. texas has a large number of uninsured people, mississippi, louisiana, all the others have drug their feet in forcing medicaid for the poor and children's health insurance for the program, there are millions of people who can get help. tens of millions, and the idea that governors are saying we are not going to help our people stay out of more costly emergency rooms, stop suffering death and preventable illnesses is just astonishing. i do hope that the voters in those states will really look and say, is this right leadership for us? >> on exactly that question, the issue of voters, bobby, i want to ask you about this. bobby jindal is my governor.

the #fbj, forget bobby jindal, but the whole point why we can't forget him because the democratic party in the state of louisiana did not put up a real candidate against him. like you can't vote for someone else unless there's a real alternative. how do we get the politics, can the national democratic party say we're targeting texas and louisiana where they are turning down basic rights? >> the democratic party should be doing that but in the absence of doing that, people who are concerned need to go to voters themselves and get them to start pressuring politicians actually in both parties. we have nearly 50 million american who is are officially poor by the federal statistics and guidelines. another 50 million we call the near poor, just a notch or two above the official poverty line. that's almost 100 million people, which is about a third of the entire u.s. population, poor or near poor.

what kind of middle class society is that if you have so many people living in poverty? >> it's not a middle class society, it's that growing difference. the claim was just made about it being a basic right and what's good for the people, but people who have health care go to work and they earn wages and they pay their bills on time. it is also good economic development. >> but melissa, the eight governors or seven governors don't care about that. that's a strategic move for them. the same move when january brewer, the governor of arizona, waved her finger in the face of our president. this was all about sending a message to her supporters to gavelize her base. these are political moves. it is not that they are saying, we don't think the health care program is good for our citizens because they know it is, but it is thumbing their nose at the supreme court, thumbing their nose at the president and making sure to galvanize the president. >> it's a political move. they are not making a claim that's not good, so if they are going to play politics, let's play it.

these are the folks. if you're watching from one of these states, the governor, fbj and the rest, the governor is saying i don't care that you need health care. i don't care that it will be free to our state initially. we are just not going to do this. >> and aside from texas, originally, one in four texans is uninsured. rick perry has already proven he does not care about the citizens of his state when he gave up millions in federal dollars for family planning programs and cancer screenings because he wanted to make a political point about planned parenthood. in this case we have to be really, really clear as to who they don't care about, and that's women and all folks of color. because those are the people that are going to be hurt most by the refusals and rick perry is saying, i care more about my presidential ambitions because that went so well the first time than i do about the millions of texans helped by this. >> rick perry is a good example because he initially, you saw the sort of rick perry of

governor making sense on the hpb vaccine initially and he back pedaled from it, turned around and did a jump-shot to pro tend the hpb vaccine was a bad idea because somehow it became government encroachme. you saw the politics impact people's health in that. >> exactly. the texas legislature much like the u.s. congress spent as much time trying to eliminate poverty as they do trying to make sure women don't get abortions, then there would be no poverty in texas. they pay 80% more than others in other states because they are covering the uninsured. this expansion would alleviate a burden for folks who are already buying their own health insurance. >> let me reinforce that. the taxpayers of the texas are going to pay this. the economy in tax is going to lose because they are turning down billions and billions of federal dollars they need and

spend billions on uncompensated care for those with low birthrate babies that will cost a fortune. it's the taxpayers and the citizens of texas and their economy, and we are able to get the business community to join us in trying to get texas to enforce the children's health program because there was money. they were turning down billions of dollars. >> the middle class has heard even if they are not covered by the medicaid expansion, they are going to pay for these folks and those getting medical care much too late. >> when it costs even more. that's why it is so obvious mitt romney's medical program he had in massachusetts was the same thing that's going on here. >> yes! but he can't admit to that because he had to play to the far right, so he's making these politically expedient moves even though they are against the middle class and the very people to benefit from news programs. >> the argument of the individual mandate, the reason republicans like mitt romney put it into place, was there a sense

it was about individual responsibility? because otherwise it falls on taxpayers. that used to be the line. now the line is what did president obama do? we are for the opposite. >> exactly. logic goes out the window and the political expediency determines the date. >> it feels more than just political expedient. i'm thinking you have the first african-american woman admitted to the bar in mississippi, i think. the story of mississippi is that story of massive resistance, which in certain parts without political decency, but i felt it was more about that than just winning the next election. it was also about the sense of youpeople do not get to be part of the american story. >> that is right. i think what we have going on here is the resurgence of the old bad stuff. we were seeing crimes go up. we see racial profiling and violence going up. i think some of us think that

the black community and the black child and this country are facing one of the worst crisis in terms of backwards mobility, backwards actions in the reconstruction area. if you look at massive incarceration at the pipeline, look at the job market and the non-enforcement of very basic rights, look at voter suppression, this is a dangerous time with racism here we need to deal with. >> in fact, we are going to look at the issues and unemployment as we go on later in the show, but first we are going to talk about the issue of military sexual assault. the say it has handled the way the controversy is tackled. i'm going to talk to congresswoman spiers next. one that's working to attract businesses and create jobs.

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texas involving sexual misconduct by male boot camp instructors toward female recruits. take a look at the staggering statistic. according to "the washington post," approximately 25% of the instructors in the 331st training squadron stand charged or are under investigation for sexual miskukts. one trainer has been charged with raping or sexually assaulting ten woman. democratic congresswoman jackie spier is urging the house armed services committee to hold hearings on this latest black eye for the military and has the bipartisan support of 77 colleagues in congress. representative jackie spier is joining me from san francisco. thank you for being here this morning. >> i'm happy to be with you, melissa. >> congressman spier, how does the chain of command make this problem of sexual assault worse? >> the chain of command creates an environment where there's an inherent conflict of interest. the number of cases of sexual

assault where the victim has to report to her actual rapist is high or the sexual assault is the result of a friend of the commander. so it creates a con flikts of interest that as a result fewer people actually report the sexual assault or rape. that's why at lackland, they have identified 331 victims, only one has reported the crime. >> so explain to me, you have a legislative effort to challenge this, to move it outside of the chain of command. what would that effort do? >> so it would keep it in the military but move it outside the chain of command. so a victim would report to a special victims unit, which would be staffed by experts and investigations and prosecution. and then they would make the decision whether or not to move forward with the case. right now you have a unit commander or someone right above that unit commander who has no

legal experience and evaluates the case. and they are judge and jury. they make the decision whether or not an investigation and prosecution moves forward and they decide who is going to be the investigator and who is going to be the prosecutor. it's a real stacked deck against the victim. >> congresswoman, it feels like one of the challenges, luckily you have bipartisan support on this, but it does feel to me like one of the challenges we as a public typically don't want to know bad things about our military. we understand the pressures that soldiers are under, particularly in the context of long war and multiple deployments. how do we push past this culture of silence in order to poubly size this enough to protect women in the military? >> i think until very recently there hasn't been a recognition that this issue is so widespread in the military. 19,000 cases of sexual assault and rape a year by dods own statistics and only 13% report. and if you look at the

statistics, even with the efforts underway, and i believe that secretary panetta wants to do the right thing, but even so the actual number of court-martials and convictions has dropped over last year. so we are not doing the right thing. meanwhile, these victims are victimized a second time over. and i don't want to have members of the military, both men and women, who enlist be more likely to be victims of violence from someone within their own unit than from the enemy. >> now you've been very clear that you believe this is a systemic problem, not just the issue of sort of one off bad behavior. the other sort of fundamental systemic thing we are seeing is the increase in military suicides, so much so there's more u.s. military members who lost their lives to their own hands, suicide, than actually in afghanistan itself. do you see any correlation

between the kind of systemic problems that allow and encourage and hide this kind of sexual assault and the kind of systemic problems that might be associated with this appalling suicide rate? >> you know, the suicide rate is jarring. one every 80 seconds among veterans and one a day among active military. all of the experts say there's not enough money being spent on mental health services within the military, that's about 4%. and much like sexual assault, that's the focus of being on the victim. somehow they created the environment. somehow they dressed provocatively. on the case of suicide and mental health issues, it's somehow the spouse's fault if there's a marriage situation, it's someone within the family causing the problem. so we've got to stop pointing the fingers and start dealing

with the cancer that exists within the system and fix it. >> thank you, congresswoman jackie speirer. we greatly appreciate your hard work on this issue. >> thank you. up next, i have an incredible story of a mother who forgave the murderer of her own son. both are going to join me next. don't go away. ♪ [ acoustic guitar: upbeat ]

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if someone you love is hurt or even killed, you want justice. but when justice is met, what does that leave us with? forgiveness. it seems possible but it can be impossibly hard. a mother's ultimate act, forgiving her child's murderer. mary johnson's only child was then killed by 16-year-old oshe israel. in the beginning mary johnson wanted justice met as the

murderer was sentenced to several years in prison. after the initial incredibly tense meeting, mary and oshe met regularly and mary eventually forgave oshe. when he was released after 17 years in prison, she welcomed him home, literally. oshe lives next door to mary. as they continue to force their bond, they are an example that forgiveness is indeed possible. i'm joined from minneapolis by mary johnson and oshe israel. thank you for being here. >> thank you for having us. >> thank you for having us. >> mary, you talk about this as a faith journey. tell me your reason. >> well, i am a christian woman, and my word tells me in order to be forgive that you must forgive. and it is faith. this is what has gotten me to the place where i'm at today, to be able to sit next to oshea and

for us to go all over the world sharing our story. >> you know, i have to say when i first heard the story, i had so many mixed emotions, but oshea, i wondered if you feel a sense of responsibility now in how you live your life because the life that you took is that of mary johnson's son. do you have a responsibility to live a good life in his place? >> i wouldn't necessarily say in his place because i can never fill his shoes, but at the same time i do have a responsibility to myself, to make sure i come out here and set the right example because committing my crime, i set the wrong example and see a lot of people following behind those steps. so i have to show that regardless of the past, what i've done, that i can come out here to redeem myself and we can be successful. and, you know, in honor of mary just to show her that, hey, i caused this pain before but

that's not what my intentions are now. i want to show you that i can be a success story and her son didn't die in vain. >> mary, is there something for you in terms of being able to walk this faith path and walk this space to forgiveness that you feel called to by your understanding of god and god's love? something about the fact they were young when this happened. your son, 20, oshea only a teenager. is there something about them just being teenagers that made it more possible for you to forgive? >> well, i've been asked that before, and at the time, you know, the age did not even come up at all. that oshea was only 16 and my son was only 20. i really can't say that that had anything to do with it. i really can't say that. >> let me ask you this, oshea, i

heard you say something about wanting to be a success story. talk to me a bit about your time being incarcerated. would you say the things happening to you or for you in your period of incarceration helped you to a place where you can be successful or is it about the love and faut journey of mary johnson that brings you to that place? >> i think it's a combination of both. excuse me, being inside, you wouldn't get a chance to do a lot of personal reflection, get to find out who you are as a person, figure out how to fit into the world. look at the mistakes that you made and how you can go about doing things differently. even when i was inside the prison, i was just doing dumb stuff and i got to the point where i needed to do something with myself. education has always been important so i regted myself. the program is inside a prison

and i started taking those. the more i started putting inside of myself the better i started feeling about myself and the more i wanted to do the right thing. because it became normal to me, learning e and growing, with mary coming along and the forgiveness part, it liberated me more to the fact that i didn't have to feel as guilty about trying to come home, be successful and become somewhat -- that i didn't have to accomplish something. in the back of my head i took guilty because i took a life and don't deserve this. >> mary johnson, oshea israel, i'm appreciative of the conversation we are going to have today on reconciliation and forgiveness. ms. johnson, you are an absolute image of, in fact, what a christian woman is. i appreciate what you have done here. >> thank you. >> coming up, we are going to

continue to talk about prison. we'll talk specifically about the cradle to prison pipeline that barred too many mothers sons find themselves trapped in. yep. the longer you stay with us, the more you save. and when you switch from another company to us, we even reward you for the time you spent there. genius. yeah, genius. you guys must have your own loyalty program, right? well, we have something. show her, tom. huh? you should see november! oh, yeah? giving you more. now that's progressive. call or click today.

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it's pretty great. i get a bunch of kids waving at me... giving me the thumbs up. it's always a gratifying experience. it makes me feel good about my car. i absolutely love my chevy volt. ♪ some to of you may be asking, why do i care about prisone prisoners? do the crime, do the time. think of all those locked up and locked away. for starters, most prisoners will eventually return to communities. the conditions they face in jail make a big difference in their lives when they come home, and this is true in particular for one group. young people. the united states locks up vastly more of our children than other developed nations. the kinds of young people most likely to feel the wrath of the prison system compared to white youth, young hispanics are 43% more likely to be waived into

the adult justice system. from the ages of 10 to 17, black kids are more than five times as likely as white kids to be arrested for a violent crime. remember, these are children we are talking about, not pardoned criminals and many of them are victims themselves of economic and social factors that are out of their control. factors that could be fixed if the adults in the room for paying more attention. at the table are mary ann wright adelman, president of the children's defense fund, bob herbert, senior fellows at demos, the executive director of of college and community fellowship, and glenn martin at the fortune society. thank you for being here. glenn, i want to start with you. tell me what the school to prison pipeline is. >> sure. essentially we've put out children unfortunately on a pipeline from education right into the criminal justice system. mostly young men of color, young black and latino men, but increasingly young black and

latino women. instead of spending time in educating our youth, we are criminalizing behavior that just 10 to 15 years was not criminalized and the response to it is no longer a trip to the principal's office. it's a trip to the local police precinct. once you are in the criminal justice system, it is extremely hard to extra kate from that. >> i think folks sometimes miss that particular point, that the crimes that people are currently being incourse rated for were not crimes of very short time ago. because i think it is real easy when we start talking about prisons and juvenile incourse ration. we say, well, you are a criminal, you broke the law. we have to remember the laws move around. we decide what's legal and illegal. it was illegal to be black sitting at public lunch counters at one point in this country, right? so what are the alternatives to

incourse incarceration. reverend nixon? >> we need to deal with children as just that, our children. there are families involved when talking about children. so generation approaches need to be happening. we need to be addressing the problems and families causing children to act out in ways now criminal, because you have police in schools and you have children who are going to act out because it is a natural part of the growing up process. it escalates over time as it gets unaddressed and it is unaddressed because families are not being addressed in our communities. resources are scarce in the community. parents are stressed having to work two to three jobs to survive in this economy. and therefore raising children becomes more and more difficult as time goes on and there aren't supports in order to address these minor infractions before things become out of control. >> this seems so important to me, somebody says, it's the families and somehow it becomes, beat your kids and yell at your kids, but this notion that,

look, when we have food and security, kids come to school hungry. when people are losing housing they end up doubling and tripling up in households to create stressors. i was shocked to see school acts of violence and acting up occur at the end of the month because food stamps have run out and kids are hungry. no one has done more on the broad structures our kids are facing. how do we keep kids out of the school to prison pipeline? >> i would go back to the cradle to prison pipeline. i think the zero tolerance school discipline policies have got to be changed. the number of children expelled from school are being -- are committing nonviolent offenses. truancy, what sense does it make to put a child out of school because they are not coming to school? 80% of our children not learning in school are not getting what they need and are not respected. sure, they are going to act out.

if they don't have health care, attention deficit disorders, we have to make sure they have what they need in order to learn, but we are criminalizing 5, 6, 7-year-olds. don't tell me that adults in a school setting cannot figure out why a 6 or 7-year-old is having a temper tantrum and how to solve it in a school and not call in three police to handcuff them. we have got to stop this. and we've got to have common sense. >> i went to florida on a case and wrote about it where a 6-year-old girl who was in kindergarten was arrested, put in handcuffs and put in the back of the police car for having a tantrum in kindergarten. >> before mom could get to school. >> the handcuffs were too large to fit around her wrists. they had to put them up around her biceps. this is really sick behavior. >> for me, a bigger problem is the fact that when that went out across the airwaves, when people saw the pictures, there was not

the outrage back in the civil rights movement when we saw people getting hosed down. >> that's the question. >> i'm glad you brought up the civil rights movement. what you said was important, that we have not been locking people up at this rate forever. we see the end of the civil rights era and the huge spike in incarcerations. but to go a bit further, we are also attaching invisible punishment to those convictions. so we are setting kids up for failure through collateral consequences. if you have a conviction, you can't go to school here. if you have a conviction, you can't vote here. if you have a conviction, you can't get a license here. so in many ways a system has this inherent hypocrisy where we tell people, once you come out, do the right thing and get your life back together. wait a minute, you can't go to school. >> this is the story, if you have a felony, you can't live in public housing or get a federal student loan. there's tons of jobs in many states that you simply can't be a barber in some states. you can't get a job, can't get

an education and you have nowhere to live. of course people go back into the system. >> and this society where we are trying children as adults, imagine being a child 16 years old getting convicted of a crime in adult court in a state where because you were convicted you can never vote in your entire life. the community is saying we don't want you, you are not part of us and this society. >> let me clarify that the majority of children put out of school are put out of school for nonviolent offenses. millions -- we've got 7.1 million folk who have been in prison or under the control of the juvenile or criminal justice system. many of them are there for nonviolent offenses. we have racial disparities and income disparities and who gets charged and who goes to prison and what their terms are, so this is the unjust system. >> that's what we have to deal with. >> we are going to talk more about that and specifically on this question of a system that picks up certain kinds of kids

and keeps them from being full citizens. stay right there. up next, it could be enough to turn the entire election. why a key battleground state like florida and virginia, one in five african-americans has effectively lost the right to vote. that's next. [ male announcer ] turn 1, daytona. riverside exit, i-95. variante ascari, monza. mile 7, highway 1. wehrseifen, nurburgring. the horseshoe, twin peaks boulevard. every famous curve has an equally thrilling, lesser-known counterpart. conquer them, with the lexus is performance line, featuring the is 250. real performance demands real precision. this is the pursuit of perfection.

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if you think politics and prison don't affect each other, this could change your mind. a new poll reminds us why every vote counts and why so many votes don't be cast. 5.9 million americans are forbidden to vote because they live in states with laws that disenfranchise convicted felons. it is one of the key reasons why in battleground states like

florida and virginia one in five african-americans simply can't vote. so in the case of voting, politics in prisons do go hand in hand and the important distinction is who benefits when the two mix? at the table are mary wright edelman, bob herbert, reverend, what does it mean with the notion of being disenfranchised of the crime? >> we have thousands of people coming through the door involved in the criminal justice system. i happen to live in a state where you get your voting rights back at a certain point. when i got off parole and tried to register to vote, the local board of elections told me i was not eligible to vote, even though the law in new york state said different. that was my introduction to this issue. when you think of how to keep people out of prison, you can find no better recipe for getting people to reoffend than

to make them feel like they are not part of the social fabric. a great way to do that is to take away their right to vote. when i talk to individuals about the right to vote, some say my vote doesn't count anyway. voters are disenfranchised here with the voting process, but when i see them, i say, if it is not important, why would they take it away? in my opinion, i'm not sure why we take away their vote to right at all. we knock people down a notch and take away all the rights. unfortunately, we don't have a ceremony to help them recognize they are once again part of society. >> michelle alexander calls it the new jim crow, not because of the brown and black bodies, but people who are just simply disenfranchised. >> some people think this is a major way of political empowerment, but this has been about power and the right to vote. you take away the vote but also the economic disempowerment.

many who go into prison cannot get a job, cannot find housing, this is a major way to undermine the vie brancy of communities of color and a poor community of color. it is the new gym jim crow, but we have to break it up. >> when we were talking about the 8'2" big bird in the first hour, we were talking about this notion of privatizing, there are people who are getting economic benefits from incarcerating our community. >> that's a big issue but we should not lose sight of the fact that the republican party benefits directly from this because they are disenfranchising people who would vote overwhelmingly democratic. >> one in five black voters in virginia and florida? that's the election. >> there you go. >> one in five black voters, we

know the vast majority of the votes would go to president obama if they were able to be cast. >> i work on legislative issues with opening up opportunities for those involved in the criminal justice system. i'll never forget setting down with a senator. we were in the district of nine prisons, he took a look at the building and said, this is great but news are not my people. i have never had that response ever, but he was crystal clear with me. these are not my folks, meaning these are not republican votes, good luck. >> i'm going to lose the privatization issue because it is a big issue. people of color and immigrants are of the core population. they just sent a letter to 48 state governors offering to run the prison systems for 20 years if they could be guaranteed a 90% occupancy rate. our states are spending -- >> we don't want people to miss

that. if they are guaranteed a 90% occupancy rate -- >> and we've got to see what is going on here. this is part of a bigger privatization movement, not just big bird, but people want to privatize social security. this is about a big eer role of government, but the states need to wake up, too. because the cost of incarcerating more and more people. they are spending 2.5 times more, that's the dumbest investment policy i can think of. >> and i want to give you the last word on this. if that is a bad way to spend our money, what are the alternatives to incarceration for young people? >> we can't spend our way out of it because it is an ideological issue, but where we do spend our money matters.

we need to be investing in opportunities for people to have employment that leads to sustainable and living wages. we need to make sure that when people are released from prison because we do have people in prisons, we have to wonder what's going to happen to them. that there are not laws in place that bar them from jobs, bar them from school, bar them from housing, because that's a recipe for disaster. we have to address strategies that address not only the adults incarcerated but the children of those incarcerated as well. >> two things, access to education. i was lucky enough to get a college education while i was on the inside. second thing, hope. someone took the time to stop and say to me, you can do better. you can do differently. you can be educated. you can change your life. and that -- those two things combined, i think, a part of the recipe to help us reduce the criminal justice system and go back to where we should be. >> let's talk about today's prisons, you could not get the

college degree because in 19942 federal government made it illegal for people in prison to receive pell grants to go to school. >> i think this is -- right where you are is where we will leave it today but not forever because i think what you have done, particularly i like how you brought us back to the moment with shea and ms. johnson, he said he had an opportunity to learn while incarcerated and an extraordinary person who came in with hope and forgiveness. maybe if we imagined ourselves playing that role as a society, actually thinking of these young people as valuable enough to invest in their education and to provide hope for us. we will undoubtedly see you all back. thank you, vivian nixon and glenn martin. more with mary and bob shortly. coming up, the urgent demand for a growing national crisis of demand and you are jens response, education. we'll try to close that gap.

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on sunday july 22nd, a week from tomorrow, the children's defense fund will begin their first national conference since 2003 set in cincinnati, ohio, leaders from education, policymaking and more will come together to try to create solutions for the most vulnerable among us. our children. this is at a time when 16.4 million children are poor and 8.3 million kids don't have health care. there's never been a more critical time to address these issues and i'm please to have this discussion with none other than mary wright edelman, the founder of the children's defense fund. why now? >> why now? we are in the middle of the major crisis. we are talking about the middle class but i'm concerned about the plight of the poor and our children in the richest nation on earth are the poorest group of americans and the younger they are the poorer they are in those years of early brain development and when we talk about the cradled prison

pipeline, it starts before birth in the lack of prenatal care, the lack of health care in early years and lack of stimulation in zero to three years when we know how important that is, with the lack of preparation for school and go to school not ready to learn and go to schools that don't help them to learn, the poorest children get the worst resources and sometimes the poorest teachers and live in neighborhoods of concentrated poverty and don't have the after school or summer stimulation that most of us more privileged can do. so this constant continuation of the effects of poverty which is growing, and hungry children don't learn. hopeless children have a hard time. if you're suffering abuse or living in violent communities, this is a wake-up call to say, hey, all, the country is really in danger by a lot of the external forces, citizens united, the hijacking of the political process, succession, but we need to look at what's happening to the poor and look what's happening to our children and do something. >> my producer and i were going

through this, she was just sending me graph after graph and i was sending her e-mail after e-mail saying can you believe these numbers. we are looking at the number of children in america in poverty. just sort of running through what some of this looks like. we have kids living in poverty in 2010, nearly 40% of african-american children. more than a third of hispanic children. and more than one in ten white children. then we were looking at the number of uninsured children also breaking this out by race, one in six hispanic children, one in nine african-american children and one in ten white children have no insurance. we were looking also at educational achievement, where kids are in terms of their ability to actually complete high school within four years. you're looking at only 64% of african-american children in 66% of hispanic children actually completing. then the one blowing our mind as we talked about this prison thing, the percent of children of color who make up, who are in the college population versus

the prison population, right? so black men make up 5% of college students but 36% of prisoners in the same thing here with hispanic adult men at 12% and 16%. okay. those feel so big, so enormous, that my first sense is just, what in the world are we going to do about that? >> we are going to raise our voices and we are going to create the nonviolent movement that says, stop. we are not going to go backwards. the whole premise of the first civil rights movement was to give our children a better life. and we want them to have an education. the fact that 80% of black and latino students cannot read or compute in a fourth, eighth or twelve grade level. it is a social and economic death. what are you going to do in the global economy when you cannot read or compute. there already is a disaster leading to the fact that a black boy has a one in three chance if he was born in 2001, going to prison in their lifetime.

we cannot grow prisoners. that's going to destroy the black community and the people of color but the country. where is our workforce going to come from? and it is too costly. we are doing this so you all come together. 3,000 folk coming together from all 50 states. half are going to be young people. and we really want to build a young nonviolent voice for change. you can't wait for republicans or the democrats in washington or the capitol to do it. we need the next trend to stop this incarceration, to break it up and demand the education and the safety net that every child does need. now, there's some hope here now that we have the health care act. it will cover 95% of all children. and we can go out now and enroll a lot more millions of children who are eligible, we need to go out and do that. >> if we can get bobby jindal and his crew out of the way standing in the schoolhouse

door. >> well, we have models and this is a conference on how to close the gap between we know what works and what we can do. how to train people and how to fight poverty, but it needs to be organized in voting, but we have to come together to take responsibility. >> i love that you are doing it in ohio. it is a narrative about swing states and the fact that elections have consequences. still co to come, last month's overall unemployment rate was up changed but for african-americans it went up. it turns out there's a very specific reason why. we'll explain that next. this is new york state. we built the first railway, the first trade route to the west, the greatest empires. then, some said, we lost our edge. well today, there's a new new york state. one that's working to attract businesses and create jobs.

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things aren't a whole lot better but they are not necessarily any worse either, unless you are african-american. that's the story told to the latest job numbers to show everyone else's unemployment number holding steady while african-american unemployment continues to rise. two months ago the rate for african-americans was 13.6%. by the time last week's numbers were released for june, the

number jumped almost a percentage point to 14.4%. compare that with 8.2% nationally, which held steady from may to june. the new black unemployment numbers make their way to two times white unemployment, remaining at 7.4%. unchanged was the latino rate which didn't budge from 11%, but those numbers are only part of the story only accounting for those actively seeking work, not why they aren't finding it. to understand that, we should consider this. 21.2% of african-americans were employed by the public sector between 2008 and 2010. before and after the recession, african-americans were 30% more likely than other workers to be employed in the public sector. and since 2008636,000 public sector jobs have disappeared from the economy. it's a number that could soon be increased by 145,000. that's how many government

workers mitt romney said he would cut when he vowed to, quote, send them home when he became president. you wonder why he got booed at the naacp convention. still with me is mary wright edelman. this came from government, jobs, teachers, postal workers, firefighters, when we look at what happened, it is government jobs being cut. no wonder. >> that's true, melissa. the black middle class was built on the public sector jobs unlike the white middle class, which was built on jobs working for corporate america where they could guarantee they could be a couple generations working for the company or working for ibm. we don't have a deep ezer vour within the black community that's been a part of the corporate community, so that is not a part of our story or our narrative. and the other issue is at a time when blacks could get jobs in the public sector working for

the post office and working as firefighters or police officers, we didn't necessarily have to be college educated or have a graduate school education. now it's a necessity. no longer a luxury because when the white folks get cut from the corporate jobs, we have long before been cut from the positions. >> it is the thing making me most nuts about the unemployment numbers because we see the private sector slowly, maybe meekly, growing. but the public sector -- it just feels like our response is cut taxes. the public sector has fewer resources to hire people. >> we are throwing these african-american public sector employees out of work at a time when there's a full-blown depression in the black community. even that 14.4% jobless rate understates the figure. that's the official rate, as you pointed out, those are the ones searching for work. but i go into the communities and recently was up in the

rocksbury area in boston, you'll find whole neighborhoods where no one has a legitimate job. go to detroit or east st. louis or camden or newark, it's hard finding a job out there. it's a great american tragedy and people are not paying enough attention to it. >> and we have structural problems in the economy. we have recognized jobs becoming available in the private sector are low-wage jobs, not enough to lift you out of poverty. then we are missing this enormous opportunity to respond to the needs of our children and of the working families. imagine if we created the jobs for the pre-consistenter garden schools so we could do public investment and save our children and save the future workforce of this country. >> we keep hearing from the republicans that this is a great government giveaway program, but it is economic stimulus creating jobs, right? >> break it down more, black women most hurt by the recession when it began are more likely to

be in the public sector jobs. for every ten jobs women gain in the private sector, they, women, lose four public sector jobs. even with this recovery, a lot of the jobs were service jobs, construction jobs. in those areas check broken down by race, men are gaining jobs in those areas and women are still losing jobs in those areas. we have to look at who is being helped by which programs and be very specific about making sure that we are helping those certain populations. >> yeah. >> the other greater loss that african-americans have had to add to what shelby was pointing out is that the public sector jobs provide great pensions and a great medical benefit. so all the various programs that came along with the great, secure jobs, when those become decimated those children of those families lose out as well and they became a quote/unquote burden on our hospital systems, emergency rooms and things like that. ultimately we all lose because

we have to pay taxes to pay for the programs. >> it is partly the story here of what's happening with the war on teachers where now we decided that teachers, unionized teacher who is earn a desent pay with health care, retirement are bad for kids. so now if you're -- you as the african-american woman teacher, maybe cutting your job, but also the public schools suffer. so if you are sort of middle class-ish hanging on to the bottom rungs, you can't send your kid to a decent public school and it compounds in multiple ways. >> it does compound. many of the folks who we are talking about are college educated or have even higher degrees. they lose their jobs and they are out there in this terrible job market and they start taking jobs that people with lesser degrees of education once had. that pushes the whole thing downward. now if you have young people who, for example, only have a high school diploma, they cannot find these jobs because more and

more of these jobs are being held by people with college degrees. it's a terrible situation, a cascade that we've got going right now. >> and so imagine the dropouts. imagine the child in school who has never seen anybody work, okay? and don't they see that in their future, what's their incentive to stay in school in they look at what's going on? >> they are going to end up in the same place where they started. >> if you look at teen employment rates, the teen employment rate is 29% across the country, or 24% for whites and 15% for black teens. so if you begin there where they can't find jobs as young people and then you need a higher education -- >> the first experience is showing up on time and having a ball going to work. you didn't earn much but you sort of learned something about what it meant to be an employee. >> right. it helped develop the work ethic, you got a little bit of spending change. you knew what it was like to get a job, maybe get a little boost

in salary and you feel proud. it just starts you off. >> there are institutions providing that in our neighborhoods right now, that provide you pocket money and the ability to show up. and that is still possible, it's just not in the legitimate market, right? because you can learn all that selling drugs. >> and they are doing it. >> that's right. so when we come back, i'm just going to say all the things shelby just said, focus a little bit on black women who are among the slowest groups to recover from the unemployment rate. shelby is jumping ship. [ birds chirping ]

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slower than men to bounce back. women have gained back 24% of jobs lost during the recession compared to men's 39% gain according to the national women's law center. at the intersection of women's slow recovery and black americans increasing unemployment numbers are bla women who lost more jobs during the recovery than during the recession. when black men gained back jobs during the recovery black women continued to lose them. and with black women at the head of a majority of black families with children, they aren't the only ones losing. still with me, mary ae marian wright edelman, i'm telling you, this is bad for african-american women. should the black president somehow made this not true? somehow had fixed it? >> it's not barack obama's

fault. we are in this terrible economic downturn, the worst since the depression. and the vast majority of americans understand he was not the cause of that. i wish that barack obama had done more about jobs, in general. but he's not a civil rights leader. what i think is that his exit zens have not paid close enough attention to the poorest members of our society, the people with the least power in that sort of thing. i think african-americans probably should have raised their voices louder than they had. and i would have liked to have seen and still would like to see a great deal more activism to push back against some of these things. >> i'm going to push back a little bit on that. so i feel like we just talked about the idea that was public sector jobs that were being shed. this is a president, first of all, you say he was not a civil

rights leader. i'm inclined to think the affordable care act could be the most reputable civil rights legislation since -- >> but not promoted as something that's specifically to help african-americans. it helps a lot of african-americans -- >> undoubtedly, but it has an enormous disproportionate fact. but this idea of the public sector having been sharing the jobs, i live in a state where governor bobby jindal turned back stimulus money. where republican governors said, you know what? no thanks, we are not going to take the government jobs. then in places like wisconsin, they literally started laying off government workers mostly under republican governors. >> we blamed that on the republicans, right? >> we do, but who is the they when we say they are doing this. >> the men! >> the white man and some white women. but let's truly look at who are making these decisions and who are being elected.

we have no black women in the senate. very few black women in congress. should barack obama have done more? yes, but was he a good man to wave a magic man to eliminate sexism? >> what? president obama is not, in fact, magical? he does not, in fact, have a wand? what's this you are saying, shelby knox? >> being in the room is incredibly important for black women's voices to be sitting there saying, actually, we are more impacted in different ways. the policy has to be tailored in different ways every single time it's enacted. >> that's so true. this is a lot of why i think hillary clinton when running for president that was so much a message in her campaign, the involvement of women. when you look at corporate america, it is not the women who get the higher level industry positions. it is who is sitting in the boardroom. is it one woman out of 12 men to make the decisions out of

hiring? it is making sure there are women in line for leadership positions to bring in people after them, not bedebate them and say, i'm in, later for the rest of you. the same thing is true in government. when you pointed out the lack of black women in the senate, these all send messages with nobody in the room, whether it is a female producer on the show to say, you can't say that. we have to make sure we have women's voice or message here. that same thing is true in corporations. >> reporter: the congressman said, look, if democrats retake the house, you want to see women in leadership, you have to give democrats back leadership and majority in the house because there are so many more women in the democratic party that you'll end up with women in positions of power including the kind of positions to make some of these jobs programs come through. >> we need more women in the role. we need more people of color in the room. we need more people who come from backgrounds that can relate to people in need.

we need more people, we are not scared of saying the word poor. the president cannot do it unless we build a whole lot of noise from the outside. politicians do not always respond and cannot lead alone. i don't know how the man gets through the day. he inherited two wars and a huge bad economy. he inherited a huge budget deficit from the bush tax cuts. and from all of these top 1% that have raided the treasury. and he inherited -- people are crazy. many people are just out of their minds when we have a black president in the white house and they want to bring him down. >> there was a sense somehow that his blackness alone would be sufficient to solve the deeply engrained decades of -- >> it is important to have this movement. you have to start connecting some of the dots. think of all the things we have been talking about here today. we have been talking about the cradle to prison pipeline, what

they are doing to kids in school. taking away educational opportunities, diminishing middle class. lost job opportunities. voter suppression. there are so many things on such a broad front that are really hampering the lives of black families in this country. there needs to be a big pushback, and that cannot come from one president in either party, black or white. >> the president did a stimulus program that when 30% to 40% went low to poor, he didn't say poor but said middle class. the money was out there, it was poor. he expanded their income tax credits and expanded the child tax credit. he expanded food stamps and gave us more money in education and early childhood. all these are public sector, so he's talking -- >> he's delivered so much of his promise and doesn't deliver cheap moves like mitt romney, maybe i'll pick condi rice. that's a cheap attempt to say, women, i'm listeninging to you,

african-americans, i'm listening to you. even though african-americans don't look to condi rice as someone to represent their views. >> my favorite one is the pigford settlement, the money for native american farmers held up and president obama has gotten the money out. more in just a moment, but first it is time for a preview of "weekends with alex witt." thank you for that. president obama is on the stump in virginia today with a scheduled speech at 1:00 p.m. we'll bring that to you live. casey anthony's attorney says his brand new tell-all book will shock readers. i'm talking to him with some questions. and the must-see, the latest "batman" installment is back with christian bale, but is it worth seeing? and coming up in office politics, i'm talking with you, melissa harris-perry. i don't have to tell you what i discussed, but i think it is pretty good. i have to say, i was listening to marian and i was like, is there a echo in here in she said

a lot of stuff that you said. >> i grew up reading her work. i was inspired. >> thank you, alex. so it is bastille day and we have a group of people prepared to storm our circumstances of inquality. coming up, i'm going to talk about the difference between shame in shame and guilt and the courage it takes to admit sometimes you need a little help. our foot soldier is next.

black folk don't commit suicide and we don't need to see therapists. this piece of erroneous common wisdom was challenged earlier this year when don cornelius the legendary host of "soul train" took his own life. i remind you of the loss of cornelius because july is minority mental health awareness month. writer and poet bossy ikbe was

diagnosed with bipolar disorder several years ago and is the found of a project that's a global nonprofit that promotes mental health awareness and education among people of african descent worldwide. on july 2nd, there was a no shame day during which people living with and loving those with mental illnesses worldwide could tell their stories. one captured on video by feminist blogger and mental health worker who goes by the name feminista jones. >> we hear people say, she's bi-polar, he's schizophrenic. you're defining a person by their psychiatric disability and that basically stigmatizes them. when somebody has cancer, do you say that person is cancerous? >> i love of that the project focuses so intently on shame because shame is corrosive. now, guilt is largely a personal

emotion, i'm guilty about not dog my homework. but shame is collective and social and global. if i feel shame it's not just guilt for skipping my homework, it's like i feel stupid and worthless. this is the central argument of my recent book. psychologists commonly refer to shame as a belief in the malignant self, the idea that your entire person is infected by something inherently bad and potentially contagious. shame is the fear of other people knowing about that malignant self and those outside the norm are more vulnerable to the paralyzing effects of shame. so the solution to wanting to hide in shame is finding a way to allow yourself to be seen and heard and this is something that bossy herself expressed beautifully, poetically in a public service announcement for the project. >> this is about choices, about

the pills hidden in your underwear drawer, about four hours in the gym, two weeks of only water and power bars so this is about shame, about final live admitting that things aren't okay. this is about saying, now that you know the truth, will you please love me anyway because this is about humility and admitting that you need help and sleep and hugs and permission to cry despite the strength you're often accused of. >> for helping so many not be ashamed of their minds and themselves and for doing so in a voice like no other, bossy ikbe is my foot soldier this week. you can read our interview with her very soon on our own blog mhpshow.com. that's our show today. thank you so much to my guests. thanks to you at home for watching. see you tomorrow 10:00 a.m. coming up, weekends with alex

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