boom. heart attack. the doctor recommends bayer aspirin to keep this from happening to me again. it's working. [ male announcer ] be sure to talk to your doctor before you begin an aspirin regimen. it can happen to anyone. talk to your doctor. this morning my question. why are so many people working so hard and still barely making it. mr. plus, the dozens of men starving to death on purpose. and what you don't know about political icon angela davis. but first, are you a good ally? good morning. i'm melissa harris perry. 48 years ago this month americans watched as video of the day that would become known as bloody sunday was broadcast

live to television screens across the country. on march 7th 650 people attempted a protest march to the state capitol building to advocate for voting rights. as the cameras rolled the peaceful protesters, just six blocks into their march were stopped at the bridge and violently attacked by alabama state troopers. the televised images of american citizens tear gassed and beaten with clubs sparked outrage as viewers watched in horror. among those was a woman who did more than just watch. and joining the people who answered the call was a married mother of five from michigan.

this 39-year-old teamster's wife divided her time between raising children, attended classes and being an activist. she worked to bring attention to education and economic justice issues. but only days before she arrived in selma, a boston minister was beaten to death by a group of men armed with clubs, but stilt viola came, joining thousands of others who knead the four-day walk escorted by the national guard from selma to montgomery. during the march viola volunteered as a driver for the southern christian leadership conference, shuttling marchers back and forth between the two cities. one night she was driving accompanied by a young black lcsc activist when she was spotted by a group of kkk members. they pulled up next to her and shot her in the head, killing her instantly. this monday was the 48th anniversary of viola east death.

>> she went to alabama to serve the struggles for justice. she was murdered by the enemies of justice who for decades have used the rope and if gun and the tar and the feathers o terrorize their neighbors. people who could otherwise remain wrapped in the security of their privilege but instead choose to align themselveses with no such haven. a coalition who includes those who are not the primary focus by moving frit the margin to the mainstream. they can be forgiven for not

rolling out the rainbow carpet for rob portman when he announced his shift from adversary to ally. he already knew for two years ability the sexual orientation of his son who inspired his evolution. which makes democrats jumping on the bandwagon especially late to the party. both hillary and bill clinton waited until the winds of popular support were at their backs. at times a challenge of controversy, but the shift in the idea of marriage equality from radical extreme to ordinary acceptance may have less to do with what brings an ally to a table to what they do once they

get there. first shlgs don't demand those you are supporting produce proof of the quality. do recognize the shield of your privilege may blind you to the others of injustice. don't offer up your relationship as evidence of your understanding. expand your consciousness by listening more and talking less. and don't see yourself as the kevin costner as dances with the wolves. you are not the savior riding to the rescue on a white horse. do realize the only requirement you need is a commitment to justice and human equality. and remember the example of viola who most enduring was not that she gave her life but the

way that she lived it. a friend warned her against the danger and in response she said schismly i want to be a part of it. the professor of political science at columbia university and publisher of color lines.com. michael is the political director to hip hop pioneer russell simmons. and dave is sports editor for the nation. this is the work that you do. what is your rule for being a good ally? >> my first ennumber one rule is to remember the last thing that you said that the job of a good ally is not to save anybody but to create the conditions to assert and grow their own power.

that means making room for the voices of people. and it means defending those people when they decide to assert the power and draw down the backlash that any assertion of power by an oppressed group of people draws down. there is one exception to the rule, which is that if you are encountering someone in grave physical danger or under the attack that needs to be sblupted in the moment, that may be a saving moment. otherwise generally you're just making space, really. and providing defense. it's about being the flank rather than getting in front. >> this point about space.

when president obama at the inauguration uses the long waj of talking about gay brothers and sisters, to me this is a making space moment. let's take a listen to that. skbl our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law. for if we are truly created equal then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well. zh you have this amazing moment when the president is making space. you eni were talking about your dear friend who i am so impressed with. >> yeah, bren don and i go back to our ucla day kids when we were young kids. i've watched his tremendous growth as an ally to the lbgt community. the rights you take for granted are not valid unless you fight for the same rights for others. when i stood up for trayvon a

year ago, if i can put my hand out a tax key cab will not pass me by. no one will ask me to pay before i eat at a restaurant. if i walk through my neighborhood with a hoodie on, then i have to fight for those young black and brown young men to have the same rights that i have. >> that is about a recognition that you do exist. she would say the perfect trifecta. the straight white guy. so i got privilege. i got to do something with it. >> this question of bren don and those in the league, it looks like to me that part of where we need to go for our gay brothers and sisters is when folks who sort of represent the most

normative, you know, straight white men or very masculine black men that we see in sports, for example, when they're acting as allies and we have seen this before, right? >> absolutely. that makes it so important when athletes submit a brief to the supreme court saying we stand for lgbt marriage equality. the role that brendan played in the state of maryland. conspira conspiracy? i don't know. sorts is one of the ways that masculinity is socialized. when you have people who say wait a minute, my definition is not hetero normative, then that has a tremendous power, and it speaks to this what i think is very important when we talk ability what it means to be a

good ally. part of it also has to be saying to people you're not doing this out of pity. you're not doing this out of charity. you have to see it as also self interest. we have a better society if young black children in chicago can have a good education and go to schools. we are a better society if our lgbt brothers can live in peace. if our sisters, daughters, mothers can feel safe. >> it feels to me like part of what will sometimes happen in the question of being a good ally is when other movements are called onto be allies. so we've seen, for example, some resistance in racial civil rights movement to align with lgbt movements. then we see the president making space, a lot of folks coming on board. then all right hrc. all right, glad. you guys now have to make that a res recipricol relationship. how do we make the calls?

>> it's a simple principle. an injury to one is an injury to all. if we imagine ourself in any situation thinking of that one rule, what can i do in the situation to be in solidarity with someone who is being injured? whether through oppression or through an individual human action, what is my responsibility as a human being to insure that another human being's dignity is not looked down upon. >> yeah, a good union principle. we love having you here. stay right there. when we come back, there is somebody working on that. the pastor who made marriage equality his mission when we're back. hi, i'm amy for downy unstopables in-wash scent boosters, here with my favorite new intern, jimmy. mmm! fresh! and it's been in the closet for 12 weeks! unbelievable! unstopables! follow jimmy on youtube.

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when maryland voters legalized same-sex marriage in the state on election day, they did so with the support of what had once been an unlikely ally. marriage equality has not always been part of thes go bell preached at black churmgs, but the leader of one church in the state became a leader among allies. with me from w washington is reverend delmon coats for clinton, maryland. it's so nice to have you, pastor. >> thanks for having me on. >> talk to me first. why was this important to you? >> i decided to go public in my support for marriage equality after meeting with a same gender couple in our congregation who informed me of the hardships they faces for medical coverage and health care coverage for the family. and i felt that it was a huge injustice that i receive

benefits. i had benefits rnd the laws of our state that they did not have. it was important for me to shift the narrative that is so often told about where the black church and black pastor stands on providing equal treatment for gay and lesbian americans. >> so let me ask you this. it's the easter season. the holiest season of the christian church. one is about public policy, about rights under the law. the other is the love of good in particular. there are different points to come in as as an ally. the core values that inform my faith is we are to do unto others as we want done to us. so for me the values are the

values that we share in common. and i believe what makes our country great is that we can provide religious institutions the right to define marriage and yet protect all citizens of our counted equally under the law. >> how hard is it given there are many other maryland pastors and pastors around the country who are vocal opponents? >> sure. >> how difficult is it to stand in a position speaking out. where you may have solidarity with him on different issues. >> for me it's not difficult at all. i pastor in the black church tradition. and the black church from my understanding has always been on the side of freedom, justice and equality. and for me it hasn't been difficult at all. the biblical texts that are often used to condemn homowalls

and gays and lesbians are condemnations of sexual violence, rape and exploitation. which is decidedly different from two consenting difficults being involved in a consenting relationshi relationship. >> thank you for joining us. >> thank you. skbl. >> and the woman taking on sex schism in the tech world. where are her allies? [ jackie ] it's just so frustrating... ♪ the middle of this special moment and i need to run off to the bathroom. ♪ i'm fed up with always having to put my bladder's needs

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about torque forking, which are common technology terms. only what adrian says she heard wasn't tech taug. she says the men were using these terms to make sexually charged jokes and adrian reported the men and their comments with a tweeted photo and a summery of what she heard them saying. conference escorted the men out of the session. good job. afterwards adrian blogged about what happened. that was just the beginning. richard's response to the situation made her the target of social media troll whose attacks were only intensified when one of the men who made the comments was fired by his company. she had since been suggested to death threats, rape threats, racist slurs and having her personal information publicly exposed online, and her employer let her go from her job. so help me, because, you know i just -- this story has been

making me so sad and angry and tired. >> i think there are a couple of important lessons. if you think of yourself as a good person, you can take the words it was just a joke out of your lexicon. take the phrase out of your vocabulary. if you find yourself saying it it's probably in the context where somebody didn't find it funny, and there's a reason. and that reason needs to be examined. so to dismiss the effect is essentially unable to get a joke. she got the joke. she didn't find it funny. >> she understand zbl it's inappropriate workplace behavior. that's what we're looking at. what i loved about it. like the good part of the story is i knew that this was unacceptable, right.

they goat what kind of environment this was. they set up a standard so people would not behave this way. i want to look at what the policy is. they had a policy saying that pycon was dedicated -- be careful in the words that you choose. sexist, racest and other exclusionary jokes can be offensive to those around you and these jokes are not appropriate. they have this position. they started out as good allies on this. >> absolutely. and it's worth mentioning that the tech world itself has a horrible reputation as being just a sewer of sexism and frat culture and the rest of it. the reason pycon put down that directive is to fight against that perception. there's a crisis as far as the number of women and the people of color and pycon was trying to address it with the rules. the true face of the tech world comes out. >> i feel like the social media part of it, too, the idea that

she and we saw this earlier with comments on fox news. saying i will rape you is a thing that one would say on twitter is indicative of what rape really is. it's about violence. >> and power. the other thing i heard often is paying saying she should have handled it differently. that's offensive. don't say that. this is why we need rules. because informality makes a lot of space for our biases to come out. and to put the burden on the person who has -- who is marginalized in that situation to fix it on her own, in the moment, inspite of however many times she might have heard similar things happen, had to deal with the psychological and

intellectual effects of that. that's a huge burden to put on the person who is being put down. >> also wli we need allies. >> and allies need allies. so no one came to her. not enough folks have come to her side. when brenda came out for marriage equality it wasn't until chris wrote that letter and said holy cow thrks can turn. then skod came on board. more and more guys are coming forward. allies need allies. we can't expect one person to take on this fight. we have to join them and say if it happens to her kit happen to the next person. >> we see the growth. at this moment add reeian herself is not in danger. given this happened in steubenville. and it's not just about this moment, it's about the space in which we exist. >> i'm glad you mentioned steubenville. that's another example of the evil. ordinary people put in

situations where they end up doing very evil things. so there's a consequence to not saying something or not taking a stand or not speaking up. it ends up hurting other folks when you stay silent. >> part of being an ally is not being a bystander. it's not enough just to say, well, i'm not racist. i don't sexually assault women. i'm not homophobic. we have to be judged by what we do to fight this in our world and a small thing that i'm learning now is i'm trying to organize mississippi reproductive freedom summer that's open in jackson, mississippi, right now. it's important to let people in jackson, mississippi, take the lead, lead it out. we're not coming down with a savior complex. it's in the enough to be quiet and say let's wait for mississippi to stand up. if that becomes the first ever

state with zero aboring rights, that has a national repercussion. >> can i tell you one thing about being an ally? one thing is acceptance. just a simple -- especially for parents of young kids who may be gay or queer or transgender is just accepting. the first is being an ally. just accepting your friend, your child, your college room mate. that's an important thick that we look past. we're still not there in terms of acceptance. >> there's multiple points of injuries. being anti-racist and anti-sexist and the language about organizing. recognizing whn your own interest or the interest of the broader, collective who we are is at stake. strong people don't need strong leaders, but they certainly need strong allies. they certainly need strong

allies. thank you all for coming and hanging out with me. >> ella baker, that was awesome. >> it's nerd land, folks. tune in today. joy is going to stick around longer. check out our site. read the latest on two nfl players promoting lgbt acceptance. also up next, those still in solitary confinement after 40 years. it is letter time. my letter is to buddy. he's no buddy of the angola three. you know what's impressiv? a talking car. but i'll tell you what impresses me. a talking train. this ge locomotive can tell you exactly where it is, what it's carrying, while using less fuel. delivering whatever the world needs, when it needs it. ♪ after all, what's the point of talking if you don't have something important to say? ♪

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♪ 'cause germs don't stick on me ♪ [ female announcer ] band-aid brand has quiltvent technology with air channels to let boo boos breathe. [ giggles ] [ female announcer ] quiltvent technology, only from band-aid brand. use with neosporin first aid antibiotic. on february 26th, albert woodfox received some potentially good news. for the third time his conviction for the 1972 murder of an officer at louisiana state penitentiary was overturned and

a federal judge ordered woodfox's release. after more than 40 years in solitary confinement. but instead of letting the matter be settled in court, the louisiana attorney general just couldn't help himself from responding. in doing so, he showed why this case is about more than the murder of one man. it is about the inhumanity exhibited for more than 40 years by the state. and that is why this week's letter is written to him. dear louisiana attorney general james buddy caldwell. it's me, melissa. let's start here. i am not here to try the case of albert wood fox. the question of his innocence is for the courts to decide. there was a recent federal judge ruling, and after the ruling amnesty international started an online petition urging that the ruling stand so that woodfox could be tried or released, noting that quote, albert wood fox has spend 41 years in solitary confinement in

conditions that are cruel, inhuman and degrading. and they were sentenced to life imprisonment, al hoe no physical evidence linked them to the crime and serious flaws came to light. you had to respond to the online petitioners. your response shows your long held bias. you said thank you for your interest in the ambush savage attack and browal murder of officer miller on april 17th, 1972. no one is disputing the brutality of brent miller's murder. what is in dispute is your impartiality and whether or not justice has been served. they were convicted of murder trying to expose the horrific conditions at the prison.

a prison located on 18,000 acre former slave plantation called angola. is it surprising that the u.s. district court overturned prediction? you tout the so called strong evidence saying the evidence against him is overpowering, that there are no flaws in our evidence and this case is very strong. we feel confident we will prevail at the fifth circuit court of appeals. really? there are no flaws in your evidence? driving of key eyewitnesss and the loss of key evidence combined with the lack of jury diversity, that type of evidence doesn't sound that solid at all. and regarding these men being held in solitary confinement, you said he was never held while in the louisiana penal system. interesting. what do you make of holding a 71

and 66-year-old man who suffer from arthritis, kidney failure and clostrophobia if a 6 by 9 foot cell for 23 hours a day for decades? that sounds pretty solitary and pretty confined to me. so while you may only see prisoners, prisoners whose incourse rations have helped to define your career, maybe you should start seeing human beings who deserve justice and respect. sincerely, melissa. [ female announcer ] he could be your soulmate. but first you've got to get him to say, "hello." new crest 3d white arctic fresh toothpaste. use it with these 3d white products, and whiten your teeth in just 2 days. new crest 3d white toothpaste. life opens up when you do. i'm up next, but now i'm singing the heartburn blues.

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on april 5th explains how she became a political icon. >> the actions of the fbi in apprehending angela davis. >> a u.s. district court judge set bail at $100,000. >> the movement to free all political prisoners is growing every day. >> they wanted to rape me. they wanted me to respond. >> we know that she is innocent. >> we want to tell them the let angela davis go free. >> that's right, folks. angela davis challenged and continues to challenge the status quo. she has redefined what it means to be a political prisoner. she endured a 1-we ed d a 13-we run. i have watched the documentary

and more than anything, it was the fullness of angela davis that you bring to us. what does this mean? >> who hasn't rocked the lank davis t-shirt in their day? i started to investigate. there's a huge nuance story about a woman and a movement. i wanted to take it from is is second dimension and add the third dimension. part of what i love is you talk about her as an intellectual and a professor and someone deeply engaged in the life of the mind. >> that's who she was. i wanted to investigate what this woman was. how does this philosophy grad student become a political icon? how is that possible. if i had rin the narrative script and tried to shop it in washington, it's not believable. burr it is true. >> there were moments i was

sitting with open mouth aw looking at. one was the nixon moments. when he catches her and the idea that he continuously denounces her. what we now know is appalling. >> tds appalling. what is the balance? if you're in charge of keeping the nation secure and somebody has been identified as a terrorist, what do you do? there is a balance, but there are facts. they play out. when i went into the story i thought i'm going to find the smoking gun. she is acquitted. she wins the case. the impression wf is that she's guilty. articles about her conspiracy and charges is this big. the stack about her acquittal, this.

yes, so it was speerd for murder and kidnapping. she was implicated in a crime because the guns used were register in her name. she had these guns to protect herself. this is the '70s, folks. >> it's 2013. people are arming themselves. >> absolutely. it was all legal. when she bought the last gun she signed an autograph. the prosecutor felt like with details she must be the master mind of this crime motivated by love. kidnap a judge in order to exchange for her lover, who was in prison, george jackson. and so george jackson and political prisoners. it's a deeply political story. it is a crime drama with a love story in the middle.

>> initially targeted because she said i'm a member of the communist party. i'm a member of a world view that is out of favor. that is precisely what intellectual freedom is supposed to be. zbr then governor ronald reagan gave her a national media platform. she said, okay, you want to fire me? no. i'm a communist. i'm going to talk about what it means to be a political prisoner. and it gets her a lot of trouble. she never plays the victim. to see this play out as a story is fortifying. whether you agree with her politics or not. >> away from angela davis and onto you for one moment, i feel like there's going to be a point when people are going to look at your body of work and realize

that you were the one person who bothered to get our stories, the stories of african-american women, while we get lived. that you got angela davis. her voice throughout the film. my daughter who is 11 used that on her main school project. why did you decide to make sure you have captured us? >> because we're silenced. we're silenced in history. we were there. we were participating. so i want to hear our voice. it fortifies me as a woman and as a black person. i love america. i love american history. we were here. if you're not going to tell my story, i'm going to tell my story. i'm going to tell it in the way that i see it. >> telling our stories. i love this. and it's really important to support the film. there is tug where you can tug

the movie to your local theater. yeah, you have to vote with your feet on this one. soming up, more on the question of political prisoners. there are more putting their lives on the line. what is really going on inside guantanamo. that's up next. doing laundry is classic problem solving. kids make stains i use tide boost to super charge our detergent. boom. clothes look amazing, and daddy's a hero. daddy, can we play ponies? right after we do foldies. tide boost is my tide. what's yours? you know who you are. you can part a crowd, without saying a word... if you have yet to master the quiet sneeze... you stash tissues like a squirrel stashes nuts... well muddlers, muddle no more. try zyrtec®. it gives you powerful allergy relief. and zyrtec® is different than claritin®

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we've been talking about angela davis, but make no mistake, political prisoners are not a thing of the past. currently 166 prisoners remain detained at gitmo. the u.s. navy base in guantanamo, cuba. in february detainees began a hunger strike, protesting searching and unending attention. 11 of them are force fed through

tubes. while the pebt gone remains mute, the white house had this to say on wednesday. >> i can tell you that the white house and the president's team is closely monitoring the hunger strikers for details about what is happening, i would refer you to the department of defense. but the administration remains committed to closing the facility. it's clear that it's going to take some time to fully close the facility. >> so while congress continues to make it impossible to close gitmo, human lives are hanging in the balance. joining the table is cora, a fellow who covers national security issues. let's start with ha is going on. what is happening in guantanamo right now? >> since february you had what

started as a relatively minor incident. you have close to 20% of the prison population is hunger striking. and you have general kelly with the u.s. command overseas say that this is what you are seeing is an expression of frustration with the uncertainty of their face. you have a number of prisoners who are cleared for release three years ago. 86 people cleared for release by a presidential task force three years ago. 86 people have been cleared for release who are still being held and still being detained. we are talking about people -- i mean, we had 779 detainees since

the start. 600 of them ultimately released with no charges. 166 of them still there. if you are incourse rated, what else can you do to get the attention? >> the other thing is the prisoners watched the state of the union. they saw there was no mention from president obama of closing his goal of closing guantanamo in the state of the union. it was also missing from the inauguration address. in january they quietly closed the office in the state department that was responsible for resettling detainees from guantanamo and there is no sign the office will be restaffed. what you have seen is a very quiet sort of winding down of the visible efforts to the public close gaun taun me. they know this is fading from

the public view. >> why are they winding down? >> it was not a political priority for the administration. initially it was one of the first things president obama did taking office. sign an order to close guantanamo. a from the u.s. into detention facilities in the u.s. that caused a huge amount of blowback from congress who saw it as bringing terrorists into our backyard. they put everything on hold. congress zwently passed a number of laws making it very difficult for the administration the bring people to the u.s. difficult to transfer them to third countries. they are also very concerned about the problem. if they release people. they release them and they show back up a few months later.

that's a huge political liability. >> so the alternative at this point is that we have people in american custody who are starving themselves to death and in response you are now force feeding them which could be cruel and unusual punishment. they do oppose force feeding, so you have some outside involvement in the situation. and the military ak noejed that this point that the detainees are seeking attention. as you saw from the white house not a clear stance of what they're going to do. >> if it's a standoff, who is the one player who could just make something so it's no longer a standoff? one direction? >> i any that's not entirely clear at this point.

the prison has been open for 11 years so there is a relationship between the guards and the prisoners and the lawyers who are there. but it's not immediately clear what the demands are. >> thank you for being here and reporting on this. we promise to keep our eyes on this. your reporting highway tremendous on this. thank you, and why people are working more and still getting less. plus t woman providing a unique place for women to eat, pray and love. more nerd land at the top of the hour. other state in the country.

come realize water's true potential. dive in-to the waters of pure michigan. your trip begins at michigan.org. good morning. filming wraps for the second installment of the hunger games. the movie based on the best

selling story. classics like a clockwork orange to my current favorite are supposedly about the future. but they always help us to see the present in sharp relief. violence, environmental degradation, inequality and the consequences of id logical extremism shape the lives of the characters and they echo in the current realities. the bear economic reality of a society that sees men, women and children as cogs in a machine. workers know that their labor will never be enough. they do the jobs that they're told to do, not the work that feeds their spirits. this is in service of the few who live behind the walls of the capitol. fair compensation and human

flourishing have nothing to do with work. why we may not be living in the hunger games, it's hard to miss the trajectory of the labor market and notice it's beginning to look more like a system that benefits the elites for the drudgery of a very large underclass. while the unemployment rate has dropped more than 40% of the way back to prerecession levels, the kinds of jobs people are getting are keeping them well below the poverty line. since 2007 there has been a 30% increase in the number of americans living in poverty. the majority of the jobs are low paying. 60% of the job lost in the recession. while low wage jobs were the standard, growing three times as fast. what does this mean for the nature of work itself. with me now t editor of the food labor research center at uc berkeley and the cofounder of restaurant opportunities united.

sarah, the founder and executive director of the free lan union and fellow at the roosevelt institute. and dorian warren, an associate professor of political science at columbia university. so nice to have you all here with me. let's start asking if people can work full time and still be poor, what is work? what does a job mean? >> right now it means that you are liver living in poverty. for the 10 million workers in the rest raun industry, this is one of the largest and fastest growing sector tors of the economy. this is the largest employers and unfortunately for the workers in particular, they're earning $2.13 an hour. for these workers, the people who put food on our tables you're working full time. sometimes more than full time and you suffer from three times the poverty rate and use food

stamps at double the rate. so the terrible irony that the people putting food on the table can't afford to eat themselves. in part because i live in new orleans and tral so much, i eat out a lot. we're a very food oriented city. people are making almost no money and yet they have incredible pride in their work. they have a sense of, you tell some stories of people working mind the kitchen door who notice that the food is bad and they're trying to make sure that it doesn't get served to people. even without fair compensation, workers are doing their job in an incredible way. yet, we're not compensating people fairly. >> we're seeing there are full time jobs in certain industries and for so many americans, almost a third of the workforce, they're working in gigs and projects. sometimes they have a lot of work. sometimes they have no work. they're not eligible for

unemployment insurance. and so it's really becoming very difficult. that's another huge trend that we're seeing. >> tell me more about that. this idea or gig, what difference does that make? >> it's really freelance, self employed. and the nature of the work is no longer here is a 40-hour job. we need you for the hyper efficient moment that you're here to work. that's going to be enough to participate in the american dream. all of us are saying we are just not doing that? typical low wage industries. we say, oh, they're making $8 an hour. people think that's $16,000 a

year. in fact it's $11,000 a year. what we're seeing in retail is really abusive scheduling practices. so people are on call. week-to-week their schedule changes. there was a great survey that showed one in ten retail workers knew what their schedule was going to be next week. >> which is the key to have a second job. the only way is if you know when to sign up for the other one because the other is not happening. so i think tunnelling in on that and figuring out the policy solutions is really important. >> i want to go back to your initial question of what does work mean? what each of these women have said is that we live in a democracy, but democracy stops when people go to work. the democratic principles don't apply to the workplace. we go to work with aauthoritarian figures. when you raise you're voice, you're threatened, fired or

retaliated against for speaking up. >> and this becomes particularly true in the labor market. labor force precipitation. the labor force precipitation has declined. the straight line or hill going down. and as soon as it is a slack labor market and you say, what is the thing that you can do as a worker? you can say i'm out of here. i'm not working anymore. right now the response of the boss is well, bye, good luck with that. >> but coming back to your point, a lot of our folks don't do that, restaurant workers, because they take great pride in the work. the industry treats them like it's a job. and workers in an undemocratic environment. they twant to be treated like professionals. that's true for part time workers. the industry says -- it's incredible to hear this, but these are people moving through.

it's okay they don't make good wages. they're moving onto something better. the majority of the industry's adults with children who take great pride in cooking or serving hospitality is in their blood. they want to make it a profession. they want to be treated like professionals. >> i have waiters who explain to me in other languages what is on the menu. they explain where the food comes. they will talk about the wine. the level of expertise and pride in the work is clear. yet, if i don't leave a tip, they're not making minimum wage. >> i love the way you started the segment by talking about distopian futures. we are trying to look at what is the next 20 years like? many of us are saying we're seeing the jobs change, this hyper efficiency. and we have to start coming together and building our own organizations to support workers an st stan darz to make our democracy fair. and it shifts us to a strangely entrepreneurial orientation around cooperatives, mutual aid

societies. the economy itself, the way it's going with a real emphasis on quick return is destroying so many lives and communities that we're seeing. and it does revolve around food and retail and we do have to come together. we call that new mutualism. other call it the share economy. there are so many ways the talk about it. but it's really important that we get back to relying on ourselves as the first step economically in being interconnected. >> so the new mutualism is what happens that we have gutted labor unions. and we look, for example, at the so-called obama care. the affordable care act. the question of whether or not you get health insurance at your job would be less important if we have a single payer system where health care was a human right. then working for health care wouldn't be the issue. you would work and health care is provided. because you are human, not a laborer.

groups like restaurant workers, domestic workers could come together in groups and provide health insurance for the members with so care about. we're not interested in profits. i think that is beginning to be the next step that we're going to see. the grouping and solidarity are going to be back in vogue. we are going to start with the groups bringing together a new kind of economy. and that is the hope and the interesting part of this. >> is that possible without the structure of the day-to-day workplace? can you do that sort of mutuality without the thing that made unions possible? >> the way i think about it is on the work organizing side, let a thousand flowers bloom and it will vary by which industry you're in and what form it takes. but i absolutely think we have to have a dense network of public policies to support these

organizing drives. we can't let private sectors off the hook. we need government to set a basic standard in the labor market. is there which is part of why they're trying to frame public workers as somehow a draw on the system. if they set a standard, they can push the standard down. >> and when the campaigns raise the minimum wage, we have tons of studies showing no negative impacts. employers will fight tooth and nail over every last scent. these are the fronts of the debate. what i would say is the new deal employment and labor law structure is out of date. the principles absolutely still apply. government has a role to set the basic terms of the labor market and then workers on the other side find the best form of

organizing that fits them. we have several great examples. >> and there really is a disscopic story about our workplace realities. it's in part about the question of job security. [ male announcer ] every famous curve has an equally thrilling, lesser-known counterpart. conquer them with the exhilarating is 250. get great values on your favorite lexus models during the command performance sales event. this is the pursuit of perfection. ♪ 'cause germs don't stick on me ♪ [ female announcer ] band-aid brand has quiltvent technology with air channels to let boo boos breathe. [ giggles ] [ female announcer ] quiltvent technology, only from band-aid brand. use with neosporin first aid antibiotic.

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98 minutes. over an hour and a half. that's how long it took a worker to reach a burn center f being scalded by 180 degree water. on that carlos was left in agony with 80% of his body burned because factory losses allegedly refused to call an ambulance,

leaving it to a coworker to bring him to a local clinic. three weeks later he succumbed to his wounds, dead at age 50. this week wbez in chicago and the center for public integrity reported out the or zeal, demonstrating through this one temp worker's story the burden facing the 2.5 million temporary and contingent workers on the job across the country. new research shows the injuries often go unrecorded. as the use of temporary workers has soared in the past two decades, so has the frequency of on the job injury. wen we talk about job security, this is a different kind of job security. this is literally being safe at one's job. and the idea whn we take away the permanent status you become disposable. yes? true? not true? >> amen! the common theme here is cutting

labor costs. and so there's a lot of ways to cut labor costs. wages are one of them. guaranteed full time hours is another. held and safety is did he feel one of them. it's been running around the radar screen too often. you see this great series on the grain workers. so there is a lot of -- i think the lesson here is about enforcement, right. it's not enough to just set standards, but we have to enforce them. whether you look at minimum wage or health and safety, we now have fewer boots on the ground who are enforcing these basic laws than we did in 1980. we have many more workers many many more work laplaces. if we don't enforce the law the promise is hollow. >> the npr story caught me. it was gut wrenching. it never occurred to me to think about it. that question that it never occurred to me to think about how grain is stored and who is

working it and similarly your book was a bit of a reminder to me about how we don't bother to think about it. and i just wanted to read this one part that like most americans, every one of us can tell a story about a life changing moment in a restaurant. we remember the way it looked, who was there, where we sat, what we ate, how it smelled. we tend to not notice who is hands ling our food. the idea we can decide that whole groups of workers are invisible to us in the process. >> and it's almost purposousfully so. i think we as americans celebrate our culture in restaurants almost more than anybody else on ertd. also almost purposefully we never know who is touching our food. we don't know what is happening behind the ditchen door. it's purposeful. part of the distopia is the power of it have incredible

trade boblying groups. the national trade restoration. we call it the other nra. most people haven't heard of it. incredibly powerful and talking about what anette is talking about. these folks are not only fighting against any regulation, but when it is passed will do things to try to evade it. when obama care was made constitutional by the supreme court, the world's largest full service restaurant company that owns olive gafrden, red lobster, announced they would reduce all of their worker's hours to evade aca. >> lit almost killed me. now i'm not getting cheesy biscuits? really? . herman cain was the head of the nra for those of you who don't know. this points to the role of politics in setting the conditions of work. so in the case just mentioned there's a case called policy drift that our political

scientist colleague uses. that's the notion that when conditions change, our policies often don't catch up to the new conditions. so the minimum wage is the best example of this. inflation has continued to rise. but our minimum wage has not. so what happens is when we attempt to update the policy, the minimum wage should be $18 an hour based on how productive american workers have been the last 20 years. they block any kind of policy change. >> that is my angst. how do we stand up for ourselves in these powers of organizing capacities. >> what i am struck by is you have the policy drift because you don't have the mobilized constituencies that can bring it

about. one of the major things that we do is you have to build the economic base. then you have your own money to spend on politics and mobilization. you can't depend on foundations or the government. like the trade union has always done, start to build a coconstituency so you have leverage. we're not just asking for one little group. and that is what is so important. and we have to start really thinking about leverage and power and not just about talking. and that's what we are coming to the conclusion. all these groups and it is a thousand flowers. the front page of the greater new york section of the wall street journal this morning is about the sick pain debate raging around the mayoral race.

this is not about workers. it's about all of us who encounter workers here every day. >> that's right. 90% of restaurant workers don't have paid sick days. u just met a worker with toy for identification fever working serving our food. i can go on and on and on. >> because they have to come to work. >> that's right. they don't have the choice. when you're working for mostly tips you can't afford to take a day off if you're not paid for it. and you're at high risk of loozing your job. this industry tells workers if you don't come in, even if you're sick, we want you to come in. if you don't, we'll fire you. so it's an important step forward but it excluded the very people who are touching our

food. we need to keep fighting. >> >> one of the things i want to talk about is the threat o my job. i'm serious. not this job. my real job. there's a flet. threat. [ dentist ] with so many toothbrushes to choose from, my patients don't know which one to use. i tell them to use the brand i use. oral-b -- the brush originally created by a dentist. trust the brand more dentists and hygienists use. oral-b. and hygienists use. i've always had to keep my eye on her... but, i didn't always watch out for myself. with so much noise about health care... i tuned it all out. with unitedhealthcare, i get information that matters... my individual health profile. not random statistics. they even reward me for addressing my health risks. so i'm doing fine... but she's still going to give me a heart attack. we're more than 78,000 people

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ask your doctor about prescription toviaz. one toviaz pill a day significantly reduces sudden urges and accidents, for 24 hours. if you have certain stomach problems or glaucoma, or can not empty your bladder, you should not take toviaz. get emergency medical help right away if your face, lips, throat or tongue swells. toviaz can cause blurred vision, dizziness, drowsiness and decreased sweating. do not drive, operate machinery or do unsafe tasks until you know how toviaz affects you. the most common side effects are dry mouth and constipation. talk to your doctor about toviaz.

we've been talking about work, and i want to take a moment to talk about my own work. not this job. it's a great job. pi my job hosting this program on msnbc is secically my side hustle. my real job is what i do the other five days a week. working at tulane university as a tenured political science professor. i'm one of more than 9,300 political science faculty in the country. one of the much fewer 461 black political scientist faculty and fewer still, 161 black women political science faculty. that's all according to the american political science association's recent report on the state of discipline. we need to make more. we have been. 1986 was the year that the ralph

bunch summer institute program began. hosting 20 undergraduates every summer since it began. 51 former scholars now have ph.d.s and other are in graduate school. it's credited to helping to diversity the field. they need $250,000 each yore to cover the cost. 54% of which come trs the national science foundation. and now that is in danger of going away because of what happened on march 26th when senator tom coburn of oklahoma led a successful effort to bar the gnash science foundation from using funds from political science research, except for research products that, quote, promote national security tor the economic interest of the united states. yes, the u.s. congress has voted to eliminate funding for an entire field of economic inquiry. it's unprecedented. it must be saving a us a lot of

money, right? well. no. this is going to save us $13 million. if that's a lottery price, you take it. but it's a statistical hiccup. he was determined to eliminate the support for academic science. the kind of stuff it pays for goes far beyond the route bunch summer program. since 1952 the american national election studies survey asked americans a series of questions that are the foundation of understanding how our democracy works, without this, we would not have quality, durable, nonpartisan evidence about the basic features of our democratic system. but senator coburn says there's no enduring need to fund the political science research because you can get all the information you need from cnn, pollsters, pundits, political parties and voters. so let me just be really clear. as someone wo works in both the

academy and in televised political commentary, political science is not pund itry. it is not news. it is not partisan politics. political science is a scholarly discipline. as harvard professor and president of the political science association wargs grounding political science assures political independence, rigorous peer review in the field and long term commitment to building score lorly capacity for the future. and that, senator, doesn't have anything to do with tv news. ♪ you know my heart burns for you... ♪

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no they don't. hey son. have fun tonight. ♪ ♪ back against the wall ♪ ain't nothin to me ♪ ain't nothin to me [ crowd murmurs ] hey! ♪ [ howls ] ♪ >> millenials. too many assume they're obsessed with twitter and facebook or

they're materialistic and mooching. annie wrote this week in "the new york times" the relationship with money seems simple. they do not have a lot of it. what they do have, they may seem reluctant to be spend. # people of my generation entered the job market with a flush tech bubble, with rising house prices. the '90s were a good time to go get a job. many carry a debt that's almost tripled into a job market that is trying to recover from the great recession. on the other end, we are nearing the greatest retirement crisis in american history as millions of baby boomers face the end of their careers with inadequate savings. joining me live from san francisco is nona who is a fellow at the roosevelt institute and a cofounder of "tomorrow" magazine. here at the table are my folks. i just want to start with you.

i think there's this -- you know, i started with hunger games. and part of these novels are about adolescents roo reading it. young people are facing the present. >> i loved annie's piece. what she was saying is millenials are obsessed about money because we don't have it. we feel like we've been getting the short end of the stick and we kpcan't take it anymore. that's why occupy happened. the conflict that she talked about is a little more inner. but it's two sides of the same coin. we are very aware of what happened to our generation. >> if we look at millenials, it

still feels like two fundamental classes and perhaps more than. on one hand the people with the huge student loan debt who are over educated and underemployed. hen there's those who don't have college degrees. how do we think about a generation that is so divided in that way? there is an oversized preoccupation with a downwardly mobile side and a sort of sense that it's always a given ha there's going to be poor people. the poor are now poorer. i think there's less of a class divide than some people would like to think. on one hand a lot of the millinials are now realizing sort of a tiny sliver of what poor people have always realize.

in that sense it gives me hope that there is some sort of alliance there. what they are dealing with and poor people are very different. boomeran kids are lucky. they get to go back to their parents. there are some poor kids in really, really dire straits in homeless shelters and really trying to make ends meet or they're single parents. on one hand, middle class kids have kind of understood what it's like to be poor. on the other hand, there's still a big divide. >> to boomerang means your parent has a basement for you to go sleep in. for a whole group of kids, they are also dealing with parn who is didn't ever have an opportunity of having parents who own a home with as byment to go back to. >> ian if they had homes they lost them in the great recession

and people who never had folk homes in the first place. i want to talk about this. we can't talk about this topic without talk about prison. so we're channelling a whole group of black and brown youth into jails and prisons where they will never be employed. >> and the white youth, the one job left is to guard the young black and brown youth. >> right. we see that happening on one hand. we tend to ignore that because they're not even in the labor market. those folks are never considered a part of the discussion. on the other hand i think nona is right. the millenials who get to boomerang are finally starting to realize what these groups of poor black and brown kids are experiencing.

>> can i give you an example of something really hopeful from my perspective is the growth of the service economy, retail and restaurants, is where these folks are coming together. you see young people going through college, actor, students, whatever, going through and struggling at the same time they're working through. the restaurant is one of the few industries that does hire formally incourse rated folks. there's a ton of segregation. people are held in lower positions, but people are coming together. now there's a lot of talk about minimum wage. there's some movement. we'll go on the hill and talk to staffers. ives a restaurant worker for many years. i went many days without tips. i know what it's like. he's able to relate.

young people of color who experienced poverty. the growth and service economy allows for some shared experience that we can draw upon to past policies that are needed precisely for the people at the botto bottom. >> you opened up the possibility of al an lied relationship responsibility. what does that look like? >> you have kids with big dreams of a fulfilling job and now they're baristas or they're working in restaurants and then you, as we are talking about, there is this class that has always been in the jobs. once they realize may may not get that real job and maybe make the job that they already have real is highly paid with health care and paid sick days, those class divides will not be as

important in this movement. >> thank you to nona in san francisco. we are going to stay on this topic when we get back. i want to talk about this freelanceer's bible. [ female announcer ] does your color have staying power... or just seem to fade away, day by day? don't compromise. new vidal sassoon pro series from the original salon genius. starts vibrant, stays vibrant. precision mix formula saturates each strand for 100% gray coverage. hydrablock conditioner helps fight fade out for up to 8 weeks. new vidal sassoon lets you say no to compromise and yes to vibrant color like this. new vidal sassoon pro series salon genius. affordable for all.

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all aboard. ♪ bikes and balloons, wholesome noodles on spoons. a kite, a breeze, a dunk of grilled cheese. catches and throws, and spaghettio's. that's what happy kids are made of. campbell's. it's amazing what soup can do. we're back, and we've been talking about the nature of work and house it has changed. i was listening to nona at tend saying we were looking for the job. i'm thinking oobt my parents. my father worked in one job for 20 plus years. when you said to him wharks do you do, it was like who you are. that's not how people work today. >> for sure. people in their 20s are the new workforce. this is the norm.

they're piecing together jobs and gigs and trying to figure out how to do it. i tried to write a book to give people a sense of how do you work in this environment? you talked a lot before about security. there's so much insecurity pent up in this. and it's really happening to the vast majority of people in the country. not just the poor. not just the middle class. everybody but the 1%. that's the point. >> let me make a pitch for we dropped the term contingent work. everybody, no matter what the industry has employment security. you have a lot spells of unemployment. and more wage insecurity. that is happening across the board and stop thinking about that we are in transition. we have arrived at the future.

this is the future of work. we are living it right now. that has a lot of implications. we are now 40 years removed from this mythical age in the '60s where we had a social contract. we are not going back there. we have to figure out new public policies and organizing strategies. >> there's an insecurity of being employed and the nature of that. i think about my two parents. there's my dad working the same job for decades. when it was time for him to retire, what he had in in addition to job security was retirement security. my mom who worked at gigs and side jobs and nonprofits and doing the best she could, when it came time for her to retire, what are we going to do? not only are they entering into this, but our seniors who are in

circumstances of having nothing to fall back on. >> that's right. >> some because they can't find anything else to do. our industry is one of the largest and fastest growing. it's a mainstay in the economy. these are temp workers in many ways. you're totally insecure. there's no guarantee. your tips fluctuate. there's no paid sick day. there's no health insurance. your wage is insecure and so is your job. again, i want to say it's not that people don't want a profession. they have to move from restaurant to restaurant or piece together things to make a living, right. >> i think we're also talking about a financial eco system. our retirement system, our pension is funding our stock

market. if we are going o have a workforce that has no money, where will the money come from where are the private equity dudes spending that money? they should be the first ones trying to build us up. we're really destroying a major part of the economy. students have such student debt that they're not saving. they're not looking to get jobs with a pension. as you talk about eco system, doing what i'm thinking is our policymakers are very bad at complexity. when they have good intentions and make one shift here or there, they have a hard time seeing something that is an eco system in that way. corporate profits are at the highest since 1950.

>> right. >> so parts of the economy are doing very well. >> mm-hmm. >> the majority of workers in this country as well as unemployed folks are not doing so well. >> and if it's an ico subpoena, therefore it's not sustainable. first we think it's okay to middle age the huge profits and starve the rest of it. as soon as you start messing with it at the bottom the whole thing falls apart. >> that's why i think we're getting a lot of traction on the minimum wage. we turned the corner. we're no longer defensive about it. will it cause a job loss or not? people are realizing you can't build a strong recovery if working people don't have money in their pockets. that's an argument for the minimum wage. >> this is your point about there is not some future coming. there's not a turn that we're about to make. this is the recovery. and we're in sequester.

to begin to talk about things like plugging up the aca, pushing back together the shredded safety net or raising the minimum wage sounds like crazy talk when we are in sequester. sfwl the thing that makes me uncoverable with older workers displaying younger workers, the rich older works who want a part time gig, they don't have retirement. they're desperate for work. they're trying to pay rent. the key problem is we don't have enough jobs. the private sector evidently abt doing it. so we really need to get the public moneys in there to do job creation, infrastructure repair, putting money back to work. >> >> which he stood in miami and said infrastructure, public works. >> have to do it. >> those two points.

they don't need workers to do it. the only people to create the jobs will have to be the public sector. >> can i say i think there's this myth olg that corporate interests are diverging. we have 100 employers around the country doing well because their workers are doing well, not in spite of the workers doing well. they provide paid sick days and health insurance. so tom is a great partner of ours, star of top chef. we have partners around the country. small mom and pop restaurants. people always say that's fine for the big fancy fine dining restaurants. in d.c. there's a great restaurant called ben's chili bowl. great employer. great partner of ours. really, really takes care of the workers and does well because they do. and so this distopia is a mythology that restaurants,

corporations, companies are going to suffer when workers do better. >> i can live with that. if i can't have my waffle fries because of the lgbt ally question, i can't have cheesy biscuits, i can at least have my chili from ben's. thank you to all my guests. we are not done yet. hang out here. i have a little bit more nerd land because there is a woman working to make others safe. she is doing it with no staff and no salary. she is our amazing foot soldier of the week when we come back. ♪ i am stuck on band-aid brand ♪

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every week we bring you foot soldiers who see a need in their community and get to work. some focus on providing food or shelter or job training or fair access to medical treatment. this week's foot soldier does all of these. she was first inspired by her grandmother, who worked as what

she calls a maid slave. she has no memory of her grandmother ever sleeping, just working. but when her grandmother developed a lump in her stomach, the physician, the one for whom she worked sun up to sundown, told her, don't worry about it. that lump was cancer and it killed her grandmother. that experience inspired her to become an advanced practice nurse. and while in college at howard university, she found islam and during her hospital training, she witnessed many muslim women patients experiencing discrimination. so she realized there was a need in her community and founded a holistic health center for muslim women who encounter culture intolerance, but the women, she realized they needed much more than medical care.

they were dealing with homelessness and domestic violence and inadequate education. she established a shelter for muslim women including domestic abuse survivors. they don't have to worry if the food is cooked in accordance with their religious commitments because it's and their need for modesty and prayer because they do. this place is not just a shelter, it's a home. os ma has no staff and no salary. she does this work on her own with her own effort. and along with her four adult children, their spouses and her volunteers, and this is more than work. it is a calling. she told us, i am nobody but i'm afraid on the day of judgment god will say to me, one of my servants came to you and you served them away. for all of her hard work and for making sure that no one is turned away, os ma is our foot soldier of the week.

to learn more about her, go to our website at mhpshow.com. that's our show for today. i'll be back tomorrow at 10:00 a.m. eastern with a closer look at the question of morality. now it's time for a preview. today it is hosted by thomas roberts. >> another thoughtful show and i look forward to tomorrow. new and alarming threats from north korea. will north korea's actions lead to war? will the u.s. take preemptive action? how might the supreme court rule when it comes to marriage equality. we'll take a deep dive on that. thousands of people undergoing blood test to determine if they contracted hiv, hepatitis or other illnesses after their dentist is accused of numerous health and safety violations, all of that and much more on "weekends with alex witt" coming your way next. having triplets is such a blessing.

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