to let boo boos breathe. [ giggles ] [ female announcer ] quiltvent technology, only from band-aid brand. use with neosporin first aid antibiotic. this morning, my question. how do we live our ethical commitments. plus, we revisit the topic of black hair. and america's veterans are coming home to face new battles. but first, a reality check about welfare. good morning and happy easter. i'm melissa harris-perry. now, you've probably heard the news that our country is facing an he can which sengs threat to national security. you might be thinking i'm talking about the saber rattling out of north korea, but in fact

i'm referring to the so-called welfare queen. yes, that welfare queen made infamous by ronald reagan who focused our national attention on the waste, fraud and abuse at our federal and state welfare agencies were engaged in. letting those cadillac driving single mothers of this country collect medicaid, food stamps and welfare under dozens of different names and social security cards. heck, these ladies were racking in over $150,000 tax-free a year from the government or so we were told. that early helped ronald reagan capture the republican presidential nomination and eventually the white house. is remains with us today as part of our popular lohr. whether it's in the frame of that pesky 47%. while the irs was hunting in the back alice of the south side of chicago in the south bronx for the welfare fraudsters, they sanctified a multitude of o

institutionally incentivized national corporation takers. the direct handouts are exponential. a recent new york times investigation found that each year our states are handing out over $80 billion to companies in the forms of incentives, cash grants, loans, sales tax breaks, income tax credits and redemption, free services and property tax abatement. those incentives are going to every corner of the corporate world and are pouring out of local bumg et cetera across the country. just last year, south carolina took on $218 million in debt to help the multinational aerospace and defense corporation, boeing, expand its operations there. offering tax breaks to the lucrative company for ten years. in return for incentives like that, states have promised jobs and tax re news. but the results barely match the rewards.

they don't even track how many jobs are created. the free flowing incentives benefit only the corporate recipients while pitting local officials against one another. okay, take kansas where $36 million award last year helped to woo amc entertainment across the border from missouri. that switch only produced a longer commute for its workers and $104 million cut in kansas state education budget. some corporations don't even have to give a little to get a whole lot. in 2009, just a month after general motors was bailed out with $50 billion in federal funds, the state of michigan handed gm nearly an additional billion dollars in tax credit. the credits can be used to offset the company's state tax bills up to 20 years. and gm still closed seven plants in michigan along with 50 properties and towns and states that forked over incentives adding up to billions of dollars in taxpayer money.

all the while, the hometown of gm has been buried in debt. banks, including bank of america, ubs, jpmorgan chase, issued about $3.7 million in bonds to cover the deficits, shortfalls and debt payments since 2005, costing the cities $474 million in the process. that's nearly the entire budget for the city's police and fire departments this year. this isn't even meunique to o detroit. many companies are still recouping those handouts. yes, we are facing an internal national threat from greedy welfare queen. the corporate welfare queen who are hollowing out our cities and leaving all of us poor. with me today is ansi butler, from the university of pennsylvania. labor organizer, steven learner with the wall street accountability campaign and justice for janitors.

vicor, senior contributor at the street.com and greg kaufman contributor to the nation magazine. he writes this week in poverty as a column. >> based on what i've sid, are the incentives for -- >> the answer is obvious. it's no. the way to think about this, a giant extortion racket which is the richest and most powerful companies have this hold over our heads, which is jobs. they say to some poor mayor, we're going to give you jobs if you just give us a break. target just did it up in brooklyn, minnesota. they said we are going to create all these jobs if you give us $2.4 million in cash and $20 million in abatement. then they don't get it. they say if you try to move, we'll take the jobs. you have to think about it as a massive wealth redistribution

machine. >> i always feel like, okay, i think we need a robust private sector. i think it's important to generate jobs shall the entrepreneurial spirit of the american people is encapsulated in the ability to make profit and to build businesses and sure, but then i look at this and i think, wait a minute, here's detroit going bankrupt and it's going bankrupt in part to pay back corporations whose profits are higher than they've been since 1950. >> peter thinks about it in the right way. the redistribution is really the way to think about it. i think your timing of taking on the subject is very important considering we can see the effects of the programs, the policy choices as you put it five years after all of the bailouts took place. we kind of see, for example, an enormous amount of money on the federal level. you're talking about the state level. bad enough. the federal level just dwarves what's gone on at the state level.

740-odd billion dollars promised. $245 billion to the banks given out. $50 billion for general motors. aig, all of this money has gone in. now we see the results of that five years down the road and the results of that have been, as you said, corporate profits that are off the charts. ceo payouts that are as high as they've ever been in the past. i read an article the other day about three ceos breaking the $100 million a year barrier. obviously, what's happening is that stockholders and particularly the executive group inside major corporations are the ones who have made out so well. you see that in the stock market. >> yes. >> which is making new highs every day. i mean, all-time new highs while in fact unemployment is still awfully high. people underneath are in a terrible state of affairs and the money that's been delivered to regular people has been barely touched. i was reading about, for example, the fha streamline program designed, the president put it into his state of the

union in 2010. what it was designed to do is help people refinance mortgages that were underwater. it was a great idea. it was trying to equalize what went to the corporations and what went to actual people. they did put aside $8 million for that program. but in fact, only $50 million of it has been given out. all of a sudden, there's been an amazing amount of responsibility applied to humans whereas whether it comes to corporations, there's absolutely no responsibility applied. here's all the free money, you need. use it as you like, pay us back when you like. >> this idea that corporations are people too. you have to say -- i was looking at the sort of how tax-free corporations are these days, greg. when you look at the percentage of the profit that is a tax burden, in 1969 procter & gamble to take one, 40% was the percentage of their profits that was taxes, right? >> in 2010, 15%. i feel like, you know, here we

are in a moment where people are doing their taxes, we're creeping up on the moment that is tax day. that kind of number, i think, is exactly that distinction between whoa, we're calling people welfare queens. it's the corporations that are. >> you're absolutely right. yet, nobody is talking about drug testing them. oh, man. >> that would be great. >> it would be high quality drugs, too, in their case. >> let's think about this. we would like to think for all these tax breaks, we've seen good jobs created. however, as you know, 50% of jobs in this country pay less than $34,000 a year. 25% pay less than the poverty line for a family of four, less than $23,000 a year. here's a number that i would like us as progressives to focus on as much as the 99%. there are 106 million americans, more than one in three, living below twice the poverty line. below $36,000. >> say it one more time. >> i really do.

the 106 million. more than one in three americans living pea low twice the poverty line. which means less than $36,000 per family a three. they're struggling with with the same impossible choices that we associate with poverty, between the basics, food, education, health care, housing. forget about payments. i think there's organizing potential if we can tap into the common interest that the 106 million have. >> that's the evaporated middle class. yes, the poor. on this program and your column we care about the poor. the notion of what is poverty has creeped up. >> people couldn't imagine themselves in in position, you have this loss of wealth and think about the foreclosures, you've lost your home, what's supposed to be the american dream. now you see our new welfare queens, jamie dimon and all the rest of these guys getting the money are living in luxury. there's a great disparity. what people think they should

have and what they actually have is not matching up. they can never get it. this american dream, you know, unfortunately, of being able to take care of yourself is over. because we've given that dream over to the corporations. they are the ones who get the recipient of now what the american dream really is. i think in a sense, it's this 106 million, plus all the rest of us who have to wake up and say we cannot allow this to go on any longer. we cannot allow these things to go on unabated. >> as soon as we come back, we're going to stay on this question of where the real welfare queens are and i'm going to talk about the welfare, walmart loop and connect the dots when we come back. ♪ [ male announcer ] why do more emergency workers everywhere trust duracell...?? duralock power preserve. locks in power for up to 10 years in storage. now...guaranteed. duracell with duralock. trusted everywhere. there's a reason no one says

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about the recovery of our economy at the top of the food chain, our federal social safety net programs continue to catch more and more americans. enrollment in the supplemental nutritional assistance program has jumped 70% since 2008 to a record 47.8 million recipients as of the end of 2012. the congressional budget analysts expect participation to expand next year. the rising poverty rate in the labor market as low wage jobs outpace middle income jobs three to one. many of the low wage jobs are found in the retail sector. the nation's biggest retail employer, you guessed it, walmart. it pace its average sales associate $15,576 a year. for a family of four, that's well below the poverty line of $22,050. making that employee eligible for food assistance. food assistance that goes right

back into the pockets of our corporations. because a 2010 report estimated that more than a third of all food stamps redeemed in the united states were used, you guessed it, at walmart stores. adding up to 4.5% of the company's total sales. the traditional welfare is corporate welfare. so greg, we pay the employees poverty wages, the social safety net gives them food stamps. the only place where they can then spend those food stamps is back at the place that paid them poverty wages, the walmart welfare loop. >> it's a good day to be a walton in america, isn't it? thank god we do have these food stamps. >> yes. >> and for every $5 in food stamps expenses, there's $9 in economic activity. but obviously, it goes back to the issue of where are the good jobs that are going to pay

people enough to feed their families? for the last year, i've been talking to janitors who work for some of the most expensive, richest corporations in america who go home and they need food stamps, they need medicaid, they need a second job and they read about in the newspapers how they're not spending enough time with their kids. >> they're bad parent. on the one hand, yeah, what food assistance is doing is keeping people from starving. subsidizing is walmart. >> i think what the corporations on the right have realized is the best defense is good offense. they're out here screaming about people on food stamps and entitlements, when it's a subsidy to them. >> yes. >> i don't know if your show is ready for this radical idea. >> let's go. >> i think there's a direct relationship between what you pay people and how much they earn. >> whoa. you blew my mind. if you pay people a fair wage, they will have earned a fair wage? >> so what happens is the whole thing, it's like so wacko. you can call is walmart, target,

b of a. the state subsidizing them because you have to eat. that's still allowed. you have to eat. you whine away about free market and say isn't it terrible that the government is spending all this money on these poor people that you made poor. it really -- it's sort of psychotic, pathological behavior, blaming the people you hurt while you're richer at any point in human history. >> it really is that part. it would feel different if corporations were hurting. the times are tough, everybody's got to take a little bit of the pain. record profits in fact. >> record profits. all i can think about when you say this, this is like sharecropping except this is a giant company store and it's feeding itself off of both the government and the people that it's enslaving. if you have this system that's going in this constant circle of sharecropping, they're robbing

both sides. they'rine robbing our governmen and they won't even pay the taxes they're supposed to pay. we can talk about the tax breaks they get. but let me tell you, i got a friend who works for a corporate tax person and they are evading lots of taxes. so when we talk about these things, you can't get away from the fact that they're not even paying into the system. they're not even paying what they should be paying. >> this is one of the things we see with walmart. you look down at what they do, they systematically each of the locations challenge property tax assessments so that even if supposedly those incentives have worn off, they're nonetheless keeping themselves from paying the most -- >> we have to remember that the economic pie is fixed. it doesn't get larger or smaller. there's a certain amount of capital to go around. if we deliver a tax break to a walmart, a land grant to a walmart, move some credit forward, what it does is puts less money into the state and the federal coffers and less money for food stamp programs

and health care and education and child care. all of these programs take cuts on the back of what's become corporate welfare. that's something that has to be remembered because otherwise, you forget that there's a limit to how much money that you can have spending. it's not the fault of people who are on the lower end of the spectrum that they're not making it. if all the money supposed to be going to the government is going for a corporate safety net. >> let me ask the politics of this. it seems to me like the natural sort of political ally here would be governors and mayors. on the one hand, you get why governors and mayors make these choices and have these incentives. but they're getting held hostage. shouldn't they be in line with the janitors unions at this point in. >> it's funny, they're verbally in alliance. they say the right thing. this hostage thing is so pressing because a company comes and says, i'm going to move if you don't give me what i want. people are so terrified of it. i think it speaks to were we

built a broader movement that fundamentally challenge the power that these people have. i was joking the other day, the sarkozy, the former head of france is going to work for a private equity company. if government is primarily an apprenticeship to becoming a millionaire when you leave, if it's like it used to be people that know you become a carpenter's apprentice and full-time carpenter, you can make a good job. this gig of being governor, this is a setup so then you can -- >> is the on the corporate board. >> scott brown just did the same thing. this is the thing, you do your time, you put your favors in and then you move up the ladder and you go into private equity firm or something and make all of your cash. >> we're going to take a quick break. when we come back, greg, we're going to talk about the disability question. i tell you what, also, anthea, you said that sharecropper thing. you have to write that up for the blog. people are going to be mad you called walmart a sharecropper. >> i will. [ lane ] are you growing old

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this week, new reporting showed that over the past three decades, the number of americans receiving disability benefits has exploded. currently each month 14 million americans are collecting disability support, costing the federal government $250 billion each year. according to the reporting on npr, the number of former workers on disability is doubling every 15 years. the fund has inevitably become taxed and is expected to run out of money in 2016. some analysts attribute this to demographic factors, the aging baby boom general ration, the growth in women's employment and the rise in the retirement age. 70% of the disability are over the age of 50. the rise in disability rolls may be part of the stress point, the overall collapse of our public safety net. i wanted to come to you on this,

greg, because the npr theories generated angst from people. in part because it sound like disability is going to be the new welfare means. when you look at the rising rolls, it feels like we can say, he's a cheater, these are people who don't belong there. christophe had that column in november saying we should throw kid on disability off because it keeps their parents from encourage canning them to learn to read so they can collect a check. where are we going with this? >> you hit it on the nose. it sounds like it's going to be the new welfare because it is. it's going to be the new welfare queen. to quote colonel potter of "mash," it's horse hockey. some are moving to disability because it's too hard to get -- >> you can see, like you can see it. if you look at the tanif grant

chart, how it's declined and how it increased. the top one is tanif, the direct cash payments, the bottom one is disability. you can see they fit together like puzzle pieces. people were moved off of one to the other. in an overall sense. not the same individuals. >> it's apples and oranges. because if really people were moving -- i got to say about tanif, they want to do this with disability. for every 100 families in poverty with children, 68 received cash assistance. that was in 1996. now 27. when you hear about block granting disability get very afraid. if people were moving from tanif, all these women and children were getting kicked off, you would see a rise in disability with people with dependents. in fact, it's gone down since 1996. nearly one-third of people

receiving disability in 1996 had a dependent, now it's 20%. with kids, for every 20 kids leaving tanif, one is now on disability. there's really not much there except it's a dramatic story. people are taking anecdotes and running with them. >> just a quick point on the numbers. when you're on disability, hur not part of the unemployment numbers. as the disability rolls have expanded, they've given us a false sense of confidence in the way that we've been recovering since the financial disaster, with the employment numbers under 8% and so forth. in fact with the disability rolls expanding, we're not making the kind of progress we want to in unemployment. people who never were on disability before, in fact, maybe 15 years ago depended upon their condition would not have applied for disability, now feel like it's the only way to supplement, to survive as opposed to -- >> i just want -- i have to be honest. i turned the report off on the radio. maybe this is unfair because i didn't hear the whole thing.

when the reporter started talking about my boss has a bad back and itch a bad back and we don't get disability. i was so pissed off because have you been on a paltry line lately, have you worked 12 hours a day mopping floors. with all due respect to the media, i know it hurts your back to write an article. it's a total disconnect about what life is like for most workers here. how do you get up and get a job when there isn't a job? >> this point about that, i will say that i think that npr did try to get a little more nuance on this, it is a real challenge. when you say bad back and you have the kind of job i have where you sit all day, you sort of don't get, when you say you have a bad back and you're a janitor, that is disabling for the kind of work that you do. it simply is disabling. >> whether it's drywalling -- i think the really really rich folks are so far from productive labor, since it's stripping money and putting in their

wallet, they can't imagine what it means to hump garbage, which is what it's called, do all that kind of work, they can't imagine it, and then they're going tis being, tis being. >> they were getting -- >> a little amount. when you're working these jobs, you usually can't afford the insurance that you have to pay for. you're already sick, you can't afford good food to eat to keep you from having sugar as we call it or high blood pressure. part of it is about the system but part of it is about we're breaking people. we're literally breaking people in little cheap jobs that they can't get enough care for. >> the jobs that we're creating. that's really what it's about. if we spent more money instead of to giving corporations, we just come to our town and open a walmart, but some training to put people in a place where they can attract better technology jobs and not have to do all this kind of back breaking work.

>> to steve's point, the npr picked an outlier in southern and appalachian areas where jobs are predominantly mining, forestry, manufacturing. they say why not -- are collecting disability. it's because those jobs are gone. in fact, there's a high disability standard. you have to have a physical or mental impairment that keeps up from earning a thousand dollars a month on an ongoing basis and 60% of the applications are rejected. in those areas, you're allowed to look at, if i have a high school education am i -- what can i switch to? >> nobody is giving you any training. >> this is the other thing about the kids too, you know. >> this kids of kicking kids off as a way -- i loved your point in response. if you're looking for money in the budget, look at the defense budget. how about not the disability budget. thank you to stephen lerner and greg kaufmann and dan dicker.

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beat their 10-year lipper average. t. rowe price. invest with confidence. request a prospectus or summary prospectus with investment information, risks, fees and expenses to read and consider carefully before investing. 40 years ago this month, the last u.s. troops left vietnam. yet, many of them are still struggling with the parting gift that keeps on giving. agent orange. in our vault this morning, a look back at some of the troops affected by the infamous chemical agent. >> for almost ten years american forces sprayed agent orange in vietnam, a way to kill the jungle in which the enemy had been hiding and sprayed our own soldiers too. >> got on our skin and our water and our clothes. >> by the time he left vietnam, he had skin cancer, has had many diseases since. has come close to death, has asked the government for help. >> when i went to the va for help, i was losing weight, i was

ill. my spleen was swelling. the v.a. told me to basically get lost. >> 100,000 others were told agent orange wasn't the problem. many were sent to psychiatrists, were told it was all in their heads. >> the rage is incomprehensible. it goes beyond rage. it's betrayal. >> some studies blamed agent orange for 27 diseases, several fatal. >> catch-22. you can't receive benefits for agent orange poisoning until you're dying. by the time you get the check, you're dead. >> nearly 40 years later, the number of disability claimed for vietnam veterans continues to mount even as new claims come in for the wars in iraq and afghanistan. many vets are left waiting years for help. their wars are over, but the fight continues. more on this and what this country must do when we come back. and every day since, we've worked hard to keep it.

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after the department of defense, the next largest department is the one supposed to take care of returning soldiers, the department of veterans affairs. commonly referred to as the v.a. it's even bigger than it used to be. the v.a. added more than 4,000 new workers since 2008. they've spent $537 million on a new computer system. one they never even had before the last secretary took over in 2009. let me say that again slowly. the year 2009. they got a computer system. in other words, the v.a. simply didn't have a computer system for dealing with the veterans' claims until then. now that they do, everything is working great, right? well, according to the march 11th report in the center for investigative reporting, not only are claims still on paper, but the backlog of claims increased during the current administration.

for merely mountainous to astronomical. the number of veterans waiting more than a year for benefit, 11,000. but as of december, it was 245,000. joining me live in san francisco is the reporter who brought the facts to light, the center for investigative reporting. also at the table, patrick murphy, the first iraq veteran to serve in the u.s. congress and kayla williams, fellow with the truman national security project and center for national policy. also, the author of "love my rifle more than you." young and female in the u.s. army. i want to start with you, aaron. since your reporting largely brought the issue back to light of the reporting. what is the central problem facing the va? >> the central problem is that they're not able to deal with this flood of iraq and afghanistan veterans coming home at the same time that a lot of vietnam veterans are finally

being allowed to claim illnesses caused by agent orange. this is a paperwork problem. you know, they have so much paperwork ha they just simply can't put it through. as you mentioned, the documents that we obtained, showed that even though they had spent half a billion dollars trying to computer eyes this thing over the last four years, 97% of these claims are still on paper. there's a complete dysfunction at, there's a bad management at most of their regional offices and at the end of the day, what this meant is if you come home from iraq or afghanistan and file your first claim in new york city, you're going to be wait withing an average of 642 days for your benefits. so you got blown up by an ied in iraq or afghanistan and now you're trying to get a new life together in new york. you lost your job, your job was being a soldier. you got a monthly paycheck for

that. you're looking for new work. you need to take care of your health care need. but you'll be waiting almost two years to get your benefits from the va. >> aaron, i want to bring in kayla here. i know that you have been through the va process since returning as has your husband. you had a somewhat different experience than what's being described. >> absolutely. i did go through the system before the backlog took route. it's important to add nuance to this discussion. veterans coming out of the military today go through a completely different system. the integrated disability evaluation system or ides. they're not part of that big number. it's streamlined and a different process and not part of that big backlog number. it's important to note owe o owe. >> who is in the backlog? veterans from prior wars? >> 40% of them are new claims and 60% of those claims are people filing for higher ratings or adding new items. because you could develop a

problem later on. you could have a vietnam veteran who had musculoskeletal problems as a result of his service and got ischemic heart disease from agent orange and due to the bold and morally right decision is now considered presumptive as a result of the agent orange. that veteran can file that they have a new condition. there are a couple of things. 37% are vietnam vets. 27 -- 20% are current veterans. >> there would be nuance here, on the one hand, i'm looking at the stacks of papers, aaron's reporting which clearly tells me there's a huge backlog and people are waiting. on the other hand, would be more complicated, it's always more complicated than the one story. how do we start to navigate through this? if we've got money on the table and new workers in the va, what are the solutions here? >> several things.

first, they're right. that we need to make sure -- aaron's point is correct. it's not digitized enough. there has been major investments as you mentioned. you have to look at the fact that, one, there are more veterans. there's been 2.5 million iraq, afghanistan veterans that have come home. more benefits given. not just with ptsd. >> that presumption is new. in a way you used to have to come and prove as we saw in that vault. you have to prove that it was agent orange. now we presume. >> give credit where credit is due. that's pam president obama and the general. >> it's caused i backlog. that's why the mum one solution we could find is make it more digitized. the good thing, melissa, 79% of the g.i. benefits are digitized.

because it is digitized, there's a wait of 24 days as compared to 273 days with these claims. >> aaron, let me come to you a little bit on this. what i'm wondering, if we know that we can get the g.i. bill for example moving more quickly through, what are the kinds of claims where you are seeing people in your reporting, folks waiting a year or two years. what sorts of things are they waiting for? >> we are talking about disability compensation claims. patrick is exactly right. the va had the same problem with the g.i. bill a few years ago and they solved it. the va has built an excellent electronic medical records system. now you don't to have your medical file mailed around the country if you move and you want to go to the hospital. but on the subject of benefits delivery, i came home and i'm wounded and i need a disability check because i can't work, that's where they're completely dropping the ball. part of it is, i think, they're unable to execute on the various

relatively good plans that the president has come up with. not only digitizing, but hiring new workers. they were budgeted for 3,300 new workers. but the internal va documents that we obtained at the center of investigative reporting show that they've only added about 300. they have these flood of new claims coming in as the other guests have mentioned and they were supposed to have extra people to help them process these claims. but the documents that we've obtained show they haven't been able to do that. the reason is that people, individuals don't want to work in this dysfunctional system if they can find a job doing something else. that's one of the reasons why new york, san francisco, los angeles, chicago, these major cities where people can get other options in terms of jobs, they're not stacking up even though a lot of new people are coming forward. >> aaron stay with us. there's more on this. i want to talk both about the emotional toll of what it means

to be waiting. but also it feels like people working at the va are good people, not trying to withhold benefits. fixing this is more than a matter of getting the bad people out and the good people in. more on that when we get back. [ male announcer ] when you take shortcuts, it shows. we don't run like that. we build john deere equipment the way we always have: the right way. times change. our principles don't. you don't just have our word on it. you've got our name on it. that's how we run.

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we're talking about the issues facing our veterans and the veterans administration which is supposed to care for our veterans. >> it feels like folks working at the veterans administration and the administration itself, they want to be doing what's right and then, you know, i love the dailey show, i just wanted to show, part of what brought it back into the public realm is jon stewart talking about aaron's reporting. let's talk about how he describes the problem. >> let me use this analogy. an x-box and playstation can play the same game but can't talk together. >> that makes sense. here's the thing. an x-box and a playstation don't

talk because they're competitors. their mission is to destroy each other, which is not the relationship we expect from the part of government that takes care of our disabled veterans and the part of government that creates them. >> but you had a different metaphor when you were talking about what we're seeing at the v.a. right now. >> yes. so the previous administration did not plan for this. they didn't set anything in motion, they didn't start transitioning to a computerized system and when obama took office and appointed secretary in 2009. he started figuring out the problems. put this plan into motion, 2010. and the va shas spent a couple of years trying to develop a computer system that will work. they've been doing this in an unusual way. craig new march of craigslist has written about this. instead of doing it top down, they've been having people would process the claims, work with i.t. people to develop a good

system. this year, 2013, they're rolling it out and transitioning the regional offices over to that new system. in the middle of that, it's going to be really painful. the legislative director in his testimony before the senate said it's like a kitchen remodel. it looks like a disaster. you may not have a floor, no refrigerator, you can't do anything. but when it's done, it's going to be much better. i think it's important that we all support va through this process and veterans can help this by trying to work with vsos to develop complete claims and say i have everything already here. instead of va trying to track down all the supporting documentation. >> aaron, we have a model that says all right, the va is in the middle of trying to make things better. you're looking at a kitchen remodel problem. i'm thinking of it, reading your reporting, one of the individuals that you report on is someone who calls up and says, i'm suicidal today. like today.

right now. and can't manage to get seen by anyone because it's a friday afternoon. can't get in to get seen in order to be assessed for whether or not they can see someone until monday morning. on the one hand, i respect that bureaucracy moves slowly, we got to get there. on the other hand, what do you do as a veteran from that moment? >> one is the health care which we could discuss, the other is the benefits which is what we're discussing today. when you come forward and say i'm wounded and i need skpen sayings. this improves your access to health care when you have a disability connected to the service. >> the thing that troubles me, this has gotten so much worse under the obama administration as a matter of fact. this is not one year or two years in. we're in the second term now. i think that earlier on, you know, you could say we're in the middle of the kitchen remodel. what we've been remodeling the kitchen, on the way into the second term and the problem as we said, the number of veterans waiting over a year pour

benefits has gone up 2,000% under president obama. 2,000% from 11,000 when he took office to 245,000 now. kayla had an easier time getting her benefit. she didn't get out of the military right now. she got out of the military some time ago when the process was going a little bit better. >> aaron, i want to bring back to be this. when i hear you say as a matter of -- how bad the numbers are over the course of the past five years, we were talking about the politics of this. >> first, if any veterans out there watching your show melissa and there's 1-800-273-talk. that's 24/7. they can always call. >> if they're feeling. >> suicidal or the thoughts of the there's a crisis line that's 24/7. there is a point we need to act with a sense of urgency. there has been investments, but there are too, when we talk about little things like

electric i can medical records. there's systems in the va that don't talk to each other. that's not right. the fact is this. there are 22 veterans every day committing suicide. it is going up. this has to be a national call, a national solution. we just can't say, hey general and president obama, fix this thing. we all have to have skin in the game. because we don't have skin in the game. only less than 1% of americans have served in iraq or afghanistan. to your earlier point about vietnam, 78% of the congress during vietnam served in the military. now it's less than 22% served in the military. they don't quite understand what's going on. we all need to make sure we're hiring these heroes when they come back. that's a major part of the solution. >> that's right. this may be happening at the sort of the administrative level but this is about all of us. thank you both for your service and thank you both for being here at nerdland. thank you to aaron glants in san francisco. we'll keep our eyes on this.

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hey, this is challenger. i'll be waiting for you in stall 5. it confirms your reservation and the location your car is in, the moment you land. it's just another way you'll be traveling at the speed of hertz. last week the spring semester break gave me a moment to pause in my day jobs as professor and tv host and put on another one of my hats. my gardening cap. kneeling in my small patch of earth with my hands in the soil, it occurred to me the beginning of spring is not only a time for christians to celebrate the renewal of life through the resurrection of christ, it's not only a time for the followers of the jewish faith, to remember and give thanks for the lives of children spared. this season is also a moment for more secular reflection on belief and how we've put that belief into action. after all, what is more about faith than planting a spring

garden? you sew the seeds and nurture them and watch and wait in the hopes that new life will reveal itself. extensi ix is tension al list thinker wrote. though i do not believe that a plant will spring up where no seed has been, i have great faith in the seed. convince me that you have a seed there and i'm prepared to expect wonders. of course, thorough was refuting the belief at the time of spontaneous generation, life from no life. in this season of renewal, the sacred or secular, this idea of faith in a seed gives us a useful way of approaching a moral and ethical dilemma of our collective choices. we may have belief but so what? that belief alone is not enough without planting a seed of action in service of that knowing. this week we saw faith in action when pope francis did something that was very, well, unpope-like

in comparison to the standards set by his predecessors. pope francis, the first jesuit and the first son of the americas to lead the catholic church added another first in his observance of the christian rite of foot washing on holy thursday. previous popes followed the fra digs of washing the feet of their followers, washing the feet of his disciples in a final act of humility. pope john paul ii and benedict xvi chose catholic priests. pope francis instead washed the feet of inmates at a juvenile detention center in rome. he threw tradition to the wind when he became the first pope to wash the feet of muslims and he scanned liesed the catholic orthodoxy when he became the first pope to wash the feet of two women. following the direction of his moral compass and resisting the inertia of precedent has in a short time become par for the

course pour in pope and he has spoken of the desire for the roman catholic church to become "a poor church for the poor." he signalled his intent to live by shedding the opulence of the papal apartment in favor of the vatican. it is far too soon to know what the legacy will be. but he's sewing a little seed in the world in his commitment to use the considerable resources of the church to address poverty. on this spring morning, whether you consider yourself religious, spiritual or secular, it is worth pausing to ask, what seeds are we collectively sewing to address issues of poverty and inequality? at the table with me, anthea butler, professor. at the 92nd street y here in new york city. christiane a pepper, assistant professor of theology in the department of theology at fordham university and a columnist for the nation

magazine. thank you all for being here at my table this morning. >> thank you for having us. >> let's start, how do we take our faith and apply it to our works in a collective way without becoming religious talk people in the public sector? >> melissa, that's a great question. i think that part of the enthusiasm over -- pardon me, over the ascendance i of pope francis to the papacy, is the packet that he's walking the walk along with the talk that has come from generations of predecessors. he seems to be at this point, early on as suggested, living it in a new way. the dual emphasis on poverty and the environment are very exciting. because there's a lot of richness within the body of catholic social teaching that is essentially a reflection on how to love god and love the neighbor. the two cannot be torn a sun der

in catholicism. a lot of that is the pope will continue to bear witness to these issues of global concern and they're the kinds of issues that no one of us, despite our best most charitable intentions can solve on our own. it's only with massive collective action. >> it feels like rabbi dan, that's what part of religious institution provides for us. the collective aspect of it. i was recently and really incredibly honored to be honored by the national council of jewish women. while there listening to them talk about what is jewish, right, and they're talking about it in a way as they are about to go up to the hill in order to lobby, right? but on the basis in part of deep ethical claims about what their jewish identity means about their responsibility relative to poverty and inequality. >> absolutely. what we've learned in so many different faith traditions, precisely the sayings of the heeb u prophets.

isaiah is says clearly, what is our responsibility? what does god want from us in feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to shelter the homeless. these obligations that flow deep. what does a prophet mean? it's a person able to hold both god's interest and god's needs in his mind at the same time that we also hold the needs of mankind at the same time. so being able to reconcile those two, understand how god wants us to act and be while living the life. walking the walk. not simply talking the talk. the people i deal with in downtown new york are young, in their 20s and 30s. it's hard and disillusioned by what's going on. they're living paycheck to paycheck. they don't like their job but feel they need to hold on to it. when you're in a crisis moment, it's hard to consider other people. you're so focused on getting by and getting through the day,

it's hard to expand to care about the other people in front of you. >> it's interesting to hear you about herb he will there. we had a conversation yesterday about allies, he is of course the invisible ally in many ways that folks don't know about civil rights movement. that there is no martin luther king, jr. with without that northern ally. i'm thinking katherine, from -- part of were we quote here. folks on the one hand will say, okay, i love the civil rights movement as indicative of sort of how religious politics can make great social change. but just, a, i don't believe and b, generally think that religion talk in our politics tends to be more divisive rather than the model of herb un king. >> i'm here to say that. the atest -- people have a funny

memory about the civil rights movement. they've read the left out of it, they've o forgotten that black churches were not keen on it when it started. they were quite conservative. the catholic church in louisiana was still keeping racial records on who had one drop and who didn't. >> they might still be. >> they might still be. it's really a much more mixed picture. at the same time, you had the religion on the other side. the southern baptistry and whatever it was. >> whatever the racists were. i tend to see lee lij on like a vessel to put whatever you want. the good people put good things in it and the bad people put bad things in it. then they call that god. but since i don't think there is a god, i think it's just us. there's nobody here but us chickens, you know. it's really great if a religious institution wants to do good things. we need that. but ultimately, individual or

even church -- a whole church getting together to do something good, that's not going to be enough. we have to do the secular things like big government programs and that's where you get into trouble. a lot of really nice religious people think that's really terrible. >> this can sometimes be that disconnect between charity and justice, right? i'm thinking in the days following katrina. the baptists, some of the great, the casserole ladies, they baked the casseroles, they came out but were not supportive of the massive infrastructure spending that was necessary. amazing charity but not always the move towards greater justice. >> exactly. it was all bush's compassionate conservatism which didn't work. part of it was a handout and the rest was you all do what you need do. the importance -- i'm thinking about what you said kata, sometimes atheists can be

christians best friends. they help us shape what we should be doing and to think about the core tenets of what we believe. if it's always about the ideology and not about doing what the faith says you are supposed to do, then you've missed the point. i think one of the biggest thing i think has happened in the last 10 to 20 years in this nation is that christianity at large has been this kind of prosperity christianity. it's been the same thing with the corporations and all of this. and now we get a pope francis who says we need to think about the environment and about the poor. so now maybe perhaps we're going to see a turning. maybe we can see people getting back to the basics of what the faith is supposed to really be about instead of all this. the second part is, you can't be a hypocrite. you can't do the other things and expect everybody else to straighten up when the leadership won't straighten up either. >> one of the interesting things that bears up your mess, anthea, is that precisely there is a legacy in catholic teaching of a

strong critique with globalization. we've heard a lot of rhetoric about greed and skepticism. the new pope is no milton freedman, neither with the previous ones. that's a message that we in the u.s. have overlooked. i completely agree with you. individual charity is great. but you know what, there are structural sins that permeate the world and they need attention. >> i'm going to play a game with you guys on exactly that when we come back. one of my favorite religious writers is a presbyterian writer. one of my favorite stories is this message in the stars in which he imagines that god comes and writes on the sky, god is. everybody knows 100% that there definitely is a god. a few months into the message being in the stars, a little boy looks up at the sky and says so what? because it's not whether we're certain there is a god but whether or not that informs us to do anything. we're going to talk about the so what when we come back.

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the notion that two months or three months after something as horrific as what happened in newtown happens and we moved on to other things, that's not who we are. that's not who we are. >> that was president obama this week making the argument for urgent and effective response to gun violence. his appeal to america was a reminder that in the face of a relentless epidemic, we're a country that acts, not a country that turns away. yet the resistance to that action put the president's moral imperative at a crossroads. we're also a country with a profound allegiance to individual liberty, gun ownership as an expression of that freedom.

rising to the challenge of the problems of guns and urgent political questions requires grappling with competing and with ethical questions. this is like ethics class 101. if you have competing more or less or ethics, how do you reconcile them? what does it matter if you have this ethic or this belief in god. what difference does it make on gun control? how do we begin to reconcile this? anybody go for it. >> i mean, i think on gun control, we have to think about we can't take all of them away right now. the moral imperative for us right now is to what will stop this violence from happening if we can control this. the guy who shot everybody at newtown did all the shooting in five minutes. for me the ethical imperative is it would seem we need to get rid of big magmagazines, period. first do no harm. how do we do that? take away the magazines. we can't get rid of all of the

guns. we can set up a system where we're thinking about how people use those guns. what can we do ethically. we can't back away as the president said. you see the mothers standing behind you hoping for something to happen because they lost their babies to gun violence. you must start to think about what is morally correct, what is the right thing to do. i think in this particular case it's banning the magazines is the first step. >> if we're indicted as a public morality, if we're indicted nonetheless because we -- the newtown mothers are there. but all those mothers in chicago and new orleans and detroit -- pendleton to keep this going. we don't know their names and the loss of their children because largely irrelevant to our public discourse. >> right. i think what you have today is a society in which we have understanding ourselves to the context of our -- the mediums of our technologies, our numbers, our digits. we like to calculate things and put graphs on things. you had the graphics of poverty.

for each of the people on the graph, that's a real person, that's a real individual. the golden rule is you should not do unto someone else that which is hateful to you. that requires being real and being in dialog with them and understanding that god's presence resides in everybody, in every child and in every person. having that consciousness and finding a way to attach that to how we live our life. what the policy decisions that we advocate for. how do we treat people on a day-to-day basis. that's a conversation that's been mentioned earlier. we've moved away from precisely because of the religious leadership that a lot of us have been exposed to hasn't been the best and hasn't done the greatest job on behalf of what god calls to us. >> isn't it all valuable to frame it that way, in other words to say this is a moral calling, or is that just sort of an irrelevant way to frame a public policy question like gun control? >> i would say, the thing that gun control that fewer people actually own guns than 40 or 50

years ago. the people who own guns are more gun -- they have more guns especially since obama was elected. you would see this huge uptick because people, oh, my god, they're coming for my guns. i think there are real differences about what the rules should be and unfortunately, the republican party is -- i mean, not just them. the nra is very, very powerful. i think it would be really great if all the religions and every pulpit gave a sermon, turn in your guns because now there are laws being passed in various states saying it's okay to bring a gun to church. why didn't the churches stand up then and say no guns in our church. >> some of the churches have stood up. the episcopal church in washington, d.c. did a march about this. a stations of the cross about this. we don't have other churches speaking up. that's the first thing. this is where i say, once again, you all the atheists can help us as christians and say, look, it

doesn't have to be this way. can't we think about the perspective and leave god out of it for a second. think about this as human bodies that you don't want to hurt. >> it feels like there's a certain power when you are speaking to someone as a christian. if you use the language of crucifixion. if you're trying to make an argument about what's happening in our communities and talk about the lynching tree as the cross, as james koen does, all of a sudden for people for whom the sets of symbols are meaningful, it reveals something that doesn't happen when you're making an argument without appeal to the religious symbols and meanings. >> i agree. i think that inhabiting the story, whether it's christian, jewish, muslim or a range of other types of crucial stories that have been passed down to us and throughout time through traditions in context with reality is a very powerful way of speaking to people's experience. i think -- >> context of reality.

>> in context with reality. i think about my own experience. i grew up in colorado and i was a sophomore in college when the columbine high school shootings happened. you know, i grew up 10, 15 minutes from columbine high school. that was proximate. my father died as a result of gun violence. and there are a range of questions that have to do with the nature of our liberty. now, we heard a lot about religious liberty from the bishops and other groups this year. but when it comes to guns at the very least, i think the american public has an idolatry of liberty. that's dangerous. that's a kind of language that can and should be mobilized. again, an example of papal and cyclicals. benedict xvi referred to rights as fundamental needs, things to which all human beings deserve access and empowerments.

rights without duties become mere license. if they're not to become mere license in ways that can be dell tier wrus to the earth and other people, then we need duties to go along with them. why not? >> idolatry as well. >> i think you're making a great point. where is the conversation taking place? now in the jewish tradition, we have these two interests. i'm a rabbi, i'm -- like a lot of rabbis, i'm not an expert in firearms. we have a tradition of treating another person and loving your neighbor as yourself. those are very important religious values. we also have our history and remembrance here on the sixth day of passover that we too were strangers in a strange land. that we suffered in slavery and when you think backs being a defenseless minority hasn't worked out the best for the jewish people throughout history. you have that memory, which is playing a strong part in terms of how do we have this conversation, how do we talk about these competing values. the problems is there are two types of relationships, we can

have an i/you relationship. i listen to you and see who you are. i don't need you to do certain things for me or we can have a lot of the rip relationships is i/it relationships. i need you to retweet something for me. >> hold right there. i promise more on that. the unthing i have to do is apparently take a commercial break. we'll be right back. right. but the most important feature of all is... the capital one purchase eraser. i can redeem the double miles i earned with my venture card to erase recent travel purchases. and with a few clicks, this mission never happened. uh, what's this button do? [ electricity zaps ] ♪ you requested backup? yes. yes i did. what's in your wallet? yes i did. the people of bp made a commitment to the gulf., and every day since, we've worked hard to keep it.

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raised. the second amendment is raised up. i don't think that's what the framers would have wanted. that gets spun out with the intention arguments. we begin to have a sense where we talk about it to kids, like the civics class. approximate we have a class about ethics. doesn't have a religious component to it, but talk about the morality of ha you do, there's a huge amount of material that has nothing do with religion. you can think about what it means to be an ethical member of society. what do you not do to someone else? how do you manage your anger and your fear? >> i feel like having an 11-year-old, i do a lot of kids reading that sort of thing. i feel like we do that. but it's always about private morality. >> yes. >> it feels sort of like to the extent that we talk about morality in the public sphere, we talk about private morality, who you should and shouldn't sleep with, should or should not dispose of things in your uterus. this is what we think about as

morality but not public morality. in your work, there are millions of people in the world today without access to water. we don't call that sin but it feels to me like as much sin as sleeping with the wrong person. >> right. i think that those are completely great points. one entree into civic education possibly is precisely in the context of the bullying epidemic that i've seen. i had a kindergartner, she'll come home and say mama, there was a kid on o the playground and he said we couldn't play with him. we discussed it and worked through it. she's five. okay. but on the point of global problems and -- >> but 5-year-olds get it. i'm less worried about them -- in part because they're good socialists. they figure out how to make it work. i'm more worried about when we want our job and we turn the other people into the its. >> can i say something? >> yes. >> okay.

it's a very good question to ask why isn't religion as concerned about water and economic justice and all these things as it is and as they mentioned sexual morality. i would say that's not an accident. it's not just that they haven't thought oh, water, right? it's that one of the things that religion is about is the control of women. these religions were all invented by men for men. controlling women is very important. and the way you do that is by regulating women's sexuality. men's sexuality a little bit but that's never been too effective. but if you read the bible, they're always going on about prostitutes and harlots and barren women and women who -- >> you know why? they're afraid of the other religions who the women are powerful. this is a different thing. >> okay. >> that's the other part of it. how do you -- i do think that the more important thing is that if we leave all of the things

aside and you start to begin to think about what is the core of humanity, what does it mean to be human, what does it mean to be alive, how are we going to do this together so we can get people clean water and clean air and clean food, because we're going to wreck this place if we don't start thinking about this in the corporate way. it's over with. everything is melting. everything is going away. this is what is so interesting to me about francis. if you think that everything is going to go away and it's apocalyptic and the world is going to end anyway, why do you care? >> half the christians think that jesus is coming back in 40 years. were should they care if the water -- >> god demands that we care. that's one of the things. we are holy because god is holy. god calls us to be a good person as well. i think what we have had is as you've rightly pointed out, religious leaders who coe opted the beautiful messages in our bible for their own causes and political agendas. that has turned a lot of people

off. according to the pew research study, one out of three americans under the age of 30 has no religious identification or affiliation. because they -- that's a loss of a crisis of faith ha we're experiencing as a country. we need religious leadership that enables people to understand how we can see god. >> i like that you made the distinction between the leaders and the religion themselves. i get you on the text of terror as we might call some of what happens around women for example in the bible. that's in part because preachers then don't make a decision, for example to preach hagar or to preach mary magdalene in particular ways. the bible is also full of ruth and of women doing amazing independent and quite holy things. but i think you are exactly right that the religious leaders have a variety of reasons of for controlling women's

reproductive. >> i have one point on women and one on environment. on women, you're absolutely right. we need to preach mary mag did he lien says just because there was a woman in the new testament doesn't mean receives a prostitute. in contemporary -- invoking women can be okay, we checked that box. >> done, okay. part of what has me interested and hopeful is for example pope francis today in his speech remarked at the women at the tomb and described them as disciples. it might seem like, duh, to a lot of people but it's revolutionary for the catholic church and the pontiff to be speaking in this way much does that mean that then makes women equal citizens around the world? no, it doesn't. but it's a step in the rye direction. that's a point on women. on environment, now, i study the catholic social teaching and environmental thoughts, specifically freshwater. so i'm delighted that you brought that up.

i think the catholic environmentalism hinges on two pivot points, one is theological, one is ethical. the theological one is that there's a discern i believe order in nature, in the creative world and that reveals the goodness of the creator. the ethical point is that people living in poverty and especially women and children, disproportionately bear the burdens of environmental degradation. women walk miles and hours every day to get water. literally, their bodies are shaped by the burden. water is eight pounds a gallon. i mean, this is a profound, in a sense, disability. because if women and girls are getting water. you know what they're not doing? they're not going to school and not having opportunities open to them. it is a justice issue. >> as we wrap here, this moment as we're in spring and planting seeds as we are in easter, as we think about sin, to think about sin in a way that allows us to

think about our collective selves and as we think about planting new seeds, they're the seeds that we must plant for our collective sefs for justice and equality. thank you to rabbi dan, katha and anthea is going to literally let down her hair. [ snoring ] ♪ [ snoring ] [ male announcer ] zzzquil™ sleep-aid. [ snoring ] [ snoring ] [ male announcer ] it's not for colds. it's not for pain. it's just for sleep. [ snoring ] [ male announcer ] because sleep is a beautiful thing™. [ birds chirping ] zzzquil™. the non-habit forming sleep-aid from the makers of nyquil®. ♪ love your passat! um. listen, gary.

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symposium on black hair? >> your show inspired me to do it. when we did that segment in june of 2012, so many responses people had to black hair, i thought i wanted to bring this to the academic world and to the public at large. so many people have asked since i've been on your show, how do you do your hair, especially older women? i want to say you can show your hair and not be ashamed of it. we're always ashamed if our hair isn't perfectly presented to the public. when you see that i have flat twists on and then you will see my hair come out in full glory. >> doing like a show. whoo! >> freedom o. >> i know people out there going she just snatched her wig. i'm not ashamed of my hair. i love my hair. this is what it looks like when we get done with it. we're going to show you the process. this is really important because

we have so many stigmas about hair. >> the first slide is when she's having her hair shampooed and she's blowing out her hair. this is her hair in the blow-out stage. a lot of women are wearing their hair in a blow-out. we're going to show you how i flat twist her air to give it texture. here she is in all her glory. >> we're going to take it down in front of you so you can see it all styled and everything so that when i leave tonight, i don't scare the cab driver on the way home. so now you see that i have a head of hair. voila. anthea's hair is like its own character on our show. at that you can to me about that one client that you have. >> anthea's hair and her personality are both very

explosi explosive. when i style her hair, i like her hair to exude and compliment her personality. her hair is beautiful. it reaches up to the cosmos and her personality does the same. >> i love the fact that her hair is not dyed. she wears her silver hair the way it is. and i think it would inspire a lot of women of her generation who don't see the value of having their hair and its natural color and in its natural texture. >> for me, since i have the kinkest of the kinky hairs, most of my life i was talked about. but i had to learn to love it. >> it really is hard for people to come out and be themselves from the top of their head to the soles of their feet. i hope that i'm a model at least for being happy in your own skin. >> when we come back, that witch -- the matching professor

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it's just another way you'll be traveling at the speed of hertz. a new website by four 20 somethings that launches the end of april is a welcoming space for women to discuss the personal topic of our hair. madam you will be an online social network where women of color can go to piend out about products for their hair. be part of a solution and an engaged community. joining me are chanel martin and candice mitchell, the co-founders of the website which is powered by texturized. still with me, anthea butlebutl >> we got excited in nerdland about your new project. one of the things as i was reading up, apparently african-american women make up only 6% of the population. but we are 33% of sales in u.s. hair care. >> yes. >> you guys have picked quite a

recession proof business model there. >> yes, we have. and we know this because we've grown up taking care of our hair at a very young age and we know how much product we buy. we know how frustrating it is to figure out what works best for our hair type. we came together to use our technology background in computer science and chemical engineering to bring something innovative to the hair market. >> in part because i suspect some folks will think it's odd to talk about hair as like a social network space or collective or communal space. you wake up in the morning to do your hair and you go outside. it's personal. why do you think you need a community for this? >> because women are already doing this. if you look at facebook, instagram, pinterest, women are taking photos of their hair, searching for hairstyles. there are hundreds of thousands of facebook groups where women have gathered together to discuss their hair. so it's about time that we've created our own space just for

our hair. >> i want to -- anthea, a little bit about this. it seems to me, folks may not know the history of black women as entrepreneurs runs right through hair care. >> exactly. c.j. walker and others. i don't know how many people out there did this. i used to go back of somebody's house and paid them to press my hair growing up. that was a community. i never went to a beauty salon until i was much older. this has always been a place where black women can show entrepreneurial skills. it gives a space for everybody to talk to. it's like a virtual beauty salon but bigger. you can reach across the lines. i've had people because of the show you did in june, people write me from the uk and other places around the world, this is a big concern for women of african descent everywhere. we love to talk about our hair and we bond over it. >> part of what's at the core of your business model is that not

all women of color have the same hair. there's not just one hair grade. talk about that a bit. >> right. you can tell between me and chanel, we have different hair types on our own. it's incredibly hard to figure out, which one is my hair type. we go on blogs and different things to figure it out. it's because we're complex as african women from all aspects of the world and where we're from and what's in our lineage. that shows in our hair as a form of expression but shows that we're different but we're all striving for the same thing. >> you talk about being different. i was talking with one of my -- the best girlfriends, doing the blowout and the press and curl because it's easter sunday. on the one hand we're all different. but i feel like a new sense to me like somehow natural hair is supposedly ethically superior or something. i feel like i want to be sure we make room for people to have every hair choice. >> right. >> yes.

that's one of the reasons were we created madam you. it's not just for natural hair. it's for all hair types. whether it's relaxed, braided up, cut, short, long, we've created a space just for you. because all hair is beautiful however you decide to wear it. >> anthea, that was part of the symposium, talking about how you wear your hair ends up sending these messages or even if you're not meaning to send them. they send messages to other folks. >> exactly. people see natural hair, they think she's more feisty, this or that. they see your hair long, she's just trying to accommodate. she's weak. all these things and emotions put on top of the hair. you had angela davis on yesterday. talking about that. people forgot what was going on underneath there, right? >> exactly. >> all of this in a sense what's great about madam you, you can bring it together, no shame, no condemnation, just about hair. that's what we need the most.

especially with color braidations, hair gradations, all of these things in hour communities, if somebody has good hair or bad hair and all this stuff. we need to just kind of flatten all that of and just talk about hair and how we do it. >> i want to ask you, you said about your science and technology backgrounds, what is the possible technology aspect here in. >> the technology is in actually how we build our site. we're building a product recommendation system. you'll be able to produce your own hair profile. we'll take the characteristics and match them with products so it takes away the time for you to figure it out on your own. whether you're in the store or online or things like that. we're developing algorithms and using the technical part to make it easier for you. >> chanel, i heard some point in the future, i can take a piece of my hair, send it in the mail to you and you can break down the technology of it?

>> yes. that's definitely in the future. i'm a chemical engineer. i have my masters degree. that was in our initial plan. we want to be able to tell you about your hair all the way from its bare physical characteristics. so in our initial planning, of questionnaire in some of our te technology behind it but in the near future you will be able to send a strand of your hair in and we can tell you what products work best for your hair. >> i love that. i hope that at some point we try to keep our eye on issues of stem and girls and we hope you will come up from atlanta and squoin us here at the table to talk about how to get young ladies doing things like getting masters degrees in chemical engineering. >> we love to. we volunteer with black girls and we take every opportunity to inspire them to go into the field. whenever you need us, we are there. >> i am, myself, also inspired. thank you for spending easter

sunday with me. >> thank you. up next, this week voter suppression. here they come again. 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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it may not be an election year but that does not mean we can rest in our vigilance to protect the fragile and health of our democracy. yes, folks, this week in voter suppression is back with a vengeance. the nation magazine reports that in 2013 states around the kun have i have proposed 55 new voting restrictions. the suppression proposing states include arkansas, connecticut, iowa, illinois, massachusetts, maryland, missouri, montana, nebraska, nevada, new jersey, new mexico, new york, north carolina, oklahoma, havevirgini washington, west virginia, and wyoming. but the worst offender this week is virginia where governor bob macdonald signed a new suppression law that will likely

cost the state more than $7 million and disenfranchise more than 850,000 eligible, legal voters. his tool of choice, like that of most of the states, the entirely unnecessary government issued f photo id and because you followed our this week in voter suppression series here in 2012 you already know these laws are a solution to to a problem that does not exist. you also know these restrictions have a clear impact on the poor, the physically disabled, the elderly, college students, and black and latino voters. these laws do not the protect the integrity of democracy. they undermine it. these laws undermine the basic precept of a healthy democracy. to live in a democracy is is to have the right to govern, not just to be 0 governed, to rule not just to be ruled. to be heard not silenced and here is the big one, to lose without fear that winners take all. you see, democracy is unique, a

powerful and enduring not because it serves the interest of winners. totalitarian regimes do that. democracy's special claim on world history is that it protects the rights and interests of the losers as well. winning an election is not the same thing as staging a coup. democracy is for losers because it ensures that winners don't take all. they can only take their share. but it also ensures the less powerful have a stake, a voice, and an equal capacity for self-governance. we the people means all of us which is why on thursday president obama signed an executive order creating a special commission designed to protect our ability to cast a vote and have a voice. just in time because the threats to our votes are very real. and that's our show for today. thanks to you at home for watching. see you next saturday at 10:00 a.m. eastern. coming up "weekend's with alex witt." [ sniffs ]

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