] we've taken 100% whole grain brown rice and wheat, delicious sweet potato, and savory red bean... and woven them into something unexpected. the new brown rice triscuit line; with sweet potato and red bean varieties. a new take on an old favorite. this morning, my question, does coming out still matter? plus, the good and bad of public shaming. and the shocking police practice of dumping the homeless. but first, is this the beginning of the end of the war on drugs? good morning. i'm melissa harris-perry. we're going to get to all of the stories i just promised you. first, an update from the middle east where there are reports of israeli airplanes striking areas around the syrian capital of damascus. the targets believed to be

shipments of iranian-made missiles on the way to lebanon's hezbollah. chief correspondent richardening he will is reporting from turkey this morning. melissa, according to a witness in damascus this morning, it began around 2:00 a.m. there was a huge explosion, giant fireball that lit up the sky. people said they could see this fireball and feel the shockwaves all across the city. then moments later, there were a series of secondary explosions. witnesses said they heard fighter jets in the sky, they couldn't tell what exactly had been hit. but that the targets were all roughly in the same area. in the mountains. the mountains are just on the edge of damascus and this is a military area. according to rebels in damascus, there were at least nine different targets including a weapons depot, republican guard base, research center that's been used in the past by hezbollah, by iranian

revolutionary guards and by the elite forces still loyal to president ba shashar al assad. they said it was an israeli strike to back the rebels, rebels the syrian government tauls terrorists and u.s. officials confirmed that this was in fact an israeli strike. israel, of course, has not confirmed it. this would be the third attack is tribted to israel inside syria and israel has remained tight-lipped about all of them. they've been bracing for a retaliation. israel officials mobilized the iron dome defense system around the cities of hipa and svat in northern israel. richard engel. with explosions lighting up the night sky, i'm reminded of lyrics, war, what is it good for, absolutely nothing. but that isn't quite right.

i mean, in our national past, war has at times been good for some things. sake 1861 when confederate soldiers attacked fort sumter in south carolina. despite president lincoln's attempts, the shots made war inevitable. although the civil war was agonizing and bloody, it was good for something. it was to ensure this nation would not perish from the earth. war came again in 1941 after japan attacked pearl harbor and germany and italy declared war on the united states. it was hell. engaging in it was gad for somethingment america emerged as a super power and ended the holocaust per traited by the nazi regime. there's another war, in 1964, president lyndon johnson declared the war on poverty. in his first state of the union address. he addressed the deep inequality our country, in our country that's undermined the american

dream. out of this war, how come things like headstart, food stamps, medicare, medicaid and even if they haven't solved inequality permanently, these programs crafted the crucial social safety net that lifted millions from poverty. and then came 1971, the year that forever changed the way in which we use the term war. in june of 1971, president richard nixon declared the war on drugs. this was a brand new front in a brand new kind of war. no foreign en membership, no deep injustice. it's a war on the very people it should have helped. which led to a whole arsenal of new war tactics. which to quote, are good for absolutely nothing. the country had a momentary respite in the proverbial war on drugs when president carter campaigned on the marijuana -- president jimmy had bigger problems than the war on drugs during his presidency. wasn't a lot of traction.

in 1982, president ronald reagan took the war on drugs up a notch when he declared illegal drugs to be a threat to u.s. national security. along with his chick nancy by his side, the just say no campaign was born. >> not long ago when oakland, california, i was asked by a group of children what to do if they were offered drugs. and i answered, just say no. >> well, of course, kids should say no to drugs, nancy. but should it have made grown adults do this? >> just say no. ♪ just say no to drugs ♪ just say no ♪ just say sno ♪ just say no to drugs ♪ just say no to drugs >> okay. all right. wow. wow. in this war. the war on drugs wasn't championed by republicans alone.

1996 president bill clinton named a general, a current nbc military analyst as the drugs war when he was chosen to head the office of national control policy. not a doctor, not a lawyer. he appointed a general. this is what happens when we define a set of public policies as war. just what has this war yielded? the war on drugs cost this country $1 trillion and 45 million people arrested yet the war continues. the ball is in president obama's court. more recently the president unveiled his 2013 national drug control strategy, which is focuses the war on the science of addiction. that's a step in the right direction. but statements like the one made in mexico on friday still leave us feeling directionless on this battlefield. >> i've been asked and i honestly do not believe that legalized drugs is the answer. but i do believe that a comprehensive approach, not just law enforcement, but education

and prevention and treatment, that's what we have to do. we're going to have to stay at it because the lives of our children and the future of our nations depend on it. >> the comprehensive approach is commendable that it rejects the false choice of an enforcement sen trick war on drugs. said that. finally, someone who realizes that this is not a war. because i have to ask, what exactly are we fighting for? at the table, william -- billy murphy, a former circuit court judge for the city of baltimore and current criminal defense attorney. meat welch, editor in chief of reason magazine. director of "the house i live in" and kathleen fried he will. author of a book, the drug wars in america. 1940 to 1973. >> eugene i want to start with you. i'm suggesting that this drug war yielded nothing. has it yielded something? what has it accomplished? >> it depends how you look at

it. for the people who are pro pen ents of it, they'll claim it's had an impact on crime. it's not borne out by evidence. sounds good to voters. the reality is that we've been at this as it said for 40 years plus. 45 million drug arrests. we've spent a trillion dollars over that time. for what? we have 2.3 million people behind bars, the largest prison population in the world in hard numbers. drugs are cheaper, purer and more available. they're used by younger and younger people. it's not achieved nothing. it's achieved catastrophe handily. >> i want to ask, should we be excited about what we're hearing from president obama? if we have been in a war that has accomplished so little, is this a substantive new approach that we're seeing? >> yeah. when i read the national drug control policy document, i was cheered by certain things but incredibly disheartened when i realized that the language and

the framework that president obama is putting forward in this document is eerily similar, in some ways the exact same language as the kennedy commission in 1963 put forward when jack kennedy was looking for a whole new approach to drugs. and that language is, we want to be softer on the addict or the person with the substance use disorder but we don't want an all-out militant drug war. as long as you're supporting a regime of prohibition, the kinds of promises that we're getting from the obama add mrpgs and that we got from jack kennedy are fa seal promises and can't be delivered upon. >> i want to play this, matt. this is president obama in mexico recognizing the kind of market relationship and international market relationship. let's take a listen and i'll have you respond. >> the united states, we recognize our spoblts. we recognize that the root cause of violence happening here in mexico for which so many mexicans has suffered.

is the demand for illegal drugs? the united states. so we've got to continue to make progress on that front. >> so what do you think? >> i think he mispronounced prohibition of. these are two very importantly different categories. the president has not -- don't look at his actions. he said for two or three years now, we're no longer using the terminology war on drugs. well, great. i don't like the terminology war. i believe in what wilco said, there's a war on war. let's do it that way. look at what he's done. he spends more money prosecuting the war on drugs. he's busted up more medical marijuana dispensaries by a lot than george w. bush had. they're spending more money in latin america than george w. bush did. >> why? tell me why. if the rhetoric is that we recognize there's a market-based problem here, that prohibition or the demand for illegal drugs

generates more violence, then why is this an administration that has taken this particular approach? >> we don't really know. but there's two pockets. one is political cowardice. he talked about it's a policy failure and these kind of things but afraid to stick his neck out. also, there's institutions built up over 40 years. >> they run structurally. i'm looking at your face judge and wondering are we getting something wrong here? are we missing some aspect? >> we're missing the entire point. prohibition is causing the problem. if we don't end prohibition, we'll have this problem over and over year by year by year. to make matters worse, all of the institutions charged with enforcing prohibition are now addicted to the war on drugs. >> right. >> absolutely. >> they have a huge prison complex which grows. the prisons lobby for increased

sentences, how perverse can that be? >> right. >> we have all kinds of economic interests, the police departments are bigger, more powerful. the courts are bigger and more powerful. the prosecutors are bigger and more powerful and this part of the war on drugs is going to be one. most difficult things to scale back. >> yeah. >> but if we don't confront prohibition head on, this is all just talkie talk. >> one of the war on drugs is is a job creator. it creates jobs in generating money for the police departments, taking a group of young men and women and putting them into prisons out of the labor market. >> i might be getting that wrong. we'll come back and talk exactly about these questions of policies and how race is also implicated in them when we come back. i've always kept my eye on her... but with so much health care noise, i didn't always watch out for myself. with unitedhealthcare, i get personalized information

and rewards for addressing my health risks. but she's still going to give me a heart attack. that's health in numbers. unitedhealthcare.

i think the signing of today's bill into law represents the hard work of democrats and republicans coming -- this is a good example of -- of coming together and making progress on something that people had identified as a glaring blythe on the wall. >> that was former white house press secretary and current msnbc contributor robert gibbs. in 2010, on the day president obama signed the fair sentencing act, the purpose was to reduce a sentencing disparity from 100 to 1 to 118 to 1. >> it's for crack and powder cocaine offenses. they voted to retroactively

apply the act. that gave 12,000 prisoners, 85% african-american the chance to have sentences reviewed and possibly reduced. in spite of that good news, the numbers of those incarcerated for drug offenses remains staggering. of the 2.3 million people in prison in the united states, 25% of them are there for drug offenses. $70 billion is spent yearly on corrections and incarceration by you, the taxpayers. and while 14 million white americans and 2.6 million african-americans report using illegal drugs, 38% of those arrested for drug offenses are african-american. on average, black americans spend almost as much time in prison for drug offenses as white criminals do for violent offenses. with numbers like these, we have a long way to change the drug sentencing system. which is why i want to come to you, judge. these disparities feel like a central part of the argument for ending this war on drugs. >> in my city, baltimore, where

we have weak political leadership or nonexistent political leadership on this issue, 98% of all of the arrests, investigations, sentences, you name it, are of black people and more and more are of brown people. now, this is typical of every major city where there is a substantial black population. so the war on drugs in baltimore, cleveland, new york, los angeles, you name it, is a war against black and brown people using drugs. >> ethnic people. >> poor white people don't get caught up in the net too much because there's almost no law enforcement effort at stopping white drug use anywhere in the country. now, there are packets of methamphetamine restriction, but that's the exception that proves the rule. whites have to be stupid to get arrested for drugs. but black people are criminalized routinely. it's a hangover from the alcohol model in the white community. aa, na.

you can get treatment. you can get help. there's a three strikes and you're out on policy. on the job, it's all confidential. but blacks get criminalized. then they become unemployable. their families are destroyed. the children are no longer ready for education. age rates go up and the beat goes on. >> in part because of the federal policies that have been part of this, right? so if you have one of these federal offenses, you can never live in public housing again. you can never get a federal student loan again. >> if it's a federal offense. >> in part, i'm trying to think through what the obama administration can do. they can't intervene necessarily what's going on in the state. but they could make changes in some of these sort of -- the x that remains on your back after the end of imprisonment. >> that's called the bay on the box. a box on the form you have to tick for the regs of your life. it's ai death sentence to enter the economy. what happens to young people. a kid makes a mistake, but

there's no margin of error for a young african-american kid who makes that mistake. now there's a strike on his record, has to tick that box. he can't end up in the mainstream, so he goes to the underground economy. we step back and wonder why it goes that way. we say pull yourself up by your boot straps. we have a stop and frisk epidemic here in new york city and thankfully, it's getting the attention in the courts that it deserves. stop and frisk is a program where we stop 700,000 people on the streets every year. 87% of them are young blacks and will tan owes. 87%. you're nine times as likely to get stopped if you're african-american or latino. of that, we frisk half. about 350,000 people a year. >> we only find that in 10% of cases is there anything actually wrong, does it lead to an arrest. in 90% of cases, the cop says oh, you can go now. after you've denigrated this young person, humiliated them in front of their school, housing project, et cetera.

then we wonder, pull yourself up by your booed straps while we kneecap you every 40 seconds. >> this is a war on drugs. i encourage all local police departments to go to the local college campus to find drugs. there will be students there doing drugs. we don't think of going to police privileged children in privileged circumstances. we say as you pointed out, those are young people making mistakes, they'll get over it. we don't want to criminalize them. if you are making those mistakes in urban communities in a black and brown body, then suddenly it's fine to criminalize you. >> exactly. i think it's important that we be clear on this point. our incarceration rates reflect they're artifacts of enforcement strategies. something that my book traces is how drugs came from something that was policed to drug enforcement being a way to police. right? there's all kinds much ways in which our government is addicted to the drug war. i keep calling for an intervention and one of the most

specific kinds of intervention you can make is calling on new ways for our police to conduct themselves, especially in the city. >> it's also bad for public safety. i mean, if you think about it, if you pre occupy a police officer with sitting in his patrol car and racking up cheap, easy nonviep length drug arrests. that's out the driver's side window and he can rack those up a month. leads to overtime, pay, half a police officer's pay can come from that kind of mischief. out the passenger side window there may be a young person with a mental problem who is going to do something grave. that goes unnoticed because there's no profit in it. >> the other profit, this is from your film the house i live in, the other is a political profit. not only are institutions add t addicted to it, politicians are. they don't want to be the one person to jump out. i want to ask your response, matt after this. let's listen. >> nobody can afford to be the first guy to say, wait a minute, we can't afford what we're doing, let's do something

different. because if you even made a noise like you were going to be soft on crime in any way, you would be out of a job. >> you will be put away and put away for good. three strikes and you are out. >> all right. that's the guy who grew the industrial complex because of this fear of being soft on crime. >> nobody would ever be harder on crime than him. go ahead. >> that era of politics it over if you think about it. for bill clinton it was a third way democrat. i'm not like these old soft on crime democrats. >> i am not jimmy carter. >> we don't have that need for differentiation right now. there isn't a big tough on crime groundswell happening. it's kind of the opposite. if you see 18 states have medical marijuana regime. this is historically -- we have colorado and washington, just legalized recreational pot. we now have a majority of the country believes that marijuana should be legal. the war on drugs is a war on marijuana. that is the drug that people

use. and so you have all of this happening this way and you don't really have this impetus to show you're bona fides any more. >> i'll let you number in. i want to talk about this laboratories as soon as we get back. what do you think? that's great. it won't take long, will it? nah. okay. this, won't take long will it? no, not at all. how many of these can we do on our budget? more than you think. didn't take very long, did it? this spring, dig in and save. that's nice. post it. already did. more saving. more doing. that's the power of the home depot. keep you yard your own with your choice lawn insect controls, just $8.88.

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. the problem is that the media landscape is changing so rapidly. you can't keep up with it. i mean i remember when buzz feed was something i did in college around 2:00 a.m. >> that was president obama at last week's white house correspondent's dinner joking about his past pot smoking. federal officials are still deciding what they will do, state level officials in colorado and washington, two states that legalized their recreational use of marijuana in 2012, continue to lead the decriminalizing charge.

on thursday, maryland governor martin o'malley makes maryland the 19th state is with a bill legalizing medical marijuana. we have the kind of laboratory, and also international examples of what might work here. >> my eyebrows shot up when i looked at the document this week. it begins talking about sweden's unsuccessful experiment with drug legalization but leaves out the giant he will phone in the room. which is portugal is successful with decriminalization which is -- it's successful going on in portugal with decriminalization. the results there show experimentation with drugs did go up. but addiction and substance use disorders in population of special concern like young people, prisoners or already known add add ikts went down. it's a successful experiment under way and we should take more seriously because the world is taking it very seriously. >> that's hard drugs, heroin.

the difference between legalization and decriminalization. >> ten years ago portugal decriminalization, they took the criminal penalties out for possession of all drugs across the board up to a certain point. but the hardest drugs you can imagine, those are no longer illegal in that country. all the way up to a certain point. this was a decade ago. beyond that point, you have enough quantity, you're a dealer, special laws for you. those in this country overfilling our jails, they said we're going to stop arresting and putting these people away. instead what we're going to do is have a huge savings by having this -- take a portion of that savings to institute one of the most row best treatment systems in the world. aids rates went down, drug use among the young went down. the criminal justice workload is such a huge savings for the country. in hard economic times, it would speak volumes in this country where we need to move from prohibition, which is a failed idea. remember, we failed it once

before. >> we had to repeal that amendment. >> kind of looked like yir high school yearbook picture. we don't go back. we think to ourselves what would we do better. what do we do with alcohol. we tax and regulate. i'm per system. a child cannot use it, the government has an ongoing role. i don't like legalization, because the government has botched this and destroyed communities for 40 years, ruined the lives of people. it has a job to protect as an actually responsible figure in a public health crisis, which is the crisis of addiction. he talked earlier -- >> to affirmatively engage. not just take your hands off of, but to affirmatively engage. you brought up the point about money. let's look at what the drug control strategy money looks like. so this is from white house.gov. they say the administration is doing its part to further the principles both at home and abroad. they have rebalanced the national drug control policy to reflect the complexity of drug

use as both a public health and public safety issue. look at this part. dedicating more than $10.5 billion to prevention and treatment compared to $9.6 billion for domestic law enforcement. these are huge numbers. we talk about the sequester and this deficit all the time but we're spending billions. >> that treatment number means drug courts. drug courts aren't necessarily here let's make you feel better. it is here, let's give you random drug tests. if you don't show up, you'll go to jail. it's a lot more harsh than it initially sounds. we're spending this much money. we're committed to it. joe biden brought up the drug czar. we need to say there are experiments happening in two states here. let's let them experiment right now. instead of continuing to enforce this. it requires the same kind of courage as actually joe biden and the president had on gay

marriage one year ago. right? >> yep. >> they went out a little bit further than they were comfortable in going and suddenly the world opened up for them and said cool. >> it's kind of stunning. i'm wondering, judge, if one of the ways this can happen is you start getting cover from other folks. so part of how don't ask don't tell for example occurs is that you end up with the general saying, actually, ending this policy would be good for the u.s. military. i'm wondering, judge, if there's a way in which on the one hand you have americans, 53% saying they would support the legalization of marijuana but also if we need orders of police, judges into courts to give cover in order to generate some courage for our public officials. >> the problem is that most of the police chiefs in america are appointed by the very elected officials who don't want to talk about the problem because they have their eye on higher office. and the perception is that this is a black problem. the perception is that blacks are the violent ones.

the perception is that we've got to control these blacks in the inner cities. until we deracial eyes this problem, we won't make progress. there will be lots of white folks not affected by incarceration, be happy about the marijuana prohibition being ended. that doesn't translate into black folks getting out of jail and having their problem treated as a medical one rather than an incarceration one. >> this is predisposition to already seeing black and brown bodies as criminal. >> and violence. >> and violent. >> the justification that everyone uses in the black community for fighting this so-called war on drugs, which is really a war against black people and brown people with drugs, is violence. you see, violence comes from the difference in market strategy in the black community compared to the white community. blacks sell drugs by the dose. that creates territorial fights

because it has to be done on street corners. can't be done in stores. when you have competition, it's visible and notorious. the only response is a violent response. here we have these desperately poor people in the black community who can only buy one bag at a time, one pill at a time. who do it in the streets. then that becomes the violent arena. >> they are going to make me go. this is a critically important issue. we have to come back. unfortunately, i have to go to commercial which i hate. i've got to stop with this commercial. thank you to judge murphy and to -- matt is going to stay around for more. we're going to shift to a shockingly different kind of war on the nation's homeless. ♪ [ male announcer ] the first look is only the beginning. ♪ ♪

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another war is being waged that you may know nothing about. the war against the homeless. on april 18th, the aclu sent a letter to the department of justice and the detroit police department urging that the practice of dumping the homeless be stopped. a year-long aclu investigation claims the following. detroit police officers stopped people perceived to be homeless in tourist area of greektown in detroit. they forced them into vans, took them for a ride and deserted them miles away. the sad truth, detroit isn't the only city that treats the homeless this way. joining me now from detroit is michael steinberg, legal director of the aclu. nice to have you, michael. >> thank you, melissa. >> tell me, what does your investigation show that the police were doing to folks who are experiencing homelessness in detroit? >> essentially what the police were doing were kidnapping individuals off the streets of tourist friendly areas of detroit, putting them in handcuffs, throwing them in the

back of a wagon or police car and transporting them either outside the city or to deserted parts of the city and abandoning them. they then tell the individuals that they weren't welcome back to greektown or other tourist friendly areas. sometimes they'd make it difficult for them to return by making them throw their money down a storm drain. the problem, of course, is that the lifeline for many of these individuals is in greektown. there are warming centers, food and churches and other services. so they'd have to walk sometimes throughout middle of michigan winter. one person had a blood clot in his leg and it took him over three hours to get back. >> i want to take a moment and listen to some of the men talking about their own experiences and then i'll have you respond to something. >> okay. >> dude asked me to work. >> i asked him if i was free to

go. he told me no. >> took like maybe a 15-minute ride. >> don't know where you're going or ending up. maybe when you get there, you're abused in some way. what would that feel like? >> it took us almost five hours to get back. walking, it was cold. >> so michael, have the detroit police department or the department of justice addressed these concerns? >> well, we had the quickest response time and quickest time by the police. as soon as we sent our letter, they sent over two members of internal affairs saying they wanted to investigate it. they've met with some of the individuals that we've spoken to and we hope they will put an end to it. we've also reported it to the department of justice because we believe that the practice violates the consent, judgment that was entered into between

the doj and the detroit police department. >> michael, part of what we've been talking about this morning is criminalizing drugs. there's also this kind of impact of criminalizing homelessness and we were looking not only in detroit but all over the country. municipalities doing things like making it illegal to sleep or sit in a store or in personal buildings, laws punishing people for beg r or panhandling. enforcement of quality of life ordinances. tell me, is there a war on the homeless? >> you can definitely appropriately characterize it as a war on the homeless. we're challenging a state law in michigan that makes it a crime to beg in public. we have represented individuals who have been charged with trespass who are sleeping on public land. essentially criminalizing the status of being homeless. society -- if we want to stop seeing homeless people on the

streets, we as a society have to treat the problem as a social problem. not a criminal justice problem. we have to provide mental health services to those who need it. we have to provide drug treatment programs for those who need it in public housing. we can't make it a crime to be homeless. homelessness is not going to go away by making it illegal. >> michael steinberg, i sew appreciate that point. it dovetails to what we were talking about. we have a set of social responsibilities, epidemiologically. thank you for your work. >> thank you. up next, i received a special plea for help after last week's segment on culture on campus. that story is coming up. oceans, and lagoons in the place we call home. bold is where everyone comes to play.

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i've always kept my eye on her... but with so much health care noise, i didn't always watch out for myself. with unitedhealthcare, i get personalized information and rewards for addressing my health risks. but she's still going to give me a heart attack. that's health in numbers. unitedhealthcare. i received an e-mail from a student at spell man college in atlanta, georgia.

founded in 1881, it's the largest historically black college exclusively for women students. you might remember it from a different world, the mythical college was actually spellman. it was from a woman distressed about what's going on, on her campus. three basketball players at more house college, the historically black all male college across the street from spellman are accused of sexually assaulting a spellman student. a more house football player has been charged in a separate rape case. in the case involving the basketball players, the alleged victim says that she was held against her will in a room on campus. but lawyers for the accused men say it was a drug and alcohol fueled night as if the sex was consensual. one attorney said this was a case where a young lady used very bad judgment by being high on a form of powdered ecstasy. the student e-mailed me distressed with the reaction she's seen from the young women on her campus. she wrote, some of my fellow

spellman sisters are so concerned about more house's reputation being tainted, they're not focused on the true issues here involving humanity, the sacredness of a woman's body and the fact that we are our sister's keeper. i get a lot of mail. but this letter stopped me in my tracks. i visit spellman to deliver a lecture. she was an african-american -- anti-lynching advocate who imperfect cal work debunks the myth that it was primarily for black men who raipd white woman. taking sociological evidence and deep vegtd tiff journalism to show how the myth of the black male rapist was a convenient lie to justify brutal extra legal terror by lynch mobs. this is this legacy of lynching and of black male develvulnerab

that can silence black women rape victims. unwilling to contribute to theville i have indication of the brothers, survivors stay silent and when they do speak, they often find that their sisters are more willing to characterize them as fast or loose or just plain dumb. but ida wells barnett would have wanted us to ask about the facts. she would have warned against stereotypes. she would have railed against shaming the victims or the accused. i loved meeting the women in february at spellman and my heart aches to know how the campus is being affected by these alleged assaults. so when we come back, i've got a couple guests here to help me answer. for seeing what cash is coming in and going out... so you can understand every angle of your cash flow- last week, this month, and even next year. for seeing your business's cash flow like never before, introducing cash flow insight powered by pnc cfo.

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on the 1th of this month, president obama will deliver the commencement address at the all male black college, more house.

there will be a bit of shame over the joyous occasion. let me respond to a letter from a student asking me how to deal with the shame and sadness of sexual assault allegations. professor of african-american studies at the university of connecticut and former faculty member at spellman. an associate professor teaching gender studies at the university of southern california. she's the author of solidarity, politics for millenials, a guide to ending the -- >> you were at spellman. what would you say to this young woman? >> one i would say complicated dynamics, there's a presumption of innocence and you don't want to jump to conclusions. with my own experience and my time, i spent ten years teaching at spellman where there were young women who did confide in me in both instances of domestic violence and sexual assaults. almost universally, there was a concern that they would be doing something that would cause a young man to lose his scholarship or tear down black men in a way that echoed

stereotypes or even concerned about putting more black men in prison. i had to say to a young woman, i said i do not want to see any more black men in jail. but even more than that, i don't want to see any young black men do anything that warrant them being in jail. if in fact, someone committed an act of violence or a sexual assault against you, then this person does need to be reported. they do need to be charged and the legal system needs to be brought in to bear. >> this feels to me, we've been talking about campus sexual assault on this show. part of the reason i want to pause here is because race complicates this for exactly these reasons. when it is intra racial assault and you're a woman of color who has to accuse a black man, this could be extremely difficult. >> absolutely. i'm not one to say that black men and women have competing oppressions under any circumstances. but there is this pitting of racial loyalty versus healing

from the trauma that can be caused in black heterosexual relationships. 40% to 60% of black women before the age of 18 have suffered a form of abuse. so this is a real problem in our community and the area of dirty laundry kind of defense really makes it hard for black women to be seen and not change. >> i also on this shaming piece, i part of what -- where the shaming is coming from, apparently, at least according to the student who wrote to me, is from other black women on campus saying you shouldn't have been high, you shouldn't -- we heard it in the mike tyson case. i mean, just this idea over and over again, that black women are easily defined as loose and available and if something bad happens, it's their fault. >> absolutely. there's a cultural construction that of course dates back to slavery, black women in particular are sexually available for any form of sexual

intercourse and has no right really to say no. so that continues. what's really sad about it is when black women do it to other black women. instead of talking to black men about how not to get in situations where you feel you have to force yourself o n a woman, they're instead talking to women saying you can't control men so you need to control yourself. >> we don't know whether the young men are guilty or not. that is a different issue. there is this rape culture on campuses which can be true regardless of whether or not this particular issue is true. how does a student address that rape culture? >> one of the things we have to teach our young men is this idea of simply respecting the personhood of young women, of their female peers. i was saying to someone back when you had the discussion about maxwell and she made a basic statement that men have to be taught not to rape and what rape is and people reacted negatively to it.

if you spent any time on a college campus, you know there are young men who come every fall, a new crop of young men who are unclear about what exactly consent is. they're not -- they don't understand that even if a person is intoxicated, that does not mean that you can have sex with them and this doesn't qualify as a legal assault. it is something that we have to teach. it's our basic, it may sound frustrating or ridiculous, but this is something that has to be taught. >> both of you guys stay with me, we're going to talk about shame and politics. nerdland is a two-hour show. we'll come back at the top of the hour and take a closer look at public shaming, when it works and when it doesn't. does it still matter these days to come out? i'm going to talk to tennis legend martina navratilova. there will be more at the top of the hour. everything. everything. everything. everytng. everything?

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wrenching sorrow we experienced the day that the news broke with the horrific details of what happened inside sandy hook elementary school in december. that descended into a spiral of shame as an event initially met with the promise of actual policy was responded to with political inertia. shame that momentum for reform failed to stop at the status quo. shame as the opportunity for meaningful solutions to the problem of gun violence effectively ended when one by one all of the measures that could have made a difference met their demise in the chambers of congress. did he void of any of the change which we'd hoped, we're left with this gnawing shame, characterized by useless emotions, frustration, pair lisness, remorse. what if it could be put to good use, activist value to be found in a kind of shame that disrupts politics to push for progressive policy? this week we got an answer to

that question and a glimpse of what that kind of shaming looks like in action. from one of the people whose lives was ir revoke bli changed in newtown. on tuesday, a town hall meeting was the scene of a big lesson in public accountability from erica laffer at this. daughter of principal dawho was killed. she made the drive to new hampshire to ask senator kelly ayotte, the same question she posed to the senator privately the day after she opposed expanding background checks for gun sales. only this time the cameras were rolling. >> you had mentioned that day owners of gun sellers that should be extended background checks. i'm just wondering why the burden of my mother being gunned down in the halls of her elementary school isn't as important as that? why is that not something that

could be supported? >> there was little surprise for lafrt. >> although the question may have been mostly rhetorical, the consequences have been very real. that video has since gone viral and as part of a backlash against ayotte from constituents who join lafferty who support background checks. the senator who won her seat in 2010 by a 23-point margin saw her disapproval ratings jump by 11 points after her no vote. 50% of new hampshire voted, polls say ayotte's stance on the issue made them less likely to support her in a future election. proof positive that there is power in public shaming. here's my worry. that power has also been put to use to exposing to public scrutiny of lives of those left powerful. last month, senator brownback requires a drug test for sip --

it is among 29 states whose lawmakers have baked shame into policy proposals in ways that punish people for being poor. in a decision upholding a lower court's decision to halt florida's welfare drug testing law, the federal appeals court wrote, there is nothing inherent to the condition of being impoverished supporting the conclusion that they're prone to drug use. which leaves us with a trend that amounts to shame for shame's sake instead of shame for the sake of good policy. that is a shame. with me at the table, jelani cobb and angela marie hancock. at the university of southern california. also the author of the politics of disgust and the public identity of the welfare queen. matt welch, editor in chief of

reason magazine and kai wright. thanks for all being here. i want to start with you. so much of your work has been around policy and shaming. when we see shame in the public sphere, should we be happy about that? you know, lafferty or -- >> i think it's the reason we need to look at race and gender together as we explore the impacts of shame are. so for example, i don't think it's an accident that people have picked on kelly ayotte as opposed to jeff flake in terms of the no vote that was cast against universal background checks. voters expect women elected officials to be more compassionate. they want them to be that person who is not corruptible by special interests in a way they don't expect of male officials. on the other hand, that gender and race coming together

impoverishes the discussions about shame in public policy. using it as a strategy for getting the policy is a good thing when it can lead to better policy. but using it baked into, as you said, public policy as a part of regulating or legislating women's behavior has not shown all of the statistics for 20 years have shown it's not particularly effective in rooting out fraud or anything else. >> you said the senator might be targeted because of her gender. i've sort of railed previously about these bloomberg teenage pregnancy ads kai where the mayor who has a pretty good record on sex ed in the schools and erg. has atds where there's young children apparently talking to their mom saying honestly, mom, chances are he won't stay with you. what happens to me? there's another one. i'm twice as likely not to graduate from high school because you had me as a teen. these are clearly sort of shaming to try to address

teenage pregnancy. >> yeah. i mean, there's a couple of things you got to pull apart. in the world of public health and the world of how benefit policies, it is plain. the research has plain and plenty of it that shame is not a driver of behavior. there's nothing going on there in terms much actual outcome. but with the relationship between the political culture and public policy, that is -- there's a dynamic there where culture is driving policy and vice versa. to me, it's value neutral on this. it is. there is a relationship and shame is part of it. so when you stand up in the public square and say shame on you forecasting this vote, you're driving not just a conversation about the policy but a conversation amongst all of us about what is appropriate behavior. similarly when they pass these

bills at the state legislature, they're not really just talking about benefit recipients. they're trying to establish a conversation about poverty largely. >> right. >> how we should understand poverty. it's this relationship between culture and public policy. >> this is tough. i want us to be ashamed in a certain way. i was listening again to the gabby giffords january testimony which i want to listen to for a moment. this is like a moment in which i do want us as americans to feel ashamed. let's listen. >> speaking is difficult, but i need to say something important. violence is a big problem. too many children are dying. too many children. you must act. be bold, be courageous.

americans are counting on you. >> her courage. i feel like should begin to shamus for not taking action. >> if you believe that the action taken would have had any impact on newtown or making us safer in general. >> you don't buy about the background checks? >> i don't. i mean, if we're going to elevate the testimony of people who are grieving because they lost loved ones, we're going to use this as you start at the top. this is the impetus to finally do something. then that calls into question, okay is the something going to have an effect on the underlying event. having expanded background checks would have done nothing to prevent adam lanza. he got his guns from his mom and probably would have passed a background check because he hadn't shown up on a database yet and committed a drug offense and those types of thing. you can use shame and always use personal testimony and always hold government officials accountable. don't get me wrong about this.

know that for the penople's ear persuadable. this sense much moral outrage, if you don't share it in terms that policy is going to make us safer, it starts to tune you out. it's interesting to note that in the gun debate specifically, you have polls showing this, 90% of americans think background checks are a good idea. only something like 45, 47% of americans were disappointed that manchin-toomey didn't pass. what is that? partly because of that moral emotional assault on people turned people off. >> this is not -- it could be that we don't want the victims' families to be the ones pressing policy, right? it could be that in fact we need to be more sober, lessee motion al. >> i'm not sure it's that though. i have to take issue, matt. since when does congress base policy on what is effective?

that's a good response. >> people pass laws. people pass laws based upon what interest group they feel they can least afford to offend. the laws that we have on the books don't work. >> but this is -- >> people are defending the status quo. the status quo allowed newtown to happen. the conversation was not that background checks won't affect this. having fewer guns, having regulations on the gun manufacturers, they never said in place of this let's do something that will actually work, which will be more difficult. what it says to me, this was simply a matter of not wanting to offend the pipeline through which dollars are coming and that is from gun manufacturers. >> stay right there. we're in a interesting point of tension. we're going to take a break and come right back.

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we're back talking about the issue of shame. this came out after hurricane katrina in 2005. you see the image of an african-american woman who survived the storm and the title there is the shaming of america. i've always found this to be a problematic cover. how many black woman have appeared on the cover of the economist, right? we don't know this woman's name. it's simply her experience that has been meant to shame america. to your point, it doesn't lead us to a set of policies that actually fix the fundamental issues that ought to have been shameful to us. >> the specific policy debate, i think it's important to set aside from the broader political cultural debate, which then shapes the policy solutions we

have, right? so universal background checks is about the lowest entry bar you can come up with for gun control. it is -- it could not work. that's because our political cultural conversation about guns is so radical that we can't get to policy. so the public shaming that's happening around congress and guns is about shifting the political culture. such that we can discuss a different set of options. the public shaming of poverty is about shifting the set of the political culture such that it is not considered abhorrent to cut people off from benefits in the middle of this -- >> andre, the whole point of shame, it has to be public and has to be a violation of what we assume is right, right? so i assume that the shaming of america in the moment of katrina is about our assumption that women and children should not be left to die in an american city, right? but in this case, the fact that

we apparently are not ashamed, for example of refusing to engage in gun legislation, is the problem. >> i think you're right. i think what's going on is we have this purpose for shame. but then that purpose for shame has run squarely up against what i would call and other folks call compassion deficit disorder. meaning they see that cover of the economist. they see these children. there was a great piece on "60 minutes" about the families of sandy hook standing outside the statehouse with their pictures of their loved ones and you watch legislator after legislator, some stopped, some talked but so many just walked right by. again, there's this real failure of compassion when the victims either look a certain way or when we're so far to the right in our discussions that we cannot have a meaningful conversation about how can we get back to the middle. how can we have something that works and common sense. >> i don't agree with that.

you heard this from president obama, but the people on the other side somehow don't care about kids getting shot and killed. that is an expression of you're losing an argument and you want to register you're unhappiness with it. there's nobody in america who wants to see a dead kid for crying out loud. people have different ideas about what you can do. i'm a libertarian so a, i'm strange. wake up every day thinking there's shame all around in all parties who talk about the drug war for half an hour this morning. you talk about a single policy that led to more gun deaths than anything, probably, it's this. this prohibition. i could wake up and say you've got blood on your hands. everybody, shame, shame, shame on everybody. you got to dole it out in different parts. >> i think we'd be in a better position if in fact we're not people who behave sin cli. we know this. we know there's a shame as a dynamic in politics. what's inverted in 1950s, 1960s

where we felt the capacity to shame someone elected. we now by and large behave as if we're accountable to the people we elect. you can say are you using drugs, whether or not you can get unemployment based on your personal behavior. i wasn't born then, but i remember reading the discussion surrounding when norman morrison set himself on fire to protest robert mcnamara's war on policy. they knew that the policies they were pursuing were not going to work. so i think that there is this idea that you do sometimes have to confront people with -- >> i totally -- >> this is the insight around shame. shaming us. holding accountable our elected leaders or shaming up those with relatively more power in the social hierarchy is a different kind of project politically,

intellectually than shaming down. if you are in the powerless category and you point out to those above, you are failing and you should be ashamed of yourself, that's very different than the shaming that goes down, you person who doesn't meet my standard for sexuality or for the choices you're making. i feel like libertarians are worried about shaming down. >> the ridiculous drug testing of welfare recipients which to my mind is not shame. that's punitive action right there. we see a lot more of this in law enforcement too. the use of shame, things like -- if you're arrested for prostitution charge or not even arrested but stopped for it, they'll put you on john tv up or up on will billboard. judges are sentencing people to stand by the road holding a sign saying i'm an idiot. that's a use of shame and its power against less powerful. that is shameful. >> you brought up the stop and

frisk. the gri owe has a great report about how much more humiliating shaming is often for women because of the sexual nature of how the touching and the frisking ends up happening. that's the powerful to the powerless. we'll stay on some of these issues and talk about the notion of coming out which i think is about this anti-shame strategy. the idea that if i come out, you cannot shame me because i have already taken hold of the identity that you want to claim is shameful. up next, tennis legend martina navratilova joins us live to discuss the jason collins story. we're going to ask, does coming out still matter? lindsey! i just discovered these new triscuit are baked with brown rice and sweet potato! triscuit has a new snack? no way. way. and the worst part is they're delicious. mmm, you're right. maybe we should give other new things a chance. no way. way. [ male announcer ] we've taken 100% whole grain brown rice and wheat,

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street here and when i walked through that door, i kept walking and announced -- it was like taking a huge burden off my back. i no longer had to live a double standard, double life. >> that was the late former san francisco supervisor being interviewed in 1978 explaining his experience as the first openly gay officer. becoming out as gay takes courage which brings us to the biggest story in the sports world this week. jason collins revealing his sexual orientation. while still playing in a major u.s. team sport. joining me now from miami is tennis icon, martina navratilova who is a trailblazer when she first came out in 1981. thank you for being here. >> thanks for having me, melissa. i'm a fan of the show. >> i greatly appreciate that. you congratulated jason and said that his move is going to save

lives. tell me how exactly. >> well, there's no doubt in my mind this day and age, we still have a third of teenage suicides are due to their sexual orientation. they're so terrified of coming out as gay that they take their own life. for good reason, many times their parents throw them out. they attack them, et cetera. imagine if you twist it the other way and say to a straight kid, the worst day of your life will be when you have to come out to your parents mom, dad i'm straight. this is what the kids go through. they kill themselves over this. jason coming out is going to make a difference in some of these kids' lives. they're going to say you know what, it's okay. this guy is great. he plays basketball much he's a great guy. it's okay. i'm not alone. it's going to make a difference. there's no doubt in my mind. >> i want to ask a little bit about the time lapse that has occurred since you came out versus jason. the president of the united states called jason collins this weekend and congratulated him publicly.

did reagan call you? >> you know he didn't. i was on piers morgan and that line popped into my head. because back then aids just came around in 1980. it was, i think, about '85 when ronald reagan came out and said we have a problem in this country with gay men and aids. he ignored that issue. being gay was the lowest of the low that you could get. so that's why people stayed in the closet because it was so shamed of who you were. not because of who you thought you were, but what everybody else thought that people didn't speak up. but, again, like i said, for me coming from a communist country, leaving that country and defecting to america, which gave me a home in 1975, not knowing whether i was ever going to see my family again, took five years before my father and my sister, coming out as gay was no big deal after that. >> that's an interesting point.

i wonder about the point you made previously about sort of kids coming out to their families and the idea that that is a unique burden that gay children have relative to their families in a way that, because families just assume hetero normtivity. you assume your kid is straight until he or she tells you otherwise. is there a way for those of us who are parents can think about that differently? >> absolutely. that's where, again, because now times are changing. it's much more acceptable and the stigma is not nearly as great. it's still in the church, you still have a lot of issues in the bible, et cetera. overall, the acceptance is much greater. therefore, i think the parents are going to have easier time accepting because their neighbors aren't going to be speaking badly about them. they need to know that their kids need that support to be themselves, to be happy. bottom line, i think in the end of the day, that's what parents want for their family. my father had a hard time for me when he realized i was gay.

i was 25 years old and said oh, this is terrible. then he read some books, educated himself and he realized he had nothing to do with it. this is who i was. the more we talk about it, the more people realize this is just who we are. it's not a choice. it's not a lifestyle. this is who we are. it's okay. if they accept us, it's so much easier for the next generation to come out. that's why now for the young people it doesn't seem to be an issue anymore. it's like who cares? what's it to you other than to my partner? doesn't make any difference to anybody else whether my partner is male or female. >> jason collins calls you a role model. any response to that? >> it was terrific. when i used to march on washington in '93 and 2000, my mom used to tell me, why do you have to carry the flag. it's because there's nobody else picking it up. i'm actively handing it over to jason collins. he can carry it. he's a lot bigger and get a lot

more attention. passing the baton, paying it forward. jason and i exchanged e-mails. it was a surprise. i mean, i got busy. i got busy last weekend thanks to jason. thanks a lot. i like to keep a profile but we do need to be visible. because it is still an issue. as i said before, 29 states in this country can fire us for being gay or even if they think that we're gay. it is an issue, people say oh, i don't care, who cares about his sexuality as long as you play good basketball. it is an issue for people who are gay. we have equal protection under the law. we don't have to talk about it. i'd rather talk about the knicks, i'd rather talk about hockey or the weather or politics. that's what it is. as soon as we get those equal rights, when it's a nonissue, fabulous. >> you've taken us where we're going to come back after the break. thank you so much to martina navratilova in miami.

thank you for being a part of nerdland. >> thank you. i'm a proud nerd. >> there's much, much more on this when we come back. we're going to bring into the conversation a former nfl player who also came out. ♪ [ agent smith ] i've found software that intrigues me. it appears it's an agent of good. ♪ [ agent smith ] ge software connects patients to nurses to the right machines

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that goes to work in seconds and freshens breath. ♪ tum...tum...tum... tum...tums! ♪ tums freshers. fast heartburn relief and minty fresh breath. sometimes in nerd land we lament when big news making announcements happen on monday. we're not on the air again until the weekend. this was one of those weeks. for all the best reasons, when we read these words. i'm a 34-year-old nba center. i'm black and i'm gay. on sports illustrated's site this past monday. we were pretty well-assured we would have something to say about it this weekend. for one, why the words i'm black preceded the words i'm gay under a big picture of jason collins. why did he feel the need to bury the lead? okay. if coming out still does matter, is it possible that coming out matters more when the lead is

i'm black? got it. i'm black and i'm gay. it's nerdland. you're with me. joining me in the studio, jelani cobb, lgbt activist wade davis who revealed he was gay after his nfl career. he's joining us from chicago. there espree viewing -- >> how are you doing? >> you're previewing the long sports and leadership initiative for sports youth camp launching this july, right? >> yes. yes, ma'am. it's something that i'm so passionate about to give the core youth the opportunity to interact with athletes. it's something that the most exciting thing i've been a part of. >> you continue to call me ma'am. you can't do that. >> i'm from the south. i'm so sorry. >> made me feel very old. but that's okay. talk to me a little bit about this. how important was this week with jason coming out? >> i can't think of a time where i've been more excited. i remember the first time i

walked into work and i had a young lady, she kind of ran up to me and she said, oh, my god, oh, my god, have you heard of this guy, he's just like you, he's a sports player, i don't know what his name is, but he's black and he's gay. i thought immediately, that that was something that was very important for our youth to see someone that looks like them in a sports sphere. oftentimes, our youth don't have someone to identify as -- expressly in the world of sports. >> kai, this point about how important the visuals are, these symbols. but on the other hand, martina's point that we have public policy issues at stake here. are they starting to go together or do we get so excited about the jason collins moments that we miss the public policy ones? >> it's not either/or. you can't separate them. it goes back to our last conversation. there's a dynamic relationship between the political culture

and public policy. i think some of the most important things that happened this week, you know, wonderful for jason and great for him and his courage. but you know, when you come out, when i came out, when individuals come out, it's not an individual act. it's a collective act that you do with your community an the people who love you. what we demonstrated this week with all of the people who came out with him in support of him, that's a coming out act as well. and the overwhelming statements that he got are people who came out as i'm an ally, i'm a supporter. that shapes -- it shapes our political culture and our just real world, individuals that we live in culture. which is really, really important. it teaches parents and coaches and teachers and -- it's okay for me to support somebody when they come out. >> but these kinds of moments, matt, they out the allies, but also the opponents.

which was the other thing we saw this week. there was a moment in particular. let's listen to chris broussard and then i want your response to that. >> if you're openly living that type of lifestyle, then the bible says you know them by their fruits, it says that that's a sin. if you're openly living in unrepent ent sins, not just homosexuality, adultery, premarital sex between heterosexuals, whatever it may be, that's walking in open rebellion to god and to jesus christ. >> so, matt, you said there was something politically useful about that discourse. >> yeah. i got into trouble from people who work for you. >> no doubt. of course. >> all i mean to say is that i'm glad that this -- that statement which i find ludicrous was in public. what's interesting about that, that's about the only thing that we heard, right? negative about this. i could have missed one, but

that's basically the only real criticism of it. why it's important that happened in public on espn, a lot of people still feel this way. they are going to need to work through it. they're going to need to have a discussion and get rightfully in this case shouted down over it. think about it, six years ago, tim hard away was saying i'm a homophob homophobic, sorry. that's how i roll. three years later, he's an activist for the other side. it is culture who is running this. it's incredible to watch. so as part of that, you need to have the conversation and people who are unafraid to go out and then get shouted down on this, which is what -- >> it is interesting that the politics of shame in this case did seem to be against chris, not against jason, right? they were how dare you say something like this in public, but i guess i still worry about the privilege aspect here. on the one hand, i agree with you. there has been a shouting down of those comments, saying that

that's homophobic, that's not what we believe. the fact is there's policy, privileges and cultural privileges that lgbt people do not have. >> i think that's absolute lly true. in the evangelical community, talking about how christians are the minority, there's an element of movement, backlash where it's essentially oh, now we're the victims, we're the ones being shouted down and called hateful and intolerant, bigots and everything. i think, you know, again this is where the politics of shame can actually work. because then they need to really be forced to confront the fact that no, they're not the minority and there really is this assertion of privilege from people of power on down. i think that is relevant in in conversation. >> you had an incredible letter i wanted to read a bit from and then we'll take a break and come back.

i want to read this portion of the letter. this was your open letter to jason collins this week that several gay black men signed on to. in it you write, indeed the black folk, however we're identified or expressed ourselves sexually have always been targets of a -- you are black and lesbian and gay is not your problem. part of what i want us to do when we come back, wade, i want to talk about this idea what does it mean that you have to be the one that comes out versus the idea of inviting other folks in. we'll do as soon as we get back.

we're discussing that historic announcement last monday of the 12-year nba veteran jason collins coming out. i want to ask wade davis about that quote. about this idea that some folks are so quick to dismiss it saying i don't even care. in your letter, you make the point that actually, no, it does

matter. >> it matters a lot. you know, i try to reframe the whole idea of coming out to the idea of inviting in. if someone comes over to your house and you invite them in and when you actually tell your own story in your own words, you're allowed to share with them your struggles, your pain and your joy of actually being able to live in your true honestly. one of the big jobs that jason has is to redefine ideas of masculinity. he and myself have certain privileges that we can enter and go in spaces and be perceived as heterosexual, then we have to actually invite you in and say, you know what, i'm a gay man. so i think a lot of the work that we're going to do is to redefine that, but also create spaces where young kids who may not have their privilege to present as masculine, can actually have access to sports as well.

it doesn't make much sense if only masculine presenting individuals can play sports. there are plenty of career kids who may not present as masculine who also deserve access to sports as well. >> this feels like the connection to the shame conversation we've been having that part of what happens here is a pushing back of the shame. when you invite in and/or come out, you say you can't shame me with my identity because i own it. >> that's right. the history of gay politics, excuse me, to think that we went from blackmail, that was -- with the original i'm black and i'm gay. he was blackmailed throughout his career as an activist in the civil rights movement. not literally but driven to the edges and asked either put your sexuality away forget out of the center stage. the movement from that, that is the movement. the movement -- to me, that is at the core of the movement.

a movement from that blackmail place to a place where i'm too proud. you can't blackmail me. and then the rest of the culture following that, i think, is important. >> i want to ask you specifically about this point that wade made around masculinity in sports. what that does is it ends up inverting what goes on with women come og out. brittany came out earlier. the less attention maybe when women come out. i know you have a connection with the wnba when it was first launching. talk to me about how you were navigating this space. >> yeah. i used to work at the nba and did the business model for the wnba. one of the things that we noticed, of course, and we knew this from other sports too, martina navratilova is one of many examples. that there was a stereotype about women who were elite athletes and their sexual orientation that when women came out in those elite sports, it was kind of a confirmation of a

stereotype. so the attention really wasn't kind of as homophobic in the same way around men who were coming out. so you've had many women, had several women in the wnba, cheryl swoops and others who have come out. brittany griner is actually coming out as a longer tradition in history than jason collins has. jason collins, people were openly gay but it wasn't well-known. didn't have a coming out process in an op-ed in sports illustrated. glenn burke, an out fielder in the '70s. there is a sense that for black men or men who are athletes to come out is qualitatively different. despite some of the hoe mow -- one -- lay that one on the table before we go to commercial. >> a lot of people were excited about this announcement. >> this is -- look, the fact is

that we are i think as you point out, matt, we're in a place where things are going fast and a lot of us want to go faster. wade, thank you for joining us from chicago. and thank you for your work with youth. it does absolutely make pay difference. >> thank you so much, melissa. >> thanks to everybody at the table here. to jelani and ang marie and matt and kai. i have a footnote that we have all been extremely excited about in nerdland. i'm turning my footnote over to an extraordinary spoken word artist. [ 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.

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. we started discussing how the war on drugs have ravage ed communities. sometimes words alone with not enough to express the human cost of mass incarceration in our

system. ups tho unless those words are delivered by an artist. a graduate of harvard law school, he was arrested and briefly detained for a crime he did not commit. but his experiences inspired the extraordinary spoken word performance. joining me now, nice to see you, so you went to harvard law school. why are you an independent artist instead of practicing law? >> they locked me up for something i didn't dough a and changed my life. and they wanted to produce a show about it so here i am. >> i've seen parts and i thought they have to see it. so please share some of the lyrics. ♪

♪ ♪

♪ ♪ ♪

♪ >> thank you so much. i appreciate you joining us in nerdland. it was incredible. your music was incredible. tell me in 15 seconds what's your story? >> my story from boston, going to school in new york. met brion, my professor at nyu. >> of course. >> so, yeah, he put me on his gig. >> phenomenal. >> fantastic.

thanks so much. thanks to all of you at home for watching. what we try to do here is bring you a little bit of the culture, a little bit of the politics. we hope you enjoyed the mix of what we're especially to. i'll see you next saturday at 10:00 a.m. eastern. house leader nancy made low city will come here, she's not going to do spoken word for us, but it will be big fun. be sure to join us. up next is weekends with alex witt. meet the 5-passenger ford c-max hybrid. when you're carrying a lot of weight, c-max has a nice little trait, you see, c-max helps you load your freight, with its foot-activated lift gate. but that's not all you'll see, cause c-max also beats prius v, with better mpg. say hi to the 47 combined mpg c-max hybrid.

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and allergic reactions have occurred. before starting enbrel, your doctor should test you for tuberculosis and discuss whether you've been to a region where certain fungal infections are common. you should not start enbrel if you have an infection like the flu. tell your doctor if you're prone to infections, have cuts or sores, have had hepatitis b, have been treated for heart failure, or if you have symptoms such as persistent fever, bruising, bleeding, or paleness. if you've had enough, ask your dermatologist about enbrel. will syria retaliate? two days ago to the mark sanford square off pe polls, i'm talking to the man writing a book about their journey. and alex talks to former governor ed rendell about the position he would accept in a hillary clinton presidency. hello, everyone. it's high noon in the east.

9:00 in the west. i'm richard lui in for alex. a senior u.s. official confirming to nbc news that israeli because planes bombed a research facility north of damascus. this amateur video reportedly shows the air strike, but be in has not verified if it's authentic. if confirmed, it would bes second israeli air trike in syria in the past two days. richarden gel is in turk ee een with the latest. >> reporter: we've spoken with witnesses in damascus and they say that it wasn't just one target that was hit by what is widely to be believed an israeli air trike, but multiple targets. they were all clustered just on the edge of damascus. in the mountain, there is a series of military bases and it was these