what's the most important thing to remember? no face to face contact until we're off of school property. you got this. sharing what you've learned. that's powerful. verizon. get the samsung galaxy stratosphere ii for free. this morning my question -- what are we going to do about the ongoing violence in chicago? plus, why i wish juror b29 had watched "twelve angry men." and harry belafonte seeks to squash the beef with jay-z. but first, whose economy is it anyway? good morning. i'm melissa harris-perry. okay. in case there was any doubt, i am not an economist. here's what i do know about the economy. last month i was late on my

credit card bill. you know, it happens. but sure enough, this month my interest rate went up. a lot. so now while i know this month my household will have an additional $200 deficit because of my late payment, it's hard to comprehend that while i may lose that amount of money in one day mark zuckerberg, the dude from facebook, he had his net worth go up by $3.7 billion in one day. this was after facebook shares closed at a one-year high of more than $34 per share. now, i don't know about you, but sometimes stuff like that makes me feel like i am living in a totally different economy. what i want to know is who is in charge around here? who is in charge of the economy and who selects the individual that can influence how one person can make billions in one day while the other one has her credit card rates increase? first, the person who undoubtedly makes the selection is president barack obama, who was out this week like he was on

the campaign trail, touting the need for continued vigilance in our economic recovery. >> five years after the start of that great recession america has fought its way back. we've fought our way back. >> i'm here to tell you today that we're not there yet. we all know that. we're not there yet. we've got more work to do. >> all right. but who is going to do the work that the president spoke about? and set the nation's economic course. that job will rest in the hands of the next federal reserve chairman. because to the extent that there's been an economic recovery the federal reserve chairman is the person most responsible for setting the trajectory. it's not because the chairman has absolute power but rather the ability to build a consensus among the federal reserve board when it comes to controlling available money, the cost of money, and setting interest rates.

consensus building has mattered to our nation's economic policy long before the federal reserve system was even created in 1913 with the signing of the federal reserve act by president woodrow wilson. that's because the federal reserve is the palace that alex built. that's alexander hamilton. our nation's first secretary of the treasury, who was behind the creation of the first central bank. it was hamilton who had the forethought to create a national bank that would provide credit and help stimulate the economy. that first bank would ultimately lead to a second and then evolve into what is now known as our federal reserve system, which serves as the engine to our economy. and that is why the selection of the federal reserve chairman is so important. and that is why you won't have to wait until next year's midterm elections for some good old d.c. palace intrigue. because of speculation over who will be the next fed chair is already on and cracking in the nation's capital. on friday a senior white house official made an announcement that spurred the speculation hounds into overdrive. simply put, the official said

that president obama would not name a replacement for federal reserve chairman ben bernanke until sometime in the fall. the intrigue. yes, the debate over who will replace bernanke has heated up. will the next federal reserve chairman be lawrence summers, former u.s. treasury secretary and president obama's former chief economic policy adviser? remember him? he was the guy who was the chief architect of the financial deregulation during the clinton administration, which many progressives believe led to the 2008 crash. or will president obama make history and nominate janet yellen, who is already the fed's vice chair and would be the first woman to hold the position of chair of the federal reserve? yellin has support of a handful of democratic senators including our buddy elizabeth warren of massachusetts who signed onto a letter on friday urging the president to appoint yellin. while bernanke's term isn't over until january 2014, he is expected to retire, but time is of the essence because whomever president obama nominates will have to be confirmed by, that's right, the senate.

if history that's taught us anything, it is that anyone who president obama nominates to any position may not have the easiest time being confirmed. yet our fragile economy doesn't have time for posturing and obstruction. so select is exactly what the president must do because our collective economic future depends on it. at the table, jared bernstein, msnbc and cnbc contributor who is currently a fellow with the center on budget policy and priorities and was the former chief economist and economic policy adviser to vice president joe biden. democratic congresswoman barbara lee of california, who is a member of both the house budget and appropriations committees. heather mcgee, the vice president of policy and outreach at demos. and mark cal brea, who is director of financial regulation studies at the cato institute. so happy to have you all here. >> thank you. >> jared, i want to start with you, in part because i can't believe this is the first time you have come to nerd land. >> what took us so long? i have a nerd land carrying

card. >> that's exactly why i want you here because you're a very specific kind of nerd. tell me like what -- if i'm an ordinary person sitting at home on a sunday morning having my coffee, why do i care who the fed chairman is? >> well, first of all, let me congratulate you for actually making that introduction really exciting. >> okay. good. >> because the actions of the federal reserve have a tremendous impact on the economy that we all live in. your framing was exactly right. whose economy is it? and you gave a couple of examples of how the economy's working very well for a narrow slice at the top and not well at all for a lot of folks in between. one of the levers that the federal reserve controls is kind of roughly speaking setting the unemployment rate. their task is to balance the unemployment rate, which they're supposed to keep as low as possible, and the inflation rate, which they're supposed to keep from growing too quickly. >> that's the dual mandate, right? >> the dual plannedate. and there's a trade-off because as unemployment rates get very low sometimes you can close out, put gaps in the economy, starts

growing quickly, that can put some pressure on prices. historically, the federal reserve has overweighted the price part of the mandate and underweighted the jobs part of the mandate. ben bernanke's been very good on this. janet yellin's been very good on this. i actually think larry summers would be good on this as well. so it's very important that the federal reserve continues to target that unemployment rate as they've been. >> i feel like there must be folks watching who go, wait a minute, what? set the unemployment rate, right? >> roughly speaking. >> granted. and so i want you to give me a little bit more on that because i do think there is a sense -- again, i'm a layman -- that what you always want is for everybody to have full employment, and then you say yeah, but then that has these other pressures. talk to me a little about that. >> what the federal reserve tries to do is manipulate the unemployment rate. they try to manipulate the interest rate. they try to do it very indirectly by trying to make credit available. i see it as the ultimate trickle down. we're going to lend to people because they're going to hire in & invest and that's going to create unemployment. it's very indirect.

and in some cases i don't think it's clear that has a very large impact. it's not clear to me that all these rounds of quantitative easing which have been buying of treasuries and -- have actually affected the unemployment market all that much. but i really do want to echo something jared said. there's no more important in my opinion part of the government in terms of the economy than the federal reserve. what you borrow, you know, you mentioned earlier your credit card. well, whether those credit card rates in the future is going to depend on the federal reserve. let's not forget that it was five gentlemen sitting around a table who decided to spend over a trillion dollars. they have $3.5 trillion balance sheet. not even congress could do that on their own without, you know, very difficult agreement. so tremendous amount of power in a small number of people. so who you get there absolutely makes a difference. >> on exactly that issue that i want to come to you, congresswoman. because again, if i'm a layman i'm thinking, wait a minute, i don't get to elect these folks, right? and when you start talking about five people, ten people sitting, making these big decisions, then what i want to hear is the folks i do have the ability to elect,

the ones i can hold accountable, the ones whose names i know very closely will be part of this process. and i've got to tell you, i am nervous at this moment all the things that we thought we understood about how congress operated vis-a-vis the economy that, okay, you're never going to get to a place where you don't let the debt ceiling, you know, increase or oh, we're never going to get to a place where we would just actually go into sequester. that's all been violated. do i have any reason to fear that this fed chairman nomination is going to turn into a fight on capitol hill? >> well, it could. and we've seen what has happened as a result of president obama's election in terms of the obstructionist congress. but i have to tell you, thank god we did re-elect president obama because the president has awesome power in making this recommendation for appointment. and i tell you, when you look at interest rates, it is so important to understand that. let me give you an example. that the african-american community as a result of the

subprime crisis, our net worth now is approximately $5,600. so we have to have a fed chair who understands, one, that they've got to focus on creating economic opportunities and reducing the unemployment rate but also making sure that everyone has access to decent and low interest rates so that wealth accumulation and the ability to purchase a home is everywhere for everyone, that the american dream can be fulfilled. and right now it's not. >> i want to underline what you just said, heather, because the president said something very, very similar this week in the "new york times" that came out this morning. probably folks are sitting there with their coffee reading it at this point in which the president says that the income gap is actually fraying our social fabric. he says "when unemployment is too high and long-term unemployment is still too high and there's weak demand in a lot of industries i want a fed chairman that can step back and look at that objectively and say, let's make sure we're

growing the economy but let's also keep an eye on inflation and if it starts heating up, if the markets start frothing, let's make sure we're not creating new bubbles." and this idea of sort of the responsibility not only to grow it but to grow it equitably strikes me as a critical thing we want to keep our eyes on as we move forward with this. >> when you ask about who would ever want high unemployment, actually it's very important town pack that because there actually are forces and they've been dominant actually until right before the crash, inside the fed because you have to realize that actually, the fed is a very bank and wall street-dominated institution. there are built-in conflicts of interest in terms of who becomes bank presidents. it's basically essentially chosen by member banks in each of the regions. so for wall street you actually -- inflation is the scariest thing to you because it lowers the value of your assets. wall street bankers tend to not be as affected by unemployment because they and their friends usually have jobs. so that tension between

inflation and unemployment is something that for a long time, until basically 2008, had very much been stacked on the inflation hawk side. this concern about economic inquality has to raise the other issue of the other thing the fed does. the fed could have stopped the subprime mortgage boom. it had actually the ability to regulate subprime mortgages and sat on its hands for a decade and a half because we had deregulators at the helm. >> stay with us. we have so much more. we're going to talk about this. and i also want to ask both of you about the art, the science, and the faith that is economics when we come back. when we made our commitment to the gulf, bp had two big goals: help the gulf recover and learn from what happened so we could be a better, safer energy company. i can tell you - safety is at the heart of everything we do.

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one doesn't have to go back very far to see just how powerful the mere words of federal reserve chairman ben bernanke can be on our markets. for example, take a look at what he said this june. >> to use the analogy of driving an automobile, any slowing in the pace of purchases will be akin to letting up a bit on the gas pedal as the car picks up speed, not to beginning to apply the brakes. >> all right. to you and me that may seem like nothing more than a harmless car analogy. but according to "forbes" that simple statement about the u.s. fed potentially cutting back on bond buying drove stocks down by 1.4% the day he made it. less than a month later we heard from a very different-sounding ben. >> both the employment side and the inflation side are saying that we need to be more accommodating. put that all together and i think you can only conclude that

highly accommodative monetary policy for the foreseeable future is what's needed in the u.s. economy. >> okay. translation? after rattling markets in june and july fed chair ben bernanke made clear that the nation's central bank will continue to prop up the economy, most crucially by keeping interest rates low. the day after he said that the dow rallied. 170 points to just under 15,500. at the time an all-time high. so what's going on with the emotions of this thing? like i want to believe that economics is a science. but i look at something like that and i think, oh, no, no, no, this is magic. >> no, first of all, economics is not a science. >> i want to believe that. >> yeah, well, it's not true. look, the markets tend to be pretty manic depressive, especially on a time like this, on tenter hooks. aggressive ben, gentle ben a couple days later made them feel

better. i want to get back to something heather said in this regard, which is -- and you started out this way. whose economy is it? it's not that the stock market doesn't matter to middle income people. there's a lot of pensioners and 401(k)s in there. i get is that. but the movements in the market are way overemphasized relative to what really drives middle income prosperity, which has a lot to got kinds of things the president has been talking about lately, largely the job market, and there you get into two critical things the fed does. one we talked about. the trade-off between unemployment and inflation. heather said this very well. to the extent you emphasize the unemployment part of that versus the inflation part you really are targeting middle and lower income people. that's important. we need the next fed chair to do that. and secondly the overside part. remember, if the federal reserve oversight had been a ton better than it, they were really asleep at the switch, we wouldn't have had as deep a recession as we had and we wouldn't be still climbing out of it. so the oversight regulatory function of the banking sector is also critical. >> play out the palace intrigue part of that for me.

i'm looking at yellen on one side and summers on the other and we have this track record of summers around deregulation in the clinton era, should that make me nervous? is that what this fight is about? because i keep hearing the fight gendered in this funny way, oh, we can either have our first woman or we can have the guy who said crazy things about women at harvard. and i keep thinking, granted, no one cares more about gender than i do but that is not what i want to be talking about right now. i want to be talking about deregulators or not. >> absolutely. and in fact, you have to actually realize that there's a lot of reasons why people who really care about a strong functioning regulatory system that makes finance do its proper job, which is to be a conduit of productive capital in the economy instead of actually sort of siphoning away capital the way it has been for so long under the deregulation period, that actually larry summers is really troubling. because it's true that he did shepherd through the dodd-frank act, which was an important, important sort of restitching together of our regulatory framework.

but some of the stronger, more structural reforms, for example, the voelker rule he was really opposed to behind the scenes and worked to sort of weaken that. because i think he is a bit more skeptical of regulation than i would like to see. also obviously the fact that he has gotten so much money from wall street since -- in between his stints in government. it's just troubling in terms of sort of how much skepticism you can have of the status quo on wall street versus skepticism of the ability of government to make finance work for the rest of the country. >> is this why the summers trial balloon went over like a lead balloon? >> i think a lot of this is being driven by summers himself and some of his loyalists. you had over the last couple weeks, couple months yellen really start to become the heir apparent, if you will, and i think summers had a window where if i don't get in and make some noise, and i do think as jared just mentioned he's got a very good relationship with the president -- let's put it this way, i think if the senate weren't involved the president would nominate larry summers himself -- >> because he personally likes and respects him?

>> yes, i think he personally likes and respects him. and again, i think if it was not a question of 60 votes then i think he would pick larry. >> interesting. but it is a matter of those votes. >> it's a matter of votes. and let me just say before i went to the appropriations and budget committee i wasn't on the banking committee, financial services committee, and i was there during the whole process of deregulation. >> right. >> it was horrible. >> let's just be clear. >> it was horrible. we saw what happened with the airlines, deregulation. prices went up. consolidation took place. same in financial services. so we have to have a fed chair who really understands this balance but also who understands that income inequality continues to grow and who also understands that part of their job is to make sure that low-wage workers and that everyone benefits from our government -- >> is yellen that person? >> well, let me tell you. i haven't said publicly yet whom i'm going to support if asked, but i have to just say, anyone who supports -- who supported

deregulation and who allowed for this horrible thing to take place in the housing market, who allowed for the income inequality to grow and who allowed for the subprime industry to emerge where minority communities and others were targeted, you know, those were bad policies that reduced the income -- >> let me say this. i worked pretty closely with larry summers during the first couple of years of the obama administration. i was a member of the economics team that he led. and let me just say about him and regulation. i am neutral in this. i think both are excellent choice. given the neutrality, i'd break the glass ceiling. that's another issue. but in regulation it's not that larry is against regulating the financial markets. it's that he's -- and i think he's learned some lessons from things he did wrong in the past, and you articulated them. it's that he's skeptical of the ability of public sector regulators to do a better job

than financial engineers, kind of the wizards of the private sector. so then the right question for him is okay, if you're skeptical of the government's ability to regulate financial markets then what? what should we do? >> right. what next? here's the other thing i know about the economy. apparently, they pay for this tv show with commercials. so i'd better go take one right now. we'll be back in a bit. ♪ money, money, money ♪ must be funny ♪ in a rich man's world it starts with something little, like taking a first step. and then another. and another. and if you do it. and your friends do it. and their friends do it... soon we'll be walking our way to awareness, support and an end to alzheimer's disease. and that? that would be big. grab your friends and family and start a team today. register at alz.org

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let's say you pay your guy around 2% to manage your money. that's not much you think. except it's 2% every year. does that make a difference? search "cost of financial advisors" ouch. over time it really adds up. then go to e-trade and find out how much our advice costs. spoiler alert: it's low. really? yes, really. e-trade offers investment advice and guidance from dedicated, professional financial consultants. it's guidance on your terms, not ours. that's how our system works. e-trade. less for us. more for you. this moment does not require short-term thinking. it does not require having the same old stale debates. our focus has to be on the basic economic issues that matter most to you, the people we represent. >> i love hearing the president sound like that. but how realistic is it? because the economic issue that matters most to americans right now is of course, you know this,

jobs. and the jobs that are coming back aren't quite cutting it. according to a report from the national employment law project, from 2008 to 2010 higher-wage jobs made up 19% of recession job losses and 20% of recovery growth. mid-wage jobs were 60% of recession job losses, only 22% of recovery growth. and here's the one. low-wage jobs. 21% of recession losses. 58% of recovery growth. tomorrow could be a critical day in the push for better pay for low-wage workers. thousands of fast food workers in seven u.s. cities are planning to walk off of their jobs in an escalation of ongoing strikes seen throughout the fast food industry since last november. so congresswoman, we're adding jobs. the jobs we're adding are often low-wage jobs that don't have ladders to something else. how do we make these jobs into jobs that can support families? >> let me say first the progressive caucus tomorrow will be with the mcdonald's workers here in new york as part of our

raise up america tour. if the republicans in congress would pass some of the bills that the president put forward such as investment in infrastructure, such as public sect sector, stop all these budget cuts, we would be on the right track. there are many jobs in the future if we can get the initial investment. these low-wage jobs, i have to take, making $6 and $7 an hour people have to rely on snap, on food stamp benefits, on medicaid. it's costing our economy much more at the other end. so we need to invest in good-paying jobs. i support first of all an increase in the minimum wage. but also more importantly we've got to get to a living wage. in my home state that's 20-some dollars an hour. people deserve this if they're going to live the american dream. right now employers are hiring people, they're hiring people part-time so they don't have to pay benefits. they're hiring people in a way that really is very tragic, melissa. no workforce training. we need to train people for the jobs of the future.

we can't get anything passed through congress because of sequester and the tea party. so we've got a major issue that we have to deal with, and the president i think is right, by going out into the country talking about it. >> and this is so real, congresswoman. i want to show you this from mcdonald's. this is mcdonald's budget for how to live on your income as a mcdonald's worker. just a tad hard to see there but basically they're saying here's your income from your first job, here's your income from your second job. i'm not kidding. their assumption is you will work a second job. then they start showing what you will save, what your mortgage will be, your rent. they also put in a whole lovely $20 for your health insurance. and by the way, this entire budget includes, for example, no food. which it seems to me goes back to your point, that part of what they're assuming is that the social safety net is going to pick up and subsidize their profits when even the fast food industry themselves are saying you can't make it off one job with us. how far down the rabbit hole have we gone in terms of our inability to come back as an

economy? >> well, as someone whose first job was at burger king rather than mcdonald's, i was in high school, wasn't trying to live on it, and i do think we need to keep a role for jobs that are part-time for high school students, for teenagers -- >> almost 90% of people making minimum wage -- no, but almost 90% of people making minimum wage are over 20. just keep going, but just so that's clear. >> i don't think we're going to grow high-wage jobs by eliminating low-wage jobs. i don't think we make people better off by limiting their choices. i want to expand their choices. so ultimately, if we want to raise wages we need to make people more productive. that's human capital, education, training. it's also removing negative capital. the worst thing if you're in a situation where you've dropped out of high school and you have a criminal record. what are we going to do about all the people incarcerated in this country when they come out of incarceration and try to get jobs? that's a much bigger problem than eliminating jobs -- >> this is -- i'm not sure i've heard the argument made this way. jared? >> so i just read this this

morning. there's a good article in the "new york times" about low-wage work this morning. 43% of low-wage workers have either some college or a college degree. i think 17% have a college degree. heather mentioned all the grown-ups who are still earning the minimum wage. this is not simply a matter of being more skilled or getting more education. that helps, and all of us around this table know that. that helps and has helped us. so it's critical. but there are a lot of people who are high school graduates, people are some college, who are stuck in jobs that pay far too low for them to support their families. and it has very little to do with their skills. it has a lot to do with the fact that they lack bargaining power. the minimum wage is too low. the fact that they haven't been able to really get much support from unions. so you have to look not just at the human capital side but also the bargaining power side. the inability of people to get their fair share of the economy's productivity growth over the last couple of decades has really grown a lot. >> i was just going to say i do think i want to echo what jared said, it is a question of power. it's a question of power at the

workplace. we think about the middle-class jobs that helped build this country. they weren't sort of born good jobs. they were actually terrible jobs that didn't require a lot of education, that were dangerous, that were hard, that were backbreaking, but they were made into good jobs because workers had bargaining power, because of structural things in the economy but also because of the presence of unions and the lack of sort of rabid anti-union spirit among the employers, and it also has to do with power in washington. the fact is the vast majority of the american people, nearly 80% of the american people think you should not be working full-time and anybody poverty. and you know what? among the donor class that actually helps set policy that is a minority position. 38% of the wealthy think that minimum wage job should be enough -- should pay enough to -- >> that goes back to your point, congresswoman, about the role of government and stimulation, that even if we're talking about human capital, right? even if we take just whole cloth your argument we would need to

talk about the investment the government must make in order to provide human capital opportunities for children coming up and that the incarceration rate is not just a given, it too is a result of public policy. mark, thanks so much for being here. and up next, why a growing number of workers are literally paying for their paycheck. this was driving me nuts this week. when we're back. ♪ a mind that's weak and a back that's strong ♪ ♪ you load 16 tons ♪ what do you get ♪ ♪ honey, is he too into this car thing? [ mumbling ] definitely the quattro. ♪ honey? huh? a5. what? [ sighs ] did you say something? ♪ really? 25 grams of protein.

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then you'll know how uncomfortable it can be.

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earned at your job. here's an example of fees on a card issued by netspend, the largest issuer of payroll cards in the country. $1 per purchase. $2 per purchase if you enter your pin. $2.50 to withdraw from an atm. $1.95 for an instant bank transfer. $15 for an overdraft. $5.95 if you don't use your card for 90 days. and the fees together can add up to $30 a month or more. that's more than four hours of work at the minimum wage. the cards aren't new, but they're being used more widely. $34 billion was loaded onto 4.6 million active payroll cards in 2012. those numbers are expected to more than double by 2017. employers like the cards because they're cheaper than printing checks. and banks of course love collecting all those fees. but employee advocates say the workers may be getting hosed. joining the table now, kathy ruckels-house, the legal co-director at the national

employment law project. say what? >> those fees are astonishing. i actually hadn't seen fees quite that high listed. it's not a good deal for the workers almost ever. they're typically not given a choice if they'd rather have a paper paycheck, they're not, which means they're not getting any pay stub information. >> right. >> they don't know what the basis for the pay is. they don't know what was i paid on behalf of? did i get overtime when i worked overtime? were there any other deductions taken out of my pay? it's potentially -- it's hiding some more wage theft that we're seeing in the economy. >> you know, i don't want to be overly dramatic in historical comparison, which i can sometimes be. but this does sound like the company store to me, where you had these little mining communities where you got paid -- or even share kroping where you got paid but those cards could be -- if you're getting paid at a big box store you can only afford to shop back

at that big box store. there's a way in which this feels to me like a very old-fashioned form of employment behavior that we as a result of labor pushing back went away from, and the fact that this is happening just i find it deeply distressing. >> it actually is like company scrip. some of the companies brand the cards with their own names and some require in-house atms to retrieve the money from the store. so the employers are directly getting the kickbacks in some cases. it's not a good deal for the workers. and there have been some challenges to them. mcdonald's has been challenged. and it offered some more choices for the workers. labor ready was challenged and they were found to be illegal because they had the in-house atms were -- >> were they double and triple -- congresswoman, i did a little more digging and it turns out the federal government also uses these a little bit. so in some of the benefits that are paid often to folks who are receiving federal benefits, we also see the use of these prepaid cards.

so government agencies actually disbursed $136 billion on prepaid cards. card issuers collected $190 million in fees. 6 0% of card holder fees came from the atms. when i found out we were doing it too, i was like what is happening here? >> and we did not fix that in regulatory -- financial regulatory reform. >> yeah. >> i think it's outrageous. first of all, what we are doing is institutionalizing another mechanism that's going to continue to create the structural inequality. we're creating two societies here in this country. and we're really waging this terrible war on low-income workers, which of course low-income workers are part of the working poor. and so here now we add these fees on top of that. these people are just barely making it. they're living on the edge. this could mean a meal or not -- >> right. $30. >> and then we're cutting the safety net. you should see this bill now, this sequester bill in terms of 20 billion cut in food stamps.

cuts in headstart. many states won't enact the care act and won't allow for medicaid expansion. so you're looking at an assault on people who are low income and people who are poor. this is just another one of those attacks. and it's very scary because we're creating a country that's going to be very divided based on class and income status. >> jared, let me ask you about this idea of what we're creating because i'm going to assume that banks just don't behave in a way like oh, this is a bad thing, let me be good. what incentives can we create so banks actually provide banking services, actual banking services in low-income and minority communities? because what i hear is i need this prepaid card, otherwise i've got to go to a check cashing place where it's even higher. often it's because these banks are underserving these communities. how do you create incentives to make them serve them? >> it reminds me of an idea that a number of us have kicked around, paul krugman's often making this point, which is let's make banking boring again. the idea here is where we got into trouble is when we started

to allow banks -- by the way, this gets back to the volcker rule we were talking about a minute ago, to trade their own proprietary books. that is, banks have some profitability so, they can go out and buy derivatives and play the stock market. and that might sound all fine and dandy except that remember, these banks are insured by us, the taxpayers. so that to me gives us a real entry point for the kind of oversight that the congresswoman was talking about. as long as we're going to backstop these folks, then we have every right i think to regulate issues like this that are clearly unjust. >> i love let's make banking boring. like i want that on a bumper sticker. let's move back to the "it's a wonderful life" version of banking and not the -- >> you want to go out and play golf at 3:00? be my guest. don't take the economy -- >> while you're doing it. thanks for being here this morning. up next, the connection between jobs and hunger and what it really takes to put food on the table. one of my favorite guests is returning to nerdland.

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we've been talking about the proliferation of low-wage jobs in our economy but now i want to talk about the reality of living on the minimum wage. our federal minimum wage leaves many families below the poverty line, even if the adults work full-time. 50 million americans are at risk of going hungry. almost a quarter of american children are in poverty. and yet there is a myth that those without enough are not working or, worse, that they're not even trying. listen to what congressman paul ryan said in an interview with the nbc news in plain sight poverty project. >> i think what we're missing in this debate is when we're talking about reviving civil society, when we're talking about reviving community groups, when we're talking about reviving churches, what we mean when we say that is people themselves need to get involved in their communities to help people. that's what solidarity is. that means every individual takes responsibility for helping their brother, their sister, meaning their fellow citizen in

their communities, and that act of involvement, of human beings coming together to help one another, that's so much better than some cold government program. >> joining us now is tiana gaines-turner of the witness to hunger project, who along with her husband and three children is up for renewal of her federal health and food benefits next month. tiana, thank you for joining us again. >> thank you for having me again. >> what's your response to congressman ryan there? >> i used to call him the rrs, the rhyming radicals. that's what i call them. because they have no clue. i said last time i was here everyone has something to say about someone who lives in hunger and poverty but yet they've never set down to the table. they're not involved at the table. they're making decisions which affects our lives without even having conversations with us. they think they have the answers. >> so tianna, this is for me the moment where this is such a great privilege having a television show because you are one of the most exquisite speakers on this whom i've ever

encountered. >> thank you. >> and congresswoman lee is one of the most important members of the progressive caucus in our u.s. house of representatives. what would you like to say to the congresswoman? you are at the table together at this moment. >> i would just like to say first it's an honor to be sitting here and thank you for having me. and you know, have more people who are going through these programs at the table, at the conversations. not after the fact. not after both aisles have already voted or they've set in some type of back house and made these decisions and oh, you know, something that they may have read in the paper. you know, invite us to the table. have us sit there and you hear my story and you understand. walk in my shoes. that's what i tell everybody. it's easy for people to sit back and judge me without even asking me. and for those who are watching this show right now who live in hunger and poverty, stand up. don't be silent. don't be silent by the system. don't be silent by the case workers. don't be silent.

stand up and be an advocate for yourself. people need to understand what you're going through. >> let me just say to you first of all you're very courageous and remarkable. >> thank you. >> and i'm going to ask, i'm on paul ryan's hearing. and they're having a hearing, we're having a hearing led by paul ryan on wednesday to talk about poverty. i'm going to ask him if you can come to be a witness, first of all. secondly, let me just say how proud i am of you for speaking out because i was on public assistance. i was on food stamps. >> right. >> you know, i had to struggle through in the early '70s raising my two kids. and it was really hard. so i just have to say to you you are absolutely correct. we need more people who are struggling, who need a bridge over troubled waters, who don't need section 8 cut, who don't need snap, food stamps cut, who really need just that support from their government so that they can move forward and live the american dream as you and your husband are really remacable in showing can be done. >> right. >> so congratulations. i hope i can see you on wednesday. but i'm going to ask. >> i hope so.

>> congressman ryan to invite you as a witness. >> we're going to take a quick break and come right back because i do want to talk to you a little about -- you and i are both moms, and we talked back in the spring about how do you feed the kids in the summer when school's out? when we come back. [ male announcer ] clearly this isn't one of those speed-eating contests. that's a hebrew national hot dog. a kosher hot dog. that means we're extra choosy about the cuts of beef that meet our higher kosher standards. and only a good, old-fashioned slow-motion bite is gonna capture all that kosher delight. and when your hot dog's kosher, that's a hot dog you can trust. hebrew national.

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okay, nerdland. so while republicans in the house are pushing for billions in cuts to nutritional assistance for poor families, i would like you to look at what the members of congress spent in 2012. this is the spending in 2012 on coffee and food for congress. we did a little math. about $2 million spent. that works out to being about $167,000 per month spent on coffee and food, evenly spread among the 435 house members that comes out to about $383 a month that taxpayers paid for congressional offices to have food and coffee. $383 a month.

the average snap benefit per household per month is $278.48. tianna, how does it make you feel to know that congressman ryan thinks you should work harder, do more, ask your neighbors for help, but his allocation for coffee is more than the allocation for many families? >> i think first he should take the food stamp challenge himself. because he has to realize there is no starbucks on public assistance. there's no filet mignon on public assistance. and for two, they -- like you said, they spend more on coffee than a person on public assistance gets in a whole month. that's just coffee. that's not talking about nutritional foods and meats and fruits and vegetables and, you know, the things that a child needs to grow up healthy and be able to even sit at conversations like this or even be able to go to school and concentrate and focus. >> i know one of the things i'm always talking about is how much you love your kids, how much you're working to make sure your

kids have everything they need. >> yes. >> right now you're trying to get uniforms for them to go back to school. school's starting. >> right. >> what is it you're trying to find? how big does that hurdle feel to you right now? >> well, three shirts for my children to go back to school is $50. my angels right there. >> fabulous. >> that's three shirts. that's not including socks, bottoms, underclothes, book bags, school supplies. that's just three school shirts. >> and how high a hurdle does $50 feel like? i know for some people $50 is -- >> it's nothing. but for us it's a lot. $50 could go toward a bill. could go toward making sure that -- i have three children with disabilities. all three of my children have epilepsy and asthma. so when you go food shopping and you can go and buy different things, i have to be very particular on what i buy. i have to read the back of the boxes. you know, i have to cut coupons and all these things are things that my mom showed me how to do. which i like to point out was not on public assistance. >> right. >> you know, did not choose to

be on public assistance as a single parent. who worked and gave me the work ethics that i have. as well as my husband, also mom was a single parent. so $50 is a lot. >> how did you feed the kids this summer without the sort of school lunch program? >> well, my kids are lucky enough to go to camp. i'm still paying for camp, and it will be over in another week, august 9th is the last day, and i'm still paying on it. but i felt like that was something that i had to do to keep my kids busy, to keep them moving. you know, for them to understand that even though we're in a situation that mom and dad is trying to make sure that you don't have to sit around and worry. i was telling someone on my way up, when we became homeless, twice we were homeless. no fault of our own. not because i wasn't paying rent. because i was living in an apartment that was covered in feces and lead and my son began to have seizures. so we had a little money saved. we couldn't let the public assistance know we had that money saved.

we took that and we decided to move out thinking that my section 8 will come through after i'd been on the waiting list for ten years. my son knows. he's 9, but he knows. it's nothing like for your child to sit and say, you know, mom, you can have my food. you know, but people have to realize it's hard to feed your families, period, but in the summertime the kids are home all day. >> particularly. >> so your eating costs and your eating bills go up. >> yeah. >> you know, they're running around, they're going swimming, different things. >> tianna, i always love having you at my table. and let me just say, this invitation is an incredibly important one and i hope, i hope, i hope, i hope that our elected representatives have the opportunity to hear directly from you. thank you to tianna gaines-turner. to jared bernstein, you must also come back. to kathy ruckelshaus. and there is more nerdland at the top of the hour. do engo anywhere. stay.

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welcome back. i'm melissa harris-perry. two weeks ago six florida women acquitted george zimmerman of both second-degree murder and manslaughter in the trial for the death of trayvon martin. in the immediate aftermath of the verdict many asked how could this happen? the first inkling of an answer to that question came when juror b37, speaking in shadow, revealed to cnn's anderson cooper that she saw the events of that tragic night in florida from george zimmerman's perspective. >> that you would feel comfortable -- >> i think he was frustrated with the whole situation in the neighborhood, with the break-ins and the robberies and they actually arrested somebody not that long ago. >> okay. but then this week we learned that not everyone in that jury room saw george zimmerman as just a good guy who was frustrated and went a little too far. revealing both her face and her first name, juror b29 said she

believes george zimmerman got away with murder. even though she stands by the verdict, saying it was a necessary decision under the law. as the details of the zimmerman trial deliberations become clearer, i just -- i had to rewatch "twelve angry men." you know it. the 1957 classic american film that casts henry fonda as the lone dissenter on an overheated jury prepared to convict a poor urban teenager of murder without even bothering to deliberate. >> then what do you want? >> i just want to talk. >> well, what's there to talk about? 11 men in here think he's guilty. no one wants to think about it twice except you. >> i want to ask you something. do you believe his story? >> i don't know whether i believe it or not. maybe i don't. >> so how come you vote not guilty? >> there were 11 votes for guilty. it's not easy to raise my hand and send a boy off to die without talking about it first. >> over the next 90 minutes juror number 8 there stands his

ground in a room with 11 other men. men with deep-seated racial prejudice. men who are bored and uninterested. men who are tired of being sequestered and want to go home. juror 8 makes them review the evidence, question their biases, and take seriously that they are the last opportunity for a young man to find justice. this is how we want to believe juries work, that as long as there is one henry fonda in the room justice can be served. which is why it became the standout moment from juror b29's interview with abc's robin roberts when she said this. >> as the law was read to me, if you have no proof that he killed him intentionally, you can't find -- you can't say he's guilty. >> did you want to step out at all? did you want to quit? >> i was the juror that was going to give him the hung jury. >> what she said leaves me asking this. was maddy prepared to be a modern-day juror number 8, holding out against the group,

working through the process, bringing her fellow jurors along one at a time? or were the roles reversed? maddy makes clear her initial emotion led her to believe george zimmerman was guilty but that through deliberative process found that florida law gave her no choice but to acquit george zimmerman. joining me now is jonathan rosa, assistant professor of anthropology at the university of massachusetts amherst. comedian elion james white. professor of sociology at georgetown university. and still with us congresswoman barbara lee of california. jonathan, i want to start with you because b29 really once again sort of brought this conversation back. what do you make of her interview? >> you know, it's really complicated because i think this case has really been -- you know, has involved discussions of racial ambiguity all along and questions of who george zimmerman really is. is he a white hispanic? is he a latino? what does this all mean? so when i heard that this juror

was potentially latina and people couldn't make sense of her i expected the potential for this sort of a situation to unfold. but we shouldn't be surprised. on the one hand because we have many psychological experiments that have shown us that in situations of extreme duress people oftentimes make decisions that contradict their deeply held beliefs. but you know, i think that we could get caught up in the discussion of what her mindset is or what was happening in the jury room and forget actually the kind of -- all of the range of policies that made this happen. right? >> yes. >> so we could get caught up on this individual case and forget that this is really about an assemblage of policies and structural issues that made trayvon martin disposable. >> this is what's so important, michael. it feels to me like the easiest thing to do would be to focus in on this woman and say what's wrong with you? why didn't you do more? why didn't you sort of gather more courage? why didn't you push? but the fact she's in the room with only five other people instead of a full jury of 12, right? that there aren't 12 people. the very idea that this law

exists, that allows mr. zimmerman to carry the gun. the whole set of structures that were part of already taking trayvon martin away. >> that's exactly right. >> were also part of her world. >> that's exactly right. look, you're blaming the person whose finger was too weak to stop the dam with the hole when you don't talk about everything else. the pressure, the structure of the building. the levees that were giving away. and the dam being -- its infrastructure was weak to begin with. it's all a scapegoating of her, which would be to duplicate the very thing that happened to trayvon martin to begin with. why put the person of color on the firing line, so to speak, when the entire system itself has to be indicted for its inability to generate enough jurors to have conversation that would be complicated? a diverse jury pool that would at least represent an alternative perspective. and furthermore, the clarification of the rules. this woman is basically saying, you didn't do your job as a teacher. i don't go you student, you're crazy. i've got to say dyson, explain it again because you didn't reach this student. and the prosecution did a

horrible job of drawing the lines between the dots. and let's admit it, the defense had the wind behind its back and it was able to make an argument and a narrative that was compelling, even to a woman who emotionally felt that this was the wrong decision. >> i felt, congresswoman, i think that's part of what was so stunning about what she said, is actually here -- you know, we've had the president say trayvon martin could have been my son or if i had a son he would look like trayvon martin. well, her sons might also look like trayvon martin. might be subject to the same pressures. and yet she still felt that the law made it impossible for her to move on that instinct that she was having. >> sure. and this explains i think very clearly why we need to repeal first of all the stand your ground laws. that's a must do. secondly, it also reveals inequities in our criminal justice system that need to be looked at and closed. thirdly, melissa, i just have to say, and i agree with you, michael, but every now and then you have to take a stand. i would have hung that jury. i would have hung that jury.

so while we don't need to blame her for not hanging it, we have to at some point realize we do have some personal responsibility in trying to ensure that justice is done. and so we have to see this in context of the criminal justice system as being unjust and unfair -- >> but she seemed -- don't you think, congresswoman, the part of structural racism too is to really deprive you of a sense of the power you do actually possess? so she felt that it was almost illegitimate for her to exercise that power. >> sure, she almost felt that she could not hang the jury. and that's part of -- >> and that's a psychological -- >> we also have to listen to what they were actually told. juror b37 15id flat out that she didn't understand the rules. like she said we were very confused about this. that's the person without any type of emotional connection to this thing. and so for the new juror, b29, like i could easily see her being confused, like -- yes, i want this, but they're throwing

18 different rules at me. they threw stand your ground. when they read the jury instructions, they were very long and very complicated. and so it's hard -- i can't -- i'm with dr. dyson here. i can't go at her like that. but i can go at the system like that because the system obviously showed itself to be biased and failed. >> but again, from a broader perspective i think it's interesting that this case became a microcosm. it's not by chance that it's florida where there are all these anxieties about what the latino population means. it's a swing state, right? so in which way -- the only questions we have to ask based on our ideas of a racial binary is which way will latinos go? will they be white or black? we can't imagine latinos in their own specificity. so we end up asking what is george zimmerman, what is this juror, and who did they team with? and it leads us to play up the black-latino tensions. it leads us to all of these kinds of questionable conclusions. >> jonathan, to the extent that we're talking on the one hand there's this verdict and this thing that happened but almost more important, more interesting is what this thing -- how in our perception of it it ends up

having all these other meanings. so it was part of what i wanted to do at the table, is so that we could talk about the ways in which the very particular position of her as a puerto rican woman becomes part of what is read onto this narrative. so i -- we'll take a quick break because they're screaming at me and then we'll come back. i do want to think about how that race story about black, brown, and white is playing out in some ways that we need to pause, breathe, and know something about before we move forward. when we made our commitment to the gulf, bp had two big goals: help the gulf recover and learn from what happened so we could be a better, safer energy company. i can tell you - safety is at the heart of everything we do. we've added cutting-edge technology, like a new deepwater well cap

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this week the pew research center released a new survey asking americans about the zimmerman verdict. the survey asked the question, does this case raise important issues about race that need to be discussed? kind of a soft question. but the answers reveal a deep

racial divide. 47% of hispanic respondents and 78% of black respondents believe that the zimmerman verdict should provoke racial conversation. but only 28% of white respondents agreed. 28%. fewer than 1 in 3 white americans even think we have something to talk about here. but there is one high-profile white man who's willing to talk about race. and he spoke up on fox news on monday night. >> you want a conversation? you got it. you want a better situation for blacks? give them a chance to revive their neighborhoods and culture. work with the good people to stop the bad people. pumping money into the chaos does little. you can't legislate good parenting or responsible entertainment. but you can fight against the madness with discipline, a firm message, and little tolerance for excuse making. it is now time for the african-american leadership, including president obama, to stop the nonsense. walk away from the world of victimization and grievance and lead the way out of this mess.

>> well, that is one way to start a conversation. michael? >> yeah. you know, what's interesting to me, why is it that when we say we want to have a conversation on race you want to have a conversation on blackness? you don't want to have a conversation on race. you don't want to have a conversation on white privilege, unconscious bias. you don't want to talk about the collective world we've made as black, brown, yellow, red, and white people. you want to lecture black people. and by the way, mr. o'reilly, did you not hear? even though a lot of us disagree, did you not hear president obama tell morehouse college no excuse making now, a lot of us -- >> he had -- and morehouse is not even the beginning of that. it's actually part of what makes president obama in a particular position to say what he said. a week ago, is that he has been very much the kind of respectability president from the beginning. >> right. and those of us who have problems with that, the fact is how can white americans like mr. o'reilly ignore the context when mr. obama has lectured endlessly and tirelessly for african-american people? but beyond that, jesse jackson

and alvin toussaint in the 1970s had a book called "why blacks kill blacks." so please don't pretend african-american people have not been on this case. but this is what we know. white on white crime is a devastation in america like so-called black on black crime. it's not black or white crime. it's proximity murder. people kill where they live. so we have to talk about that in a broader sense. and guess what? the cameras don't show up in chicago like they show up in newtown and aurora. all we're asking is for equal attention paid to crises at a time of enormous distress for our vulnerable children to be assisted. so mr. o'reilly, i'd love to have that conversation about protecting yourself behind white picket fences and fox news and having digital courage. come in the streets where you went to sylvia and you were surprised that black people don't throw bananas at each other or swing from trees. >> isn't this the problem, though, with the whole idea of the need for a conversation about race? it leaves it at the interpersonal level. so that if we could just communicate in a certain way then suddenly all of these structural, policy, and institutional matters would be eradicated magically.

that's also my issue with the whole privilege discourse as well, that it leaves it at this institutional level so, that if people were just nicer work just own their privilege and treat people better at that individual level that we would be doing a whole lot better. and i actually think that that leaves us without a pathway forward in terms of institutional -- making -- >> but the point -- >> this feels to me like -- elon, this is part of the angst, is that we lack a certain kind of vocabulary, right? for example, black on black crime is the easy thing to say because we all have some standard way of thinking, we know what that is. but when you say white on white crime, we don't even have a thing that that is to fit that into. >> it hits the ear wrong. people can't even understand it. but there's a reason -- like in this whole conversation we're having right now about this idea of the conversation around race, how can you have a conversation around race when most of the country doesn't understand the very construct of race? and when they don't understand how this works in general, how its effect through history has

these people in these situations, in these areas that literally historically speaking this is why they're there. they don't understand that. so how can you get them to say cool, so let's talk about privilege, let's talk about this. they're like what? what are you talking about? no. >> i want to ask you about another person who weighed in on race in a bit of a different way today. this is one of your colleagues. this is -- there's a kind of rhetorical move as we move beyond black and white but still around race, this is republican iowa congress steve king you've probably heard at this point but let's listen one more time as he makes comments about young undocumented immigrants. >> for everyone who's a valedictorian there's another 100 out there that they weigh 130 pounds and they've got calves the size of cantaloupes because they're hauling 75 pounds of marijuana across the desert. >> okay. steve king first of all should apologize. but then again, that's who he is. he's done this over and over and over again. and melissa, i think these members of congress and others, bill o'reilly, they're really

trying to make sure that we don't engage in the dialogue by playing the race card or by trying to run the blame the victim kind of theory. you know, and that's just so tragic and dangerous. there are some people who believe this and act this out. what's important is we need to have this dialogue but we need to understand we have to move beyond dialogue and we have to act whether it's at the community level, at the business level, corporate level, and congress. we're dealing with structural and institutional racism. and we're dealing with policies, for example, such as mandatory mims, three strikes. you're dealing with these sequester cuts that are going to negatively impact communities of color. you're dealing with cuts across the board, section 8. who do they impact? they impact people of color in a big way. we've got structural and institutional issues of racism that must be swept from under the rug. >> i want to push on on this king argument for one moment.

let's listen to him double down because he doubled down. let's listen to the double down and then i have a question for you. >> this is hands-on, eyes-on from the border patrol as well. and i got a call from them yesterday, and i said do i need to come back down and refresh myself? and they said no, you're spot on on what you're saying, but maybe, maybe you got the weight ten pounds up. >> so he's insisting that this is an empirical reality. you talked before about this anxiety of not being able to see latinos within the context of who they are with specificity and there's this question about are they going to be white or black because that's the only binary that exists for us. if -- and just accepting that premise for a moment, if there was a moment when latinos could have been thinking we're going to go with whiteness because that seems to work out in america, satellite and to the extent we can bring together the trappings of whiteness we'll go with that. this feels like the rhetoric that it's like oh, okay, apparently we're not going to get to be white, so it actually generates a kind of political coalition that might not otherwise exist. >> i mean, it's the great irony

about the conservative effort to recruit latinos to their movement, right? so they stumbled over themselves by making these kind of comments. but it speaks to the ways that we need a new racial common sense altogether. the way that -- so it doesn't measure out empirically. what steve king's saying just doesn't work out empirically and you see people are rejecting this common sense. the dream nine. the young people who are just rejecting our current way of thinking about immigration altogether. and we need a new way to reimagine what immigration could be. what would it look like to have a citizenship of the americas. lo and behold. what if we had new categories, new discourses, new ways of thinking about rights. this is why it's connected to the conversation about the african-american experience. because these are joint experiences of exclusion. >> can i say that? but also what's interesting is that they've done all these studies so that when certain immigrants come here they have notions of blackness, regardless of where they're, from so that they're very negative. because they've imbibed and internalized unconsciously the poison that's been spewed from america. and then you know, there's a

huge difference between being a white cube frn, say, miami and a black dominican from new york. so we know internecine strug alz mong latino communities, all of which experience hierarchies of color as well. if elian gonzalez had been from santiago decuba as opposed to from havana he would have been sent back with a snickers bar saying have a good time. but the contestation over whiteness operates within the context of latino identity as well and what you're pointing to is the seductive character of whiteness that increases its capital by saying join with us as opposed to joining with the black dimensions of puerto rico that we saw in that juror. i think that has to be articulated as well. >> it's such an important and difficult conversation. and the one thing i will say is the fox-msnbc thing happens sometimes, but to the extent that legitimately, even if we have very different dialogues and discourses and places we're coming from, there is a value in having interracial conversation. it is insufficient, but it is necessary. >> it is. >> but the key with conversation is it has to be among peers.

you don't have a conversation with somebody who has less power, less -- so like i feel constantly frustrated by the fact you can have a powerful medium like tv and still can't imagine to have a conversation across those differences. and we're going to keep trying to piche on th to push on that. i'm going to have a conversation, however, with congresswoman robin kelly right after the break. definitely gonna throw him off. she's seen it too. oh this could be trouble. [ sentra lock noise ] oh man. gotta think fast, herbie. back pedal, back pedal. [ crowd cheering ] oh, he's down in flames and now the ice-cold shoulder. one last play... no, game over! gps take him to the dog house. [ male announcer ] make a powerful first impression. the all-new nissan sentra. ♪

during the fourth of july weekend in chicago 72 people were shot. 12 of them died. only making the crisis of violence in that city even more urgent as a priority. and that's why the label emergency was applied at the national summit on violence in urban communities hosted by the congressional black caucus for two days this week in chicago. among the attendees was the mother of 15-year-old hidia pennington who was shot and killed at a chicago park a week after performing at the president's inaugust rald parade.

her mother told tremaine lee her concerns now extend to her young son. >> i have to do things and be boisterous to protect them before he gets to where he's going to go independently, walking down the street on his own with certain privileges and being misidentified, you know, as someone else or something else. ride now he's 11. you know, i don't -- the martins have already suffered. and that's an awareness for the rest of us. >> joining me now from chicago is representative robin kelly of illinois's 2nd congressional district, one of the hosts of the summit. nice to have you, congresswoman. >> thanks for having me. >> so talk to me about this. we've talked a lot about chicago gun violence on this show. but what was the goal of this summit in particular? >> well, we wanted to go back to the people, the people that live in the communities, the people that are doing the work, to see what their suggestions were. it's easy for some of us to say what should be done. but we really wanted to take it back to the neighborhood to

listen to the people that came to the summit and also talk about some of the ghingz, good programs that are going on in the chicago area. >> so congresswoman, i live in new orleans, and we are also facing a rash of gun violence although we've had some important declines over the past six months. the zimmerman verdict has been distressing to me as a parent of an adolescent child in part because on the one hand you feel like okay, if i choose to live in a predominantly african-american community, to be near folks who look like me and all of the cultural reasons to live in those communities, i'm also often opting ton a community that has these kinds of issues. and then the zimmerman verdict makes me feel like if i go opt into some sort of middle-class, predominantly white community, then i have that sort of danger of profiling. what are the folks who are at that summit saying about their sense of where they can live to have themselves and their children be safe? >> you know, it's interesting

because that to my knowledge wasn't talked about that much. what really came up a lot of times was what our kids need. we don't want our kids on the block as the youth were saying, but they don't have anything to do, that they've taken away the community centers, we don't have the resources, we need a youth initiative where we're putting our youth to work at least during the summer where there's internship programs, where adults are coming in caring about the youth, loving the youth, where parents are parenting. those are more the things that came up, like what about us? >> hold for me just a moment. i want to come out to you, professor dyson. you actually had testimony here. what did you have to say? what do you think are the key things that ought to be driving our conversation around this? >> well, yeah, i had the privilege of speaking with trayvon martin's father there and quasi mfume and others. when you're talking about chicago, you're talking about depopulation. they lost 200,000 people, which

means you lose social capital, you lose jobs, you lose industry. then you talk about the fragmentation of the gangs because when you disperse the heads of the gangs the body acts errantly. and it sounds ironically to say there's lack of discipline and therefore they do drive-by shootings and the like. and then thirdly we talk about the way in which there is a lack of attention paid those at the bottom of the boat so depopulation and grang fragmentation has to do also with the radical demoralization of people in this country. when you put all that stuff together it's a powder keg and it's going off and what i suggested is we have both from the white house down to everyday society, use the bully pulpit to continue to speak out against so-called crime in these areas but also talk about resources. neighborhood youth corps and seta when i was a kid you had a chance to get a job and if you don't have a chance to get a job you don't know what it means to report to work, to make a decent wage and to feel good about doing an honest day's labor. those things together are common sense but they also have a tremendously positive and

edifying effect upon the populations about which we speak. >> congresswoman, one last question for you here. the other thing we've covered a lot around chicago has been the closing of the schools. did young people at all talk about that in connection with the issues of gun violence in the city? >> more of the adults spoke about that than the young people. the young people are just crying out for jobs, mentoring, adults who care someone to care, expanding community programs. that's what they really address. and they also address that as adults we really don't know what the gang is these days, what the gang -- how gangs really operate. something along the line of what professor dyson was saying that is very difficult, it might be block by block, it's not what we think it is or what it was before. >> and if we don't even have good definitions of what we're dealing with, it makes if t. very hard to be effective policy makers. congresswoman robin kelly in chicago, thank you for joining us this morning. >> thank you so much. >> and after the break what they

call in hip-hop beef, and why harry belafonte is ready to squash it. wait a sec! i found our colors. we've made a decision. great, let's go get you set up... you need brushes... you should check out our workshops... push your color boundaries while staying well within your budget walls.

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i guess. did you download that book i sent? yah, nice rainbow highlighter. you've got finch for math right? uh-uh. english? her. splanker, pretend we're not related. oh trust me, you don't want any of that. you got my map? yeah. where you can sit can define your entire year. and what's the most important thing to remember? no face to face contact until we're off of school property.

you got this. sharing what you've learned. that's powerful. verizon. get the samsung galaxy s3 for $49.99. in the world of hip-hop rivalries the beef is practically a rite of passage. who could forget the beef between artists like tupac and biggie? 50 cent and ja rule. 50 cent and rick ross. 50 cent and, well, just about everybody. but no one saw this next one coming. wait for it. wait for it. jay-z and -- ♪ day-o ♪ day-o ♪ >> i'm sorry, but yes. none other than singer actor, and civil rights activist harry belafonte. earlier this week jay-z responded to belafonte's-year-old criticism of mr. carter's lack of social responsibility.

>> even in the african-american community someone like belafonte makes a comment, you get offended by that. >> yeah, i'm offended by that because first of all -- and this is going to sound arrogant. but my presence is charity. just who i am. i felt like belafonte, he just went about it wrong. like the way he did it in the media and then he bigged up like bruce springsteen or somebody. and it was like whoa, you just sent the wrong message all the way around. you know what i'm saying? you bigged up this -- bruce springsteen is a great guy. like you, this civil rights activist and you just bigged up the white guy against me in the white media. >> yo. it got real friday night on msnbc's "all in with chris hayes." belafonte had this to say. >> i would hope with all my heart that jay-z would not take personally what was said because it was not said about him personally. it was a question asked by a leading -- question given by a

member of the press in switzerland. having said that, i would like to take this opportunity to say to jay-z and to beyonce, i'm wide open. my heart is filled with nothing but hope and the promise that we can sit and have a one on one and let's understand each other rather than trying to answer this question and answer these nuances in a public place. >> just think 23 biggie and tupac had handled it that way. back at the table, michael eric dyson, representative barbara lee, anthropology professor jonathan rosa, and elon james white. beef between harry belafonte and jay-z, whose presence is charity. >> i'm one of probably the three people on twitter that said i get his argument. it was just really badly made. we deal with situations in spaces that literally there are non-profits that do nothing but raise awareness around things. right? that is their job, to raise

awareness. jay-z shows up to somewhere, like the trayvon march, he automatically -- that was the story everywhere. like jay-z and beyonce, jay-z and beyonce. he did raise the profile of that particular event. >> so his presence in that -- >> his presence did in fact add something to it. now, please note, this is a terrible way of making this argument, and you can easily make the argument that as artists, especially once you grow to a certain level, that you could say you owe something back to the community, that you should speak out more and do these things. but it's not -- you can't force people to do that. and two, when he does do it it does kind of matter. >> so it's not just that he's a businessman. he's also a 501c-3. >> you're vibe magazining stoking the beef. >> i don't mean to do that. i'm sorry. >> public disclaimer. i'm friends with both of these men. so i admire them greatly. but of course harry belafonte is in a league by himself because when john lewis made a criticism of my first dr. king book and people came to me i said there

is nothing possible that mr. lewis could ever say to make me say anything but thank you very much. however, i think that we can say to mr. belafonte there might have been a different way you could go about this. you're a high-profile guy. he's a high-profile guy. you can call him up and say look, you got beef. you can't walk it back by saying i didn't make it permanence. yes, you did. and guess what? that's why we're not paying attention because you made it personal with beyonce and jay-z and you challenged them as you perhaps should and then jay-z responded. now i think what they need to do is take it to another level. these two great titans of their particular industries, and don't get it twisted, there was a great price that jay-z paid and beyonce paid. a lot of people didn't want them to show up at that trayvon case because we know commerce is at stake here. so let's not pretend we don't understand -- >> i want to push on two of these things because i think two things -- well, you said lots of important things but two that i want to highlight here. so one is the idea that i want to be really careful that we are meant -- mr. belafonte is undoubtedly in a class by himself. that's why it's kind of silly that they're having beef, right? because you can't have beef with harry belafonte because he wins,

right? >> everybody's a vegetarian. >> but here's the issue. i do intergenerational thing that happens when we simply bow at the feet of our elders. i do think it's important for young people to be critical of the civil rights generation. if part of what would make the cbc stronger -- we have to both revere them and push them. >> that's a great point. >> and at the same time i also worry a lot about this let's not do it in public. let's do it in public. let's go ahead and engage in our -- no, uh-uh. you're not down with that. >> it's not so much let's do it in public. the idea is that in that particular situation i agree with dr. dyson it was a personal jab. he could have reached out. he's harry belafonte. harry belafonte can talk to anybody he wants to. he could have reached out in that situation. so i can see being hurt. now, whether or not he had a valid point is not the argument. it's about the feeling of someone coming at you, especially someone from like the civil rights time. i would be freaked out if all of a sudden someone came at me. >> but you know, 90% of the

people -- i think melissa harris-perry is right in this sense. that that's jay-z and harry belafonte. most of us ain't got no access, ain't got telephone numbers or e-mail. so now we have to use the public forum to articulate disagreement and dissent and guess what? it's all right. because when it comes to president obama if you're an african-american person you can't express criticism of him. of course you can but you do it out of respect for what the traditions are. at the same time young people have to be able to like outkast appropriate the past, use rosa parks' name to create a consciousness and let's just not sue them. >> i want the cbc and president obama to have beef in the sense that i want them to be able to be jointly critical and engage publicly with one another. >> we're three branches of government. the congress has its responsibility to represent their districts and also to put forth an agenda that speaks to those who had been shut out of this country's economic and social system. and so we absolutely have a duty and responsibility to push hard and push the envelope on behalf

of the country and on behalf of course of our districts. but let me say also i think the debate that's taking place now with regard to jay-z and mr. belafonte is healthy. it's intergenerational. and you know what this reminds me of, there's the saying in the language in ghana, sankofa, in order to move forward you have to understand your past. mr. belafonte not only was a great entertainer, he was very active in the civil rights movement. so there could be a jay-z and a beyonce and others. so i think we have to make sure that both voices continue to be heard because that's the only way that communities of color and the african-american community can move forward. it's sankofa. we need to really understand that experience. >> and it of course gives lie to the notion that we all think the same thing, we're all in agreement. i want to bring you in in part on this, just call me instead of having the public forum because i think part of what he's doing is using the public forum. but also i've got a little elon james white conversation to be had because after the break, the

n word and tim allen. i swear, i'm serious, i'm about to make beef between elon james white and tim allen when we come back. ♪ [ crashing ] [ male announcer ] when your favorite food starts a fight, fight back fast with tums. trusted heartburn relief that goes to work in seconds. nothing works faster. ♪ tum, tum tum tum tums!

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hmph! [ female announcer ] charmin ultra soft is made with extra cushions that are soft and more absorbent. plus you can use four times less. charmin ultra soft. well, presumably what we've been talking about here is the influence of celebrity in debate over social change. the latest voice to enter the conversation, comedian till allen, star of the sitcoms "home improvement" and "last man standing." in an interview with the "tampa bay times" he argues that white comedians should not shy away from using the n word and should be more direct in the tradition of comics like richard pryor and lenny bruce. he says the euphemism "n word" is actually worse than the actual word. allen tells the paper, "you want to take the power away from that word so that no one is offended by it. if i have no intent first, show no intent, if i clearly am not a racist, then how can n be bad

coming out of my mouth?" and what i appreciate about what tim allen is saying here is that it is complicated. and given the kinds of uncomplicated things i've said, at least there's some thoughtfulness here, but i do just want to ask, elon? >> i would like tim allen to shut up. here's why. first of all, i'm getting a little tired of white dudes telling me, one, what i can say or what they can say and then, two, about my neighborhood and my community. i'm getting a little tired of it across the board because they're talking directly about people like me, like who are from the hood, who grew one single parents and stuff like that. and then about the language thing. being a performer for years, i've heard people make this argument, oh, i can say whatever i want. anything can be funny. i do not deny that. anything p i'm not someone who tells people they can't tell jokes. but 99% of people aren't funny. and then on top of it even the people who think they're funny, half the time their material sucks. so you're sitting here, you want to make an argument that we should just say the word, we're going to say the word and we're going to take the power away from it so no one can be offended. guess what?

i'm offended. and you can't -- oh, it's -- listen, you can hear how i'm saying it. guess what? you're just another pinpoint in the larger issue overall in america. you are now adding -- this thing about listen, man, i'm just trying to take the power away from it. shut up. you don't have the right to take the power away from it. >> the other thing is if tim allen wants to carve out a space for himself in which he can use language however he wants, go for it and try it out and see how that works and see how it's received, right? if he thinks he's capable of doing that. but it reminds me, his commentary, this notion that you know what's in my heart. you know what i really believe, this idea that it's not entirely unlike rand paul's commentary, you know, i don't have a racist bone in my body, this sort of thing. so if you know what's really in my heart, then i can say whatever i want. which really undermines the idea that language shows us what's in your heart, right? that language is a way of revealing your heart in a sense. >> and you don't necessarily have the power to -- the notion of taking power away linguistically, right? i just -- i try to be an ally of certain movements and i mess up. right? i've had folks in lgbt

communities, i've had, you know, jewish friends come up to me and say that, no. that, not so much. i know that -- we know you're our ally, we know you're down with us, but demonstrate that you are down with us by not saying these things anymore. and for me the ally response is oh, okay, well, then i'm -- basically how i respond sometimes is to shut up. >> he wants to move from ally to reassume the appropriate privilege of whiteness, which is to dictate the terms of the debate. look, y'all invented the n word. we didn't invented. we just co-opted it. we hijacked it. we did a carjacking on that word a few decades ago and now you're mad because we've made more sexy use of it. some denigration as well. and now you want back in. no, you can't have back in. i refuse to infantlize white people. he says it's confusing. it ain't confusing. here's a general rule of thumb to follow when using the n word for white people. never. when you do that, then you understand you can't do it. and finally what's interesting here is that using this kind of word as chris rock said, white people control the whole world

but they feel if they can't use the n word somehow their power has been removed. no. grow up, allow us to determine what is in and out and as a result of that be our ally and challenge white people not to use it at home. you're already using it. you justhome, and you use it, but you just don't use it in public. >> well, i don't buy his explanation. the ti cal analysis that he put out there, and come on. he should know better. he should know better and i agree with what everyone has said here sh, and this is sometg first of all very offensive to the african-american community and couple it with what is taking place in terms of the racial profiling and in terms of the income inequality and the poverty raids and the food stamp cuts and the medicaid is structural issues, and this is dangerous and volatile and you just don't do it. >> and i know he uses the b-word around me, but i don't use it.

>> and he is at least trying it and we could book him, and they all said be quiet. >> well sh, it is basically lik smaller version of america, itself. my heart says this, then i can't be racist, and that is nonsense. >> and that is the actual thing on which the entire zimmerman was based. i thank my guests today. and you know this is going to keep going into the commercial break. you know what my daughter and i do during summer vacation. ke-fre with head & shoulders? since before jeans were this skinny... since us three got a haircut. since my first 29th birthday

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i know it is still july, but in a few short week, schoolteachers around the country will ask their students, what did you do during your summer vacation. for one group of ambitious young ladies the answer is going to be that i ran for public office. this year a public institute for training women to run for office hosted a week long camp congress for girls in cities across the country. the camp introduces girls to the american political system and

teaches them how to raise campaign funds and mount an effective candidacy and draft legislation and pass a bill. my 11-year-old daughter parker and my 10-year-old niece nathiay just finished their week long camp at congress for girls. >> we learned how to em ppower girls and how the write our own speeches. ♪ i'm a woman >> i'm running for house of representatives. >> i'm running for the president of the united states of america. >> i'm running for the president. >> i'm a qualified candidate for the office, because i'm determined, confident, goal oriented and decisive and most importantly, i'm drawn to equal rights. >> don't forget to tell them what we are running for. >> i'm running for house of representatives from the state of massachusetts. >> i'm running for the house of represe

representatives from the state of louisiana. >> why do you think that there have not been women presidents? >> it is very hard and a lot of money involved and also there are not that many opportunities for women. >> in the united states, yes sh, i stick to it, and then i stay in school, i can do it. >> girls can hold office and they are power, and it is not just men who are in power, so i'm encouraged now. parker, if you really want to doing smerconish and you want to be president, go for it. >> that is right, girls! go for it, because your country needs your leadership. any last thoughts? everybody say we love msnbc. >> we love msnbc. >> yeah! >> yeah. and that's ur show for today, and thank you for joining us and we will see you next week on saturday and sunday at 10:00 a.m. eastern and now it is time for "weekends with alex witt." i wish i was in the studio, because that is the best moment ev ever. and now with president obama, he is vowing to do one thing for the rest of the days in office. and plus we will have an

interview with spike lee and the chances off a trayvon martin documentary. and we also talk to star jones and her interview with o.j. simpson in his civil trial and what is coming up next for her, and it is pretty huge so don't go away. o make it inside. and here's the play. oh dad did not see this coming. [ crowd cheering ] now if kevin can just seize the opportunity. it's looking good, herbie. he's seen it. it's all over. nothing but daylight. yes i'd love a cookie. [ male announcer ] make a powerful first impression. the all-new nissan sentra. ♪

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