who just happened to have a different color skin. the power of the presidency, to redeem the promise of america. that's when the government of the people extends its promise to all the people. >> we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal. >> advancing the dream, nearly 50 years since president johnson signed that landmark civil rights bill. today our nation's presidents past and present are gathered on the university of texas campus at the lbj presidential library in austin, focusing on the historic effort a half a century ago. "washington post" political columnist starts us off. dana, it's been such a moving

day. and it's pretty remarkable to me how these historical perceptions of the presidency, how it changes as time passes. the way we talk about lbj, and george h.w. bush today, was not the way they were talked about when they were sitting in that office. looking 25 or 50 years from today, will we be talking about president obama in a totally different light? >> past is prologue, and we certainly will be. if you look at all presidents in the polling era, they all do better, sort of out of sight, out of mind, we begin to think more favorably of them. there is an exception. richard nixon still around 19%. so it is within reason. if you think about it, it's the human experience. and we tend to forget the more painful memories, and remember the good. so that's what we think of johnson and the civil rights act. we don't think of johnson, broken by the vietnam war, and sort of limping out of office. and very likely, we'll remember

president obama as the guy who extended health care to all americans. unless the republicans can repeal it in the next few months. >> and we do look back at johnson, and we look at the civil rights act as soft of government at its best. and as johnson's time in office, this historically productive time in terms of great society and the war on poverty. is it even possible to recapture that sort of progress and legislative productivity in the modern era? >> it certainly doesn't seem to be. and it's a little bit unfair to make the comparison to today, because the two political parties have become so homogenous in their own ways, and have become so polarized. it's very easy for us to sit back and say, why can't obama preside over the congress the way lyndon johnson was lord of the congress. but of course, it's completely apples and oranges right now.

hopefully there will be a time when we can actually get something done again, and, you know, we won't have this era of virtually zero productivity. i think there's been all of 90 pieces of legislation, including the ceremonial ones, passed in the last year and a half. >> i don't know if it's apples and oranges, but i think it's more like apples and spaceships. why lbj wanted the civil rights act, partly to help the south, he felt segregation separated the south from the rest of the nation. ending segregation, would mean the full integration of the south, into the union 50 years forward. the south is still very much a separate union politically and economically. in that regard, lbj's attempt sort of failed. >> right. it is probably more separate from the country now, because johnson was a southern democrat, and in that time, you have southern democrats. you had northern republicans.

the parties were not as polarized as they are today, which is why you had these sorts of alliances that you could build on individual issues, that you just don't have today. and thas a disadvantage, you know, certainly when we look at obamacare passing without a single republican vote. certainly there was opposition to the great society. but it was not entirely a single party's venture. >> yeah. and dana, when you look at the civil rights act, it had provisions, but it took another bill for voting in the next year. president clinton spoke about that in his address last night. let's take a listen. >> here in texas, the concealed carry permit counts. but there's one photo i.d. that doesn't count. one that's issued by any texas

institution of higher education. this is a way of restricting the franchise after 50 years of expanding it. anytime you erect a barrier to political participation, that disproportionately affects people, based on their race or their physical capacity or their income, or whether they've got a car to drive far enough and can afford the gasoline to get to a place so they can get an approved photo i.d. anytime you do any of that, it undermines the spirit of the civil rights act. >> there he is speaking at an institution of learning, at a university, in texas, as we celebrate all these things, yet he's invoking, of course, very recent efforts to say you can't vote because you need an i.d. but an i.d. from a university is not good enough. >> right. and good for president clinton

for doing that right there. i thinkment obama president obah was very moving, but in looking back we can say, yes, we still have work to do. but it was almost as if he's looking back and he wanted to cement his legacy. he wasn't looking to pick new fights here. and you know what, new fights do need to be picked because the other side is picking those fights. and i think that what president clinton was doing is important. and i think a lot of the current president's supporters would like to see more of a fight. yes, things are all bottled up in congress, that's not going to change. let's at least see an effort to get something of an agenda through. >> i feel like the civil rights act, dana, is the moment that really begins to mark the modern era in politics in terms of what were once southern dems shifted to republicans, this is the moment when the south turns red. and we start to really get that sort of partisan swording that

marks what we have today. we once had liberals and conservatives on both sides, and of course, we're sorted and the civil rights movement began that in earnest. >> maybe it was inevitable. of course, it didn't happen overnight. i believe in large parts of the south you still have more democrats than republicans. it happened over decades. then the echo effect happened in the north. in particular, in the northeast when the republicans became an endangered species where they were once dominant. this is not necessarily good for the country. the country is not nearly as polarized as our political parties are, because of the way they're structured. and if there were a way to get back there, when they were actually allegiances, when the most conservative democrat was actual actually -- crossed over the line so you actually had liberals, republicans who were more liberal than democrats, that would be beneficial in

terms of creating the kinds of unions you need to get legislation through. >> and the events playing out today and over the coming days where you have presidents from both sides of the aisle who are standing together. it was very much a bipartisan effort that led to the civil rights act movement. thank you so much for being here. the civil rights fights of our lifetime. what each speaker has hit on in texas. we're advancing the dream on this special day at the lbj presidential library in austin. larry temple said the 36th president would be proud. >> to have four presidents in one room in substance has never occurred in history. i think president johnson would be thrilled. we asked people a question,

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today we remain locked in this same great debate. about equality, and opportunity. the role of government ensuring each. >> equal opportunity for everyone, that's what president obama said is our generation's civil rights fight. the belief that anyone who works hard should have the chance to move ahead. critics often try to demagogue some of the safety nets to allow americans to get back on their feet when they need it. >> absolutely. i sat down with several members of the congressional black caucus. this is part two of my conversation with them. i talked to representatives, marsha fudge, bobby scott and robin kelly. and their positions are quite

clear about the government's role. >> many of us have needed a bridge over troubled water. even those of us who look like we've been great and had no problems throughout our life. so that's, to me, what government is for. you are the safety net for people that need help. illinois has a very high rate of unemployment. they don't see other options, or even see themselves living past 20 in some cases. then, yeah, they might be more violence. >> what are some of the solutions that you would like to see us enact to deal with this sort of scourge of violence that we have going on? >> i say this to young people all the time. they'll say, i'm not afraid to die, congresswoman. and i'll say, no, but you're afraid to live. it's harder to live. it's harder to have a job. it's hard to take care of your family. so i get them to think about what their life is really worth. they need to look at the numbers of working poor, the people who

work every day who use safety nets. they need to realize the fact that, less's take s.n.a.p. for instance. most of the people on s.n.a.p. are either children, the disabled or senior citizens. black people are not the majority of people on food stamps. that story needs to be told, because the more they imply that we have a culture of not wanting to work, it is a false narrative that is being created by people who would rather take care of the rich than the poor. >> if you look at where we are now, in terms of employment, there are many more people looking for jobs than there are jobs. so whatever you do, there are going to be a lot of people -- like musical chairs, you can help yourself out with job training, or something to make it more likely you might get one of those chairs, but whatever we do in this kind of economy, there will be people left out. i think it's just cruel to suggest that those people who are left out can't find a job, and they'll be there, should not

get support. >> what the cbc is focused on is issues that affect people of color primarily, but eradicate poverty. black people vote their issues. and i think that, you know, you look at black people with republicans at the lincoln, because they saw lincoln represented the issues that were important to them. they went to roosevelt, why? because roosevelt addressed the issues that were important to them. in 1960, black people were breaking 50/50 then. they didn't know whether to go for nixon or for kennedy in 1960. no one knows which party dr. king belonged in. jackie robinson was a republican, because at that time, you know, black people were looking to see who represented the issues that best represented them. black people then started voting for the democratic party, because the democratic party listened, and adjudicated the issues that were important to them. >> watch the republicans vote, on voting rights, on

opportunity, to make sure everybody has opportunity, education. just look at the votes. and you'll see that there is a difference between the democratic party and the republican party. >> the approaches to those issues, ray, are always different. >> not always. not always. i mean, sometimes they are, yes. but the reality is the problem exists, you're talking about a difference in how we approach it. but i think if you grow up in a community of color, no matter what your party is, there has to be something in you that makes you understand who we are and where we come from. >> great interviews there by toure. there's more on the website if you need it. now we go to the table and talk about it. what was striking there is the statistics, the economic piece of this. but also the idea that as

several members of cbc were telling you, toure, there's been this shift over time. there used to be much more political competition. civil rights has shifted a lot of that. with the anniversary here, larry temple is someone who worked as special counsel to president johnson, now tas actually worked running that library. he was talking about the significance and how rare it is to have so many different presidents from different parties coming not together necessarily for ceremonial, but actually something he deemed substantive. take a look at that. >> i think president johnson, were he here today, would be absolutely thrilled with this civil rights summit. never in the history of this country have four presidents been involved in the same program of substance. it is true that presidents gather for ceremonial occasions, opening the presidential libraries. but to have four presidents in one program of substance, i think has never occurred in the history of this country. and likely won't occur again.

i think president johnson would have been thrilled with it. >> that's larry temple making a big claim this has never occurred before. i would actually say in terms of carefully defining it, there are things around military and foreign policy where we also see the presidents come together. but i would say on domestic policy, this is probably the first time in the modern era, and yet, as we were discussing with president clinton, while the symbolism is there, and it's great, i applaud george w. bush and bush sr. for going down there on that, it is wonderful. it is not the case that the republican party is as committed on these issues. voting rights, voter i.d., that disproportionately affect african-americans as well as other minority groups, marriage equality issues. these are civil rights. we're down there commemorating the civil rights act and that's great, but i would like to see the presidents from the republican parties speak to their own membership and move forward on legislation today. >> i agree with that. the traditional civil rights

issues and discussions become somewhat invisible. we talk about these issues that have a disproportionate impact on black and brown people, like entitlements, minimum wage, voter i.d., the war on drugs and mass incarceration. we can support or attack these policies without saying anything racist, but ultimately what you're really saying is whether or not you have sympathy for the needs of black and brown people, especially poor black and brown people. in the controversial new york magazine cover story, very controversial, he said the obama years are defined by an argument over the size of the government to big government, and that they deserve it. and there's no separating this discussion from one's sympathies toward black america. >> and what barack obama's presidency in some ways has done, and jamel was writing about this, is bringing to the surface the fears of white people that they are losing hold

of the power that they've held for very long. he cites interesting research at northwestern university showing that basically when white people are told that the country is becoming a majority minority country, they move further to the right, and adopt more conservative views, just based on that piece of information. so looking forward into the future, we are very hopeful that we're going to see increasing racial harmony, and equality over the years. but i think that research points to some work that we have yet to do, and some sort of potentially tumultuous times we have ahead of us. >> we talk about race a lot on this show. but i've been emotional today watching these events play. i'm speaking as someone who will never fully understand the hurdles and challenges that these people faced. but this bipartisan effort, this fight, and there's a quote that martin luther king gave, so many powerful quotes from the king, but this stood out to me. he said in the end we will remember not the words of our

enemies, but the silence of our friends. and i think one thing we have learned over the years is this is not just about the african-american community, this is about everyone. this is about the nation. as we continue to fight for the civil rights issues of today, it's going to take all of us. it's going to take us not just sitting in silence, not just standing by, but actually speaking, actually doing something. i hope we can all do a better job of that. >> i hear that. i think that also goes to the idea there were two pillars here. there was equality, which is to stop the ongoing challenge. now we are going to ask people at home, how are you vabsing the civil rights dream? tweet, there's a hash tag, advancing the dream. join in. if you search that hash tag, you find some of the reporting on today's speeches as well, including the president's. up next, the latest in the big news story we've been

covering this week, the search for flight 370, and the pennsylvania school stabbing. to the 6-cylinder, 8-speed lexus gs. with more standard horsepower than any of its german competitors. this is a wake-up call. ♪

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promising new developments in the race to find missing malaysian flight 370. on day 33 of the search, we are now learning australian teams have detected a new underwater signal in the same area of the indian ocean where four previous pings were picked up. there's still a long way to go. hope only gets us so far. tom costello is in washington for us tracking all of these latest developments, as always. tom, what have you got? >> we have a fifth ping. this was picked up by an underwater buoy dropped by an australian air force plane, with a hydrophone that can listen 1,000 feet underwater. it's dangling 1,000 feet underwater. this is about 1,000 miles or so off the coast of australia, in this area right here. this is the exact same area where they picked up other pings, other pings that were picked up by, as you probably know already, by the ship ocean shield pulling along this

hydrophone, and this towed pinger locator. these pings are all in about a 500-square-mile area. it's a vast area. despite what it looks like on the map. let me show you the video, the animation of what the towed pinger locator does. it moves through the water at about a depth of two miles or so, listening for any pings. this is the device that has now picked up four separate sets of pings. they believe that those pings are coming potentially from the black box, which is at a depth of about three miles, or almost three miles down. if they can triangulate the pings, which is what they're working on right now, the next step will be to drop down this underwater autonomous submarine called the bluefin 21. it will use sonar to map the ocean's surface. that is a very big job, because as we said, we're talking about potentially 500 square miles. and it is pitch black down there. so lights don't even work very well. they've got to use sonar, which is essentially bouncing sound

aim knowledges off everything around it to create a map. and if they find anything, they would go back down and photograph it. here's the next challenge, though. in this area beneath the ocean, we're talking about substantial layers of silt. this is described as millions of years biological decay, and muck. and it is makes this area potentially very thick. there's a wide discrepancy, i should tell you, on exactly how big of a challenge this would be. some say it could literally cause something to sink up to your waist, if you're standing down there which would be impossible, but if you could imagine somebody standing in this up to their waist. other people say, no, no, no, it would only cover your feet. there's a wide discrepancy. why? because this area has never been thoroughly mapped because, of course, it is so remote and so deep. but this could potentially, as you know, end up being the deepest salvage operation in modern history for a jetliner, three miles down. but they still need to

triangulate those pings, get a better fix on where this plane might be resting, and they're still racing against time because they need to get as much of that stuff documented before the batteries die out on those pingers. lastly, the point everybody's made to me over the past two weeks, is don't expect this to be a fast operation. once they do drop that underwater submersible down to map the ocean floor, that process alone could take weeks. and then the next operation to drop down an autonomous submarine with claws to rip apart wreckage and pick up the black boxes, that could take weeks or months. and oh, by the way, it is october down there right now, or the equivalent thereof. they're in fall. and the weather could get even worse in that particular area. so this could be a process that goes on for many, many months. some even said more than a year. but we'll have to see how that all shakes out. >> tom costello, thank you so much. also, cycling right now,

there's another search for answers this afternoon. what prompted a 16-year-old high school sophomore to carry out a mass stabbing on a campus outside of pittsburgh. that's what the 22 victims and their families are asking this afternoon. all of them survived but will never be able to forget the terrifying moments before the opening bell. you're about to hear one young victim describe the harrowing ordeal the best he can. the same goes for his best friend for whom he nearly gave his life. >> i didn't really know what was going on at the time, because i was walking down the hall with a friend of mine, gracie evans. and then it all, like, hit. she was screaming. i was just standing there. and just everything just went like -- i didn't even know what was going on. >> i couldn't believe that my best friend just took a knife to me. i couldn't tell you how much blood was on that knife. it's just too scary. >> as for the suspect, alex

hribal, he is being charged an adult. the biggest question right now, his state of mind. >> that's the first question, is whether he's competent to understand the nature of the charges. that's a different question than mental health defense at trial. >> now, that's something that will obviously take some time to determine. his parents had little to say to reporters. but his father's very few words spoke volumes about what the family is going through right now. >> i hope they recover as soon as possible. >> joining us right now is psychiatrist gail saltz, who teaches at presbyterian hospital. a horrific story. what does the fact that he used a knife tell you about his psychological state of mind versus a gun? >> the truth is, it doesn't tell you much. you could say, okay, a knife

attack seems like a closer, more intimate attack in the sense that you have to be close to your subject as opposed to the anonymity of shooting at bunches of people. but really, you don't know that. it may have to do with the fantasy of whatever fantasy this person was having. whether it was a delusion, like real break with reality, or related to something he had seen, and he got in his mind about whatever he was trying to accomplish. that somehow a knife meant something different to him than, say, using a gun. >> the people who knew the young man said he seemed normal. nothing seemed out of the ordinary, to suggest that this might happen. we often talk about young people today as overshares. i remember when i was a teenager, everybody seemed to oversharing for that era. how is it that somebody that young, teenager, could get that angry with the world, and not let anybody know? >> you know, there are two possibilities. one is that when a teen is

moving into, say, serious mental illness, and it does often present at this age, first break, say a psychotic break, schizophrenia, and they have enough awareness to know something is wrong, they don't share. they become very guarded. and they don't tell anyone what's going on, because it's scary. and they don't want to reveal that maybe they're becoming ill. so in fact, you might not realize that someone -- their peers might not realize that. the other possibility is if it's more in the area of oppositional defiant disorder, where i am just enraged, i want to take myself out, i want to take everybody else out, which is what most of these disasters end up being, the loner who is angry, feel disenfranchised. people said he hadn't been bullied, but nobody really knows. that totally could have been going on. and people didn't know. and you feel angry. like, i am getting back at the world and then i'm taking myself out. if that was your plan, you wouldn't necessarily be sharing

that with anyone. i think we'll have to wait and see. because even psychiatrists who are seeing patients, and we saw this in the holmes case in colorado, don't necessarily know that someone's going to become violent if they don't overtly say so. >> when you look at a community going through this psychologically, what is the right approach? what is a healthy way to process and talk about what happened? >> well, i think that what we've learned over the years is you can't make people talk. or you could, but it's actually not good for them. some people will need to talk and there should be counselors available, mental health people available for that, in an ongoing way. because the kids closely associated, and the parents and teachers who were closely there, they are likely to suffer from ptsd long term. you would expect those kind of symptoms. they need to be followed going out. other people won't need to. and actually, some people biologically just aren't likely to develop ptsd. and they might be okay, and you shouldn't force them to -- you might actually make them worse. if someone is basically saying

they're okay, you remain in touch with them, you don't see symptoms, that's all right. a lot of the community, believe it or not, is going to bounce back. i think what parents have to remember everywhere, because we all go, oh, my gosh, this is happening all the time, is, a, it's not happening all the time. we're in a 24/7 news cycle. you hear it over and over and it makes it feel like it is. but your child is more likely to be hit crossing the street or struck by lightning than happen this happening. >> school incidents are actually down in the aggregate. >> but we don't think so because when that's all we're hearing. >> i'm hearing from people saying, why is this happening. it's important that you tell your children that, because what's more likely is school phobia, separation anxiety, and real mental health consequences about kids being too afraid to go to school and concentrate on their work. >> that's such an important point. >> you have to reassure them even if it's only 99.99% true and you feel like you're not

being honest with your child, tell them they are safe at school. >> dr. gail saltz, thank you so much for being with us. a fascinating new history of america. the bankers and presidenting who shaped it together. [ female announcer ] who are we? we are the thinkers. the job jugglers. the up all-nighters. and the ones who turn ideas into action. we've made our passions our life's work. we strive for the moments where we can say, "i did it!" ♪ we are entrepreneurs who started it all...

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where businesses pay no taxes for ten years. you'll get a warm welcome in the new new york. see if your business qualifies at startupny.com we take it as a given today, money drives politics, and last week's supreme court ruling proves that's not changing anytime soon. now, new research suggests that economic power shapes policy as well. two university researchers analyzed nearly 1,800 policy outcomes over 20 years and found the preferences of ordinary citizens had little effect on policy outcomes. while the collective preferences of economic elites in the top 90% income bracket were 15 times as important as those of ordinary citizens. no surprise financial journalist's new book all the president's bankers explores the

lucrative and history-changing relationships between presidents and leading bankers over the past century. author and former wall street executive nomi prince talks about it all. nomi, you talk about how this relationship and this power dynamic goes back over 100 years. but you pinpoint an inflection point, where it goes from bankers working with presidents in the interest of the public good, to bankers working with presidents just in their own interests to enrich themselves. >> it was actually a dip, because it started to enrich themselves, then the inflection point happened between the '30s and '60s. we've been hearing a lot about lbj today. he was very close, personally close to many bankers. in fact, winthrop aldrich, one of the powerful banking families of the time, ran chase, was a very good friend of fdr.

they together behind the scenes decided to reform the banking system to stabilize it. i didn't know that. the relationship worked to help the public, and to separate the banks, create reforms, and enhance the economy for the rest of the population. and that set out -- of course, there was a world war, a cold war, the great society that lbj put forth, but throughout all those decades, you had a more stable banking system and you had close personal ties of the bankers at the top of the banks and the presidents in between where they did things for each other, that benefited the power of america, the power of the presidency, the profitability of the bankers, but the benefit of the public. >> let's bring that up to the present day. wall street, is, of course, the leading source of political donations. is that why the street was not punished for what happened in the 2007, 2008 recession? >> exactly. those relationships used to be

personal, morphed into what does it do for me. it morphed in the '70s under nixon, because they discovered they could be bailed out by government from reagans to bush. and they decided to expand to find new territory to make money. they also needed more deregulation at home. bush and clinton helped with deregulation at home. they completely detached from public interest in presidents in terms of helping the country stabilize in the financial system. and they went into what became the crisis of 2008 with a lot of maneuvering in between behind the scenes, not caring what the risk would do to the general public. the result was that crisis, we haven't seen any accountability to the leaders. today jamie dimon said he was sorry. sort of like, i didn't know the gun was loaded. >> let me jump in there. they haven't had any accountability or indictments in any major way. but you mentioned the bailouts. we had to bail some of them out supposedly because they ran out of money, right? just this week, under the obama

administration, we're seeing the capital requirements raised up to about 5%, higher than some european countries. >> it's a little bit of mirage, the increase in the capital requirement. it will not take effect until 2018. there's a lot of time for maneuverabili maneuverability. and they only look at a portion of a bank's books in terms of capital. what it doesn't do, are reforms that came out of the crisis, the frank dod act doesn't do is separate, specifically separate the activities of any kind, whether trading or creating weird toxic securities from the depositors and taxpayers of this nation, which is what the glass spe spiegel act did. there's no reform structurally to make it happen. >> really important and very interesting stuff. thank you so much for being with us. >> thank you. >> a bit of a transition here. with ewanted to let you know today i'm starting a special

video series for our website. we called it abby's adventures. here's a sneak peek of volume one. >> if you have to have three types of alcohol in your home, just for entertaining, making drinks for people, what would you say? >> if i'm picking three, i want to go with versatility that will make the majority of the people in my house happy. so definitely some american whiskey. also vodka, you always have to have that at a party. and then i would say maybe the third one being te kill a. >> i heard you came up with a drink for cycle. >> i did. >> i would love to see what that is. >> can you shake it? >> i'm a little nervous. >> do it. >> this is definitely perfect for "the cycle." >> i'm glad you like it. >> i need a little help with the shaking apparently. our cycle ists loved it.

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[ female announcer ] when sweet and salty come together, the taste is irresistible. sweet and salty nut bars by nature valley. nature at its most delicious. how much money do you think you'll need when you retire? then we gave each person a ribbon to show how many years that amount might last. i was trying to, like, pull it a little further. [ woman ] got me to 70 years old. i'm going to have to rethink this thing. it's hard to imagine how much we'll need for a retirement that could last 30 years or more. so maybe we need to approach things differently, if we want to be ready for a longer retirement. ♪ are you white? i'm not meaning are you not black or brown or asian? are you of european descent?

do you think of yourself as raceless? do you think people of color have race, but you really don't? our next guest realized that she didn't think of herself as white, and changed, and now she says becoming aware of whiteness has made her more a productive part of our racialized world. now that you are aware of your whiteness, what does it mean? see, it's funny. you laugh. >> yeah. >> i might ask a black guest, what does it mean to be black, but i ask you, what does it mean to be white? that sounds funny, but real question. >> what it means is that i -- my entire childhood, i see in a different light, the town i grew up in was a very white town. that town couldn't have been white unless black and brown people were obstructed. being white means being able to think through my entire life before, now and in the future in a much broader context and be able to make decisions that

engage in a much more racially culturally competent way. if that makes sense. >> it does. you talk in the book that you had an aha moment, a sort of personal awakening to the fact that you had lived a privileged life. and your whole life had been colored by your race without you even realizing it. >> yeah. that's really clever marketing because it says on the back of the moment, one aha moment changed her life. and people are going, where is the aha moment? it does get white people to pick up the book, which is my goal. it was an issue that's broad and deep. there are in fact many aha moments. in fact i'm still having them, and i'll probably have them the rest of my life. when we said the aha moment on the back of the book, i ended up at age 48 in taking a class, and i was going because i was going to learn about other people, their races and their cultures so i could help teach them

better. the professor said, what's going to be hard is you're going to be doing a deep dive into your own racial identity. my thought is, what am i going to do? because i really didn't think white race. i thought it was just normal. and at six months later, what i learned about the racialized experiences i had had from the day i was probably -- before i was born, actually, the way it had disabled me, as a teacher and member of society, i was so thunder struck by the information i had gotten that that's why i decided to write the book. >> that's relevant a part of the book, i never question whether i belonged in america. i grew up believing police were there to protect me. if you get lost or feel worried look for a policeman. five miles away, black mothers and boston teaching their children not to play hide and seek left it appear they were sneaking around. if you get stopped by the

police, keep your hands in plain sight so they don't think you have a gun. >> absolutely. >> yeah. you know, i know that my friends who are good friends -- this is the other thing -- across racial friendships can be hard because people of color not to talk about race to white people. white people, we're taught not to talk about race. if a person of color did talk to me, i would say, must be making that up or imagining things, that stuff can't happen in america. i have friends today who still clench up when they see a police car or policeman. for me, it's like, friendly person. >> yeah. >> oftentimes with an elephant in the room with race we fall back to laughter. what it means to be white, it makes us more comfortable talking about it but you never know who you might be hurting when you are making jokes about race. do you think laughter is a tool that could be hurtful or can it

bring people together. >> i think it's all about the context. so i spent a lot of time with colleagues, this is all we talk and think about, but there's plenty of laughter. you have to laugh. but laughing at, like a joke, at the expense of another person, there's, to me, nothing funny about that because of what that does it perpetuates stereotypes and makes it -- and again, this go backs to who -- we've been taught to stay in our social roles. if i person, whether talking about race, class, religion, if they're in the room and hear, if they speak up and say something they're marked as overly sensitive. >> right. >> it's not a fair exchange. and so, i would say, you know, it's about the context. >> great point. >> absolutely. debbie irving, thank you so much. you got a little whiter today. it's good. >> up next, abbie takes the high road, mary jane, the sticky icky

icky.

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if you own the property, right, do you own like the sand and the water? >> nobody owns the water. it's god's water. what if someone walks on to your beach, like, say you own it, right. >> no, man you don't even the beach. >> the sand, beach. >> what if there's a naked girl on the beach? >> hilarious pot pop culture references abound today. but it wasn't all of that long ago i remember sitting in my fifth grade dare class learning about perils of any drug use, including marijuana. weed, as toure says the cool kids call it the gateway drug.

try it, you're on your way to being a drug addict. that's why it's fascinating to see how far we've come. look at this, today majority of americans support legalizing pot, up 22% over the past decade. 75% say legalization is inev inevitab inevitable. there's a striking change in attitude among boomers and older americans. but that's public opinion. on the politics front, though colorado and washington and fully legalized it, not one sitting governor or u.s. senator openly supports federal marijuana legalization and much of the leadership on the issue is coming from republicans. like rand paul who says it's wrong to put pot smokers behind bars and governors like rick perry and bob j. jindal are open to rethinking marijuana laws. o'malley announced he will sign a bill decriminalizing small amounts of marijuana in maryland. democrats have been more cautious on this. take this from "the new york

times." democrats and younger voters leaving the wave of the pro legalization shift, democratic governors are standing back, supporting much more limit medical marijuana proposals or invoking law and order and public health arguments heard from republicans. when president nixon kicked off the war on drugs in 1971, america thought it was important enough to discourage drug use that the nation was willing to put people behind bars and spend billions to do so, if that's what it took. but 43 years later, we are asking ourselves if this still makes sense because there are huge societal and economic costs for some of these people, this is their first offense. they made the choice to use drugs illegally. i'm not here to defend them but labeling them as criminals has a true human cost. there's the economics awarding to one economist, marijuana prohibition costing us much as $20 billion a year. that's when you consider how much we'd save on law enforcement, the country would gain in tax revenue. just think about that for a

second. $20 billion. with 4.1 million from pot taxes in february, colorado could bring in as much as $100 million this year alone. if you're a politician today, it's hard to look at current reality and say, you know what, i'm not even going to consider evolving on this. for those concerned about political backlash, an gra greenberg argues there is little evidence in most states a politician would pay a price for supporting legalization. we've moved in into a frame not ideological, a system being broken, not working and legalization involves strict regulation that would allow the state to collect revenues. that makes sense to the kind of voters that electived are concerned about. if that's the way it's being discussed it's not a liability for a politician. i think she's on to something. take note, people have already einvolved on the issue of pot. when will you? all right. that does it for "the cycle." "now with alex wagner" starts now. >> daryl issa channels the ghost

of joe mccarthy. thursday, april 10th and this is "now." the witch hunt gets spookier. daryl issa's house oversight and government reform committee took the rare and historic step of voting to hold a witness in contempt of congress. in this particular instance, that witness is lois learner, the object of chairman issa's year-long multimillion dollar crusade to find something, anything, iffy at the irs. republicans who have chosen to march lock step with issa on his dark mission claim that lernor violated the law after she made opening remarks last year. the full house is expected to take up the contempt resolution in the coming weeks. in taking this step, chairman issa walks in a path of giants. giant whose were later deemed to be unhinged crusading lunatics. as a point of fact, no witness has been held in