this morning, my question. why is a school yard brawl unfolding in the courts? plus, a u.s. congressman claims there is a war on whites. and the verdict this week was guilty on all three counts. but, first, president obama explains the latest mission in iraq. good morn oing, i'm melissa harris-perry. this morning we begin with the latest where last night the u.s. military conducted a third air drop of food and water to thousands of civilians by militant extremists. the militaitary conducted more

strikes. u.s. fighter jets and drones struck several isis to defend trapped on the mountain. nbc news foreign correspondent keira simmons is on the ground in iraq. he filed this report this morning. >> kurdish forces are battling with isis on the outskirts of this city embolden by the usairstrikes to take out some of that isis equipment that was so threatening. this city under threat, a bill that prompted president obama to act. now, there are blood curdling stories from iraq's human rights minister saying that 500 members of the community have been killed saying that he believes 300 women have been kidnapped and even telling terrible stories about some people being married alive by isis. little wonder that the civilians are so frightened that so many

of them flee and there is such a sense that this city has to be protected. the question, of course, is if those battles between the kurds and isis combined with the air strikes do not push isis back what does the west do then? >> that was keir simmons in erbil, iraq. a glimpse into the thinking of the commander in chief when president obama spoke to reporters at length about his decision to involve the united states, again, in iraq. via air strikes and humil teumhn aid. one question seemed to put the president on the defensive. >> last question. >> president, do you have any second thoughts about pulling all ground troops out of iraq and does it give you pause as a u.s., doing the same thing in

afghanistan? >> yeah. you know what i just find interesting is the degree to which this issue keeps on coming up, as if this was my decision. >> the president was responding to criticism from the right that the exit of the last u.s. combat troops from iraq in 2011 directly caused the current outbreak of violence in iraq. the criticism has comes from people like former vice president dick cheney and senator john mccain. they blame the president for the violence and the rise of isis. president obama argued that he could not have left any troops in iraq because the sovereign iraqi government would not allow the troops to stay and made sure to mention it was the previous administration, not his own, that handed control of iraq over to the iraqi government. with meed to, amy goodman, host and producer of democracy now and jake jacobs honor recipient.

thanks to both of you for being here. the press conference happened live while we were on the air and that moment when the president begins to respond to that last question, amy, i felt a shift in his mood and tone. when he said, this keeps coming up as though that was my decision and, hasn't he sort of repeatedly told us that this was his decision? >> well, first of all, i think he should abide by what he initially felt about the war in iraq, when he was a state senator. and that is oppose it. and oppose it, again. he says, yes, the decision to pull out now is ultimately, actually, because of the bush administration. and the end agreement that was reached. and that if he kept soldiers on the ground they could be tried in iraqi courts. we have to ask questions about should some soldiers and particularly mercenary companies like what was formally known as black water be try in iraqi

courts for what was done there. right now president obama should abide by what he originally thought about the war in iraq. this can do no one knany good. >> both president obama in 2000 maev making the pledge to remove troops and also in 2011 tr trumpeting his capacity to pull troops out. >> i can promise you this. if we ehave not gotten our troops out by the time i am president, it is not the first thing i will do. we will bring our troops home. you can take that to the bank. >> as a candidate for president, i pledge to bring the war in iraq to a responsible end. today, i can say that our troops in iraq will definitely be home for the holidays. >> so colonel jacobs, given he has taken this position. i understand the combat troops are different than the residual forces that could have been left, but given sort of the long history of president obama

taking that position, is it, in fact, a bogus question as he described it to ask him whether or not working harder to have a status of forces agreement and leave residual troops in iraq would have made a difference here? >> it's not a bogus question. it's a responsible question to ask. if you want to hear the continuity of the conversations ark from the very beginning that you just showed until now, i think it's important to ask that question so we can renew the investigation. there's plenty of blame to go around. >> sure. >> the original sin is going there in the first place. but it was compounded by the decision to put an insufficient number of troops there to secure the objectiuobjective. it always takes more resources to hold on to amilitary objectie than it does in the first place. anybody including petraeus and mcchrystal, any person with military experience would say the same thing. it would have taken 200 to 300,000 troops for a decade to

make sure that whatever gains we have made in iraq were secured and secured for a long period of time. by the way, the most surprise in the world when we went into iraq in the first place was saddam hussein. >> given our long relationship with them. as i was listen to the president, hereser for me as a progressive as a chicagoen living in hyde park and opposed the war. that original sin of going in and then once that sin is committed, do we bear a special responsibility because part of what i heard the president say yesterday as we now as a nation own the yazidi problem. >> we absolutely bear a responsible responsibility. >> the u.s. has bombed the u.s. civilization back to the cradle and all havoc has broken loose

right now. this is not a surprise. i'm sitting here with "isis in the new sunni uprising." >> there is a book on this? >> this goes to root causes. you go around the world and when isis was taking over eastern syria, the world was focused on what was happening in gaza. we cannot forget this. now, look what president obama said when he announced the attack, the usair strikes in iraq. he said talking about the zaz yazidi. we must help them. here he is saying when we just saw this in gaza, 1,900 palestinians killed and not only did the u.s. not help, but they provided those that killed them with the ammunition. >> i'll go further. i'll suggest on our southern border right now we have young people that are fleeing circumstances of certain death

and we have partisan agreement on both sides to return those young people as swiftly as possible. given that, we know it can't solely be about civilians in danger. the president said that. >> the support for malaki who has created disvd. many sunnis were not joining because they feel undersiege from the current prime minister, but the u.s. has given tens of billions of dollars to iraq. >> this goes, colonel jack, to what ask you just said about saddam hussein being surprised about the u.s. intervention shocked in iraq because of our long-standing coalition with him initially, particularly over and against iran. is that where malaki is right now. as he hears the president of the united states stand there and say isis would not happen if you would have been the prime minister? is he experiencing a certain sense of shock? >> no.

he knows he's an irrehensible crook. nor what he had promised to do and that is to be inclusive and make sure that iraq's in the position to defend himself. >> we put up with a tremendous amount of money and weapons and missiles. that isis has. >> we don't conflate the strategic with the tactical. and i think the president's being disengenwise when he talks about the large scale, the longer ark of the conversation in iraq. his decision to drop bombs on bad guys. by the way, we haven't dropped very many bombs. we only had like a dozen which is insufficient really to do the job. is for two reasons. protect erbil, which vitally important that we protect erbil. thousands of americans in that area. and to do what we can to protect the ten of thousand innocent people sitting on top of the mountain. these are not strategic

objectives. they have nothing to do with our interest. >> and i will just say it, the core, i really fundamentally believe we have the right to ask about that, even if it irritates our leaders. >> congress should be debating it. >> every one's on vacation. thank you to colonel jack jacobs and amy goodman is going to stick around. the continuing violence in the place that amy just reminded us of. gaza. efforts to create a cease-fire. and startup ny companies will be investing hundreds of millions of dollars in jobs and infrastructure. thanks to startup ny, businesses can operate tax free for 10 years. no property tax. no business tax. and no sales tax. which means more growth for your business, and more jobs. it's not just business as usual. see how new york can help your business grow, at startup.ny.gov

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hostilities are continuing in gaza and israel today after a three-day cease-fire came to an end on friday. the death toll has continued to rise since hostilities began last month. more than 9,100 palestinians have been killed, including 450 children. nearly 10,000 more have been

wounded. 67 israelis have been killed in the fighting, including three civilians. joining us now with the latest from tel aviv is nbc news correspondent martin fletcher. martin, are we any closer to coming to an agreement to end this fighting? >> hi, melissa. i think there is movement in cairo, but the israelis are not there taking part in the negotiations. they came back on friday for the sabbath and said they're not coming back to cairo until the firing stops. they're not in cairo negotiating, nevertheless, progress being made there of a kind. it appears, this hasn't been confirmed yet, but it appears they agree to an egyptian proposal for another 72 cease-fire, another three-day humanitarian cease-fire. that has been agreed to, apparently, by the palestinians. there's been no response specifically to that by israel but this morning after the cabinet meeting prime minister

netanyahu said only in addition to israel not negotiating under fire he also said the military operation is ongoing. that's the word he used. ongoing. still fighting going on. they have to say it's pretty half-hearted compared to the way it's been. in the last 15-hour period 15 rockets fired in gaza. other militant operations have been doing the fire. 15, that's down from a daily average of 140 rockets a day. rockets being fired at israel, not many, only one needed to be intercepted by the anti-missile rocket system and israel has fired back about 35 times into gaza today killing, a 12-year-old boy. not clear yet what those circumstances were. still fighting continuing. it's not nearly as intense as it was. israel has sent home half of the army reserves it called up. they sent back 40,000 reserves out of 86,000.

that's another sign that an imminent increase in the fighting is not really on the horizon. what ishorizon, though, progress in that cease-fire talks probably if the palestinians are proposing a 72-hour cease-fire israel will come aboard within a day or two. and that cease-fire is intended to provide time and space to end the fighting in the longer term. i would say things are looking good, but not yet there, melissa. >> nbc news martin fletcher in tel aviv. thanks for your continued reporting. up next, the fight over our teachers is now raging coast to coast. and the latest battleground is the courtroom.

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♪ fill their bowl with the meaty tastes they're looking for, with friskies grillers. tender meaty pieces and crunchy bites. in delicious chicken, beef, turkey, and garden veggie flavors. friskies grillers. new york state is the latest target for efforts to end teacher tenure. education reform has won a major victory in june when the teacher

tenure statutes were unconstitutional. two lawsuits filed in new york state. one is being funded and coordinated by david welch's group, students matter. that group led the california case. also, former cnn and nbc news anchor campbell brown has been leading media efforts for the second lawsuit. she joined msnbc's chris matthews on monday and shared a key talking point against tenure laws. >> how we're getting rid of tenure laws make education for the average kid better. >> we have a lot of challenges we need to address. this is one of them. the goal of getting an effective teacher in front of every child. what tenure laws have become is permanent lifetime employment. >> permanent lifetime employment. now, that is what supreme court justices have. but it's not an accurate description of teacher tenure. policies differ by state, but generally tenure is best understood as due process.

massachusetts a state ranked first in the nation in k through 12 educational outcomes. massachusetts law provides that teachers receive professional teacher status after three years of service and a teacher with professional teacher status pursuant to section 41 shall not be dismissed, except for inefficiency, incapacity and conduct on becoming a teacher or failure on the part of the teacher to satisfy teacher performance standards pursuant to section 38 this chapter or other just cause. i mean, you start reading law. the statute also spells out due process available for those educators with professional teacher status, including review of a dismissal decision within 30 days after receiving notice of the dismissal. and in arbitration, the school district shall have the burden of proof in determining whether consistent with this section. consider the best interest in

the pupils in the district and the need for elevation of performance standards. why are such high-profile efforts with little no expertise drawing such support? perhaps it's because we increasingly framed education reform as a choice between what is good for teachers and what is good for students. accountability, longer school days, longer school years, ten-years, charters, magnets. have we lost sight of what teaching and learning actually look like? joining me now is amy goodman, host and executive producer of "democracy now." staff writer at the marshal project and author of "the teacher wars." randy winegarden american federation of teachers and executive director of new york campaign for achievement now. thanks for being here. >> thanks for having us. >> let me start, dana, because i wonder if i have the history wrong. this feels so new to me. it feels to me like i grew up in

the '70s and '80s when the common belief is that teachers are underpaid and good folks doing the best they can and we may have problems in schools, the teachers aren't the problems, generally the solution versus what feels like now a general consensus, not absolute, that teachers are a serious part of our educational underperformance. is that older than i think? is it new? maybe it feels older. >> that's one of the things that surprised me so much when i was researching and writing this book about the history of teaching. we had this idea around since the early 19th century that if we get rid of the people that are teaching now and replace them with a new group of teachers that we can really improve our schools. and we've done that a couple different times. teaching was originally a male profession in the early 1800s and changed it to a female profession and we tried all these different ways to get people in a new profession. >> we fired teachers for getting pregnant unmarried. i mean, i don't mean to be, that

is part of why these laws grew up. >> tenure actually dates back to 1909. new jersey was the first state to institute it. and at the time, it was something that a lot of reformers and teachers actually agreed about. we saw teachers getting fired for a lot of ridiculous reasons back then because they were pregnant, perhaps they were african-american or for so many different reasons or they just didn't get along with the mayor. at that time everyone agreed this is messed up and let's create a stronger set of laws. tenures created a lot of the laws we have today. >> given that, that could be an argument against teacher tenure. that could be an argument that says, all right, this was about 1909 and this was about us not having the kinds of civil rights protections that we have against identity and you can't fire someone for those purposes and let's shed teacher tenure because it is redundant. that isn't typically the way i hear the argument. i hear it framed as tenure provides lifetime employment for

bad teachers. honestly, as i look at the statutes, i don't see, for the most part that that is what tenure does. >> it's, obviously, much more nuanced and i will agree with you, i, too, grew up in the '70s and '80s. there is a difference between the idea of the intellectual and professional tenure and how they manifest themselves in the world. i think you really hit on the most important thing which is that the due process protections in tenure are kind of like the protections that most public employees have already but on steroi steroids. the difference between the safety patrol and the military. so, in new york state, it costs $300,000 and takes 830 days to remove a teacher who is demonstrated as ineffective on a student achievement. take more time or less but the fact it takes three years and

$300,000 i would argue is both bad for the teacher and terrible for the student. >> so help me understand where that number comes from. >> sure. so, it's, the process is so arcane, it has so many steps, so many legal interactions takes so much will and effort to do. again, it's like so financially burdensome that no one does it. so, tenure itself, i would think, you know, campbell we're not necessarily saying that teachers shouldn't have tenure. we're saying that like, well -- >> but that actually, i mean, i appreciate that there is complexity here, but they are really saying teachers shouldn't have tenure. >> can i just say? look, we should have real conversations about this. but we shouldn't live in an evidence-free zone. we saw that allegation in one of the cases. and, you know -- >> the $300,000, three years.

>> frapg nkly, when i said this "morning joe" this week, as well. think about what you just said about the teacher tenure laws. we stepped up and saw that they were taking too long. and that people were not managing them right. and in new york state, in 2012, there was a legal change and the state department of education has put out facts that predate, meaning, campbell brown and her bevy of lawyers could have found them. right now in new york state, it takes an average about 150 days to do these cases and, frankly, melissa, when we did this work with ken feinburg in a sexual misconduct case, it should take about 100 days. what you put out last week the median takes 100 days. so, the point is, these laws are important and the unions stepped up. you even, you even praised the change in new jersey. >> i worked on the change in new jersey.

>> what i'm saying is that we're living in a deja vu situation where we said, let's figure out how to reform things in a way that works where you actually have due process and you have dismissal and you also streamline the process and that's what the new yorkers have done. why is she bringing the case? >> we have much, much more on all of this, plenty. i promise. up next, what if a key fact used in the california ruling on teacher tenure wasn't quite a fact at all. like it was more like a guess. what difference does that make to the ruling? when we come back. that depends man, what are you doing? just cruising around in my new ride. oh, the one i'm not suppose to touch, right? you got it. guess what i'm touching it right now, craig. what you talkin about jake? with my voice. that doesn't make any sense. you let me in man, by answering and i like it in here. you're not touching it! touch is physical, your voice isn't physical. my sound waves are pouring out of your speakers, penetrating every cubic inch... stop disrespecting her! ooh and the dodge likes it. don't you dart? gets your filthy voice off her jake!

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if energy could come from anything?. or if power could go anywhere? or if light could seek out the dark? what would happen if that happens? anything. after a california judge struck down teacher tenure laws in the state, we invited lead co-counsel for the plaintiffs to our show to discuss the implications of the ruling and he told us the following. >> even if you can take the numbers that were conceded by the experts on the other side in this case, the number of gross

lean effective teachers is about 1% to 3%. >> that statistic, that 1% to 3% of teachers is grossry ineffective is pulled from the california judge's ruling. he testified that 1% to 3% of teachers in california are grossly ineffective. the judge wrote that the statistics show the number of grossly ineffective teachers have a real negative impact on a significant number of california students. except, that statistic isn't a hard fact. in fact, the expert witness who testified to it later told slate jordan weisman and confirmed to msnbc that in his words the figure was a guesstimate. i pulled that out of thin air. there's no data on that. he also stated that he never used the word grossly ineffective. and that testament has helped dismantled teacher tenure in the most populous state in the country. amy said before the break that

we can't live in a data free zone and what i keep being surprised about is the extent to which there is standing in public opinion in the court of public opinion for folks who are not themselves professional teachers and even at this table we don't have anyone at the moment teaching in a classroom and i wonder if it's because we don't think of it as a profession. we think of it as something anyone can go do. >> let's talk data because we're talking school and we're talking about education and what kids should learn and having learning from experience and from actual facts. everything is not just a matter of opinion. i mean, what we're talking about and it's been said here before is teachers simply having due process. that they feel that they are safe in speaking out so that they can work with their children. there are certainly ineffective teachers and there are ineffective administrations that don't know how to deal with going after a teacher that is terrible. what we're really talking about

is class size, terrible underfunding. we're talking about high-stakes testing and we're taking our eyes away from the prize. we need public education in this country. my school, i was the product of public education. high school, elementary school. i can't imagine having gone a different route and people see this as a big business now. silicon valley millionaires and billionaires setting their sights on it. they see it as a place to make money. we ehave to make solid citizens. >> i see challenges. >> totally reject that at this point. >> let me just say, the classroom teacher here is me. i teach in the classrooms all year. and i have tenure of the sort that people normally think tenure means at the university level. unless i do something really horrifying, i get to keep my job, as the vast majority of my

colleagues. everyone wants to send their kids to schools that i teach at because it is where the best people go to teach because we don't have that sense of at any moment we could be fired. the presumption k through 12 would be so different. you would attract the best teachers by removing job security rather than by providing it. >> i want to make this point, again. there is job protection. there is due process that exists for all new york state public employees already. tenure is in addition to that. that's the first thing. >> it's not true. >> the second thing, at the university level. you're dealing with a system where no one forces you to go to college, no one forces you to pick a college. right? i happen to be a fan of college. >> the one part of our system that most people agree work on the global level. people come here to go to college. >> but in the k-12 system you get assigned to a school based on where you live and you have

no control of the teacher that you get. those things are fundamentally different and the most important thing about this, big business or whatever. the lead plaintiff in the new york case, mr. wright. let me tell you what this is about for him. the twin daughters who go to the same school and different teachers. one is knocking it out of the park and a real education disparity in this man's home because of his other daughter. >> i'm with you. i get it. i get the parent thing. i'm a parent. i get it. boy. man, a bad teacher makes you feel all the ways about your child. and certainly as a parent with resources, a bad teacher is something that i can move my kid around. i get all that. i really do. but i also wonder if our individual narratives can obscure a much more broader retally. just because this man's twin daughters are having a disparity doesn't mean that, do you get what i'm saying, our individual stories could obscure the larger

data. >> let's deal with, i mean, let's deal with what mr. wright's situation is. they were on new york one this week and mr. wright was saying that one of the teachers buys supplies. >> also a big issue. >> so, but the bigger point is this, how do like what we do with the chancellor's district and what dana had said, how do we attract and retain for our most needy kids. what is happening just a few miles down the road in westchester, we're not talking about these issues. but in rochester we are and we are in the places where there is intense, real, social economic issues. why are we not having that conversation? that is the conversation we need to have. frankly, what i would argue is that you need to actually give people better working conditions. you need to make sure that they don't fear that they're going to be fired if they try something new or if they stand up for their special needs kids. that's what we'd like to do. >> you all know i moved recently just in pier 1 this week and met

this young woman named elizabeth working and checking me out and elizabeth is this extraordinary fifth grade math teacher and she could not stop talking about her kids the whole time while she checked me out at the pier one because she has to work a second job. i was thinking that time would be better spent prepping her kids. when we come blaack, i wanto talk about the politics of this and how it is playing out in this country. hi, elizabeth, you deserve not to work a second job. are change. when frustration and paperwork decrease. when healthcare becomes simpler. so let's do it. let's simplify healthcare. let's close the gap between people and care.

"easy like monday morning."s

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in january of 2010, our current secretary of education arne duncan joined washington watch with roland martin on tv one to share his thoughts about the katrina tragedy. >> best thing that happened to the education system in new orleans was hurricane katrina. >> he followed that comment up by saying, that education system was a disaster. and it took hurricane katrina to wake the community up to say that we have to do better. that's a cabinet member saying the best thing to happen to the education system in new orleans, the most beneficial thing for the children of new orleans was to have their city devastated. the people of new orleans didn't notice the challenges in their schools until those schools were under water. the destruction in the city was a great opportunity to try out untested ideas about how education could work by firing all the teachers and subjecting the city's children to an experiment in education. for how that experiment has been turning out, new orleans recovery school district will be the first all charter district in the united states.

last school year, only 12% of that district students performed at the level of mastery or higher, compared to 24% statewide. only 4% of residents polled new orleans public schools as good. nearly one-fifth said schools are getting worse. in the national education association, the largest teachers union in the country is now calling for secretary duncan's resignation. which leads me to ask you, dana, whether or not the teacher fight, the education reform fight and the charter or tenure fight could actually divide the democratic party. >> to an extent it already has. if we remember back to the 2008 democratic primary between barack obama and hillary clinton we saw the unions endorsed hillary and not president obama. in fact, president obama was booed for supporting teacher merit pay when he spoke in front of one union audience. we know barack obama and arne duncan dating back to their time in chicago. they are supporters of charter schools that teach for america

of choice and accountability, that's their style. >> those are such good words. i mean, like who isn't for choice and accountability, right? >> they are good words. they're more complicated than a vocabulary would suggest. one of the questions people have is if hillary is the next nominee of the democratic party or if she becomes president will there be a shift? i think there might be a shift closer to the unions historically but i would question that a little bit because in recent years bill clinton in particular laz cozied up to the charter school folks. >> she's been hanging out with jeb bush and the reform policy. >> the politics have changed since '08 and the clintons they've got, they always have their finger on the pulse of how things are changing. >> i want to insert the politics here is because part of what happens with education whether you're classroom teacher or the reformer who comes in and says i know something that can help you, you need trust.

for me, when i hear my secretary of education be, man, you didn't even notice your schools until katrina. trust is like, wow, now i don't trust you. whatever else you say, i don't trust you. i don't believe that you see me. so, part of what i'm wondering is, is there, is there a reason that the politics here might actually undermine the trust of communities in being able to build up or even have this conversation about teacher tenure reform that isn't teacher tenure elimination. >> look, you just hit it. but after the lawsuit and the secretary's comment, by the way, my union actually put the secretary on an improvement plan. said that we should do things like actually fund equity and fund kids. >> any call for the resignation, just do better. >> more impressive of the two. >> no, we said you get due process like everybody else should get. >> oh, i see, you're protecting his tenure, how nice. >> we're protecting his due process. but we want him to improve.

but the bottom line is, after he said what he said, there were several democrats, including governor strickland of ohio and former governor grandholm of michigan and donna brazille that started democrats for public education. for the very same reasons as amy just said. at the end of the day, what you see here is if we're going to help all kids, it can't be about mass school closings, mass firings and accountability. it has to be about how are we actually going to help kids have a joy of learning and actually help them do have critical thinking, resilience, build relationships. i do think at least in the democratic party, unlike the republican party right now there is a war for that kind of conscious and hopefully what will win is kids and the people who actually help kids learn and thrive. it's complicated. it takes more than just a sound bite -- >> i happen to be a democrat. and i think it's -- >> although it would be ototally

fine if you weren't. look, i just want to say, it's important that people understand that like no political party is a block. right there is like wide range of opinion and every, you know, political universe, that's just the first thing. the second is, look, people are taking on tenure and would you like less protections and talking about assessments in these things because in the absence of talking about them and raising them in the public consciousness, nothing happens. nothing happens. you can be upset about the language that gets used and maybe it's definitely a little bit in the case of katrina, but now at least the issues are on the table. no one's on the other side pushing back hard on the fact that a kid in new york can go to school today and fund a huge chunk of the system and graduate with a diploma that he or she can't read. if you don't think there is a huge social issue to take on, we need to have a different

conversation. >> i'll let you in on this as soon as we come back, is there someone else on the other side pushing back hard and that's the question i want to ask you pushing on public. a public system that is pushing back hard or we have the consensus about other issues, when we come back. throughout the state. and startup ny companies will be investing hundreds of millions of dollars in jobs and infrastructure. thanks to startup ny, businesses can operate tax free for 10 years. no property tax. no business tax. and no sales tax. which means more growth for your business, and more jobs. it's not just business as usual. see how new york can help your business grow, at startup.ny.gov ♪ who's more excited about back to school savthe ladies?ples? these guys? or these guys? when you get guaranteed low prices on everything you buy the most, everybody gets excited! staples. make more happen for less.

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we've been talking about the ongoing battle of teacher tenure and you have laid on the table the public education. >> you talked about the new orleans lawsuit and then who does teach in these schools, the whole issue of teach for america. i was just meeting with a california teacher on friday and she said, you know, we have teach for america. any teacher can be thrown out and you can be replaced by a young person who has no experiences. do we have operate for america? go into a school, graduate from college and go to a hospital somewhere. but the issue of whether this is bipartisan, sadly, it is. you were just talking about arne duncan and go back to rod paige

in 2004 who called the national education association a terrorist organization in a private meeting with governors. who stands up for the public? accountability. do charter schools have accountability when they can throw any kid out so they don't bring down their average on test scores? what accountability for a democratic society is about everyone having a fair chance and pouring resources not into wars in iraq and afghanistan, but into our schools and into our teachers and to these learning environments. my final point with the california teacher, she said, you know, i'm trying to think, maybe we could change the name of our school. put corrections in it. because maybe it is a prison. >> this feels to me you talked about pushing back on the other side. this piece keeps feels like it is missing. public schools are not problematic. i sent my kid to a public school

in princeton, new jersey. it is a very high-performing school. and guess what the teachers have, tenure. they stay really long time and, so, it's just hard for me to believe that this thing is the thing causing inequality matters, but i don't understand the causal link. >> so, there's no one thing that is specifically responsible and there is no one thing that specifically needs to be changed and i never argued that and no right thinking person ever does. you can look at a price at newark where they spend $25,000 a kid. you can find high-performing schools with low-performing kids and traditionally public. it's possible to do it, the challenge is that the obama administration actually released the osr, the problem is that cyst temically and systematically, the current system makes sure the least experienced teachers go precisely to the place where we need the most experienced teachers.

makes sure the schools are segregated based on residency, definitely segregated based on race and then based on income. it's all of the accelerants to the achievement gap are hard wire under to the system. operating precisely the way it is supposed to. >> do we have models from our own history that work better? >> we did see achievement gaps close during the years when we were more integrating our schools and we stopped doing that because bussing was so controversial. >> say that four more times. that when we integrated our schools aggressively, we had better outcomes. >> in the '60s and '70s. >> i feel like, you know, again, i'm going back to doing the thing that litigants shouldn't do. but that is the school, those are the schools i went to. the public school in the u.s. south in the late 1970s right on the back end of that aggressive integration where even though they were, you know, they were neighborhood public schools,

they weren't racially and economically segregated. we went to free school and got great, had a bad teacher and survived it. >> but at the moment here instead of actually giving teachers voice, we're trying to take it away. instead of actually saying, we should make this a good profession, a profession that people have tools and conditions. we can do some of this work. the issue s we're facing all of those, not the system's responsibilities, but that's what the world has brought to children right now. and we think that education is what helps fix it. but we don't give poor kids the tools to help orrer teachers the tools to help and new york city, we turned around outcomes even in this for every elementary school by attracting and retaining great teachers in those schools and giving them the tools. that's the conversation we need to have. >> and we could continue this conversation. >> i'm sorry.

>> please, do not be sorry. we will continue to have this conversation here in nerdland because you know education is close to the heart of nerds. amy goodman is still sticking around. coming up, a look at the claim that there is a war on whites taking place in american politics. there is so much more nerdland at the top of the hour. looks like we're about to board. mm-hmm. i'm just comparing car insurance rates at progressive.com. is that where they show the other guys' rates, too? mm-hmm. cool. yeah. hi. final boarding call for flight 294. [ bells ring on sign ] [ vehicle beeping ] who's ready for the garlic festival? this guy! bringing our competitors' rates to you -- now, that's progressive.

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your party cannot be the party of the future beyond november if you're seen as the party of white people. >> that fastest growing block he is referring to is latino voters and the house gop opposition to immigration reform. let's go now to congressman brooks' reaction. >> this is a part of the war on whites that is being launched by the democratic party and the way in which they're launching this war is by claiming that whites hate everybody else. >> all right. if that's the first time that you've heard it. i'll give you a second to pick your jaw up off the floor. but i do want to pause here and think about what brooks had to say. if we look beyond the controversy of claiming there is a war on white people and into the deeper questions raised by the substance and context there is a lot to be learned about american politics and strategy. congressman brooks is right that something is happening to america's white population. it is becoming relatively smaller. according to the u.s. senses, by

the year 2043, white people will no longer be a majority in the united states. the u.s. will soon have no single racial category that is, by itself, a majority. but that doesn't mean america is soon to be newest minority group is in danger of losing a majority of america's economic and political power any time soon. check this out, for the last 30 years, white families on average earn about $2 for every $1 earned by african-american latino families. when we looked beyond income to total wealth, that gap is even wider. found from 1983 has been about six times of latino families. a gap that was only widened by the great recession. in the united states congress, 80% of the members of house of representatives are white. 93% of the u.s. senate is white. and in corporate america for the

fortune 500, a decline in the number of african-american latino and asian american ceos between 2007 and 2011. in brooks claims that it is part of the strategy that barack obama implemented in 2008. >> we are one people. we are one nation. and together we will begin the next great chapter in the american story with three words that will ring from coast to coast from sea to shining sea. yes, we can! >> and yet to wish away the resentment of white americans to label them as misguided or even racist without recognizing they are grounded in legitimate conce conce concerns, this, too, widens the racial divides and blocks the path to understanding. >> we were made more than a

collection of red states and blue states. we are and forever will be the united states of america. >> yep. all that devisiveness earned senator obama 95% of black voters and 67% of latino voters in 2008. but notice that he also won 43% of white voters. that is a full 2 percentage points more than in terms of white voters than john kerry won in 2004. meanwhile, these are some things we've heard republicans say in recent years. >> the reforms i'm proposing would not apply to those who are here illegally. >> all i want to do is see this guy's birth certificate. >> i don't want to make people's lives better by giving them someone else's money. i want to give them the opportunity to go out and earn them money and provide for themselves and their families. >> obama is the best food stamp president in american history. >> we will put a handcuff on one of the president's hand. >> no judgment or anything, but

i'm just saying devisiveness might not just be a democratic strategy. let's take a look at another big claim made by congressman brooks. >> if you look at the polling data, every demographic group in america agrees with the rule of law and forcing and securing our borders and every one of them understands that illegal immigration hurts every single democratic group. it doesn't make any difference if you're a white american, asian american or if you're a woman or a man. >> actually, congressman, it does make a difference. a wide gap between americans with different races and recognizing these differences does not mean that there is a race war. race helps to organize how many americans think about politics and the choices they make. the congressman is right that there is a surprising level of agreement about key immigration

princip principle. roughly three to one margin. public think immigrants should be eligible for citizenship. which brings us to the congressman's final rhetorical flourish. >> if they to have demagogue on this and try to turn it into a racial issue, which is an emotional issue, rather than a thoughtful issue, it becomes a thoughtful issue and they win and win big and they lose and they get more desperate where nay will argue race and things like that to a much more heightened emotional state. >> partial cret on thdit on thi. >> there is a difference between thinking about race and feeling about race. cognitive racial attitudes and we're going to call it head versus gut. compared to 70 years ago, americans are much more when guided by our heads. hard to find people who openly impose immigration or support overt discrimination. look at the change in support for interracial marriage since

1958, for example. now, it turns out that how we feel about race in our gut can be very different than how we think about race in our heads. recent research showed a disturbing residue of racial bias affecting how we interact with our neighbors, our teachers, our doctors, our police officers and, yes, with our elected officials. but mr. brooks is wrong that level headed racial rationality favors republicans. it is actually those gut reactions that seem to help republican candidates. as researchers at the university of washington showed, between january and april 2012, eligible voters who favored whites or blacks consciously or unconsciousy relative to barack obama. so much for the war on white people. when we come back, my panel weighs in. rest... while a body in motion tends to stay in motion. staying active can actually ease arthritis symptoms.

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republican congressman mo brooks took a lot of heat earlier in the week when during an interview he spoke of a war on white being launched by the democratic party and once questioned congressman brooks did not back down. rather he found newlong wj. here he is from thursday on the tea party news network. >> what i want these democrats to do is to stop dividing americans based on race. it doesn't make any difference what your skin pigmentation is. in america this is the land of opportunity. you can excel provided you're willing to study hard, work hard, take advantage of the opportunities and plenty of people that have been able to establish that this race issue should be way behind us, but, unfortunately, the democrat campaign strategy is to keep it going. >> joining me now amy goodman host of "democracy now."

vincent hutchings and kye wright and jonathan rosa assistant professor of anth ropology. i want to start with you, jonathan. all of this got kicked off around the question of whether or not the republican party can continue to exist if it is anti-immigration in the way that it has been. what do you make of these comments? >> well, i think first in order to understand them, we have to enter this alternate reality where there is this war on whites and talking about race is what divides people. it is part of the race and racism. so, it's racism is not about structural inequality and not about unequal access to resources and it's about talking about race and the democratic party's problem is they keep bringing race up and that's what is leading to this war on whites. the other power of this notion that there is a war on whites. on one hand he contributes it to

the republican party and also invokes this anxiety around latinos and crossing the border without authorization and ultimately they're the ones who are positioned as the ones waging this war. a political issue around democrats and republicans and a partisan issue and also an issue around demographics. >> it's part of what i was trying to tease a little bit, although very briefly there, vince. racial attitudes versus explicit ones in part because as i have seen the crisis of the border children i keep feeling like our ability to talk about it as a children's crisis, but, instead, to constantly come back to a framework is because of implicit attitudes about latinos in this country because we may not be completely clear of it, but in a different place feel like this is the threat to the country are these brown people entering from the south. >> yeah, i think that's actually

quite correct and jonathan raised a number of important points on this matter. we should also realize a context joining these comments from congressman brooks. the party system in this country is so heavily racialized. it's not just the vote choice for president in 2012 or 2008, actually goes back to the 1960s. republicans about 90% of republicans are white. about 40% of democrats are nonwhite. and these give incentives for candidates to make racial appeals. actually, really in both parties. the republican side there is an incentive to try to mobilize increasingly as you indicated, melissa, a shrinking white l electorate. trying to take things away from whites. democrats on the other hand also have their incentives. the incentive for democrats is to try to mobilize racial minorities a growing part of the electorate and they want to do that without alienating moderate

whites and it's a delicate balancing act. >> one of the ways to do is, thinking about the politics of this on a more local level, i'm not suggesting that this is necessarily happening at the national level. when you are running in a party system that is heavily divided by race like this, if you are an african-american candidate and you need more african-americans to feturn out the vote for you e of the strategic possibilities is to become the target of a racial attack by a white opponent, which often will lead black voters to feel more motivated to show up. so, in that sense, it's not a war on whites, but it is a recognition that in a divided country like this, there is some value in pointing out, i'm being attacked. >> but the reality is we look at claiming to have been attack racially, at least in the last 30 years of politics. it's not african-american

candidates, it's white candidates like congressman brooks. and i think what is behind it and is really troubling is that there's a dishonesty to our political conversation about race that leaves us unable to deal with the very despairties that you pointed out that you pointed out earlier in the show and it leaves individuals. as a consequence of my jobs force under to a conversation about race in a huge sloth of people and folks always want to say the right thing. what is the right thing to say about race? and the best that they could come up with is, well, i don't see race and these politicians want to make me see race. >> comes back to jonathan's point about the nature of it. we're looking at a poll from 2013, 2013 gallup poll that asks americans, do you believe that race relations are good. a solid majority of both white

and black americans think race is good and i'm asking myself, what in the world is a race relation? what are we talking about here? can you be friendly with people of a different race? sure. what does that have to do with strucktual inequality. >> the democratic party that is avoiding a fight it's already in. right? there's been this consensus since at least the late '90s that in the democratic party -- >> i'm going to go with the early '90s. i'll go with '92. >> i was trying to be generous. that says, hey, the only way we're going to pass progressive policy is if we mute the racial impact of that progressive policy. >> you're so kind. or we just do bad racial policy like welfare reform in order to prove that we are -- >> this is the outcome of trying to lead to bad policy. >> stay with us, provocative new

article that seems to contradict the argument made by congressman brooks and we'll get to that next. and i'll get amy goodman to weigh in on alabama. o... can you fix it, dad? yeah, i can fix that. (dad) i wanted a car that could handle anything. i fixed it! (dad) that's why i got a subaru legacy. (vo) symmetrical all-wheel drive plus 36 mpg. i gotta break more toys. (vo) introducing the all-new subaru legacy. it's not just a sedan. it's a subaru.

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notwithstanding mo brooks war on whites, the cover story of the august 25th edition of "the new republic" this is how the civil rights movement ends details a frontal attack on civil rights on alabama. a republican controlled state legislatures have stripped away hard won political power and is having real effects. tnr senior editor jason writes, "today the south where 55% of america's black population lives is looking like a different country. fewer children can read and more adults have hiv and residents suffer from life expectancy from any in the united states." war on who? this article about black political power in alabama as

the alabama congressman is saying there is a war on whites. >> i would like him to come with me to the birmingham museum. rosa parks we're still talking about alabama here. it is sad. we're talking about 50, 60 years ago. when we're not, we're talking about today, as well. the crackdown on voting rights in this country. i mean, the studies have just been done. "washington post" says 31 cases of voter fraud and we're talking about nothing here. the structural, tremendous inequality like we've never seen before. this obscures us. that invoke really real terms just a couple years ago. medium family like 130,000. latino it's like 6,200 and for african-americans it's like $5,600. >> for unmarried black women, medium wealth, $5. >> this is what we have to deal

with. it's also hard to respond to this and we're here in new york. what happened in staten island. this is another kind of violence. eric garner dies in a choke hold. this african-american man 43 years old, father of six and the police put him in a choke hold illegally and he's dead. >> what you lay out here a set a part of data that help us to see inequality, but then part of what i wantenter into the alternate universe. here you have a congressman, 25% of the people who live in alabama are african-american nine people in the u.s. house of representatives or the senate for alabama one of them is african-american. but he does seem to perceive real, actual threat. what is that? >> i think in part it is, i spoke to this a bit earlier. the republican party is so homogenously white that an attack in the nature of the

partisan war fareof perceived as an attack on whites. i keep hitting on that point because i think americans don't often appreciate it. it has limitations for the health of our democracy. if an attack on a democrat ends up being an attack on racial minorities and an attack on republican and that layers all the racial devisiveness that goes back centuries in this country and layers it on top of the divide. that can't be healthy. >> jonathan, as i hear that, i am having this remembrance fight about whether or not it is partisanship or race and i'm also thinking here about the ways in which brooks at various points tries to reduce race to class and say it's just about everybody is struggling economically. how do you do the thing which we suggested which is to hold on to racial, cultural, lyinguistic

specificity and not only discussing it, but governing appropriately to it without generating this kind of response? >> well, i think this conversation helps us to understand why we need an intersectional and an interracial analysis of what citizenship in the u.s. is all about. so, by looking at the african-american experience, we can understand that simply discussing a pathway to citizenship for latinos is by no means a guarantee of access. so, and when we look intersectionally we see the way of the gender plays into these dyn dynami dynamics, as well. i've been struck by the conversations about the children crossing the border and the way i see almost a translation of the welfare queen so it's all about these kids gaining access to these goodies that they're not really entitled to. feminization of these children and then at the same time this ma, this tells us a lot about what's happening. >> you just said something that

made me think of something i haven't thought of previously. the latino vote partisan and latinos were splitting their volt half and half between the two parties and now increasingly, at least behind the two obama elections, it is increasingly a democratic vote. this is going to sound strange on television, but are latinos becoming black rather than becoming white in their pathway to citizenship. by which i mean, are they by a matter of politics and ideology going to look more like african-american than white ethnic groups that have previously come to the u.s. and become members of both parties? >> well, so, i'm so happy that you brought this up because "new york times" has been talking about latinos becoming white and this is all based on really superficial ideas about what race is all about. mass deportation we see a profound racialization of latinos.

the only way they would gain access to politics is by an alignment among other racial groups. >> when we come back, i will pull you in because i want to play some of the sound i played earlier and ask whether or not we're all just playing the race card. visionary cloud infrastructure, and dedicated support, free you to focus on what matters. centurylink. your link to what's next. when folks think about wthey think salmon and energy. but the energy bp produces up here creates something else as well: jobs all over america. engineering and innovation jobs. advanced safety systems & technology. shipping and manufacturing. across the united states, bp supports more than a quarter million jobs. when we set up operation in one part of the country, people in other parts go to work. that's not a coincidence. it's one more part of our commitment to america. "i've still got it"

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hi. need an appraisal? yeah. we do. vo: when selling your car, start with a written offer, no strings attached. carmax. start here. earlier i played some sound from some republicans over the course of the obama presidency. i want to play it again and ask kye a question. >> the reforms i'm proposing would not apply to those who are here illegally. >> all i want to do is see this guy's birth certificate. >> by giving them someone else's money. i want to give them the opportunity to go out and earn the money and provide for themselves and their families. >> best food stamp president in the american history. >> we will put a handcuff on one of the president's hand. >> no person used the n word. no person said we just like the

president for being black. am i playing the race card when i play that sound and suggest that it is racially devisive. >> arguing if you don't say race, you're fine. if you say race, you're a racist. creating this upside down topsy-turvy world. but i think what's important to listen to in all of those comments and particularly the one on the economics, the food stamp president and the one we're going to earn your money, these are very, very old ideas about what a black person is and they're trying in america that you're lazy and you're potentially criminal and that you're just looking for a handout. people moving that idea about blackness since reconstruction. and conservative ideology about blackness since reconstruction and, so, we have spent 30 years now listening to it in a coded

sense while and i'm going to take issue with the democrats while they have failed to challenge it. and failed to lead on it. so, as damaging as that tape is, as awful as it is to hear people say, oh, well, you know, we don't want to give these black folks a hand out from the republican party, the real problem is that the progressives who are supposed to be challenging these ideas are going to say, we won't have that conversation. >> will the world be better when we don't have a black president any more? i'm serious. this has been suggested if the president wasn't black, then we wouldn't have to keep doing this. and if it was just a good white democrat, then you wouldn't see so much anger and angst and stress and devsiveness. >> whatever the color of the president or the vice president, whatever the gender of the person, we have to recognize the, i mean, especially this issue of disparity. of opportunity, of wealth. this is determining the future

of our country, every which way for young people, how the world sees us. if we're talking about national security. these are issues of national security. when people have very little invested in a system, that is not healthy. >> vince, i wonder if what we're seeing with this president, feels like it violates the expectations that i have a political scientist. the first time that a black mayor or representative gets elected, a small percentage of the white vote. as they remain in incumbency, not only ea incumbency advantage but one associated with race. more white folks are like he's just regular and then go ahead and end up with a higher percentage of the white vote. this president ended up with the lower percentage of the white vote in his re-election campaign and lower percentage of the african-american vote. i wonder if the presidency is unique as an office, as compared to other offices. like black mayors and congressmen.

i mean, in other words, wouldn't it just be better to have a white president because then we wouldn't have to do this? >> couple things, melissa. one, i think what happened in 2012 is kind of a reversion to the mean so to speak. 2008, remember, a very unusual year. a great year for obama. >> you're telling me. we elected a guy named barack obama from the south side of chicago for presidency. >> number two, the incumbent president in 2002 george w. bush the lowest rating president in american polling. not just a great year for democrats, but a historically bad year for republicans. this boosting somewhat obama's numbers in '08. gave an impression that he was somewhat more effective reaching across the aisle than he was. not a knock on obama, a notion, we have to be cognizant of the fact that any democrat in 2008 would have done well because of the state of the economy. >> stay with us because i want to go to one other issue around race when we come back and that is the issue of law and order.

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even more rewarding. ink from chase. so you can. you can't have a discussion about race in america without talking about the police in the courts and the trial of a white home owner and the killing of a black teenager seeking help. we got a verdict on thursday, guilty on all charges. the jury deliberated for less than ten hours over two days and found theater waver guilty of killing mcbride. wafer was found guilty on murder. seeking early morning help after a car accident. instead of help, wafer who was awakened by what he termed violent pounding shot and killed mcbride through his screen door. her mother, monica mcbride had this to say after the verdict. >> the prosecutor, they did a

wonderful job of proving their burden that they had. they had had a heavy burden, but they made it through. it was overwhelming. i kept the faith and i stayed positive. >> we note as parents how we raised her. she was not violent. she was a regular teenager and well raised and brought up with a loving family and her life mattered. and we show that. >> wafer will be back in court august 25th for sentencing and faces the possibility of life in prison. but just over the past day, another shooting inflamed tensions on saturday. this time in ferguson, missouri, near st. louis where a teenager michael brown was shot and killed by a police officer. a witness told the st. louis post dispatch several shots hit brown as he ran away from officers while they were attempting to put him into a squad car. this morning the st. louis county police department chief talked to reporters and here's what he says happened yesterday afternoon. >> one of those individuals at

the time came in as the officer was exiting his police car and allegedly pushed the police officer back into the car where he physically assaulted the police officer. it is our understanding at this point in the investigation that within the police car, there was a struggle over the officer's weapon. there was at least one shot fired within the car. after that, the officer came back out of the car, he exited his vehicle and there was a shooting that occurred where the officer, in fact, shot the subject. >> ksdk also reports the st. louis has called for the fbi to investigate the shooting. you were talking about the eric garner choke hold case in which the medical examiner has said complicity on the part of the new york city police for this. now we're seeing this shooting and we have no idea whether, these are all just allegations at this point. but it's more that feeling when i was thinking about mo brooks

saying i feel like there is this war on whites and that feeling of another young black person dead gives you that feeling of being embattled. >> i want to add one more thing to the eric garner story. the man that videotaped. maybe a videotape will show up in this case from st. louis. but the reason we know exactly what happened to eric garner in staten island that he was put in this illegal choke hold is because this young man named ramsey orta videotaped it. he's been arrested and his wife now, chrissy ortiz has also been arrested and she is saying in the 4:00 morning police light is coming into their apartment. this is about police around the country and certainly not all police, but somehow feeling they have permission. so, it's not only that they

killed the person, the messenger. the one that showed us what took place. they arrest him and they arrest his wife. this is a very serious issue. it's the reality of people in america. and, sadly, the reality all too often of people of couple in ameri america. >> thinking about the disposability in this case but when we compare the coverage around mcbride to say trayvon martin, there is also the hypervisibility and hyperinvisibility of particular bodies. then when we look at the verdict of the trayvon martin verdict of mcbride, i'm thinking of the gender and empathy and the potential to empthiz differently. >> are we going to need to do a segment about african-american communities and also wondering if we're going to need to talk about the ways in which it might

have made more sense to a jury that a young woman was innocent as a victim of a shooting than a young black man being innocent of it because of our presumptions of young black male. all those things happening at the same time. a summit in the u.s. and jonathan is here and the big hash tag bring back our girls isn't even brought up as he is standing on american soil to ask, excuse me, where are our girls? there is always this intersection, but it is both the actual things happening andologist tand also the feeling that it gives you. the vulnerability and i just wonder, is there any possibility of healing across, i mean, on the one hand you live in communities that need public safety, but then the police feel like they are your opponents instead of your ally. >> they police from fear. and i think one of the things that's interesting about the mcbride case is that the

defendant's argument was, i was terrified that there were boys outside begging to get in my house, right? so, ironically, the defense moved the idea that there were these black boys outside coming to get me and that's why i shot. which seems -- >> which might have been defensible in the mind of some jurors given our anxiety about black male criminality. >> time and time again, we don't know what happened in st. louis in details but we know what happened in the police shootings. the defense comes down to the cop feared for his or her life. the person believed, oh, i was in danger. even though that when you take apart the fact there was very little reason for the person to believe they were in danger. >> that brings us back to the first things i was saying about implicit racial attitudes. i felt and feared for my life, they are not necessarily telling a falsehood or untruth. this is that gut race thing which is different than the head race thing. >> absolutely right.

i wanted to jump in on that very point. plenty of social psychological research indicating that, in fact, as was being said earlier by jonathan. black and brown bodies do elicit more fear from people, including police officers. it is possible that both of these things are simultaneously true. there are fear on the part of the law enforcement officials and there is a discrepancy in terms of how they respond to blacks and browns as opposed to white citizens. both of those things co-exist in this country and part of the nature of racial kind of inequality that dates back to the founding. >> the most chilling research is the shooter studies where subjects are, you know, just, you see flashes and the number of times that people are willing to shoot, it's just a video game. but they're willing to shoot black and brown bodies is substantially more. even within the same race. so, i guess part of what i have to ask, punishment of police officers or of individuals, you

know, who take lives is important. but it also feels insufficient to stop the next thing if the problem is the gut race thing and not the head race thing. >> the problem is actually the structural thing. the structure of policing and how we write our laws about self-defense. the implicit pbias is real. so, if you have a policing apparatus that's built around, one, beefing up with deadly gadgetry, be it new weapons or tasers or whatever it is. put money into gadgetry that is deadly and aggressively policing very specific neighborhoods, then human beings -- >> and broken windows, right? and very small petty crimes. >> broken windows, which is a fancy way of saying aggressively policing black neighborhoods. >> yep. >> if you do those things and you throw human beings into those apparatus and into that kind of situation, you're going to have dead people.

and unless you change those structures and we know how, there are ways to do it. then this is going to keep happening and the punishment is beside the point. >> it is different than saying there is a bad, there are bad officers. i mean, there may be bad officers but still a different solution than saying you must go root out the races. >> one of the primary responses going all the way back was we need to have more diverse police, but now we do. but if you take a black or brown cop and put them inside a police force that is teaching, that is encouraging people to shoot, then you're going to have violence no matter who the person is. >> this was depressing, but not depressing. informative, but depressing w because it feels like it could. i'll say thank you to amy goodman and kye right and jonathan rosa. when we come back, though, we'll talk about this moment when history was made this week.

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. becky hammon may have the break she needed. she's recovered from the injuries she suffered in july of 2013 and is now about playing point guard for the san antonio silver stars capping off her final season as a pro player. but she used her recovery time productively, staying around the game by hanging around the fellas who hung out in the same building, the san antonio spurs. hammon worked with the players in film sessions and on the

court. head coach gregg popovich added that she could coach in the nba. i don't see why not. there shouldn't be any limitations. it's not about sex or anything else. the spurs went on to win the nba title soon after he said that and decided this week they were not done being the best. popovich hired hammon to be an assistant coach on the staff, making her the first female coach to coach full time in the nba. >> obviously that's great and it's a tremendous honor. but the bigger point i think is that i'm getting hired because i'm capable, because of my basketball iq, and stuff that they've seen in me personally. >> who better to discuss what this means for women and the game of basketball, the indiana fever head coach lynn dunn, a legend in her own right. she and her team won the wnba

championships in 2012. she's retiring at the end of this season, her 44th year of coaching college and pro basketball. she and her team are here in new york to play the liberty. so glad you are here. >> i wish you could come to the game with me. >> i thought, that was so great and maybe you could come hang out with me on the set. what do you think about becky hammon? >> i'm so excited that gregg popovich and the spurs realized what an asset she could be. she's one of the all-time greats in our league. >> i went to wake forest so i have a special place in my heart for san antonio. especially now. >> i'm sure you do. >> when you think about what that means, you've seen the transition even of the existence of the wnba. are we getting to a place where

we can finally think of women athletes, particularly women in the game of basketball, equivalently if not differently to watch as players. >> they are fabulous to watch because we play below the rim. it's not just one and done with the dunk. we move the ball, set great screens. the spurs value becky. what i'm excited about is the ceiling that we're breaking through with leadership roles in the nba, with women refereeing in the nba. there's an area we never crossed over into and becky being hired in the nba is a huge movement forward for us. >> when you inducted into the hall of fame, what was that moment like? >> well, it was overwhelming, humbling to join the likes of all of the coaches that i've looked up to in the past and to be part of that group is just overwhelming and i'm just truly

honored. >> what does team sports do for women? even if you're never going to make it to the wnba, what does it mean to be a third grader playing on your women's basketball team? >> you learn all about team work, all about being competitive and trust. you learn some things in sports and competing in sports that i don't know where you learn anywhere else. i'm not sure that you learn it just in the classroom. i know the corporate world wants those team players and women that have competed at a high level. so i think that's a great track to get you into the ceo of ge. >> so speaking of team players and women breaking ceilings and barriers, i understand that you may be getting more engaged in questions of politics once you retire from your position in coaching. >> as soon as i step aside from coaching, i'm going to get into lgbt rights, how about getting a woman elected for president in 2016.

i think we have two great candidates in warren and hillary clinton. i'm really an advocate of equal pay for equal work. what can we do to fix that situation? and then, of course, violence against women. i'm appalled at some of the things happening on our campuses that go unnoticed, go untaken care of with all of the rape scandals. i think all of those things that i just mentioned will keep me busy, don't you? >> i love it. and the connection just in this moment when you said the question of violence against women on college campuses and think about the world that women athlete could bring to bring visibility and solutions to that. >> absolutely. it's a platform. i don't think female athletes or coaches realize the platform that they have in sports. the position that they can take that can empower people to do the right thing. i think we can do that in sports. >> and it is title 9 that is meant to protect you from sexual assault and get you a chance to play on the basketball team. >> absolutely.

i thank title 9. >> lin dunn, thank you for joining us. >> thank you. that's our show for today. thanks to you at home for watching. this show is going to be back next saturday at 10:00 a.m. eastern. stay tuned because up next, "weekends with alex witt." everybody knows that. well, did you know the great wall of china wasn't always so great? hmmm...what should we do? geico. fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more on car insurance.

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