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good morning, i'm melissa harris-perry. there is a washington, d.c. puzzle confounding me. let's start with the first piece of the puzzle. it's from june 2012. the house oversight and government reform committee voted to hold eric holder in contempt of congress. that decision to hold the a.g. in contempt makes it clear that eric holder and the u.s. congress do not have a good working relationship. that's puzzle piece one. in september 2014 eric holder announces his intention to resign as soon as his successor is in place. congressional republicans barely contain their thrill at the news. congressman darrell issa tweets by needlessly injecting politics into law enforcement, holder's legacy has eroded more confidence in our legal system

than any a.g. before him. now he's joined by congressman jeff duncan who tweets good riddance, eric holder. your disregard for the constitution of the united states will not be missed. the two were packed up by david vitter who adds anyone sad to see eric holder stepping down as a.g.? not me. i can't think of any a.g. in history that has attacked louisiana more than holder. in 2012 congress makes clear their disdain for holder. in 2014 holder says he's resigning. now on to puzzle piece three. in november president obama announces his choice for attorney general. u.s. attorney loretta lynch. experienced, respected and popular are the methodimmediate characterizations of lynch. her 2010 senate confirmation is defined as overwhelming. so that piece should have completed the puzzle giving us a clear image of the next attorney general. but instead of a nice neat resolution we've got a scrambled mess in washington, d.c. it has been 134 days since

president obama named loretta lynch. and in that time the republican-controlled senate has introduced new baffling puzzle pieces that don't seem to fit at all. there is the justice for victims of human trafficking act piece into which republicans shoved anti-abortion language which angered democrats and has the whole senate stalled. a worthy debate perhaps but why is it part of the a.g. confirmation? and before there was the abortion and human trafficking piece, there was the immigration and executive action piece. during her confirmation hearings lynch affirmed that president obama's executive action which offered temporary legal status to millions of up documented immigrants was legal. that really irritated republicans. but this is a confirmation for president obama's a.g. chances are any candidate is going to support this action. so again, why is this piece part of this puzzle? in the meantime, and this is the part that makes it so puzzling. guess who gets to remain attorney general?

eric holder! holder, who has spent the time releasing blistering reports about patterns and practices of racial bias in ferguson announcing major new initiatives on national police reform vehemently defending marriage equality in national publications and reiterating the commitment of the doj to protect the right to vote. >> let me be very clear. while the court's decision removed one of the justice department's most effective tools, we remain undaunted and undeterred in our pursuit of a meaningful right to vote for every eligible american. since the court's ruling we have used the remaining provisions of the voting rights act to fight back against voting restrictions in states throughout the country and we've won. >> ahh, the vote. now there's an interesting piece of the puzzle. it is the historic turnout of young voters and voters of color that elected and re-elected president obama. it is those votes that made the tenure of eric holder possible.

it is those votes that came under attack by both the supreme court and the state legislators in recent years, and it is those votes that in a speech in long beach, new york last year lynch made clear that she has no patience for suppressing. >> but i'm proud to tell you that the department of justice has looked at these laws and looked at what's happening in the deep south and in my home state of north carolina has brought lawsuits against those voting rights changes that seek to limit our ability to stand up and exercise our rights as citizens. >> home state of north carolina. because you see both of north carolina's senators have said that when and if they are given a chance to vote on her, they will oppose lynch's confirmation. senator thom tillis released a statement that read in part by all indications ms. lynch would continue to pursue the costly and frivolous lawsuit against the state of north carolina to overturn a common sense and constitutionally sound voter

i.d. law. i will not be voting to confirm ms. lynch. well now maybe we have a clue. this delay doesn't make any sense if you think it's about making the self-interested choice of replacing eric holder with loretta lynch. but it does make sense if this puzzle is actually about president obama and a process congressional scholars call the new nullification where congress blocks nomination because there is political opposition to the laws that their positions helped to enforce. in other words, if you can't beat the president in an election you can use the new nullification to block the people that would enact the policies that he was elected to implement. joining me is wade henderson, president and ceo of the leadership conference on civil rights. wade what is going on? >> you have described the perfect rubic's cube of toxic

partisanship in washington. what is happening to loretta lynch has two dimensions worth mentioning. she's been held 134 days. she's been held seven times longer than the totality of the delay of her predecessors applying for attorney general position. there are two issues. one is that facts and circumstances have conspired to certainly suggest that there is a racial dimension as i think senator dick durbin mentioned a while ago to this debate. but secondly and more importantly is about president obama. this is about disrespecting the president and, thus the presidency in part because the attorney general position has become a surrogate for the policies of the president. never has a cabinet nominee been held hostage to an unrelated policy development over which they had nothing to do with. >> i think your point is so important because when we talk about race being part of this people say how can that be it's a black attorney general being

replaced by a black attorney general, but it's the way race is associated with all of these other policies. because people aren't just sitting back and taking this. we heard the current attorney general eric holder standing in selma and calling on people. but i want to hear some people doing this. this is some women from north carolina who to be themselves to exactly the middle of this to say, come on let's get lynch confirmed. >> senator burr and senator tillis, it's time for you to act like you have some sense. >> enough of playing politics with this nomination. >> an african proverb says when you strike a woman, you strike a rock. senator burr senator tillis when you strike our sister miss loretta lynch, you strike the women of north carolina. and when you strike the women of north carolina, you strike a rock.

>> so did they just turn this into a social movement when it needed to just be a simple confirmation process? >> i think they have. i think the women who came in from north carolina thanks to dr. william barber and the naacp, they really made an important point, which is torks look -- to say, look you can't disrespect the first woman nominee for attorney general, twice confirmed unanimously for a u.s. attorney position and somehow you're going to set that aside and use her nomination as a surrogate for other political objectives. i think senators tillis and burr for the first time felt the wrath of the constituents of north carolina who were concerned about what they conveyed in their opposition to loretta lynch. >> again, this is the part that for me just keeps making it so baffling is this idea that my not confirming her they retain eric holder who they do not like. i wanted to play a little piece of the attorney general talking about how this is baffling to him as well.

>> it's almost as if the republicans in congress have discovered a new fondness for me. i'm feeling love that i haven't felt for some time. and where was all this affection over the last six years, you know. >> do you want eric holder unplugged to be the current attorney general? >> no, they don't but this is the paradox of their hatred of president obama in this sense. they are prepared at this point to hold up his nominee to be the next attorney general even if it means that they'll have to live under the attorney general that they don't like. you know it obviously is a bit ironic. but i think here is the more important part. eric holder has been outstanding in his focus on law enforcement and the need to ensure that every american is protected equally under the law. his focus on the police department in ferguson his willingness to confront issues of race that impede our ability as a nation to come together deserves to be lifted up. i think loretta lynch is

certainly an attorney general in that same mode. i think her ability to really cross lines. you know she has the endorsement of rudy giuliani she has the endorsement of louis free freeh, our former fbi director. if you're being fair-minded, this is a woman that deserves to be confirmed and you really can't deny that. >> i noticed that you and others have signed on again to this push to get loretta lynch confirmed. >> absolutely. >> but my favorite signatoriy was the president of dealt at that sigma theta which. >> they have done an incredible job in lifting up this nomination. later in the program, this morning you and i as well as the roundtable will be discussing starbucks and the handy survey the company has provided on race. i'm looking forward to having wade as part of that discussion. up next dollar dollar bills y'all, so strong they

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i want to talk to you about a president who's making a comeback. a president who went from being relatively insignificant in 2007 to a global superstar in 2008. a president who then endured six years of near apocalyptic predictions about his performance but who now has proved all of those critics wrong and solidified his face as a leader on the world's stage. it's not our 41st president, it's the first president, the man on the u.s. dollar. president washington is making a comeback. the dollar is back. sorry, you weren't looking at washington there. now, you might not think to call it a comeback. after all the dollar has been here for years, but the dollar has not always been in vogue. back in 2007 jay z displayed

euros in a music video set here in new york proving pure ballers trade more in the currency of a global marketplace, the euro. that prompted headlines like this one, jay zdissing the dollar. but then. during the same time some in the u.s. started to panic, warning of massive inflation that was just around the corner and a few even predicted a run on the u.s. dollar. but the dollar crisis never game. it stayed strong and grew stronger. look at this graph. based on this trend the u.s. dollar could soon be on a one-to-one par with the euro and that makes a european vacation a heck of a lot more affordable. but then on friday the dollar had its biggest decline in more than three years, plummeting as the euro rallied.

wall street responded with markets closing up way up which leads to the question do we prefer our dollars weak or strong? joining me now to help answer that is josh steiner, former chief of staff for the u.s. treasury during the clinton administration and connie razzi, director of strategic research. weak dollar strong dollar which is preferable? >> the first thing i would say is if president washington is grateful, he owes a lot to president obama. the reason we're seeing a stronger dollar has to do with the fundamentals of the u.s. economy. our growth is a lot higher than europe. interest rates are still low. unemployment is down. not down as much as we would like certainly in certain population groups and inflation is still low. if you're an investor on the global stage, where would you rather invest? for the last couple of years it's clearly been in the united states and that's led to the

strengthening of the dollar. >> why then was the weakening of the dollar on friday a wall street boom? >> these things are very hard to read. i think that's happening is wall street was trying to look at janet yellin's comments very closely. they were following her comments on the dollar but also trying to understand where the federal reserve board was going in terms of interest rates. and the fomc is trying to ballet couple of things. they have two clear mandates. they need to keep inflation low, but they also want to keep unemployment low. they're constantly trying to balance those two things. wall street is watching to see whether the federal reserve thinks that the economy is overheating and is going to need to raise interest rates dramatically quickly. it doesn't appear to be the case and, therefore, you saw the markets rallying. >> so, connie i know for folks who are not cnbc watchers they might have said what just happened in nerdland. why are we talking about this idea of the dollar and global marketplaces. i teased about a european vacation becoming more

affordable but in a real way for ordinary americans earning wages, what does the strength of the dollar mean one way or the other? >> the strength of the dollar really is tied to the ability of people to manufacture in the united states, which means jobs in the united states. and so for working americans and for the economy, the strong dollar really is a threat. is makes it harder to have a tight labor market which means that it's harder for workers to be able to bargain for better wages. and so while it may be that a strong dollar means that imports are cheaper, vacations are cheaper, that really is only for the people who still have jobs. they're not making more money. and so what we would rather see is a competitive dollar that allows for increased employment and for the economy to return to a full recovery for all of our

communities. >> so are the policies that would lead to that outcome from your perspective, are those policies that are in the purview of the fed, in the purview of -- is this in any way related to issues that can be addressed by voters on the ground or is it really about fed policy? >> in large view we've been looking at the fed because the federal reserve is able to as you said sort of look at the employment and at the inflation rates. one of the upsides of the strong dollar is that inflation is going to be relatively low. so the fed can really focus on reaching that full employment mandate and making sure that communities like african-americans who are still in recession are able to enjoy the recovery. >> the interest rate decisions that are constantly every single week we're wondering are they going to bump up those interest rates and the impact that that then has for folks who are holding debt of one kind as

opposed to likely actually have money on the bank on which they're earning money, so that's typically communities of color, do you have any reason to think yellin will behave differently than her predecessors in these decisions? >> i think what she's looking about is the concern about the long-term unemployed and the unemployment rate is higher in the african-american should be of concern to everyone not just to the african-american community, to all americans. i'm sure she is focused on that. at the same time it's important to keep in mind that the people who suffer the most from high inflation rates are those people on a fixed income. if you're an elderly person on a pension, inflation is a killer. if you're shopping at walmart, inflation is very damaging. you're going in and buying things made in vietnam and bangladesh. one of the reasons gasoline prices are so low is not just because of falling oil prices it's also because the dollar is

so strong. oim oil is so global yly yly on a basis. it seems like everyone is talking about race. plus olivia poeppe gets shamed. but before that i want to give a shoutout to some dollar raising that happened to the students of wake forest university. i'm a professor there at wake forest and those students have been organizing this year's wake and shake dance marathon. the students transformed wake's varsity gym into a festival setting where 1300 dancers spent 12 hours on their feet to raise funds for the brian piccolo cancer research fund. they were looking to reach $200,000 this year. it's a great reminder of all the fun we can of and all the good we can do when we work together. we'll be right back. ve to wo rkard, know your numbers, and stay

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on this day in 1972 the united states senate gave final approval for the equal rights amendment and sent it to the states for ratification. section 1 of the era reads simply the quality of rights under the law shall be not abridged by the united states or by any state on account of sex. the fight to add it to the u.s. constitution began in 1923 when the founder of the national women's party, alice paul first introduced it to congress. but it wasn't until nearly 50 years later with the rise of second wave feminism and leaders like bella abzug that the push for the e.r.a. gained momentum. the won the vote in the u.s. house of representatives in 1971 and the senate followed suit the next year but not without strong resistance from some members of congress as explained in this nbc news

report. >> opponents in the senate called it the unisex amendment and said it would destroy traditional man-women relationships, increase homosexuality, violate biblical teachings and undermine thousands of state laws designed to protect women against life's hazards. >> despite all that fear and trembling, 1972 was an election year and then as now, more women than men vote and the e.r.a. won senate approval and was on its way to ratification. for a while it seemed to have momentum. 30 of the required 38 states had ratified the proposal by 1973. but then the tide turned as a highly organized and effective opposition to the e.r.a. sprang up led by anti-feminist conservative phyllis shlafley who warned it would deny web privileges like exemption from the military draft. by 1982 the deadline for ratification, only 35 states had voted in favor of the e.r.a. three shy of the necessary total. more than 40 years later, there

are still efforts to revive the e.r.a., including a rally in minnesota just this month. >> it's still relevant because we still do not have equal rights. and some folks say to me well what's the rush? >> today women make up only 19% of the u.s. congress. today there are only six women serving as governors of u.s. states. today only 24% of state legislators are women. today women on average earn 77 cents for every dollar a man earns even though women make up half of the american workforce, they make up less than 5% of fortune 500 ceos. it's easy to wonder if any of that would be different if the country had followed through on the equal rights amendment. passed by congress on this day, march 22nd, 1972.

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regular viewers of this show know we are obsessed with shaund shaunda rhymes' scandal. it reveals keen insights on our cultural moments. last week we talked with actor courtney vance about his star turn in the powerful episode "the lawn chair" confronting issues of race and police violence. this week the fictional olivia pope yonltconfronted an issue which has dominated headlines all week. slut shaming. a young woman is threatening to expose all of the d.c. power players she's bedded through a scandalous book. olivia pope reminds her what happens to women who publicly dish about their sex lives and asks do you know what they will call you? but rather than shrink under the weight of shame, the young would be author pushes back.

>> instead of celebrating the fact that i fully own my body and use it however i want with whomever i want as many times and as many kinky ways i want, you're shaking your finger at me? you're telling me to be afraid of what name someone is going to call me because i had the audacity to have too much great sex? i'm not ashamed. this is my life my body, my story to sell or tell. >> it is a biting recriminal nation of olivia pope who seize herself and we are presented with her as an advocate for women under attack. that actor is lienena dunham who said she is cutting back on twitter because she's trying to create a safer space for hersz emotionally. it could have been part of the talk that everyone is talking about given by monica lewinsky. >> i admit i made mistakes,

especially wearing that beret, but the attention and judgment that i received not the story, but that i personally received was unprecedented. i was branded as a tramp, tart, slut, whore, bimbo. and of course that woman. i was seen by many but actually known by few. and i get it. it was easy to forget that that woman was dimensional, had a soul. >> so just how powerful is this kind of shaming and how are women pushing back? joining me now, leora tannabaum, author of "i am not a slut."

alicia quarrels, correspondent for e! news and amir med. i just want to start with the simple sort of question to hear lewinsky say those words, how powerful is slut shaming for silencing and impacting young women in their lives. >> slut is the absolute worst insult you can call a girl or woman. and, yes it can ruin a person's life absolutely. she is correct. her analysis is correct. she deserves all of our empathy and sympathy on this. the fact of the matter is no less a publication of the "wall street journal" called her in an editorial, and this is a direct quote, folks, a little tart. what did we say about the president, that he is a womanizer, that he has a problem. these are not eequivalencies. she's ruined for life. >> and it is presumed to be essential to her character, who

she actually is as a person. in writing this there's a great piece in "the new york times" talking about the actual process monica lewinsky went through around this ted talk and i wanted to just play a little bit where she's talking about this surprising thing that happens when she's 41 and we can talk about the discussions that went around it. >> at the age of 41 i was hit on by a 27-year-old guy. i know right? he was charming and i was flattered and i declined. you know what his unsuccessful pickup line was? he could make me feel 22 again. >> so there was debate about whether to include that where to put it in the speech because it might revive the idea that she is a little tart. >> but you know when i listened

to that it reminded me of the fact that she was 22 at the time so retrospectively it creates a lot of empathy on the part of women who came of age. i'm two years younger than monica lewinsky with that scandal. one, that she's 41 years old and it's like the times or the discourse has caught up with her. now we have a new generation of feminist activists who are taking on cyberbullying or online harassment as a feminist issue. so i don't think monica lewinsky, even though there was a burgeoning feminist movement at the time, the platterarticularitie sechlt -- she's able to speak back. >> and these are the same tools that women are using to push back. i'm interested in how you read what amber rose is up to. if we were to talk about someone who has been both very direct

herself about it and then also branded by others but she is currently right now she says pushing back because her ex kanye west had to take 30 showers after his relationship with him. i want to listen to what she said she's planning to do. >> ideal with it every day. ideal with it via social media people out on the street. i'm sick of it. i'm here for my girls and we're going to do the amber rose slut walk this summer and it's going to be awesome. >> she was a stripper in the past. she did kanye for a long time and got married to wiz khalifa. there's also a morality issue that we're talking about here. a lot of these women and men were cheating. people were married. so that's where i think labels get called into account. it's not just about slut shaming, it's also about morality. these aren't single people.

lena dunham's character wasn't just sleeping with her co-workers who were single. >> but she wasn't married? >> who? >> monica lewinsky or the lena lena dunham character. >> i'm not downplaying women, bill clinton was 20 years older than monica lewinsky. there's no way, shape or form -- >> but it is the responsibility of the person not in the marriage to -- i'm taking out the gender politics and talking about who -- she didn't stand up and say i want to have sex with anybody else. >> there's responsibility on both sides. if you suddenly sleep with a married person and get called a name, you might have had it coming. >> i guess the easiest way to think of this as a feminist issue is there's no equal term for men. >> even if she were married, the man who was sexually active with her wouldn't be called that so that's part of the problem. >> but i guess part of what i'm

wondering is does the slut shaming, the walking out and saying, all right, you want to call me that me and my girls are going to go does that help to push back against it? >> i just feel in general men need to take more responsibility for themselves. i think we don't have the conversation amongst ourselves about the implications of our actions and the effect that it has on women. and so i think we need to create space amongst ourselves about how we're going to go about having these conversations or recognize that there's a real impact on women's lives. you know if we as male identified individuals don't really get deeper into what it means to be a man around our sexuality, around our masculinity, how are we going to be able to address these issues. we have to get honest about that. >> stay with us, because up next the bad feminist herself is back. roxanne gay is coming to nerdland.

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this week we learned that the kappa delta ro practice fernt maintained a secret facebook page called 2.0. some of the postings were of nude females that appeared to be passed out and nude or in other sexual or embarrassing positions. it appears that the individuals in the photos are not aware that the photo had been taken. other posts revealed pictures of drug sales, fraternity hazing and unconscious women that were being taunted. an affidavit revealed that 144 members had access to the private invite-only site. the result could be criminal charges. demonstrates protested on the penn state campus asking the university to sever all ties with the fraternity and to put members on interim suspension. the national fra ternlt has placed the penn state chapter on a one-year suspension and said during that year the chapter will be reorganized.naples florida,

is roxanne gray. i'm wondering what we're seeing is a real life manifestation of the virtual violence that women experience online? >> absolutely. we're seeing that there really are no boundaries that won't be crossed when it comes to women, their privacy and their bodies. it's incredibly frustrating that yet another fraternity or yet another group of men has taken it upon themselves to do some sort of thing and then everyone acts surprised. there's nothing to be surprised about here. it's really just the same old, same old. >> amir i want to come to you. one of the reasons i wanted roxanne here and you here is because of the work that you both do on college campuses. we were talking about a place where we can investigate our masculinity and think about our notions of gender. shouldn't college campuses be the place where that is happening? >> exactly. and i think that's woefully how that's underrepresented in terms of how we do out of classroom

work in higher education throughout the country. we're learning how to better support women and victims, we're getting compliant but really we're not having the conversation of what does it mean to be a man, how do we deal with our masculinity and being beneficiaries of patriarchy and the implications on others in terms of our lack of responsibility around that. we also don't hold each other accountable. some of these fraternity rows on these campuses you have entire streets of fraternities. >> i went to a school like that. >> where there isn't a culture of challenging the notion of one-upsmanship around women. >> a current member of that fraternity said this is indig nant misplaced self righteous behavior that looks to ruin people's lives is the abuse and violation that should be at the center of the discussion not the

humorous antics of college kids. it feels that these misguided antics have such an impact. i want to bring in ashley judd's piece. she tweets about, you know the other team can kiss her ass because, you know something about free throws or some other such thing. and the responses aren't just nasty and mean they are violent threats against her. >> it's a crazy internet culture that we live in. i'm a hard core usc trojan so i can relate to all of this because i went to a school where sororities and fraternities are very prevalent. but when has the internet gone too far? when has it gone too far? i don't blame her. >> on the one hand it's the internet but the oar hand that it's manifests in all these places is the internet is the tool that brings us.

>> the internet is just one other avenue for delivering the message of the sexual double standard. you know what happened at the penn state fraternity what's going on with ashley judd these are logical conclusions in an environment where you have the sexual double standard and a culture of slut shaming. particularly in the ashley judd example, we see that being labeled a slut being sexually degraded and threatened with sexual violence in a horrific graphic way doesn't have anything to do with sex at all. what did ashley judd do? all she did was assert an opinion about a sports event. frankly, i think we can all agree a pretty mild opinion too. >> roxanne, i want to come to you on this because this was also -- i actually had difficulty reading the ashley judd piece. i want to offer a trigger warning to anybody that's going to read it now. i purposely don't -- i have been run out of my own at replies. i no longer see my own twitter

feed because as a survivor i can't see people say those particular things to me. the impact that it has on me over the course of a day, a week, a month. i just don't know how to explain like how tangible that reality is. >> absolutely. i think it's a constant for many women who dare to have opinions and then exist in the world. and on the internet there's just something that makes people feel incredibly free to say the most horrifying things. and to try and describe the most horrific kinds of violence a woman can face. it's incredibly frustrating because all we're doing is having opinions. but somehow we're not allowed to do that and these men that perpetrate these crimes feel no compunction compunction whatsoever about going to that place where they feel we're the most vulnerable. and it's constant. i think conversation is one part of it but i think we need to have consequences and i think we need to start having more fraternities being banned and

more people losing their jobs and losing internet accounts. obviously they know better they just choose not to do better. >> when we come back i want to talk more about this idea of what we're teaching and when. i want to talk about how you raise sons and daughters who can push back. used. i was determined to create new york city's first self-serve frozen yogurt franchise. and now you have 42 locations. the more i put into my business the more i get out of it. like 5x your rewards when you make select business purchases with your ink plus card from chase. and with ink, i choose how to redeem my points for things like cash or travel. how's the fro-yo? just peachy...literally. ink from chase. so you can. ♪ the new, twenty-fifteen ford focus believes in "more." more to see. more to feel. ♪ more to make things really really...

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young women are the leads in both films topping the box office this weekend. the new live action remake of "cinderella" has grossed more than $100 million since it opened last friday but it is set to be eclipsed this weekend by "insurgent" which is expected to rake in more than $350 million in its first two days. a tiny wasted princess with a glass slipper and a butt-kicking shero. if you're a parent trying to raise a daughter to navigate the sexist mine field we've just been discussing which movie ticket should you buy? roxanne, i wanted to start with you because my favorite part of the beginning of your book is

the fact that you read sweet valley high books. i too was a sweet valley high person. >> represent sweet valley high. >> what does it mean to encounter regressive images but to still be able to develop a critical consciousness around them? >> well i think it's really about parenting. i encountered regressive images but i was reminded by my parents that i can be anything and do anything and i have to work hard. so i think the world is always going to be full of regressive images and we have to counteract them at every single moment. my mom told me raising us that she was in constant combat against the images that white america would offer us of what it means to be black and to offer me positive images of what it means to be a woman and so you know -- go ahead. >> the gift that you gave to my daughter, my baby when she was born, was a stack of books.

all of them kind of little black girl books in which the little black girl at the center of it. you're a mom yourself of a daughter. i wonder -- it seemed to me clearly you were signaling this is important. >> part of it is because i'm an english professor, and so we're talking about cinderella and, you know, my daughter is 2 1/2 so she's not going to see cinderella but i'm adamantly against cinder relella even with the brandy version because i don't see what the point is. there's an essay about cinderella's step-sisters and what does it mean to have these girls that are indoctrinated for hating another girl. i think that would be an interesting film. the current version isn't so different from apparently even more regressive than the original version. >> the director claims that he

made adjustments like having the cinderella and prince meet at the same time so they're on the same level. i'm not a parent but i don't think there's anything wrong with having your child see cinderella because it does start with parenting. this is something i'm always fighting is the stereotype because you're a pretty woman or you cover entertainment, people try to belittle you. no, you have a brain, you're smart, you can be well rounded and it's important to know all of these things and watch all of these things because power is knowledge. so watching these things having of the conversation being informed about it is knowledge. >> all information is spendable currency, depending on the market. i had barbies and then i cut their hair off. thank you to roxanne gay in naples, florida. coming up next starbucks wants to do it sae wants to do it kendrick lamar wants to do it honestly we do it every week here. so here we go race talk. there's more nerdland at the top of the hour.

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welcome back i'm melissa harris-perry. if you join us regularly here in nerdland, then you know we rarely shy away from directly engaging in race talk. you might even have talked those very words appearing on the screen behind me during our, you know race talk segments as my guests and i try to unpack the complicated questions of race that so often appear in the news each week. so i wasn't entirely unsympathetic to howard schultz this week when he charged his legion of baristas for one week with getting customers thinking about more than whether they want whipped cream on their mochiattos. >> what if we were to write race together on every starbucks cup. if a customer asks you what this is try and engage in a discussion that we have problems in this country with regard to race and racial inequality and

we believe we're better than this. and we believe the country is better than this. >> now, between my hosting duties here on mhp and my other gig as a university professor, i know a little something about facilitating a conversation on race. even with years of study and training in the academy and jobs where i research and think a great deal about racial inequality, getting people to talk honestly and meaningfully about race can be tricky business. so it seemed like schultz was making a big ask for baristas to have a conversation on race when they already have plenty to do of getting orders out. but the campaign is called race together, which means starbucks wasn't leaving all the power to change hearts and minds solely with the people who make the coffee beverages. starbucks had some race work for the people who drink it too. on friday these special race together newspaper supplements

appeared on the news stands in starbucks stores and it included a fill in the blank test meant to get the race conversation started among family and friends. it's been a while since i've given a pop quiz on the show so why don't we all just take the starbucks racial reality check together. nerdland, get your pencils ready. number one, my parents had blank friends of a different race. okay. number two, i have blank friends of a different race. number three, my children have blank friends of a different race. number four blank members of a different race live on my block or my apartment building. i most often talk to someone of another race at work church home shopping school. only church huh, not places of worship. interesting. in my facebook stream blank percent are of a different race.

well facebook actually figured that number out. in the past year i have been to the home of someone of a different race blank times. in the past year someone of a different race has been in my home blank times. i always keep a little tick mark when people of a different race come over. at work we have managers blank managers of different races. and number ten, in the past year i have eaten a meal with someone of a different race blank times. okay pencils down how did you do? maybe more importantly, how did it make you feel? because this reality check is well how can i put this a hot mess. here are just a few things that are maddening about it. it sets out to measure contact with people of different races without the slightest acknowledgement that race is socially constructed and not some simple notable, characteristic. it implies that race is just about people being different instead of coping with how those

differences are embued with meaning that has social economic, legal, and personal consequences. it reduces the long, ugly pain. complicated, joyous absurd fascinating issues of race to a cosmo quiz about personal experiences instead of collective historical structural realities. and it yip directly absolves people who have enough friends of a different race for any responsibility of racial inequitiy. took my starbucks quiz and i'm all good. #notracist. it seems to assume that the person taking the test can make the choice to live in a world where she could choose not to have encounters with different people unless she sought them out, which suggests that this is perhaps actually a test for white people and their experiences of interracial contact. why, starbucks? why? i mean you took a simple cup of coffee. you turned it into multi layered mosaic of elaborate, joyous

milky sugar. so why would you simplify the demanding and difficult work of race talk into this? joining me now is whitney dow, salamisha tillet wade henderson, president and ceo of the leadership conference on civil and human rights and amer ahmed dean of sophomores and intercultural center director of swarthmore college. help me. am i being too hard? should we at least be happy that a corporate giant thinks race is important to talk about? >> first of all, it's hard to follow you, melissa, after hearing that opening. i'm really nervous about why i'm here because i've got to say i love it. >> you love this? >> i love it. it's problematic, it's lazy it's privileged it's nuts. it's all the things you said it is. but the idea that a $70 billion

company would like -- that's managed its brand so carefully for so long would take this this idea and turn it over to their lowest paid employees, turn their brand over to discuss something that's so inflammatory i think is really in some weird, crazy way radical. >> i want to appreciate the fact that they did take this risk but what i'm concerned about is the way they waded into it is going to scare off every single other company or organization in the future because i don't really think that they have done the organizational development work within their organization. from what i can tell if they did there would be more texture, more nuance and they would understand that baristas are not the people to be facilitating -- >> actually baristas totally might be. i don't want to make a claim about whether the baristas are. i do know when you begin with this presumption -- the first

thing they think is important for you to know about race most people who identify themselves as african-american in the united states have some european ancestors. so now we're going to say it's a genetic -- i'm not saying we have to have a whole social construction conversation. but chipotle did this differently. instead of charging in and talking about how one-tenth we are of blackness or whiteness, they put literary references and you can read it and have thoughts about it. >> i was thinking about the risk factor and we just talked about this. i actually do have a problem not with the baristas in the sense of their skill set but in terms of the burden the responsibility to push this conversation forward being on those who are not necessarily the most empowered in the organization, so that's one thing. the other thing i think in terms of a risk i do think they're aware of their brand and trying to push their conversation forward in a climate in which people are actively and consciously trying to address

issues of racial inequality. a bigger risk would be let's take on things like -- there's risks and then there's risks. >> but even within that context, i still -- so here's part of my concern about what happens with that privilege and the presumption that it's so difficult and people don't talk about race is again, it's always standing in a place of whiteness. when i go to get some coffee please, god, don't talk to me about race. i'm going to do that all day about work. i love this tweet where she said not sure what starbucks was thinking. i don't have time to explain 400 years of oppression to you and still make my train. #racetogether. i kind of felt like i'm going to go to dunkin' donuts where i don't have to talk about race. >> let's stipulate as you characterized it it's a hot mess. the cosmo quiz is absolutely you know unconscionable. but having said that i do agree that a corporation exposing itself both to this kind of criticism and ridicule

seriously, while trying to push a conversation that needs to be handled much more substantively and thought fully is still a good thing. it's done two things. first of all, we are talking about it. >> and drinking coffee. >> now, the issue is is this a one off. is this all they're doing or is this part of a broader campaign to put the issue of race in the context of the business community, of the country in a larger way. look, i do think it puts a burden on the baristas that they never asked for and shouldn't have to bear alone. i also think it makes it awkward for customers but it's also provoking a set of conversations that i hope lead to a higher level of analysis and some additional steps. if they would use their influence, and this is not just starbucks, it's usa today, it's larry kramer the publisher they brought into this so trying to expose this to a higher plane of conversation i think is a good

thing. let's see whether it moves beyond. >> i enthusiasticthink they need to talk not just about race but talk about racism. how do we go beyond -- because when we have conversations as facilitators of conversations on race, we know that you mentioned it earlier, people of color are often burdened to go through every single frustrating experience we've had ever in order for white people to learn. so taking that into unsafe situations, it's so hard just to create that safe space just to talk about it. talk about the powerin ic inin inequity ees. >> if only 10% of the people in your corporation are african-american and all the white folks have to have black friends, that means i got to be friends with like 400 individual white folks just to get them where they need to be on their quiz. we have a little bit more on this when we come back.

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the real hero of this struggle is the american negro. he has called upon us to make good the promise of america. and who among us can say that we would have made the same progress were it not for his persistent bravery and his faith in american democracy. [ applause ] for at the real heart of battle

for equality is a deep-seated belief in the democratic process. >> that was president lyndon johnson in 1965 giving an address to a joint session of congress on voting rights. what i love about that moment is that he tries to express that we still believe in deliberation as part of it so like i am deeply irritated by this campaign, but i want to preserve a space to say that even when we're trying to deal with structural inequality that we have this belief that deliberation is also part of what goes on with race talk or with racial healing. and i guess i just want to ask that. what do we think the value of talking about race is in the kind of work of eliminating racial inequality. >> well if talk leads to action, then it's productive. i think as i said before if this is really only a one-off, a one-time event that's intended to provoke conversation, then i think it's been a wasted investment. i think if this really leads to action and examination of structural inequality then i

think that's a really important dimension. you talked about the health of the economy and how wonderful it is and that's great. but the truth is we have a systemic gap and disparity in the unemployment of people of color and white americans. and the african-american community is the only community that has yet to respond to the benefits of the recovery. so this conversation has to shift from the symbolic to the substantive and i think there has to be a set of recommendations and the involvement of business. that's what starbucks and usa today can do. they can be -- for others in the corporate community to engage and address this. >> if you came up with zero members of a different race live on my block or in my apartment building, a, you might be racist or b, you might be living in the realities of a persistently structurally segregated america which leads us to not live next to each other and those can be solved. so even if tomorrow you could

fix whatever internal anxiety you have you still might have zero members of a different race living on your block or in your apartment building. you said the idea of what needs to be interrogated here is not so much race but maybe whiteness. i wanted to listen god help us to common talking to starbucks. >> for a long time i would get on elevators. on the elevator ride if a white person would get on, i wolfuld feel like they didn't like me. but after thinking about this for a while, i decided that i would speak and be more present. and now i must say these elevator rides are way, way better now. >> okay. so that's nice common but it's not really that blacks folks

don't reach out to white people enough. i feel like that's what that equivalency does. >> absolutely. i think you just ask does talk make it better. it really depends who's talking, who they're talking to and what are they talking about. one of the things the work i've been doing is we've been trying to get white people to talk about whiteness. but two things about the idea of how you start conversations. not everybody at this table but there's a lot of places in the country who are going to starbucks and getting a cup that says race together could be a radical moment for them. there's people in my family that that could be a radical moment when they could think about something that they haven't thought about before. >> what if instead of it saying #racetogether it quoted that lbj and it said something like you know at the heart of the battle of equality is a deep-seated belief -- what if instead it gave something substantive. >> absolutely. i would rather have it say white

supremacy has been the organizing principal of america since it was founded. >> there you go put that on the cup. >> please discuss. absolutely. but it's so -- i mean that is the complicated part. but you have to give people access points and not everybody is starting from the same place. and it's clear that howard schultz is not starting from a place. he's just entering this thing. >> so i get you, i get it. part of it is this is a manifestation of schultz's power and privilege because here he is a neophyte to it and he can make it a global issue in a way that people experiencing it on the ground or who are experts in it can't, right? and so checking that privilege does seem to be like an important starting point. >> we talked about this during the break too, but i do think what would it mean for starbucks to do an internal review of the racial culture of the organization publicly share that and then go from there. so as an organization -- >> start with

self-vulnerability. >> introspection and changing a culture. the only question on that list that maybe deals with structural inequality is about the managers, the racial breakdown of people that are in positions of power. so i think that to me would be a radical position. that could be if you're going to be at the front line of the movement you can change corporate culture. right now it's almost as if they're putting the spotlight on american society, on the individual consumer and then the baristas themselves as opposed to thinking about how starbucks itself manifests, plays into and reproduces racial disadvantage. >> we have so much more to get to on race talk this morning. we're not going to give it a short time we're going to give it a long time. in fact the next part of it how the fraternity sae says it wants to engage. but i want to show you one more thing. @zackstafford tweeted barista, your total is $5.45. me, you can just put that on my reparations tab. thanks.

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this week the sigma alpha epsilon fra ternltternity is doing damage control after a video showing its members of the university of oklahoma chapter doing a racial chant. it assembled a committee on inclusion and requiring members to participate. the fraternity's executive director said the incident has caused the organization to recognize its need to engage in a public dialogue about race. >> we are committed to having the tough conversations in every chapter and with every member. >> joining the table now is tracy clayton, a staff writer at buzzfeed.com and author of the story "a black girl's history with southern frat racism." so this story got quite the buzz

from buzzfeed. tell me just a little bit for folks what haven't read it yet what it's about. >> well the essay is about myself at school that really does exist. i was there from 2000 to 2004. it's just about what it's like to be a student of color on a campus where there are so many of the trappings of the confederacy. one was school tradition, there's a dormitory that's still named after jefferson davis who was an alumni there and there was a fraternity that had lots of confederate flags hanging out on campus. it's just about what it was like to try to go to school and focus on school but also feel really unsafe and unwelcome. and i'd like to say that my story is both common but not so common because obviously not a lot of schools i would hope i guess i can't provide proof of this but i would hope there aren't a bunch of confederate flags on campuses than not. >> i have attended or taught at a lot of southern universities.

it is not uncommon again, having grown up in the south. now, i'm older than you so i was coming through -- like just early enough that our kappa alpha order had confederate flags, had old south parties and that kind of thing in the early '90s when i was on campus. part of what i thought was important here is that sae, i do not want to be my sherpa to race dialogue in the world so i am distressed by it. on the other hand, as compared to the way the transylvania university reacted to your buzzfeed piece which there appears to be an e-mail that went out to students that said i just want to make each of you aware of an article that just came out on buzzfeed referencing your article. the president, dean of students and this person are all aware that it's out there. the president is determining how to address it. at this time we are asking you not to comment about the article on any social media platforms. so i don't really want sae to

talk, like as a leader of the conversation, but i so prefer that over don't you dare talk. >> right exactly. i think that's a very very common reaction for any university to have because your reputation is a big money getter for you. you want people to think that you are a very very great campus. by the way, i do want to point out transylvania is a very very good school educationwise. i met some beautiful, beautiful people there. however, there were a lot of things that were not handled the right way as far as listening to students when they say hey, i don't feel safe. this is not specific to me or transylvania or kentucky or the south as the sae video showed us. but this is about students of color on white campuses all over the place. my hope -- you know it's kind of annoying to me to sort of champion the starting of conversations. after that conversation starts that's real cool but what do you do afterwards? but the biggest advantage that i feel that we can get from this story is finally being heard. like my goal was not to make the school look bad, it was for me to be heard. >> and that to me feels critical. as a matter of fact it feels

like you give the school an opportunity in that moment. so the idea that let's not talk about it is the way to not appear to be a great school as a college campus so it seems another way to respond to it is we have been challenged on this point. let's talk about it and that's how we'll indicate how open we are, how willing we are to engage in dialogue and discourse and how afraid we are to be challenged. >> when we think about institutions and organizations, i think we have to pay attention to being proactive than reactive. if you're being proactive about these issues when things like this come up you have a lot to say. you have a lot to talk about and say we're doing this we're doing this we're doing this. it didn't work out here because these are challenging issues. but we have the things in place, we've been working on these things that position us to be able to have these conversations going forward. >> that idea that maybe the race talk conversation starts not by asking how many friends you have but asking about the questions of power and influence i think is a critical one. tracy clayton, thank you so much for your piece. up next, uva. on it.

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i go to uva. those were the words university of virginia third year student martese johnson shouted as he was grabbed, thrown to the pavement and left with a bloody swollen face during an arrest by the alcohol and beverage control officers after midnight on wednesday. the cell phone footage was captured after the abc officers questioned, then detained johnson when he was denied entry into a bar that is frequented by uva students. johnson was charged with public intoxication, obstruction of justice and spent a night in jail. his attorney has denied earlier reports that he attempted to present a fake i.d. on thursday johnson, recovering from a head injury that recovers 10 stitches stood by silently as his lawyer read a statement on his behalf. >> i trust that the scars on my face and head will one day heal but the trauma from what the abc officers did yesterday will stay with me forever.

i believe we as a community are better than this. >> so it feels to me like this is the moment when we remind that the race conversation has consequences. it's not just do you feel good about interracial contact. >> yeah. i mean i guess this is where it also shows that the race conversation isn't alone like you're saying the solution to it. also the owner of the bar has recently come out saying he did not think he was intoxicated. this comes back to the question of weaponized black bodies. it's structural it's instinctive, it's intimate in the ways in which these particular men responded to seeing this young african-american man and what spaces they thought he was violating and what spaces they thought he may be entering. and just the brutality of their actions toward him are unconscionable.

i look at this and say these are my students, these are students i interact with every day. to see that his claim of i'm a uva student. >> yes. >> is like i'm american. these are different versions of the same thing and yet that means nothing in this moment. >> and that for me i think, these so are our students that the first time i heard about this story, i was in the middle of a lecture and i look over and one of my students is weeping. and i said what's going on? it was thursday morning. and she says i just -- i just got a message on my phone that my friend -- so he is her friend. >> one of my grad students, this was her friend. >> literally these are our students. i think we've had this sense that somehow there is a protective thing that occurs as a result of some level of privilege. so when you're saying i'm a uva student, it's like hands up right? is blackness so powerful at this point that it overwhelms all other statuses that are meant to confer some sort of privilege? >> i'm afraid it is.

in this context it has been demonstrated clearly by the treatment of poor martese johnson of the abc board, the alcohol board of the state. >> they just regulate the sale of alcohol. >> this is not your traditional law enforcement entity. and yet they acted in a way that clearly demonstrated an excess with respect to law enforcement technique. i think the protection that one would have expected a student to have gotten from any state school or in any context like that would have been different from the experience of martese johnson. i think coming as it has in the aftermath of ferguson and the aftermath of the justice department's long overdue focus on police practices nationwide and the appointment of that task force on police practices, i think this is a serious issue that will require all campuses to look at their practices and how they police their student body. that's something that i think is long overdue as well. >> amer the last time i student

began weeping on my campus was earlier this semester. i'm at wake forest it's down the road from unc and it was after the shooting death of muslim students at the university of north carolina. and again, a reminder that this is not just about difference there are these life-and-death consequences associated with it. >> these are not abstract ideas. we have to recognize that it translates into violence. it's not -- it's not just whether we feel good about these issues or not. this translates into people's level of safety. when it happens to one, it happens to an entire community, you know. and so when we hear about anything related to murders, police brutality, any of these things, it has this major impact beyond just the individual as much as the trauma is so deep for that individual it also exists for that entire community. >> in fact black students at the university of virginia wrote in the cavalier daily, in many ways the physical pain martese endured has left an open wound on the hearts of our people

again. the physical bruises that mark his body perhaps scars that never fade invoke the emotions of the black student body. only time will heal the ugly scar that this incident has left on the community. the trauma will follow us into the classrooms. a distraction that does not burden the majority of our nonblack peers. and that -- that idea that now these babies carry this with them when they go to class, to me that is the evidence of this deep injustice associated. >> you know what really struck me about that clip he used -- he said we're better than this. those are the exact same words that howard schultz had used in his interview. my reaction is always but historically we're not. i think this idea that somehow we're looking at this default that we're better as opposed to we can be better than this. and that's really the conversation that i think should be happening. what's really interesting also is its relationship to the ferguson police report because the narrative has been set. police departments know the

narrative. what's really scary now is we know the narrative of police departments and that's what's so terrifying for this. this fits into now the narrative we understand of police departments. >> and again for people who don't live in the bible belt of the south, we have these -- i mean their job is to keep illegal alcohol sales -- the level of over -- i mean at the university of virginia. they're just -- >> fake i.d.? >> when we come back also talking about race right now is hip-hop superstar kendrick lamar. it's the abc board.

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artist kendrick lamar. the album which dropped beyonce style in a surprise early release that no one saw coming has been called a masterpiece, and the great american hip-hop album. critical think pieces have celebrated the unrelentless and unapologetic blackness of the album from it's cover to its content to its sound. this week it seemed that when kendrick lamar talked about race, everybody stopped to listen. joining me from chicago is jessica des sue who is known as fm supreme. jessica, what do you think of the album? >> how are you doing, melissa? i think kendrick lamar's album is amazing. it's an excellent teaching tool for artists and young people across the country and across the world. hip-hop has the power to transcend cull turs and i believe he's teaching us with this project. i'm reminded of black face jim crow things like that and there are different things of white supremacy that's hinted in his project. i think it's an amazing piece of work. >> it's -- you know i'm old and

so i think it is amazing relative to the current landscape of hip-hop, but i'm going to just retain some of those critiques for a moment. i want you to talk to me for a second about what it is -- you've said it before. i heard you say it just now which is this idea that hip-hop can make a difference in this. what is it that hip-hop particularly as a cultural form can do that can shove this race conversation into a different place? >> absolutely. i think with kendrick's album to pimp a butterfly, i believe he's telling his story and battling his complexities of being a successful black man in america despite white supremacy and the conditions that hip-hop has been exploited as we discussed before. i think with this project he's teaching us that it's okay to tell your story. it's important to tell your story and he's not willing to -- kendrick lamar is not trying to be understood. he's trying to understand. that in itself is a great place

to be when you're trying to understand the world versus trying to be understood, which means that he's not seeking acceptance, he's just being true to who he is. i'm reminded of bob dylan in 1964 when he released "times are a changing" critiquing society and how it's going on so that's how i look at "to pimp a butterfly" as a social critique of society. kendrick lamar's parents are from chicago. and we're having a youth peace movement conference june 4th through the 6th here in chicago and i think it's important that our young people listen to prophets and poets like kendrick lamar because he's saying something. he has a message here. >> jessica, i love this. amer i wanted to let you in on this. >> there's a lot of people that have been doing hip-hop activism for a long time. yes, kendrick is great relative to the time and i know you love a certain era that i love as well. but in many ways i think he's reflecting the fact that there's a movement going on in the country and that in many ways a lot of hip-hop artists have no

choice but they have to say something because people are looking at them like what you going to say? but meanwhile there's folks on the ground doing the work. people like rosa clemente and others and we have to lift up those artists and recognize that we've got to put our dollars and investment into the people that are doing the real world. >> absolutely. >> i will say i love the cover art. maybe we could see it again. and it's -- you know it's obviously right there on the white house lawn. they have the foot on the neck of a judge. there's all kinds of things going on there. as much as i love it i love it because it's the challenge of all things about respectability but i also wonder about this description of it as overwhelming blackness and sort of what is at stake with that idea. >> so there's two things i think. i like the album. i'm from a similar generation that you are so i appreciate that this generation is deeming him a prophet. but i do think when we're thinking about hip-hop and

thinking about radical blackness, questions of gender always come up. so in the album there is a conflation of black women's voices and corporate greed. so that's just a quick of his critique. fine. the cover of the album like you say is really beautiful and strong, but in the moment of black lives matter where we're actually having this really exciting moment of like deep intersectionality, like black lives matter what does it mean to think with racial oppression through the bodies of black men. you have to keep those things in mind as we celebrate this album and its radical blackness. i think he's much better. he's not misogynist in any real clear way, it's subtle sexism that then becomes the way in which we understand black oppression. >> so black oppression becomes just -- >> so let's just keep that in mind as we're continuing to praise the album. >> 30 seconds here. >> i think that kendrick lamar

is the closest thing that we have to tupac shakir. we were able just at south by southwest and performed at a freedom house showcase and there with rebel ds you have artists on the ground who are in the movement. kendrick lamar is not a part of the movement yet. however, he's speaking from a perspective of people who can appreciate where he's coming from. we have a plethora of artists who speak from their ulterior motives to make money, they're not speaking from their soul. i'm listening to you or he's having a conversation with tupac shakur and he's 'em batletles his place in society and being true to himself. so i salute artists like that for being real to who we are. i think that with corporate rap, that money making is the goal.

i don't think kendrick's goal is to make money, i think his goal to change the world. >> fm supreme, my producer victoria says thank you. she and i have been fighting about the album for three days and i defer to you, jessica. thank you to my panel. up next the white house just held its second annual student film festival. of more than 1700 entries, 15 were selected and the students behind one of those films joins me next. it's a significant improvement over the infiniti we had... i've had a

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reeb yal palty so 6-year-old noah's project for protection of montana's wildlife and environment in noah's project, through my eyes. one group of young film makers many of whom are part of the ulysses s. ground housing project in new york, focused on mentoring programs in their harlem neighborhood. >> we live in harlem, usa. it's often called the mecca of black america. >> like all great communities, there's a tradition of providing guidance and training to the next generation. we took a look at several programs in our neighborhood. >> first, we needed a great definition of a mentor. >> a mentor brings you insight. a mentor shares experiences from his or her life in order that when you come up against hard knocks, he made it i think i can too. >> student filmmakers david maxwell and chaz johnson and their mentor and director of the digital media training program

in harlem melvin mccray join me now. so you got to go to the white house. was that your first time in that experience? >> yes, ma'am. it was. and it was a very exciting experience. >> what was the best parts of it? >> meeting the president. and just going to the white house in general. >> how did it feel to have a film that you'd worked on screened there in the white house? >> i felt very honored and grateful that i got to make it there. i mean how many kids my age or of my color actually get to go to the white house? >> i want to dig into the actual film a little bit itself. it's on mentoring. after working on this project, what did you learn about mentoring? what do you now know you didn't know before? >> well i know that mentoring is a fatherhood motherhood and brotherhood. it could be very informational. >> so there's tons you can learn from. are there mentors you would identify as people in your life

or in this project that are clear mentors? >> yes, my mentor is reverend james singletary. throughout my life he's been there. for instance, you know he introduced me to this program called friday night live which is in cooperation with digital media training program. you know we entered this film into the white house. we got there. you -- >> that's kind of amazing. let's listen to the reverend for a moment and then i'm going to ask you a question, mel. >> i had no experience working with kids, but the one thing that i did have was an ability to love people unconditionally. all the kids want to know is that you love them. and when they get a sense that you love them and that you care about them you can lead them from here to kalamazoo. >> so speaking of leading kids from here to kalamazoo mel, tell me about the program and

sort of what you want young people to learn and what you've seen them learn in the process of becoming young filmmakers. >> i realize that people black and latino kids in my community were consuming media. they weren't producing media. i wanted to do something about it. i wanted to teach them skills. photography, video, journalism so they could tell their own stories and be empowered by that. we got an opportunity to do so with this program. we partnered with riverside church, my image studios in harlem as well as the columbia university. we got funding from the west harlem development corporation and started teaching these skills. we noticed it really made a difference to be able to tell your own stories. the paradigm shifts. you begin to be a player. you begin to reach out and express your view of the world to others. >> given that we're in the middle of a social movement about black lives matter do either of you see yourselves going on to make films, to tell the stories of some of those

black lives? >> me personally i don't because my dream is to become an airplane pilot, and i want to go into the military to get my degree. but as to black lives matter in my community, i think they do matter because you have children with broken homes and no mentors. you know they don't know which path to take so they choose the path that they see everybody else going. and that leads them into some drugs, getting arrested. >> and so part of the story you told is about mentors helping young people to find a different path. thank you to david maxwell and chazz johnson and melvin mccray. that's our show for today. i'll see you next saturday 10:00 a.m. eastern. right now, time for a preview of "weekends with alex witt." >> hello melissa. thank you so much. a member of congress says it's time to pack a new go bag. why some are calling this idea

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