this morning, my question -- what happens next in a galaxy far, far away? plus, stay mad, abby. and and a brand-new nbc news poll shows big moves in the gop field. but first, the verdict -- guilty. good morning. i'm melissa harris-perry and we begin this morning with the conviction of former officer daniel holtzclaw. he is the 29-year-old former oklahoma city police officer who on thursday was found guilty of sexual assault against eight women. holtzclaw stood accused by 13 women. all of them african-american and one of them just 17 years old.

and all alleging that holtzclaw encountered and sexually assaulted them in his role as a police officer. he now faces up to 236 years for his crimes. now we first told you about the allegations against holtzclaw in september of 2014. >> this week a buzzfeed's jessica testa went to oklahoma county where prosecutors presented a case against police officer daniel holtzclaw who is alleged to have sexually assaulted eight black women. testa recounts the stomach churning testimony of a 57-year-old grandmother who says she was violated, molested and forced to perform oral sex all during what she initially believed was a routine traffic stop. according to testa's reporting, holtzclaw allegedly used his position as a police officer to identify potential targets who posed the least risk as targets of assault. by allegedly focusing on poor black women with criminal

records, holtzclaw kept himself from being caught. >> so we brought you that report and then we, like much of mainstream media, turned our attention to other stories. much of the news that we've covered during the past year has dealt with race and policing from south carolina to baltimore, to chicago. the nation's been riveted video images of black men's suffering at the hands of police. the nation was appalled to see black girls treated in slayer ways, but somehow despite all that conversation about policing there was relatively little discussion about officer holtzclaw's violations against women who he was sworn to protect and serve but instead whom he violated. why the silence? one may be because the familiar stories of rape, and criminal justice tend to be dominated by black american defended as wrongly accused or dangerous brutes. white women, either understood as innocent victims whose honor must be defended or disparaged

as dishonest accusers whose lives bring wrathful vengeance. and white men, either righteous or vile defenders of white women's sexual chastity. that story of black men, white women and white men is what harper lee's fictional lawyer a aticus finch stood for in ""to kill a mockingbird." the villains and the heroes may change depending on where the story teller stands. but the ancient tale of race, rape and american criminal justice consistently features these three figures -- black men, white women, and white men. notice anyone missing? this is rosa parks. she's often referred to as the mother of the civil rights movement because she initiated the montgomery bus boycott in 1955. she is also the survivor of attempted rape. in 1931, 18 years old and

working as a housekeeper, her white employer attempted to sexually assault her and she wrote in a detailed letter discovered decades later. he offered me a drink of whiskey which i promptly and vee mentally refused. he moved nearer to me and put his hand on my waist. i was very frightened by now. and reecy taylor walking home with friends on a rural road after church service. a car pulled up and seven armed white men grabbed her, drove off with her, raped her repeatedly and left her by the side of the road. the activists sent to the naacp to help taylor were initially referred to -- rosa parks. miss parks was organizing a campaign to address issues of race, sexual violence and injustice in the jim crow south in 1944. a full decade before she refused to give up her seat on the bus.

but this part of parks' history and of our own is only dimly and intermitte intermittently remembered. stereotypes as black women as promiscuous are embedded cultural tropes that allow us to ignore the suffering of sisters over the decades. the black women are the missing protagonists in the stories we tell about race, waip and criminal justice. but the unpunished rape of black women long served as a form of racial terrorism, which brings us to daniel holtzclaw who was betting on the vulnerability of black women he attacked to keep them silent. the assistant district attorney said not only is this individual stopping women who fit the profile of members of society, he identifies a vulnerable society that without exception have an attitude for what good is it going to do?

he's a police officer who's going to believe me? more than a year after a bravely coming forward, the survivors of holtzclaw's predatory serial rapes can now say they told their stories and they wrp believed. >> i was out there alone and helpless. didn't know what to do. in my mind all i could think of was he was going to shoot me, he was going to kill me. i wasn't a criminal. i have no record. i didn't do anything wrong. you said i did something wrong. you said he was swerving but i was not. you just wanted to stop me. so all i could say is i was innocent and he just picked the wrong lady to stop that night. >> yes. >> joining me now, associate professor at the university of

pennsylvania and co-founder of "a long walk home," a non-profit that works towards ending violence towards women. and joy reed, msnbc national correspondent. nice to have you both with me. were you surprised by the verdict? >> well, no, because i did think that the case, by the time it got to the prosecution and i thought there was enough "evidence," there's enough repetition of this act and the women had come forward. so the issue is sometimes it gets to the -- what it takes to actually even get to the prosecut prosecutor's desk and for the prosecutor to end up having a guilty verdict there are so many steps to get there. but while the verdict is unprecedented, this act of repeated violence and the repetition of picking on vulnerable women, extremely vulnerable women, black women who are working class, sometimes some may have been using substances illegally, or not. women who are -- there are all these ways in which we talk about these women. yet that i think is very common.

so what does it mean that this case is getting attention, but how are police officers disproportionately using force and their power to harm black women around the country all the time? if it doesn't end up in death but it ends up in surviving sexual assault, why doesn't that create the kind of outrage and furor that other things do? >> we know that for everyone african-american woman that reports rape, we expect there are 15 who do not. your point about the experience of rape and sexual assault relatively common, but this kind of verdict absolutely unprecedented. i want to play attorney general crump though who at that same press conference on friday had a bit of criticism around -- following up what you were saying -- where attention often lies. >> i started calling everybody i knew in new york and chicago and l.a. and the media. i called these groups saying where are you all at?

where are you all at? you talk about women's issues and you talk about we have a right in this 2015 to be counted equally, and you see where the federal government and president obama saying about women's equality, but these 13 women, nobody was saying a word! >> i think this was an instance where we in the media utterly failed. i have to be honest. it was a great and broad failure of the media. the only day to day coverage of that was on news one, roland martin's show covered it every day. african-american centric media there wasn't broad coverage of it and i think it is a valid criticism of our profession in this case. if you think about how unprecedented it is for a police officer to be charged with anything. it is absolutely unprecedented. the associated press has done studies about this. there have been university studies that looked into the rarity of police charges,

whether it's for shootings that end in death or whether it's sexual misconduct, the associated press specifically found instances of nearly 1,000 officers -- 990 officers who were decertified for sexual misconduct between 2009 and 2014. and in those cases, nearly one-third of those officers perpetrated those crimes against people who are either incarcerated or otherwise involved in the criminal justice system. it is not that it is rare that sexual misconduct takes place. the ap did extensive coverage of it. that coverage did not bleed over to the larger televised media. so again, specifically when we're in a moment of black lives matter where police charges that are rare happen to get on television and get coverage, the idea that one officer sexually assaulting 13 women in a rape case got literally almost no coverage! we all should be apologizing to these victims as well in the media. we didn't cover it. >> there are multiple ways in which we see the criminal justice tesystem create this

sexual vulnerable. remembering also the new orleans case where rape crimes and sexual assault crimes even against children were reclassified, misclassified, changed, not followed up on. rape kits that are never processed. there are multiple levels of both complicity and perpetration. >> organizations that we're keeping at the forefront -- so in terms of oklahoma, okc, the black women there, particularly grace and candice, they've been doing this work and keeping us at the forefront. buzzfees where i read today, reading the testimonies of all of these women and the ways in which he was so calculated and was perfecting his own predatory behavior was simply both astonishing. but to be able to read it and goive it life and breath i think was really important. one of the things that come out of reading the victim's testimonies were the ways in which these women repeatedly

told their family members but no onefeld like they could do. women disclosing to boyfriends, fathers and mothers, yet no one felt like they could go to the police because it was the police doing it. for me this is the trifecta, this is the kind of case where you have all these hot-button issues. campus sexual assault reform going on. anti-police brutality protests happening all over the nation, yet this gets lost in that kind of vortex of violence that black women are so vulnerable to. >> i think your point about the sense of being unable to go to the police in this case because the police were perpetrating. but also we know black women often don't go to the police because -- because of that other part of the trifecta, that bringing police into black communities does not necessarily end in justice for those communities. >> one of the victims even said, what police do? call on the police. there is a sense of mistrust. i'm glad you opened the show talking about rosa parks. because one of the other difficulties from the point of covering sexual assault cases is that one of the things that happens is a forensic

examination of the victims of who they are. in this case there were victims who were admittedly on drugs at the time of the assault. women who had police records. how do you construct an idyllic victim that's coverable. even in the case of rosa parks, she winds up being the person who gets covered because the first person who refused to give up her seat on that bus was a young single mother, dark complexion, all of the things that sort of made her not an ideal victim so we also have that challenge that we need to overcome. it doesn't matter hot victim is. if they're a victim, they need the attention and we need to bring attention because this is a rare case, melissa, in which even the police union, the fraternal order of police from oklahoma refused to stand behind the police officer. that in and of itself made it a coverable event. >> everything about it was rare and yet absolutely not rare. thank you.

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in case you haven't noticed, president obama is from chicago, and proud of it. >> hey, chicago! it is good to be home! >> welcome to chicago, my hometown! >> my hometown of chicago. >> our hometown of chicago. >> i live on the south side of chicago. >> now, the president's ties to chicago actually extend to the people who run it. the mayor, rahm emanuel, was the president's first chief of staff in the white house and the close personal relationship didn't end when emanuel left washington in 2010. just this past february president obama campaigned for rahm's re-election. >> not only a great mayor, but also a great friend of mine. i couldn't be prouder of him.

i'm glad he's my mayor. and i'm glad he's going to be my mayor for another four years. >> it is not every day that you see the president of the united states campaigning in a mayoral race. but now the obama administration is doing something that may have serious political implications for chicago's leaders and especially for the mayor. u.s. attorney general loretta lynch announced last week that the justice department is opening a civil rights probe of chicago's police department and she made it clear that the investigation will not focus on individuals, those bad apples we sometimes hear about, but on the systems within the department. >> we understand that the same systems that fail community members also fail conscientious officers by creating mistrust. this mistrust from members of the community makes it more difficult to gain help with investigations, to encourage the victims and the witnesses of crime to speak up, and to fulfill the most basic responsibilities of public

safety officials. and when suspicion and hostility is allowed to fester, it can erupt into unrest. >> in recent weeks of protests over the shooting death of 17-year-old laquan mcdonald has led to the ouster of the chicago police superintendent, garry mccarthy. but problems with the department have been going on for decades. of the last five superintendents, three have resigned amid department scandals and in the past decade the city has spent more than $1 billion in taxpayer money to settle claims against police brutality. that includes tens of millions of dollars for eaglallegations related to former police commander john burgess' so-called midnight crew of officers who allegedly tortured more than 100 suspects, most of them black men, into confessing to crimes. chicago police department clearly needs a hard look from the department of justice and as protesters on the streets of chicago demand, the department needs to change in some

fundamental ways. joining me now is chicago native, fellow at the roosevelt institute, host of "nerding out" on nbc's "shift." susan del percio, joy-ann reed, and alderman, how important is it to you that the department of justice despite the connections of the administration to the city have in fact decided to take on this investigation? >> well, i called for an investigation of the chicago police department. this is extremely important. in the city of chicago we've cleveland failed to address this issue for decades, as you pointed out. the time is now for the heavy hand of justice to come if and ensure that police officers are not allowed to brewalize black and brown people in the city of chicago with impunity as they have done for decades. >> the police chief is gone, now there are calls for two other

people to step down, the mayor and the dribt attornistrict att this case. >> accountability means that police that are involved in police shootings, people involved in covering up those police shootings and allowing those crimes to opurr with puc impunity, they also need to go. i've called for the resignation of state attorney anita alvarez, she clearly had more than enough evidence to bring charges against officer van dyke 13 months ago. but in the case of rahm emanuel, we need a full accounting because if we don't know what exactly transpired for the last 13 months in the mayor's office we will be doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past several decades. zp didn't the city council also vote without seeing the tape to provide a settlement to this family and dozen that mean that all of you, too, are part of a kind of complicity relative to this case? >> i was elected in february. i was not part of the city council that voted on that. but what i will say is that the mayor of the city of chicago is

the decider in the city of chicago. nothing makes its way to the council floor for an up or down vote without the mayor's blessing, without vetting from the mayor's office and we know at this point in time that just two months after the horrific murder of laquan mcdonald, the mayor's office top press staff there were discussing what that video depicted and knew that it was a looming national scandal. >> alderman, hold on for a minute. joy-ann? >> i don't want to let the alderman off the hook on this. so there's no question the mayor knew about this within 48 hours of the actual shooting. he knew about the tape. whether he saw it or not is not important. his lawyers did. it is his lawyers that go before the city council and present these settlements month after month before the finance committee, then the full council takes a vote. many of these settlements get no more than five minutes of questioning and discussion before the finance committee. i think the laquan mcdonald case got 36 seconds of discussion at the full city council vote. this is the pattern and practice of how the city council operates. i've talked to several of

alderman rosa's colleagues. they have explained to me how this works. the city lawyers come in. rahm's lawyers come in and say, this is how we're going to save the city money. we might have to pay out $16 million to the mcdonald family, but $5 million is the deal. they say great. they don't ask questions generally at all and so there are three or four of these that come before them every month. by the way, this is pre-rahm. >> right. this is sounds so rotten to the core. that for me, i guess part of it is, maybe rahm should step down but this also sounds way bigger than the mayor. again, which is not to exclude the mayor from a sense of responsibility here but also feels way bigger than that. >> chicago is a city -- it's not the only city, by the way, in america that's become standard to just pay. the city is literally, you point out the half a billion dollars in settlements. that includes a represereparati

that includes a million dollars already paid out for that police torture. the chicago police department has been investigated since back to 1969. it would have taken out bobby rush, too, if he hadn't turned himself in. the chicago police department is notorious and the city council is rubber-stamping more and more money because in the end they make the calculation it is cheaper that way. one other detail of what you were discussing, according to sources close to the mayor's office, the family of laquan mcdonald aproechld the city with a settlement offer in february. it took 30 days for them to decide, yeah, we're going to settle. the only reason it took until april was because there wasn't a scheduled meeting until ape. literally within 30 days of reading the police report the city's lawyers realize we have a problem. the other question here, what was the other seven months about that it took to charge in the

case? you know if the city's lawyers knew, then clearly the state attorney knew the same thing. >> that's right. alderman, back to you on this. i guess it is in part looking -- given how old and how broad these sets of problems are, knowing now that attorney general lynch is coming. right? that the doj is coming to do this work and what we've seen in baltimore, ferguson and other cities, do you have a sense of hope in this space or is it kind of broken in a way that can't be repaired? >> i think it is time now for the public to raise that outcry. they've been doing so every single day. there has not been a day since the laquan mcdonald video came out that there has not been a protest. chicago isn't ferguson. we have black political leadership. we have latino political leadership. rahm emanuel was elected because of black votes. so now is the time for the public to come forward and demand that change. i was elected to be part of that change so i'm asking for the city kwounl to reform the way that we look at these cases and also for the city council to bring mayor rahm emanuel before

us to testify and tell us exactly what transpired for those last 13 months because for too long police officers in the city of chicago have been able to brutalize black and brown people with impunity and the city council writes a check to make it go away. we need to make sure officials aren't complicit in this. up next, political fires to put out everywhere. can rahm hold on to power? i tried depend last weekend. it really made the difference between a morning around the house

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case. joining me now from chicago, the man you want to talk to when you talk chicago politics, rick pearson, political reporter foretfor the "chicago tribune." do you think emanuel will survive it? >> i don't think anybody in chicago truly expects the mayor is going to resign. everybody knows rahm emanuel. we're also talking about emanuel knowing that he's got 3 1/2 years left in his term. he knows that oftentimes politics can be short attention span theater. but certainly he's been embarrassed in ways that i'm sure he could not imagine, the fact of having that department of justice investigation providing a critical hammer for these badly needed reforms in the chicago police department. >> what's interesting for me, susan, you know, like for example in the ferguson case, one of the things that we heard frequently was you need more black political representation in ferguson, you need more

people of color on the police force. actually chicago does pretty well relative to its police force. this looks like something that's going on that's not just about sort of representation of individuals of color in these positions of power. >> as a matter of fact, everyone in the political establishment of chicago is really complicit in this situation and they are all going to either have to all be held accountable or none of them. it just can't be just rahm. with rahm emanuel he's known as being such a political animal. he was the never one that never let a good crisis go to waste. he's now one that said let me cover up my political crisis and hopefully i can still get elected before anyone finds out with it. that creates a very big problem. but more so the cook county attorney alvarez who is now going to probably be the sacrificial lamb. she is the only one really without a chair once we go around this dance. >> rick, to you then.

given this discourse about rahm emanuel as the great political animal and the idea this is a long-held problem, i got to say, i lived in chicago for a lot of years. it is not like having a mayor who has some corruption problems. -- like that's completely new to the city of chicago. so what is it about this case that is the last straw. >> i think it is a combination. let's face it, rahm emanuel wasn't elected by chicagoans because they liked the guy. they thought he was competent. they thought he was kind of going to be the adult in the room, the guy who pledged to make hard decisions. now you look at what's going on in the city over these last couple of months, you've got increase in property taxes. a huge increase in property taxes. you have the city looking to go to illinois state government, which is six months without a state budget. the city needs $900 million in help with the schools, with transit, with other things.

how likely is that to happen. as you mentioned, there's this upcoming results of this strike vote by the chicago teachers union. it is an embarrassing time for this mayor. >> so i think about sort of how chicagoans would talk about the daley years and how chicagoans would talk about the harold washington years and the question of whether or not there is a strong or weak mayor system in chicago, now that you are looking at what's happening with rahm emanuel with this kind of losing control, what's happening there? >> there is a crisis of governance and he has no legitimacy as an alderman told me, the emperor has no clothes. there are five constituencies that are all angry with rahm emanuel. all the city residents. he's at the lowest level of public opinion ever. then you have the city council who feels thrown under the bus so there are probably going to be restructural reforms. if the city council wanted to force something right now they could probably override his veto.

rich donors upset with donors on the gold coast, not having a handle on it. four, black elites and ministers bought off by rahm and daley before rahm who are catching hell, frankly, from their constituents. then last, but not least, you have the police. who are upset. you never want to be on the wrong side of the police because the public supports the police over any mayor. so those five constituencies are all angry at rahm. he has no -- he has no longer any governing legitimacy. >> thank you to rick pearson in chicago and joy-ann. still to come, justice sc l scalia. for the price of 10. that's five extra gigs for the same price. looks like someone just made it to the top of the nice list. in that case, i want a new bicycle, a bike helmet, a basketball, a stuffed animal that talks when you squeeze it. and... yes, yes. i got your letter. we're good.

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height crime. no one was injured in the fire. in texas, a tornado damaged as many as 50 homes saturday afternoon. no injuries were reported but the mayor has declared the city a disaster area. and two big sports stories to note. alabama's derrick henry is college football's new heisman troe if i winner after one of the closest votes in the awards histories. also the first running back to win since 2009. and in the new hampshire, it had to happen some time and it was a hell of a run. but the golden state -- excuse me. the golden state warriors' winning streak is in fact over at 24. they lost on the road to the milwaukee bucs last night, 108-95. up next -- i'm going to say this slowly so you can keep up, mr. scalia. affirmative action and the courts.

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heard oral arguments in fisher v. university of texas which challenges the university's consideration of race in a portion of its admissions process. during the proceedings, associate justice scalia made statements which are, well, the audio was released on friday so i'm just going to let his words speak for themselves. >> there are those who contend that it does not benefit african-americans to get them into the university of texas where they do not do well, as opposed to having them go to a less advanced school, a less -- a slower track school where they do well. one of the briefs pointed out that most of the black scientists in this country don't come from schools like the university of texas. they come from lesser schools where they do not feel that they're being purshed ahead in

classes that are too fast for them. >> joining my panel now, professor of constitutional law at nyu's school of law. and with us in washington, d.c., roger klegg, president and general council at the center for equal opportunity. can you tell me what it is you heard and what scalia said in that moment? >> well, i don't want to be a huge defender of justice scalia across the board but in this context what he was referencing is a very long line of argument that's been made about affirmative action. if you go back to justice thomas' dissent in the 2003 case he made exactly this mismatch argument that has since been taken up by scholars like rick sanders at ucla. i actually think that justice scalia has done a service to popularizing this argument. >> this past monday there was an affirmative action debate conversation. i may not agree but i do think there are principle bases on

which to oppose affirmative action as a policy for a variety of reasons. again even if i don't agree with them but i'm not sure that thinking that black folks are too slow for college constitutes one of those principled arguments. i was genuinely spliced lly su hear. >> i don't think that's what justice scalia meant. i appreciate you being open-minded on this and also appreciate the professor's statement, too. remember that justice scalia is on the wing of the court that is opposed to racial discrimination in admissions. he's opposed to racial preferences. what he was saying was that at the college level, all students learn better if they are roughly at at same -- roughly the same academic qualifications. if you create campuses where there are huge gaps in the different academic qualifications among students,

then that turns out not being good for education for anybody. it's not really a racial point. you would have the same problem if you had white students being admitted into a college where black students had much better academic qualifications. >> but so let me take it out of race for a second. it does feel to me like that argument, one, as far as i know there isn't empirical evidence that suggests that ability of diversity in a classroom makes it harder to learn. montessori education would tell ugg diversity makes it much easier for everybody to come along. second, there isn't a robust debate about, for example, athletics affirmative action or legacy affirmative action, any of a variety of other kinds of affirmative action to bring in students who may have differing abilities in terms of the classroom. it does seem the principle is

only supposed to be about race. >> first, i think you are absolutely right that studies are in their nacency empirically. there was a recent study written about in the "washington post" where it says, again, this is not a slam dunk, this only applies to law schools, et cetera, et cetera. but obviously what the supreme court is doing is setting policy among higher education and ec n ecmenically. point two, with regard to the empirical basis of this, we argue a lot about comparisons in constitutional law when the constitutional principle is not up for grabs. but those who are originalists who argue for just thinking about what the framers of the 14th amendment would have wanted, the same people, the same congress who voted out the 14th amendment also voted out

requisitions to all black schools. it should be like the scalias and the thomases on the court if they really cleve to this originalist theory of the constitution who actually uphold affirmative action and say, no it would be judicial activism to step in. there is an empirical problem but also a constitutional problem. >> as an empirical matter, if your listening want to google richard sander pope sinner, he does a very good job of marshalling the state of play with respect to empirical evidence. there is something very much to this mismatch problem. and again, it's just common sense that if you have students who have significantly lower academic qualifications than the rest of the student body, there is going to be a problem with them -- >> i got to say, roger, i've been a college professor for going on 15 years now.

it doesn't feel to me like common sense. in part because the very thing we use as a standard of determining qualification for interest which is typically test scores have almost no basis in determining both the quality of the student's behavior and actions and capacity within class and even their likelihood of completing. in fact, they're both just mostly related to parental income. right? so if you have parents with higher income you are more likely to finish because you are more likely not to have financial problems over the course of your four years in college and you are likely to have higher s.a.t. scores because mostly what they test is how wealthy your parents are. >> i don't agree with any of that. but again, people can go to the website and check out that recent piece by rick sander. >> roger -- we're not going away. just quick break, we'll be right back. coming up, the perfect response before about the supreme court. ...isn't it time to let the... ...real you shine...

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the fisher in fisher verses

is university of texas is a young white woman named abigail fisher who believed she wasn't admitted to the university because of her race. university includes race as a factor in only a portion of its admissions. because black twitter is kind of amazing with be this was the response. using the hashtag stay mad abby, current and former students from u.t. posted, out of 51k plus students at ut, only approximately 2,200 of them are black. what about the other 49,000 spots? abby? and only 47,000 students admitted to ut that year had lower gfa and sats than abby. were white. #stay mad abby. it does feel like this is in part kind of the response to the justice saying, oh, these kids

just aren't qualified and inherently what affirmative action does is to generate classrooms full of unqualified folks in them. >> yeah. and the problem with justice scalia making that argument is that sitting on the panel with him are justice sonia sotomayor who is a self-described product of affirmative action who in her own writings about her life said she went into a university system where she felt completely out of the same sort of world as the students she went to school with. anybody like myself who is a public school kid who goes to an elite university, you are an immediate fish out of water. but that doesn't mean that you aren't perfectly suited to be there or that somehow you are -- i don't know what the term that mr. clegg just used, but that your abilities are so different. meanwhile justice clarence thomas, though he completely disparages affirmative action now, went to yale on it. then at the same time, i'm glad you brought up the idea of legacy admissions because no one brings up the abilities and whether the abilities are different for legacy admissions whose sole reason for being in elite university is their mom,

dad or grandpa. are they somehow differing in their abilities when they get into a classrooms are students who worked their behinds off and got straight "as" in a public school. >> the other thing we aren't talking about, the schools that these minority kids are coming out of. whether san antonio hispanic kids or houston and you have african-american kids. those schools are not being properly funded, by far. now that's also another issue. at the bottom of it when we talk about the kids going to the university of texas, they are coming from schools that aren't even properly funded. so if you want to raise the level of everyone on the playing field, part of that has to go to funding of these schools. >> so just for folks who may not know, 75% of the class at the ut austin is determined by the top 10% graduates from high schools across the state. but of course what that does is to generate an incentive for racial segregation.

right? because then the only way to get a racially integrated class is if in fact those 10% are coming from these racially segregated schools which might in fact worse n the problem. >> the 10% plan was the response to the previous attacks on affirmative action in the state of texas. so it kind of gets around that problem. but it doesn't get at the fundamental problem of the funding of schools. that's true. but, as that tweet that you pointed out said, 42 of the 47 who were admitted with lower credentials than abby were white. 168 black and latino students with equal or higher were also denied. so this is really about the principle, i want roger clegg to actually bring a case against those other white students who weren't qualified so to speak and on behalf of the black and latino students. this is about entitlement. >> roger, he's giving you a case but i want to ask a smaller question. go back to the point joy made

that one might show up at college and for any of a variety of reasons feel like a fish out of water. you might be a californians who comes out to the east coast. or you could be a first generation kid who doesn't have any experience with college. but it always feels like the conservative argument ought to be, and then go ahead and give yourself that opportunity to achieve in these circumstances. and so as long as young people are showing up and have this opportunity to achieve, why would conservatism have any kind of conservative about that, per se? >> well, the problem is race. there is something uniquely wrong about creating people differently because of skin color as opposed to whether they're a legacy or whether they're an athlete or whether they're from california or something like that. it's legally different. it's historically different. and it's morally different. and we shouldn't minimize the

amount of discrimination that's going on here. the asian-americans in the relevant group who are admitted to the university of texas were scoring in the 93rd percentile on the s.a.t., whereas programs in this group were in the 52nd percentile. so a significant amount of discrimination. >> we have no time but i'm still going to give you the last word. >> i mean race does matter for constitutional purposes. i still didn't hear an answer to the fact that the framers of the 14th amendment believe that race mattered -- >> it's not in the constitution. constitution says equal protection. >> excuse me, sir. you've already had a chance to answer the question, please give me a chance to answer your point. so the thought was that the framers of the 14th amendment saw no difference in between framing the 14th amendment and allowing requisition to all black schools. they saw nothing inconsistent between affirmative action and the 14th amendment. so if you were truly an originalist about this you wouldn't have any problem with this. >> we are undoubtedly going to have much more on this case because this case will

eventually be decided. thank you to roger clegg, joy reid and my other guests. we'll be back in our next hour. the gop panic over donald trump. do you believe the hype? we are beyond hype for the new "star wars" movie.

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national committee chairman reince priebus brought together more than 20 gop leaders for a dinner party monday night and the dominating topic of discussion -- what do we do about trump? the topic on the table was the possibility of a good old-fashioned floor fight at the republican nominating convention in cleveland. sources told the "post" that should trump prevail at the primaries and arrive at the convention having secured a significant number of delegates, the gop main stram wing could coalesce around an alternative. should have scenario come to pass it would be the first time since 1976 that the party opened its convention still uncertain about its nominee. meanwhile the guy at the center of all the uproar is selling himself as the yawnunderdog tole "post," i'll be disadvantaged. deal making is my advantage. my disadvantage is going up against guys who know each other intimately and i don't know who they are. while it remains to be seen

whether a bit of political horse trading would damage the party the gop is guaranteed to lose its favorite neurosurgeon should the brokered convention become a reality. candidate ben carson issued a statement in response -- saying if it is correct every voter standing for change must know they are betrayed. i won't stand for itnd a i assure you donald trump won't be the only one leaving the party. carson said this morning on abc's "this week" he's since spoken with reince priebus who has assured him there's been no back room dealing. according to the new nbc/"wall street journal" poll out this morning, looks like he's already slipped to fourth place in the republican field. he lost many of his supporters to the new number two, senator ted cruz. trump, on the other hand, maintains his nearly five-month poll position at the head of the pack despite the firestorm of criticism that has plagued him

since his proposal of a ban -- universal ban on muslims entering the country last week. so if trurnl continues to move ahead while the gop decides it is time to slam on the brakes does that mean the party is about to spin out of control? could i just remind everybody, not a single vote has been cast. like not one! and we were reminded this is a perennial story. each cycle it is a moot point. so maybe there will be an epic historic showdown on the republican convention floor. or maybe it will just be politics as usual. maybe we can wait for one vote first. joining me, dorian ward, susan delpercio, author of "of empires and citizens pro-american democracy or no democracy at

all." and christopher bork, professor of political science. so, susan, can y'all get your party back? >> it made me think back to 2008 when no one knew what a superdelegate was. like hillary clinton was going to lock them up and change everything and they were going to go to the convention and through this secret ballot superdelegate thing she was going to somehow steal the convention away from barack obama. and all heck was going to break loose. well, didn't happen. i don't think we're going to see it happen in 2016 either. no vote -- >> that was democrats. who are not usually in control of themselves. republicans, y'all are pretty good about running your party. right? if that was going to happen, it really would certainly have been the democrats -- >> well, if you were taking a snapshot right now of what both parties look like you certainly wouldn't believe that. because right now it is the democrats are very much on message and hillary clinton is steady moving forward and the

republicans, everyone's wondering what the heck happened, like how did donald trump get here? now i don't believe donald trump will be the nominee. i don't think you're going to have a broken convention. i don't think ben carson is in any position to talk about what he will or will not be doing because is he simply spinning out of the polls. he's disappearing. so the question is is what happens -- in at least three states -- iowa, which looks like ted cruz is moving ahead. new hampshire, chris christie's moving. and you look at marco rubio. then south carolina where trump is doing well. so you have to look at those three states. it's quite possible that we will see three different winners of those three states. so there will be a lot of back and forth. now if donald trump doesn't win the first two, that may actually hurt him in south carolina if he thinks he can win that state. but at this point, it looks to me like politics as usual. you have a bunch of candidates who are fighting it out. >> what are you seeing? i really do always have to pull back before we've had a single

caucus. right? and yet it's also a bit surprising that mr. trump is five months at the lead of the polls in this way. >> yeah. sure, it is surprising that donald trump is had the incredible staying power in the latest nbc poll shows once again he is around that high 20s, early 30 mark. but as susan just said, again, no votes have been cast. we're early, we tend to go into hyperbole mode with any actions at this time before we get to that primary season. again, usually the primary seasons do exactly what you said, they work out in vetting the system, getting it down to one candidate. the idea that we go into summer and the convention with a brokered position db no majority candidate on the party side -- is very, very unlikely. >> it feels to me like there is also a fundamental question of democratic theory that's part of this. part of the reason we moved away from brokered conventions and towards primaries and caucuses for deciding was the idea that the people ought to be closer to the process.

these days sometimes you feel like, man, i like the people a lot more in theory than in practice. right? so part of what i see the republican party saying is, yo, the people are totally out of hand because they are picking this guy, we need to back up because we have the longer term interest of the party at heart. but is that good or bad for democracy? >> well, i mean that's a really fundamental question. insofar as democracy is about the will of the people, to sort of undermine the will of the people at the convention will deliver a tremendous blow through the republican party, chris and i were just talking about this. the question is that the republican party as a party is worried about its own standing, its own longevity. but the question is then, where is the republican party in all of this? we know that the republican party is quite upset with what's going on but we really don't know where the republican party stands. we haven't heard a unified voice coming out of the republican party. again, i'm not a republican strategist, sorry. but i would be -- if i was in the republican party, i would wonder why would they wait until

the convention? >> as opposed to kind of coalescing around an alternate candidate right now. >> or anality mat message. >> for me, i po-- on one hand democracy is about the will of the people but it is also some more things than that. i know it sounds anti-democratic to suggest this but sometimes we don't put everything up to a vote. sometimes we talk about the values we have as a nation and we make sure those are preserved through institutions even when we recognize that a populist uprising might move us against those long-held values. >> i think the undercurrent of what you are greti inggetting a our own comfortableness with trump's appeals and dog whistle politics -- >> dog whistle. >> barking. >> i think it is a mistake, i've

been arguing with my progressive liberal friends, don't just write him off as a bigot. this is a strategy to win elections. >> i'm also uncomfortable with strategic racism. >> but this is the strategy of the republican party to win elections. why are we surprised 20 years of dog whistling becomes dog barking. now we're all up in arms. he represents a significant portion of the white american electorate. >> so let me just say, i know -- i know the story about lbj signed '64 and '65, then reagan shows up in mississippi. i get it. george w. bush was like let's big the build tent. they got michael steele and said let's build the big tent. to say there's been alternate discourses that exist within the republican party that -- just really not like what we're --

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while national republican party figures begin this week to discuss contingency plans against a trump nomination, some state level republicans had long ago begun putting their plans into motion. trump is currently polling in the lead at 24%. support in south carolina the third state in the gop primary process. as nbc's perry bacon reported in october, the former head of the south carolina republican party has been working for weeks on a new super pac with a singular goal -- take down trump. the man with that plan is our friend caton, last pitime we we

together you told us you had a big plan for bringing down trump. that was early fall, sir. what's happening? >> well, let me tell you. south carolina's going to play a tremendous role in the primary this year with much different. iowa's going to the in the rear-view mirror. one of trump's problems with new hampshire really whittles the field down as quickly as in the past, the one problem trump has he's not many people's second choice. the only african-american conservative u.s. senator named tim scott, one of our senators lindsey graham who is currently in the race, and six republican conservative congressmen start making endorsements. that will start making some changes in the electorate here which has been staying mostly 55% or so undecided.

but to donald trump's credit, he has found the disenfranchised voters. all over the country, much like bernie sanders has found his disenfranchised voters out of his party. that number is real of 25% or so. the question is can he keep it and grow it. super pacs are coming and they're going, they're moving. the donors right now in the super pac world as far as anti-trump, for trump, whatever, are sit something on their wallets for a time being but after the first of the year i think you will see some movement. there is a sense out there that the trump momentum is not real. but i will tell you that the numbers that i see are pretty good. the bad number i see is he's not anybody's second choice versus cruz who has a good second choice number. rubio has a really good second choice number. and if that field is not a really big field, donald trump will probably have a lot of trouble in south carolina. but if he does win south carolina, he is well on his way to the nomination, melissa. >> well, you know what bill clinton said.

even jesse jackson. i want to come to you on exactly this question. what i heard there is that the request he is whether or not trump can hold on to that 37% and build on it. from what you are seeing, can the republican party hold those voters if trump does not become the nominee? should we take seriously the man on the street interviews that are saying, we're out of here? >> yeah, that's a great question. we don't know. we don't know in particular because these voters might be individuals that are thinking about coming in that aren't always in republican primaries. a lot of them are lower educated, according to the polling. do they actually decide that if th their man is out, they walk. and i don't know at this point if that is true. >> i do kind of somewhat disagree in that we do kind of know this -- when it comes to a general election, it is about adding voters to your side. so the trump voters, even if they don't go anywhere, that's

not going to be the problem with the republican nominee. not those trump voters who may or may not have been voting in the first place. it is are we attracting independents. are we attracting women. those are going to be the big movement numbers. that's why, for example, ted cruz is not as much of a threat to hillary clinton as marco rubio is, because marco rubio is really moving the needle when it comes to independents and women. >> you guys have always had white women though. challenge is really women of color. it is part of my sort of beef with the democratic party when it talks about its gender gap is it hasn't really contended about the gender gap is a women ofgen. the other word that that was so in the iowa versus new hampshire was money. so if i am one of these backpack republicans, do i compete in all three? do i just pick one, that there may be three different winners? what's a reasonable strategy here? >> i think money is one factor

but organization is the second. we haven't talked about that yet. crui cruz has much more organization in those three states than i think the other candidates. rubio a little bit more so it is about money and organization. what will will the anti-trump money do after iowa and new hampshire to try to either squash trump -- because i think he's right, if trump wins south carolina he's on his way. susan, you are right. if cruz wins the nomination he has no general election strategy. trump does have a general election strategy if he wins the nomination. >> we spent much of the entire two hours yesterday talking about the anti-muslim discourse that has emerged out of the trump campaign. so we're talking about the persistence of mr. trump in this campaign as though it was a neutral reality as opposed to one that win or lose could have real life consequences. >> that's right on target. i think whether trump wins or lose oz, what's really

interesting here is that you have this islamphobic discourse that's become pc, it's become okay to become islamphobic in the flan stremainstream and it patriotic to be islamphobic. base whether i what we are hearing is that there is hate crimes day after day in muslim-american communities, mosques, schools. so there is a really horrifying side to this. however, there's one thing i want to say. i want to sort of thank donald trump for this because it's really pushed people who have been watching this islam phobia has pushed the islamic community to step up and say this is ridiculous, this is not right. now we are hearing much louder voices from the democratic party, maybe from some segments of the republican party. >> we got a little bit more when we come back. i just got to say that part of

what this gop primary has done is make me yearn for george w. bush. turns out it is not just me. on "snl" last night, we saw the return of president george w. bush. had hit it, y'all. >> and now an announcement from the 43rd president of the united states, george w. bush. >> this is an important day. i made a big decision. i'm entering the race for president of the united states of america. the field of republicans out there is so messed up, i figured, it makes you miss me, doesn't it? that's saying a lot. i've already got my campaign song. ♪ ready or not here i come ♪ you can't hide i'm gonna find you ♪ ♪ and make you love me that's a little something from the foogies.

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the clinton campaign chairman says the republican nominee will be -- senator ted cruz. that's according to a politico report about what john podesta told democratic donors. here's the guy he's talking about, if you need a refresher. >> do you like green eggs and ham? i do not like them, sam, i am. i do not like green eggs and ham. >> just never, ever gets old. now, much was made this week of the first time of many wars between cruz and trump. but the gop strategy's on trump remains simple -- make nice. cruz made it clear this week he still loves donald trump tweeting the establishment's only hope -- trump and me in a cage match. sorry to disappoint. trump is terrific. #dealwithit. but cozying up to donald is a

two-pronged approach to voters summoned up in these words. evangelicals and the south. on thursday cruz locked into the endorsement of the prominent iowa christian conservative helping boost him to the first place in iowa with a record breaking 21-point surge in the polls. after iowa, cruz is headed south. on wednesday of this week it was in the wall street as ted cruz rises in polls, is he banking on the south. in "the boston globe," ted cruz betting big on southern evangelical voters. it is the campaign strategy that's now so often repeated -- okay, we get it! will it work? here's another look at the nbc news/"wall street journal" poll out this morning. yep. is cruz what you're looking for? he's coming to your town. >> well, let me tell you. one of the things that i find

sort of comical in this process is that podesta, "washington post," "new york times" and lots of people are out there analyzing the republican party and giving it advice on what it ought to do and who it ought to choose. let me assure youing wi, the 65 republicans, over half are undecided in south carolina, are going to make a pretty solid choice on one, two and three. the thinkg i think everybody's missing, on super tuesday you go from 650,000 voters in south carolina to millions of voters in one day. largely southern, we all know the states. the stakes are going to be the huge card donald trump holds over the republican party. cruz is very smart, but he's got rubio and jeb bush to deal with. john kasich in ohio. it's far from settled, melissa. but it is going to be fun. >> i want to come with one more little "in" on south carolina.

what i saw happen in south carolina over the course of the summer, one way to read what we saw was nikki haley, a woman of color, republican governor, making a decision in part to bring down that confederate flag. i said to myself, she just made herself one hell of a vp candidate for her party. yet that version of south carolina politics feels so discordoned to me with what is happening with mr. trump. when you talk about tim scott and nikki haley, those are republicans with whom i have very few policy agreements but they seem to be in a very different place. will they aggressively try to push mr. trump out and is cruz the right person to go to since he is still "hearting" mr. trump

so hard. >> when you put southern politicians like tim scott and nikki haley and all of our congressmen and you start watching them campaign -- you heard what nicky haley said about mr. trump's comments, hurtful, maybe embarrassing to the republican party. but it does garner votes of that 25% disenfranchised voter that's mad at washington and the current circumstances. but in south carolina they're not mad at nikki haley or at our elected officials. we are used to a good, tough contest here. if mr. trump can survive it, so be it. because he'll head into super tuesday -- i contend nobody can afford to buy the media on super tuesday. the earned media coming out, sunday talk shows after our primary will be a big deal but i think it will still ebb and flow. cruz, rubio, it is all going to move in be exciting for us. >> thank you from columbia,

south carolina. my wake forest wake the vote students are going to be down there just like in iowa and new hampshire. so, guys, one more thing on this. what do you take away from what he's saying there? i really do think that the southern prepublican primary ha shifted because of what happened this summer. >> i think he's absolutely right. if you look at it right now it is going to be hard to see a path that cruz doesn't win in iowa. it looks so strong for him in that perspective. the same i don't think he plays very well in new hampshire. but probably do fairly well. south carolina's becoming more and more pivotal by the moment. as he described, it is an having scenario that's brewing down there. >> one of the interesting things when you look in the last sum of cycles, who came out of iowa, people who didn't have any money. rick santorum, in uk mike hucka. they didn't have the money to build the structure that you need going into iowa and new hampshire and south carolina.

so the winners of those two states, meaning iowa and new hampshire, have -- will have the money already in place to start building that infrastructure in those other states on super tuesday. so super tuesday can really still leave everything up in the air. i still think that donald trump ends up with a solid 25% but the ability for someone to hit 40% by that time is much greater than it is today. >> but the real question, susan, is will the person who wins your party's nomination be the guy who said this? >> green eggs and ham. i do not like them, sam, i am. i do not like green eggs and ham. >> thank you. in a few minutes, we're talking about "star wars"! but up next, black girl magic in the toy aisle. first, check out flotis flow

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who expose human rights violations with video. through her filmography, she's left her mark on hollywood and fans of every age. in 2012 she became the first african-american woman to win the dramatic directing award at sundance for her feature, "middle of nowhere." and she became the first african-american director to receive a golden globe nomination for "selma. . "this week the african-american film releasing movement which she launched in 2010 was relaunched. an independent film distribution collective focused on filmmakers of color and women in the industry across the globe and we over here in ""nerdland"" and apparently thousands of barbie fans simply can't wait to see what duvernay has in store next.

but what about a "star wars" film? >> her work in "selma" was as well told and sophisticated and humane a film as i think has come out in the last decade, she's someone who if she can do that story, that well, there's no question she would kill this movie. >> indeed! up next, race and gender in a galaxy far, far away. ♪ ♪ most weekends only last a couple of days. some last a lifetime. hampton. we go together. always get the lowest price, only when you book direct at hampton.com

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>> the force is with all of us this week as we anticipate the premier of "star wars," the force awakens. the seventh entry of the "star wars" franchise officially opens this friday and some projections have its domestic opening weekend take as high as $250 million. utterly trouncing even the current title holder of 2015's mega hit jurassic world. for more than a week scores of fans have been camping out to grab the best seats and they'll have to wait another four days for the film's first showing. the "star wars" saga has enjoyed an unrivaled place in popular culture and has inspired feelings of ownership among its fans since it first hit theaters on may 25, 1977. but even in this idealized galaxy far, far away, the absence of certain types of -- let's call them -- humans was glaring. minus princess leah and the

suave black space pilot, the original trilogy could be even smoe mostly as white guys fighting bad guys with british accents. when the frarnlg wnchise was ex in the 2000s slightly. nerds of the not-white male variety had a moment last year when the first trailer for a new "star wars" trilogy 30 years after the trilogy was revealed. a white woman pilot and a young black storm trooper take the lead. some fans took to twitter with a #boycott "star wars" 7. their message was clear, only a white man can save the day. british actor on the cusp of world domination shown here with a light saber.

silences haters with his since deleted instagram post -- to whom it may concern. get used to it. smiley face. joining us now, a contributing writer for "elle" magazine. wesley morris, a critic at large for the new york "times" and a huge "star wars" fan. okay. i think leah version 1980s really was a feminist in certain ways. i know she was naked but she was naked when she killed. >> can we talk about this for a second? of her many arrays of outfits that's the one that i think gets the most attention. but it is worth pointing out that in the original issues of the toys and everything that was the only costume that wasn't issued as a toy.

so the fact that 30 or 40 years later we tend to focus on that costume i think is more of a reflection of our idea of women now than how it was promoted in the original series. >> i know why i have feelings -- good, bad and otherwise about "star wars." i have a lot. i spent a whole day talking about the whole darth vader situation. >> really. you could? >> oh. like the part where he was totally a black guy whose name basically was james earl jones and -- but while he was black he was terrible and bad and awful and he used to cut off white man's hands and didn't actually claim his son but as soon as he claims his son and goes over to the good he takes off his mask around is he white? oh, yes, i have many, many feelings about that but i will try to put them over here. >> good luck with that. >> why do people love "star wars" so much? >> well, for one thing, we were talking about this in the green room. it's something that kids can

easily understand. i think it came along for a generation of people at formative ages. i think if you were 5, 6, 7, 17 when that movie came out it got to you. there hadn't been -- movie making at that point, at that scale -- or that seeming scale -- because ultimately the scale is not -- the production is both complicated and simple at the same time. but there were -- they weren't making movies like that in the 1970s. this was like a huge, huge game-changing throwback on one hand to cliff hangers, but also sort of intergalactic space spectacle on the other. >> that's what i wonder about this new version. they weren't making movies like this sort of that felt this big at that time. but they do like every 15 minutes at this point. i think of my kids, having

watched "transformers" and "the fantastic four," all of the "captain america" movies. so i wonder if it still has the ability to capture anybody other than us old exers who remember it from the '70s. >> i think there is. going back to what you just said, a lot of us watched "star wars" for the first time when we were 5, 6, 7, so we have transmitted this to our children, it is part of our culture. we've seen the prequels and these new episodes. this is part of the -- being sort of like being american, our culture. so there is a new generation that wants to experience what the older generation did and i think they're going to do that -- >> or being forced to. >> right. right? we drag them whether they want to go or not. >> this is the thing. i know a lot of people are seeing these movies because their parents are making them -- like this was important to me. >> no one is being dragged to

"star wars." my niece an nephew are sharing in my excitement about it because they're of the age where -- i'm still exciting to them. >> but i have to ask, so when you write a book about "star wars" and philosophies, is this just the boondoggle of the academy or is there actually something philosophical about what's happening. >> in academic ethics we talk about how in our hopelessly polarized political scenario will we find a touchstone that's common to us. after the san bernardino shootings people said the solution is more guns, the solution is less guns. you wonder how that conversation even possibly takes place. we've deconstructed all of our common touchstones. this is one that appeals to every generation. we'll have grandparents, parents, kids -- maybe even four generations in certain circumstances going to see this movie together. i think this is what i write about. how do we find that cultural touchstone where you can even have the arguments, the exchange where we share these ideas and values in common?

>> so the answer is more light sabers. up next, director j.j. abrams talks about controversy. earn once when you buy, and again as you pay. that's cash back now, and cash back again later. it's cash back déjà vu. the citi double cash card. the only card that lets you earn cash back twice on every purchase with 1% when you buy and 1% as you pay. with two ways to earn, it makes a lot of other cards seem one sided. i tabut with my back paines, i couldn't sleep and get up in time. then i found aleve pm. aleve pm is the only one to combine a safe sleep aid plus the 12 hour pain relieving strength of aleve. i'm back. aleve pm for a better am. ♪ it's the final countdown!

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there seems to be people going, oh, my god, there's a black storm trooper. that can't possibly be. >> all i know is that john boyega is extraordinary in the movie. i think people complaining about that have more problems than that. >> along with the aliens and robots, "force awakens" more so than previous series, it will feature women and actors of color in lead roles. will that make a difference? >> prior to the segment you were talking about the new barbie of duvernay. there's an entire segment of children dying to see themselves reflected in movies. if anything, it's a good

business decision. it's an entire fan base hungry to see themselves and part participate this in a way they haven't been able to before. >> this is also really important for young girls watching the movie because the old star wars in the '80s and '70s doesn't have strong female roles other than princess leia but leaders who are jedi being trained. this is really going to equalize the playing field for these young girls trying to embrace these types of movies. >> why wasn't she a jedi in the initial movies? >> some say when yoda says pass on what you've learned to luke and return to the jedi it's an attempt to get him to train l a leia. we may find out. >> that's what we're all waiting to see. does he become a jedi? >> when they say, there is

another. there's always a suggestion she could step in. >> maybe we'll take a look at a great sort of gma moment. >> you can't call her leia. >> i know. >> i did lose weight, and i think it's a stupid conversation. not with you. >> okay. we'll move on. >> not with you. it's good with you but normally i wouldn't talk about it with someone else. but you're so thin, let's talk about it. how do you keep that going on? do you exercise? >> i do. i work out every day. >> is it boring? >> yes. >> do you love it? >> i try to put some music on. >> what music makes this worthwhile. i want to hear what the song is. maybe i can go for it, too. >> she stole that interview in that moment. >> yeah. >> that was a jedi mind trick. >> carrie fisher is a national treasure. she's always been one -- unlike, it's funny because there was a

tweet or instagram post i saw from mark hammel holding a copy of the "hollywood reporter" saying where is luke? the culture since "return of the jedi" has always been where's mark hammel. carrie fisher has always sort of been around and mattered in some way and a throwback to an old hollywood -- i mean her -- genetically, she's old hollywood. in her carriage, she's old hollywood. >> also in her career, too. you're talking about a woman who made a career as a writer. very successful as a screenwriter, doctor and writing her own books turned into movies. she is a great example of a woman who has sort of shirked that casting and gone on to be a very important and influential person within hollywood. >> this is in part for me interesting about our questions about politics and popular culture. whenever we do a segment like this is to ask. is the primary thing we're interested in here the cultural

representation we're seeing on the screen or is it about the ways it launches these humans into the real world for us who can then either -- whether it's brokering our space of agreement or whether it's being who carrie fisher is. is it leia or carrie fisher who is the relevant feminist icon in this moment? >> studies have shown that people will identify with people that look like them in these movies. insofar as you want "star wars" to become meaningful to not just a certain segment of the american population but a larger segment, even children. it's important for people to have characters they can identify with. that means women. people of all colors and younger people. this star wars tries to get us closer to that. >> when i was a kid, i had barbies that were african-american and i hated ken because he seemed whack. i used to always marry them off

to tchewbacca. he was tall and like -- >> hairy. >> kind november control of the situation. yeah. and now that you are saying this is -- i'm wondering about -- i have concerns about my own childhood now. >> a lot of things i find interesting about "star wars" is despite the fact it was so bad, the prequels we will not name, were so bad with regard to race and gender. so good in trying to get beyond the human horizon. i do a lot of writing on animals. i was taught that, i think, by my obsession. r2d2 was the hero. he's the hero of all six movies. >> and that canteena scene -- >> it actually is really interesting and -- >> going to continue but they

are screaming in my ear got to go. like dark forces over there. thank you. that is our show today. thanks to you for watching. i'm going to see you next saturday at 10:00 a.m. eastern. coming out is "weekends with alex witt." a new poll shows that ted cruz has now gone past donald trump. stay around to watch that. todt to the nation's capital to support an important cause that can change the way you live for years to come. how can you help? by giving a little more, to yourself. i am running for my future. people sometimes forget to help themselves. the cause is retirement, and today thousands of people came to race for retirement and pledge to save an additional one percent of their income. if we all do that we can all win. prudential bring your challenges® ♪ everything kids touch during cold and flu season

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