downtown los angeles. that's where nbc news' jacob soboroff has been following protesters for hours. jacob, you are just returning to all of this from maternity leave. congratulations first of all. it's good to have you back. >> reporter: thank you, my friend. >> the last time we saw you, there was no pandemic, and there were no protests. the world has changed for you in los angeles. tell us what you're seeing out there tonight. >> reporter: you know, actually, ali, it's a very different scene than we saw just two weeks ago. if you look here, this is city hall, downtown los angeles. a much more festive atmosphere than we've seen even over the course of the last couple days. on the steps of city hall where you see los angeles police department lined up across the entrance, it's almost like an open mic. we hear speakers call for

justice, call for the end of systemic racism, everything we've been hearing over the course of these protests. but when i say it becomes more festive, first of all take a look back here on top of the bus stop. we've got people lined up up here and people are truly having a good time today while protesting and speaking out on behalf of george floyd. look at this over here. we have a bus that's driven up, a school bus with a basketball hoop. on top of the hoop, it says "black lives matter" on the basketball backboard. people are in solidarity with one another but people are celebrating with one another. that's where this has pivoted in the last couple days. i want to see if i can maybe talk to somebody. i want to see if folks have been out here the past couple of days. how are you doing? what's your name? i'm jacob. i'm from msnbc. i'm curious. is this the first day you've

come out here? >> it is my first day. >> what did you expect versus what you're seeing? >> this is about what i expected, peaceful protesting against an unjust system. >> talk about the change you would like to see. we've heard the city council say they're going to take money out of the police department and put it into city services. >> i think completely defunding the lapd and putting those funds into community services ranging from mental health, health care, just like community revitalization. >> public schooling. >> job support. literally anything but funding a system that thrives off policing our bodies. >> i appreciate you guys both very much. thank you very much. ali, let me just swing around here and give you guys a shot again of city hall. you know, that's the big question in los angeles. where is that money going to go that's come out of the lapd or that will come out of the lapd, at least that the city leaders say is going to come out of the lapd? where will it be allocated, and will it be enough? that person we just heard from

wants to defund the los angeles police department entirely. mayor garcetti is saying obviously that's not going to happen. there's a lot of work still to do out here, and that's exactly what we're looking at right now, ali. >> jacob, good to have you back. it's always good to be back on tv with you. jacob soboroff in los angeles for us. the protests over the past 12 days have brought much needed attention to the problems of systemic racism and police misconduct, but it's important to remember the devastating personal loss faced by the family and friends of george floyd. this week floyd's close friend, former nba forward stephen jackson spoke about the loss facing floyd's 6-year-old daughter. >> why do we have to see her pain? why do we have to see a daughter getting raised without her father? but you know what? there's a lot of stuff you said that he's going to miss, that i'm going to be there for. i'm going to walk her down the aisle. i'm going to be there there to wipe her tears.

we need justice. we demand it. and some kind of [ bleep ] way, we're going to get it. >> joining me now is stephen jackson along with his friend, the retired nba star, al harrington. gentlemen, thank you for being with us. stephen, you grew up with george floyd in texas. you called him your twin, and i think in all the talk of the protests, the very legitimate talk about police and racism and brutality. it is important that we don't lose sight of the fact that a man with a life and a family is dead. tell me about your friend. >> somebody i loved, somebody who really supported me, a stand-up guy. a guy who shouldn't have been murdered like that. he spread too much love. he worked too hard to be a great father and to spread love around the world.

every video i post showing floyd saying how much he loved the world and how much he loved people. that's what he was. he was just a great guy. he's definitely going to be missed. >> his daughter, you were talking about, 6 years old, and she seems to have realized the impact of his death. let's just play this for a moment, please. >> that's right. daddy changed the world. >> daddy changed the world. >> he did what? >> daddy changed the world. >> daddy changed the world. what do you, stephen, hope that his legacy is going to be? >> well, i hope when you hear the name george floyd, that will be the name of change. obviously, you know, since he passed, you know, i stepped up and started a movement, man, and this is the first time we've seen 50 countries -- i mean 50 states and 18 countries protest at the same time. so i want his name to be the name of change.

i want his name to be the name of equality. i want his name to be the name of fairness, you know, and justice, and that's what i stand for. that's what i'm going to fight for. and we gonna get it. >> al harrington, this week the nfl commissioner roger goodell said the league was wrong the way it handled protests by players who kneeled during the national anthem. that is such a cultural moment for the nfl which has really demonized colin kaepernick to understand things are different. do you think this leads to real change? do you think it is spreading now through popular culture and sports and all of society to realize we have problems here and we have to deal with them together? these are not one-offs. >> definitely. i think what stephen has done and all other people that have got behind him to support and push this movement is definitely bringing a lot of change that's very meaningful. you know, when you think about hearing states like california and having the mayor of l.a. saying, you know, they're going

to take funding away from police to invest in social equity, and then obviously, you know, big corporations now making stances like nike. then, you know, obviously roger goodell, you know, finally waking up and understanding like what colin kaepernick really meant, you know, by kneeling. it had nothing to do with the flag. it had to do about black people being senselessly murdered by people that we paid to protect and serve. >> stephen, one of the things you said is you are not going to let anyone demean the character of your friend. we are in now a situation where protesters are pitted against police, and the only way to get out of this for some people who are on the wrong side of it is to demean the people who have been killed by police, to say that they were criminals, to say that they were doing bad things, to say that they were threatening. how do you prevent that from happening? >> telling the truth. it was done to me my whole career. i went to the aid of my teammates twice, and i missed a lot of all-star games, a lot of stuff because people made me out

to be something i wasn't. i know they're going to try to do it with my brother, but that's why i'm getting ahead of it. i'm letting people know who he was. he was a great friend and i know for a fact why he was in minnesota. he went there to work. a lot of people can assume and try to make up stuff, but we know who he really was, and we know what he was doing in minnesota. so i'm here to stand on that. i have a voice, and i think i'm going to use it. >> you are using your voice. al harrington, what change do you want to see if the world is inflamed right now and looking for change, what change do you want? >> the biggest change for me is i want to see police officers held accountable. even myself in my adult life i've been assaulted by the police three times just as recently as last year in l.a. you know what i'm saying? where, obviously i was profiled. i was driving a rolls-royce and cars came up to my car guns drawn, put me in handcuffs and was asking me did i have guns and the car and how did i afford this car.

i feel like police have been really abusing their power. and when they do abuse their power, they're never held accountable. i feel like there's some unwritten rule amongst them where they don't step up and hold each other accountable what they know other officers that abuse their power. we just want to see that change. obviously outside of that, we want to see just more equality. you know, we feel like we deserve reparations and different things like that, and we just want to see black people get a fair playing field to go out and be successful in this world just like everybody else. >> you guys do have voices, and you are using them. thank you for that. stephen jackson is a friend of george floyd, former nba player, and al harrington, also former nba player. thanks to both of you. we're tracking the protests across the country tonight. from the looks of it, most of them have been peaceful. we'll check in with the mayor of harrisburg, pennsylvania, next about the demonstrations in his city. $9.95 at my age?

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people don't want to so i share it. song by song. the dark and the light. the struggle and the joy with my mental health. what's your mission? use godaddy to help make it happen. in pennsylvania, a peaceful prayer vigil was held in harrisburg today a week after violent protests erupted there. the mayor joined the demonstrators on wednesday along with pennsylvania governor tom wolf but the community is saying it still isn't enough and is calling for more action to be taken against police violence and inequality. it was announced late yesterday

the city is going to be taking up the 8 can't wait challenge, that consists of eight policies local governments can adopt to decrease police killings and they have been shown to work. joining me now is the mayor eric papenfuse. thank you for joining me. let's talk about first of all what's going on in the streets of harrisburg. >> well, it's a beautiful saturday night here in harrisburg. it's peaceful. we had protests and demonstrations this afternoon, a prayer vigil on the capitol steps, and everything went very well. i have to say despite some of the violence that we had about a week ago, all of these protests have been a great success we've seen people coming together to demand change at the local level. and i think it's very important that locally elected officials like myself get out, join the protests, and work for that type of policy change. >> that's interesting because the way you characterize that is the basis on which this country

was founded, protest, and that it's good and that local officials are the servants of the people. but that's not really what we're seeing all over the country. so how do we ensure that people do see this as taxpayers, citizens wanting positive change, wanting to be kept safe by their police? >> well, that is what we're seeing in harrisburg, and on saturday a week ago, we had some violence around the protests that occurred, and immediately following that both the governor of the state of pennsylvania and myself were out marching peacefully through the neighborhoods of harrisburg with the protesters. governor wolf then announced after that march that he's going to push for a number of very serious and important changes on the state level, including the creation of a new inspector general position to oversee and look out for police abuse on the state level. and on the city level, we've been announced a number of initiatives, including as you mentioned the 8 can't wait. and we've set up an email

account and actually taken a fairly extraordinary step of engaging with the protesters in a dialogue about how we can make meaningful reforms on the local level. and i think that is the model that our country was founded on, and i'm hopeful that it will be a model throughout cities in america. >> so the 8 can't wait, i was talking to deray mckesson. there are eight things on the list. six of them look like they could be implemented very, very quickly. two of them i wonder about. the requiring de-escalation and requiring exhaustion of all alternatives before shooting. that's something that's going to require better training than police cadets get, longer training, a level of training that in many small places like harrisburg, it's hard to get that kind of curriculum in. what's the way to get there because the other things like banning choke holds, requiring warning before shooting, you can implement that as policy almost immediately. >> yeah, and it should be noted

that we do have that as policy already in our use of force general order in harrisburg. we banned choke holds, and we require de-escalation. it is training, but if you look very clearly in the general orders, it talks about a use of force continuum. it talks about methods of de-escalation that are put into practice every day in our city. and you've seen this at play very recently, but your point is correct, which is that it's going to require focusing on training, and that's going to require resources. and governor wolf, at least on the state level, has been very outspoken in saying that he's going to make sure those resources are available. and on the local level, we're going to do that too. harrisburg's the capital of pennsylvania, which puts it in sort of a unique position because we get protests all the time. and we're also part of an overlapping series of police forces in our city. we have the city police. we have the state police. we also have the capitol police which guard the capitol complex. all of those different agencies

not only need the type of training you're talking about but make sure they're coordinated so there's one common message being seen throughout all these protests. >> and a lot of protests would like one common message across the country about what use of force feels like and what rules apply to police. but we will start with local officials and local mayors and local police forces. mayor, thanks for joining me. tonight is the 12th straight night of protests demanding justice and action in the wake of george floyd's death. we're going to check in with my colleague chris jansing who is here in new york city and cal perry in louisville after this break. [♪]

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it's 8:21 in the east. it is now past curfew in many cities across the country but protests are still in full gear. the demonstrations have been calmer but still mighty, proving that nearly two weeks after floyd's death, the anger has not subsided. my nbc news colleagues are with

us tonight. chris jansing is outside of the barclays center in brooklyn, new york. cal perry is in louisville, kentucky. boy, it is a different scene than it was a week ago. chris, i haven't seen you in -- i hadn't seen you in person for a few months, and then i ran into you in the streets of new york the other night. what's it looking like tonight? >> reporter: i think mighty is such a good word. it has been unbelievable the enormity of the people turning out here at barclays center. this is called black women matter, a tribute to breonna taylor, who did not live to see her 27th birthday. it's been going on for about an hour and a half. no sign of anybody leaving even though it is after curfew. one of the speakers said the reason so many people turned out in the middle of the pandemic is because there's been a pandemic going on for 400 years. it's called racism. and then a young woman sang the famous sam hook song, it's been a long time coming, but change is going to come. except he wrote that song in

1964, and if there's a theme among the three different rallies i've been to today, the four different marches, it's people saying, we're tired of politicians saying change is going to come, and then it never does. this time we're going to make sure it does. i was at washington square park for almost four hours. it poured several times. there were so many people. they were pouring into the street. and i talked to a young man named luke. he told me how tired he was. i hear that a lot, how exhausted everybody is. but why he had to come out. and as you'll listen to him, you'll hear him stop for a while, trying to collect his emotions. take a listen to what luke told me. >> -- and that anger. >> it's -- it's the pain of seeing these things happen over and over again and seeing nothing changing. it's the pain of screaming and yelling and crying and not having your voice heard.

it's the pain of years and years of frustration. it's the pain of -- of lives taken over and over again. >> and, again, for many of the people i have talked to today, it's painful for them to have watched, and i've been on these streets of new york for the last seven days, what they say is overly aggressive policing tactics. more than 2,000 people have been arrested since the beginning of this, but only about 40 last night. you can see that over here there's a pretty good police presence. we are surrounded by groups of police, but so far they've shown no signs of doing what we have seen with many of the marchers, and i've watched this night after night after night. i think the night you and i saw each other, they do something that's called kettling. they wait for marchers to get to a certain point after curfew. they surround them. then they have a choice to go home or to be arrested.

the problem is now the d.a.s here in brooklyn, in the bronx, in manhattan have said, you can arrest them, but we're not going to prosecute them. and what these folks say is, we're peaceful. we're wearing our masks. why are you doing it? it's too much. one more thing. you remember earlier in the week when mayor de blasio was asked about it, he said, enough is enough. when we say it's a curfew, we have to enforce it. i asked a young woman today standing in the rain why she was still staying there, and she looked at me and she said, in a very different light, enough is enough. ali. >> good to see you, friend. stay safe out there. chris jansing in new york city. in louisville, kentucky, protesters there are still demanding justice for breonna taylor, who would have turned 27 years old yesterday. she was killed two months ago when police broke down her door using something called a no-knock warrant. her boyfriend thought someone was breaking in.

he armed himself, he had a licensed firearm and he fired several shots at them. police returned the fire, shooting taylor eight times, killing her. it later surfaced the person listed on the police warrant was already in custody at the time of the raid. nbc's cal perry is in louisville for us now. he's been there for more than a week. cal, i got to tell you, we were all in some rough spots a week ago. you look like you were in a war zone. >> reporter: yeah, this was a war zone, this square. the thing that made it a war zone were snipers on the roof, national guard coming through the square and life gunfire. here's the difference. you want to know why it's peaceful now? that's why. the local police are now engaging with the community in a way that is totally nonviolent, completely non-threatening. the national guard has disappeared, and it's allowing people to do this march and do it peacefully. this is now day nine. i would echo what chris jansing has said, that if you question people's dedication to what's happening out here, people are tired, they are hot, but they are still here.

you mentioned of course breonna taylor. she is the person that people are rallying behind. today we saw people making giant birthday cards for her. as you mentioned, yesterday would have been her 27th birthday. we saw this beautiful moment where thousands of balloons were released into the sky. and we saw some of the local authorities taking part in that. that has made all the difference here. now, we're still waiting for the investigation into her death. the fbi has taken over that investigation. the three officers who went into her apartment are on administrative leave. people here want to see changes. they want to see something happen to though officers. the police chief was fired. he was going to resign this month. he was fired. i think that made a difference. to reiterate, i think what changed here in louisville, in an incredibly dangerous and difficult situation, was that the authorities withdrew. the national guard is nowhere to be found. the governor said that's what would happen. the police have -- well, they've broken off, and they've started to engage with this crowd. it's made such a difference. we do expect the protests to

continue tonight and for there to be protests tomorrow as well. what a difference a week makes, ali. it was violent at the beginning of this week, and now it's a virtual party out here. >> cal, you and i had a conversation last night, and i just want you to repeat this for our viewers because your experience, a lot of it has been outside of the united states. you have worked in war zones, and you were talking about how you would cover this if this were somewhere else. >> reporter: yeah, and it's really difficult because we're from here, and i'm constantly checking myself as a journalist who's from here. but if we were to report this overseas, it would sound something like, the executive branch is shutting down peaceful protests in this country. unmarked security are in the streets to suppress freedom of speech. you know, making your political opponents enemies of the state is something that we've seen. it's just sort of one thing after another that seems to be slipping away. and, look, when you talk to people here, they'll tell you they're concerned about the elections. they're concerned about the security of voting systems when

they hear president trump say, for example, mail-in voting is fraught with fraud. that raises alarm bells. the united states used to monitor elections around the world. who is going to monitor this election if the president continues to say the things he's saying? people here were legitimately afraid of the national guard. when we came here on friday night, the national guard fired tear gas, fired rubber bullets. they yelled at the media to get out of here. that is something new. that is something i think was stark for a lot of people. there was this sense around the country and certainly here in louisville that something had changed and that something had changed for ever. we don't want to be the story. there we were in the middle of it because we were singled out. i was having a conversation with somebody who said, why aren't you marking yourselves as media? i said, i don't know that's the right thing to do anymore. so something changed. i'll put it to you this way, ali. if a foreign journalist comes to america now, they're leaving their newsroom to come to a combat zone. >> it's unbelievable.

>> i've never worn a bulletproof vest in america. i've never carried a gas mask in america. i've never worn a hardened helmet in america before this. cal, thanks very much. nbc's cal perry in louisville, kentucky. breonna taylor should have turned 27 years old yesterday. her mother, tamika palmer, marked her daughter's birthday by remembering how she lived. palmer spoke to new york magazine's "the cut," saying, quote, i think she was desz tinned to be great. breonna just loved life. she did everything right. she always wanted to do anything that would help her be a better friend, a daughter, a girlfriend. i was definitely in awe of her. it's hard to breathe without her. it's hard to think without her. she was so much like me, it was unreal. but she was a much better version. the white house is arguably the most well guarded property in the world. we're going to talk about that when we come back from our break.

the white house is arguably the most well guarded property in the world. this week we saw it turn into a fortified bunker in a militarized zone. blocks of tall black fencing have been put up around the white house as protests over the police killing of george floyd made their way to 1600 pennsylvania avenue. protests which have continued today, hundreds gathering on the president's doorstep to call for change. nbc news political reporter monica alba joins us now from the white house. monica, it's feast for famine with this president. by midnight last night i think he had tweeted -- i don't know what the actual count was, but it was about 200 times yesterday alone. we haven't heard a ton from him today. >> reporter: that's right, ali. it was a new record for the president, who issued more than 200 tweets and re-tweets in a 24-hour period, breaking his previous record of about 140. that is where we have heard a little bit from him today. we saw what's known as an early lid here at the white house, which means they told us early

in the day he wasn't going to be addressing americans on camera or expected to go anywhere. so he has used that social media megaphone to amplify his message, but he hasn't addressed the protests that have really come to his doorstep tonight as you see those tens of thousands of people just steps from where i am. i can hear them. and a week ago, this was when you were hear sirens, you would hear clashes with police. there were more intense confrontations. tonight we really hear music. it's a much more lighthearted and upbeat coming together, which is clearly heard from the north lawn. and as we see this weekend, the president was actually planning to be at his new jersey golf club in bedminster. but aides a couple of days ago sat down and reviewed what would be in their eyes potentially bad optics of the president to be at his own private property while all this was going on just outside the white house. so they decided to scrap the trip. instead he's here with no public events on his schedule. but as you've been showing images all hour, ali, of those

lafayette square gatherings, that new mural, that black lives matter that was commissioned by the d.c. mayor, the president hasn't commented on that at all. he's been critical of her, but he hasn't acknowledged that, nor has he acknowledged the new name of that plaza, black lives matter, that was put on the street just steps from where i am here tonight, where we do see a heightened security presence and those large fencing components that were just added a few days ago, ali. >> monica, thank you as always. monica alba for us at the white house. despite yesterday's positive jobs numbers, we got the unemployment number yesterday, deep economic inequalities in this country have hardly changed in the past 50 years, making it even harder for african-americans to survive the devastating financial difficulties that have been brought about by the coronavirus pandemic and ensuing financial crisis. "the washington post" this week published a brilliant analysis of this problem that read in part, quote, in many ways the

gap between the finances of blacks and whites is still as wide in 2020 as it was in 1968 when a run of landmark civil rights legislation culminated in the fair housing act in response to centuries of unequal treatment of african-americans in nearly every part of society and business, unquote. joining me to discuss the stark economic divide, robert reich. he's the former secretary of labor under president bill clinton. he's the author of "the system: who rigged it, how we fix it." thank you for being with us. by a few key measures, whether it's household wealth or the gap between white and black unemployment, there has been a persistent difficulty for african-americans to bridge that gap. average median wealth for african-americans is somewhere around 17,000. for whites, it's $170,000. what's the issue and how do we fix it? >> well, it is systemic racism. there's no question about it, ali. it has to do with everything

from employment discrimination to housing discrimination, to discrimination with regard to health care and the difficulties that african-american, black people have in creating wealth. and this issue, by the way, it's not just 50 years. it's been going on since the founding of the republic. i mean it's impossible to create wealth if you are systemically discriminated against in terms of housing and every other vehicle for creating wealth. >> so let's say it's systemic racism. yamiche alcindor yesterday asked the president how he's going to deal with this issue in america that we're facing at the moment. his response was "the economy." but if as you describe, racism is built into the system, then the rising of tides is not helping african-americans the same way. so the idea that the economy is going to get better and everybody's going to be happy, which trump has been carrying on about for 3 1/2 years, actually doesn't solve the underlying problem when it comes to african-american wealth and prosperity. >> absolutely not.

and that's why issues that we in this country feel very ambivalent about, whether it's affirmative action or fair housing and housing discrimination or any of the other issues having to do with not only redistribution but also the rules of the game themselves, we've got to -- and i hope that we are seeing in the demonstrations, in the terrible violent footage of what happened to george floyd, what happened to breonna taylor, the issues that people are talking about now, hopefully we are reaching a point at which the consciousness of not just black america but white america has really embraced this notion of systemic discrimination. again, it's not just individual employment discrimination. that's part of it. but it is the system itself. >> so i think to the extent you uses the word ambivalent and i think to a lot of people who aren't in the midst of these protests, it's someone else's

problem in someone else's town, or maybe it's in your town but it's still someone else's problem. how do we get out of the ambivalence? how do we get to the point where we realize that if we are benefiting from a system that is shortchanging an entire group of people, then that system is bad for us too? >> well, there's no easy formula, ali. obviously we have no achieved that. so mainly talking about consciousness raising is not enough. it has got to be turned into politics and power. this is where the rubber meets the road. we have seen in this country before there have been movements, but those movements don't turn into political action and political change unless there's a strategy behind them. and i hope that this very, very powerful movement, this outpouring of support for reforms and changes and really fundamental, system changes not just in police and policing, but

also in our system themselves will translate into political change. we've got to talk about power, and if we don't talk about power in this country, we're just fooling ourselves, and we're just doing symbolic things that really don't alter the underlying structure. >> how do we alter -- andre perry from brookings was on with me earlier today, and he said if you take the median black house in america and you pick it up and you parachute it into a white area, that house will become worth 22% more immediately. so the house, which is the big part of wealth for a lot of americans, is also not there for african-americans. so you could be dealing with somebody who's got a higher unemployment rate, a lower wage, lower value of the real property that they own. that is a lot to overcome in order to achieve equality. >> and one way we overcome it is through laws that not only give lip service to fair housing but actually penalize banks in a big way for redlining.

and we know that a lot of the big banks in the last five to ten years have reached settlements with the justice department over redlining. but redlining still goes on. it is still very, very difficult for black people to get the kind of housing that is going to grow in value over time. that's just one of the many, many issues that have to be addressed. >> robert reich, good to see you as always. he's the former united states secretary of labor in the clinton administration. to continue this discussion, i want to welcome ta wanna black. she's the founder and ceo of economic inclusion. ta wanna, thank you for being with me. let's continue this conversation. african-americans are not equal in american society -- oh, i'm sorry. we do not have tawanna. do i still have robert reich? is he still there? >> yeah. >> robert, i want to ask you something because you were the former labor secretary. you had a chance to see the unemployment numbers that came in yesterday, having gone down

from 14.7% in april. i had spoken to kevin hassett a few weeks ago who thought that 14.7% was an underrepresentation of unemployment. drops to 13.3% yesterday but it has a big asterisk about the way the survey was conducted and how there may have been a mischaracterization. so the point is that 13.3% is probably a few percent higher than that. >> yes, it's probably about 16.1%. the point is, ali, that there is no victory lap to be taken here. we are still seeing levels of unemployment, both white people and black people, that rival the levels of unemployment we saw during the great depression of the 1930s. and black unemployment is higher. it is almost always higher than white unemployment. that is a huge problem, but let's not kid ourselves. the level of white unemployment and black unemployment together is just by historical standards, is extraordinary, and it's not going to go away soon.

the bureau of labor statistics is very, very competent. i don't think there is any question of any manipulation of the figures. i trust the bureau of labor statistics. but it's very, very hard to collect the data during a pandemic. >> yeah. bob, thanks again. robert reich, the former u.s. secretary of labor and the author of "the system." tawanna black is with me now. let me ask you about african-american small businesses. african-americans are suffering disproportionately in this recession and this pandemic as is always the case for structural reasons that bob and i were just talking about. and african-american businesses are suffering too. now, businesses are a way in which a community builds wealth, the kind of wealth that gets passed on, the kind of wealth that really enriches a community beyond that that individuals can earn as a wage.

what's your view of how this plays out? >> you know, i think we have a real opportunity to not only be thinking about the investments that we're making that are flowing certainly from corporations into rebuilding those businesses, those businesses who have been burned, those businesses who have been looted, but to make sure businesses are not just opening, but businesses have real ownership in the buildings that they are operating inside of. and that can take place both through certainly corporate contributions that are going out but also through policies that were just mentioned by our last guest on this show. making sure that our public institutions, our state government, our federal government are actually investing in black businesses intentionally and ensuring that wealth is transferring into those businesses, that we think about the blocks that we're on, but also that we see venture capital investment taking place and intentionally investing in those black-owned businesses. >> one of the things we've seen in these protests in the last couple of weeks is major businesses, fortune 100 companies coming out and making statements unlike i have ever

seen before in favor of black lives matter and that movement. how do we translate that into economic gains for african-americans because to understand that african-americans are subject to police racism and brutality has to be part of a larger understanding that african-americans are subject to systemic racism and inequity across the board. >> you know, i think the words that you used are very intentional, and it's important to note that we can't translate that into real gains. those corporations can translate that into real gains in black communities by ensuring that their words are aligned with their actions, that those investments take place not just right now, in the heat of the moment, that we see sustained investment coming out from corporations. we've seen corporations like nike, united health, bank of america, u.s. bank make significant announcements about investments they intend to make in black communities. those are great to hear. we need to ensure that those investments land in the hands of black-owned businesses and black-led institutions and that

it's not only right now but that we see it sustained because we're talking about 400 years-plus of disinvestment and undercapitalization of black-owned businesses, black homeowners, black families and we've got a lot of making up to do. so it has to be sustained, and it can't be undone by the investments they're making in politicians and policies and other businesses that frankly are not in our best interest. >> it's a tall order but maybe, maybe everybody's ears are perked and maybe this is a time when some of that change can happen. tawanna, thanks for joining me as always. violent protesting is ingrained in this country's dna. there's a double standard when it comes to who gets away with it and kwho gets attacked for it. the sleep number 360 smart bed is on sale now.

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they use stamps.com all the services of the post office only cheaper get a 4-week trial plus postage and a digital scale go to stamps.com/tv and never go to the post office again. riots. protests, up risings, they've all shaped the united states through history and got us where we are today as a country. is there a double standard when it comes to the american riot? that's a question posted in the atlantic, nationwide protests against police have been called un-american by critics but rebellion has always been used to defend liberty. kelly carter jackson, assistant professor at a college, historian author joins me now. thank you for being with us. i want to quote from your story in the atlantic.

you say riots have a way of magnifying not merely the flaws in the system and the strength of those in power. the american revolution was won with violence, the french revolution was won with violence. the civil war was won with violence, revolution in today's terms would mean that these nationwide rebellions lead to black people being able to access and exercise the fullness of their freedom and humanity. tell me what you mean about that. >> so i think that when -- i'm in a classroom with my students and say look at a historical timeline, every single major moment pivoted around some form of force or violence. if we're looking at the american revolution, the civil war, world war i or ii, vietnam, post 9/11, they involve some form of violence to create some form of structural change. >> there's an nbc marist poll

that came out in which it asked americans, do you think the demonstrations after george floyd's death are and these are the options. 62% said legitimate protests, 28% say mostly people acting unlawfully and 10% said unsure. how do we distinguish? how do you distinguish? i understand the point you're making that this country and many countries were built on vie lebt protests over lack of freedom. do you then distinguish between protests that become violent versus what some would classify as looters or people who eben gauge in deliberate violence? >> sure. i think what we have to realize in america we've had an intense double standard, particularly when it comes to black protesters. when we think of like michigan state winning a game and the city is turned upside down. michigan state losing a game and the city is turned upside down. when we think of black protesters and facets of loot og

or violence, we make that the center. instead of making that the grievance. a man is dead. george floyd is no longer with us. breonna taylor is no longer with us. she would have been 27 yesterday. ahmaud arbery is no longer with us. i push back on the idea a lot. what's more important, the destruction of capital or businesses or the destruction of black bodies and black communities? i think our priorities are wrong when we poll that question. >> how do we change that? how do people recalibrate their feelings? they think what they think. philadelphia enquirer senior journalist put a title on a story that said buildings matter too or something like that in response to black lives matter. >> yeah. that's a real problem for me. it's something that was constant lip reorienting people. martin luther king said it best, a riot is the language of the

unheard. if we're willing to listen to the grievances of people in pain and devastated by the fact that hundreds of people have been killed unarmed by the police, if we don't focus on that and make that the major issue and the center of the narrative, we will lose what's really important about these protests and what's at the heart of these protests. >> riot is the language of the unheard. kelly carter jackson is an historian and the author of force and freedom, black abolitionists, the politics of violence. thank you, kelly. good to see you. that does it for this hour of msnbc. you can catch me tomorrow morning from 8:00 to 10:00 a.m. eastern. the coverage continues with my colleague joshua johnson.

hey there. i'm joshua johnson. good to be with you from nbc news world headquarters in new york. it is the 12th night of protests after the death of george floyd. thankfully, and not surprisingly, they've been mostly peaceful. curfew started here in new york an hour ago. that has not stopped the demonstrations, as you can see. practically no big city's curfew has. in washington, many thousands of people spent the day marching down the newly renamed black lives matter plaza, one of the sfreets that leads to the white house. the protests were very lively,