so goodbye so-called bargain brands, hello bounty basic. the affordably priced towel that's an actual bargain. watch how one select-a-size sheet of bounty basic is 50% stronger than a full sheet of the bargain brand. it takes a strong towel to stretch a budget. bounty basic. the strong but affordable picker upper. and try charmin basic. this morning, my question. how do you bully a 300-pound football player? plus, the shooting of ranesha mcbride. and the woman who made feminism fun again joins nerdland. but first, race and the republicans. good morning. i'm melissa harris-perry.

we'll get to race and the gop in just a moment. but first, the latest on the supertyphoon in the philippines. officials say the storm may have killed as many as 10,000 people in one town alone. another city reported 300 dead and more than 2,000 missing. but the death toll is expected to keep on climbing as rescue crews reach remote villages cut off by massive flooding. officials say at least six of the islands in the philippines were seriously damaged when the typhoon brought winds of more than 170 miles an hour and 20-feet storm surges. in one province, the storm destroyed 70 to 80% of all structures in its path. and the province's capital city, tacloban, has been devastated. and that's where nbc's angus walker is this morning. >> reporter: this is tacloban airport, which was completely destroyed by the supertyphoon. it's now a place where thousands of people have come, hoping to be rescued and the filipino air

force is flying in, transport aircraft taking people away. the old, the young, the sick. they've waited for three days with no food, no matter, no power, and no way of telling their relatives that they're still alive. and all of them have harrowing tales to tell. the number of dead now feared to be 10,000, and that means that the death toll has risen ten times in under 24 hours. rescue teams are now discovering the true horror of supertyphoon haiyan. >> that was nbc's angus walker in the philippines. officials estimate that 4.5 million people have been affected by the typhoon, including 1.7 million children and nearly half a million people are now homeless. the rescue effort and the need for relief is massive. if you would like to help the red cross and world food program and the salvation army are just some of the organizations mobilizing relief efforts and accepting donations. turning now, back to

politics, here in the u.s. and in particular, to race and the gop. now, you may have heard this week that new governor-elect of virginia, terry mcauliffe, owes his win last tuesday to women. women, they say, voted against mcauliffe's opponent. you know, attorney general bob cuccinelli. we like to call him around here, cuch. he'll be known as teddy mccuch, because of his draconian policies against reproductive rights, is widely popular sex acts and the like. i can see how you might make that mistake. if you look at the exit polls, it looks like mcauliffe had a nine-point edge on the cuch among women, but nine points does not exactly a gender gap make. now, it's true that almost every black woman in the state of virginia voted and voted for mcauliffe, but white women, well, most white women still voted republican. look at these numbers.

91% of african-american women voted democrat, but 54% of white women, a sizable majority there, voted republican. and this is despite the fact that the republican candidate aggressively opposed abortion, and as an attorney general, forced clinics to close. that he pushed to keep on the books an anti-sodomy law and outlawed oral and anal sex, that he refused to support the violence against women act. so why is up with white women? this is the same thing we saw in p president obama's re-election last year. president obama didn't win among all women. he won among black women. white women still went for mitt romney. in virginia this year, getting black voters to the polls was everything. take a look at african-american turnout in virginia over the past few years. the state elected president obama twice, when the electorate was one-fifth african-american. but the year that the state went republican in 2009, when the state put bob mcdonnell in the governor's office, that was when black voters made up only 16% of

the electorate. now, this year, with no black candidate at the top of the ticket, the mcauliffe campaign knew that they had to do everything they could to get african-americans to the polls. so his campaign was packed with former staffers from president obama's campaign. they, of the legendary gotv, operation. both clintons stumped for mcauliffe, and we know how african-american voters feel about the clintons, even kerry washington came out, and it is hard to resist olivia pope. president obama himself stumped hard for mcauliffe days before the election. and the message was clear. >> are you willing to make sure that those family members who don't always vote during off-year elections are getting to the polls? are you willing to make your case every single hour, every single minute, every single second? are you going to be willing to outwork and outhustle the other folks, because i guarantee you, terry mcauliffe is going to be

outworking and outhustling the other guy over the next few hours. you can bring this home! >> man, i love that line about getting your family members to vote. you know, your brothers and your sisters. that means president obama had also seen this chart, and it worked. so joining me now, to discuss the implications of this gubernatorial race and, in fact, race and the republicans, are joy reid, managing editor of thegrio.com, michael skull nick of globalgrind.com, msnbc "the cycle," co-host, ari melber, and republican strategist, ron christie. it is so nice to have you all at the table. so i'm going to start with you, joy, what's up with the white women? >> i don't know. it is interesting how in a lot of ways, in sort of our politics, race is trumping gender. and it isn't sort of by rote that if you have a candidate that's against certain issues we think of as women's issues, abortion, even contraception. in the case of ken cuccinelli,

against contraception. but in a lot of ways, the racial identification with party has become stronger and stronger over time. and it's really been happening since the 1960s, where the white vote has really solidified as the republican vote and the minority vote has solidified as the democratic vote. and that trumps everything else including gender. >> it feels like me we have to be clear about that intersectionalty between gender and race. because otherwise, we keep acting as if there is some great interracial feminist coalition pushing back against these reproductive rights efforts. and in fact, that's just not quite right, right? we're still seeing race operating in this way. so ari, you know a lot of white women. >> wow. >> my understanding is you're planning to marry one. so i'm just -- no, seriously, what lessons around race and gender and the gop do you take from this virginia race? any? >> well, i'd start with your observation about the political class, which includes the media class, and the fact is, it's still uncomfortable about a lot of people to go deep into race, right?

so talking about the gender gap and looking at it on an aggregate level actually feels more comfortable than some of the charts you put up and really thinking about how racially polarized our politics are for a range of reasons. i think there was some spillover here in virginia. i think this is a race republicans should have won. they won the governor's mansion four years ago by 17 points. so mcauliffe did make some inroads, but as you point out, it was much more an obama model of growing the coalition and growing the base than some other crossover. he did win the majority of self-identified moderates and he won one out of ten virginia voters who said they were against the affordable care act. that is significant, because cuccinelli was mr. anti-affordable care act. he actually filed the very first legal challenge in virginia against that law. and so it goes to another broad point that correlates with race, because we see a racial division along that law and along the treatment of that law, and along what i think is a republican sabotage effort against it. but you did have a democratic candidate who was able to peel

off some of that in addition to a very diverse coalition. >> so ari, part of what i like, you just did there is you said, okay, we have race in gender, which we tend to think of as these identity politics moments, but if we pick those apart, blackness is not necessarily standing in for -- it's not necessarily about biology here, right? it's standing in for a set of thing. and if we started breaking those charts down even more, michael, we'll see women who are unmarried are more likely to vote for the democratic party. we can see here that women who are of lower socioeconomic status. so these things tend to map ton to race, but are not necessarily caused, for example, by race. is there a more sophisticated way that we ought to be talking about race partisanship, gender, and these other kind of intersecting identities in our media politics? >> sure, i think that we should be talking about these things in terms of policy. and i think that's where republicans get it wrong. they think that we just like obama because he's black. we like obama -- >> we don't hate him for that.

>> that's right, that's exactly right. so i think if you look at what happened in virginia and cuccinelli, we learned a hard lesson in 2009 and 2010, that we don't want to repeat again. so we see as going into this midterm in 2013 and 2014, the elections this year, we certainly understand that the ramifications, if we lose, are much greater than what we thought in 2008 and 2009. so now folks are showing up. black people are showing up, young people are showing up, latinos are showing up, women are showing up. and we're not going to let it happen again. >> so i really -- these numbers for me, just the numbers about black turnout across the last four statewide elections in virginia. so 2008, you have 20% of african-american, of the electorate is african-american, the same thing is true in 2012, the same thing is true in 2013. in each of those, you end up with a democratic winner at the statewide level. but in '09, up with of these election years, you have a drop down to 16%, you end up with a republican win. is this the thing that the republican party is going to

have to address if it is going to have a future in a more diverse america? >> well, i live in virginia, and i can tell you in 2009 and certainly in this year, in 2013, you're talking about off year election cycles. so traditionally you'll not get as many people out to the polls. i think we had 20% of those who are registered to vote who actually went out and voted. i don't look at this strictly as a racial issue. but we have the fact that a lot of folks don't show up in an off year election. in order for the gop to really be a vibrant party in the days ahead, i think that we need to address the fact that we need to get more women, more people of color to come out and vote for us and to look at our ideology. and unless you go now -- see, the republicans' problem, i believe is, the republicans show up to ask for the vote right before the election. no, you've got to show up now, be consistent about it, and continue to say, this is why my philosophy, my vision, and my ideology is right one. not because of the color of your skin, but because it's the right policy. >> this is a great point, you brought us to exactly where governor chris christie,

precisely what he said this morning on "meet the press." we'll take a look at that as soon as we get back, because there was a republican, a white guy, who won a pretty substantial portion of the african-american vote just this past week and we're going to take a look at that when we come back. you really love, what would you do?" ♪ [ woman ] i'd be a writer. [ man ] i'd be a baker. [ woman ] i wanna be a pie maker. [ man ] i wanna be a pilot. [ woman ] i'd be an architect. what if i told you someone could pay you and what if that person were you? ♪ when you think about it, isn't that what retirement should be, paying ourselves to do what we love? ♪

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we tend to think that black voters, nearly all of them, always just vote for the democr democrats. certainly true this week in virginia, the republican received 8% of the vote, pretty much in line with expectations. but this week also brought a reminder that that's not something one should take for granted. in new jersey's gubernatorial race, governor chris christie won in a landslide, 60% to 38. and he took, by republican standards, an impressive portion

of the african-american vote, 21%, more than a fifth. for a republican in today's politics, that is huge. so i want to listen in, ron, to governor christie on "meet the press" this morning, saying basically exactly what you said about the need to show up. let's take a listen. >> the election showed was that if you want to attract a majority of the hispanic vote, if you want to nearly triple your african-american vote as a republican, what you need to do is show up. you go and you show up and you listen, and you start to make your argument about your policies. >> what do you make of that? >> he is absolutely right. if you look back to virginia, look at my old boss, george allen. when george allen first -- >> oh, god. >> he's an honorable and decent man and he made a mistake, but if you look at his first race when he ran for governor, he got nearly 30% of the black vote in virginia. but look at my former boss, john kasich, who's now the governor of ohio, he got nearly 30% of the black vote.

you have to show up, be consistent about it, talk about your policies, talk about why your vision is right one. and unfortunately, a lot of the leaders, and the republican party at the national level, don't get it. >> so i think your point is -- it's well taken and empirically supported, not only by your allen example, but around. but partly what i find surprising is chris christie's policies, his policy position on everything from reproductivity rights to voter i.d. to minimum wage to teachers unions are things that are not that far afield of a ken cuccinelli, right? so it makes me wonder if it's a substance over style. when we looked a to the gender breakdown for black men and black women. black women really driving that gender gap in virginia. but african-american women show up for christie at 25% with black women some at 18%. suggesting to me that there's maybe like a certain new jersey circumstance here, and that's what he performs on purpose.

>> and the christie thing is very deceptive. it's deceptive to listen to him saying, you've just got to show up. but he spent $25 million advertising how awesome he was about hurricane sandy. number two, he didn't hate barack obama while accepting federal funds, which to african-americans is like, well, here's a republican who actually did his job as governor, people give him point for competency, and we know that hurricanes trump everything. this happened in florida. >> and he did more than not hate obama, right -- >> he embraced him. >> he literally, physically embraced president obama, which matters as a deep symbolic moment. >> it matters as a moment for the african-americans. and the third thing, look, he had some validators. he stood down the democratic opposition in that state. he didn't oppose him. he didn't have to be a on a ballot with cory booker. and he engineered that spending another $25 million. he spent a lot of money to create the appearance of being this great bipartisan governor. and i hate to say it, but he also had a validator in shaquille o'neal.

i saw interviews where african-americans said, you know what, if shaq is cool with him, he sort of created the appearance of having black validators. >> so this eats at a little place inside of me, a little place inside of me just died. if you're telling me you can black votes for a couple million dollars, a hug with the president, and shaquille o'neal? i'm all down for selling our votes, but can we be more expensive than that? is that really what's gone on here? or is ron making a point? is there actually a substantiative draw for african-american voters to, at least a new jersey version of the republican party. >> when i look at this, and i've done a lot of reporting on specifically civil rights issues and the african-american vote. i think it breaks down into three areas. one is things that explicitly benefit the african-american community. two is things that may help everyone, but also help the community. and three is the outreach in tone. he did over a hundred town halls, he went into districts and did town halls in areas where he had lost by 90, 95%, chris christie did, and still

wanted to meet with people. on specific civil rights agenda items, he has nothing, okay? so that's zero in that category. something on tone, but then also, yes, something on other broad-based benefits that also serve the community. hurricane sandy hit everyone. it was a unity moment. and his decision to accept medicaid funds is extremely important and is a bigger issue for african-american and low-income voters than it is for other people. so i do think there's two pieces there. kasich's very different, because he actually has a huge christian pro-poverty agenda. he is, to my mind, on policy, one of the only republican governors who has been focused on figuring that out, working on not only medicaid, but on low-income schools. >> so i love all of that. and i want to link those back to joy's point about getting the democrats to stand down. part of what gets them to stand down is the embrace of president obama. in the "time" magazine, there's this moment where christie is embracing this woman, but he's looking up at the camera. but it makes the whole hug look

like it is purposeful, in some way, but it did certainly help the democrats to stand down. it also meant that the tea party never had to come stump in new jersey. so i want to come back to you as soon as we come back from the break on that, michael. because when some members of the republican party speak for you, it sends voters of color the other direction. and we're going to listen to what sarah palin had to say, when we come back.

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ask if xeljanz is right for you. would you like apple or cherry? cherry. oil...or cream? definitely cream. [ male announcer ] never made with hydrogenated oil. oh, yeah. [ male announcer ] always made with real cream. the sound of reddi wip is the sound of joy. this was sarah palin at the faith and freedom coalition annual dinner in des moines, iowa, last night. >> our free stuff today is being paid for by taking money from our children and borrowing from china. when that note comes due -- and

this isn't racist, so try it and try it anyway. this isn't racist, but it's going to be like slavery when that note is due, right? >> there is a rule, michael skolnick. >> don't come to me! the white person will attack the white person, happily! >> there is a rule, if you say, this isn't racist, i don't mean to be racist, everything after that is guaranteed -- >> let me be honest, here's a lie. >> seriously! but i never like to overelevate palin, but it's when that happens. and if you can link the republican candidate to that sort of moment. >> but this is, my dear friend, ron, this is your problem. that chris christie, sure, he's a nice guy. sure, he went into black communities and showed up. and that was nice of him to do so. but you have folks like sarah palin and ted cruz who are out there, and john boehner, who are closing down the government. and black people looking at that saying, i don't want that party. >> wait a second.

>> and christie wasn't associated with that problem. he beat -- remember, the republican frame was underwater, 57% negative rating. christie was essentially divorced from it in his re-election. he wasn't running on that brand, on sarah palin. >> and i hate to bring reality to the table, but the fact of the matter is the republicans, a, didn't shut the government down. this was the democrats who decided, we want more money -- everything that sarah palin just said is exactly right. we are borrowing money -- >> the debt ceiling is not about money -- >> we are borrowing money. oh, okay. so -- the deficit -- come on, ron. the deficit has been shrinking >> the deficit has been shrinking because of the sequester. >> granted, but all that we did here was to return to sequester levels, right? this was ultimately not a fight about the budget. this was a fight, ultimately, about obama care. it was put on the table by ted cruz. i mean, does it take two parties to shut down? sure. >> yes, it does. >> but the reality is, the notion of a shutdown as a strategic move simply was a move of the radical right within the

republican party. so much so that your own speaker was trying to coral that -- i mean, the tea party is a liability in national elections for you guys, they just are. >> no, it's not. when you brand the tea party as being a liability for national elections, i say absolutely. the tea party stands for limited government, reduce the size and scope to have the federal government, get rid of obama care because that's an entitlement this country cannot afford. >> and they're the most unpopular single political entity, other than the republican house of representatives. they have been sinking in popularity because their brand is associated with anger, it's associated with irrational, anti-obamaism, and they certainly cheerleaded and cheered for the shutdown of the government. it was the tea party, particularly within the house of representatives, that is corrupting and corroding government, in the minds of american people, look at every poll. it's unanimous. and if you don't think they're a liability, run on the democrats -- >> i'm just saying, because cuccinelli loses and christie

wins. and if republicans don't take from that, a national election is going to require a christie, not a cuccinelli, then that does seem to me to be a failure of a recognition of sort of the basic realities of what public opinion polls are showing. >> the basic reality is, if cuccinelli had another week, he would have won this. obama care is so unpopular in virginia -- >> it is not more unpopular than the shutdown among federal workers. >> yes, it is -- i will give you this. among federal workers who live in northern virginia, yes. but the fact of the matter is, republicans have consistently gone out and said, obama care is unpopular -- >> then why is the republican party in the house so unpopular? can you explain? why are they so unpopular? >> and why is the president's approval rating right now at 39%. >> what is the president's approval rating versus the house's -- >> the one thing i would -- >> why are they so -- >> that said, president obama will never have to run for office again. >> that's right. >> republicans will. and look, for me, a robust, republican party that has a

meaningful connection to communities of color is actually good for the country, right? so wherever i stand from a partisan perspective, from wherever i stand from an analytic perspective, the fact is, when i look at the republican party and i see the possibility of a chris christie at the top of the ticket and i see the possibility of a very long bench of non-white, women republican governors, i look at that and say, okay, actually a christie-martinez or a christie-nikki haley ticket looks pretty dang hard to beat. but it will also require some -- what that ticket will have to do is it will have to tell sarah palin -- they will have to do to sarah palin what bill clinton did to sister souljah. remember, the way the democrats retook national elections was that they decided that in many ways, the intensity of the black vote and their connection with that black vote was problematic. they gave it a little bit of a strong arm in the early '90s. they brought the party hard to center right. that's how clinton wins twice. it's part of his legacy and part

of the legacy of why the whole dang country is to the right. they're going to have to do that to the tea party if they're going to win a national election. >> and part of what you're talking about, melissa, is the difference between politics, how do we win elections, and social change, which involves competition over issues throughout the political process. so it is good. if you dare about changing the overincarceration approach of this nation, it is good to have that conversation within both parties. and the fact that there are some people, rand paul and rick santorum among them, who talk about that as a racial justice issue, is a good thing. they are still far behind. they are not the leaders on that in my view, but i would rather have that competition within both parties. another thing, i didn't know how much of what i said in this segment was racist or not. because these people prefaced their comments by saying it wasn't racist. to me, that's confusing. the other piece about obama care, ron and i have a disagreement about the empirical facts, and we'll find out who is right, but you seem to believe as a factual matter that virginia is looking at a sort of

floor of obama care opposition. >> absolutely. >> and i think we're looking at more of a ceiling. i think the 53% of the place, where as we mentioned, the guy who filed the first challenge, ran against obama care in a place that's close to washington, that's very sort of clued into the national discussion, i don't think there's 10 or 20% more anti-obama people. and that election came in after two of the worst weeks of press for obama care since it started. >> all right. let's keep it going in the commercial. maybe we'll do like mhp in the commercial. ron christie, thank you for being here. i hope you'll come back to nerdland. up next, the deadly shooting of a young african-american woman and new questions about who the law really protects. my customers can shop around--

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very laws that were supposed to uphold and preserve it. people victimized by the very institutions that were meant to make them feel safe. stories remarkable for the similarities in their circumstances, but each time a new name. trayvon martin, last year shot while unarmed, walking home in the rain in sanford, florida. the man who killed him going free and alluding charges for weeks because of a state law that said he could. jordan davis, last year, shot while unarmed in that same state where his killer is using that same law as a defense. jonathan farrell, two months ago, shot while unarmed, while seeking help after a car accident in charlotte, north carolina. the police officer who killed him responding to his duty to protect and serve by firing 12 shots, 10 of which found their mark in jonathan farrell's body. and today, another new name, renisha mcbride, shot while unarmed after another car accident on another doorstep in the middle of the night, in another state with a law that

says it's okay to kill someone as long as you're standing your ground. the details of this case are still emerging, but here is what we do know. renisha was a 19-year-old young girl from detroit, michigan, graduating from high school. she'd just been hired to work at ford motor company. around 1:00 a.m. last saturday, she got into a car accident, and some time around 3:40 a.m., found herself on the doorstep of a stranger in dear heights. it's still unclear what happened between that moment and the moment that renisha died. but what is certain is that the person who answered the door shot her in the face with a 12-gauge shotgun. the shooter, a 54-year-old white man who remains unnamed, who lives alone and told the police that he thought someone was trying to break into his home and that his gun discharged accidentally. his attorneys say that shooting was justified and that he was, quote, in fear for his life. so far, no charges have been filed, no arrests have been

made. a warrant requested on wednesday by the dearborn heights police was returned by the wayne county prosecutor, who called for further investigation before the warrant could be issued. i want to be here talking about renisha mcbride, i want her to be another 19-year-old girl excited and nervous to start her new job. i don't want to have to ask about what caused the death of another unarmed child again. i don't want to have to question the wisdom of a law where a shooter is more likely to walk free when the victim is african-american again. but i have to. we have to. so that i won't have to stand here and do it again, telling you the same story with another new name, ever again. welcome to. how do you react when you first see this? it looks kind of like a dancer? reality check: some 4g lte coverage maps don't really look like maps. seems like maybe... a bunch of berries.

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questions about stand your ground in michigan, the law has survived a push for its repeal in florida. a committee of florida lawmakers considered the repeal hearing on thursday that was prompted by the protests of youth activist, the dream defenders. after five hours of commentary and debate, a panel of florida lawmakers voted 11-2 to reject the repeal of stand your ground. during the same session, they also voted 12-1 to pass a separate bill that removes the mandatory 10 to 20 life sentence for people who fire a warning shot. it's a move that came too late for marissa alexander, who received a 20-year, mandatory prison sentence after firing a warning shot in an altercation with her abusive husband. her conviction was thrown out six weeks ago after an appeals court found that the jury in her original trial was given faulty instructions by the judge and a bail hearing for alexander is set for wednesday of next week, and her new trial is scheduled to begin on 21st, 2013. but according to the decision of the appeals court, as of now,

she will still be unable to use stand your ground as a defense. joining the panel now is vince warren, executive director at the center for constitutional rights, who was one of the attorney who is recently argued the case to end stop and frisk here in new york city. vince, thanks for being here. >> thanks for having me. >> so let's start with the renisha mcbride case, was this may or may not have anything to do with stand your ground, in that it's castle doctrine, right? this man was in his home, which i guess in every state, you have a right, if you believe yourself to be threatened. but is there a reason he hasn't been arrested? i guess i'm confused about how stand your ground, how castle dock trip impact what the police do in this moment. >> it's a very interesting question, because i think you're right, in every state, people do str right to defend themselves. and the question is whether they reasonably are in fear of their lives. so here you have a scenario where this poor lady was just shot in the head, asking for help. and normally, that would trigger

a police investigation. it seems pretty clear-cut. but i think what's happening here is they're looking at extra investigations to determine, essentially, what his state of mind was. what he was thinking. what he saw from his perspective before the arrest. which raises this larger question, right? which is the problematic question, which is, is it reasonable in this society, for us to be able to think black folks, whether they're coming up for help or whether they're trying to get back into their own house or whether they're trying to call the police, is it reasonable for us to think that black folks are a threat? that they're even worthy of investigation? that's the overarching question. >> and the michigan state laws says you have to reasonably believe it, as vince said, and honestly believe it. it can't be pretextural in your mind. that's what the lawyers call a two-pronged test. it's a slightly higher test in some states. it goes to, what is the reasonable belief? and in this particular incident, you have an accidental

discharge, you have a lot of arguments lawyers could fight over. one argument would be, if you honestly believed this, you would be acting deliberately. >> and you didn't accidentally open the door. i think one of the things that is true about the stand your ground law, they have enhanced the castle doctrine in every state, but i think what the nra has been very successful in doing, in a country where you have fewer gun buyers, where fewer people are buying guns, but more guns are being sold because existing buyers are buying more guns, what the nra has done since 2005, when the florida law was signed by jeb bush, they've worn down the mental prohibition against using your gun. the difference between stand your ground and the castle doctrine, the castle doctrine says, if somebody comes in your home and you are armed, you have a right to defend yourself. but what stand your ground has done subtly in the mind of gun owners is, go ahead and use your gun. if you hear a bump in the night, go ahead and open that door and shoot, because we've got your back, essentially. the nra has made the law of the

gun apply to you not just if someone comes in, but if you decide to go out. and i think using your gun, because the liability has been reduced, i think it has created a different climate. i think it has changed the climate for gun owners. >> and in changing the climate for gun owners, around a mental, sort of perceptual question, therefore undoubtedly connects race to it. and i wanted to ask you about this a little bit, because i know you use social media as a way of bringi ingbringing, mich of a focus on gun violence and gun death. you were doing it this morning. social media is not a full, accurate, public opinion survey. but i watched as the renisha mcbride story became public, my whole social media worry exploded with this. because in addition to shifting the world for young owners, young people of color are like, it is open season on us! like, that's what happens in our shift, in our understanding of what it means to be american. >> i think what happened with trayvon martin.

there's so much silence in those first couple of weeks and no one was talking about it black people. white people were very, very quiet around trayvon martin. and it too 45 days for that arrest. you see the same thing happening in renisha mcbride. they're silent. and this time, it's not going to take 45 days for us to talk and march and go on social media. there's no arrests, there's no police report, right? this guy is saying self-defense? prove it! prove it's self-defense! don't tell me it's self-defense. i have to believe you police officer, who just killed jonathan farrell two months ago. >> and melissa, there's such an important connection here between what you're saying about using the media, social media, and pushing that up into all of the media, to understand who these people are as individuals. not the criminalization of black people, particularly, a black man, in this case, a black woman, but the names. jordan davis and trayvon martin. and that impacts with what ccr, where i also used to work, and

with what vince does. in a stop and frisk case, we learned about innocent vigilance systemically and repeatedly pro profiled because of the color of their skin. the social media has been powerful and what michael and others are doing is powerful because it's the informal part. >> we'll come back, because i want to talk about stop and frisk. but before we go out, i want to read this quote from the detroit writer and filmmaker, because i think she captures this sense. she writes, i thought that this is not a unique or original story. she recently organized a rally thursday, calling for justice for mcbride. she says, about every six weeks, we basically have some racial kill historic to protest and to mourn and to be outraged about. and that feeling that this is now our new normal. when we come back, more on how that is also part of the stop and frisk story, when we come back. when we made our commitment to the gulf, bp had two big goals:

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i want to speak to you about the role of proactive policing and the role it's played in keeping new york city safe in our post-9/11 environment. >> -- asking tough questions is not enough! >> you want to make this community safer, yet you are making an entire population feel unsafe. >> depending on how you look at it, that was part of either new york police commissioner ray kelly having his first amendment rights trampled on by a group of protesters at brown university last week, or a group of protesters at brown university exercising their right to free speech against the man who's the very embodiment of the new york police department's policy of stop and frisk. among those holding the former opinion is brown university president, christina paxon, who this week announced the formation of an ominously named committee on the events of

october 29th. she threatened to punish all organizations involved. there is an interesting free speech conversation to be had about this. i'm less interested in than i am in two things here. one, it's part of that culture of young people saying, you know what, you, embodiment of the police, you embodiment of stop and frisk, we'll speak back against that, but the speed of the institution basically has said, we're going to punish you. where these other folks, having taken people's lives are not being punished. >> this is very important because the police operate with an implied legitimacy. it's a legal legitimacy, but also a social and cultural legitimacy. we know how differently that relates to different neighborhoods. . what we were just discussing is how the police could be seen as the protector or aggressor depending on your station in life. so it seems to me, this is a privileged institution, the university where he is going to speak, and expecting a certain friendly or respectful

reception. and while he has the freedom to speak and shouldn't be shouted down, i think that kind of protest is important and powerful, because it challenges the legitimacy of his tactics. the fact that that operates in an environment of legal challenge, we still have this case on stop and frisk on appeal and a new mayor coming into new york. but this is bigger than new york, of course. new york is a city full of liberals and black and brown people have have been cover kd by republicans with aggressive racial profiling. now republicans for 25 years, aggressive racial profiling using the words of the district court over the last several years. and so it is time for america, i think, broadly, to look at this shift and see, culturally, why we need to challenge it, and politically why a democrat could actually win in this city by saying, no, we can do public safety without making sure that every black man is stopped, which in some years was the level of this stop and frisk. >> so stopped twice. so part of what i want to ask is, last night, there was a shooting in sort of manhattan

area, right, bryant park, right? and my immediate thought was, okay, let the backlash begin. like, de blasio is not even in yet, but my bet is, to the extent gun violence creeps into communities that think of themselves as inoured from it a a result of the policies we've seen under the bloomberg administration, that de blasio may have a hard time bringing down the level of police action. >> i'm not sure he'll have that hard a time. but i think what's important about the brown university piece is what those students were saying, regardless of how they said it, the methodology, they were saying what people in new york and people around the country are beginning to say. number one, give me a break. we know for a fact that the stop and frisk aggressive policies are actually more dangerous for black communities than they are safe for white communities. we know this, wn the know this e true. the folks at brown didn't want to hear that stuff anymore. and what we're talking about now, with respect to de blasio is he's got a real challenge. but what he shouldn't be focused on is the amount of spin that's

going to happen, that every time that there is a crime somewhere in the city, that's going to be evidence, we need more stop and frisk. we've been doing this for way too long. >> and it's really kind of ironic that 50 years after a landmark, heroic era of the civil rights movement, we're still arguing about the basic right to move around the city untram untrammeled and in order for the majority of new york to be safe, you have to put this population under deep surveillance. you have to suspect every single one of them of being a potential criminal and inquire about that, in the old south african sense of ininquiring, stop, ask who you are, prove to it me, or i can pat you down. this is a requirement for an overall safe requirement, it puts african-american youth and latino youth and minority youth in general really under a situation of being somewhat less citizens. because the conditions for the rest of the citizenship to feel safe is that you must be under deep surveillance. >> that is beautifully said. and to connect that back to what

ari was saying. the thing that makes the state the state is the monopoly on the legitimate use of force and coercion. and it's clearly illegitimate, then it is, in fact, not a legitimate, stable state in that sense. >> what was interesting for the last few weeks, what happened at barney's. there's not one person who i met, who said, what they did to that kid was right. what happened to that young man outside of barney's is what happens to every young black and brown kid in new york when their stopped and frisked by the police. the same policy, we think you're a burglar, we think you're selling drugs. we think that is wrong. and every other stop and frisk should be wrong too. >> do you think it's the class element? we purposefully said, i don't really want to do stop and frisk today, in the context of talking about renisha mcbride. but it is that same kind of mind set. and i wonder if the outrage is, these are people who can afford these consumer items, how dare you stop them. >> certainly, that's part of it. but a $250 belt is an expensive

items, but there are many young people who can buy a $250 belt as well. that sense, just racial profiling any individual should be deemed wrong. >> vince warren and ari melber, thank you so much. and for much more on these types of issues, i want to direct you to an excellent article that ari haze written on former felonies and the barriers they face this trying to vote as part of the ongoinged "presumed guilty" series. you can find it on our website at msnbc.com. coming up next, the bullying allegations rocking the nf. we have a fantastic panel that's going to dig deep into the issues here. it's sunday morning and we are doing football, nerdland style. we'll talk about masculinity, race, money, culture, that's how we do football. stay with us, because there's more nerdland at the top of the hour. [ coughs, sneezes ]

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welcome back. i'm melissa harris-perry. until a couple of weeks ago, jonathan martin lined up on the offensive line at the miami dolphins starting right tackle. but on october 30th, reporters tweeted that martin had been absent from the team facility all week and hadn't practiced. others reported that martin had kind of flipped out and smashed a food tray on the floor of the team lunchroom when a practical joke perpetrated by teammates didn't sit well with him. the next day, the ap reported that he left the team to receive professional assistance for emotional issues. we later learned that the lunchroom incident may have been the breaking point for the 24-year-old martin, a second-year player out of stanford. the dolphins released a statement a week ago that read, in part, "we received notification today of jonathan's representation about allegations of player misconduct." an allegation that implicated teammate and fellow offensive lineman richey incognito in a

pattern of harassment of martin. incognito allegedly left voice mails and text messages for martin that led the dolphins to suspend incognito. one reported example, "hey, what's up. you half n-word, piece of expletive." he said, "i sawon twitter, you've been training for ten weeks. i want to expletive in your expletive mouth. i'm going to slap you in your expletive mouth. i'm going to slap your real mother across the face. expletive you, you're still a rookie. i'll kill you." those who play professional football in the nfl are presumed to be tough guys and the toughest of them all might be the offensive lineman who play after play, repeatedly collide with faster, arguably more athletic guys rushing directly at them.

martin, a tackle and incognito, a guard, were in their second season of going through the bone-crushing reality of o-line play, literally alongside one another, and not just on the field. on each team, there are teams within teams, and the offensive linemen in particular, typically have a pretty strong bond, as the one unit expressly charged with protecting the quarterback, often the team's most important player. they'd better be close, but a statement from martin's attorney, david cornwell, released thursday made it clear, it's not just incognito being implemented. cornwell said, beyond the well published voice mail, jonathan endured a malicious, physical attack on him by a teammate and daily vulgar comments. these facts are not in dispute. this alleged bullying of a grown man weighing over 300 pounds has ignited a public debate over what means the to be a tough guy in the nfl and whether it's more courageous to man up and take it or to be man enough to walk away. joining me now are joy reid,

managing editor of the agree owe. dave zion, sports editor at "the nation" magazine. don mcpherson and feminist activist, and espn.com columnist, jonell hill. so nice to have you all here. let me just start with you, dave. is staying and enduring the manly thing to do or is walking away and revealing, basically being a whistle-blower, the manly thing to do? >> this is about manhood versus adulthood. manhood, a very narrow definition that feeds into this gender binary of manhood in the nfl. and what does that binary mean? it means that being a man means being able to take violence, it means being able to inflict violence. it means having incredibly retrograde views about women, about lbgt people, and it means being able to be a white guy who says, i can drop n-bombs because it's all good, it's the culture.

the other side, you have adulthood. that's jonathan martin saying, i shouldn't have to fight this guy to have this job. this is a union workplace. and we could spend this whole time talking about this violent, bullying, joke making, n-bomb dropping portrait of pew tres sense that is inckocognitincogn that would let some off the hook. none of this happens on the locker room level without the tacit approval of people in charge. >> i think that's so useful and it's important to see it -- if we make it just about this one person, we solve it by addressing just this one person. but i want to listen to incognito talking about himself, in part as a victim of a culture that he says allows this. let's listen to incognito and then i want to hear your responses to it. >> you can ask anybody in the miami dolphins locker room who had john martin's back the absolute most. and they'll undoubtedly tell

you, me. all this stuff coming out just, it speaks to -- it speaks to the culture of our locker room. it speaks to the culture of our closeness. it speaks to the culture of our brotherhood. and the racism, the bad words, you know, that's what i regret most. what that is, that's a product of the environment. and that's something that we use all the time. >> how do you respond to that? >> well, i think there's two ways that i listen to that. one, as an activist, with personal violence is this is an abusive relationship. this could be a husband talking about abusing his wife. this could be a parent talking about abusing their child. this could be so many people saying, well, this is just the way we do it when that person gets out of line. they look to me for that leadership and that tough leadership, that tough love i'm going to give that person. and we're friends, he loves me. so abusive relationships take

many forms. and what's happening here and what's happening within this, as dave said, this is toxic masculinity. this could be in the fifth grade or nfl. it's the same type of masculinity that's very narrow in its form, very violent in my ways, it's abusive in many ways. but it's not just what's happening in the locker room. you have to look at the toxic masculinity in the collective voices of the nfl. i'm not talking about the league office here in new york, but all the announcers, all the former coaches and players who are all saying that jonathan martin should take this like a man. stand up and be a man, punch him back, like we talked about earlier. all this kind of bravado and tough-guy masculinity. which, by the way, if you take that same logic, someone that feels abused or feels like they've been bullied is justified. take it like a man, stand up and be like a man. take it into your own hands. and so this bravado that you're hearing is not just in the dolphin's locker room, it's throughout, as dave talked

about, this culture of masculinity that so many people vicarious live through the nfl and sit down on sunday afternoons and this is where they get to display their -- >> i love you taking to that context of an abusive relationship. it makes so many things fall into place, as soon as you think about this. and the way that person exits often gets policed. i often try to ask myself, are we responding out of some sort of knee-jerk moment, because, look, nerdland is a crazy place where we say crazy things. and part of intimacy, sometimes is that you do not in every moment have to be completely pc. right? it's part of how we say, i trust you, because i'm going to say things that i shouldn't say on air, and i'm going to believe that you won't say that, i'm going to say them on the air, but i'm not going to abuse you. so i guess part of what i'm struggling with here is, is he in any way right, even if he's gone too far, about the idea that locker room intimacy, in which people do break some rules, in order to demonstrate

trust, or am i just giving him way too much credit? >> well, you're talking about locker room intimacy in a locker room where it goes beyond just dropping the pc walls. i mean, john has been in the locker room, i'm sure you have, dave. i've been in and out of locker rooms throughout my career, covering it as a print reporter. they experience a closeness and togetherness that is very unique. and i am a huge football fan, and i realize i'm trying to impose the rules of society in this locker room, where they simply don't really apply. because it's not just an abusive relationship maybe with each other, as you use an example. it's with the gang itself. the game requires a certain amount of mental and physical fortitude that most people simply don't have. the game is about paying tolerance. it's defined by that. and they take that attitude in the locker room as well and it's hard for them to separate. where i'm caught is, they have to understand, while you may

have that culture inside the locker room, it clearly bleeds out of it. we've seen many nfl players involved democrats a of violence against women, other sorts of ugly incidents, attempted murder. you see the aaron hernandez situation. whatever's happening there in that incubator, it come s out. >> we've got so much more this hour. everyone, stay there. when we come back, we'll get the latest developments out of miami. [ female announcer ] who are we? we are the thinkers. the job jugglers. the up all-nighters. and the ones who turn ideas into action. we've made our passions our life's work. we strive for the moments where we can say, "i did it!" ♪ we are entrepreneurs who started it all... with a signature. legalzoom has helped start over 1 million businesses, turning dreamers into business owners. and we're here to help start yours.

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we've been discussing the miami dolphins bullying controversy that reached beyond sports, and i now want to go live to the dolphins training facility in florida, and our nbc news correspondent, kerry

sanders for the latest. hi, kerry. >> reporter: hi. >> i want to talk about the latest developments here. >> reporter: yeah, well, things are pretty much status quo. i think the really big development is richie incognito, which has not even revealed if he has an attorney, and if he does, he hasn't named his attorney or released any sort of statement, now goes on fox news and makes this statement. and we've only heard a portion of it, but sort of answers some questions head-on there. so i think what really is at play here now is a little bit in the dolphin's camp as well as the nfl's camp. because we haven't really heard specifically from jonathan moretimor martin, although his attorney has released a statement. now we've heard some from richie incognito, and as your guests were saying before the break, this really stirs up a lot of problems for the operation of the nfl. not as if the games themselves will be impacts. fans will go, there'll still be plenty of money in the television contracts, but for those on the outside looking in, there's an expectation here that

this is going to lead to some sort of resolution, and it's unclear at this point, as this is just getting underway, whether the attorney who's been brought in here, ted wells, and is doing this independent investigation, is going to provide something that actually then can lead to some sort of resolution beyond maybe just this locker room. >> let me ask you, just quickly, about that question of sort of what must undoubtedly be the nfl's anxiety around this. do you have a sense, is there any sort of idea at this point about how they will respond, particularly going into the monday night game. >> well, i think a lot of people are expecting whether the team here will be able to divorce themselves from what's going on, off the field with what they try to do on the field monday night. they're playing tampa bay. the tampa bay bucs have not won a game all season. if the dolphins can go in and win, maybe there's a suggestion that they can make that psychological break from what's been going on. i've been in the locker room here, players telling me, look, this is my life. i've watched sports center every

day. i haven't watched sports center all week. other guys telling me they have not picked up the newspaper, they haven't seen the blogs. others say they can't avoid it. and it sounds sort of trivial, but you hear it all the time, because it is correct. when coaches and players saying they're just trying to focus. everything in your life can impact the way they play. there's going to be a lot of eyeballs on what otherwise wouldn't have had a whole lot of people watching it. >> right. >> probably just end up with a bigger audience, which is a sort of sickness in and of itself. nbc's kerry sanders live from davie, florida. thank you so much. >> reporter: sure. now, i want to turn back to exactly what kerry said there. the idea this this may actually draw viewers to a florida game that's going to happen on monday night, tampa and miami. but you've lived many years in florida, you report all the florida, is there anything, joy, that feels particularly florida as opposed to particularly nfl about this moment? >> it always comes back to, what

is wrong with florida?! >> did y'all secede or something? >> making florida look -- well, the thing is, football is a religion in florida, from peewee florida to high school football, no one would dare touch a high school with an f rating and no one would dare touch it. it is really important. and the culture of it, whether you're talking about peewee or high school or professional football, in florida and probably throughout the country, is this sense that toughness matters more than brains and sensitivity, right? i've been sort of struck by the way that this has been covered, even the stories about martin have sort of portrayed him as sort of a 300-pound weaklings and really emphasized his parents went to harvard and he went to stanford, almost saying, he might not have been tough enough for this game psychologically. >> nothing will emasculate your son like an ivy league education. >> right, and this is a good thing, supposedly, he's a smart guy. but there is this sense, even if you're on the sidelines, there

had to be rules when my kids played sports in florida against parents belittling and berating the children who were playing on just the soccer field. because the intensity of having to have boys be super hyper, masculine, and tough and take anything dished out to them, whether physically or psychologically, was more important than people sort of looking out for either head injuries or their mental health. just the way it is. >> what a youth coach once said to me from your neck of the woods in northerly i think applies to florida. he said to me, when you have poverty, institutionalized racism and year-round sunshine, you have the perfect soil to create nfl players. but let's take it back to the nfl and the crisis there. because people have got to remember, we came off four weeks of nfl players wearing pink on the field. >> yes! >> and these moms forums they're having. because with the concussion crisis, they're trying to convince moms that this is a family-friendly sport and it is good for your son. and you know what? they are freaking out right now, because this story runs counter to the idea that this is a

productive thing for your children to do. and i'm sorry, like, i agree with what jahmell said, definitely, about part of the nfl's enduring violence, but it makes me so angry, jeff ireland, the general manager, what do they have in common? day didn't play the game. who said, martin should have punched him back, he didn't play. and he saw jevon belcher take his life in front of him after killing the mother of his child and they're still caught in this. they're like the rumsfeld chicken hawks of iraq preaching about violence that they themselves never had to experience. >> and the reaction to the story, period. on twitter, you hear so many guys say what they would have done. and that's what ultimately this situation becomes, like, if it were me, i would have done -- and knowing that you can't bust a hammer with a grape, you know, or bust a grape with a happmmer you know what i mean. i find that all these trumped up macho, wannabe -- a lot of

people who wanted to play football and weren't tough enough to play all of a sudden have something to say. >> that's part of why we love football. everybody who knows me knows i'm obsessed with the new orleans saints. and the bounty system that occurred and -- we did have a lot of collective shame about that in the city. our main angst was, ah, man, bring us back our coach. and part of it is that we are all living that vicarious violence. it's our chance where all these intellectual folks can, in fact, sort of live that vicarious way, that doesn't give us head injuries and doesn't put us in the lineup. so much more, joy. thanks for weighing in on florida. up next, though, the claim that a white man is more black than a black man. i swear, this is a key part of the story. and i won't bring michael skolnick back for that one. i love to eat. i love hanging out with my friends. i have a great fit with my dentures. i love kiwis. i've always had that issue with the seeds getting under my denture. super poligrip free --

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it's a social construct. and apparently there's some very interesting social construction of race happening in the miami dolphins' team locker room. several dolphins players speaking in defense of richie incognito deny he is a racist, despite voice mail messages indicating that incognito called jonathan martin the n-word. "the miami herald" reports that in the dolphins locker room, richie incognito was considered a black guy. he was accepted by the black players. he was an hon ray black man. indeed, mark was considered less black than incognito. one former player was quoted as saying, being a brother is more than just about skin color. it's how you carry yourself, how you play, where you come from, what you've experienced, a lot of things. so i ask, when it comes do race, is it really a whole new ball game when it comes to the locker room? joining us once again is michael skolnick from globalgrind.com. i had to bring you back for this, because, seriously, i have one question. >> i'm here.

>> michael, honorary black man, is that a thing? >> no! it's ridiculous to think that because you're hon rorarhonorarn use the n-word. >> you and russell are not n-wording it up. >> no! he might be saying it to me, but i'm like, um. so this notion that because you're accepted in the black community, it's okay to use the n-word. this word is wrong. richie incognito said about martin is wrong. i would never, never use that word. it's a nasty word coming out of the mouth of a white person. and the notion that it's acceptable, i don't buy it. >> do you buy that locker room culture? because sometimes things are said in the intimacy of workplaces that sound kind of special if they are just taken out. is that what's going on here? >> i think there's two things going on here. one is, i've been saying this from the very beginning with all of this, as the nfl has been exposed and this culture has been exposed. there's a certain element of

america learning how the sausage is made, right? we don't want to know how the sausage is made. we want our ugly, nasty, warriors on sunday to hit somebody and be like, i'm the man. >> in pink. >> don't care what colors. so we want that, but we don't want to know how that happens. we don't want to know how that's made and the environment that's created in. the other thing, this whole race thing about richie inckog necog more black than jonathan martin, there's a certain amount of self-loathing and self-hate in that statement. that to be black, you have to be violent and, like in "pulp fiction," i'm a bad mf. so these players saying, richie incognito is a bad dude. this is the league that had ray lewis. and he's not the poster child for. so this whole

anti-intellectualism you're hearing does run through the nfl. >> because it's important that we know we're talking about, that intersectionalty around race and gender earlier. this isn't just about a construction of masculinity, this is possibly about a construction of black masculinity. 69% of players in the nfl, african-american men, that what we're expecting is this sort of narrow definition. but i want to ask you a we. we have seen also not only the alleged words to martin, but also the alleged words to martin about, quote, running a train on his sister. and i wonder if richie incognito is also an honorary rape survivor? is that why he's allowed to say that? because all of a sudden we're in a new land here. >> yeah, we are. and i've talked to many players, both current and former, since i've been running around espn's campuses, so they're easy to talk to. and i asked them, like, is this typical or atypical?

and even they are perplexed by the language and even the whole n-word conversation. they admit, it's said in the locker room, for sure. but just to give somebody who's white this kind of license to just walk around and say it, because according to the reports, you know, this is something that richie incognito was going around saying it. and i'm like, why didn't a coach go, hold on, i don't care what kind of honorary you are, but not up in here. >> the locker room is shaped dramatically by powerlessness, the non-guaranteed politics, people coming from poverty, and white supremacy. that's the environment, when richie incognito says he comes from the environment. i had an interview this week, an athlete activist played with jim brown on the cleveland browns. and walter beech said to me, i don't understand it, in the '60s at the height of the freedom struggle, no one dared say the n-word. and i said, maybe because it was the height of the black freedom struggle that no one dared say the n-word and maybe it didn't hurt that jim brown was standing

next to you. >> literally, the question i want to ask you is about john carlos and tommy smith and them standing there in that moment out anding up their fists at the 1968 mexico city olympics and the ways in which they were also policed. this notion that you are not supposed to talk about racism at home when you're the home team. so in this case, the locker room is the home team. is that what's happening? >> it's very similar. what john carlos and tommy smith did, and peter norman, the silver medalist wearing the solidarity patch, they talked out of turn. they brought it out of the olympic locker room. jesse owens said, don't take our business about racism out into the street. and they said, no, there's a bigger issue at play and we are going to do that. and i would argue that's what make jonathan martin the hero of this story. he dared step outside the man box and the locker room code and say, this shall not stand, and he's going to pay a price for it. >> michael, once again, so people are clear, if you have

many black friends, if you are married to a black person, if you are an honorary black man, are you allowed to use the n-word? >> n-o. >> thank you. i just hope that is clear. michael skolnick, you can go home now and have a great sunday afternoon. when we talk about hazing, the issue extends well beyond the professional football field and that's next. customer erin swenson ordered shoes from us online but they didn't fit. customer's not happy, i'm not happy. sales go down, i'm not happy. merch comes back, i'm not happy. use ups. they make returns easy. unhappy customer becomes happy customer. then, repeat customer. easy returns, i'm happy. repeat customers, i'm happy. sales go up, i'm happy. i ordered another pair. i'm happy. (both) i'm happy. i'm happy. happy. happy. happy. happy. happy happy. i love logistics.

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hazing in high school or even earlier. and during college, 55% of students involved in clubs, teams, and organizations experience hazing. joining the table now is documentary filmmaker, byron hurt, who's also the co-founder of mentors and violence prevention. so byron, one of the things that i'm coming to grips with as a 40-year-old is remembering that the men that i see on the field for the nfl, who i responded to as kids, because they were grown men, are in their 20s for the most part. and i suddenly was like, oh, yeah, right! when you leave 20-year-old boys and girls alone, they haze each other, right? i'm wondering if there's something we can therefore learn from college campus culture that teach us about how to prevent it, how to redirect it. yes, they're wealthy and they're men, but they're also kids. >> this is true. this is true. and it's coming from a place. you know, i just spoke at the wheeler school in providence, remind. and i spoke to the elementary

school and the middle school, 12-year-old kids. and they're learning messages about what it means the to be a boy and a man at very early ages. to be strong, to be tough, to be responsible, to be a leader. donate cry, don't back down, all those other things. but they're also learning what it means when you're outside of that box, right? if you're not those things, that you're called a punk, weak, sissy, wuss, the p-word, the f-word, all these negative words. there's really no reward for being a male and being outside of that box, right? the risks are great, right? so the men that we're talking about on the miami dolphins, they learn this from the same culture that these young 12-year-old kids are learning it today. and so i think part of what we have to do is continue to have conversations, just like this, on high school, on high school campuses, on college campuses, in youth groups, in prisons, in all these places that are traditionally all male and hypermasculine. >> so i want to back up for a

second. because it's also true that, you know, two of my best friends in high school were literally the most kind, smart, gentle men ever, that i've ever known, and both of them went on to have careers, professional careers, either as players or as coaches in football. and part of why they could be gentle and intellectual and community service oriented was was football gave them -- in other words, their masculinity was secure, because they were big ballplayers and so it gave them room to actually play around the edges of other things, because they didn't have anything to prove, because they had the football kind of covering, right? so i guess in a certain way, i'm surprised, then, that big old offensive linemen would still be feeling the need to prove their manhood. >> masculinity is a performance. it is a performance that men perform for each other to display this very artificial sense of who we are as people. we don't raise boys to be men, not to be women. so it paints this very narrow

script. and we were part of the violence and mentors prevention program, because we were men whose masculinity could not be questioned, so we could talk about men's issues of violence against women, about sexism and misogyny and people weren't going to question our masculinity. they can't say, you just care about that because you're a gay man. >> why jay-z can come out for marriage equality, because he's married to beyonce. >> exactly. once you're in that locker room, it gets more and more boiled down to that really nasty form of masculinity. who's the toughest guy out there. so we were talking about, suck it up, take it like a man. so should we therefore take our concussions like a man? should we stop complaining about the fact that we can't remember our last super bowl, like tony dorsett was talking about last weekend. or should we understand that even though he's a tough guy and a human being, he's still

vulnerable. >> and hazing helps to do that. in that locker room where it's getting narrower and narrower. yet, having been a college sorority lady, if the rule becomes no hazing, you push it underground in a way where it can in some ways become even more violent. is there a way to redirect -- i sound ridiculous -- constructive group team building in a way that still allows for that without it being the ugly hazing? >> absolutely. i just interviewed this woman named dania who has organized a group in oakland which is take young people -- she was the captain of the berkeley soccer team and she's taking young people in one of the most economically depressed areas in the country and actually getting them through school by teaching pres of social justice through soccer. i'm a big believer that sports is like fire, and you can use fire to burn down your house or cook a meal. it is how you direct these spaces when you get people together in a collective setting, you can have them do amazing, beautiful things. in fact, everything amazing in our world was devised and conceived in a collective manner. but it's about how we do it.

and my problem with the nfl, i feel like you have people in charge, particularly in this dolphins organization, who are directing this in an extremely destructive way. >> when we come back, jamal, i'll have you answer that question. should we just be taking our concussions like a man? up next, that controversy clouding the nfl now affecting one of its most famous players. there are seniors who have left hundreds of dollars of savings on the table by not choosing the right medicare d plan. no one could have left this much money here. whoo-hoo-hoo! yet many seniors who compare medicare d plans realize they can save hundreds of dollars. cvs/pharmacy wants to help you save on medicare expenses. talk to your cvs pharmacist, call, or go to cvs.com/compare to get your free, personalized plan comparison today. call, go online, or visit your local store today.

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the former dallas cowboy says that he suffers from memory loss and mood swings. dorsett told espn's outside the lines that his quality of living has changed drastically and deteriorates every day. is part of taking the head injury part of the taking it like a man culture? >> i think that's a big reason why that issue just exploded and why there was a concussion lawsuit to begin with. for so long, players were just told, hey, you just got your bell rung or shake it off, or those kinds of things. foul we're seeing the price and cost to play this game. and i say this as a huge football plan, whose business is made because the nfl is the most popular sport in america, but at some point, are the risks going to outweigh the rewards. and the physical toll, now we're seeing the emotional toll and these things going on in the locker room, we'll have to step back as a culture and say, what are we doing to our men with stuff like this happening. >> you're kind of putting

up-front the ways in which so many of us profit from them, from our cities that profit from their sacrifices to our professions and to the media. i mean, so many people profiting from these bodies, which are broken. byron, i know you have a very sort of personal story about these head injuries, and not even all at the level of the nfl. >> well, yeah, i lost a really good friend and a teammate when i was a high school football player named billy. he suffered a concussion and spent a week trying to heal from it. he returned back to the game. a week later, and he got hit in the head again. he passed out on the sideline. he collapsed and never regained consciousness and didn't die as a result. and it was devastating, in high school. it was devastating. and at that time, there wasn't all this talk about concussions, and the bank account of concussions, the long-term consequences of concussions. so it was a different time. i think if that were to happen

today, i think it would be a huge story, right, all over the country. but i think there's a real common thread here between the concussion story and the hazing story. and that is about manhood and masculinity, and this whole idea that, you know, speaking out, right, speaking your truth as a man, makes you somehow less of a man. it makes you weak or soft. taking any precaution, right, to prevent any of these things, concussions, hazing, bullying, means that the nfl and all sports in general are feminineized, right? that these sports are now -- you hear all the talk about, oh, just throw skirts on all of the players. at some point, we're not going to be able to -- we should make it flag football at some point. so i think a lot of this has the thread of this hypermasculinity being challenged, right? and people feeling very uncomfortable with not just hypermasculinity being

challenged, but patriarchy being challenged. this idea of the rugged individual. the strong, tough, resilient, invul herbal, inpenetrable man. >> so you hear about that form of masculinity being the way we define power. >> it's tough, if you look across our country, football is still one of the few places where people make their living physically. like, we're not a manufacturing country anymore. we don't make anything, and the reason part of the attraction, i think, to watching the nfl and wanting, as you say, to be gladiators on sunday is there are not many physical jobs. they are the last sort of bastion of that. but we have to manage, you know, what are our expectations for this? because at some point, it's going to be a toll that i don't think many of us can live with. and if you're the nfl in business, you're thinking, hey, are we showing people so much,

they're seeing now how the sausage is made, it's tastartin to turn them off. >> are people turning away from football? >> there are small signs at the margin that people are turning away, particularly parents, introducing their children to youth football. some of the numbers are saying this. i'll tell you something. i look at the nfl right now, i think about boxing 40 years ago being unarguably the most popular sport in the united states with muhammad ali, the most popular figure in the united states. and i think the toll of watching muhammad ali decline over the course of decades, mortally wounded boxing as a mainstream major sport in this country. and i think of players as being more public in terms of how they degenerate from cte, you'll see that too. >> in part because he was so -- because his boxing was amazing, but it was his voice and his mind and his spirit. >> and what does it say about this country that muhammad ali was valorized and put on poster stamps only when he lost his voice? >> you also have to look at the feeder system too, what's

happening at the lower level is the important part. >> all the way through. thank you to all of you. this week we have been talking and talking and talking it and it's a pleasure to have an opportunity to talk about it on air with you. up next, the woman who literally wrote the book on feminism joins me in nerdland. i'm beth... and i'm michelle. and we own the paper cottage. it's a stationery and gifts store. anything we purchase for the paper cottage goes on our ink card. so you can manage your business expenses and access them online instantly with the game changing app from ink. we didn't get into business to spend time managing receipts, that's why we have ink. we like being in business because we like being creative, we like interacting with people. so you have time to focus on the things you love. ink from chase. so you can. avo: thesales event "sis back. drive" which means it's never been easier to get a new passat,

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we've been talking about professional sports and the assumptions about what it takes to be a real man. like manhood, feminine identity is constrained by limited notions of what women want and how they should behave. publications aimed at women tend to focus on how to lose weight, how to get a man, and what to buy. yawn. that was until 2007 when anna holmes joined gawker media and launched jezebel. under holmes, the site attracted

millions of daily readers and remains a favorite among nerdland team members. now holmes has a smart and spunky new book that will soon be on the coffee table of every third-wave tell nis in the country. welcome the author of "the book of jezebel," the woman fastcompany.com said made feminism funny again. good to have you. >> thanks for having me. >> i want to look at the book a little bit. it's kind of an encyclopedia. the first one is birth control, on page 35. the definition here of birth control is, the medical advancement that allows you to avoid a life incubating human after human until your reproductive parts eventually fail. >> yeah, the one thing it doesn't mention is -- because we're trying to be tfunny in soe of these issues, is how birth control offers women freedom and

the ability to plan their families. i think the readers of the book know that already. in some cases we were being a little cheeky. >> some of them are like that. some of them are the cheeky response to what is clearly this anti-reproductive rights movement. others of them are more sort of sincere and earnest. the angela davis, you know, entry, which really does define her as the long-time social activist and academic. goes on to talk about her current work in feminist studies departments at the university of california santa cruz. some of it is going and renaming the sheroes. how do you make a decision about which women end up in "the book of jezebel"? >> that's a great question i don't really have an answer for. we tried to think of women who were heroines. there are some that might be considered anti-feminist. sarah palin, for one. we wanted to include them as well because we have opinions on them.

we basically sat down and made a list, an a fe baatized list of everyone we could think of. we definitely left out people. >> is there anyone? >> alphea gibson, susan brown miller, coco chanel somehow didn't make it in there. we're making notes. >> another one of my favorites, this one is just great, is 247, shrill. the definite of shrill being here, misogynist for a woman just said something. >> i love that one. i'm also interested to note how some of these words came about. i didn't think we needed to have an entomolo entomology of the w. >> why a book? gawker and jezebel, these are web properties. they traffic in the fact that if you forgot somebody, you just add a new entry. once it's under hard cover, this is what it is. why a text?

>> we wanted to see if we could extend the brand just beyond the internet. a lot of the readers of the site are also voracious readers of books. i felt that it might be fun to kind of capture the sensibility of the site, the e those, if you will, into book form. there's also frustration because we forget people. we can't just add them in. it would be nice to have a permanent document that sums up not just the ethos of the site but some of the fights we've had over the years. there's an entry on scott bayo. something we feel nostalgic but forward looking that you could also put on your coffee table. >> part of what i love about jezebel and "the book of jezebel" is how irreverent it is. but i do wonder if the second wavers look at us and think, you're being light.

you're being, you know, sort of lipstick feminist. where's the real feminist work here? >> i think that there are very serious entries in this book and very serious posts on the site itself about economic inequality, social inequality, reproductive rights. we try to mix the kind of light with the more heavy. we also use lighter-hearted issues like pop culture as entry points into more serious discussions about gender politics. that said, the idea that the third wavers are less serious than second wavers, i understand where that critique comes from, but i do think third wavers, which i consider myself to be a part of. i'm now 40. >> the third wave is not young anymore. >> as you get older, you become more serious in important ways. >> i love "the book of jezebel." thank you for giving me a little feminism at the end of our masculinity hour here. that is our show for today. thank you folks at home for watching. see you next saturday at 10:00

a.m. eastern. next up, "taking the hill," former congressman and iraq war veteran patrick murphy is hosting a panel on issues. that's next here in new york city. stay with msnbc. [ male announcer ] how can power consumption in china, impact wool exports from new zealand, textile production in spain, and the use of medical technology in the u.s.?

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the next 44 years we'll be fine. hands for holding. feet, kicking. better things than the joint pain and swelling of moderate to severe rheumatoid arthritis. if you're trying to manage your ra, now may be the time to ask about xeljanz. xeljanz (tofacitinib) is a small pill for adults with moderate to severe ra for whom methotrexate did not work well. xeljanz can lower your ability to fight infections, including tuberculosis. serious, sometimes fatal infections and cancers have happened in patients taking xeljanz. don't start taking xeljanz if you have any kind of infection, unless ok with your doctor. tears in the stomach or intestines, low blood cell counts and higher liver tests and cholesterol levels have happened. your doctor should perform blood tests, including certain liver tests, before you start and while you are taking xeljanz. tell your doctor if you have been to a region where certain fungal infections are common