karen: today on "cityline," a difficult question is addressed to boston' s city leaders and community leaders. their answers prove that our city and our country need to begin a real conversation about race. karen: hello, everyone. i' m karen holmes ward. welcome to "cityline." from busing in boston in the 1970' s to charges of police brutality around the country in 2015, race continues to be an ongoing point of friction in america. as people strive and struggle to enact systemic change, there is one place where they are making

please be advised, some of the images that you see may be graphic for some viewers. >> do you think black culture is under attack? [laughter] >> is black culture under attack? um...of course. right? i do think that black culture is under attack. >> that is a provocative question. i think that black people are under attack. karen: according to the "washington post," only nine days separated each police shooting and death of an unarmed black man as of august 2015. mappingpoliceviolence.org states that over 100 unarmed black men were killed by police in 2014. this rollcall of names in the spotlight has grown to staggering proportions. we know them. 18-year-old michael brown on the streets of ferguson, missouri.

25-year-old freddie gray in a police car in baltimore. 50-year-old walter scott in a park in north charleston, south carolina. >> i can' t breathe, i can' t breathe. karen: 56-year-old eric garner on the corner in staten island. 12-year-old tamir rice in cleveland. the stories stretch across the nation. many gained media attention, while many more may go unreported. each is met with anger and fear. each ignites communities to believe is a broken criminal justice system. each one galvanizes youth to speak up and speak out as what they see against a never-ending prejudice. many worry real change continues to feel out of reach. >> black lives don' t seem to matter because they are being

there does not seem to be any type of legal ramification for ending the life of a person of color here in the united states by a police officer, a servant that is supposed to be serving and protecting the community. >> as long as you can continue to racially profile young black men and latinos and young black women, you are going to continue encountering these problems. karen: the violence is nothing new, says the boston naacp president. >> it did not start with trayvon or michael brown. this is reawakening a conversation around the violence against african americans and other people of color, quite frankly. karen: what is new is the access to transparency and the immediacy of technology. >> i call social media the fifth estate. karen: brown'

s body lay on the hot asphalt of his neighborhood for four hours. without these images circulating on the internet, with the outcry have been as loud? would new york city streets have swelled in protests if a mobile phone had not captured eric garner' breathe"? account of what has occurred and we can hit social media in minutes and be thousands. karen: street journalists have taken to social media, bringing arrives. hashtags have sparked a new form of activism. but is it enough to spur change? >> after the michael brown grand jury came back not guilty and then nine days later, we saw what happened at staten island and that grand jury, you saw over 170 cities erupt and that was connected to black twitter. >> a lot of the work we have

done, the actions, the marches, the huge responses to the non-indictment of darren wilson was through social media. #indictboston. #indictamerica. >> we don' t have to organize a march that takes a week or a month to organize. karen: and it has cultivated a community were so-called truth can be questioned and racism, overt or subtle, can be called out and challenged faster than the speed of light. >> it is the way to get your voice out. twitter when people are engaged whatnot is really important and it lifts up voices we would not otherwise hear from every of -- year from. >> when you allow anyone with access to a computer or a mobile phone to express their opinion, that has really changed the way that we live nowadays. karen: one place the conversation comes into focus -- twitter.

black twitter, particularly. this social sphere captures moments in real-time. according to the black lives matter boston lead founder , it is a haven for inside jokes, social inquisition, and civic engagement. >> black twitter is super important to the work we are doing. it is a place where people can watch scandal and "empire" and live tweet and connect love and hip-hop to black lives matter, which we are not allowed to do in other spaces. to really be the full brett of blackness -- breadth of blackness. karen: the man behind boston tweet up is an expert on the power of twitter and sees the power in people working their way through the platform. >> black twitter evolved from people of cutter -- color being

on twitter and situations would occur around them that were not being properly documented. the press culture is definitely don' t give proper expression to what really occurs. it started becoming more of a movement when people also started realizing that the media was not reporting it, so they took it upon themselves. karen: black twitter has been the birthplace of taglines such as #iftheygunnedme down, #sayhername, and #blacklivesmatter. >> all of these things, when you look back at the history books, they are going to mean something in particular. the fact that you can communicate that with this device in your hand is unbelievable. you get all of this far-reaching analysis that you will never see in terms of corporate media. people now know they don' t have to listen to the live.

it is a great way to uplift our other. karen: the most recent death of a black man at the hands of a police officer that is making headlines -- the incident involving 31-year-old corey jones in florida. the magician -- musician was on the side of a highway in the middle of the night. the officer, now on leave, had a death. a gun registered to jones was found on the scene, but there is no indication that his gun was fired. at the time of the shooting, we learned, he was on the phone calling for roadside assistance and there may be a tape recording of that conversation. as for the boston police department and conditions in our city, bpd released a statement to "cityline" saying that they

they say they and a community policing that prevents these types of incidents. the boston police department was recently invited to the white house to receive a commendation

karen: welcome back. campaign zero is a site developed by social justice activist and and other social justice organizers to fight police brutality. it policing and strives to begin a much-needed dialogue about eliminating racism in the criminal justice system. how ready are people to discuss race and how early should we be talking about it? karen: political talking heads, community organizers, and crusaders for criminal justice reform -- they' ve all called for america. >> that conversation is a tough one to have. this country has never want to

karen: the rise of the black lives matter movement has crystallized this conversation. the lead organizer and founder of the boston chapter believes in direct action. >> we as nonviolent, direct action. that disruption is key. karen: the disruption made national airwaves. >> the seattle black lives movement interrupted bernie sanders at a recent political rally. >> there is no candidate for president who would be stronger in fighting against institutional racism. >> the very next day he came out with a racial justice platform. you cannot say it did not work. karen: the boston black lives matter movement brought their concerns to mayor marty walsh' s doorstep, literally. >> we went directly to his house. we let him know that there are a

t want the olympics. karen: well they did not participate in the i-93 protest, in which several individuals lay down on the hospital during rush hour, boston' s black lives matter chapter supported the action staged by occupy boston. >> i would want to push folks to think about what is the cause of these disruptions. if you understand the urgency we are facing in america in 2015 as black people, it gives you a different perspective on these disruptions. >> there is not much we can do to stop the violence against us. karen: with the presidential election looming, politicians are likely to confront this as a platform issue. black voters will help determine the 2016 outcome. young voters are also a huge voting block. >> we are going to need new ways of doing things. sometimes it is going to be a shutdown, sometimes it is going

all of the things are going to move us forward if done in the spirit of black liberation. karen: at the m.i.t. sloan school of management, the professional -- professor of organizational studies helped discover that this organizational unwillingness to talk about race snares children at a young age. >> how well are we preparing the next generation to deal with issues of race? karen: a recent study found that children of racial minorities avoid acknowledging or speaking openly about race. the data was collected using a question and answer picture game , getting children ages 9-12 to finish the game by using race as their target response. >> the motivation of the research tried to get at the fundamental question of how do racial minorities reconcile the conflict between who they are and what society essentially is telling them is appropriate? it is basically pictures of people and you were supposed to

to figure out which single photograph i' m holding. half the pictures were of white individuals. half were a black individuals. all you cared about was eliminating the pictures as quickly as you could. asking is the person black woodcut the array in half. this allowed us to look at children' s willingness to talk about race in a context to which it would be conducive for completing the task. we found the rate at which children asked about race was four times lower than that of gender despite that fact that completing the task. karen: the concern behind these results? the disappearance of racial identity. >> on one hand, the racial the lived experience. it is a part of how they are seen, it is a source of pride, heritage. having a strong sense of racial

of different positive outcomes. need to ask more specific questions about how does broader be talking about race? that is so closely linked to these children' s identities. what health or developmental implementations might that have? karen: who should facilitate this conversation? he acknowledges that parents have great influence over their children' s comfort level with discussing race. are very reluctant to talk to their kids about race. there are two main reasons. for many white parents, race is sort of irrelevant. it is not immediately relevant. second, there is this the reason that if i bring attention to attention or become racist, science.

karen: teachers play a part as well. >> teachers are in a unique position to set the norm for comes to race. teachers establish what should and should not be talked about in a setting in which there is a sitting in a classroom. s inability to identify race can mature into a state known as colorblindness. well not seeing color sounds problematic. >> colorblindness is easy. it is the easiest way to deal with race. but what we know from research is that it is often not the best way. there is a lot of counterproductive and paradoxical effects of color blindness. trying to come across as if i do not even notice the race of a person i' m talking to actually makes interactions more anxious and awkward and can make individuals look more prejudice and not less prejudiced.

impact people of color benefiting from various institutions and federal agencies. >> stakeholders are all of us. we live in a racially segregated city. we live in a racially segregated country. why are public schools failing? why are so many black people in prison? we have to have so many substantive policy changes. that is what makes black lives matter important. how can we transform the existing status quo for change, for the better, but one that elevates racial justice, economic justice, and socially quality? karen: looking forward to a brighter future. >> i still want my car, but i would settle for people understanding each other and being harmonious in the way we communicate. we don' t have to agree, but being able to understand each other is the first step to living a harmonious life.

karen: black lives matter sent a the democratic national committee asking them to coordinate a themed presidential debate. the dnc responded with a discussion instead. black lives matter declined that matter -- offer, saying it was an insufficient response and pushed for a fully sanctioned, traditional debate supported by the dnc.

students are still bust to schools -- bussed to schools in the best way to promote diversity? is diversity the best way to promote academic success? "boston globe" reporter joins us now. give us a quick overview on what

>> well, i looked at how boston is still affected by busing 40 years later and whether the goals that we had back then have been achieved. karen: have they? >> we have made tremendous progress in some cases, but we are still struggling with a lot of issues, including segregation in schools karen:. karen:why are we still struggling? made tremendous progress in some cases, but we are stillsome of the answers may be obvious. others may not be. a lot of parents did not want their kids bussed out of boston. today we' white children in boston schools. half of them go to to schools. that does not leave a lot of room -- that does not leave a

lot of kids to be speckled around other schools. karen: to diversify the classrooms. the well-intentioned court order had the reverse effect. >> i think a lot of great things came out of the order. schools. people changed their philosophy. you don' t find a lot of people schools are ok. the reality is we still have segregated schools and they are not just segregated racially, there is a lot of economic segregation. karen: how does that impact the learning of the kids? >> this is the debate we are having right now with charter schools. a lot of charter schools are saying, look, this is the population we want to serve. we are not going to bend over backwards to try to attract white kids to our schools. we are going to serve the black and latino kids. we are ok with that.

we can work with that. it is a real challenge to the traditional liberal way of ve got to get these black and latino kids into schools with white kids, you' ve got to put them on buses and send them to newton and brookline and that is the only way to get a good education. it is a real challenge. karen: that raises the be equal. >> this is a provocative question. separate has not been he will. -- ben equal. you are having a lot of charter schools take pride in the fact that they have almost no white kids and they are getting very high test scores they are getting high acceptance to college rates. you are seeing some of these charter schools say, look, we are not just going to be equal, we are going to be better. this is something we really have

to think about in our country. education, for the record. i believe that is the ideal education, where a diverse society and kids of all races need to live, work, and play with everybody. like we have here in boston, where we are having schools that are 90% hispanic, 86% black, do we just lay down and die because we can' t get white families to send their kids to school? of course not. karen: poor do you just put every resource that you can into making those people have a good academic experience? asking ourselves now. schools are able to be successful is that they are able year longer. that is one of the reasons they are able to have an impact. equal education is kind of a thing of the pact -- past.

we are talking about equity and sometimes it is about giving kids more. sometimes they need more to level the playing field. karen: the people against charter schools suggest that the money going to charter schools siphons off even more dollars from the remaining public school systems. >> it is true. there is a huge debate in the city and it is really a bitter debate. i think it is unfortunate. there are great traditional public schools and there are great public schools. i' m not saying one is better than the other, but i think charter schools have a lot more flexibility to bring kids that equity. i think the traditional public schools in boston, if you look at them, which ones are doing well? karen: we were talking about race in the first two segments.

hispanic or 80% african-american, our children learning how to interact with other cultures in those environments? >> that is a great question. in certain ways, those schools are very diverse. they have haitians, cambodians, somalis. we might want to change our outlook on diversity. diversity does not necessarily just mean white kids. when it comes to education, we really still get stuck in the 1960' s, where it is all about how many white kids are in the classroom? we are not asking ourselves, our the white kids all in advanced classes and the black kids all in special ed. that is not a great message to send. provocative. thanks for coming today. >> thanks for having me. karen: you can learn everyone on our "cityline" webpage on wcvb.com.

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