♪ this week on "moyers & company" -- >> america can see its future, and it is a 7-year-old black boy. what happens to them to determine what america looks like? and many of the young people who are already 18, 19, 20 are going to be the workers of the future. >> funding is provided by carnegie corporation of new york, celebrating 100 years of philanthropy and committed to doing real and permanent good in the world. the colbert foundation. independent production fund with support from the partridge foundation, a john and polly guf charitable found, the klemm end foundation, park foundation, dedicating heightening awareness of critical issues, supporting organizations whose issues is to promote creativity in our

society. the bernard and audrey rappaport foundation, the mcarthur foundation, committed to building a more just, verdant and peaceful world. more information at macfound.org and gumowitz. the hkh foundation, barbara g. fleishmann and by our sole corporate sponsor, mutual of america, designing customized individual and group retirement products. that's why we are your retirement company. welcome. solutions that are way out of the mind of corruption and dysfunction that characterizes so much of government and politics, i turn to certain individuals whom i know simply don't or won't give up. just such a person is my guest on this broadcast. angela black wewell sees the wo as it is and still believes we can change it for the better.

she's put her intellect, experience and passion to no less a mission than challenging america to fulfill the promise of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for all. and i do mean all. angela attended howard university in washington, d.c., got her law degree at the university of california at berkeley, came of age at the height of the civil rights struggle and the black power movement and then for ten years was partner at a public interest law firm called public advocates. she founded the oakland urban strategies council and worked to figure out new ways to bring oakland's inner city back to life. after serving as vice president of the rockefeller foundation, she became the founder and chief executive officer of policy link. that's an organization that embodies her belief that government and public policy can still make a difference by increasing opportunity for all, including those for whom the american dream has been, as the poet langston hughes wrote, a

dream deferred. angela glover blackwell, welcome. >> thank you. no one i know has worked harder or fought harder about how to rekindle, restore the american dream. and yet here we are, middle class struggling, poverty increasing, the gap between the rich and the poor greater than it's been in your and my lifetime. what keeps you from getting discouraged and giving up? >> i'm not discouraged, and i wouldn't even dream of giving up because we're at a moment right now where i think we have more possibility than i've seen in my adult lifetime. part of what i've been feeling is that all the issues are finally on the table. look at how long it's taken us to have a national conversation about inequality, and i'm not necessarily hopeful it will go on for a long time, but we're having that conversation now. so many people that are being left behind are now in places

where they have voice and influence, and they're forcing their way into the conversation. and i believe that the changing demographics of the nation, this reality that before the middle of the century, the majority of people in this nation will be people of color. native american, latino, asian, african-american. that is going to cause us to have to ask some tough questions about what we're doing leaving people behind. >> people do say that the election of our first african-american president is a sign of the progress we've made. but the people you say that have been left behind don't necessarily feel that their needs are being addressed. >> it is a source of concern that many people in this nation feel that because we have a black president, that the problems of race and opening up opportunity have been addressed. they have not. but i will tell you this.

i didn't expect that when barack obama got to be president of the united states, that he was going to be the leader who was going to lead from a place of race. that he was going to lead from being a black person and bringing forward all that black people have been struggling with all this time. but there are some things that i celebrate that often get overlooked. >> such as? >> we are a nation in which where you live is a proxy for opportunity. where you live determines whether or not you get to go to a good school, whether or not you live in a safe area, whether or not you live near a job. and this is the first presidency i have seen in my lifetime that has taken seriously this notion of how the places where people live can hold them back. so that we have programs that actually say, let's stop just putting affordable housing in communities that are the poor communities in a city, right next to a poor school where there's no grocery store, where

the streets aren't safe. let's create neighborhoods of choice for low-income people, putting housing near good schools, near grocery schools, near public transportation and working with other sectors to make sure that this is a community that supports people. i also have been impressed to see that the health reform approach has included a focus on how to reform health with good things and some disappointments in the health reform work, but also a focus on prevention and a focus on dealing with childhood obesity and those kind of serious problems. and so as i look, i see the main flaw with not having focused enough on the communities that are hit first and worst, that were hit first and worst by this recession. so if i could redo things, i would figure out a way to have policies and strategies, be bigger when they're really smart ones like the ones i described and ones that are focused on jobs and unemployment, really

target the communities that were hit first and worst. and very offer those are black and latino communities. >> why do you focus so much on the infrastructure of transportation? >> in low-income communities, transportation, particularly public transportation, is a life line. we have lots of communities in which the availability of a car is actually unheard of. there are many communities in which most people in the community don't have a car. 25% of people in the african-american and latino community are without cars. and this is at a time when so many of the jobs are not in their communities. they're in the suburban community. and so if people don't have public transportation, they cannot connect to work. you may have an employer who's an equal opportunity employer who would be happy to hire somebody ready for the job from an inner city community, but if they can't get there, the two will never meet. we also have in this country many families that are struggling to provide healthy diets when there's no place in the community to buy fresh fruits and vegetables. only 8% of african-americans

live near a grocery store. >> say that again. >> only 8% of african-americans live in a census track with a grocery store. 23 million americans do not live within a mile of a place to get fresh fruits and vegetables. and this means that in many communities, it is impossible to be able to follow the orders of a doctor that says eat a diet full of fresh fruits and vegetables when they're not there. this means that having transportation, public transportation, is important even to be able to access fresh fruits and vegetables in your area, not to mention that we need to get more grocery stores in underserved communities, but i can come back to that. another word about transportation. i have a personal experience that just showed me what it means when it's not adequate. right after i got married, my husband and i moved to los angeles. and i had been very active in new york around the black power movement. and so when i moved to los angeles, i thought, i'll get a

job in something that's serving the community. so i just went to a phone book and looked for things that were black or african or national, some of the words i thought might help. i found something, and it was in watts. i wasn't living in watts. called up, got a job interview. >> watts was the all-black area of los angeles? >> watts was the all-black area of los angeles. and i was living many miles from there. but in los angeles. my husband had the one car. he had taken it to work. so i called the bus station. and i figured out transit and figured out how to take a bus. they gave me five buses that i would have to take. i gave myself an hour and a half thinking it was way too much time. i was going to take the bus and get there. i got on the bus. four buses later, 2 1/2 hours after the time of the interview, i had to get on the bus and get on one more bus. a tear rolled down my check and i went back home. i never forgot that. i wanted a job.

my husband had one. i didn't have to have a job. if i had needed that job, if i had a baby i had to support, i'd have been on those five buses every morning. a good bus system, a good transportation system, is a life line for communities more so today than ever before. so we feel that you have to invest in public transportation because too many people are being left behind because they're in communities that don't have the investments in transit that are needed. >> i think you point out that affluent americans who live in upscale zip codes tend to live 15% longer than poor people. >> it's absolutely true. absolutely true. it's not right. it shouldn't be. and we know the ways to fix it. some of the reasons have to do with the absence of fresh fruits and vegetables in communities, no place safe to get out and engage in exercise, too many children, their asthma is being exacerbated by the fact that they live near freeways and bus depots. we actually understand that the

things that we do in the communities can make a tremendous difference. and we should make those changes because if we don't, the health care system is going to continue to be too expensive. >> so your big theme these days is equity. >> mm-hmm. >> explain what you mean by that. >> well, during the civil rights movement when we were really trying to break down the legal racial barriers, it was a movement for full inclusion and participation. but the immediate strategies and tactics were really around integration. to be able to stop the legal segregation so that we could have integration. and in many ways, we got that. we were able to get the civil rights laws passed that got rid of housing discrimination, job discrimination and discrimination in public accommodations, those kinds of things. and that opened up the possibility of people who but

for race and racial discrimination would have been able to access. so it allowed people who had education to now begin to get jobs, people who had money to now be able to buy houses in different places. but there's so many things that did not get addressed that were holding people back. i'll go back to the transportation example. you may have an equal opportunity employer, but if our investment in transportation doesn't get you a bus route to that job, it's not a real chance. we may say that yeah, you can go to any college in the nation, but if you happen to be black or latino and you grow up in an inner city community, the schools that you have gone to aren't going to really prepare you to be able to go to those colleges. not in huge numbers. that's not really a chance. equity tries to move beyond just saying we've achieved equal opportunity and ask, what do we want people to achieve? reach their full potential. and then back into what that will take. so that equity says, if you want people to be able to go to any

school they want to to be able to do well and to move forward, we have to make sure that we are really investing in the educational system. we're not just asking whether all the schools are open the same amount of time during the year, whether they have the same books, they're using the same curriculum. we want to know, what do poor children need in this country so that they can reach their full potential? they need to start school ready to learn and have access to early childhood program. we need to have a rigorous curriculum that goes on year round, not just nine months during the year. they need to make sure that their communities are providing the support that middle-class families provide for their children, enrichment programs, safe places to play. equity asks, what do you need to reach your full potential, and how do we make sure that that is fairly available? >> and you run right into what you call the most uncomfortable subject in america, race. >> that's right. america does not want to talk about race.

they don't want to talk about it, don't want to change the status quo and do anything about it. and it's going to hurt the nation if we don't get over it. we have spent way too much time avoiding a topic that must be addressed. and now we're at a point where we can't ignore it anymore. in this nation right now, nearly half of children under 18 are children of color. by the end of this decade, half will be -- and by 2030, the majority of the young work force will be of color. if we don't make sure that the children who are moving along as a cohort into the future of this country are prepared to lead and contribute, the future of the country is not bright. we can look at two things side by side. what's troubling this nation right now? we really need to figure out how to be competitive in the global economy. we really need to figure out how to have a strong and stable middle class. we need to have people who are

contributing, who are innovating, who are ready, who are educated, who can lead in every way. the cohort coming along that will be the future is of color. america can see its future. and it's a five-year-old latino girl, a 7-year-old black boy. what happens to them will determine what america will be. many of the young people who are already 18, 19, 20 are going to be the workers of the near future. and so this country, as a democracy, really cannot expect to continue to be proud on the world stage, competitive in the global economy or having a democracy that it can put forward as working in a multiracial society if we don't invest in t people who are the future. and so i'm all for the moral argument. i've asked -- i've begged, i've prodded on the moral issue. and i will continue to do that. but if it becomes an economic

imperative, what we do about human development will determine whether or not this nation has a growth pattern in front of it. >> but there are still large communities, large segments of our population left behind because of race and ethnicity. and you're asking us to address the needs of those constituencies at the same time many people are saying that we've moved into post-racial politics. in other words, the only way to get things done is to make sure that we don't serve primarily communities that are in need because that will enable the politicians to govern by divide and conquer. >> we are not post-racial. we're not even close. because race still controls everything in america. we need to think about part of what's causing so many people to be left behind and in trouble. it's because they live in communities that don't support them. and those communities don't support them because of race. we have black people and latino

people living in inner city abandoned communities because people moved away. so you have places like detroit where almost abandoned in terms of the people who are moving and fleeing away from detroit. so race completely controls our settlement patterns as a nation. education. it used to be that education was the pride of the united states. and it was certainly the pride of many states like california. i was recently talking to someone who was a leader of a state, and we were talking about poverty. and as he listened to safety net programs for the poor, he mentioned public schools. it really caught me. i said, public schools, that's become a safety net program? i thought public schools were for everybody. but as they have become associated with people who are poor and of color, we are abandoning the public school education. that is about race. and we have taken men who are important for community, and

we've created basically a legacy of absence in communities by pulling the men out and putting them in prison. in numbers that are unprecedented. our rate in this country is the largest in the entire world. and the disproportionate incarceration of black men in particular but a growing number of latino men absolutely makes the point that race is a driver there. race has become so embedded and baked in that people can work around feeling that they're not carrying racism in their heart. but so long as they're okay with disproportionate incarceration, communities being left behind, children given no chance, this continues to be a society that is plagued by the legacy of a continuing impact of racism right into today. >> how does race play out in your life? >> i really lowas a fortunate child. i grew up in the '50s and '60s

in segregated st. louis, missouri. completely segregated. i know racism was tough, but i didn't experience it because i was surrounded by caring adults who devoted their lives to keep us from the sting and burn of racism. and my parents were educated and middle class, and they did everything they could to not just protect us but to expose us. so they took us to the museum and all of those things. but they would sit around the outside making those that those of us who were there as children didn't know what people were saying or what they might do if they were coming in contact with us. and having gone to howard university where i had a wonderful supportive education, by the time i went to law school at the university of california at berkeley, i was so fortified and confident that if people had been treating me badly because of race, it was hard to penetrate my sense of confidence that i had from my own growing up. but yes, i have experienced racism, but i throw it off. i will tell you, i throw it off

because i'm on a mission. and it's not a mission to make sure that i get respect. it's a mission to make sure that people who deserve respect get it. and so very often when somebody's mistreating me, i can tee that it's because of race. but i'm moving on. i've got other things to do, and it's really your problem, and it's your loss. what i want to highlight, though, is that i can distinguish my experience from what was happening to others. when i talk about this wonderful growing up in st. louis, missouri, it may have been a large social group that i was a part of, but it was a drop in the bucket in terms of black children in st. louis. the majority of black children in st. louis were poor and didn't have this web of protection. and they were hit with the full force of racism. i graduated from high school a class of 200. only 20 of us went to college.

and only a couple of us went to college outside of st. louis. i know what happened to the rest. i remember a young man who was in my class who liked -- probably had a little crush on, but i would have never had him come home because he couldn't have passed inspection in my family. they were very strict about who i could go out with. i remember thinking that he was one of the smartest, brightest leaders in that entire school. our first summer after graduating from high school, he ended up in prison where he went for the rest of his life. so i know that it wasn't just being bright that allowed me to achieve things, many things. he was smarter than i was. he understood the world better than i did. but the world conspired to limit his opportunities, and he ended up in jail. >> who was your father? what did he do? and your mother? >> my father was an educator, and my mother was an educator as

well. most my growing up, though, my mother stayed at home. they met at a private school in north carolina. she was teaching english. he was teaching math. and they ended up getting married. they came from families, though, that really taught them to expect the best of themselves and everybody else. and they both came from families that caught them the power and the importance of struggle. and so i grew up in a family that was educated, that valued education, but also understood that those of us within the black community who were managing to do well had an obligation to the rest of the community and being a part of the naacp and being an activist in the community and caring about what was going on was very important in my household. >> let me go at this question of education. i read one of your studies. one of them talks about the need for education in the future. and i think you say that by the end of this decade, at least 45%

to 46% of our jobs in america will depend upon at least some college education, probably an associate degree. and yet we seem to be running into increasing hostility toward education today. you may have seen or heard that mitt romney put down a student who said he was concerned about being able to afford college. and mitt romney said, in effect, good luck, but don't count on the government to help you. let me play you that video. >> hi. i'm a senior in high school right now. i'm going to be going to college next year. and it's not very cheap. so i was just curious, if elected, what you would do with regards to college tuition, whether making it easier for me and my classmates or, you know, with regards to that. >> i know that it would be popular for me to stand up and say i'm going to give you government to make sure and pay for your college, but i'm not going to promise that. what i'm going to tell you is shop around, get a good price and find a great institution of higher learning.

find one that has the right price. shop around. in america, this idea of competition. it works. and don't just go to the one that has the highest price. go to one that has a little lower price where you can get a good education and hopefully you'll find that. and don't take on too much debt. and don't expect the government to forgive the debt that you take on. recognize you're going to have to pay it back and -- i want to make sure that every kid in this country that wants to go to college gets the chance to go to college. if he can't afford it, scholarships are available. shop around for loans. make sure you go to a place that's reasonably priced. and if you can, think about serving the country because that's a way to get all of that education for free. thank you. >> it is shocking to me that someone running for president of the united states would suggest that there is no obligation on the part of the government to help people get the education that this country needs for people to have in order to be

able to help the country to thrive. you cited today that 45% of jobs in -- just by 2018 -- will require at least an associate's degree. only 27% of african-americans have it. only 26% of latinos. we've got a real problem when those are the people who are going to need to have those jobs. and we're at a place in which we really need to be making sure that we are aligning the affordability of the education that the country needs people to have for the future with their ability to access it. i went to law school at berkeley. and i paid about $1,000, maybe a little less a year. i think it was about $900. that same education law school at berkeley is over $40,000 now. it would have been impossible for me to access it. we have allowed educational costs to just get out of hand. we need to figure out a way to make education more affordable. and while we're doing that, we

need to help people access education. and we need to really emphasize to young people how important it is that they do well in school, that they get the skills that they need in order to be able to support their families in ways that are really decent. and furthermore, community colleges need to be lifted up as a real bridge that allows people who are entering often the first in their family to go to college to be able to afford it and get the skills that they need. >> but you heard the applause when mitt romney talked about how you don't depend on the government to help you. and rick santorum was applauded when he called obama a snob for promoting college. santorum said colleges are indoctrination mills. gingrich said colleges are promoting a bizarre and destructive vision of reality. so you've got this antipathy.

>> at this moment, we really are two or three americas. and one of the americas is really scared, really frightened, really feeling that everything they thought that they could depend on is disappearing. people who have that fear can go a couple of ways. they can get involved, and they can think about how to change things so that the decisions that are being made don't keep taking us down this road of insecurity, or they can just circle the wagons, decide that anything they don't have, they don't need. that anything that people are trying to get that will help them to do better in life is going to be a threat to what they and their children might have. and so part of what's happened is we have a good number of people in this country who are just scared, and they're shutting down. and they're closing off

opportunities. in many ways, they are prepared to be a pull-up-the-ladder nation. i got mine and i'm pulling up the ladder so you can't get yours because i think i have to keep you out so i can stay in. that group is really going down in terms of their connection to what the future is really going to be like. and by that i mean, they are nostalgic for a time that never was and avoiding a future that is inevitable. then you have another america that sees the future. they know that the future depends on education. they know it depends on being able to make sure that those who are being left behind are educated and brought forward. but understand that they can't get the policies and strategies in place that they need unless they begin to tell a story that allows other people to see themselves. and that's what i'm trying to be part of.

trying to help create a narrative that both draws together the people who understand that they need investment to go forward and allows other people to see how they, too, could benefit from buying into that story. >> well, i think you're getting close to something very important here because the moment i decided i had to have you on the show was back in january. and "the new york times" ran a story about how upward mobility in america, the old story of starting at the bottom of the ladder and going to the top of the ladder is really in trouble. you didn't follow that story with a letter to the editor of "the new york times" in which you wrote, the horacio alger ideal that someone born poor can, through hard work, become rich is for the most part a pipe dream. what do you think has gone wrong? >> a lot of things have gone wrong. one of the things is that we

really don't have an economy that allows for that kind of upward mobility anymore. that we went through a period that led us into the great recession that was really fueled by a housing bubble, supported by credit and deregulated the financial industry. and so we went through a long period in which we weren't producing anymore. we weren't creating jobs. we were just creating wealth. and we were creating wealth by laying people off, by exporting jobs, by changing the way that we reported on things. and we weren't investing in the nation in the work force in a way that allow for a continuous flow of jobs and opportunity. and that's -- that really brought a halt to the upward mobility that had been so completely important. >> and the shared prosperity that was at least the ideal when you and i were younger? >> that's right. shared prosperity just went out the window. the economy stopped working for

a majority of people, but it wasn't an accident. it came about through conscious decision-making on the part of people who were wealthy and could control the decision-making and the policy-making. and they had a wonderful ride, and they're still having it. and too many americans are being left behind. and for the first time, we're a nation in which children are not expected to do as well as their parents and sadly aren't even expected to live as long because of the impact on health and well-being is pretty sharp as well. >> the reason i think you're on to something is because many, many particularly working white people, young white men, feel that they -- the rungs disappeared. they're not even on the first rung. they can't get on it. and isn't there some potential for moving beyond race and discussing the american dream? >> i think so. i think that's exactly the potential. and that's exactly what i hope people will catch at this moment. and i hope those people who are white and struggling and fearful will see that there is solidarity to be made with

others who are in the same circumstance. they just aren't white. so that people who are white and being left behind, people who are latino, black, all of the american people who are being left behind need to join together and ask, what do we need to do differently, and how can we work together to get that in place? because if we don't, the future isn't bright. and part of what we need to do, which is why i keep coming back to race, is that we need to understand that people of color in this country, if we paid attention to what was happening to people of color in this country, we could avoid a lot of what we end up in the negative. >> household. >> well, black and latino people had double-digit unemployment before the united states of america discovered double-digit unemployment. and black and latino families were losing their houses in record numbers long before we ended up in the foreclosure crisis that hit the front page of the newspaper. if we cared about them, if we felt connected to them as

nation, we would have started asking questions and trying to fix this early on. but we didn't have that connection. and so we need to keep race in mind because we live in a nation in which what happens to people of color is often the canary in the coal mine of the nation. >> one of your papers says that by 2042, the majority of people in this country will be of color? >> yes. by 2042, the majority of the population will be of color. and already we are in a situation in california where 73% of those under 18 are of color. already in california. >> how's that playing out? >> it's not playing out very well. and it's a case study in what not to do. that california, just to go back to after world war ii, california was a place that did not look like it was going to have a very bright future. half of the population was from someplace else. people had drifted into california.

a quarter of the population live below the poverty level, and half of the population did not have a high school diploma. california looked at this group of white people who were poor and uneducated and said we're going to invest in this population and really bring this state up, to really leading the nation. and they did that. by 1960, california had a 25% advantage in employment and education over the rest of the country. "newsweek" had them on the cover. number one state. booming, beautiful california. that is a case study in equity because what california did is it said, where do we need for people to go? and how do we back into what they need? developing the best educational system, the best work environment, the best health system. really saying, we're going to take what we have and build what we need. now california is a place where the majority of the children are

of color have stepped back on everything. they are near the bottom in terms of education. they're near the bottom in terms of high unemployment rates. they really are not doing well at all because they're not doing what they did after world war ii. and part of the reason is because the decision-makers and the people who have wealth and influence don't feel connected to the people who make up the population. our racial divide has become a generational divide. that the divide in this country that caused its people not to feel connected to the other. the white homeowners, the white politicians don't feel a connection to the children who are latino and african-american and asian. that divide, that lack of connection, now has a whole generation of young people without a robust public school system, without a robust public transportation system, without communities all over the state

that are healthy communities, giving people the ability to be able to start a family wherever they might want to. a connection i call our racial divide now has a whole generation of young people including white people not finding the investment coming from their government and from their private sector that puts them in a position to be able to have the life that they saw their grandparents and their parents have. >> are you placing your hope in the possibility of redemption for folks who see the other and see an alien and a stranger, or are you placing your hope in the fact that as the country reflects politically the growing numbers of people of color in this country, people of color will outvote everyone else? >> i am placing my hope in the self-interest of the people and the nation to make the investments that are essential for the country to be strong. i actually believe this one thing that people say across all

party lines. that people do love their country. and i think that if people love their country, they have an opportunity to help their country continue to be strong by investing in the people who are going to be the future. i'm also placing my hope in the political impact of changing the nature of the voting public. that people who are of color become a majority. they begin to vote more. they become engaged more. they will see their interests. i'm placing my hope in communities of color and progressive white communities and people who have the ability to be able to think about the future and act on the future, seeing themselves as a huge movement to transform the nation. >> you make such a persuasive case based upon an affirmative reading of human nature and american democracy. but we both know we're up against a realistic politics. that is based on divide and conquer. wouldn't you say the politics of

discord rules today and undermines that hope you have for a more affirmative future and a more affirmative democracy? >> when i was a girl, the politics of discord seemed to rule then, too. i remember as a girl having no expectation that the barriers that were set up for black people would ever be removed. i remember envisioning my future as of one like the one that i grew up in. i thought that i would be forced to create an enclave in a black community that would protect my children from racism. i remember going to college -- i went to howard university -- and one time my friends and i wanted to go ice skating. and one of my friends was so light in complexion, you couldn't tell she was white. we went to the skating rink and sent her in to see if she could ice skate. they said no. we went to the movies. we accepted that as a part of life. it changed because some people

said no, and they worked on it for a long time. and a lot of people who were not black joined them and worked on it, too. and the public media really got involved in showing america its worse self and showing leaders who were trying to take it someplace else. i am not naive, but i believe in struggle. i believe in becoming enlightened. i believe in coalition building. and i also believe in the power of logic. the middle class is in jeopardy, and we know it is. and we need it for democracy to thrive. when you look at the changing demographics, you look at the vulnerable middle class, it is clear that we need a strategy going forward that invests in people so they continue to be that middle class. we have a context that makes the narrative that i'm putting forward one that some people are going to want to listen to. the more people listen to it, the more people coalesce around it, the more we have policies and strategies that don't exclude but include because white people are being left behind, too. and i'm talking about them when

i talk about people who are being left behind. >> i urge you to read the new book by one of our greatest journalists about these issues, thomas edsel. now at the club of journalism. his book "the age of austerity" discusses how we'll be squabbling over shrinking resources in this time of rising debts and polarized politics. how are we going to pay for all that you're talking about in a time of austerity? >> we are not a poor country, and we need to stop acting like one. we just are not a poor country. we have done this to ourselves. we are nickel and diming ourselves. we have money in this country. we're still the wealthiest nation on the face of the earth. we have so many wealthy people. but our tax system is not taxing our wealth. and so we need to stop acting like there's no wealth to tax. we are a wealthy country. and so your question is not how in a time of necessary austerity

do we do what we need to do, but how in a time of stinginess do we develop the public will to use our resources, to tap our resources, to do what must be done? part of what we have to do is we have to change the narrative about our future. when you think about what the world needs, in an economy, it is an asset to be multiracial, multiet multiethnic and multicultural to be connected to places around the globe. in any strigs where the instrumentalized nations are aging, they have so many young people in their country, that is an asset. and that asset of global connectedness and youth, it's coming from the people who are going to be the future. we need to embrace that and understand that if we invest in it, our future is strong for all. >> but let's be very specific. you are asking people with money to pay more taxes to help those who don't have money. and that's not -- remember when walter mondale in the debates in 1984 said, i will raise taxes?

he lost overwhelmingly. you're asking people with money to pay for a future they won't inhabit and for people now who don't have money. >> asking them to pay more, yes, in taxes, and they have more. part of what we have seen is a result on this focus on inequality is how much more the wealthy do, in fact, have. so yes, we're asking people to pay more, but they have more, and they can. we're also asking that we have a fair tax system that actually taxes people in ways that are proportionate to what it is that they're making. the gifts that they have received. the fortunes that they have been able to build because they have been in this nation. it's been built on the backs and with the labor and with the consent of a government and people who have allowed this economic system to go forward. i don't think that i'm asking anything unreasonable. and if we can get over this sense of disconnectedness, then people will see it as they had seen it in the past.

california, back in the time that i described, it was under republican governor earl warren and democratic governor pat brown that california sacrificed, paid taxes and built a state that everybody was so proud of. people can do it again. >> how does occupy wall street, the whole occupy movement, fit into all of this? >> i have been so thankful for the occupy wall street movement because it put inequality on the front pages of newspapers on the nightly news and allowed people in their private homes to start talking about something that had not been a topic of conversation. so the occupy movement has done one job already. they brought the issue of inequality front and center. the next thing that it has been able to do is encourage people to be visible, to get organized. policy link had a summit in detroit. the people who were there, mostly activists and leaders in

their local communities, were really anxious to figure out how to talk about what we have been talking about all along in the context of the 99%. very happy to take the issues that very often are issues that low-income people of color care about and connect them to a national concern about growing inequality. so the movement has helped to jump start a conversation. and i hope that those of us who have been working on things all along will keep fanning this conversation about inequality until we begin to get some policies that do something about it. >> how long have you lived in oakland? >> since 1973. >> so you know it well. many people felt that occupy was movinging positively and going to make great strides until it ran into occupy oakland. i brought a headline with me. occupy oakland, violent turn proves the movement has lost its way. tell me what you saw out there and whether you agree with that headli headline. >> i was not there. i was in the airport. i looked up and saw what i thought was fighting in syria,

frankly. that's what i thought i was looking at. and then i saw oakland. i said, oakland, what's happening in my hometown? i was shocked and dismayed and embarrassed and sorry and thought it was a terrible turn of events. and i think that the occupy movement did suffer because of it because then it became commonplace to move people out and to move on them in ways that were violent. it didn't kill the movement. it has not killed the movement. the movement has taken itself into different realms, but movements have to figure out how to grow and how to turn corners and how to develop new strategies in turning the movement to the foreclosure crisis and turning the movement to the banks and turning it in different places. i think the occupy movement may take on different forms. it is far from dead. but it is the collective action of people that can make all the difference. it always has. that is the one piece that we

are missing right now. occupy wall street has opened up that possibility. but we don't have that collective action of people. we have been so separated, those of us who have organizations and people who are leaders are so separated, put in this box and that box rather than understanding, we're on a collective mission. and our moment has come that the nation is having a conversation about inequality. don't let that door close. let's bring everything we know into it, prop it open, and breathe through the army of people and ideas who are ready to make america better and help america see it's not scary. it's glorious. >> i'm reluctant to bring this conversation to a close, but it's been very good to talk to u, angela blackwell. thank you for being with me. >> oh, thank you.

not a day passed that we can't see evidence of the great divide you just heard me talk about with angela blackwell. all you have to do is look at the news. "the wall street journal" reports that big american companies have emerged from the deepest recession since world war ii more profitable than ever, more cash, less burdened by debt and with a greater share of the country's income. but many of the 1.1 million jobs the big companies added since 2007 were outside the u.s. so, too, was much of the $1.2 trillion added to corporate treasuries. so add to this embarrassment of riches, corporate taxes today are at a 40-year low. then look at this report in "the new york times." last year, among the 100 best paid ceos, the median income was more than $14 million. compared with the average annual american salary of $45,230.

combined, this happy 100 executives pulled down more than $2 million. and according to "the times," these ceos might seem like pikers, top hedge fund managers collectively earn $14.4 billion last year. that's wall street, the metaphorical bestery of the financial universe, but there is nothing about the earnings of hedge fund tigers, private equity lions and the top dogs at those big banks that were bailed out by tax dollars after they helped chase our economy off a cliff. so what do these wall street nabobs have to complain about? why are they whining about refo refo reforms? why are they whining about super pacs helping president obama manyof whom they supported four years ago? the president wants to raise their taxes. that's right. while ordinary americans are taxed at a top rate of 35% on

their income, congress allows hedge funds and private equity tycoons to pay only 15% on their compensation. the president wants them to pay more. still, at a rate below what you might pay. and for that, he's being accused of -- hold on to your combat helmets -- class warfare. one wall street midas, once an obama fan, now his foe, told mcgillis that by making the rich a primary target, obama is on people who are successful, you fill in the blank. and can you believe this? two years ago when president obama first tried to close that gaping loophole in our tax code, steven swartzman who runs the world's largest private equity fund compared the president's action to hitler's invasion of poland. ♪ that's the same steven swartzman whose agents in 2006 launched a

predatory raid on a travel company in colorado. his fund bought it, laid off 841 employees, and recouped its entire investment in just seven months. last year alone, swartzman took home over $213 million in pay and dividends. that's one-third more than 2010. so angela blackwell was on the mark when she said this is a we wealthy country. she also nailed it when she said one reason so many are not doing so well despite that great wealth is because the decision-makers and the people who have the money and influence don't feel connected to the rest of us. so you can understand why i'm going to miss bernard rappaport who died this month at age 94. he was my friend for half my life and a longtime supporter of my work on public television. more important, he was a capitalist with a conscience. his parents were jewish

immigrants from russia who landed in texas where he was born dirt poor, poverty there either broke your heart or bit your ankles. and like a man with a bulldog at his heels, "b" scrambled up and out. he worked his way through the university of texas where he flunked german, he said, despite hitler. at age 24, he met his future wife, audrey, on a blind date. they were engaged the next day. together, they invested $25,000 to start a life insurance company which they later sold for $500 million. "b" would have given it all the way except for an uncanny ability to make money faster than he could dispose of it. he and audrey gave millions to help low-income children in waco, the heart ofma texas wher they lived modestly and where he died. millions more to our beloved alma mater, the university of texas, supported progressive causes in politicians, civil rights, voting rights, arts and culture and social justice across the country and in israel

from an eye clinic serving predominantly arab patients and a high school for israeli families who wanted to co-exist with palestinians. and yes, they were generous to independent journalism, molly was one of his darlings. and so was the tough little magazine "the texas observer" that fearless watchdog that takes on the oligarchs who run the state. not once, not once, did he ever suggest to me a story to cover or criticize when we did. it was hands off all the way. "b" was no mother teresa. many a poker player might leave his table in their underwear, but he stayed close to his roots, urged the politicians he supported to raise his taxes and felt morally obligated to argue against his own privilege. there weren't many texas tycoons who believed society not only has the right but the need to check and balance their appetites. he did. it was the only way democracy

and capitalism could work. "b" read more books than anyone in business i've ever known. and he would send us one that especially moved him, usually about how democracy works or doesn't or the contradictions of wealth and power. he fretted, as his energies began to fade, and toward the end he called almost every saturday morning and always beginning the conversation with the same question, "moyers, what can i do to make this world a better place?" you did plenty, my friend. you did plenty. that's all for this week. we want to call your attention to an upcoming special report. on friday, april 20th, our colleagues at public television's need to know in partnership with the nation institute investigate whether u.s. border patrol agents have been using excessive force to curb illegal immigration.

>> why are you guys using excessive force? >> as you arrived there, what was the very first thing you heard? >> i heard screaming and asked him for help. >> he was being tased for several seconds and wasn't moving. >> por favor. >> i think i witnessed someone being murdered. >> that's friday, april 20th. check your local listings. coming up on "moyers & company," historian and commentator eric alterman of "the nation" and ross doffit, columnist for "the new york times." at our website, billmoyers.com, remember blackwell said americans don't like to talk about race. so what do you think goes unsaid? share your thoughts on a special "spotlight" section of the website or link from there to our facebook page. see you next time.

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foundation, a john and holly guf charitable fund. the clements foundation, park foundation, dedicated to heightening public awareness of critical issues, the herb alford foundation, supporting organizations whose mission is to promote compassion and creativity in our society. the bernard and audrey rappaport foundation, the john d. and katherine t. mcarthur foundation, committed to building a more just, verdant and peaceful world. more information at macfound.org. and gumowitz, the betsy and jesse fink foundation, the hkh foundation, barbara g. fleishmann, and by our sole corporate sponsor, mutual of america designing customized individual and group retirement products. that's why we're your retirement company.