>> i'm monica malpass. on "inside story," how far has america really come on the topic of racism, and what will it take to improve even more? let's get the inside story. good morning, and welcome to "inside story." i'm monica malpass. let's meet our insiders today. they are jan ting, law professor. welcome back to you. nia meeks, communications executive. good morning, nia. ed turzanski, foreign-policy analyst, and ajay raju attorney. welcome to all of you. let's talk about race in america, because after what happened in charleston south carolina -- nine people killed by a white supremacist who was well known for his hatred of people of color -- some changes are occurring. we'll talk about the confederate flag issue in a moment and how this may have sadly been the impetus to change that part of the southern culture. but, really, how far have we come in america? are we just dusting the surface here of racism and putting on a good front, if you will, or are

we really dealing with our racial biases that are, in many cases, built in and institutionalized? >> i think there was a myth out there for a while that racism was gonna die out -- that with the younger generation, less racists. we're gonna solve this problem. and i think this particular case shows that that's not true. >> and is it just an isolated case? i mean, the south carolinians did not rise up as this young man, dylann roof, hoped and start a revolution ousting african-americans from the state. >> there's always a miniscule percentage of young males who are losers and who have to blame their failure on somebody else. and that's probably true in every society, but in the united states, they have access to guns, so that, i think, is the particular problem. i mean, i'd like to see the federal government put as much investigative effort into tracking racial terrorists as religious terrorists. why aren't we doing that? >> president obama certainly was

at the funerals on friday, along with the first lady and the vice president. it is a very disturbing issue for so many of us, and he spoke out on a radio broadcast. listen to what the president had to say in his disappointment over this. and there became a furor over him using the "n" word. so, separate from the "n" word itself, are we making any progress, nia? have we gotten very far? he went on in that interview actually, to compliment some of the progress in america and say, "look, we're not in the 1950s. we're not in the 1960s in selma, alabama. we have gotten somewhere, and it's, you know, trackable that we're getting there." but are we getting there fast enough? >> well, it's never fast enough for people who are impacted by it, so let's say that, number one, but, number two, this president has always said that we've made great strides and have been moving past some of

the old racial paradigms, but to say that we're totally cured -- when he was elected, there was an assumption by some that we had now moved into a colorblind society, but we still have institutional vestiges of racism of times past, even if you want to talk about something as simple as housing. i mean, when the g.i. bill came out, you know, world war ii vets like my grandfather and his cohorts were not necessarily eligible for that money, and so that starts an inequality when it comes to wealth accumulation that continues to this day, and so when people say, "oh, everyone has the same chance -- even steven --" that's not quite true, and we're unpacking that and addressing it and looking at it not so much, "oh, some people just want to be lazy, some people just want to complain." it is true that we are not the same country that we were. if we were, we would not have this panel here today. but it is also true that we are not where we would like to be under the highest ideals of our democracy. >> and, p.s., this has raised a different issue for a lot of people. would president obama himself

have even been elected were he someone who looked more like his father, who was of african descent? were he a darker-skinned man were he of not mixed race, would he have been the first african-american elected? were white americans ready for that? >> well, you're asking a question based on how he looks and i would suggest -- and we're gonna commit some grammar here -- lookism goes well beyond race. so, if william howard taft came along today, wouldn't be elected president of the united states. we're not gonna vote for someone who's morbidly obese, which is why candidates go on diets as they're trying to be elected. and this question of institutional racism -- the institution keeps on shifting. two illustrations. and, first of all, in terms of progress, george bush had two secretaries of state that were both black. barack obama now has appointed a second consecutive black attorney general. when you look at where people of color -- and it's not just

black -- are represented -- you look at this thing in south carolina. it's an indian-american governor -- right? -- who says we've got to take down this flag, flanked by a republican black senator. but the institutional racism -- when you get an organization that is accepted as legitimate in public discourse -- la raza, the race -- how does somebody get to say, "i can appropriate the use of this tactic"? "i can call my organization the race in order to represent myself." but you better be careful what you say. and al sharpton -- how does al sharpton get to participate in public life given his record on racial tensions and strife? >> so, you're saying you can't have it both ways? you can't both use your race as something as a proponent of your issues and then say, "but don't call me that color"? >> you can't appropriate victimhood and you cannot assign

guilt strictly based on color, because people still can overcome circumstance at birth. belief counts. i just think if we're going to have a discussion, we're gonna have to be much more broad-based in the way we're having it. >> and do you think that besides culture and besides laws and besides things that are rules built in to our society, families are still teaching racial concepts in a disappointing way, ajay? >> i think it will be another 20, 30 years before we flush out institutionalizing equality. i don't think we're ever gonna be a utopia where racism doesn't exist. >> of course not. >> that will not happen. but i think the effects of it will be dulled out over time. when you see a two-time president who's african-american, when you see a second attorney general, when you see an indian-american governor, when you see a republican lawmaker who's a senator on these issues, that sets the tone that this is okay.

michael jordan made black beautiful, right? and it was okay to make bald beautiful, because he did it and the idea of bald heads seemed okay. it takes a while for that to become popular culture, and then everybody else just sort of says, "that's okay." it will not be overnight, but you have to start. >> yeah. obama said we're not gonna erase 200 or 300 years of treatment in a generation. >> what you have to do is you have to acknowledge the many steps that we have taken, yet not give up the fight to make sure that we march towards equality. and it will take time, because these biases are generated from birth on because families instill on it, and, also, when we go in the workforce, we see it all around us, but when we see that the face is changing, it also becomes a new mind-set and that becomes a new reality. >> and, nia, when we see a confederate flag -- and this has long been a debate in the south, where the flag, for many people, also represents southern heritage, not just oppression of slavery, it does represent some historical measures for people but now, given what happened in charleston, the governor obviously of south carolina and

alabama -- both of those governors have now said, "the time has come. we are past this point now, and no longer should we be flying the confederate flag." is a symbol like that hurtful enough that it should be taken away? >> that symbol, of course, is hurtful. i mean, we don't fly the union jack in the northern states, where, at one time england ruled over here. we don't fly certain flags that would be offensive in other areas. i'm not gonna get into nazi germany because some people say that's too inflamed, but here's the thing -- the confederate flag -- yes, it has a role in history, but it belongs in a historic museum. the confederate flag that went up in south carolina did not go up because of what happened in history. it went up as a resistance... >> defiance. >> ...to the civil rights movement. exactly -- defiance. and when we talk about racism, it's not necessarily something that's just overtly taught at home. it's things that are not directly disavowed. and so you let the little slips go and you don't call somebody out on things, and so these types of things are inbred, and what ends up happening -- children do not come here racist. they learn racism.

>> so, there are subtleties that begin to build until they're not so subtle. >> absolutely. and if you don't have someone in a position of authority say, "hey, let's look at this a different way, let's judge this in another kind of way," then that kind of thinking continues, and people say, "oh, well, he was just an aberration" and blah, blah, blah. >> but you can counter with patience and love. >> you should be able to. >> what you can't do is -- i don't want to presume what your point is, but my interpretation of it, at least is you can't have both sides arguing with loud voices their position without actually finding common ground, acknowledging that we're making progress towards each other. >> and you have to recognize complexity, because nia's right. that flag went up in south carolina to push back against the civil rights movement. and it was democrats who put it up. republicans are taking it down. now, that's a trite observation because it's a much more complex issue than all that. >> and a different democratic party. >> and how is it that we can see -- i mean, we're seemingly as a nation, seeing clearly. i won't speak for everyone, but it seems there is a clear voice on whether high-school and

college football teams should not be called by indian names, indian-american names anymore. we can clearly see that the benefit of the school spirit versus hurting an entire culture that's been oppressed isn't worth it, and so we've changed the names of many of these although not all of them. how can people see the clearness of that and not the clarity of the flag? >> well, wait a minute. so, let's talk a bout redskins because that's what it's all about. it's about washington redskins. when the team was named, it wasn't an epithet. it was, in fact, to recognize someone who was of indian heritage who was well regarded by that organization. it was a point of pride. >> so, it's to honor them? >> and for a very long time, it wasn't a problem. then some people came along and said, "i find that offensive." here's the thing about the grievance industry -- it kicks into high gear, it is very uneven in how it's applied, and you can't buy a confederate flag on many sites right now, but you can get a che guevara shirt, you

can get nazi memorabilia. you can get lots of other things... >> but that's different. that's not what we're talking about. people can put any flag up in their backyard that they want. >> absolutely. it's about state-sanctioned -- >> no, i think monica's taking this broader. >> we're talking about official action on the part of state or local government. >> tax dollars. >> that's not the only thing we're talking about. >> that should not happen, and we should be reassessing the whole history of the confederacy and the nature of its kind of racist nature. i think after the civil war, we're trying to reconstruct the country, there was a tendency -- an understandable tendency -- to kind of soft-soap the confederacy and just say, "oh, this is just history. this is just heritage." but i think now we're far enough away -- 150 years this year from the end of the civil war -- we can look back on it and say, "that was a terrible racist regime, and the people who defended it were not good people." >> and we can also just say really quickly, on the northern

end of it, it's not as though they were all saviors. this was an economic means to break the south. it's not like you could come to the north and everyone was going to be be accepted. this was a way to break the south, and it just wasn't as exploited. >> as you pointed, it's nostalgia for white supremacy. i think it's a symbol of hate. it's a dog whistle. but the point, ed, just for your point -- maybe the redskins' name was at a point when people who did not really understand all peoples' opinion on it decided it was supposed to be a pride for heritage reasons. but if you now know that the majority of the native americans here are now offended by it, then why would you still hold on to that? >> i don't know that it's a majority, but it certainly is a vocal one. >> and we'll have to leave it at that. we could talk about this for our whole broadcast, and it is an important topic we'll come back to. but we have two huge rulings by the u.s. supreme court this past week. let's talk about those, as well. the first one deals with obamacare, as it's called. they upheld the affordable care act for 8.7 million americans who could not have afforded healthcare or couldn't get access to it where they happened to live. and, obviously, president obama considered that a victory and

part of his legacy. opponents were upset and already say they're going to appeal. we'll get a reaction from some of you on that. and the second ruling was the u.s. supreme court ruled that individual states cannot disallow a marriage that was a same-sex marriage in one state and was fine here and then you move to the next state and it's not allowed there, so, in effect, a national ruling on same-sex marriage upholding same-sex marriage in all 50 states. let's get a reaction on one or -- react on either one of those. >> i was gonna talk about same-sex marriage because we're talking about marriage equality. it is a momentous moment for this country -- a momentous moment. but it is an incredible moment of civil rights. activism -- it has been really rapid. right now we're celebrating the 50th anniversary of when some of the earliest protests for gay rights happened right here in philadelphia, independence mall. and to go from 50 years to now seeing that who you love cannot just say, "oh, well, that's not gonna be allowed here because we don't like this person, the fact of you guys getting together 'cause you're the same gender"

doesn't matter anymore. now we are in a new phase of this country, and i think this is like an incredible moment when you really think about it. no matter where you are on this with your religion or what have you, for the state to come in and say, "we have equality across the board" -- it is a huge lift. >> a seminal moment. >> i think a lot of republicans, in their heart of hearts actually welcome both decisions because they know they were on the losing side of gay rights, and, you know, when they got to the general election, they were gonna pay a price. and, also, on the affordable care act, i mean, there would have been millions of people who lost their health coverage, mostly in republican states that didn't set up state exchanges, and i think a lot of republicans were not anxious to confront those voters. i think we dodged a bullet in that if the ruling had gone the other way on the affordable care act, not only would millions of people have lost their health coverage, but the people that stayed in there

would have been just the sick, and it would have driven up the costs for everybody. the whole system would have collapsed from rising costs, so -- >> so, are you surprised, ed that the supreme court made such important rulings, whether you like the rulings or not? >> no, not at all. not at all. justice roberts communicated in the first decision on obamacare three years ago that there wasn't a chance that anyone's gonna lay a hand on this. and he went to very great lengths just -- and scalia, i think, is spot-on in how roberts, in essence, rewrote the statute three different ways just to try to make it fit because he's got this deference for congress' intent. now, how he judges its intent -- that's his business. just a couple things, though -- it's not that people don't have healthcare. it's the question of insurance the question of how we pay for this. and when you're looking at the people who enter the system because they now have insurance,

take a look at all the people who lost their doctors, who wound up losing their insurance and are paying much more, to the point where they can't afford it. that's the other part of this. >> it's not a perfect system. >> it doesn't bend the cost curve down. >> all right. we're gonna take a break. "inside story" continues right after this. >> "inside story" is presented by temple university. temple fuels students with academics and opportunities to take charge. plugged into the city, powered by the world. temple.edu/takecharge.

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>> welcome back. time to talk politics -- presidential politics -- and the g.o.p. field is really big. 16 now have entered the field, or about to on tuesday, when governor chris christie of new jersey reportedly will throw his hat in. bobby jindal of louisiana has long been talking about this and how is in. donald trump is in. what's interesting is a new survey of at least those who are in shows jindal at the bottom, tied for last, donald trump tied for second in some of the polls, so where does it leave republicans, ajay? >> well, i think right now we have 13 declared candidates, 15 to go. they did not include "none of the above," which was ahead of bobby jindal. but i think you'll have 18 candidates all vying for attention. donald trump is a mere blip. i mean, that is not really relevant. i don't think he'll be a sustainable type of a candidate. but i think what this does is it coalesces in the long run more support for guys like jeb bush

and more viable candidates because you'll have too much of the fringe candidates coming in. it solidifies the base. it solidifies the money going into ones that most likely will be viable after the primary. >> or some people would say it muddies the waters and so many voices can make for a cacophony of sound. you just don't even know what they want anymore. >> there's a reason why there are so many candidates, and the reason is barack obama. barack obama demonstrated that not only do you have to be a senior statesman to run for president. you don't have to be a richard nixon or a george h.w. bush to run for president. and, indeed, it's actually beneficial to have a short record, 'cause there's less for your opponents to aim at. and people learned that lesson from president obama, and so people say now, "why not me?" >> more importantly, i think -- >> go ahead, nia. >> if you look at what happened in 2012, everybody rose to the top at one point and then fell back down to the bottom, and then we finally settled with mitt romney. and as far as donald trump being number 2 in the polls, i only have three words -- "9-9-9."

remember him -- herman cain? i mean, really, we had a lot of crazies that kind of bubbled up, went down, bubbled up, went down. wait for for a minute. >> you're not gonna have 10 people. i think the bar is lower because of the changes in campaign-finance laws. all you need is one super pac, one backer, to have a candidate that becomes a national candidate. that's probably more important than barack obama. >> and chris christie, quickly -- does he have a chance? his polls are the lowest they've ever been. huge popularity after superstorm sandy. that dropped precipitously after bridgegate and some budget wrangling. is his time past for this national office? >> if ed is right that william howard taft could never be elected president today chris christie cannot be elected president. >> christie's a lot like bobby jindal in that they're both trending downward in their popularity in their home states, and that's going to make it very difficult. and this is a crowded field, which is why ajay and i are staying out of it. >> you thought about it for a

moment. all right. let's talk about the pennsylvania budget. freshman governor tom wolf prepared a budget, presented it, and they're nowhere near the june 30th deadline, which is this tuesday. so, there was a vote, and republicans that control the house -- they did agree on one thing, and that was when they clumped all of the items together that would have been the big-ticket items and decided, "shall we go with this package?" -- no. there was a resounding "no." so, he has very little traction so far. what do you make of his chances of getting it, even in the near future, if not tuesday? >> i don't see it happening on tuesday. i mean, if it happens before july 4th, it will be a great win for him, but i don't think that's going to happen right now. you have two intractable sides with the governor, as well as the folks both in the senate and in the house. they have the majority. they are entrenched in saying, "this is what we want, and we're gonna have this happen," particularly when it comes to pensions and liquor-store reform. the governor's saying we need to have this new tax on the gas drilling. it's going to come to an impasse, and we're going to be in the slog for a minute. >> so, loggerheads -- we're not even close to some compromise of any kind? >> well, both sides have made

their priorities clear. it's a mystery to me why they can't just get together and say, "all right. you want pension reform, you want liquor reform and the governor wants a severance tax and he wants a budget with no gimmicks and he wants property-tax relief." >> two for two -- we're done. >> yeah. "let's make a deal," you know? isn't that what it's all about? >> no, but i think it goes well beyond just the severance tax. his regime of taxes is breathtaking. it's unlike anything they've ever seen. and it's the sheer magnitude of that. he is going to have to come far off the mark in terms of the total amount of taxes he wants to raise, and i'm with nia. i think this is going to be a longer process than maybe even ed rendell had. rendell had a lot of trouble delivering. he ultimately did, because he would horse-trade. >> right. >> i just don't see that yet. >> all right. we're gonna take a break. "inside story" is coming your way right after this.

>> "inside story" is presented

by temple university. temple fuels students with academics and opportunities to take charge. plugged into the city, powered by the world. temple.edu/takecharge. >> time for inside stories of the week, and let's start with jan. >> philadelphia's d.a. seth williams, has taken an interest in combating truancy in our schools. he's already active in the charter schools, and he's trying to find a role for his office in the public schools in an effort to deter truancy and cutting off this school-to-jail connection. and his model is truancy courts that exist out in san francisco. he's running in to some resistance on the part of the public-school system. >> all right. ajay? >> shout-out to steve klasko and jefferson, who were both honored by the american heart association, but the relevant news is that it was new york and the new york chapter 100th-year anniversary, an indication that jefferson is now national and,

also, klasko's innovation is national news. >> terrific. all right. and to you, ed. >> monica, the latest deadline on the iranian nuclear program is this tuesday. there are fears that the obama administration has struck a bad deal. five former members of the administration, senior advisers, one of them dennis ross, the man who ran the iran desk at state have all said it's a bad deal and it shouldn't happen. >> hmm. keep an eye on that. nia? >> we talk about history that happened just last week when it came to some scotus rulings. well, some other history happened 25 years ago. it was the americans with disabilities act, which was enacted, that provided freedom and accessibility for tens of thousands of hundreds of millions of americans every day. when it comes to things where you have a disability that's physical or mental, you have great access. on july 25th, there's going to be a huge celebration here in philadelphia, including a wheelchair march, down independence mall. >> all right. good to hear. we'll keep an eye on that, as well. and that's it for "inside story" today. thank you so much for joining us on this sunday morning, and thanks to all of our insiders

for being here and contributing your thoughts. we appreciate it. have a great week ahead. we'll see you right back here next sunday morning. >> i'm nydia han coming up next only "action news," yesterday's rain clouds have moved out but the area has a lot of water to contend with and tens of thousands are without electricity always the cleanup from tuesday's storms continues. and she has become an overnight hero to some, the woman arrested for bringing down the confederate flag at the south carolina state house those stories and accuweather and microbe more in effect on "action news."

>> good afternoon, it is sunday june 28. i'm nydia han eva and chris are off to a charity golf tournament this afternoon it was a