social activist, reverend marcia dyson and marc morial, president and ceo of the national urban league. mr. morial, mayor, let me turn to you, sir. where are we heading as a country when we see this kind of conflagration along the front of american race? >> it's nothing new. i mean, let's look at the fact that perhaps social media and media attention has given more visibility, if you will, and transparency to what you may have read on graffiti walls or heard in private conversations. that's number one. number two, there's been a reaction to the rise of president obama, an ugly reaction, resentful reactions. but let's understand, we just had an election, and the president got re-elected for the second time. which says that a majority of the american people are not swayed nor influenced by that sort of sick and sadistic thinking. what i prefer to focus on is not simply that, but the underlying disparities, the previous

marcia dyson and marc morial on bigotry.takes no breaks for president obama. >>> and later, john nichols on the thousands that republicans stand to hurt in their own districts if we go over the fiscal cliff. >>> history was made this year in more ways than one. we saw unprecedented efforts being made at the state level to suppress the vote, targeting the poor, the young, the elderly, and minorities. we also saw the re-election of the first african-american president. and with that historic event came a whole wave of hate speech and racist stunts. social media provided a platform for the nation's unenlightened to air their grievances with the president's skin color. one blog tracked the origin of racist tweets, following the president's re-election. the majority of them coming from red states in the southeast. twitter saw another eruption of racist language when the president interrupted sunday night football to address victims' families in newtown, connecticut. and for those not as technologically savvy, danny halfly of kent

reverend marcia dyson, you were a maven of social media. social media has provided wonderful outlets for people to articulate their views, but it's obviously showed to america the true colors of what some people think and bigots with megaphones, so to speak. so when the president interrupted sunday night football to speak in newtown, connecticut, twitter went crazy and interrupted with all kinds of racial slurs. how do we as a society confront this sort of behavior? >> well, you know, it's really kind of difficult to do that, michael, especially when you have leadership in congress, that's not only about its political party, but when you have southern states and southwestern states talking about they want to secede from the nation, there's a little racial tinge in that, i think as well. so when you don't have a leadership that can get along together, what do you expect from the general population? i think leadership is the key to that. and as far as the social media, it's no different than in 1990, in the city of chicago, where i come from.