you know michelle alexander's great texts of the new text the new jim crow.zero, absolutely. >> thank you for being here. my question is not about the case, the fact verdicts, but what do you think martin luther king would say about the reaction and protests and ferguson? >> from the young people themselves? >> what i am saying is maybe how i feel martin luther king stood for peace and peaceful protest. i am wondering what do you think he would say about what is going on there. >> i see what you are saying i can speak on behalf of martin but based upon his life, his work his witness he would call for resistance, resistance, but it would be nonviolent resistance. that is the kind of whether he was. resistance but nonviolent resistance which is to say he would not go to ferguson and say we have got to cool things off. the cool things off you end up in a deep freeze. the challenge has always been how do you channel your rage into love and justice rather than hatred and present? that is the question, and that is the question martin luther king was wrestling with

. >> michelle alexander is a law professor who says that the disproportionate numbers of black people in prison in america today is akin to a new system of social control comparable to slavery. she says that while president obama has made some positive steps like signing legislation that reduced sentencing disparities between crack and powder cocaine, where it really counts, obama has not broken from the past. >> but the reality is, is that obama's drug control budget looks like the bush administration's. the ratio in funding vested in enforcement as opposed to prevention or drug treatment is about the same as the bush administration's. >> in the last couple of decades the prison population across the united states has risen dramatically. we just passed three prisons seemingly right next to each other. we're about to visit one of those facilities where many of the inmates are from the city of baltimore. america incarcerates more people than any other country on earth. one in every one hundred us citizens is behind bars. the state of maryland is no exception - the prisons here are full

today, michele alexander is written about the new jim crow. we have mass incarceration with very disproportionate numbers of african-american men in our prison system. mass incarceration, the numbers are staggering in the sense that i think there are more men who are subject to our prison system or who are on parole or on probation having been in the criminal justice system, not necessary all in prison. those numbers are greater than the number of slaves prior to the emancipation. we can't ignore that disproportionately. we can't ignore that history. bears i think the police have co-opted and blue lives matter go to the police service and affordable pesticide and they take great risk in a job. many, if not most are dedicated to being public servants and upholding the law and observing the constitutional protections. but there are bad apples out there and they need to be weeded out. we need to understand that through education and, to answer your question, i think we will i hope, be able to address these problems. there are programs like facing

michelle alexander talks about the new jim crow. it's not just about mass incarceration. it's about the way we teach our graduate students. it's about what we study. everybody is talking about slavery and capitalism. many people are not citing clr james. they are not citing dubois and black reconstruction. you've got new people doing tremendous things, but they are still segregating the scholarship. we do it in the public, as well. that is why it's so important when we have public intellectuals, because there are six people this author looks at, and three of them are women. ida b. wells was a public intellectual. she is a radical activist and a thinker we should all be reading. i started grad school when i was 20 years old and one of the most apprising things to me about graduate school was the way in which white colleagues were not reading black political thought. they just wouldn't read it. people who were interested in democracy, they were interested in tom hayden, abolitionism. you say, what about "black reconstruction"? not interested. why not? my professors haven't

according to michelle alexander scholar and expert on mass incarceration, there are now more african-americans under correctional control than the number of african-americans held in slavery in 1850. these statistics reflect that racial disparity in the application of laws is the civil rights issue of the 21st century. we thank the president for establishing your task force in light of recent community national, and international unrest and response to excess force and policing and the misuse of prosecutorial discretion. overcriminalization and militarization of local police departments has created a great chasm between the police and communities they have pledged to serve and protect. as people of faith we're not only concerned about these issues, but we are intimately connected to them. persons affiliated with the national council of churches through our member communions as i said, serve as prison and police chaplains. police and persons serving time, returning citizens and family members. they are victims and perpetrators, pastors and community leaders. in the past several months of civil

however, what turned me around on it is a book called "the ju anymore crowe" by a woman nad michelle alexandershows because of our pot laws we are making it impossible for a huge percentage of minority kids to the inner city to ever work in the above groundwork force. and we've waited for a long time to change those laws and make them more reasonable and decriminal skaigs andization and all this stuff. i actually come at this from the point of view of social justice. i don't think it's harmless. i think it is better than alcohol but that's a relative thing. i also believe that we just can't go on the way we're going on. people's lives are being ruined because they smoked h a joint. >> isn't that a criminal justice issue instead of legalization issue? handle it there. don't legalize it for everybody. >> no. it's a criminal justice issue and nothing has been done about it for 30 years. time is up. just like education. time is up. >> .3 of 1% of people in state prisons are there for marijuana possession. 1.2% of people in federal prisons -- sorry, in state prisons are there for marijuana possessi