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Melissa Harris-Perry, Transcript 03/14/15

Guests: Antonio French, Michael Eric Dyson, Cristina Beltran, JonathanMetzl, Phillip Atiba Goff, Marva Robinson, Monroe France, Aubriana Busby

MELISSA HARRIS-PERRY, MSNBC HOST: This morning my question, how would you build a police department from scratch? Plus race talks, the college campus edition. And the thick fallout from a blurry ruling. But first, the ongoing manhunt for a shooter in Ferguson, Missouri. Good morning, I`m Melissa Harris-Perry. Police in St. Louis are still looking for the people responsible for shooting two police officers late Wednesday night during a protest outside the Ferguson police station. The bullets hit one officer in the shoulder and the other in the face. They were both released from the hospital several hours later after the shooting and are recovering now at home. Since then, Ferguson has handed responsibility for protest security over to St. Louis county police and the Missouri highway patrol. St. Louis County Chief Jon Belmar spoke to reporters yesterday about the ongoing investigation into the shooting. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) JON BELMAR, ST. LOUIS COUNTY POLICE: I said yesterday that that investigation is our number one priority on the police department. You know what, it`s critical. But really, the number one priority on the police department right now is to make sure that we continue a tempo of service and protection and relationships in the Ferguson area to make sure that we don`t have a regression of everything that we have been able to accomplish since last fall. (END VIDEO CLIP) HARRIS-PERRY: On Thursday evening protesters returned to the police station for a candlelight vigil for the officers. The protest remained peaceful and no arrests were made. The shooting came as Ferguson`s city government struggles with the fallout of a damning Department of Justice report. The DOJ found that the town`s police force and municipal court regularly violated residents` constitutional rights and disproportionately targeted African-Americans, all in the quest for more revenue for the city budget. On Tuesday the city manager John Shaw resigned. And the city manager is the most powerful official in Ferguson overseeing the entire government, including the police department, running the city`s day-to-day operations and hiring and firing all city employees. The chief of police - Chief of Police Tom Jackson resigned on Wednesday. The municipal judge resigned Monday and the state supreme court appointed a circuit court judge to take over all of Ferguson`s cases and implement reforms. Last week the court`s top clerk was fired and two police officers resigned for sending overtly racist e-mails. City leadership is set to change even further next month. Ferguson voters will choose three new city council members in elections on April 7th. The state of Missouri is also considering sweeping reforms, one bill would significantly decrease how much of a city`s budget could legally come from traffic fines. The bill would make it so cities around St. Louis could not make more than 10 percent of their general revenue from traffic violations. Any cities that go over that cap would be forced to give up the access to a state education fund and forfeit their share of St. Louis County`s sales tax pool. If they don`t hand over the money, the county can hold a vote to dis- incorporate the entire city. Now that bill proposed by a high ranking Republican lawmaker was approved by the state senate last month and is awaiting a vote in the House. Attorney General Eric Holder said Thursday that such steps are good faith efforts to make progress and said the shooting of the two officers should not derail that progress. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) ERIC HOLDER, U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL: What happened last night was a pure ambush. This was not someone trying to bring healing to Ferguson. This was - this was the damned punk who was trying to sew discord in an area that is trying to get its act together and trying to bring together a community that has been fractured for too long. This really disgusting and cowardly attack might have been intended to unravel any sense of progress that exists, but a hope that that does not in fact happened. (END VIDEO CLIP) HARRIS-PERRY: So, the house cleaning has begun, but will it be enough? Joining the table now is Michael Eric Dyson, MSNBC political analyst and professor at Georgetown University. Cristina Beltran, associate professor of social and cultural analysis, at NYU, and Jonathan Metzl, director of the Center for Medicine, Help and Society and professor of psychiatry at Vanderbilt University. But first, I want to go to St. Louis and welcome back to the program St. Louis alderman Antonio French. Alderman French, we just listened to Attorney General suggest that whoever fired the shots at the officers, may have been trying to disrupt the efforts of progress in Ferguson. If that was the motive, were they successful? ANTONIO FRENCH, ALDERMAN 21 WARD IN ST. LOUIS: I don`t think so. You know, there are people who have been out here for a very long time and they are very focused on creating systemic change here in the region. Not just a few individuals being removed. Not just a few resignations, but actual change to a system that the DOJ report really outlined. And so, the act that we saw was both cowardly and not at all productive or helpful. And I really hope that the police are successful in finding that individual very quickly. HARRIS-PERRY: So, Alderman, I`d also like to read to you part of a statement from the current acting assistant attorney general for the civil rights division. This is Vanita Gupta. And she writes, or said, "The division will continue to work with Ferguson police and city leadership regardless of whomever is in these positions to reach a court enforceable agreement that will address their unconstitutional practices in a comprehensive manner. So, I guess part of what I want to add here, Alderman French, we`re seeing big change in terms of the people in these positions, but is changing the people enough to change what is happening in Ferguson? FRENCH: Absolutely not. It`s, you know, what we saw in the DOJ report, which really we confirmed what African-Americans have been describing as their experience for a very long time in this region, was not just the actions of a few individuals. It is a system set in place that really preys upon African-Americans and poor people. And, in fact, what we know here in St. Louis is that Ferguson is not even the worst. That there are many municipalities around Ferguson that are even worse. And so the system that it described where 14 percent of Ferguson revenue comes from ticketing citizens, there`s some municipalities as high as 40 percent. And so, we have to start with Ferguson and it has to start with a few resignations, but those are just the first steps of a very long journey. HARRIS-PERRY: Alderman French, stick with me for a second. I want to come out to my table for a moment. And Michael, I actually want to come to you because I think there`s some structural issues here that appear to be nonracial in their relationship to how city government works, but nonetheless, end up having the enormous racial effects. So, I just wanted to quote Mayor Knowles, who was the mayor of Ferguson, which we now know the city manager actually runs everything, but the mayor of Ferguson says. He said I only make $350 before taxes for being the part-time mayor of Ferguson. You want to hold me accountable for not knowing that some employees were sending racist e-mails? I have no executive authority. I have administrative authority. I have no administrative authority. The charter doesn`t allow me to hire, fire or even give direction to city employees. MICHAEL ERIC DYSON, MSNBC POLITICAL ANALYST: Right. HARRIS-PERRY: So, as I`m reading that I`m thinking about how many Southern states and localities, which have this discourse about we hate taxes, we want small government. DYSON: Right. HARRIS-PERRY: We don`t want these folks to be empowered and then you end up with this situation where in fact the only people who are democratically accountable, the mayor, that`s right, makes around $350 a month, there`s like - I don`t run this place. That unelected guy, the city manager runs this place. (LAUGHTER) DYSON: Right. Exactly right. That`s a great point. And it is nonracial in its intent, but it`s racialized in its consequence. So, the reality is, is that you`ve got all those folks there. The white people of Ferguson are going to be relieved by this as well. Because the truth is that when you relieve the suffering economically of those who are most vulnerable, you also relieve the suffering of those who`ve got a little bit more stake in the system. Martin Luther King Jr. tried to tell his jailer, he said, look, you`re jailing me in Birmingham, but you and I are in the same boat. The people running the stuff over there, they have none of our interests at hand. So, I think that here, Ferguson reveals that, but it does also reveal the fact that personalities do make a difference. Because very few of us have access to power. Very few of us have access to strength and rule, but we do have access to the clerk who will deny us access. And when you do that, those micro-aggressions begin to tell the truth about the power of the system. Never forget, neutrality favors the status quo. And if you`re not in the status quo, you won`t be favored. HARRIS-PERRY: OK, I love that point. Neutrality favors the status quo. Favors those who are in power. Let me come back to you for a moment, Alderman French, and ask you in part about that. Because here is Ferguson, a 70 percent African-American city that`s never had a black mayor. Has only two black councilmen. Both were initially appointed, but an election is coming up. Will this be a status quo election that will favor the status quo, that will, you know, behave in this kind of - neutral way, or is this going to be the first real change election? Will people show up and will they pick different kinds of officials? FRENCH: Well, that`s the question. And I hope that the answer is that people are awakened by what we have seen these last few months, and there`s a change in behavior where people do show up and vote in large numbers and really turn that population majority into a voting majority. There`s an opportunity here to get three new voices on the city council. The city council is who selects the new city manager. And so, it is a powerful body and influential. But African-Americans just being a population majority alone does not turn into actually being represented in city government. So, we have an opportunity in a few weeks to change that. HARRIS-PERRY: And is there a sense of optimism in the city? FRENCH: There is a lot of frustration right now. Frankly, a lot of the changes, even these resignations, people feel should have come a long time ago. They were necessary first steps. But that it took so long to get to those steps, it has really delayed this process of transformation. So, we`re hopeful and we will continue to do the hard work. Our organization Heal-STL has registered several hundred new voters and we will encourage each and every one of them to show up on April 7TH. HARRIS-PERRY: Thank you to Alderman Antonio French in St. Louis, Missouri. When we come back, we`re going to go to exactly those citizens that Michael Eric Dyson was just talking about. The white citizens of Ferguson. What are they experiencing? What is it like to be a white citizen of Ferguson right now? We actually asked MSNBC reporter, Amanda Sakuma to find out in her report, and that`s right after the break. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) HARRIS-PERRY: 67 percent of the population of Ferguson, Missouri is African-American. And in recent months many have sought to understand the experiences and attitudes of those black residents. Far fewer have asked what is happening with the 29 percent of Ferguson who is white? How have the protests, national media attention and DOJ report detailing the city`s pattern and practices of racial inequality changed how they feel about their city. MSNBC reporter Amanda Sakuma is in Ferguson in an effort to find out. Amanda. AMANDA SAKUMA, MSNBC REPORTER: Good morning, Melissa. There`s a great deal of nuance to the climate here in Ferguson that many residents say is being left out of the media reports that focus on the protest. But you think out of those protests has been a sharp curve for many white residents here who are a bit startled to find out that they may not have known their community as well as they thought. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) TANA COFER, FERGUSON RESIDENT: I have seen a lot of things happen, a lot of things changed. SAKUMA: Tana Cofer has lived in Ferguson for the last 50 years. COFER: I have seen the city sort of slide down and then rejuvenate itself. It`s a small town. SAKUMA: Tana now volunteers at the Isle of Ferguson shop, a community public space just steps from where protesters have gathered since the shooting of Michael Brown. Many white residents like Tana say they were not aware of the depth of racial tensions in Ferguson until the unarmed black teen`s shooting by a white police officer. COFER: For a long time I actually was unaware there was so much unhappiness, and I feel very bad about that. I think I should have been -- I thought I was involved and apparently I wasn`t involved enough. SAKUMA: Questions of racial tensions were at the forefront of a city council candidates` forum this week, just after two police officers were shot on the footsteps of the Ferguson police department. SUSAN ANKENBRAND, FERGUSON RESIDENT: Obviously, you can cut the tension with a knife. SAKUMA: An audience of mostly white residents gathered to meet the candidates one month ahead of the upcoming local elections. Many questions were raised over how public officials should mend race relations. ANKENBRAND: It`s just been very hard the last few months to be able to -- to find a way to sit down with each other. And I`m hoping that as time goes on that the tension will dissipate and maybe that will give us a chance to really talk. SAKUMA: Many residents say they are searching for a way to make those conversations happen, but it hasn`t been easy. COFER: You do sit and you talk to your neighbor and you talk to someone else and you get a completely different view of something that you had absolutely no clue about. That, to me, is amazing. SAKUMA: I think it`s fair to say that many of the residents here very earnestly want to see change, but just how to achieve that and on what timeline, I think, has been a real issue for many residents here. HARRIS-PERRY: Amanda, we only heard from a couple of voices there, but are those voices representative - I know you spoke with many other people, pretty good white residents. Are those representative of the other folks that you were hearing from? SAKUMA: You know, I do think so, especially because many were concerned about the media portrayal of how their area that they have lived here for decades has been portrayed. I think this is a very tight knit community in many senses that many white residents have a very tight knit community and I think they want to see Ferguson go to a better place. I think where there is a bit of tension, though, is what to do with the Ferguson police department. One issue that was raised at that candidate forum the other night, was there was some tension over some people wanted to see the police department dissolved, but others were very concerned with the idea of bringing in officers into their city and not really knowing the community. They really like the idea of having officers recognizing people and knowing people by name. And they didn`t know whether or not that is something that can really happen here in Ferguson or really around the country anymore. HARRIS-PERRY: Thank you to MSNBC`s Amanda Sakuma in Ferguson, Missouri. We appreciate your reporting. Still at the table is Michael Eric Dyson, Cristina Beltran and Jonathan Metzl. And Jonathan, I want to go to you on this. Because so much of your research has been around these central questions of how white people in America think about and process questions of race. What did you hear? What was surprising or not to you in that report? JONATHAN METZL, CNTR. FOR MEDICINE, HEALTH AND SOCIETY, VANDERBILT: Well, I thought that that report just illustrated it very nicely. That there really are two kind of layers of whiteness and white discourse going on in Ferguson right now. One that`s probably the most obvious is this sense of the citizens being unaware. Kind of I didn`t know this was happening and how could this have been happening and, you know, just standard kind of theories of racism talk about privilege, white privilege, as the ability to be kind of unaware, you know. People in psychology and psychiatry sometimes talk about racism as an invisibility syndrome. And I think that`s particularly apt here. That you actually don`t see. And so, that`s one level. That`s, I think, the citizens and the kind of everyday practice. Then there`s the whiteness of the police. And I think that, of course, that`s very, very complicated about the relationship to who they are policing, but it was interesting to me to think, for example, about the press conference right after the shooting of the two officers and the St. Louis county police chief kept saying you don`t understand how hard it is to be a police officer right now in Ferguson. And I think that`s true. It probably is incredibly hard to be a police officer right now in Ferguson, particularly white police officer, but I don`t think it`s because of the black protesters. I think he was dead wrong about that. I think, actually, it`s because it`s much harder because of particular policies that have racial implications. I mean in Missouri right now, they have repealed any kind of background checks about handguns. It`s easier to get on a pierce (ph) of bullets. There`ve been terrible sequestration, which has - eviscerated, you know, budgets for police departments. And so, they need to kind of turn these counties into almost debtors` prisons in a certain kind of way. And so, in a way, the tension on white police officers right now is about policies. It`s not about the people that they are policing. HARRIS-PERRY: But then they identify potentially as the people that they are policing. METZL: Exactly. Exactly. HARRIS-PERRY: So, it`s interesting, because part of what happens when you hear, oh, you just don`t understand what it`s like, right? Sort of on both sides. CRISTINA BELTRAN, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, NYU: Yeah. HARRIS-PERRY: You know, presumably, part of the benefit of this DOJ report was that it confirmed from an official authority what black residents of Ferguson had been saying for a long time. I want to listen to President Obama talking a little bit about this last week. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: And one of the things that I think frustrated the people of Ferguson, in addition to the specific case of Michael Brown, was this sense of, you know what, we have been putting up for this for years and now when we start talking about it everybody is pretending like it`s just our imaginations. We`re just paranoid. We`re just making this stuff up. And it turns out they weren`t just making it up. This was happening. (END VIDEO CLIP) HARRIS-PERRY: So, this DOJ report enter then into this difficult conversation by providing a kind of evidentiary basis. BELTRAN: Yeah. HARRIS-PERRY: Here it is, white folks of Ferguson, it is - and of America, it is happening. BELTRAN: This is real. We`re not insane. We are not paranoid. This actually is happening. No, I think that ends up being a really crucial way, in which you can expose something systemic. And the way you can - people who have been experiencing something in a daily way can sort of feel like there`s a validation there. And, you know, I think the other thing that`s really interesting around whiteness is thinking about, this is really a crisis of consciousness for white Americans in Ferguson and other places as well, in really having to think about the anxieties they have, I think, about is it going to be racial justice or racial inversion. Oh, I think there`s a lot of anxiety that`s circulating underneath good intentions. It`s also afraid - there`s a lot of fear of like black anger, right, racial anger. And I think one of the really interesting ... HARRIS-PERRY: And the shooting of the police officers kind of gives that - embodied reality. BELTRAN: It - in this particular way. So, I think that there`s a really interesting conversation to be had here about what does it mean to talk about redistributions of fear, redistributions of anxiety? Different populations that have been able to feel safe in a certain way, because certain other bodies - suffered and the exploited and be heard with impunity, and that redistribution is going to be a harder conversation. HARRIS-PERRY: It`s such a good point. I mean - Dyson and I were looking at each other, when we heard Amanda saying, or, they were saying, they don`t want outsiders policing their community. I was like, welcome. (LAUGHTER) HARRIS-PERRY: Welcome. DYSON: They are worried about stereotypes. HARRIS-PERRY: Yeah, and they worried about this. DYSON: How is this being considered and so on. HARRIS-PERRY: That`s right, how are they being presented by the media again. DYSON: Right. HARRIS-PERRY: Welcome. Up next, I`ll be joined by the man who just might have the answers to repairing police and community relationships. Also later in the program, actor and producer Courtney V. Vance is coming to Nerdland to talk about his star turn on the long chair episode on "Scandal." (COMMERCIAL BREAK) (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) HARRIS-PERRY: The Justice Department`s report on Ferguson is practically a manual of how not to run a police department. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) ERIC HOLDER, U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL: The city relies on the police force to serve, essentially, as a collection agency for the municipal court. As a result of this excessive reliance on ticketing, today the city generates a significant amount of revenue from the enforcement of code provisions. This emphasis on the revenue generation through policing has fostered unconstitutional practices at nearly every level of Ferguson`s law enforcement system. (END VIDEO CLIP) HARRIS-PERRY: Our next guest has done the research on how police should behave in relationship to their communities. Joining me now from Los Angeles is Phillip Atiba Goff, president of the Center for Policing Equity and professor of social psychology at UCLA. His research informed the Department of Justice Ferguson report and the Center for Policing Equity will be closely involved in a new DOJ program to test out community policing models in six cities. So, Phillip, let`s talk about this. What are the six cities and why them? What is it that you can do there that`s so elusive in these other places? PHILLIP ATIBA GOFF, PROFESSOR OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY, UCLA: So, we`re really excited about the initiative because it allows us for the first time, to take all the research that we know has worked to make police departments more fair and put it together in sort of a delicious gumbo of justice. So, we`ve got ... HARRIS-PERRY: Justice gumbo. GOFF: Justice gumbo. Trademarked, heard it here first. (LAUGHTER) GOFF: So, we have got six cities that are sort of representative of cities from around the country. We have got regional diversity. You know, you are seeing at there, Stockton, Minneapolis, Gary, Pittsburgh, Birmingham and Fort Worth. And the goal is, this was a big sort of ask, it was a big lift from DOJ because it wasn`t just justice programs, which is where most of the money would come from. It wasn`t just national institute of justice, it was office of violence against women, it was office of victims of crime, office of juvenile justice, delinquency programs. All of them put in and they said, this is a collaborative effort. We want to see something that can affect all of these different communities and subpopulations and we want all of the best science together. That`s kind of how we are setting it up right now. HARRIS-PERRY: OK, so, there`s a part of me that likes this. This idea of bringing in the academy, bringing social science, bringing the research that you have done on the ground in these communities previously. I want to listen for a moment to something else Attorney General Holder said this week specifically about the Ferguson department. Let`s take a listen. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) HOLDER: We are prepared to use all the power that we have, all the power that we have to ensure that the situation changes there. And that means everything from working with them to coming up with an entirely new structure. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And does that include dismantling the police force? HOLDER: If that`s what`s necessary, we`re prepared to do that. (END VIDEO CLIP) HARRIS-PERRY: So, to go there, to say we`re prepared to dismantle the police force. So, if you got a blank slate, and you could build it from the ground up, how - what would be your recipe for the justice gumbo? GOFF: Right. Well, so, the justice gumbo is about the interventions that we`ve got to make departments better. But to build it from the ground up, I got to say, we have never had to try that before. We have had consent decrees for, you know, 20 plus years, but what we haven`t done is taken a department into receivership and said, you know, what we`re going to just- blow the place up and start over. What we do know that does work, is you have to have an administrator at the top that says I want to change, I need to proactively go at issues of inequality and disparity in the way that my officers treat the community. They have to go ahead and do full review of policy. And then they have to go ahead and get the outside resources. There`s no police department that can police the community by itself. It can`t do it without the help of the community. But it also can`t do it without external checks and balances. So, I think the important thing that`s in this particular investigation and the way it`s written up is the way that says you need better tools to make sure you know that you`re living in parallel and consistent with the values that you`re supposed to espouse. HARRIS-PERRY: So ... GOFF: That, I think, is the key to any Justice Department involvement in any police department, any consent decree, which is not what we write yet, but any consent decree, it gives tools to the people at the top to hold themselves accountable using outside resources. HARRIS-PERRY: OK, so hold for me a second. Because, Jonathan, meanwhile, while we are doing this work in these phases, while there`s a lot of excitement and enthusiasm about it, meanwhile, there are still deaths occurring at the hands of police officers. The one that was just shocking for so many this week was the shooting death of Anthony Hill in Atlanta. And Anthony Hill`s girlfriend telling us that he was being treated by a V.A. doctor for bipolar disorder, but he stopped taking his medication a week or two ago, because he didn`t like the side effects as many will know. This man was unclothed at the time that he was shot by police officer. So the idea that he was hiding a weapon is pretty unlikely. METZL: Well, again, you pointed at this. I mean when just - reefing up what Phillip just said, it`s not like we don`t have models for what an effective police department looks like. Look at white men across America, the police departments. And we have got plenty of police departments that function very well. And I think that there are a lot of models for supportive policing. In terms of the question of mental illness, this shooting in Atlanta was just another example of the automatic assumptions that police officers sometimes make. And it`s a broader problem, obviously. It gets coded a lot of times, as automatic assumptions about mental illness. So, after the shooting, as you know, of a naked unarmed African-American man in Atlanta, the county police officer - department put out a statement saying we need more mental illness training for police officers. But in the research I do, I show how mental illness training for police officers is not enough. It`s not just a question of mental illness stigma. Because mental illness stigma intersects with stigmatization of race. HARRIS-PERRY: Yes. METZL: It`s stigmatization of mental illness is incredibly, incredibly racialized and it has been historically. So, if you really want to train police officers not to have those automatic assumptions, you also have to train them about race and we have seen this not just in Atlanta, but also in Chicago, the Albuquerque police department had a terrible problem with automatic shooting. So, it`s really a very different kind of training about race politics as well as mental illness. HARRIS-PERRY: When we come back, first, let me say thank you to Phillip Atiba Goff in Los Angeles. You know, we`re going to have you in Nerdland a lot talking about how it is going in those six cities who are also enthusiastic to know that you`ll be out there doing this work. When we come back, we`re going to go to one of the voices on the ground who we have been talking to since the Ferguson story began. I want to talk with her, and with Michael Eric Dyson about this framework of healing. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) REV. TRACI BLACKMON, CHRIST THE KING UNITED CHURCH OF CHRIST: We came to remember that we are all connected and until we recognize the humanity in one another, we cannot heal. (END VIDEO CLIP) HARRIS-PERRY: That was Reverend Traci Blackmon of Christ the King United Church of Christ speaking at a vigil Thursday night in Ferguson for the two police officers shot there the night before. Joining me now from St. Louis is Marva Robinson, a licensed clinical psychologist who has been checking in with us from the ground in Ferguson since August. I feel like I ask you this every time, but what is it going to take to heal in Ferguson? It feels like it keeps getting ripped open. MARVA ROBINSON, CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGIST: Well, you know, I think someone spoke earlier about how the tensions have increased and the anxiety that at an all-time high. But I think, it`s though, those tensions and anxiety, which helped to force the dialogue. We need to continue to have these communications. We need to host more training and we need certainly a plethora of culturally competent mental health services to support those that have been hurt by the tragedies that have gone on. HARRIS-PERRY: Dr. Robinson, hold on for me just one second. I want to bring Michael Eric Dyson in on this conversation, because I`m always of two minds here. On the one hand, I want communities to be mentally healthy and whole. DYSON: Right. HARRIS-PERRY: And I care about healing. On the other hand, I worry that a healing framework and discourse moves us away from a justice one. DYSON: Yes. HARRIS-PERRY: So that if the conversation becomes how do we heal, it`s like how do we get black folks to get over ... DYSON: That`s right. HARRIS-PERRY: ... being marginalized as opposed to how do we stop marginalizing people? DYSON: That`s a great point. Martin Luther King Jr. said, charity is great, healing is great, justice is better. When you`re on the Jericho Road, you help the guy the first time. He gets beat up, you help him, the thieves have attacked him. He said, pretty soon you are going to ask, why is it that every time somebody goes out to Jericho Road, they get attacked? That`s a structure. HARRIS-PERRY: Yes. DYSON: So, now we have got to talk about justice. And justice is what love sounds like when it speaks in public. So, all these people who want to talk about love, what is love translated? Healing framework say, you need to calm down. You need to center yourself. You need to breathe. No, allow me to breathe, get your foot off of my neck, get your hand away from my throat and then I can breathe. So, we can achieve a kind of spiritual - This is why Martin Luther King`s Jr. genius is so powerful. He said, unlike Billy Graham, who said we should heal societies by changing the structure - by changing individuals, Martin Luther King`s Jr. said, change the structure of society and individuals can set up the conditions for their own healing. I think that`s important. HARRIS-PERRY: So, I want to come to you on this. I really love the term - run the structure and the individual in part because it`s relevant in this DOJ context. So on the one hand, this DOJ report is an extraordinary report about the structural patterns and practices. On the other hand, it leaves the open wound of what feels like undoubtedly for the Brown family unresolved justice questions about the death of their son. And I`m wondering then about how those things operate for a community that says we`re having people who are moving out, and new people who are moving into these positions, but what about the individual case that in many ways was the spark of all of this? ROBINSON: Absolutely. The sentiment that I`ve gotten here is that while the DOJ report puts on a larger scale what has been happening in Ferguson and surrounding cities for decades, it did not bring forth any real charges or any consequences, which is what everyone was waiting to see. And I do agree with Michael Eric Dyson 100 percent that healing also has to include social justice as well. So, you know, with the association of black psychologists, the type of treatment that we`ve been doing incorporate social justice as well. The two are very much paramount. You can`t talk with someone in therapy or talk about healing without having a conversation about racism and oppression and social justice. So, you know, real healing will include all of those things. And that is exactly what this community is waiting to see. HARRIS-PERRY: Can you hold on for me - just for a second, Cristina? I want to bring you in on this. To the extent that there was again, a harm done in this community, the shooting of those two officers this week. How much do you think that moves back the process of healing or of justice? BELTRAN: I think the good thing that of a horrible set of situations is that because Ferguson has gone on - this is going to - we have actually been focused on a place for a while and thinking about the complexities, we rarely sit with problems of racism and talk about the structural and the individual brainy sustained period of time. So, we`ve been doing that with Ferguson. So, you get the sense that I think the whole kind of commitment to activism there isn`t going to let this one event becoming the completely defining event. But I also think, the other thing about healing that`s interesting, is there`s a relationship sometimes between healing and silence. Right? So, when people protest out of pain, that`s what democratic moment, where they actually get to be heard. And so, sometimes, the discourse of healing feels like a discourse of - like, so, now we`re good again you can stop. So, how do you maintain voice and healing? How do you maintain like an ongoing dialogue that doesn`t have to be about like the newest injury but can be about a long-term conversation? HARRIS-PERRY: And undoubtedly, Marva Robinson, you there in St. Louis, Missouri, and the work that you have been doing in Ferguson and the surrounding areas is about maintaining that voice in the consequence of all that. I`m sure we`ll speak with you again as this process continues. Michael, Cristina and Jonathan are all going to be back in the next hour. But up next, the coolest Legos I have ever seen. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) HARRIS-PERRY: You were clicking around online this week, you may have come face to face with the legal justice league. Lego figures representing the three current and one former women members of the Supreme Court. Now here in Nerdland we thought it was pretty awesome. These versions of Justicies Sonia Sotomayor, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sandra Day O`Connor and Elena Kagan were created by Mya Winestock. She works for the news office in MIT and says she likes to tackle feminist-friendly projects in her free time. And for a minute there, I`d hoped that actually be able to buy these mini- justice maven for my daughters, for example. After all, in August Lego released a set of three women scientists and it was insanely popular. The astronomer, paleontologist and chemist sold out in a matter of days. No such luck this time. According to Winestock, she already floated the idea of past the company and was told no. Apparently Lego has a policy against representing current politics or political symbols in brick form. Never mind you can construct a model of the White House - Abraham Lincoln or that constitutional definition of Supreme Court is apolitical, so yes, Lego`s stated policy, put a damper on that celebration of women`s empowerment. However, a different corporate policy is giving some women reason to cheer. Vodafone announced that by the end of the year, all women working for the global telecommunications giant would be offered a minimum of 16 weeks fully paid maternity leave. That may not be a big deal for employees in Turkey or France, where this is standard practice, but in the United States where companies are not required to grant any paid leave, Vodafone`s policy is welcome news. And it didn`t stop there. The second part of the announcement, and frankly the one that seems truly revolutionary, is that once new mothers return to work they will only be asked to put in 30 hours a week for the first six months. But they will receive full-time pay. What`s behind the change? I would love to say it`s simply compassion or a sense of concern for employees. It actually turns out it just makes good business sense. Vodafone reports that 65 percent of women choosing to leave the company following maternity leave do so within the first year, and it costs more to hire and train someone new than it does to pay for maternity leave and reduced hours. Now, the question is, will other companies see this calculation and overhaul their maternity policies? Here`s hoping. If they don`t, maybe one of these ladies can talk to them about it. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) HARRIS-PERRY: Members of a fraternity at the University of Oklahoma are facing the consequences of their action this week after this video was posted to YouTube showing them participating in a racist chant. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFED PEOPLE: (chanting) (END VIDEO CLIP) HARRIS-PERRY: After the young men in the video were identified as members of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity, the university severed all ties with the organization and expelled two students who led the chant on the bus. University of Oklahoma president David Boren said the decision reflected the school`s zero tolerance policy towards racist behavior and that he hoped it would be a learning opportunity for both those students involved and the campus community. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) DAVID BOREN: At the university especially moments like these should be teaching moments. They should be teaching moments. And as we ended to have set here, I think that we have to really think about how we can do better. (END VIDEO CLIP) HARRIS-PERRY: But doing better in response to this moment isn`t only about teaching racial tolerance to the individual students involved in this incident. It also requires colleges and universities to examine the lessons they are teaching about the value of racial and economic diversity on campus all the time. But what lessons are we teaching students of color and low income students when we preach the value of diversity, even as we steadily dismantle the policy that was designed to cultivate it? And what lesson does it teach their white classmates if we allow discourse that says, those - and diverse students are the beneficiaries of some kind of unearned privilege. 1965 President Lyndon Johnson deployed the language of affirmative action to enforce the policy with his own executive action aimed at correcting the effects of past and present discrimination. Before issuing the order, LBJ laid out his vision of government acting affirmatively to pave the way towards equal opportunity as a moral imperative when he delivered the commencement address at Howard University. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) LYNDON JOHNSON: You do not take a person who for years has been hobbled by chains and liberate him, bringing up to the starting line of a race and then say, you are free to compete with all the others, and still justly believe that you have been completely fair. Thus, it is not enough just to open the gates of opportunity. All our citizens must have the ability to walk through those gates. (END VIDEO CLIP) HARRIS-PERRY: Soon after LBJ issued his executive order, colleges and universities across the country enabled that ability for all Americans when they adopted policies of affirmative action. After just a decade in practice, affirmative action doubled the number of African-American students attending colleges and universities. In 1998, the fruit borne of those policies were documented in "The Shape of the River", a ground breaking study of affirmative action written by the two former Ivy League presidents, William G. Bowen of Princeton University and Derrick Bok from Harvard. Together they found that the legacy of the policy was less about righting past wrongs and instead was much more about creating pathways to a better future. Not only for African-American students, but also for their white classmates. But in the 50 years since affirmative action was enacted, the policy has been steadily eroded in courts, at ballot boxes and in state legislatures, and faces more resistance now than ever before. Today, racial preferences in public universities admissions are banned in eight states, which according to an estimate from the Century Foundation, are collectively home to more than a quarter of all students. In 1978, the question of affirmative action and higher education became a national flash point when it was first taken up by the Supreme Court in Regents of University of California v Bakke. In that case, the court split decision in Bakke ruled racial quotas unconstitutional, but also held that race could be considered as part of the criteria for college admission. University of California schools would become one of the most acute examples of the consequences of dismantling affirmative action in 1996. That year, voters decided to ban the state`s public universities from considering race in admissions and financial aid decisions. While the referendum was branded as a colorblind policy, the result of that vote for African-American, Latino and Native American students applying for admission to UC schools was immediate and profound. Admission rates for freshmen from those three groups declined throughout the UC system, but dropped off most sharply at the most prestigious of California`s public universities, UCLA and UC Berkeley. The year the policy was instituted, African-American, Latino and Native American admissions to Berkeley dropped by more than 50 percent. In 2003, the Supreme Court struck down affirmative action in Michigan`s undergraduate admissions, ruling that it violated the Constitution`s provision for equal protection. Last year, the University of Michigan was again at the center of a case in which the Supreme Court dealt another blow to affirmative action policies across the country. The court`s decision last year followed on the heels of its ruling in 2013 in Fisher v University of Texas. While the justices stopped short of outlawing affirmative action, they raised the bar for using race as part of the admissions program in Texas, and together the court`s decisions over the past two years might finally push public universities to abandon affirmative action in favor of other ways to promote diversity. Meanwhile, efforts to sidestep racial preferences by focusing on socioeconomic diversity have failed. It failed at least in promising students from low-income backgrounds. In 2014, a Pew survey found that barely more than half of low income high school graduates are enrolled in college, compared with 81 percent of their high income counterparts. And according to a report from the Brookings Institute, selective colleges with the endowments to contribute to financial aid have still fallen short of reaching high achieving students who would qualify for admission but can`t afford the cost. So while a video may have exposed the diversity practices of a single fraternity, the systemic dismantling of affirmative action speaks volumes about our country`s failure to commit to diversity in higher education. And that is the race talk discussion that we are going to have here, next. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) HARRIS-PERRY: Welcome back, I`m Melissa Harris-Perry. Yesterday, the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity chapter at the University of Oklahoma hired a high profile attorney after this video showing some of their members participating in a racist chant got the chapter kicked off campus. (VIDEO CLIP) HARRIS-PERRY: After the chapter was closed, the university expelled two of the students that it determined had leadership roles in the incident. And the University of Oklahoma president David Boren had a strong message for the other students who were involved. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) DAVID BOREN, PRESIDENT, UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA: Would I be happy if they left the university as students and were no longer our students? You betcha. I`d be happy. We don`t have any room for racists and bigots at this university. I would be glad if they left. (END VIDEO CLIP) HARRIS-PERRY: The National SAE Organization supports the university`s decision and is moving forward with plans to permanently revoke the membership of all members of the suspended chapter. The organization has also disputed statements from the expelled students that they were taught the song by other members of the fraternity. Attorney Stephen Jones, who previously represented Oklahoma City bomber, Timothy McVeigh, was hired by alumni members who served on the board of the local SAE chapter, which has severed all ties with the national headquarters. Jones said, the university`s decision raises legal questions about First and Fourteenth Amendment rights of the students and that the chapter is not ruling out legal action against the school. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) STEPHEN JONES, ATTORNEY FOR OU FRATERNITY CHAPTER: It was President Boren himself who said who said in a recent case that the University of Oklahoma believes every student deserves a second chance. We certainly think that`s true for the members of the SAE house. (END VIDEO CLIP) HARRIS-PERRY: In response to the video, University of Oklahoma students this week sent a message of their own assembling in a diverse coalition to protest and rally at the SAE frat house. Joining me now is Michael Eric Dyson, MSNBC political analyst and professor at Georgetown University, Cristina Beltran, associate professor of Social and Cultural Analysis at New York University, and Jonathan Metzl, director of the Center for Medicine, Health and Society and professor of Psychiatry at Vanderbilt University, and Monroe France, the assistant vice president for Student Diversity at NYU. So Monroe, I wanted you here in part because, for me, what happens on the SAE bus in the moment is deplorable. But all of us are at universities and I keep thinking, man, our kids are not -- we have a responsibility to these young people and so much of what our universities have taught them is that people of color are not the same. They are to be a little devalued. That they are not like the rest of us, and if we teach that, how else can we expect anything but other outcomes? MONROE FRANCE, ASST. VP FOR STUDENT DIVERSITY, NYU: That`s why I really believe that we have to go beyond zero tolerance policy and sort of really think about holistically what are we doing as an institution to make certain that our black, Latino students, our under represented students of color, LGBT communities, our disabled communities are humanized. That the white students know that these students matter as well and that they have an understanding of that these students have a right to be on campus. Their lives matter too. Black lives matter. So I think not just zero tolerance policy, but what`s our accountability as an institution to ensure that these students get educated as well. HARRIS-PERRY: That zero tolerance policy made my ears go up. OK, but when you say there are no room for racist actions at a university, I`m like are you serious? What do you think that racism is? So it just felt like in this moment that racism equals public utterances of the "n" word. I wonder whether or not they hire staff in a way that is the kinds of labor policies that we see of staff. What have these students been taught about staff of color? BELTRAN: It`s amazing, right. It becomes really about the evil intent versus impact, structural inequality, ongoing dynamics on campus and I also think we need to really think hard about this language of educating them because here`s the thing. This drives me crazy. These students on the bus, I think it`s like they pooped themselves. But the labor that`s supposed to happen at that point is people of color, students of color are supposed to drop everything we`re doing and go get the wipes and deal with this. I think it`s really important that universities are places of intellectual life. We have to become multicultural ambassadors and students of color, you know how much time it`s taking from them to write their papers, to do the research. There`s a loss of intellectual time to do this kind of multi-cultural labor so I really I think we need to rethink some of the logics here and really - - I want them to wear white arm bands and like black lives matter study groups. HARRIS-PERRY: I want them to have a (inaudible), Cristina -- BELTRAN: I want them to say to white students, you need to talk and figure out your stuff. We`re here, but we`re not going to let you drag us into your drama. This is the drama of white supremacy. Think about it. Work it out. Let us do our work too. HARRIS-PERRY: But the point there, I want them to have study groups. Maybe expulsion is right. I`m not a fan of expulsion because what happens when you kick someone out of your space, now you lose an opportunity to be engaged in that space. That said, if they are going to stay, could we get a syllabus, can we get, some reading, it`s a university. Let`s engage. We don`t do much. We read books. We talk about things and try to intervene ideas. DYSON: You`re making a great point. On the one hand, he`s saying zero tolerance for that racist bigotry. It doesn`t mean that they don`t have a second act. It means if he doesn`t do this first act, there`s no reaction and then we have this conversation. But secondly, you`re absolutely right. You know, when you teach classes here, we are challenging the implicit bias and the white supremacists unconscious that has collectively shaped the mindsets of our students. So when we stand there embodied as people of color, we are repudiating the logic of our inhumanity. But secondly when we begin to speak and challenge some of the prevailing ideas then white students get discombobulated. I see it. They get discombobulated and I create tension in my classroom to create an atmosphere where all white students and black and brown and red students, and gay and lesbians and so on, can feel a safe space but also to be challenged in that space and that what`s we do. What we do now, we scapegoat these white students as opposed to -- our systemic perpetuation of the legacy of inequality. HARRIS-PERRY: I mean, so how easy is it to take these students and say, there is American racism rather than to say that when we got rid of affirmative action at University of Michigan, black enrolment went down by 30 percent. So if the state courts show up and reduce -- say look, all these people of color who are here aren`t qualified to be here, we don`t want them here. Students appear on a homogeneous campus with mostly rich folks, with mostly people of the same racial category and then racially bizarre things come out of their mouth. This is not a surprising outcome to these policies. METZL: It`s remarkable that Michael`s point is right on. It`s amazing how quickly we mobilize around explicit racism. And the thing is the people who say that stuff, it`s not really that acceptable to say that kind of stuff. We are very good at mobilizing that. That pushes people into implicit racism. We actually do the opposite. We don`t mobilize able implicit racism. I also think that the point about affirmative active is incredibly well taken. I think you`re right that it`s not just about the diversity of the student body. Even in Oklahoma after the affirmative action ban they changed the racial makeup of the staff. People graduate from those schools and get jobs so there are fewer physicians of color, fewer people working in Oklahoma. So actually an affirmative action ban in a college changes the entire community and the employment of the entire community. So the whole community -- DYSON: It hurts the white community. The lack of affirmative action hurts white people because they were already ways in which you play difference. Let me see, you`re from Nebraska and you play the violin. We need you in our college. Colleges and universities have often determined access and admission predicated upon difference. The racial difference or gender difference or sexual difference is one among many. HARRIS-PERRY: It`s one among them that has particular historical resonance. So much more to say on this topic and still to come this hour, actor and producer, Courtney Vance on that lawn chair episode of scandal that everybody is talking about. But when we come back, I`m bringing in a University of Oklahoma student right into this discussion. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) HARRIS-PERRY: If you have been following the fallout from the University of Oklahoma racist fraternity chant video, you may have seen images like this one, of students or faculty wearing tape over their mouth with the word "unheard" written across it. This silent protest is intended represented the way that the needs of African-American students on OU`s campus are met. The genesis of this protest predates the release of the now infamous video. In the wake of the Michael Brown shooting, a group of students got together to talk about how to make black lives matter on their campus and created demands for the OU administration. The Unheard Organization was one of the first to receive and immediately disseminate the SAE fraternity video. Aubriana Busby is one of the group`s founding members and she joins me now from the OU campus in Norman, Oklahoma. It`s so nice to have you. Can you talk to me a little about why you started Unheard, what it represents? AUBRIANA BUSBY, STUDENT, UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA: Unheard really represents just we wanted -- we understood what was going on in Ferguson, Missouri, but we understood that could have been Norman, Oklahoma. We understood that there are things that were on our campus at the University of Oklahoma that we could make better for not only African-American students, but other students as well. Those are some of the things we`re pushing for in our formal letter to the university. HARRIS-PERRY: Aubriana, tell me maybe the top two things or top three that are in that demands that you presented to OU. BUSBY: Black representation and executive hierarchy and retention rates are some of our biggest grievances that we ask for. HARRIS-PERRY: Stick with us, Aubriana, because I want to bring Monroe France here. You`re an AVP around these questions and you heard the very first thing that the students are suggesting is representation in higher administration. What difference does that make? FRANCE: I think it makes a huge difference. First, I want to commend the students for their activism and also say that it`s not their responsibility. The institution has to make these decisions and strides and not wait for students to say we need these things. We need to have representation. We need to have inclusion. We need to have these classes and have senior leadership. I think it makes a huge difference for all students. I was just in China meeting with our students at NYU Shanghai and the difference it made for me being in this role as a black man in China are students to see me and know someone that is working on these issues. Chinese students, students from other races and nationalities and backgrounds, who are so excited to spend time and to talk about these issues that otherwise may go unheard if we don`t have people in these roles doing this work. But along with that, not only people doing this work, but many different disciplines. It can`t just be people of color work on race and diversity issues. You have to be across the board so students know and also the institution knows that we can represent our all types of disciplines. HARRIS-PERRY: In fact, Aubriana, let me come to you on that, in the wake of this video, have you experienced a different level of solidarity with students who are -- who maybe before when you were launching the Unheard campaign, maybe didn`t hear what you were saying or weren`t standing with you. Has this video changed who your constituency is, who is supporting you? BUSBY: Yes, ma`am, it has changed. In the beginning there were some faculty that stated they didn`t necessarily know that racism had occurred on campus or black students and other students from other minority groups that they didn`t know they experienced some of these racisms. But now that it`s in everyone`s face and the video has been shown, people are more understanding. So a lot of people are binding together and trying to support one another in this time. HARRIS-PERRY: You made me smile when you called me ma`am. Stick with us. Don`t go anywhere. She`s a good southern girl. Interestingly enough, I`m thinking we know the rules of discourse. We know how it is that one demonstrates respect on a campus. We also know that young people make young people mistakes and part of what a university is meant to do is to be laboratory for democracy. I guess my angst is in a democracy, you`re going to be with people who are going to say mean things about you and disagree. What I love where there`s already a social movement at OU to respond. There`s a part of me that want to let the laboratory play out. DYSON: You have to have the ugliness of the experiment in order to enjoy the fruits of the process. And in this case, it is ugly because these white guys saying the stuff we said and saying we`re shocked. We put it all on their backs. Not on the liberal professor who is are silent in the face of white supremacy. Not only on those of us who are complicit in the process by refusing to speak up so that our systems which perpetuate a legacy of inequality are not held accountable. So we`d rather hold those 19-year-old boys accountable than hold our institution which is 119 years old, 120 years old, 200 years old accountable. And so we end up scapegoating them and we refuse to look in the mirror of our own self-reflection. If you can`t do it in the classroom, where else can you do it? HARRIS-PERRY: When you have tenure, there`s no other place that should be capable of revealing our own frailties and weaknesses and insufficiencies in part so it`s a learning experience for our students. Aubriana Busby in Norman, Oklahoma, I appreciate your courage in the face of both the pre-existing structural issues that you were talking about. I also see you as such a model of my own students at Wake Forest University who have been active at campuses across the country. You all just keep it up, OK. Up next, millennials, race and the data we didn`t see coming. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) HARRIS-PERRY: The scenes of large crowds gathering at the University of Oklahoma campuses to protest the SAE fraternity were a heartening contrast to the representations of OU students that we had seen in the now infamous racist chant video. That kind of overwhelming response to acts of over racism fits with our general understanding of how younger generations understand race and racism. News organizations have provided plenty of polling that show on issues ranging from interracial marriage to receptiveness, to immigration. The so-called millennials are more tolerant than their predecessors. The truth is more complicated than that and these facts and figures appear to show that. It`s pointed out in the "Politico" magazine when it comes to support for programs aimed at furthering racial equality like affirmative action or government aid programs. Millennials aren`t as progressive as we think. Among white millenials, the support for these programs is not much different than their parent`s generation. Black millenials maybe even more conservative than previous generations in their support for proactive policy change. All this means that while millennials have an easier time looking at the chanting fraternity video and denouncing it as racist, they are also not necessarily more cognizant of the deeper structural context in which that behavior is occurring. And so I guess, Jonathan, for me the question is so whose fault is that? METZL: Well, you know, I was -- let me answer that. FRANCE: You`re the white man. You tell us about it. METZL: In that case, I`m going to take the millennials will save us line. That piece was terrific. I wish the millennials would save us. The millennials are only going to save us on dating web sites because it seems like they are more. Progressive about who date, but in terms of a much bigger economic phenomenon, which is that millenials are growing up in an era where there`s a tremendous amount of economic imbalance. It pushes racial differences significantly. It`s also important they are growing up in an era where there`s less trust in the structures that created equity. If you look in the 1960s, the polls were unbelievable. Trusting government was almost 80 percent in the 1960s. People believed in the institutions that made society more equitable, but voting rights, other kinds of economic initiatives. Trusting government is about 20 or 30 percent. To me, it seemed crazy that we were going to ask them to ask a world that is the opposite. DYSON: It rearticulates the personal resolution. There`s a disparity between anatomical and structural. Just because you like a big black behind doesn`t mean you`re behind blacks in a big way. BELTRAN: It speaks to an interesting and important moment we live in now which is that there`s enhanced racial presence, but not enhanced racial justice. We have more diversity and this table embodies that. But what there isn`t, is you know, ongoing real efforts or there`s enormous structural inequality that gets masked by enhanced diversity. The students feel like they live in this diverse space and they don`t want to think about the prison industrial complex. HARRIS-PERRY: But I think it depends on which millennials are which because I want -- what we talked about at 10:00, that wasn`t because Eric Holder was like I think we`ll go to Ferguson and figure out how to fix it. It`s because millennials were like, excuse me, this is what it looks like. They are changing what the world is. DYSON: Race makes a difference. Even though some of those younger black people are conservative, black people who are young came up with black lives matter. They are the ones who recapitulated the logic of an earlier generation. I think they are pushing us and pulling us. This is the only thing I disagree about education. It`s my responsibility as a black professor, there`s extra stuff I do they don`t pay for me, but it`s on my vocation. Black students I said, yes, it`s unfair. But it is real. Martin Luther King Jr. didn`t get paid for that either. You have to take up the cross of educating. If you don`t educate them, somebody else will mis-educate them. As a result of that, they are going to be misinformed. FRANCE: What`s the accountability of older generation to pass on to younger people that racism still exists. It might look different. You`re not going to hear the "n" word. HARRIS-PERRY: Me and the millennials, good night, but it`s not like they don`t get -- it`s the millennials after all who are saying I, too, am Harvard. I came up at the one golden little moment when there were affirmative action policies, active effort to make sure we were diversified. We were fighting, but these young people on campus and in the streets have been like, let me explain to you, I`m not happy here. This is not enough. FRANCE: Some young people. Not all of our young people. HARRIS-PERRY: It`s never everybody. Despite the fact that in Selma everyone claimed that all of them were there, it`s never everybody. BELTRAN: It`s always a community of activists at the van guard of the moment. The kids who invented, those are the vocabularies that activists are creating. We do not know what they are going to create and that`s exciting. HARRIS-PERRY: Let me say this. For me when I think about the value of college, college should make you encounter hard things, if you made it through college and only happy and excited, your college failed you. If you had things that were hard and had to work through them, that was the preferable experience especially if you spend a lot of money on it. Michael is sticking around. I want to say thank you to Cristina Beltran, Jonathan Metzl, and Monroe France. Up next, the blurred lines between creativity and procreation. (COMMERCIAL BREAK) THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED. END