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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown
Race Relations Today: Looking at American in Black and White
Aired April 30, 2002 - 21:59 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
AARON BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening again. I'm Aaron Brown. Tonight we have a special program, we've taken to calling "Black and White in America," an intriguing name because if there's any issue that inhabits a vast gray zone, it is race. Indeed "Black and White" is not a very smart way to look at race, because the country itself is far more colorful than black and white. Still, that's the name.
There's a young black woman who writes us now and again, and she sent along a note the other night when I said at the end of a program that we were going to take a stab at this program tonight, and here is a bit of what she wrote:
"The short answer to are race relations betters," she said, "is no." "We are as ignorant, isolated and segregated as ever. Our so- called leaders busy themselves, not with issues that are important to the black race, but with trying to get a token on 'Friends,'" the TV show.
And she closed the note this way: "We don't know each other. We don't look at each other. We don't talk to each other and we don't like each other. Our kids grow up in segregated environments, so we can't be too optimistic about them. Maybe things are different in your world," she said, "but that's how it is in mine. The only relief is the passage of time and the possible enlightenment of our species, but it won't happen in my lifetime."
Well, maybe so. Here, though, are a few things I know are true. We're not trying to solve anything tonight. We will try to understand some things and that's good and that's enough. We're going to talk more on the program than we usually do.
We have a number of really interesting guests, but one thing we set out to do was stay away from the usual and the obvious, in part because we always hear from the same people, and in part because maybe the same people aren't the only ones with something to say. We aren't looking for a Nobel Prize tonight or an Emmy, just an interesting night with interesting people on one of the most confounding subjects in American life. That's it.
Now there is some news of day to report and that's where we always begin. We'll start with the whip, beginning with Mike Hanna and the latest on the standoff in Bethlehem. Mike, please a headline.
MIKE HANNA, CNN JERUSALEM BUREAU CHIEF: A rare occasion on which negotiations produced successful results, a group of Palestinians leave the compound of the Church of the Nativity but the standoff around one of Christianity's holiest places continues -- Aaron.
BROWN: Thank you. Progress in Bethlehem perhaps, the stalemate continues in the effort to figure out what happened in the refugee camp at Jenin. Richard Roth at the United Nations tonight, Richard a headline from you please.
RICHARD ROTH, CNN U.N. CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, Geneva, Switzerland is a nice city, but 20 U.N. fact finders there can't get to the scene of the crime or whatever took place in Jenin. They may never get the chance -- Aaron.
BROWN: Richard, thank you. And the money trail in the war on terrorism led to an arrest today in Illinois. Kelli Arena following that for us, so Kelli a headline.
KELLI ARENA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The government says the director of one of the nation's largest Islamic charities has been funneling money to terrorist groups, and had a relationship with Osama bin Laden. Tonight he's being held without bail, charged with lying about terrorist ties -- Aaron.
BROWN: Kelli, thank you, back with all of you shortly. A quick look at the voices you'll be hearing from tonight in "Black And White In America."
In no particular order, actress Anna Deveare Smith from "West Wing" who's also an author among many other things, wrote "Twilight Los Angeles" about the riots there. Reverend Eugene Rivers, who works to end youth violence in Boston. Omar Wasow, the entrepreneur behind blackplanet.com, started in technology 20 years ago. He was 11.
Heather Mac Donald from the Manhattan Institute on why the wrong voices are being heard in the Black community, along with syndicated columnist Deroy Murdock and one mayor who knows something about racial tension and violence and is trying to deal with both, Charlie Luken the Mayor of Cincinnati. Riots hit his city just about a year ago. All of them joining us tonight and we'll get to them shortly.
We begin with the latest developments in the Middle East on a couple of fronts. Israeli forces say they have pulled out of Hebron in the West Bank after arresting more than 150 Palestinians accused of terrorism. Hebron has been pretty much untouched in the Israeli action, until this weekend's shooting attack on a settlement in Israel.
In Ramallah today, Israeli troops continued to surround Yasser Arafat's compound, but U.S. and British officials are still working on a deal to end that siege.
And in Bethlehem, a major break in the standoff that has been so emotionally charged at the Church of the Nativity. Once again, heres CNN's Mike Hanna.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) HANNA (voice over): They came out one by one, escorted through a no man's land by monks and priests who live in the Church of the Nativity compound. Israeli soldiers examined the identity papers of each, and then a walk across Manger Square to a waiting bus. Some clearly delighted that their one-month ordeal holed up in the compound was over.
One of the Palestinians who came out of the church was immediately rushed to hospital, his condition not disclosed, and only after a thorough search to insure he was not carrying explosives or weapons.
The Israeli security around Manger Square intensified through the evacuation. These troops positioned under a painting depicting the birth of Jesus that Christians believe occurred where the Church of the Nativity now stands. On the Israeli side the belief that the day's events are evidence of progress in peacefully resolving the crisis.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We can assume that you hope that this release will be used as an example by the Palestinian side for further negotiations.
HANNA: And a cheerful wave from the Palestinian negotiators who secured safe passage for this group.
HANNA (on camera): An estimated 120 people still remain inside the Church of the Nativity and this crisis, the standoff continues.
HANNA (voice over): At the heart of the negotiations still to come, the fate of the more than 20 Palestinians holed up in the compound who Israel accuses of carrying out attacks on Israeli civilians. But more than 20 Palestinians on their way to an undisclosed venue for questioning and afterwards, says Israel, those not on its wanted list will be allowed to finally return home.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HANNA (on camera): It will be dawn within the hour and a new day is likely to bring forth new negotiations, but each phase of these talks is going to get more and more difficult with successes, with the release of some in the church because that will get closer to that core issue, the very heart of the standoff, the fate of the more than 20 people in the church that Israel describes as dangerous, wanted terrorists -- Aaron.
BROWN: Mike just quickly, can you tell us anything about the makeup of the negotiating teams, who's representing the two sides?
HANNA: Yes, the Israeli negotiating team for the most part won't be identified. There is a military participant in there. There are psychologists, there are representatives of Israel's internal security services.
On the Palestinian side, there is the Mayor of Bethlehem who has been deeply involved in these negotiations. There are in-betweens who have added their weight to their influence on those within the church. The teams have been fairly established.
They haven't been chopped and chained throughout the process, and we hear from both sides that there has been a great degree of rapport struck between the two teams, which has led to that one little success that we saw in the course of the day -- Aaron.
BROWN: A place to start, Mike, thanks, Mike Hanna in Bethlehem tonight. It's now ten days since we reported what sounded like progress in the Middle East, Israel agreeing to allow a U.N. fact finding mission into the Jenin Refugee Camp.
Then we reported that Israel had asked for a delay of, it was thought, a day or two. Then we reported that details seem still to be worked out, and then we reported and on it goes. Tonight's report may be the last for a while though it seems. CNN's Senior U.N. Correspondent Richard Roth is where we almost always find him.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ROTH (voice over): The U.N. mission to Jenin may be aborted before takeoff. U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan told the Security Council he is leaning heavily towards disbanding the mission, after Israel rejected the latest proposal.
KOFI ANNAN, U.N. SECRETARY GENERAL: In these circumstances, I can not keep these gentlemen and women sitting in Geneva and we will have to draw the consequences and take action.
ROTH: But after four postponements, meetings, telephone calls and letters, Israel still question the fairness of the probe. At first, Israel agreed to a U.N. representative saying it had nothing to hide. Then every day the list of Israeli grievances with the team grew. Of prime concern, its soldiers might face questioning or prosecution.
SHIMON PERES, ISRAELI FOREIGN MINISTER: We don't want that every soldier will move with their lawyer. No army -- I spoke with some American generals. They would never agree that the committee will (inaudible) about it. It never happened.
ROTH: Jenin is the latest bump in a lengthy acrimonious history between Israel and the United Nations. Secretary General Annan said he is very aware of Israel's anxieties and concerns. But many U.N. countries feel Israel is making a mockery of the U.N. system.
ABDUL AHOUD GNERT, EGYPTIAN AMBASSADOR TO THE U.N.: The Israelis are playing games. They are procrastinating.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ROTH (on camera): It was his idea but Kofi Annan now needs the help and guidance of the U.N. Security Council. Annan says it could be 12 to 24 hours before he decides. Hes looking for countries, such as the United States, to help unblock this impasse -- Aaron.
BROWN: And the United States is saying what, Richard? ROTH: Publicly they're saying they still think this fact-finding team should go there. They probably are putting some pressure on Israel to accept the terms of the deal, but Israel still says we need better assurances despite the public talk, we need more in writing. It just goes on.
BROWN: Richard, thank you, Richard Roth tonight. One more item here, its website says Benevolence International Foundation is a humanitarian organization dedicated to helping those affected by crisis, and there was reason to believe the BIF was doing just that. But what interested the Justice Department, interested Justice enough so that Federal agents made an arrest today, was what else the charity or at least its executive director may have been doing, what else and for whom? Here's CNN's Kelli Arena.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ARENA (voice over): The executive director of this charitable organization is accused of aiding an international terrorist and the government says he's had a long-standing friendship with Osama bin Laden.
The Illinois based Benevolence International Foundation or BIF is one of the biggest Muslin charities in the United States. Inam Arnout (ph) a 39-year-old naturalized citizen born in Syria and his organization stand accused of falsely denying terrorist ties.
JOHN ASHCROFT, ATTORNEY GENERAL: That executive director, a Mr. Arnout has ties to bin Laden, including being trusted with the care of one of bin Laden's wives in Pakistan in 1989.
ARENA: In an affidavit, the government says it has pictures and letters to prove Arnout's relationship with bin Laden found in a raid in Bosnia. The government alleges: "BIF is an organization that al Qaeda has used for logistical support, including the movement of money to fund its operations." Arnout allegedly has ties to other al Qaeda operatives as well, including Mamdu Salim (ph) who's already in U.S. custody. Salim is charged with trying to obtain nuclear and chemical weapons for al Qaeda.
PATRICK FITZGERLAD, U.S. ATTORNEY: This is a prosecution against fraud and perjury. It is not aimed against charities and is certainly not aimed against the Muslim community.
ARENA: Arnout says the government wants to destroy his foundation, a foundation that says it does legitimate charity work in countries such as Pakistan, Bosnia, and Afghanistan.
MATTHEW PIERS, FOUNDATION ATTORNEY: This is yet another example, in my opinion of the government having very little to show for the massive effort they've put into the war on terrorism and therefore exacting a punishment on somebody by imprisoning them pending charges of a relatively minor nature.
(END VIDEOTAPE) ARENA (on camera): The government says that Benevolence International Foundation has done some legitimate work and officials stress that donors to the organization are not suspect, but victims -- Aaron.
BROWN: Kelli, thank you, Kelli Arena at the Justice Department, who covers the Justice Department for us, thank you. A quick look at the news of the day, now on to race, the first race story I latched onto as a kid was about race.
It was the '60s. Young men and women, many of then White, were going to the south to help register voters. I was 13 and I wanted to go. The questions, it seemed to me, were somewhat simpler then. It was wrong that Blacks could not vote, wrong that they couldn't sit at the lunch counter, wrong that they were set upon by police dogs and water canons.
Today, race is more complicated. We ought to talk more about race more than we do and we will talk about it tonight, but we thought we'd start by doing something we don't do enough of. We thought wed start by listening.
In Harlem and elsewhere, we asked the question, are things better now, better for you than they used to be? Some of the people who answered that question, as you will see throughout the program, you may recognize, but many perhaps most of you won't and that's the point. Listening is the point.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: When I walk (inaudible) they don't treat me, you know, like you know I don't mind it. She can't afford the stuff in the store. You know they treat me equal to them. Hi, can I help you, you know. Do you need assistance, and stuff like that.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Just last summer when I was just walking down the street all by myself. I'm from Atlanta, Georgia, and some men in a pickup truck was riding by slowly and before I was going to cross but then I stepped back and then one of them threw a cup of juice on me, and I think that's racial profiling. I mean that's no reason for nobody to throw something at somebody.
BROWN (voice over): For African-Americans in this country, whether it's been ten years since the riots in Los Angeles or ten minutes since the latest small evil of prejudice, race is a constant shadow.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When we go to stores or whatever, you know what I'm saying, like downtown, whatever, you know what I'm saying, we're still looked at like if we are about to steal something or whatever like that, like we're thieves or whatever, know what I'm saying, you know. Other than that, I don't think it's like changed much.
CHRIS TUCKER, ACTOR: I try not to let racism affect my life, and I try to you know keep straight on the path that I want to go in my life, and you know don't let nothing stop me and go wherever I please.
BROWN: Your view of the world, of course, depends on where you're standing.
AL SHARPTON, ACTIVIST: It limits our possibilities. It limits what we can tell our children they can expect. It makes us shudder when we hear a friend is facing everything from health to criminal justice to a woman having a child, where the birth rate, infant mortality rate is double in our community.
HENRY ARROYO, OWNER, HAIR-DO SALON: Have we changed? Has it gotten better? Sometimes, somewhat, depending on what we talk about, depending on what issue.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN (on camera): Depending on what issues indeed, and the first one we'll look at tonight by the numbers as objectively as possible is family. NEWSNIGHT's Beth Nissen has been putting together the snapshots for a while. We'll look at criminal justice, poverty, education coming up. But as they say, family comes first.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BETH NISSIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Blacks are less likely to marry than Whites. Thirty-five percent of all Americans between the ages of 24 and 34 have never married, 53 percent of Blacks in that age group have never married. Black women are more likely to have children and have them at a younger age than are White women.
Look at teenagers between the ages of 15 and 19, 32 babies born per thousand White women, 82 babies born per thousand Black women, and more than three times as many Black babies are born out of wedlock as White babies. In the year 2000, 22 percent of White babies were born to unmarried mothers, 69 percent of Black babies were.
Many of those African-American children will grow up with only one parent, while 69 percent of all children in the United States are living in two-parent families, only 38 percent of Black children are in two-parent homes, and 45 percent of the children in public foster care are African-American, as are more than half of all children waiting to be adopted.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ALEXIS HERMAN, FORMER SECRETARY OF LABOR: The fact that I'm an African-American woman. It's a part of me. It's who I am, and what you have to do is to always move beyond the barriers that are there and continue to push forward and to whom much is given, much is expected. So for me, in one way it's a burden, but it's also a gift to know that you have to do the work to remove those barriers so that others can also enter. (END VIDEOTAPE)
BROWN: On we go. To say we have a full house here in New York is to understate things. We're stretching the limits pretty much.
Let me introduce you to the folks who are here and everyone but one is, in fact, here. Deroy Murdock, syndicated columnist is with us, entrepreneur behind blackplanet.com, Omar Wasow, Anna Deveare Smith, teacher, playwright, actress, lots of things, and she's joining us as well. From the Manhattan Institute,
Heather MacDonald is with us. Reverend Eugene Rivers works with young people in Boston, yet there are other things going on in Boston today. And from Cincinnati tonight, Mayor Charlie Luken joins us as well. It's good to have all of you here.
We went to break talking about family. Let's start talking about family. Is there any issue that troubles you more in this whole conversation than the state of the Black family?
DEROY MURDOCK, SYNDICATED COLUMNIST: The fact that about 70 percent of Black children are born out of wedlock is a crisis. It's a very, very serious situation, and what I really I think one of the big points I'd like to make is that so many of the so-called Black leadership, rather than focusing on serious issues like that, serious issues like education, get wrapped up in what I think are side show issues, like how many Black people appear on sitcoms or is the Confederate flag flying over the South Carolina State Capitol?
If you were to bring that flag down tomorrow, you'd still have 70 percent of the Black kids being born out of wedlock, and I really wish the so-called Black leadership would focus on those very, very serious issues rather than interesting, entertaining side shows, which is really what they focus on unfortunately.
BROWN: As we go on tonight, I want to come back to this question of Black leadership. It's interesting to me in reading the conversations we had earlier with all of you actually, this question of Black leadership and whether they are on to the right issues or not keeps coming up. So let me come back to that.
Reverend, this is your department in a sense, the state of the family. Has the church failed here?
REVEREND EUGENE RIVERS, TEN POINT COALITION: Much of the Black church has, too much of the Black church has failed to address some of the major cultural issues, which are related to the macroeconomic issues that affect the Black family.
On the other hand, let me say this, the Black church is now the only institution -- the faith based communities within the Black community, are the only institutions now that have a geographic proximity to where the problems are the severest, and at the end of the day, it will be the faith based communities on the ground that work among the poor that are going to make a difference. In terms of looking at how we reconstruct family, we constitute a conception of fatherhood because part of the crisis to which we refer is that the notion of fatherhood, responsible parenting on the parts of Black men, has not been part of the political discussion because it was politically incorrect to suggest that Black men should be fathers, that there should be these kinds of families and that they should play a greater role in shaping the development of girls and boys.
BROWN: It was politically incorrect, really?
RIVERS: Oh no, I mean you know in a number of interesting kind of ideological circles, to argue that Black fatherhood was an issue around which we should organize our energies internally was viewed as ideological heresy. I went to Harvard College.
BROWN: Yes.
RIVERS: Twenty years ago, if you got up in class and said, "look, fatherhood is important within the context of the Black community," you were a sexist. You were probably biologically defective of the function of being a male, and the notion that fatherhood itself was central.
In fact, I had a debate once where I took a group of Radcliff Black women all from upper middle class families into the hood to talk with Sheniqua (ph) and Crystal and Shinanai (ph) and it was remarkable the conversation we had, because on the one hand, these young women from Radcliff were overthrowing patriarchy, being underwritten by their fathers whose credit cards they use at the Harvard School. And the Shinanai and Crystal were saying, I wish I had a father to overthrow, because I haven't seen one for three generations.
So one of the major issues for the Black community revolves philosophically and politically around how do we re-assert, reestablish the idea of Black men being responsible, fathering and parenting their kids and developing stable families to protect their children?
BROWN: I say this respectfully and generally there's a bit, as I hear that, buck passing here. It does seems to me --
RIVERS: Buck passing?
BROWN: Yes, a little bit that it can't be someone else's fault in a way. It can't be that young feminists created a mindset path.
RIVERS: I didn't say that. No. No.
BROWN: OK, maybe I misunderstood.
RIVERS: Black men feel, no. No. No. No. Black men feel because the political discussion of this young man did not focus on...
BROWN: Did not focus on --
RIVERS: ... on that issue. Oh, no. No. No. No one's passing the buck.
BROWN: At 30 years old, what do you hear in this conversation about young Black men and fatherhood?
OMAR WASOW, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, BLACKPLANET.COM: Well, as -- fatherhood is a scary conversation for a whole lot of generations. I am not engaged and feel the pressure.
BROWN: So you worry about it a lot more now that you used to.
WASOW: Yes. You know, I think it's I guess for me there's a kind of funny way in which we can talk about racism when there's a black victim and a white aggressor, but it's very hard to have a conversation about failures within the black community that may have, that may be in part a function of racism that, you know, has historical roots, but which is no smoking gun today.
And this is one of those conversations where without having somebody to blame, we're at a loss to sort of figure out how to talk about it and that for me is part of the failure of the black community as Deroy talked about to be able to engage its own crisis.
BROWN: Anna.
ANNA DEVEARE SMITH, ACTRESS/PLAYWRIGHT: Well, I wonder if the community is given agency to do so. I don't know about that. I don't know. I think it's curious who asks to speak, who's not asked to speak. So before coming to that conclusion, I'd want to know who's creating the conversation and who's there. I mean we can have some people from the community on this show right now. So I don't know about that, Omar.
HEATHER MACDONALD, FELLOW, THE MANHATTAN INSTITUTE: I totally agree with Anna. I think that's precisely the problem. I went to Cincinnati right after Last year's riots, that Mayor Luken I'm sure will talk to us about, and the discourse about the riots had been immediately commandeered by a very radical race politician, Reverend Damon Lynch (ph) who was given authority, both by the city leadership and by the media, because the media goes always to the angriest black male voice, because they're looking for the story and they're committed to the notion of a perpetual white racism.
So we had "The New York Times," we had the "LA Times," we had the networks, we had CNN going to Cincinnati listening to Lynch. I went to Cincinnati and I find a treasure trove of extraordinary Black men who were committed to individual responsibility, to the police, to law and order, and to the notion that everybody has the responsibility to go to school and get educated.
Nobody goes to them and there's a whole range of values in the Black community that the media is not interested in hearing, and I think this is absolutely right. We have to open up the debate.
We heard Al Sharpton tonight. It was ludicrous. Of course, you felt you had to go to Sharpton. I wish you'd gone to Tom Jones in Cincinnati, who would have said, you know what, there's opportunity out there. Sharpton tells this -- we tell our kids there's no opportunity out there. This is absurd. If you graduate from high school with a fairly decent GPA you're going to have every college in the country beating down your door to try and get you to come in. You have a 700 times greater possibility of getting into law school.
BROWN: Since you were talking to me, I get to respond at some point. Go ahead.
SMITH: But let's not pass the buck to the media.
BROWN: Thank you.
SMITH: I mean it's also the quality of our conversations every time we have an opportunity to have them, whether it's in the classroom, whether it's when I go to Starbuck's, whether it's when I go to my gym, and I'm in a kind of track that leads me only to pay attention to the people I know of am I interested in coming out of that safe corridor to learn something else? And so, I think we all can take initiative there.
BROWN: Stop. I need some business here. I want to come back to Cincinnati and talk about that. The mayor is here. I think I heard my business discussed there, so we'll talk about who we talked to in Cincinnati, who we didn't, and why. We'll take a break first, and a few more facts as we go to break. We'll be right back.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ERIC HOLDER, FORMER DEPUTY ATTORNEY GENERAL: Racial profiling unfortunately does exist in the United States. I myself have been the victim of racial profiling. I've been stopped on highways. I've been stopped on side streets by a police officer who thought, for whatever reason, I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. It didn't matter that I was a college student, or that I had graduated from law school. I was just a black guy doing something that some police officer thought was inappropriate.
It just happened from my perspective to be doing nothing more than driving a car or walking down a street at night. So yes, racial profiling does exist, and it's something we have to get a handle on because it erodes confidence in our law enforcement system and makes the job of law enforcers ultimately much more difficult.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: African Americans make up 13 percent of the population, but almost 30 percent of all arrests in the U.S. Two point five million blacks are being arrested every year. Of those Americans recently convicted of felonies in state courts, about 55 percent have been white, 44 percent have been black.
Many of them have been convicted on drug charges. Fifty-three percent of those convicted of drug offenses in state courts were black, 46 percent were white. Fifty percent of those convicted of weapons offenses were black, almost equal to the number of whites. And 57 percent of those convicted of murder were black, 42 percent were white.
African Americans now account for nearly 50 percent of the population in state and federal prisons and nearly 40 percent of juveniles in legal custody. Black men are six times more likely than white men to be sent to prison during their lifetimes. At current incarceration rates, more than 20 percent, one in five, of all black males will go to state or federal prison by the time they are 30 -- just over one percent of white males will.
BROWN: OK. Back -- not back to -- we go to Cincinnati next and Cincinnati (UNINTELLIGIBLE) a year ago, almost exactly a year ago Cincinnati was in the midst of a very nasty, very ugly race riot that started after a police shooting of a young black man.
Mayor, the last time I was in Cincinnati and we talked, I -- you said to me, no report this time. We will be measured by our actions. A year later, how has Cincinnati changed, if it needed to change at all?
CHARLIE LUKEN, MAYOR OF CINCINNATI: Well, Aaron, you came to Cincinnati and I told you to come back and look at us a year later and see what you found, and most people who came in to criticize Cincinnati a year ago never came back. But the fact is that Cincinnati, I think, as I told you a year ago has been pretty forthright about acknowledging what the problems are and there are problems, and trying to deal with them in a fair way, and I've heard some of your panelists, some of whom I've read about, but never met, and what strikes me from my vantage point is we have so many people who want to win the debate and so few people who want to solve problems.
And I think from a mayor's perspective, and mayors have called me from all over the country because they frankly live in fear that what happened in Cincinnati is going to happen in their city. From a mayor's perspective, if we can find an opportunity to put in some personal responsibility, we'd do that, if we could make the police department fair, we'd do that, if we could work on economic inclusion, we'd do that. But you know this whole business of trying to fix blame and win the debate, I've found it to be terribly counter productive.
BROWN: Heather, I do believe he was talking about you there.
MACDONALD: I think so, and I'm happy to debate on Mayor Luken. I would say what's happened a year after the riots, they've paid out of $20 million settlements to both the Justice Department and Damon Lynch (ph). I don't think ...
(CROSSTALK)
LUKEN: Heather, Heather ...
(CROSSTALK) MACDONALD: ... it's a helpful development and just about a week ago there was another little mini race riot where a mob pulled white drivers out of cars and attacked them and attacked the police. And I think ...
BROWN: Let the mayor ...
LUKEN: Let me -- let me ...
(CROSSTALK)
BROWN: ... let the mayor jump in too.
MACDONALD: ... completely, unequivocal message that violence is wrong.
LUKEN: Let me ...
BROWN: Thank you. Mayor.
LUKEN: Let me just respond very quickly, Aaron, because I've read Heather's stuff. I've never met her, and I know she's been to Cincinnati, but there was no payout to Damon Lynch (ph) or the Justice Department. In fact, the Justice Department is helping us implement reforms and have put in new computers in the city, and they have a proposal to help us pay for them. Nobody's been paid off, and I keep reading these things about shakedown, and I -- again, I don't think -- first of all it's not true, and as John Adams (ph) said, facts are pretty stubborn things. But I don't know what we're hoping to accomplish here. We seem to be trying to win the debate and not to solve the problem.
MACDONALD: Well, my position would be let's, again, with -- I agree with panelists (ph), let's bring in more voices.
BROWN: OK. Jump in.
(CROSSTALK)
BROWN: I saw you -- you're ready.
MURDOCK: Yes, what I want to say is that in the Cincinnati case, in the Rodney King case 10 years ago and other cases, we have this sort of ongoing narrative of vicious racist white cops beating or shooting or killing innocent black victims and what rarely comes out thanks to the media, who I think are interested in a very simple story and activists who don't want to talk about this is that very often these victims of beatings or shootings, whatever, are either engaged in crimes, have criminal records. The young man who was killed in Cincinnati was running away from the police. They were trying to track him down, had a couple of arrest warrants. The statistic came out that 15 black men had been killed -- had been shot by the cops in the last couple of years -- 13 of them had been using weapons whether it was guns, a brick. Two of them were -- used cars ...
(CROSSTALK) MURDOCK: ... one of them dragged a policeman along and killed him.
(CROSSTALK)
MURDOCK: Most of this didn't (ph) come out.
(CROSSTALK)
BROWN: All of that was reported. No. Wrong.
(CROSSTALK)
BROWN: All of it was reported. I'm not defensive on this. I'm just stating the fact. I reported it.
MURDOCK: All right.
(CROSSTALK)
BROWN: I know it came out.
MURDOCK: It may have gotten out. But the broad story was racist white cops ...
(CROSSTALK)
BROWN: ... what they want to hear.
MURDOCK: But I don't think those other -- those other issues get out ...
(CROSSTALK)
BROWN: Look, media has plenty to be embarrassed about a lot of the time, but it's simply not true that that stuff was not reported.
MURDOCK: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) black activists don't talk about that very much (UNINTELLIGIBLE) much as they should.
(CROSSTALK)
LUKEN: Well Aaron, Aaron ...
BROWN: Yes Charlie ...
LUKEN: Aaron, I just want to point out that we -- I think some of what the last speaker -- and I'm sorry I can't see who that was, said is correct because I do believe that the police department was unfairly maligned in those 15 cases. In most of them, they were returning gunfire or defending themselves from other deadly force. There were a few cases in this city that rightly deserved to be investigated. Indictments were handed down and the officers were acquitted and the Justice Department is continuing to investigate those cases. I don't know why, as Cincinnati or any American city should be defensive about the notion that racial profiling has occurred in this country and if we can fix it, we ought to do that.
I don't know why that is such a difficult idea. I think the point that some people want to make is they're focusing on the wrong problems because the real problems and I agree with this, have to do with crime, violence, unemployment and education in many of our African American communities. But it's not wrong to try to fix that.
BROWN: We're -- thank you. We are not anywhere near close to done on the subject of criminal justice -- we need to take a break first. We'll just keep this part of the conversation going. NEWSNIGHT continues in a moment.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. NANCY PELOSI, (D), CALIFORNIA: I never thought when I was young during the Civil Rights movement that we would look forward all these years to this new century and that we would still have some problems with racism in our society and a tremendous disparities of uncommon (ph) economic opportunity and access to healthcare, which is the real thing that we do today.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Thank you sir and the NEWSNIGHT Special, "Black and White in America" will continue with our guests in just a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: It doesn't surprise me that we got kind of stopped (ph) cold on the question of criminal justice and we got a bit tied up in what has and hasn't happened in Cincinnati and everyone at various points wanted to jump in and so in no particular order, Reverend, you were saying.
RIVERS: There are two issues that have to be focused on so that we move the discussion off the kind of palatal (ph) liberal old school race discussion. On the one hand, the mayor says there is an issue of racial profiling. Now he doesn't say how much of an issue -- he says that's an issue graphic (ph).
Then there's the other issue because I've been in Cincinnati. I've met with the clergy. I've met with community groups. There's the issue of black on black crime. Part of what Omar referred to earlier is that see the way the discussion is played, it's been black versus white, now it's black versus almost everybody. Hence the discussion around how do we reduce the number of black males that kill other black males.
And then the issue of agency is interesting because I don't think, and I -- you know I could be wrong on this, but it's an issue of being given agency. The black community has to develop a new debate with a new conceptual framework that moves beyond sort of the victim's sweepstakes gain, which has been what we traded in because it's a lucrative enterprise and deal with policy and outcomes driven discussions around how we measurably produce outcomes and reduce crime and violence within the black community.
DEAVERE SMITH: Let me ask you something, how come in 30 years we have not -- or let's say in the last decade, we haven't produced a black leader who's under 30 years old or under 40, for that matter?
RIVERS: I think for two reasons. One, the established leadership of the Civil Rights industry is not about the development of new leadership -- bottom line. It's a male gang at the most basic fundamental level. It's a black male gang and it's a lucrative enterprise.
(CROSSTALK)
RIVERS: What's that?
DEAVERE SMITH: What can we do ...
RIVERS: The debate -- I mean part of the reason that the folk are here is that the majority of folk around this forum are not the usual suspects.
BROWN: Yes.
RIVERS: And there has to be -- listen, there has to be a new vigorous discussion. Heather MacDonald, regardless of whether you agree with her or not, is forcing some uncomfortable questions which shake up the debate so we don't have the simplicist (ph) kind of left- wing boiler plate or the equally simplicist (ph) right-wing boiler plate which are just basically two gigs playing off on one another.
BROWN: Gosh, maybe that's why we asked her here Omar.
WASOW: I think there's one other way to ...
(CROSSTALK)
WASOW: ... answer this question, which is there is a generation of young leaders, but they're not in the traditional roles. They're not in the church. They're not in the non-profits. They're not in the Civil Rights organizations. They're in popular cultures, so it's, you know, hip-hop and what's striking to me is that there's a generation of young people who've grown up far more influenced by, you know, rap than they have been by say the church.
(CROSSTALK)
WASOW: And ...
(CROSSTALK)
WASOW: ... just if I could finish the thought, though. The thing that was raised as a question before was well what are the policies then and for me there's something really central that I think that's overlooked all the time, which is we've seen it quadruple (ph) of the number of young black men in prison as racism by -- just about any objective measure has gone down. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right.
WASOW: And what is that about? It's about things like the war on drugs and the war on drugs is not something you can fit in a clean racial box of, again, sort of you know the laws are mostly race neutral, but the outcomes have this incredible racial, you know, they're just -- they're particularly onerous on black people. And ...
(CROSSTALK)
WASOW: ... that's what sort of -- that's from where hip-hop comes. That's where gangster rap emerges from.
(CROSSTALK)
BROWN: No. No. Over here.
(CROSSTALK)
BROWN: This is the only power I have left is just to say you're next. So ...
MURDOCK: I think Omar's right on the war on drugs and what a devastating impact it's had on black men, and I think these laws have been very injurious, and I think it's important also to look at violent black criminals, as the Reverend said, black on black crime. In Cincinnati something like 80 percent of the victims of homicide are black. So it is appropriate to ...
(CROSSTALK)
BROWN: And Mayor, it's been a particularly bad year ...
(CROSSTALK)
LUKEN: And I wanted to -- and I wanted to comment on that because Reverend Rivers, who I don't think I've met, but has been quoted an awful lot here -- I think is one of those voices that are non-traditional and uncomfortable because I think many people in our own African American community were reluctant about bringing him here because of some of the -- some of the maybe out-of-the box things that he says, but we have -- we have by any measure had the worst year in Cincinnati on violence on our streets. And one of my frustrations and I think the community's frustrations is how to focus the same kind of energy ...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's right.
LUKEN: ... that we get around issues of police. How can we get the same kind of energy since Timothy Thomas (ph) was killed a year ago, Aaron, there have been 70 approximately African American males who have died on Cincinnati streets and by our standards in Cincinnati, Ohio, that is an unprecedented violence that is really ravaging and is doing a great deal of harm to our ability to make our neighborhood safe, clean, and get the kind of investment that is really going to turn them around. (CROSSTALK)
BROWN: Take 20 seconds, I need to take a break, to respond, and then we'll take a break. (UNITELLIGIBLE)
RIVERS: Let's see, part of the new conceptual framework for a post Civil Rights movement revolves around saying look, we're not going to play the race card because it will not reduce crime. If -- think of this, all the energy and you know sort of play it -- you know doing (ph) the white boy, let's get the white racism while the increase in black on black crime exploded. How does the leadership justify playing the race card, going after the white boy? Great theater, good, makes lots of copy, but entertainment -- lots of entertainment, yet the number of black people who die, murdered disproportionately by other black people gets silenced. That is hypocrisy. It is a leadership crisis, and we need to engage it and stop lying about it.
BROWN: Feels like there's a lot of leadership crises around the table here, aren't there?
We'll take a break and continue in a moment. This is NEWSNIGHT from New York.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: I want to shift the conversation a little bit here. I want to talk about education. I'm not even sure what the question is precisely except it doesn't seem to be working. You start -- you've written a lot about this, and I know where you're going with this. Don't say everything you need to say, but lay it out (UNITELLIGIBLE) happened. Go ahead.
MURDOCK: Well I think we have a real serious situation right now with recent statistics that came out from the National Assessment of Educational Progress. Sixty-three percent of black fourth graders cannot read. They're reading below grade level. This is a crisis situation and the response from the, sort of standard political establishment is we'll just spend more money.
Here in New York City we spend about $9700 per pupil. We have a graduating rate of about 49 percent. The Catholic (UNINTELLIGIBLE) Diocese spends about 5500 per student and they graduate 98 percent of their students.
BROWN: Choice is something you want.
MURDOCK: Choice is something, vouchers, charter schools, there needs to be much more experimentation and just tossing more money onto the fire is not going to help.
BROWN: Let me just work around the table. What do you think here?
DEAVERE SMITH: Well I've been thinking a lot this week because I'm thinking about the riots and having (ph) invited to New York, Twilight Bay, who I named my play after a former gang member and talking to him about his experience, where he thinks that compassion has been replaced by oppression as a way of controlling people rather than educating them, giving them an opportunity, giving them a voice.
I've been thinking on the one hand about the power less, but also about the power full. I taught Omar ...
BROWN: Yes.
DEAVERE SMITH: And he's a brilliant guy and I taught him at Stanford when he was brilliant. And in the years that I've been teaching, my students have gotten richer and more interesting and more privileged but their voices are smaller and so, in terms of educating the power full, I worry that because they pay so much money we're going to lose individual people who take initiative and do creative things, which cause engagements, which I think is the key.
BROWN: Reverend, I think if I understand, one of the things you said is that the solution here or at least a solution here is that black parents need to be more involved and everybody in the black community has to be more demanding.
RIVERS: More demanding of ourselves.
BROWN: Right.
RIVERS: On this whole issue of education, there needs to be choice. The numbers speak for themselves in terms of academic performance. In Boston, very quickly, we are calling on black parents to turn off the television, focus more energy on you know drill and kill just in terms of intense ...
(CROSSTALK)
BROWN: Explain what drill and kill is.
RIVERS: OK what that means in this case, right ...
BROWN: Yes.
RIVERS: ... is that we are looking at Saturdays, Sunday afternoons, intensifying the academic and illustrial (ph) experience of the poor in the same ways that many immigrant groups who are much more (UNINTELLIGIBLE) challenged due when they come. You see how do I explain how black folk have been here for 500 years, academically under perform, in comparison to some other folk -- and I'm not -- even if we (UNINTELLIGIBLE) income, who come and out perform us. There's some cultural issues and one of the issues that eventually we're going to come to is that there's a cultural crisis within the context of black community related to the educational issues that we're going to eventually have to come to terms with.
BROWN: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) time. Heather, take 20, 30 seconds.
MACDONALD: You know one thing I've recently discovered is in a lot of even the most elite schools there's the race industry has moved into them already and Aaron said that there's actually kids are growing up with a different conceptual and now we have diversity trainers in schools that are telling kids you have to think of the world in terms of black and white, the way you started out ...
BROWN: Yes.
MACDONALD: ... but you have to be aware that you're in a racist environment. And young people today are saying I don't really care about race anymore. We should -- we should celebrate this rather than trying to stamp it out, but now we have a whole diversity apparatus in schools that is trying to inculcate a , I think, very self-defeating race consciousness where one doesn't necessarily exist.
BROWN: Well if you could do one thing to make black schools work -- or black children learn better, what would it be? Demand more.
WASOW: I want to thank Professor Smith for saying I'm a brilliant student, but that my voice ...
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Not now, you were then.
WASOW: Well I want to -- I want to ...
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That was 10 years ago.
WASOW: ... to answer -- to answer -- to answer Aaron's question, I started a charter school in Brooklyn. I applied for the last three years to open a school. We got rejected twice. We got approved this year. The thing we're going to do, the thing I'm putting all of my kind of time outside of work into is try to deliver (ph) superb education to, you know, K through four kids and that by creating an alternative, we will help those kids get a good education.
BROWN: We'll do one more segment, wrap it up. We'll talk a little bit about leadership, where it's going. This is NEWSNIGHT. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Two minutes left, lots of people to talk to -- once quickly around the room including Cincinnati, Mayor Luken, your former TV Guide, do this in 20 seconds.
LUKEN: Aaron, first thanks to you because you have been fair to my city and I appreciate that -- not everybody has been. But secondly, your person who started the dialogue today gave kind of a hopeless assessment of where we are. I think we make incremental progress, but doggone it, it is discouraging when people say there's nothing we can do about it and we got to wait for 400 years. I don't accept that.
BROWN: All right, we'll pass that on to her. I know she's watching tonight. Omar, 20 seconds. WASOW: I am quite hopeful. I mean I think the long-term trend has been one that's wonderful. We need to do a lot about delivering better education to poor kids and that's where I focus my energies, but the long-term trend is a good one.
BROWN: Thanks for coming in, by the way.
WASOW: Thank you.
BROWN: Heather, do your best to do this in 20 seconds.
MACDONALD: I just will restate my point. I think again we need to hear from a broader range of black voices, people like Eugene Rivers, that actually are willing to speak about things that blacks can do for themselves as opposed to the "get whitey" syndrome. But I think there's one set of values that blacks and whites have and we have to move together with those.
BROWN: About 50 seconds left and Reverend you get 20.
RIVERS: No, I'm fine.
(CROSSTALK)
BROWN: You are a saint.
(CROSSTALK)
BROWN: Anna.
DEAVERE SMITH: Engagement, crossing lines, talking to somebody that you don't know, it's that simple and Omar Wasow was and still is brilliant.
BROWN: (UNINTELLIGIBLE)
MURDOCK: I would say that we have a lot of work to do, but let's also applaud what we've achieved. Right now American diplomacy is run by black people -- Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell.
RIVERS: Amen.
MURDOCK: American Express, AOL Time Warner ...
BROWN: Yes it is.
MURDOCK: ... and Merrill Lynch all run by three black CEOs. You saw the Academy Awards with Whoopi Goldberg hosting. Best Actress and Best Actor were black and 39 percent of blacks live in the suburb so that we have accomplished a lot. We should applaud the good news as well.
BROWN: Thank you. It's a great way to end it. Thank all of you and thank you. We'll see you again tomorrow at 10:00. Good night for all of us at NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
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