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Calls for Justice for Trayvon Martin; Interview with Angela Davis; Maryland, Wisconsin, D.C. to Hold Primaries Tuesday

Aired March 31, 2012 - 22:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DON LEMON, CNN HOST (voice-over): Growing louder. The cries for justice in the Trayvon Martin killing, now a flashpoint.

PIERS MORGAN, CNN HOST, PIERS MORGAN TONIGHT: I've been covering it for a week now.

TOURE, CULTURE COMMENTATOR: Whole week? Wow.

LEMON: The color divide, playing out in your living room. Check your bank account. Right now crooks could be using your credit or debit card.

Loud mouth. Lewis Black, love him or hate him, when it comes to politics, he's in your face.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They have four years to find a leader. They can't find someone.

LEMON: That and more, right here, right now, on CNN.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LEMON: Hello, everyone. I'm Don Lemon. Thank you so much for joining us tonight.

In life, as it was a place where Trayvon Martin used to run and play, a place where he was among friends and learned about team work. Long before a bullet ended it all.

And tonight, a candle light vigil in Martin's honor at the field where he played youth football. Teammates, coaches, friends and people who never even knew Martin, they joined his family in remembering the 17-year-old at the center of a national firestorm. Martin's parents thanked everyone for their wishes and prayers.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRACY MARTIN, TRAYVON MARTIN'S FATHER: He never had any qualms with anybody. Trayvon did love this park. This park is definitely an intricate part of our family. We will always love you. We thank you for everything that you've done for us.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: The vigil followed a massive rally in Sanford, Florida where Martin was shot. Protesters marched in the police station, furious about how the investigation has been handled. Police did not charge or even arrest George Zimmerman, the man who admitted shooting Trayvon Martin.

Zimmerman got suspicious when he spotted Martin walking in his neighborhood on February 26 and followed him. What happened between them isn't clear, but Zimmerman claims he shot Martin in self-defense. Martin was not armed.

Tempers are flaring across the country over the Trayvon Martin shooting. But one of the most heated conversations took place here on our air. CNN's Piers Morgan going head to head with culture commentator, Toure. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TOURE: Another black person who is unarmed and innocent and not doing anything wrong has been killed. And this incredibly painful and goes back before you were born and before your father was born and before my grandfather was born.

MORGAN: Yes.

TOURE: These are things that hurt as an American very deeply, and you are too new to this situation to fully understand what's really going on here and what's really at stake for America.

MORGAN: What loads of factious nonsense you speak, Toure, don't you? You think you have the only right to speak about what's serious in America? You don't think I have the right who somebody from Britain who has spent the last six or seven years to address a story here?

TOURE: Six whole years? You have the right.

MORGAN: Yes, I have the right.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: That discussion blew up into an outright between those two war and we'll show you more of that. And I'll also be joined by Angela Davis. We are going to talk about the way racial tensions are simmering around this case and country. Angela Davis, one of the original black panthers, will talk about what the new black panthers are doing, coming up on CNN.

To the presidential race now, where the Republican hopefuls are blanketing the state of Wisconsin. The big prize in Tuesday's trio of primaries that including D.C. and Maryland. Mitt Romney told volunteers at the campaign phone bank today that quote, "we're looking like we're going to win this thing on Tuesday." And he said a win in Wisconsin could be just what his campaign needs.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MITT ROMNEY (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I've got a ways to go before I get 1,144 delegates, so I'm not counting the delegates before they hatch. But I'm going to keep working very hard and hope I get a good, strong sendoff from Wisconsin. I've got a good boost from the folks in Illinois, and if I can get that boost also from Wisconsin, I think we'll be on a path that will get me the nomination before the convention. Sure hope so.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich also spent Saturday campaigning across Wisconsin. Santorum kept up his criticism of Romney while Gingrich focused his attack on President Obama.

A U.S. official said it's a coincidence that secretary of state Hillary Clinton was in Saudi Arabia when new sanctions against Iran's oil industry were announced. Clinton met with the Saudi King Abdullah on Friday. Analysts say it made a nearly a million barrels of oil a day could be lost because of the sanctions. Washington hopes Saudi Arabia can make up the short fall on the world market.

Mega millions lottery frenzy is over for most of us, but we do know there were three winners last night. Maybe it wasn't us, but there were three. They'll divide the massive $650 million jackpot. That means each will get about $218 measly million. Can you imagine that?

Lottery officials say the winners are from Maryland, Illinois and Kansas. Nobody has come forward yet, but in Kansas and Maryland, we may never know who the real winners are.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEPHEN MARTINO, DIRECTOR, MARYLAND LOTTERY: Maryland is one of the few states that do not require publicity of its lottery winners, so we had two power ball jackpot winners last year, and neither one of them decided to do any publicity. So we'll have to see what happens.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: At least 42 people matched five of the six numbers. That means a payout of about $125,000 each. Jealous here.

Comedian Lewis Black has been watching as the GOP hopefuls vie to be the Republican candidate in the fall. Here's some of what he sees.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LEWIS BLACK, COMEDIAN: If you wrote about this campaign in a fictional manner, the campaign for the Republican presidency this go around, you u would -- you would -- you would have to say -- people would read it and go, that would never happen.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: Next, Lewis Black gives his thoughts on each of those in the running, including President Obama little later.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: Welcome back, everyone.

Tonight, the secret service is on the case of credit or debit cards that may have been hacked. It seems some of the data breach at one of the largest payment processing firms in the world. It is called global payments. All major card brands may have been compromised. According to one security company, as many as 10 million accounts, visa and master card have already started alerting their customers.

You could say the GOP presidential race has been downright comical at times. For political comedian Lewis Black, it's pure ammo for his rage-induced standup act. And we hit the road with Lewis Black to find out his analysis on the remaining Republican presidential contenders and what he thinks voters are really getting.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BLACK: Romney is really good if you're interested in being, you know, starting at one -- the sentence starts and he says that he's going to do one thing, but it ends with the fact that he's really going to do another.

If you can live with someone who really doesn't have what appears to be a compass at all. He is the mood right.

Newt would be a great bureaucrat, whether he likes it or not. He's not a great leader. He is someone who can sit down and deal with nuts and bolts and that would be great and try to figure out how to do something along with six or seven hundred other people, like Al Gore. They can sit down and work on someone like a science project just to keep them out of my face.

Rick Santorum is really like -- it's 1956, I can't live it again. I won't live it again. I won't go through it again. I won't. You don't -- you don't say at any point at any time, out loud, that women are not allowed the right to have contraception. Not this issue we're talking about now. He's made that statement more than one occasion. But you can't live -- no, I'm not going through this again. I am not.

He's the one who I think actually has the most intelligence of all of them. And he really has some ideas that I think are exceptional. And though sadly, he's bipolar with ideas so he has really great ideas and he has ideas that are completely insane.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: All right. Well later, we'll have more -- we'll hear more brutal honestly from Lewis Black, his approval rating of President Obama, as well.

Some say the Trayvon Martin case has helped deepen racial divide in this country. Others believe they are always there, and too often we're just too afraid to talk about them. Not on this show.

Coming up next, the talk about race with activist, Angela Davis.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: Long before the world knew the name Trayvon Martin, 1960s America was deep in debate over race. One of the people at the forefront of that conversation was Angela Davis. Her years as an activist and cultural leader, speaks volumes.

Angela Davis joins me now from Oakland, California.

Ms. Davis, the Trayvon Martin case has turned into a global conversation. Why do you think that is?

ANGELA DAVIS, ACTIVIST (via telephone): Well, it's about time that we had some collective expression of outrage about racism in this country. And, of course, there have always been people in other parts of the world who have joined particularly in the struggle for black freedom. This is yet another example of that massive planetary solidarity.

LEMON: We remember you as the black panthers, the black panthers from the '60s and '70s. And there's the New Black Panthers now. And last weekend I spoke with someone from the new Black Panther party about this so-called bounty that they have asked for George Zimmerman to bring him in, and I asked him if he thought it was inciting violence. I want you to listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HASHIM NZINGA, CHIEF OF STAFF, NEW BLACK PANTHERS PARTY: George Zimmerman should have followed the police instructions and stayed in his car, and he shouldn't have taken Trayvon's life.

No, we're not inciting violence. We're doing what American citizens have been doing for many years. We're doing a citizen's arrest.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: What do you make of this New Black Panther Party, what is your reaction to that?

DAVIS: Well, you know, first of all, it's true that demand for justice for Trayvon Martin has largely focused on the individual case, and most frequently stopped for the call for the arrest and prosecution of George Zimmerman.

And I find it really interesting how we treat the examples of what we perceive to be racist violence as individualized and exceptional. It's almost as if we put blinders on and forget that what happened to Trayvon has happened many, many times over the course of a very long history and, of course, too many times over the course of the last few years. It seems difficult for us to keep all of the other examples of racist violence in focus when we demand justice for Trayvon Martin. And, of course, there are many names that we know. There's Sean Bell, there's James Byrd and of course Oscar Grant here in Oakland.

But, perhaps even more important, there are so many more whose names are forever lost to us. So I don't see that we can simply focus on George Zimmerman and expect that in this way we are advancing the cause of anti-racism. It seems to me that we also have to focus on structural racism. And, of course, many people have learned so much about Trayvon and his family. And we feel that we really all know him well. We feel as if he's a son or a grandson or a brother or a cousin.

But I think that if we truly want justice for him, if we want to guarantee that his tragic death will not have been in vain, we have to figure out how to eradicate racism, not only from the psyches of people in this country, but from the institutions, as well.

LEMON: Why do you say that we almost put blinders on or that we do put blinders on, many of us, when it comes to these issues as if they don't exist or to look for excuses for it not to exist, why does that happen?

DAVIS: Well, in many ways it's -- it's much more difficult to think about the broad issue of racism or racist violence. It's really very painful -- as painful as it is to think about the death of Trayvon Martin, it's even more painful to have to recognize that this has happened to so many young black men and black women in this country, thousands and tens of thousands.

And so it's -- in a lot of ways, it's much easier to focus on the facts of one case and just to focus on one individual just to raise the demand that George Zimmerman be brought to justice. It's certainly true that George Zimmerman needs to be held accountable, but I don't think we can assume that simply prosecuting him, or sending him to prison will help stop the march of racism in this country.

LEMON: Yes. I was going to say, it is important to point out there has not been a trial, he hasn't been arrested, any of this and it's innocent until proven guilty. George Zimmerman is a human being, as well. His family is probably through some issues as well. Is there anything in any way do you empathize with George Zimmerman or his family or his plight or his situation?

DAVIS: Well, of course George Zimmerman has to be given all of the rights that any human being in this country should be able to enjoy. And when we -- when we look at the case, however, it's very clear to us that had the situation been slightly different, had it been Trayvon Martin (INAUDIBLE) who had pulled the trigger of a gun and killed George Zimmerman, we know exactly where Trayvon would be today. We know that -- we certainly know that he would be arrested.

LEMON: Ms. Davis, as for time purposes, I'm sorry. I have to run. We have a lot of show to get to. But, we want to thank you so much for joining us. It's always good to look back on your history and get perspective about the future, as well. Thank you, Angela Davis.

DAVIS: Certainly. Thank you very much for having me on your program.

LEMON: Let's move on now and talk about politics and comedy. Comedian Lewis Black sat down with us to talk politics and he's also reserved, of course.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BLACK: They've been screaming and yelling. They had four years to find a leader, and they can't even find someone they like.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: LEMON: Well, he goes after both sides, as usual. Next, Lewis Black says what he thinks about President Obama.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: Osama bin Laden fathered four children in the years between 9/11 and his death. That's according to one of his wives who told interrogators all about the bin Laden's life in hiding.

CNN's Brian Todd reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): He was alternately hiding, running, and fathering children in the years after 9/11. New details of Osama bin Laden's life on the run have emerged, given by his youngest wife, Yemeni born Amal Abdulfattah.

According to a Pakistani police interrogation document obtained by CNN, Ms. Fattah told police that she and her family lived in Pakistan for almost all of the9 1/2 years between the September 1th1 attacks and bin Laden's death. Consistently during those years, Pakistani leaders said this about bin Laden's whereabouts --

YOUSOF RAZA GILANI, PAKISTANI PRIME MINISTER: I don't think that Osama bin Laden is in Pakistan.

TODD: The interrogation report filed in January is paraphrased by a police official. The report has Amal Fattah saying the family lived in at least five locations in Pakistan after 9/11 in at least five safe houses.

According to the report, Amal Fattah says right after 9/11, her family scattered. She says she went from the area around Kandahar, Afghanistan to Karachi, Pakistan, stayed there for about eight of nine months.

In mid 2002, she says she went and took a shower. Pakistan reunited with bin Laden there. Then the family went to Sawat in Pakistan, stayed there for about eight or nine months. In 2003, she says, she went to the city of Haripur in Pakistan, stayed here for about two years.

Then in 2005 she says she went to Abbottabad, Pakistan to that compound where they staid about six years until bin Laden's death. Bin laden may not have been with her the entire time. But Fattah says, while they were on the run, she gave birth to four of five children she had with bin Laden.

In Haripur, the report says, she claimed to have given birth to two children in a Pakistani government hospital. She says she only stayed in the hospital for two or three hours each time. "The New York Times" said in separate document saying she gave fake I.D. papers to hospital staff.

I spoke with terrorism analyst, Brian Fishman, about the children born on those years.

What does that suggest about his mind set during those years on the run?

BRIAN FISHMAN, NEW AMERICA FOUNDATION: Well, I think we have this notion that he was interested in preserving his legacy. You know, we've got that famous video of him watching his old videos, sitting there in the house in Abbottabad. So, you know, it's plausible to think that he wants to have a big family. He wants to be seen as a major shake.

TODD: An U.S. official tells us bin Laden's wife's account seems plausible. We have tried several times to et responds from Pakistani officials to these accounts specifically asked him if anyone in the government knew bin Laden' wife gave birth in a government hospital. We have got no response.

Brian Todd, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LEMON: All right. Thank you, Brian.

Stand-up comedian, Lewis Black, is famous for his quick wit and stark raving mad opinions. He is relentless when attacking social issues and he doesn't play political favorites. We caught up with Lewis Black to get his take on the presidential race and President Obama's time in the White House.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BLACK: As far as I can tell, I don't feel that he reached out as much as he could have. I think he's aloof, and I don't think that really is good. I think he's kind of standoffish. You know, there's a sense he doesn't want to get his hands dirty. He's left too much up to Congress at times.

There are times the way it works is the president says this is what we're going to do and puts his, you know, hand around their throat and they respond and then they kind work it to the point where you then -- you know, you kind of have to sit down and work on it. And I don't think he's found that balance. I think he's been aloof when he should have been on top of them and he's been on top of them when he should have stood away. It's weird. I didn't expect as much as everybody else did. I thought if he can get Americans to listen to someone actually speaking paragraphs. That was what we would get over the four years, and that's really what we got.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: Lewis Black.

If you use credit or debit cards, you may want to check your account to make sure there's correct there, maybe a problem. And the secret service is involved. We'll tell you why right after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: Checking your headlines right now, the Republican presidential hopefuls are all over the state, all over the state of Wisconsin trying to lock down support ahead of Tuesday's primary.

Mitt Romney told volunteers today that in his words, we're looking like we're going to win this thing. He also said that a Wisconsin victory would put him on the path to the Republican nomination, quote, "well, before the convention. Maryland and the District of Columbia, also hold primaries on Tuesday.

A story we had earlier, and there's a feeding because it's about your accounts and your security. Tonight, the secret service is on the case of credit or debit cards that may have been hacked. It stems from a data breach at one of the largest payment processing firms in the world, global payments. All major card brands may have been compromised.

According to one security company, as many as 10 million accounts may have been compromised. Visa and Master card have started alerting customers. So check your accounts. Check them out.

A tribute to Trayvon Martin in one of the places that was nearest and dearest to him.

Tonight, a candle light vigil in Martin's honor, at the field where he played youth football. Teammates, coaches and friends joined the family in remembering the slain 17-year-old.

Hours earlier, a massive rally in Sanford, Florida, the city where Martin was shot. Protesters marched on the police station, furious at how the investigation was being handled. Police did not charge or even arrested George Zimmerman, the man who admits to shooting Trayvon Martin.

Shimmering racial tensions are boiling over in the Trayvon Martin case. And one of the host heated conversations about it took place right on our air, right here on CNN between CNN's Piers Morgan and a culture commentator, Toure. It stated when Piers invited Robert Zimmerman Jr. on the show on Thursday. He is the brother of the admitted George Zimmerman. Toure thought Piers could have been a lot tougher on him. And he started a twitter was with Piers over it. Some very intense back and forth and eventually, Piers challenged Toure to come on the show and Toure accepted.

And we are going to show you some of that. It's combative, sometimes uncomfortable to watch but it's one of the most riveting conversations you're going to see about the Trayvon Martin case. Here it is.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MORGAN: Are you saying that Robert Zimmerman invented all his story on my interview last night? Are you saying that his father, who, are an hour before our interview this now is taking place, was asked directly is there an estrangement and said directly there isn't. Is he lying to? Is everybody apart from you lying and are you abreast of more information than anybody else in America right now?

TOURE: One thing I noticed is that obviously the Zimmerman family is banding together to keep George out of jail for the rest of his life. So that's quite obvious what their motivations are to say the things that they're saying.

I also noticed that between Robert, George and the father, there and the attorney, that there are not consistent stories being told. So, we're not getting a consistent story we can wrap our heads around. I mean, we have not heard before that he was actually going to target instead of on the neighborhood watch. You know, then, he's sort of reading some of the story from the "Orlando Sentinel" and making some of the other story up.

And I don't understand why it's not clearer to you why this is a witness who needs to be treated a little most hastily and pushed back a little bit more. And why other people are not rushing to have him on their airwaves, because he doesn't know George Zimmerman that well, may have been spoken about this which also, Joe Oliver, who you quote, has admitted he's not spoken to George Zimmerman about this. So how is he telling us things that may or may not have happened that evening when he too has got spoken? These individuals are not --

MORGAN: Toure --

TOURE: You're spreading misinformation and this is not helping America at an incredibly difficult moment.

MORGAN: If I could just point out two things. One, Brian Williams, I think you're aware of him, the face of NBC News, to his "Rock Center" show, they are trying to get Robert Zimmerman on the show. Are you aware of that?

TOURE: That's not the information that I had 30 minutes ago.

MORGAN: OK. Maybe news has taken over for you. Secondly, you tweeted this. This was on the 19th of March. New slang, you're Zimmermaning me, equals you're killing me. That's a pretty serious responsible piece of journalism, isn't it, Toure?

TOURE: In the first days, weeks of the situation, what many people were doing, what I was trying to do in that was to pile on and to say hey, look, this guy is not doing the right thing. This guy has harmed somebody in our community. Some people misconstrued that and I'm sorry about that. But this is an incredibly serious situation. And I -

MORGAN: But so serious that you felt the need to do stupid jokes?

TOURE: I mean, again, you're showing that you don't understand America, because what I was trying to do there --

MORGAN: No, no. I understand America very well, Toure.

TOURE: Might be called black humor, not African-American humor but black humor, dark humor, these are things that are common in America that sort of blue --

MORGAN: Dark humor?

TOURE: Once again, another black person who was unarmed and innocent and not doing anything wrong has been killed. This is incredibly painful and goes back before you were born and before your father was born and before my grandfather was born.

So, these are things that hurt as an American very deeply, and you are too new to this situation to fully understand what's really going on here and what's really at stake for America.

MORGAN: What loads of fatuous nonsense you speak, Toure, don't you? You think you have the only right to think about what's serious in America? You think I don't have the right somebody from Britain who spent the last six, seven years here to address the story like this.

TOURE: Six whole years. You have the right, but you don't fully understand what's going on here.

MORGAN: What don't I understand? Let's just deal with this, what don't I understand?

TOURE: Please, please.

MORGAN: What don't I understand about America?

TOURE: Are you showing clearly don't understand the depth of the pain in the America soul that is at play in this situation.

MORGAN: What a load of nonsense! Absolute nonsense! You clearly don't watch my show. You don't have to. No one is forcing you to. If you had watched my show, you would have seen exactly the seriousness and responsibility that I brought to our coverage. TOURE: I'm not saying that you take this case lightly.

MORGAN: Case (inaudible) new information.

TOURE: I'm not saying that you take this case lightly. But there are notes, subtleties, nuances, there's a depth of history within this, that you can't possibly understand.

MORGAN: Do you believe that George Zimmerman murdered Trayvon Martin?

TOURE: Yes.

MORGAN: So you've already tried him, convicted him and found him guilty of murder?

TOURE: You asked me what I think.

MORGAN: And you called me an irresponsible journalist? Professional journalism -- you think you know enough about this --

TOURE: It was George Zimmerman is clearly showing repeatedly racist bias against a person who he does not know and has never seen before and pouring all of these stereotypes into this person. That's him before we get to coon. They always get away which is ridiculous because the jails are filled with millions of black men, but he thinks they always get away.

He's up to no good. He's got his hands in his pants. He's on drugs. A 17-year-old boy walking down the street talking to his girl on the phone. None of those things are true. But he's already said all those things. And then we have the other 911 call, which I imagine will probably be extraordinary damaging, if we ever get to a court of law, where we hear someone screaming, which clearly sounds like a young boy and not a 200 something pound 28-year-old man with a gun.

A person, however, is screaming, there is a gunshot and there's no more screaming. That sounds to me pretty damning, and it reminds me of the face of Emmett Till bashed in, in the coffin where we see, here's evidence of a black body being destroyed wrongly, innocently, and the justice system, of course, not coming to his aid.

MORGAN: Well, I've raised many questions about the justice system and legal process. I think what is worst to say last week knows what I haven't done is convict George Zimmerman, because I haven't seen all the facts yet. You berate me for lack of professionalism. You just said that you believed he murdered him. You have a very bias one-sided opinion of this based on your assessment of the limited amount of facts that we have. That is your prerogative. I don't challenge you. I simply say that as a fact.

You also think it's OK to do stupid, dumb jokes mocking -- what did you call it, Zimmermaning me, you're killing me. So, we are different people. I like to think I'm a professional journalist, Toure. I think that you are something else. But I appreciate you joining me tonight.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LEMON: I think it's safe to say conversations like that one are taking place all across this country and I had one of my own with political analyst Goldie Taylor. And Miami Herald columnist Leonard Pitts. Here's what Leonard thought of the grudge match between Piers and Toure.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LEONARD PITTS, COLUMNIST, MIAMI HERALD: I don't think either gentleman covered himself in glory last night. There was nothing enlightening there, there was nothing that moved the ball forward. It seemed like more of an ego match than anything designed to shed light on the circumstances surrounding the death of this young boy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: And Leonard has some definite ideas about this case. He wrote an entire column why George Zimmerman should be considered white. I'm going to talk to Leonard and Goldie Taylor about that. More right after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LEMON: Before the break, we watched the verbal sparring match between our very own, Piers Morgan and culture commentator, Toure, over the Trayvon Martin case. It was so heated we invited a panel of our own to talk about it and it didn't take long for us to get into some very controversial territory of our own. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LEMON: You wrote a column on Tuesday about this case and it's entitled "Privilege is about a color, white." The very first sentence is "I'm here to explain why George Zimmerman is white."

Why is it important to write or to define George Zimmerman as white when he is just, you know, self-proclaim a right on his voter id that he is Hispanic?

PITTS: Well, that was written in response to a large number of reader responses to an earlier column. They were upset that I referred to him as white and they pointed out there's two questions why he's white.

The short answer is the census bureau will tell you that Hispanic is not a race. And that Hispanic can be of any race. The longer answer which I spent about the column making has to do with the idea of privilege. And I submit that it is inconceivable to believe that a dark skinned individual could shoot a lighter skin -- pale skin individual under the dubious and questionable circumstances that Trayvon Martin was shot. And that the dark skin individual would walk away. He would not have that privilege. And I believe that that privilege is de facto, what it means to be white in America. LEMON: When you -- all of this talk about race, about black, white, it's gotten a lot of people riled up and some people, you know, ticked off and everyone is going in their own corners in their own sideways.

And just being an honest person, there's so much that's so obvious about this case. And then there are other things that are nebulous and not as obvious. And to see people taking sides like this, and some of the ugliness that it has brought about in the country is just disturbing to me, and I'm speaking as a journalist, now it's just sort of disturbing to me as a human being, Leonard.

PITTS: I don't know that it's brought about ugliness so much as it's revealed ugliness that has been there all along. And, you know, that I think is where I draw a distinction with you.

We keep hearing people say we need to not rush to judgment with regard to this case. I believe that was Mr. Morgan's point also, and certainly that's good advice. Certainly, there's history of African- Americans having rushed to judge something as racially motivated when it turned out to be otherwise.

But the other side of that is that there's also history of our white American countrymen and countrywomen refusing to call a thing a racial issue, even when it becomes glaringly obvious that it is. And I think that, you know, we need to -- if we're going to have this discussion, there needs to be some honestly about it.

LEMON: Yes. I just had this conversation, a very similar conversation. I have to ask you this, Leonard. I know we need to move on. And if you know me, if any of you know me, I'm always speaking for diversity in every single thing we do here on television in my life. And I thought the best two people to talk about this were you two. And I didn't think about whether you were white or black, but just you as professionals. Someone has tweeted me and said how about more diversity in your guests?

Now, I do see and we know about the issue of diversity on news and diversity in cable and you will look up on the television and see people who are of one atomicity all the time. and so, why is it such an issue for people that there are three African-Americans sitting on television talking about race?

PITTS: I suspect that having too many African-Americans on any given program is not generally a problem for CNN or any other network. So, you know, this rare confluence of events, I would suggest that the viewer or viewers deal with it. That's a silly thing to say.

It reminds me, frankly, of a time when I was looking at television during the last campaign and the issue was whether or not Barack Obama was black enough and you had a panel discussion of three or four white journalists having that debate and no one seemed to have any problems with that then.

GOLDIE TAYLOR, POLITICAL ANALYST, CULTURAL CRITIC: I think the same is true when we talk about women's health care and contraceptives and we had panels of men talking about those things. I don't think anyone complains when you've got, you know, on a particular program, you've got all-white commentators and a host, I think on one program, I watch. I counted 12 people on a set who were all white and no one issued a complaint about the diversity, you know, on that particular show.

I think, you know, you're asking myself and Mr. Pitts to be here tonight was about, you know, a viewpoint that you wanted to hear that you thought might be interesting. Whether we are white or Hispanic or African-American, you know, what have you, I think really is largely irrelevant and should be irrelevant.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LEMON: Goldie Taylor and Leonard Pits, thank you very much.

Plenty of questions remain surrounding the circumstances surrounding the death of Trayvon Martin. Now, we know that George Zimmerman fired the shot that killed the teenager, but could this case center around incomplete police work?

I spoke with senior law enforcement instructor, Alex Manning.

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ALEX MANNING, 15 YEARS IN LAW ENFORCEMENT: On the police report that we have, this is the partial report. There's very little initially that these officers said in their report, maybe two, three - two sentences is really hit the period. After two or three sentences and that's it. There should have been a much longer report.

They got there, a lot more happened to them just looking around the scene, placing Zimmerman under arrest, what they saw, who they called out, what time they got there, what other assistance they need. Hands-up not 20 - it is 20-20. And it also say, luck it last time. Maybe I've played basketball longer than LeBron James, but it doesn't mean I'm better than him. So, I'm not to judge that I'm a better police officer than these police officers. But I was an officer long enough to know that this is not enough in a report, and I'm hoping and trusting that they have more of a detailed report.

LEMON: And are those reports a longer, more detailed report usually released to the media? Because I have seen where there are longer, more detailed reports. And there were also summary reports as well. Do you think there's longer, more detailed report? If this is it, that's trouble.

MANNING: If this is it, this is trouble. This is definite trouble. There should be. A lot of times when agencies won't release it, they'll say it's still under investigation, and that's fine because they don't want to distort it obviously jury full things like that or a lot released.

So there could be more, even some of the other police reports from the other 911 calls said, public police report, public copy because there are some things in there, if a man or children, staff like that, you don't want necessarily released.

I'm hoping there is more than this, and aside from the horrible tragedy that happened to Trayvon, if this is all that they've done, and I'm really hoping that they're not, because they seem to be a good police department, that is the tragedy. The focus needs to be on the job that they either did or did not do.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LEMON: Alex Manning, thank you.

Earth hour was celebrated across the globe tonight, world monuments disappearing in the night, for a cause. We'll take a look at the highlights coming up next.

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(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JAKE WOOD, CNN COMMUNITY CRUSADER: In the military, everyone is taught how to lead, taught how to follow and solve problems. We really pride ourselves on being ready and willing to go anywhere. I served in the Marine Corps, deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan.

When I first saw the earthquake that hit Haiti, a lot of the images I felt like I had seen before driving through the streets of Fallujah or Afghanistan. I realized if I could actually help out. So, I went on facebook and said I'm going to Haiti, who's in? Seventy two hours after that, we were on our way to Port-Au-Prince.

Let's get our gauzes (ph). Let's get our core hats.

We got to work setting up a triage clinic. We realized veterans are useful in these types of situations.

I'm Jake Wood and I want to help veterans transition into civil life and help others in need.

It started as a disaster relief organization and we realized that we could help the veteran community, as well. We bring these veterans together to be a part of a team once again. They are almost recharged.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When you get out, you have that feeling of what are you doing that's important this in the world? Team Rubicon has just provided a great opportunity to just help people in need.

WOOD: Most of the work that we do internationally is emergency and medical triage clinics. We've gone to Chile, Sudan, Pakistan. Here at home, we have in Tuscaloosa, Joplin doing debris, clearing operations, search and rescue.

We have about 1400 volunteers and about 80 percent of them are military veterans. Helping other people is part of the healing process.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I can't thank you enough.

WOOD: There's no limit to what veterans do. We have the ability to help and want to serve. I think it's a win-win situation.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LEMON: Environmentalists are spreading their message by keeping us in the dark for one hour tonight, from Paris to Athens. They've already done it in Europe, and here on the east coast, well. Earth hour encourages homes, businesses and governments to turn off the lights for one hour to build awareness about energy use and climate change. Organizers say they have commitment in a 147 countries and territories and more than 5,000 cities.

The country fell in love with him. New York Knicks's star Jeremy Lin was the darling of TV, Internet and sports radio. But his season is now over. We'll tell you why, next.

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LEMON: An apparent gang shooting has left two people dead and another 12 wounded in Miami. Police say it happened outside of funeral home. A funeral is underway, Friday night, when the gunfire broke out. A5-year-old girl was among those wounded. She is in stable condition right now. The "Miami Herald" is reporting that shooting stemmed from an argument among members of several gangs.

Prosecutors released court documents in the child rape case against former Penn state assistant coach Jerry Sandusky. They say that documents support charges that two former Penn state officials lied to a grand jury.

Former advisor director, Tim Curley, and former vice president Gary Schultz already have been charged with perjury. They also have been charged with failing to report an alleged sexual assault of a child by Sandusky in 2002. Both have pleaded not guilty.

Linsanity, over, for now. New York Knicks' star, Jeremy Lin, is expected to miss the rest of the regular season after undergoing surgery on his left knee. An MRI revealed the injury. Lin helped resurrected Knicks season after being moved into the starting lineup, the undrafted Harvard grad became an overnight sensation with the fans and the media, as well.

Jeremy Lin, done for the regular season.

I'm Don Lemon from the CNN headquarters in Atlanta. Thank you so much for watching. I'll see you back here tomorrow night. Good night.